Lamar Alexander

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, those who have been listening and watching for the last few minutes got one good lesson on why Senator McConnell has been here for over 24 years. This is a day to honor him, but he spent virtually all of his time honoring someone else. It is a remarkable and rare event that Senator McConnell could serve longer than Wendell Ford, the man he just honored, longer than Henry Clay, longer than John Sherman Cooper, and longer than Alben Barkley. But all of us know longevity by itself is not a transcending virtue, but it is an indication of one of the most transcending virtues; and that is, the people of Kentucky for the last 24 years have seen something special in Mitch McConnell, something that is good for Kentucky, in the opinion of Kentuckians, and something that is good for our country. I have seen that, too, but for a longer period of time than 24 years; 40 years, to be exact. I remember when Mitch McConnell came to Washington, not the time he was an intern but as the legislative director for Senator Marlow Cook. Legislative director is a little bit of a puffed-up title for the job at that time, because in the office of Senator Baker of Tennessee, where I had been the year before, there was only one legislative assistant. So we were legislative directors of usually one or two people at a time, which may seem pretty hard for staff members in this Senate to understand. I remember that by 1969, I moved over to work for Bryce Harlow in the Nixon White House. Howard Baker, who had been a good friend of Marlow Cook, the new Senator from Kentucky, came to me and said: Marlow Cook has a bright young man working for him; you ought to get to know him. So I did, 40 years ago. We both stayed in Washington for a while. We both went home after a few years, and in 1978, 30 years ago, we both were elected to an executive position in our home States--I as Governor of Tennessee, and Mitch McConnell as the county executive of Jefferson County, which is Louisville, the big county there. Then, in 1984, as the record shows and we all know, he was elected to the U.S. Senate, the only Republican in the country that year, I believe, who was able to defeat an incumbent Democrat. When Senator McConnell and I were young staff assistants in the Senate, the leaders of the Senate were Senators Dirksen and Mansfield. There have been many great leaders of the Senate since that period of time. All of those leaders who were good--and most of them were--knew this body, knew the Senate. They knew human nature instinctively, but they had one other quality, and this is another quality Senator McConnell has. They had great respect for our country. Last July, I brought onto the Senate floor a group of teachers of U.S. history. They were selected, one from each State, under a program that is called Presidential Academies for Teachers of United States History. Since a Senator may bring onto the floor before it convenes anybody he chooses, there were 50 of us here. I showed them Daniel Webster's desk, which is right next to me. I talked with them about Henry Clay, and I showed them Jefferson Davis's desk in the back. As you can imagine, these outstanding teachers were awestruck being on the floor of the Senate. They were the only ones here. After about a 30-minute visit, one of them--I think it was the teacher from Oregon-- said to me: Senator Alexander, what would you like for us to take back to our students about this visit? I found myself saying: I hope you will tell them that I get up every morning--and I think most of us here do--and come to work hoping that by the end of the day, we can make this country a little better place. I am not sure what it looks like on television. I am not sure what it looks like on the front pages of the newspapers. But that is my motive, and that is the motive of most of us here. That has been the motive of Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. Yes, beginning his 25th year in the Senate is a rare distinction, especially because he is from a State that has produced so many outstanding Senators and a State that even today and through most of the last 24 years has been a very competitive State with Democrats and Republicans both having a chance to be elected. Mitch McConnell gets up every day, comes into work--and it is usually very early--thinking about how to make this country a little better before the end of the day--and that is usually very late. That quality is even more important than his more than 24 years of service. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, on January 1, Claiborne Pell died. Claiborne Pell was a Senator from Rhode Island, the longest serving Senator from that State, a Senator whose name is known by most college students and by most people who care about education in America because he was largely responsible for helping to create in 1973 what we now call the Pell grant, a Federal scholarship that follows students to the college of their choice. It was originally called the Basic Educational Opportunity Grant, but Pell grant is a lot easier to say. It is a remarkable success in our country. He deserves to be remembered for that success. I knew him as a staff member when I came here with Senator Howard Baker, who was here just a few hours ago as we were sworn in. That was 42 years ago. I knew him as Education Secretary in 1991 and 1992. The American higher education system is, at a time when we worry about some of our institutions, one of our great secret weapons in America, one of our great strengths. One reason for that is because of Federal grants and loans. It all started not with the Pell grant but just at the end of World War II with the GI bill for veterans. It was a college scholarship. Actually, it was an educational scholarship the veterans could spend wherever they wished, and the ``wherever they wished'' point is the important point because many of those men and some women who came back from World War II used their GI bill money to go to high school. Some used it to go to college in other countries of the world. No one said you can't go to the University of Delaware or you must go to Notre Dame or you can't go to Brown University or you can't go to a Historically Black College. The GI bill for veterans followed the student to the college of that student's choice. It was not universally popular. The president of the University of Chicago, Mr. Hutchins, said at the time that it would create a campus full of hobos because college at that time was for a very limited number of Americans. At the end of World War II, only 5 percent of Americans 25 and older had completed at least 4 years of college. But today, according to the most recent figures, that figure is six times that. Nearly 30 percent of Americans have completed 4 years of college. First, the GI bill after World War II, then the Pell grant in 1973, then the various loans the Federal Government allows for students. So today, 60 percent of the men and women who go to American colleges and universities have a Federal grant or Federal loan to help them pay for college. It is never easy to afford college. The average tuition at a 4-year private school is about $25,000 today, and you add to that your living expenses. It is important to remember that an average tuition at a 4- year public university is about $6,500, and the average tuition and fees for community colleges is $2,400. So Senator Pell, by his leadership and his work as chairman of the Education Subcommittee of our Health, Education, and Labor Committee, helped add to the legacy of the GI bill for veterans and helped make it possible for so many Americans to go to college. I wish to conclude my remarks and honor Senator Pell with a thought about our future. I have always wondered why if the Pell grant was such a good idea for colleges, why don't we try it for kindergarten through the 12th grade. We seem to overlook the fact that American students can choose their college and the money follows the student to the college. It might be Nashville Auto Diesel College. It might be Harvard University. But we don't give the money to the school, we give it to the student to decide where to go. That was a happy accident that happened with the GI bill, and it was a happy accident that happened in 1973. I remember saying to one distinguished Member of this body: You know, the Pell grant is a voucher. This Senator recoiled from that and said: I am opposed to vouchers. I said: But you are not opposed to the Pell grant, are you? And she said: Well, no, that is different. I would argue that is not different at all. What we have done in kindergarten to 12th grade is give the money directly to institutions, and we, in that sense, create local educational monopolies and limit the amount of competition in choice. We can look at our experience with higher education and see how it is generally considered to be by far the best in the world. We not only have the best colleges and universities in the world, we have almost all of them. Then we look at our system of kindergarten through the 12th grade. The Presiding Officer has been Governor of his State. He worked hard on charter schools. We have all tried many different ideas to try to improve kindergarten through 12th grade, but we have never quite seemed to be able to make it as effective as our success with higher education. That is why in 2004 I suggested on the Senate floor that we try the idea of a Pell grant for kids. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record following my remarks the remarks I made on the Senate floor on May 17, 2004, about Pell grants for kids.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, to summarize them, they were simply this: Why not look to the example of our higher education system and try it with kindergarten through the 12th grade? The Pell grants for kids I proposed was to give every single child from a middle- or low- income family a $500 scholarship that would follow them to the school or other accredited academic program of their choice. These would be new Federal dollars so no district would see its share of money from Washington cut, and it would give less wealthy families many of the same choices that families with money already have. As one example, across our country we see art and music lessons cut in schools. As budgets get tight, they are the first things that are cut. The kids who go to the schools from the areas that have less money from property taxes and less money from sales taxes are not able to have the art and music courses. If they had a $500 Pell grant for kids, they might take it to an afterschool program for art or afterschool program for music, or the parents might get together and go to the school the children attend and say: Look, there are 20 of us with these $500 Pell grants. We will all come here if you hire an art teacher part time or a music teacher part time. It would give parents some consumer power, it would give children opportunities, and it would give schools with less money more money. This is an idea I hope we can seriously consider as we look ahead to the future of American public education. We should recognize that there are a great many school districts with children who have less money and less of a tax base than others and that we have had a wonderful example with the GI bill for veterans and with Pell grants in colleges and universities. So why not try it in a limited way to see if it would help improve opportunity and education in kindergarten through the 12th grade as it has in college. My main purpose today is to honor Claiborne Pell. He served 36 years with distinction. He contributed greatly to the opportunities of education in America. He did it with dignity, and he did it with intelligence. We respect him, we miss him, and we honor his legacy. I yield the floor. Exhibit 1 A half century after Brown v. Board of Education, education on equal terms still eludes too many African-American school children. Secretary of Education Rod Paige has called America's persistent racial achievement gap ``the civil rights issue of our time.'' By the 12th grade, only one in six black students and one in five Hispanic students are reading at grade level. Math scores are equally disturbing. Only 3 percent of blacks and 4 percent of Hispanics test at proficient levels by their senior year. By another standard, about 60 percent of African-American children read at or below basic level at the end of the 4th grade, while 75 percent of white students read at basic or above at the end of the 4th grade. There is still a huge achievement gap among African- American children and white children. The No Child Left Behind Act's system of standards and accountability is creating a foundation for closing the gap. But funding disparities between rich and poor--too often minority children attend poorer schools--school districts remain a stubborn contributor to inequality. Between 1996 and 2000, poor students fell further behind their wealthier peers in seven out of nine key indicators, including reading, math and science. These outcomes cry out for a different model, one that helps address funding and equality without raising property taxes; that introduces entrepreneurship and choice into a system of monopolies; and that offers school districts more federal dollars to implement the requirements of No Child Left Behind with fewer strings--in other words, more federal dollars, fewer federal strings, and more parental say over how the federal dollars are spent. Does this sound too good to be true? I would suggest it is not. Look no further than our nation's best-in-the-world higher educational system. There we find the Pell grant program, which has diversified and strengthened America's colleges and universities by applying the principles of autonomy and competition. This year, $13 billion in Pell grants and work study and $42 billion in student loans will follow America's students to the colleges of their choice. This is in sharp contrast to the local monopolies we have created in kindergarten through the 12th grade education, where dollars flow directly to schools with little or no say from parents. That is why I am proposing Pell Grants for Kids, an annual $500 scholarship that would follow every middle- and low- income child to the school or other accredited academic program of his or her parent's choosing. These are new federal dollars, so no district would see a cut in its share of Washington's $35 billion annual appropriations for K-12, and increases in funding for students with disabilities would continue. Armed with new purchasing power, parents could directly support their school's priorities, or they could pay for tutoring, for lessons and other services in the private market. Parents in affluent school districts do this all the time. Pell Grants for Kids would give less wealthy families the same opportunities--an example is the Holiday family in Nashville, Tennessee. Raymon Holiday is a 6th grader who recently won the American Lung Association of Tennessee's clean air poster contest. I was there when he won the 10-speed bicycle you get for winning this poster competition. I met his father, an art major, and his grandfather, a retired art teacher. They told me his great-grandfather was a musician. So you can see where Raymon Holiday gets his instincts. His grandfather, the retired art teacher, lamented to me that art classes are usually the first to go when school budgets are cut. With Pell Grants for Kids, in a typical middle school of 600 students, Raymon might be one of 500 middle- or low-income students who qualify to receive a $500 Pell grant. His middle school would see a $250,000 increase in funding. Raymon would be assured of art lessons. The Pell grant model also encourages great American entrepreneurship. Enterprising principals, like Raymon's principal, might design programs to attract parental investment: advanced math classes, writing workshops, after school programs, English lessons--whatever is lacking due to funding constraints. Surveys continue to show that while Americans are concerned with the state of public education, most support their own child's public school. Herman Smith, superintendent of schools in Bryan, Texas, would welcome the $6 million that would accompany 13,500 eligible Bryan students--90 percent of his district. Bryan is right next door to College Station, home of Texas A&M where, according to Smith, their budget cuts are larger than Bryan dreams of spending for new programs and personnel. Property values there are double those in Bryan, as is the per-pupil expenditure. Not surprisingly, Bryan's population is almost half African-American or Latino, while College Station is three-quarters white. With 30 million American school children eligible for Pell Grants for Kids, my fellow fiscal conservatives are probably raising an eyebrow. But please listen. Every year, Congress appropriates increases in funding for kindergarten through the 12th grade. What I am offering here is a plan to earmark most of these new dollars--aside from increases in spending for children with disabilities--for parents to spend on educational programs of their choice. Otherwise, we will continue to invest in the same bureaucracies that have disappointed poor and minority families for too long. Pell Grants for Kids could be implemented gradually, starting with kindergarten and 1st grade at an initial cost of $2.5 billion. If the program had been in place during President Bush's first two years in office, the extra $4.5 billion spent on K-12 education--again, not counting another $3 billion for children with disabilities--would have created $500 scholarships for all nine million middle- and low-income students through the 3rd grade. We have had 50 years to deliver an American education on equal terms to all students. But a baffling commitment to the status quo has prevented us from living up to Brown's noble legacy. This anniversary presents the perfect opportunity to inaugurate a new era, one that uses the strategy that helped to create the best colleges to help create the best schools. Let us start with Pell Grants for Kids and move on from there ``with all deliberate speed.'' I would like to make several additional remarks about Pell Grants for Kids. As I mentioned, the idea is a pretty simple one-- significantly new federal dollars, fewer federal strings, and more say by parents about how the money is spent. To give you an idea of how much money that would be, I have taken a quick look at my home state of Tennessee. Tennessee has 938,000 students in kindergarten through the 12th grade. Pell Grants for Kids would be eligible to all those students who are from families below the state median income. The state median income for a family of four in Tennessee is about $56,000. So for families who have an income of $56,000 or below, each of their children would have a $500 scholarship that would follow that child to the school or other approved academic program of his or her parents' choice. In June I hope to introduce a piece of legislation, hopefully with a bipartisan group of senators. In July, Sen. Gregg and I have already discussed a hearing, which we will have in the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. And then perhaps next year, the President of the United States might want to make this a part of his budget. I believe it is time in this country to recognize we need to give poor and middle-income parents more of the same choices of educational opportunities wealthier families have and that we may be able to do this without harming our public schools. We have had, since World War II, scholarships that have followed students to the educational institutions of their choice, and they have done nothing but help to create opportunity and create the best system of colleges and universities in the world. I think we ought to use the same idea to try to create the best schools in the world. We estimate about 60 percent of all of Tennessee students would be eligible for a $500 Pell grant. In some of the rural counties where there are a great many poor children, it might be 90 percent of the students. In other places--such as Davidson County, Maryville, and Oak Ridge--it might be a smaller percentage. But all in all, there should be about 562,000 students in Tennessee who would be eligible. This would bring an additional $281 million to Tennessee for K-12 education, and parents would have a say over how that money is spent. Often when this issue comes up and we talk about spending more federal dollars for local schools, the senators on my side of the aisle get a little hot under the collar. We do not want to spend any more federal money for local schools. On the other hand, when we say let's give the parents more say on how the money is spent, the collars get a little hot on the other side of the aisle because they are reluctant to give parents more choice. This is a conflict of principles. It is the principle of equal opportunity--giving parents more choices. But there is another valid principle on the other side. It is called ``e pluribus unum.'' We have public schools, common schools, to teach our common culture, and we do not want to harm them. It is a proper debate in this body to say--let's ask questions, if we are giving parents more say, more choices. Will that harm our common schools? And there is a proper way to ask in this Senate: Can we wisely spend that much more money? This is quite a bit more money. Fully funded, Pell Grants for Kids programs would cost $15 billion in new federal dollars a year. It would add about $500 to the $600 we now spend on each of the children in America today from the federal government. Only about 7 or 8 percent of the dollars we spend on children comes from the federal government. So it would be about a 70 percent increase in federal funding for every middle- or low-income child fully funded. We are proposing to do this over a long period of time. Basically, to add to the new money that we would appropriate every year for K-12 and give most of that to Pell Grants for Kids. This would create more equality in funding for poor districts. It would especially help African-American and minority kids. It would provide extra dollars to implement the standards of No Child Left Behind, and it would introduce for the first time into our K-12 system the principle that has created the best colleges in the world--the idea of letting money follow students to the institution of their choice. Over the next several weeks, I will be discussing this with individual senators. I have not prepared a piece of legislation yet because I don't want to stand up and say: here it is, take it or leave it. Let's say one team says no choice and one team says no money, then we are back where we were. I am looking for ways to advance the debate. I don't believe we are going to be spending much more money through the federal government in the same way we are doing it today. A lot of senators, and I am one of them, do not want to spend more federal dollars through programs that have lots of federal controls. We have seen the limit of command and control from Washington, D.C., with No Child Left Behind. That program will work. But I don't believe we can expect to give many more orders from Washington to make schools in Schenectady, Nashville, and Anniston, Alabama and Sacramento, better. That has to happen in local communities. The right strategy is significantly new federal dollars with fewer federal strings and more parental say about how those dollars are spent. This does not have to be a Republican versus Democrat idea. I am not the author of this idea. In 1947, the G.I. bill for Veterans was enacted. Since that time, federal dollars have followed students to the colleges of their choice. Today, 60 percent of America's college students have a federal grant or loan that follows them to the college of their choice. When I was president of the University of Tennessee, it never occurred to me to say to the Congress: I hope you do not appropriate any money for children to go to Howard University or Notre Dame or Brigham Young or Vanderbilt or Morehouse or the University of Alabama. We give people choices. Or put it another way, in my neck of the woods, what if we told everyone where they had to go to college? What if we said, Sen. Sessions, you have to go to the University of Tennessee. We said to young Lamar Alexander: You have to go to University of Alabama. Civil wars have been fought over such things. That is exactly what we do in K-12. We give people choice and have created the best colleges in the world. We give them no choices, and we have schools that we wish were better. So the idea would be to try what worked for colleges here in K- 12. I said I was not the only one to think of this. There was the G.I. bill for Veterans--that was bipartisan--after World War II; maybe the best piece of social legislation we ever passed in the history of our country. In 1968, Ted Sizer, perhaps the most renowned educator in America today, proposed a poor children's Bill of Rights: $5,000 for every poor child to go to any school of his or her choice, an LBJ power-of-the-people, liberal, Democratic idea at the time. In 1970, President Nixon proposed, basically, giving grants to poor children to choose among all schools. The man who wrote that speech for President Nixon was a man named Pat Moynihan. He was a U.S. Senator. In 1979, he and Sen. Ribicoff, two Democrats, introduced essentially exactly the idea I am proposing today. In fact, in 1979 Sens. Ribicoff and Moynihan proposed amending the Federal Pell Grant Act and simply applying it to elementary and secondary students. At that time, when the Pell grant was $200 to $1,800, a 3rd grader could get a Pell grant, or if you were a high school student and you were poor, you could get a Pell grant. Senator Moynihan said to this body in 1979: ``Precisely the same reason ought to apply to elementary and secondary schooling--if, that is, we are serious about educational and pluralism and providing educational choice to low- and middle-income families similar to those routinely available to upper income families.'' This was the impulse behind the basic educational opportunity grants program as enacted by Congress in 1972. He was talking about Pell grants. It was the impulse by the presidential message to Congress which I drafted in 1970 which proposed such a program. It is the impulse to provide equality of educational opportunity to every American, and it is as legitimate and important an impulse at the primary and secondary school level as it is at the college level. I am going to strongly urge my colleagues not to make a reflexive reaction to this idea because, on the one hand, it has too much money, or on the other hand, it has some choice. Think back over our history and think of our future and realize we have the best colleges and we do not have the best schools. Why don't we use the formula that created the best colleges to help create the best schools? I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Congressional Record at the conclusion of my remarks Sen. Moynihan's statement in the Senate in 1980, and following Sen. Moynihan's remarks, an article which I wrote for the publication Education Next, which is being published this week, entitled ``Putting Parents in Charge.'' This article goes into some detail about the Pell Grants for Kids proposal. I look forward over the next several weeks to working with my colleagues, accepting their ideas and suggestions about how we improve our schools.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. ALEXANDER

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

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, four of our most valuable Senators will not return next year and we will miss them. elizabeth dole Elizabeth Dole began her career in public service at about the same time I did. We were both in the Nixon White House in 1969, and since then I have enjoyed following and watching and occasionally bumping into her remarkable career. She began that career at a time when women, even if they graduated from Harvard Law School as she did, had very few options. Elizabeth made her options--in the Cabinet, heading the American Red Cross and pioneering in a Presidential race in 1999. I have thoroughly enjoyed working with her, as well as knowing even better Bob Dole during these last 6 years. She truly is one of America's most admired women. gordon smith Gordon Smith is the most eloquent among us Senators. Every Republican Senator would say that, and any Democrat who had heard him would agree. He has a quiet way, an intelligence and a way of speaking that commands attention and respect. He has his feet firmly planted on the ground in Pendleton, OR. He understands the private sector. He has been courageous in his willingness to support and chide and criticize his party when needed. He will be sorely missed. john sununu I met John Sununu when he was a college student and his father and I were Governors of our respective States. He arrives and leaves as the youngest member of the Senate. But, in our caucus, his voice is one of the voices most carefully listened to. His intelligence, his philosophical integrity and his persistence have made him a most valuable player in our Republican Conference. He has a bright career ahead of him. ted stevens I have often thought that I should write a book called ``some things you don't know about the people I work with.'' Someday I will. And I will start with Ted Stevens, who flew the first cargo plane into Peking, as it was then called, at the end of World War II. This was a dangerous, bold mission. It helps to explain the life of this remarkable man who helped Alaska become a State and then has defended and supported it in the Senate for 40 years. With the departures of Ted Stevens and two other Senators of whom I have already spoken--Pete Domenici and John Warner--the Senate loses more than 100 years of service. More than that, this country loses three men whose view of America was rooted in the last years of World War II and the remarkable ascendancy of our country since then. Looking around the Senate, it will be difficult to find many among those of us who remain with the breadth of vision and old-fashioned patriotism that these men have contributed.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. No objection.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I wish to recognize a former staffer, Linda K. Long, for her wonderful contributions to my office and to the State of Tennessee. Linda began her career with Senator Fred Thompson in 1995 and joined my staff on January 21, 2003, where she soon distinguished herself as one of the best constituent services representatives in the State of Tennessee. Linda was a wealth of knowledge when it came to working with constituents and their problems. Although she took a very ``no nonsense'' approach to her job, she was very compassionate and always made time to listen to constituents and console them even if she could not help them with their issue. Linda is loved and respected by people throughout west Tennessee. In fact, she served two terms on the Madison County Commission from 1994 to 2002. There is no doubt that Linda went above and beyond to help all constituents. She was tough, but fair, and always had time for anyone who asked for assistance through my office. Linda retired on February 29, 2008, and we miss her already.

Mr. ALEXANDER

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

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

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I would like to add to my remarks, briefly, these opinions and these examples about the credit crunch. In the Washington Post this morning there is an article by Michael A. Fletcher and V. Dion Haynes, in which they say the following: Meanwhile, tightening credit has made it harder and more expensive for many small businesses to borrow money, a process that many analysts say could accelerate with the turmoil on Wall Street. Dee Smith, who runs a small contracting firm that renovates and sells homes in Charlotte, Mich., said a bank he has dealt with for more than a decade has decided to finance a smaller share of his projects. While the bank would once give him construction loans for 80 percent of a property's appraised value, it now will pony up only 75 percent. That might seem like small change, but Smith said it has shaken up his entire business. Because he cannot afford to put out the extra cash, he said, he has laid off four of his six workers. Meanwhile, because of the slowdown in the housing market, he's been unable to sell three houses he has renovated. . . . Laura Richards said sales are down 10 percent at her two California Tortilla restaurants in Bowie and Annapolis. . . . That is in Maryland. She said she's trying to attract customers with promotions. Worse still, with banks tightening credit, she's been forced to put off expansion plans. ``Any plans of opening new restaurants are on the back burner until we see what's going on on Wall Street,'' she said. ``Originally, I said that five locations was a goal. Now I'm trying to manage my down side. It will take two or three years to get back to where I was a year ago.'' Although some corporations are sitting on large sums of cash--and those with top bond ratings are enjoying favorable access to credit markets--others are paying much more for short-term loans, if they can get them at all. And on the front page in, the main article in the Washington Post business section, Tuesday, September 30, Heather Landy and Renae Merle write: Underlying the panic is a seizing-up of the credit markets that provide companies with financing for expenses such as payroll and inventory. Analysts said banks are lending less as they try to conserve cash for their own balance sheets, while nervous investors are forcing companies to pay higher interest rates to borrow in the debt markets. The article quotes someone as saying: The credit markets are kind of like the oil for an engine that allows companies to buy something and finance it. And if they don't have the ability to finance that at a reasonable cost, then all of the sudden their profit margins are going to get squeezed and they're perhaps not going to be able to hold as much inventory, and this is happening around the globe. The article continues quoting: You need to be able to have credit, and it needs to be at a reasonable price for the economy to function. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have this article printed in the Record.

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

Mr. ALEXANDER. I wish to congratulate the Senator from Arizona on his usual clear exposition on what is happening here and to thank the majority leader, Senator Reid, and Senator McConnell, the Republican leader, and the assistant Republican leader, Senator Kyl, all for making it clear that the Senate has not finished its work on the economic recovery plan and we plan to continue our work and discuss it today and tomorrow and to complete our work on that by the end of the week. That is our intention. We believe that will happen. We are united in that purpose in a bipartisan way. We have been for the last week. We are disappointed by what happened yesterday in the House of Representatives. However, photographs of legislation are best taken sometimes at the beginning and at the end but not in the middle, and we are in the middle right now. Senator Kyl and I have been giving Senator Domenici credit for an idea he had about how to explain what we are about in trying to deal with the financial crisis. He uses the analogy of a wreck on a highway. The Presiding Officer is a good Scotch Irishman from Virginia. He may have heard Roy Acuff's song ``Wreck on the Highway,'' which was a big song back in the 1940s and the 1950s and the 1960s. That is what we have here. We have had someone who should have known better empty a big pile of cars--or bad mortgage loans, based on the securities on these loans--right in the middle of the interstate, and it slowed down all the economic traffic. One lane might be your auto loan, the other lane might be your mortgage loan, another lane might be a student loan, in another one might be the trucks carrying your paycheck, or another lane might be the money for your farm credit loan, and you can't get anywhere because there is this pile of junk in the middle of the road. It happens to be an eight-lane road, so the cars and the vehicles--the economic traffic--are backed up for 20 or 30 or 40 miles. I was thinking as we were talking about this of another aspect of American life that all of us are familiar with--not just the backups on the interstate highways caused by wrecks, but what do we do when there is a wreck and we are nearby? We have to go look at the wreck. So everybody stops what they are doing and starts arguing about the wreck, and that slows everything down even more. That seems to be what we are doing in the Congress. It is the equivalent of somebody saying, well, they needed a stop light; or, he should have made a left turn; or, she was driving too fast. The crowd might get bigger around the wreck and say, well, it is a stolen car; or, he didn't have insurance; or, one was driving too close to the other. Someone might have noticed that the wreck happened because this person was on the cell phone or this one wasn't wearing a seatbelt. Someone might say, we need to get some legislators in here and build a wider road or another exit ramp. Someone else might say, let's have a piece of legislation that would lower the speed limit or increase the speed limit. A lawyer might show up and say, well, let's sue the manufacturer and start interviewing witnesses. So we would all be standing around just looking at the wreck. That is kind of what we are doing today in the Congress. We are just standing around looking at the wreck when somebody ought to be moving the wreck off the highway so the economic traffic can proceed. There is going to be plenty of time to talk about who caused the wreck and where the blame lies. There will be plenty of time to do that. But today we should fix the problem. Next week or the next week we should fix the blame. There is a lot of blame we need to talk about, apparently. The New York Times reported yesterday--well, we know this, to begin with: The Federal Government's compassion got way out ahead of its common sense, going all the way back to the 1970s, by encouraging some people to buy homes who couldn't afford to pay for the homes. Then clever financiers created exotic instruments, and these were based on some of the loans that turned out not to be so good, and some of these exotic instruments turned out to be worth less than the loans. Then, people who should have known better, who should have known what was going on in their own financial institutions or in their own companies, didn't understand what was going on, or they misled people, or they turned a blind eye to it. We need to find out about that. As the New York Times described it 2 days ago in an article, what apparently has happened is that mortgage foreclosures set off questions about the quality of debts across the entire credit spectrum. These questions set off a spiral of claims against insufficient insurance, as in the case of AIG, and of insufficient capital in the case of banks. So we end up with this massive wreck in the middle of the highway, and all of the vehicles carrying our auto loans, our student loans, and our paychecks are stopped while we in Congress stand around looking at the wreck instead of trying to get somebody to get it off the road. So we will have to turn to the Secretary of the Treasury. We could maybe find some other people to get it off the road as well. Senator Domenici, who first suggested that we think of this metaphor of the wreck on the highway, and Senator Kyl, who talked about it a little bit, pointed out that the citizens aren't going to go get the wreck off the highway. They are either going to go call the sheriff or the wrecker or somebody else to come get it. In Tennessee, we call the guy with the salvage company who has a wrecker, and he comes to get it. In our case, I guess what we have to do is call the Secretary of the Treasury. We have to give him enough money, enough authority to be able to buy all the junk in the middle of the highway, get it off the road, and hope he is able to sell it for about what he paid for it--or at least to minimize our losses. That is why it is wrong to call it a $700 billion bailout, because he may need up to $700 billion to buy all of this stuff in the middle of the highway. But he is going to buy it, and then he is going to sell it. We put in some taxpayer protections to try to make sure that we have clear oversight, and that people don't get golden parachutes as a result of this, and that the Congress is involved, and that there is a board of directors to whom the Secretary must report--all of these are taxpayer protections. We want to make sure this Secretary, whose job it is to get everything out of the middle of the road, keeps us informed about what is happening. We don't want to be guilty of having turned our backs and not paying attention to dealing with taxpayers' money on this. I think the conclusion we have to come to by the end of the week is that we are not just going to sit around and look at the wreck. We are going to get it off the road. We are going to get it off the highway. We have to find the right way to do it. I believe most of the American people will understand that, agree with that, and be glad we did it. Most of my calls are like most of the other telephone calls that are coming in. People don't like this. They are angry about it. If you have a wreck, you are mad about that as well. Somebody might have run into you, or you took your eye off the road. Of course we are mad about it. I am angry about it. But I am not just going to sit there and look at the wreck; I am going to try to solve the problem and then fix the blame next week. The good news is that is the attitude of Senator Reid, the Democratic majority leader. That is the attitude of Senator McConnell, the Republican leader. As I hear the House speaking, the Speaker of the House, a Democrat, the Republican leader, they say we are going to go back to work and see what we can do to fix this problem. We understand it is a big problem. Well, the stock market yesterday went way down, 777 points. That used to be something that people could say: Oh, that is a few rich tycoons on Wall Street, but we know better than that today. It was already down, and more than 50 percent of Americans own stocks. So as the Senator from Arizona said, that affects our pension funds, and that affects our IRAs and retirement accounts all across America. And that affects our individual accounts--so that is real money. That is $1.2 trillion yesterday. We are talking about an economic recovery plan that would have the authority to spend up to $700 billion, but our hope would be that it wouldn't spend very much in the end because we are going to buy and sell assets. Now, the stock market--and this is good news--is back up some today, a couple hundred points up. It was down yesterday, it went 777 points down, and is back up a little bit today. The focus is on the stock market, but where the focus ought to be is not on the stock market, but on the credit market. Some things we take for granted: that the Sun will come up, that our breathing will be automatic, and that we will be able to get an auto loan or a student loan or a mortgage loan or farm credit loan, or that when we take our paycheck in and give it to the bank, that represents money. But what if that didn't happen? That is what we are talking about. In the case of offshore drilling, we had to wait until the price of gasoline got up to $4 before we could get rid of the ban on offshore drilling so we could produce more American energy. That was legitimate debate here in the Senate. I hope we don't have to wait for dozens and dozens of banks to fail, for payroll checks to bounce, and for auto loans to dry up before the Congress decides we need to act. What we are trying to do is prevent a more serious problem by taking a measured response, which will cost the taxpayers the least amount of money and clear up the economic traffic so we can start moving again, and so housing can gradually begin to come back. When housing gradually begins to come back, the economy will begin to come back. This is still a great big economy. Even in this slowdown, we will produce about a third of all the money in the world this year, just for the 5 percent of us who live here. So we are perfectly capable, with our great universities, with our energy laboratories, with our great corporations, with our terrific workforce, and with our system of education, of coming back--and we will come back--and we will lead the world in a great many areas. But we don't want to cause unnecessary trouble for ourselves by leaving a big wreck sitting in the middle of the economic highway while standing around gawking about it and arguing about whether to change the size of the exit ramp when we can have all those debates next week. Fix the problem this week; fix the blame next week. ``Credit markets'' is a short word, but a big-sounding word. The Wall Street Journal reported this morning people are so cautious about their money that yields--the amount of money you make in the credit market-- had sunk so far that most investors will accept almost no return on their money as long as they believe their money is safe. In other words, bury it in a hole or put it under a mattress. You don't make any interest on it, but at least you think it is safe. I think in a country such as ours, if everybody puts their money under the mattress or invests it somewhere where money is safe but produces almost no return, what that will mean is that many of the big boys and the big girls will be all right. A lot of the big corporations have a lot of cash. They don't need to borrow very much money. What it will mean, though, is they will not be expanding. If they are a restaurant company, they will not be building new restaurants and hiring more people. They may even close a few restaurants. But the small business owners, the State and local governments that represent taxpayers, as we do, the one Senator Kyl of Arizona talked about, they are going to be hurt. The State of Tennessee is in the same shape as the State of Arizona. The State of Tennessee has a triple A bond rating and very little debt. But it has to go on the market every now and then to borrow some money. Its short-term borrowing was twice as much last week. It cost twice as much as it did the week before. That cost is passed directly on to the taxpayers of the State of Tennessee. Half our college students in America have a Federal grant or a loan to help pay for college. I used to be president of the University of Tennessee. I know how important that is. We made some unwise decisions in Congress earlier this year, in my opinion, that limits the amount of student loans that are available to students. But if banks are not lending to each other at night because they are hoarding their money, and if you and I with cash are investing in Treasury bills instead of money markets or other investments that then, in turn, can be loaned to other people, there is not going to be any money for student loans. And lots of people of all ages are going to have a harder time going to college. Or if there is money, they are going to have to pay a much higher interest rate because there is a shortage of money to lend. We know how that works. If there is a small supply, the price goes up. If there is a small supply of money for credit, then your student loan is going to cost more. If you go to the University of Tennessee, Virginia, Notre Dame--wherever you go--you are going to pay a lot more and you are paying a lot today. I was at the Volkswagen headquarters' opening in Virginia two weeks ago. The head of Volkswagen Credit told me Volkswagen--which is the largest European car maker and is also opening a new car plant in Chattanooga, which we are very excited about--goes to the market every month to get about $300 million. Where do they get that money? They get that probably from people who put money into banks, into money markets. It is our money, upon which they pay some interest. What do they do? They turn around and loan it to you and me so we can buy a Volkswagen. I said something about this a week ago, and some people thought I meant the Volkswagen plant in Tennessee wasn't going to be built. They are going to build the Tennessee Volkswagen plant. In our State, about a third of our manufacturing jobs are auto-related jobs. We have a big Nissan plant, we have a big General Motors plant, and we have 4,000 Toyota jobs and suppliers. So if the big credit companies for automobile manufacturers cannot easily get money or have to pay a lot for the money they get, what do you suppose happens to us? When we go to get a car loan, either we can't get it or the price of it is too high and we don't buy the car. If we don't buy the car, then Volkswagen in Chattanooga or Nissan in Smyrna or General Motors, the Saturn plant, in Spring Hill, or the Toyota suppliers that are all over the State, they don't make as many cars, they don't build as many supplies, and they don't have as many jobs. That is what happens when the credit squeeze comes. Those are some of the personal examples that are happening in Tennessee. We can see them all over the country. On PBS's ``Nightly Business Report,'' September 26, which was Friday, Darren Gersh, Washington bureau chief, reported: You know, Susie, we just heard a lot from Washington, but I want to tell you something I heard from Ohio today. When I was there for the primaries, I met a machinist named Ron Gewax. Well, I talked to Ron this morning and he told me that his boss came to him in tears and said: ``Look, Ron, you know, our customers' loans have dried up, we can't--we're not getting business and we have to let you go.'' So this credit crunch is now hitting home. That's evidence of how it's hitting home on Main Street. This is a Main Street problem. I know we have been getting a lot of telephone calls saying don't do this, but a lot of my telephone calls are changing. We are elected to come here and understand the problem and act before there is a crisis, not after there is a crisis. When I was Governor of Tennessee in the 1980s, because of some problems with east Tennessee banks that represented illegal activity, we had about 40-50 bank failures, one after another. I don't want to go through that again because what that does is cause the stockholders to lose all their money. You say: Well, the FDIC comes in and buys the assets, straightens it out, and banks pay for it through their insurance program. They do, and they have done it in the last couple weeks a couple or three times, but it completely tears up the community when the bank fails. It disrupts relationships. It means individuals and small businesses that have depended on loans have a harder time getting them. It means there are individual bankruptcies as a result of it. If we had 50 bank failures in Tennessee, as we did 20 years ago, that would be a thousand across this country. We don't want to go through that. We don't want to have banks, insurance companies, individuals, small businesses, auto dealerships close. An auto dealership in Tennessee, one of the largest in the country, closed the other day. It was one of 13 dealerships for this particular Chevrolet company. The company had some other problems, but one reason it closed was because it could not get credit for its floor plan for its ability to finance its cars, and it is out of business, all 13 of those locations, and 7,200 employees in those 13 locations are out of a job. Senator Reid, Senator McConnell, Senator Domenici, Senator Kyl, and I wish to say to the American people and the American markets and the world markets that we intend to do our job in the Congress. We are not going to sit around and look at the wreck and argue about who is to blame. We can do that next week and the next week and the next week, and we should do that. We obviously need different kinds of regulations. No one seems to have understood what these exotic instruments based on mortgages were, or how they were sold, or whether they are properly valued. We need to figure that out. We need to deal with that. Maybe the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Reserve, and other agencies need to do more. These rules and regulations we have today are primarily a result of the calamities in the 1930s--the Great Depression. I am sure many of them need to be changed. Next week, we need to fix the blame and find a long term fix for the problem. Today, tomorrow, and the rest of this week, we need to continue our discussion of the Paulson plan, which has been significantly amended by the congressional negotiators over the last week to protect the taxpayers. Then we need to act on it before the end of the week. The majority leader has very wisely given Members of the Senate--many of whom are here and some have gone back to their States these extra days to read the legislation, to consider it, to come to the floor, to debate the legislation, and to make up our minds whether we like this Paulson plan, as significantly amended to protect the taxpayers. I am going to vote for it, even if the stock market continues to go up today and tomorrow, which I hope it does. I do not want to see a credit freeze come. I want to get the wreck off the highway. I want to get the vehicles carrying the auto loans, and the mortgage loans, and the farm credit loans, and the money for payroll checks, moving again. We can get that moving again. It is a small step we will have to take. Then we will have the time to have aggressive supervision of the Secretary of Treasury, who will then have all the authority he needs to get the wreck off the highway and get things moving. And we can set about making sure we create a proper regulatory system for the kind of world in which we live. I am greatly encouraged by the tone and the words and the actions of the Democratic leader and the Republican leader in the Senate. I look forward to working with them over the next three days. We intend to finish our job before we go home this week. We intend to get that wreck off the highway so the economic traffic can start flowing again. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, over the weekend bipartisan congressional negotiators worked hard to amend significantly what we have come to call the Paulson plan. The whole point of the work over the weekend--since last Thursday, in fact--was to do everything we could to protect taxpayers. We owe our thanks to Senators Gregg and Dodd and Senators McConnell and Reid, as well as Members of the House of Representatives and the administration and their staffs for working hard, sometimes during most of the night, to have this ready for us today. Actually, it was ready yesterday and was posted on the Internet so that not only we, but people across this country and around the world, could see what was proposed. Under the amended plan, the Secretary of Treasury will have authority to buy and sell troubled mortgage assets to get the economy moving again. Taxpayers will have authority to provide oversight, minimize losses, and make sure profits go to reduce the Federal debt. There will be restrictions on excessive executive compensation and reasonable efforts will be made to make adjustments to help keep people in their homes. People have been calling my office all week about it, as they have all Senators. They are angry about the need to do this. I am angry, too. But callers' opinions have been changing about whether we should do it, as I believe have the minds of most Senators. Most realize that the largest reason for this emergency legislation is mortgage loans that people cannot pay back and securities based upon those mortgages. This has derailed housing and created problems for banks. It has spread uncertainty and caused people with cash to be cautious. Most realize now that we are not spending $700 billion. The Secretary may buy up to $700 billion in troubled mortgage assets--enough to restore confidence--but he may buy much less. Over time, he will sell those assets, hopefully at a profit, sometimes at a loss. My guess--and it is only a guess--net cost to the taxpayer will be $100 billion or less, two-thirds of what Congress spent in January on the economic stimulus package of tax cuts and rebates. There might even be a profit, which under the plan, would go to reduce the Federal debt. Most now realize it is important for the Secretary of Treasury to be able to buy enough mortgage assets so that institutions are strong again, will start lending again, and people will stop hoarding their cash. Next week we can fix the blame. Today we need to fix the problem. Congress should approve the amended plan without delay--today. If the House can pass it today, there is no reason why the Senate cannot pass it today and send it to the President. Otherwise, there is a real risk that credit will freeze and Americans will not be able to get car, student, auto, mortgage, or farm credit loans--or even to cash their paychecks. This has come so fast and taken such an unexpected turn that it is hard for most Americans to know what to think about it. As Senator Domenici and Senator Gregg have suggested, think about it as a wreck on the highway. Think about it as someone who should have known better, dumping thousands of bad mortgage loans and other assets in the middle of an eight-lane interstate, threatening to bring a halt to all economic traffic. Stopped in one lane is your home loan. In the next is your auto loan. In the third lane is your student loan. In the next is your mortgage loan. Next, your money market account. Next, the money for your farm credit loan or even your payroll check. Vehicles carrying these essential credits that Americans rely on every day have ground to a halt on the economic highway, blocked by a big pile of bad mortgage loans. So we end up with this massive wreck in the middle of the economic highway. Think of the Federal Government as the salvage crew and Secretary Paulson as the driver of the wrecker. His job is to buy the salvage and get it off the highway as soon as possible so that traffic can start moving again. And think of yourself, the taxpayer, as the owner of the salvage company--doing everything possible to make sure the driver of the wrecker can get the pile of bad loans off the highway and sell them for at least as much as it cost him to pick them up. If he does this, then the lanes will open again, and the vehicles carrying your auto and mortgage and farm credit loans and payroll checks will start moving again. And the economic traffic will start up again. But that will not be the end of fixing the problem. The Federal Government's compassion several years ago got out ahead of its common sense when it made it possible for people to borrow money and buy homes who couldn't pay back their mortgage loans. Clever financiers created exotic instruments based upon these loans, some of which turned out to be worth less than the loans. People who should have known what was going on--both in their own companies and in regulatory agencies--didn't understand what was going on or they turned a blind eye to it, or worse, they misled people. As the New York Times described it yesterday in an article, what apparently has happened is that mortgage foreclosures set off questions about the quality of debts across the entire credit spectrum. These questions set off a spiral of claims against insufficient insurance, as in the case of AIG, and of insufficient capital in the case of banks. So we end up with this massive wreck in the middle of the economic highway. This week--today--we need to fix the immediate problem. Clean the wreck off the highway. But next week we need to begin to take steps to remodel our regulatory agencies--most of which were designed to deal with the calamities of the 1930s. I suspect it will be a matter of a different kind of regulation that suits these times rather than one of more regulation. And we need to find out if there was fraud or misleading actions so we can do our best to make sure this doesn't happen again. Next week we can fix the blame. Today we should unclog the economic highway and fix the immediate problem to make sure Americans can buy homes and cars and houses, go to college, get farm credit loans and cash their payroll checks. I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, whatever the cost is, I do not want to see the cost of what will happen if we don't take action in the next few days. After you have lived a while, and after you have seen a few things, you begin to make some decisions based not just on the heart or the mind but on the gut. This is a gut decision to me, with a little bit of experience thrown in. When I was Governor of Tennessee in the mid-1980s, I had the misfortune of presiding over a situation where we had 40 or 50 banks that failed. I stayed up all night with Paul Volcker and watched the Federal Reserve pull its credit for one of the banks in Knoxville. And that set off a chain of events which, if it had been a national chain of events, we would have seen 1,000 or 2,000 bank failures. That is what we had to deal with. That was a controlled, small event compared to what could happen if we do not take steps to avert a credit crisis in the United States. Last week, before Thursday night's events, I was at the Volkswagen headquarter's opening in Virginia. I spoke with the credit manager there for the part of the company that loans money to people who buy cars, and said to me that he and people similar to him, even companies that large, the largest European automobile maker, were finding it difficult to get dollars. What if General Motors Acceptance Corporation or Ford or Volkswagen or Nissan Credit cannot go into the market to get some money? Then they cannot loan me money to buy a Nissan or a Ford or a Saturn. If I can't buy a car, then the new Volkswagen plant or the Nissan plant or the General Motors plant that we are so excited about, doesn't have any jobs. I applaud Senator Coburn, I applaud Senator Gregg, and the Senator from New Mexico, and the Republican leader here. Inaction is not an option here. I can only speak for one Senator, but from what I have heard on the Republican side of the aisle, we understand the seriousness of this problem. From what I have heard on the Democratic side of the aisle, most Democrats understand the seriousness of this problem. We want to put our imprint on the proposal, but we want a result. In my view, we must have a result to avert a set of events that none of us would want to see. For those watching the legislative process here in Washington, I want to make it clear to them that in my view, and I believe the sentiment of a great many Senators, is that we want and expect a result. We understand the seriousness of the problem.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I came to the floor to join with the Senator from New Hampshire in congratulating the Senator from Oklahoma for his statesman-like comments. And not just his comments on the floor because those of us who know Senator Coburn know that what he says in public he says in private and vice versa, and we respect his views on fiscal matters. What he said was that we in the Senate have a responsibility to make sure we do nothing to cause a crisis in confidence, or more of one. I thank the Senator from New Hampshire for pointing out to us that when you say $700 billion or a trillion dollars, you are not taking into account the real dollars--and I will not repeat his speech about the cost. In fact, I will ask, if I may, a question of the Senator from New Hampshire, and I will yield the floor for a moment. We hear these numbers, a trillion dollars and $700 billion. May I ask the Senator from New Hampshire through the Chair, what would he guess the real cost of this economic recovery plan to be, this Secretary Paulson plan that we hear about, based on what he knows now? What does he suspect the real cost would be?

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I see the Democratic whip here and I am glad to have an opportunity to make this point while he is here, since those of us on this side are Republicans. I applaud the reaction of Senator Obama to this economic crisis. It is a Presidential reaction. It is restrained. It leaves room for discussion and it recognizes the problem. I applaud Senator McCain's decision to involve himself, if he can, in a solution to the problem. That is the kind of leadership we should expect of both men, both of whom are Members of this body. I can't emphasize enough how much I believe this situation cries out for measured but urgent reaction, in a bipartisan way, by the Senate. Because, as all the Senators have said, if it were Wall Street, we could leave them to pick themselves up. But we are talking about whether you can get a student loan, whether you can get a car loan, whether you can get an auto loan, whether your money market account is safe, and whether you have any money on the block. That is the potential impact of what we are talking about and we need, within a few days, to take the kind of decisive action that builds confidence in our country. I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Of course.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, Senator Pete Domenici, who is retiring from the Senate this year after serving since 1972, once said to me that we don't say goodbye in the Senate very well. As a matter of fact, we don't say hello very well either. We have a little orientation program, but we abruptly arrive and leave. We leave in the midst of a lot of turmoil and discussion with very little time to say goodbye. Yet in between that arrival and leaving, we have very intense personal relationships. We virtually live with each other. We see each other often for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We see each other more than we see our families. So when there is a time for saying goodbye, we look for ways to say it a little better. There are five Members of our body, all of them Republicans, who have announced their retirement for this year. While I won't be speaking at length about them here today, I want to recognize their service. I will do it in the traditional way in the Senate, which is to start with seniority. By ``seniority,'' I mean from the time I have known them. I first met John Warner 40 years ago, in 1968. I was a young lawyer, and he was head of United Citizens for Nixon. I went to work for him in Washington, DC, at the Willard Hotel. He had been an advance man for President Nixon in 1960. He had been a businessman who was a striking figure, as he still is. I remember one of my assignments was to recruit a Mississippi chairman, and I found an outstanding young man named Thad Cochran who became chairman of Citizens for Nixon in Mississippi. Then we went to Indianapolis for the national meeting of our organization, and the mayor of Indianapolis was Richard Lugar. John Warner was 17 years old and enlisted in the Navy in World War II. He served as a marine officer in Korea. He was appointed by President Nixon as Under Secretary of the Navy in 1969 and became Secretary. He has served in this Senate since 1978 with distinction. He has added civility, a sense of institution, and perhaps his greatest continuing contribution has been his expertise and independence and leadership on matters of military affairs which he has discharged in a bipartisan way with Senator Levin for many years. Senator Domenici from New Mexico has been here since 1972. That is a long time. He arrived as a young man. He had been a chairman of the Albuquerque City Commission, a math teacher, a baseball player. It was unusual for a Republican to be elected to the Senate from New Mexico. He has served with distinction all that time. He was the first Republican chairman of the Budget Committee. He has been a leader in a renaissance of nuclear energy in this country which is so important because of its low cost and because it is clean. A great many people, including myself, are concerned about global warming. Well, 70 percent of our carbon-free electricity in the United States comes from nuclear energy. Senator Domenici, more than almost anyone, has been behind the revival of interest in nuclear energy. He has truly been one of the most consequential Senators of the last half century. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska is like the rest of us Senators. We are all accidents. None of us could have guessed we would be here. It is hard to plan your way into the Senate because we come from all different directions. Senator Hagel, who is Nebraska's senior Senator, is retiring after only two terms in the Senate, but he has had a full life so far, starting a business or helping to start one that became a public company. While we have a great many patriots in the Senate, men who are honored for their service in the military--such as Congressional Medal of Honor winner, Senator Inouye; Senator Stevens, who flew the first plane to land in Beijing after World War II ended; Senator McCain, whose story is well known, while he never discusses it--Senator Hagel's heroism and service serving side by side with his brother in Vietnam is one of the most fascinating, heroic stories of any Member of the Senate. With that sort of independent background, you can imagine he brought to this body a sense of independence, a great knowledge of the world. Along with Senator Lugar on this side of the aisle, he understands the world better than almost anyone, and he works hard at it. He has been independent in his views, willing to criticize those he thought were wrong, including those in his own party. He has written recently an excellent book about the future of our party. We will miss Senator Hagel. Senator Larry Craig has been in the Congress for a number of years. He served three terms in the Senate. I believe Senator Craig's great contribution is in the area of energy. He and Senator Domenici have been a team in advocating for nuclear power. They have been leaders in the Senate in understanding energy and its details, particularly over the last few years as issues of energy and the environment have become the most fascinating and important issues we have to deal with in many respects. Senator Craig has made a great contribution. I especially appreciate his courtesies. When I was just elected to the Senate, I had worked here before as a staff member many years ago, but I didn't understand what it was like to be a Member. Senator Craig took a long hour with me on the telephone just explaining to me about committee assignments. I have always been grateful for that. Finally, there is Senator Wayne Allard. We have two veterinarians in the Senate. When Wayne Allard goes back to Colorado, we will have one. Senator Allard told the people of Colorado if he was elected that he would serve two terms. He has, and he is keeping his pledge. He has been a strong and vigorous advocate of military preparedness. He is a member of the Armed Services Committee. He has been a member of the Appropriations Committee. One of Senator Allard's great contributions in the last couple of years was to take a job that many others probably wouldn't have wanted and plow into it. When the Capitol Visitor Center, which is almost open, was being worked on and running over budget and had some problems, Senator Allard, through his chairmanship of the Legislative Branch Appropriations Subcommittee, was able to jump into that and provide a great service. I say to all five of those Senators, we will miss them. We are grateful for their service. I know people must look at the Senate in many different ways. Let me conclude by telling a story about how some teachers look at it. We have a tradition in the Senate of making a maiden address. It is kind of a funny name, but we still call it that. We pick the subject of most interest to us. My subject was to put the teaching of U.S. history and civics back in its proper place in the school curriculum so our children would grow up learning what it means to be an American. There is not too much the Federal Government can do about that, but what we were able to do is to begin summer academies for outstanding teachers and students of American history. One group of those teachers was here in July, one from each State. I brought them on the Senate floor early one morning. I took them to Daniel Webster's desk, which is occupied by the senior Senator from New Hampshire right here by me. I took them back to that part of the Senate where Jefferson Davis's desk is, occupied by the senior Senator from Mississippi, and told them the story of how the marks in the desk are because a Union soldier came in during the Civil War and started chopping on it with his sword. His commanding officer came in and said: Stop that. We are here to protect the Union, not to destroy it. This Chamber is full of history, full of our country. Anyone who stands on this floor and sees the engravings of ``In God We Trust'' or ``E Pluribus Unum'' and gets a sense of what has happened here has respect for it. The teachers had that respect. When we got to the end of our visit, one teacher said to me, I think it was the teacher from Oregon: Senator, what would you like for us to take home to our students about our visit to the Senate floor? I said: I hope you will take back that each of us takes our position a lot more seriously than we take ourselves. We understand we are accidents, that we are very fortunate and privileged to be here, that each of us reveres our country, and we respect this institution. I can only speak for myself, but I think it is true of Senators on both sides of the aisle that we get up every day thinking first of how we can make a little contribution before we go to bed at night that will help the country be a little better off than it was in the morning. That means serving in the Senate is a very great privilege. I hope you will take that back to your students. I don't know what they see on television or read in the newspaper about the Senate, but that is how we feel about the privilege we have to serve here. To these five Senators--Warner, Domenici, Craig, Hagel, and Allard-- we say goodbye. They are members of our family. We appreciate their service. We know they have believed it has been a very great privilege to serve in the Senate. For us it has been a great privilege to serve with them. I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER

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

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, today marks the 84th birthday of Dean Stone, who has lived in my hometown of Maryville, TN, his entire life. This year also marks the 125th anniversary of The Daily Times, Maryville's hometown newspaper where Dean has worked for the last half century. I extend my warmest wishes to both of these Maryville institutions, and ask that a letter I wrote to Dean be printed in the Record. The material follows. September 10, 2008. Mr. Dean Stone, The Daily Times, Maryville, Tennessee. Dear Dean, It is an especially good idea to celebrate your birthday and that of The Daily Times all at once, because for me, and I am sure for most Blount Countians, it is hard to separate the two. That was true when I was a Maryville High School student years ago and you hired me to contribute to the Times' school news page. But it is even more true today because for the last half century I have so much enjoyed your photographs, your stories, and your opinions about Blount County. No one has ever done a better or more complete job of covering our families and communities. Years from now, when anyone looks back to try to understand Blount County--its history, its people, and its mountains-- the first place to go will be to a Dean Stone photograph of Cades Cove, or ``Bits of stone'' about some family, or a carefully reasoned editorial about why we should think now about what our county's landscape will look like later. Happy birthday, Dean--and Maryville-Alcoa's The Daily Times--from a grateful former paperboy and school news correspondent. Sincerely, Lamar Alexander, U.S. Senator.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, today I will vote for the renewable energy tax legislation, Baucus-Grassley Amendment No. 5633, included in the tax extenders package because it is the best balanced approach to encourage renewable and alternative forms of clean energy that the Senate has had a chance to consider. I especially like the fact that, after many years, Congress is finally encouraging solar power in a serious way. But the proposal would be much better if it would use the subsidy money designated for wind power instead for a dramatic new Federal investment in clean energy research and development. This legislation adds nearly $5 billion to the $11.5 billion in Federal taxpayer dollars that are already committed to subsidize wind power over the next 10 years. This means that Congress will be spending two-thirds as much over the next 10 years to subsidize wind turbines as it did--in today's dollars--on the Manhattan Project to build the atom bomb. Wind power is a proven technology, useful in some places for clean electricity, but this disproportionate allocation of tax dollars is unwise because: Wind turbines produce 1 percent of America's electricity. There is only one wind farm in the southeastern United States because the wind doesn't blow hard enough in that part of the country. There is almost nowhere in the U.S. where consumers can rely mainly on wind power without also needing coal, nuclear or gas--or maybe solar thermal--plants. Wind power provides 2.7 percent of U.S. carbon-free electricity, which helps deal with climate change, but nuclear power provides 69 percent of U.S. carbon-free electricity. Under existing law--without the new subsidies in this energy tax legislation--beginning in 2010 the largest Federal taxpayer subsidy for producing electricity would go to wind. Per kilowatt hour, Federal subsidies for wind in 2007 were: 53 times the subsidy for electricity made from coal; 15 times the subsidy for nuclear power; and 27 times the subsidy for all other forms of renewal electricity. If the Federal Government were to subsidize each kilowatt hour that nuclear power produces at the same rate it now subsidizes wind power, the cost to taxpayers for the nuclear subsidy over the next 10 years would be $289 billion. On average, for every dollar Texas utilities pay wind developers, the Federal taxpayer pays another 69 cents. Some say that by 2030 wind could generate 20 percent of America's electricity. Over 10 years the Federal tax subsidy for this much wind power would be enough to give 55 million Americans $3,000 to help buy an electric plug-in car or truck. Wind turbines are a dramatic disruption to the landscape. A typical 1.5 megawatt wind turbine is as tall as a 40-story building. Its blades reach from 10 yard line to 10 yard line on a football field, and its blinking lights are visible for up to 20 miles. I suspect the value of my vacant lot on Nantucket Island will go up when values go down on the other side of the island where a wind farm is being built. Wind power is useful but not a true alternative energy because it blows only when it wants to--turbines operate, on average, 34 percent of the time--and can't be stored for baseload power, the kind our jobs and homes depend on, or for peaking power, the kind utilities buy in the late afternoon when every home appliance is on. When cost of transmission from remote locations is added, wind power can become very expensive. Instead of spending another $5 billion to subsidize a proven technology, wouldn't it be wiser to make a dramatic new Federal investment in energy research and development--a series of mini- Manhattan Projects, for example--to: Make electric cars and trucks commonplace, make solar power cost competitive, capture and store carbon from coal-burning power p1ants, reprocess and store nuclear waste, make advanced biofuels from crops we don't eat, encourage green buildings, and provide energy from fusion. According to MIT president Susan Hockfield, Federal funding for energy research has ``dwindled to irrelevance''--$2.4 to $3.4 billion a year--less than half the R&D budget of America's largest pharmaceutical company. Use the wind subsidy money for new Manhattan projects, and use wind turbines where the wind blows and where transmission line costs make sense--and where both don't spoil the natural beauty of the great American outdoors.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I congratulate the Senators from Washington and Nevada not just for the product of their work but for the way they are working together. I think what the American people want to see the Senate focus more on the biggest issues facing our country and work across party lines to get a result. I was one of the few Senators earlier who voted against the Ensign- Cantwell legislation because I thought it disproportionately favored one form of renewable energy. I think this is a great improvement over what had been done before, and I especially like the fact that solar has a chance to move up the line as a developing energy. It is not proven yet, it is not able yet to do all we hope it will do, but this should help. And the idea that we would use this vast reservoir of unused electricity we have at night around the country to plug in our cars, rather than spend money on gasoline that we send overseas to unfriendly people, is a very appealing idea. All those ideas have broad support on both sides of the aisle, and Senators Cantwell and Ensign have been persistent in their efforts to fashion a bipartisan result. So I congratulate them for what they have done, and I thank them for it. I feel confident, with the support of the majority and Republican leaders, that we will get to a result. My colleagues' work on this bill, and the majority leader and the Republican leader's work on this bill, to bring us toward a bipartisan result on one of the largest issues facing our country is in great contrast to some of what I heard this morning from the Democratic side of the aisle about today's financial structure. What I heard was what I call kindergarten politics. It looked as if somebody had been down in the War Room with crayons and paper on the floor coming up with how do we score political points about the financial crisis in the country today, instead of saying: What can we do, working together, to reassure the American people we are going to take every step we need to take here to make certain we restore the vibrancy of our economy? I came to the Senate, not as a Senator but as a staff member, more than 40 years ago, and what was going through my mind is the way Lyndon Johnson and Everett Dirksen would have worked when Everett Dirksen was the Republican leader and Lyndon Johnson was the President. When it was important, they worked together, and they let the American people know that. So did President Kennedy and Senator Dirksen, when he was the Republican leader. So did Senator Mansfield, from the Democratic side of the aisle, and President Nixon, a Republican. I remember Senator Byrd telling me that both he and Senator Baker, the Democratic and Republican leaders when President Carter was here, changed their minds about the Panama Canal, and they cast controversial votes because they thought it was the right thing to do. We had a major issue before the country, and some in the country didn't like the result, but they respected the fact that Senators had the instinct to recognize that when something is important, threatening our country, that people expect us not to play kindergarten politics but to put that aside, leave it off the Senate floor, and come here and do our jobs. The same was true with President Reagan and Tip O'Neill, the Speaker of the House, who had very different points of view. But when Social Security was nearly broken, they worked together. Now we have a serious financial crisis facing our country, and what do we get from some of the Members of the other side of the aisle but a lot of kindergarten partisan politics, which should be left in the trash can somewhere. We even had the majority leader criticizing a former Republican Senator for something the majority leader himself voted for. Why was it even being discussed? Because somebody over in the kindergarten room wrote out a press release and handed it to somebody. So instead of seeing what we just saw on the Senate floor a few minutes ago, which was a Democratic and Republican Senator saying: Let's work together on energy, we saw something much different. From the Republican side of the aisle, we could come and say: Well, this whole financial crisis is caused fundamentally by a collapse in housing prices. And one of the greatest factors in that is the great housing institutions, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. When we brought up a bill to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, all the Democrats voted no and all the Republicans voted yes. We could say that. We could say it was a Democratic President who stopped us from bringing in oil from Alaska 10 years ago, which today would have kept gas prices from going up. We could say it was a Democratic President who encouraged a lot of people to buy homes who didn't have the money to pay it back. But that is not what we should be doing here. We should put all that aside, and we should say to the President and say to the Speaker and say to each other: We have a serious financial crisis facing our country. What can we do, working together, to reassure the American people we are going to take any step we can to ensure the security of their savings accounts, the values of their homes, the security of their money markets, of their accounts? We can do that. We should do that. That is what most of us are elected to do, or we feel we are elected to do. So I was very disappointed to see so much of the partisan kindergarten-talk coming from the other side of the aisle this morning. I would much rather see the kind of action that the Senator from Washington and the Senator from Nevada have demonstrated throughout the year and did today, as did the majority leader and the Republican leader when they said: We are very close to having a renewable energy bill that meets the objections many have had. And that is one step we can take to deal with the problem of the high price of energy, because we need to, as we say, find more American energy as well as use less energy, including alternative and renewable energy. There is one other thing that we could do together and I would like to briefly outline it today. It was pointed out in an article in the Washington Post last week by Susan Hockfield, the President of MIT, one of our great research universities. I ask unanimous consent that her op-ed be printed in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks.

Mr. ALEXANDER. She suggested that we should have a dramatic new investment, a new Federal investment in energy research and development; that our current spending for energy research and development had shrunk, in her words, ``almost to irrelevancy''; and that the $2 billion to $3 billion that the Federal Government is spending annually on energy R&D is less than half of what our largest pharmaceutical company spends on research each year. Yesterday, I had a visit from the President of Yale University who made the point that, since 1973, we have found as much oil as we have used. Mr. President, 1973 was the year we had the big oil shock. He pointed out the reason we were able to do that was because of extensive science and technology advances. Most of our wealth since World War II in this country has been created by our brainpower advantage, and we worked together as a Senate and as a Congress, with everyone taking credit, to pass legislation to help. We called it the America COMPETES Act--to help keep America's brainpower advantage so we can keep growing good jobs here. What the president of MIT and the president of Yale are saying, and most of our research universities would say and most of us know, is we need to keep pushing on science and technology. As we stand here today, thinking about how we deal with high gasoline prices and electricity prices that are increasing and the national security issues that arise from depending so much on other countries in the world for oil; and as we think about the financial markets and how over the long-term we strengthen our country so we are able to withstand any sort of jolt to the system--one of the most important things we should consider doing, and doing in a bipartisan way, is to make a dramatic new Federal investment in energy research and development. I may have more to say about that next week. It is a tremendous opportunity for the next President to take. Let me give an example of what I mean by it. In May, I went to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, along with Bart Gordon, the Democratic chairman of the House Science Committee. I proposed that the United States set as a goal putting our country on a path to clean energy independence within the next 5 years and do it in a way that we have done it before, with a new Manhattan Project for clean energy independence. The Manhattan Project was the project the United States launched during World War II to create the atom bomb before Germany did, because we were afraid that if Germany beat us in that, it would blackmail us in the same way many oil-producing countries are blackmailing us today. We succeeded in that. But we did it because we put a clear focus on it, we put an objective, we dedicated the money, we drafted companies, we assembled the best scientists in the world, and we won that race. We could do the same with energy. What I suggested in May was that we adopt seven grand challenges. First, of course, we ought to do what we already know how to do, which is to drill offshore and create more nuclear power. But then there are some things we don't know how to do, and most of the legislation we are considering--whether it is the legislation that Senators Ensign and Cantwell have proposed or the Gang of 20 legislation or the bill that Senator Bingaman and others might propose--does not do much for energy research and development. Energy research and development would be this, for example: To make, within the next 5 years, electric cars and trucks commonplace--which would mean research on advanced batteries; and to make solar energy competitive within the next 5 years with fossil fuels. Incentives will help with that. That is in the tax extenders bill that will be coming before the Senate. But in order to accomplish that, we need money for research and development. Among the other challenges, I suggested carbon capture and sequestration. We need to be able to use our coal plants and we need other ways of capturing carbon than taking it and putting it into the ground. We need it within 5 years as well. I see my time has come to an end. My point is the same. I like what Senators Ensign and Cantwell have been doing. I like the approach. I would like to see more of that rather than the finger-pointing and blame calling, and one of the areas in which I hope we will work is a dramatic new Federal investment in energy research and development. Exhibit 1 [From the Washington Post, Sept. 11, 2008] Reimagining Energy (By Susan Hockfield) Almost 70 years ago, as Germany invaded France, President Franklin D. Roosevelt received an urgent visit from Vannevar Bush, then chairman of the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics and formerly vice president and dean of engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Bush's message was simple: For America to win the war that was to come, it had no choice but to make aggressive, focused investments in basic science. The case was so compelling that Roosevelt approved it in 10 minutes. From radar to the Manhattan Project, the innovations that decision unleashed produced the military tools that won the war. That same presidential decision launched the enduring partnership between the federal government and research universities, a partnership that has vastly enhanced America's military capabilities and security, initiated many important industries, produced countless medical advances and spawned virtually all of the technologies that account for our modern quality of life. Today, the United States is tangled in a triple knot: a shaky economy, battered by volatile energy prices; world politics weighed down by issues of energy consumption and security; and mounting evidence of global climate change. Building on the wisdom of Vannevar Bush, I believe we can address all three problems at once with dramatic new federal investment in energy research and development. If one advance could transform America's prospects, it would be ready access, at scale, to a range of affordable, renewable, low- carbon energy technologies--from large-scale solar and wind energy to safe nuclear power. Only one path will lead to such transformative technologies: research. Yet federal funding for energy research has dwindled to irrelevance. In 1980, 10 percent of federal research dollars went to energy. Today, the share is 2 percent. Research investment by U.S. energy companies has mirrored this drop. In 2004, it stood at $1.2 billion in today's dollars. This might suit a cost-efficient, technologically mature, fossil-fuel-based energy sector, but it is insufficient for any industry that depends on innovation. Pharmaceutical companies invest 18 percent of revenue in R&D. Semiconductor firms invest 16 percent. Energy companies invest less than one-quarter of 1 percent. With this pattern of investment, we cannot expect an energy technology revolution. While industry must support technology development, only government can prime the research pump. Congress must lead. The potential gains--from the economy to global security to the climate--are boundless. Other nations are also chasing these technologies. We must be first to market with the most innovative solutions. We must make sure that in the energy technology markets of the future, we have the power to invent, produce and sell--not the obligation to buy. How much should we invest? In 2006 the government spent between $2.4 billion and $3.4 billion (less than half of the annual R&D budget of our largest pharmaceutical company). Many experts, including the Council on Competitiveness, recommend that federal energy research spending climb to twice or even 10 times current levels. In my view, the nation should move promptly to triple current rates, then increase funding further as the Energy Department builds its capacity to convert basic research into marketable technologies. Vannevar Bush's insight was his appreciation of the value of basic research in powering innovation. I believe that we stand on the verge of a global energy technology revolution. Will America lead it and reap the rewards? Or will we surrender that advantage to other countries with clearer vision? I believe we can chart a profoundly hopeful, practical path to America's future--through rapid, sustained, broad-based and intensive investment in basic energy research.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, today I joined as a cosponsor of two bills to protect children: S. 1738, the Combating Child Exploitation Act; and S. 519, the Securing Adolescents from Exploitation-Online-- SAFE--Act. I am cosponsoring S. 1738 to signal my support for this bipartisan effort to create a nationwide network of highly trained law enforcement experts to track down and prosecute child predators who exploit children, but it is my hope that Congress would enact the modified version of this legislation that was included in bills separately introduced by the majority leader--S. 3297--and Senator Coburn--S. 3344. Unfortunately, both bills have been held up by partisan gridlock despite widespread support on both sides of the aisle. In fact, the House version of the SAFE Act--H.R. 3791--passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 409-2 in December 2007. That is why I believe that both bills H.R. 3791 and the modified version of S. 1738 could pass by unanimous consent if they were called up and passed together. It is time to stop playing politics, bring these bills to the Senate floor and let the Senate approve them. Child exploitation is too important a problem to get caught up in partisan politics. I urge the majority leader to call up and pass these two bills without delay, and without either being attached to other legislation that could prevent them from becoming law. I can't think of a more bipartisan step for the Senate to take this month than ending this impasse and passing these two worthwhile bills to protect children.