Lamar Alexander

Mr. ALEXANDER

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, we will miss Craig Thomas. Craig Thomas would want it to be said that he was a conservative. He enjoyed expressing conservative views on this floor. He enjoyed expressing conservative views in our Energy Committee on which we served together, and the Senator from Louisiana and I served with Senator Thomas. He kept his feet firmly planted on the ground in Wyoming from which his conservatism came. He obviously well represented the people of Wyoming because he barely noticed there was an election last year. When Craig Thomas ran, he was elected by an overwhelming margin. Craig Thomas was a conservationist. He was chairman of the National Parks Subcommittee during the time I served on the Energy Committee, and he enjoyed that very much. I am not a bit surprised because he took great pride in the fact that Yellowstone, a great, premier park--I can say that even though we have the Great Smokies in Tennessee--but Yellowstone, which has such a special place in the hearts of all Americans, Craig Thomas took special pride in his jurisdiction of that responsibility. He was honored by the National Parks Association a couple of years ago. Craig Thomas was awarded the singular honor of the National Parks Association for his stewardship of our national parks. Craig Thomas was no-nonsense. That came from several places, I suspect. One was, as the Senator from Nebraska noted, he was a marine. One was that he was a cowboy, a real cowboy. I saw Senator Inhofe talking about him in that respect. Another reason is he came from Wyoming. I see that Senator Enzi from Wyoming is here. Wyoming citizens, I have noticed, don't waste words. They think about them before they say them, and they often don't say them. They don't feel a need to fill every vacuum with a string of words, which is an unusual characteristic on the floor of the U.S. Senate, but Craig Thomas was such a person. I think, in fact, he grew up in Wyoming, came from Wyoming, lived in Wyoming, kept his feet planted in Wyoming, and helped contribute to that no-nonsense approach to life he had which enriched the Senate. Craig Thomas was also interested in working across party lines. Earlier this year, Senator Lieberman and I and others began a breakfast on Tuesday morning at 8 o'clock for those Senators who had time to come, not for the purpose of passing legislation but for the purpose of getting to know each other better across party lines so that we could perhaps come to solutions more quickly in other areas. It was interesting to see who came to that breakfast. We all are busy. We all have tremendous demands on our time. We started off with 40 Senators of both parties. Sometimes it got to be 10 or 12 or 14. But almost every Tuesday morning at the bipartisan Senators' breakfast, Craig Thomas was there, and he always had a contribution to make. He was there 2 weeks ago, in the week before our recess, which is why it was such a surprise to learn that he died yesterday, because when he was there, he sat quietly, but you could tell he had something to say, and he finally said it before he left. The subject was immigration. He had some questions, and he had some comments. He looked the perfect picture of health. He looked as if he would last forever. That was the last I saw of Craig Thomas. We are a family here in the Senate. We say that often to one another, but it is true. We have breakfast together, as we did this morning at the bipartisan breakfast or as we will tomorrow morning at the Prayer Breakfast where we will remember Craig Thomas. We have lunch together, which we are about to do, Republicans on one side and Democrats on the other. We have committee hearings and meetings all day long and little visits, and then in the evenings, if that weren't enough, why, we get together and we go to receptions for each other. That is how we live our lives here. So it is a surprise to us to suddenly find ourselves without Craig Thomas, whom we saw at breakfast, whom we saw at lunch, whom we saw at committee meetings, and whom we saw in the evenings. We will miss him, but we greatly respect his presence here in the Senate for such a long period of time. When he got sick last year, we heard that he was soon doing fingertip pushups again. So all of us thought--at least I thought--well, Craig is going to be fine. He is going to be fine. But, as will be the case with each of us, in the end, his life has come to a conclusion. It has been a life of public service, one I greatly respect. To Susan and to his family, Honey and I offer our sympathy and our respect for his life. We will be thinking and praying for them, and we will be remembering how much joy our friend Craig Thomas brought to the U.S. Senate. Thank you, Madam President.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, last August, Ted Stevens and Dan Inouye led a bipartisan group of Senators to China for a parliamentary visit. Dan, of course, was accorded great respect because of his winning the Congressional Medal of Honor during World War II. But it was Ted Stevens for whom the Chinese rolled out the red carpet. Ted had flown with the Flying Tigers. He flew the first plane to land in Beijing after World War II ended, and the top Chinese leaders had not forgotten. They made more time for our delegation than they had for any other recent group of American visitors. No one in our group, of course, was surprised to learn that Ted Stevens had flown risky missions and, for that bravery, earned the Distinguished Flying Cross. Ted still has the cockiness, adventuresome spirit and attitude that distinguish most pilots. And he has the love of country that permeates those who fought in World War II. We see both qualities every day in the Senate. For example, 2 years ago, when we were considering how to maneuver through five Senate committees legislation based on a National Academies report that would help America keeps its brainpower advantage, Ted was both unconcerned about committee prerogatives and impatient about getting the job done. ``Let's form a select committee,'' he said many times. ``You be the chairman of it.'' He said this even though he was then the most senior Republican in the Senate and I was nearly the most junior. The Senate never formed that select committee, but Ted made sure the legislation passed because he thought it was important for our country. I was Legislative Assistant to Senator Howard Baker in 1968 when Ted was appointed to the Senate. He hasn't changed much in all that time, even though he is now the longest serving Republican Senator. In his first year, he was pushing amendments that would help Alaska Natives maintain their fishing rights. This year, he is still busy working on legislation creating additional rights for Alaska Natives. And in the 39 years between, he has snagged every dollar that comes within 50 feet for his Alaskan constituents--and some dollars that were farther away than that. Ted Stevens is, I would say, above all, an institutionalist in the United States Senate. In other words, he sees a unique role in our democracy for the Senate, and he is one of a handful here who is determined to respect that role and make it work. I suppose Ted will have opposition when he runs for reelection in 2008. But, if he does, I wouldn't want to be that person. Last week, walking side by side with him to vote, I took the escalator when we got to the Capitol and Ted literally ran up the stairs, two at a time. It would be hard to identify a ``More Valuable Player'' in the U.S. Senate than Ted Stevens.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, our country does not have just some of the best colleges and universities in the world. It has almost all of them. Our higher education system is our secret weapon in America's competition in the world marketplace. It is the cornerstone of the brainpower advantage that last year permitted our country to produce thirty percent of the world's wealth, measured by gross domestic product-- for just 5 percent of the world's people. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, to her credit, established a commission 2 years ago to examine all aspects of higher education to make certain that we do all we can to preserve excellence in this secret weapon and access to it. Among other things, the commission called for more accountability in higher education. The commission got the part about accountability right. We in Congress have a duty to make certain that the billions we allocate to higher education are spent wisely. Unfortunately, the commission headed in the wrong direction when it proposed how to achieve accountability. In its report, and in the negotiated rulemaking process, the Department of Education proposed a complex system of accountability to tell colleges how to accept transfer students, how to measure what students are learning, and how colleges should accredit themselves. I believe excellence in American higher education comes from institutional autonomy, markets, competition, choice for students, federalism and limited Federal regulation. The Department is proposing to restrict autonomy, choice, and competition. Such changes are so fundamental that only Congress should consider them. For that reason, if necessary, I will offer an amendment to the Higher Education Act to prohibit the Department from issuing any final regulations on these issues until Congress acts. Congress needs to legislate first. Then the Department can regulate. Instead of pursuing this increased Federal regulation, I have suggested to the Secretary a different course. First, convene leaders in higher education--especially those who are leading the way with improved methods of accountability and assessment and let them know in clear terms that if colleges and universities do not accept more responsibility for assessment and accountability, the Federal Government will do it for them. Second, establish an award for accountability in higher education like the Baldrige Award for quality in American business. The Baldrige Award, granted by the Department of Commerce, encourages a focus on quality in American business. It has been enormously successful, causing hundreds of businesses to change their procedures to compete for the prize. I believe the same kind of award--or awards for different kinds of higher education institutions--would produce the same sort of result for accountability in higher education. Finally, make research and development grants to states, institutions, accreditors and assessment researchers to develop new and better appropriate measures of accountability. This combination of jawboning, creating a Baldrige-type prized for accountability and research and development for better assessment techniques will in, my judgment, do a better and more comprehensive job of encouraging accountability in higher education than anything Federal regulation can do. If I am wrong, then we in Congress and the U.S. Department of Education can step in and take more aggressive steps. Are there some things wrong with the American higher education system? Of course. And in my testimony in Nashville last year before the Secretary's Commission on the Future of Higher Education I detailed some of them. One is the failure of colleges of education to prepare school leaders to raise our k-12 system to the level of our higher education system. Two is the growing political one-sidedness that has infected many campuses. Too often true diversity of thought is discouraged in the same of a preferred brand of diversity. Third, is the rising cost of tuition and large amount of students debt although costs are lower than most Americans realize and the reason for the increase is primarily the State failure to fund higher education because of all the money that is being soaked up by rising medicaid costs. Fourth, there is no doubt that colleges and universities are not as efficient as they should be. Campuses are too vacant in the summer. Faculty teaching loads are too light. And semesters are too short to justify the large expenditures. Fifth, no one in Washington takes a coordinated look at the tens of billions of dollars spent for higher education. Secretary Spellings is the first to do this, and I applaud her for it, although I had hoped the result would have been less regulation, not more. Finally, deregulation. There is too much Washington DC, regulation. Instead of debating how many more regulations we need, if we really are serious about excellence and opportunity, we should be debating which regulations we can get rid of. The question is whether you believe that excellence in higher education comes from institutional autonomy, markets, competition, choice for students, federalism and limited Federal regulation or whether you don't. I believe it does. In fact, I have spent most of my public career arguing that we should borrow these principles from higher education where we have excellence and try them in k-12 where we too often don't. There is plenty of evidence that America's secret weapon is our system of colleges and universities. More Americans go to college than in any country. Most of the best universities of the world are in our country, attracting 500,000 of the brightest students from outside America--many of whom stay to create more good jobs for Americans. Just a few short weeks ago, after two years of work, the Senate passed the America Competes Act. It authorizes investing $62 billion over 4 years to help our country keep its brainpower advantage so we can keep jobs from going to India and China. In China, India, in Europe and Latin America countries seeking to improve the incomes of their citizens are seeking to emulate our college and universities because they know that better schools and colleges mean better jobs. The former Brazilian President, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, recently told a group of Senators that the strongest memory of the United States he would take back to his country is the American University. ``The uniqueness, strength and autonomy of the American university,'' Dr. Cardoso said, ``There is nothing like it in the world.'' ``Autonomy'' is the key word in Dr. Cardoso's response. Deregulating higher education and preserving the autonomy of its institutions--not more Washington, DC, regulation--is the key to preserving the quality of this secret weapon in our effort to keep our high standard of living. The United States system of higher education is a remarkable system of 6,000 autonomous institutions. Some are public, like the University of Tennessee of which I was once President. Some are private like Vanderbilt and New York University, from which I graduated. Some are Catholic. Some are Jewish. Some are non profit. Some are for profit. Some, like UCLA, are research universities. Some are trade schools like the Nashville Auto Diesel College which graduate 1300 of the best auto mechanics in the world each year. Some are 2-year community colleges or technical institutes. Some, like the University of Texas, have 100,000 students. Some, like Valley College in West Virginia have 34 students. Some like Harvard, have 20,000 applicants for 1,700 freshman places. Some, like University of Phoenix, accept every student who applies. Some teach sports management and some teach classics. The largest university is online. In some colleges, most students graduate in four years. In others, most never actually graduate because they are there to learn skills on their way to a new job. The average tuition private school is $22,218, for a public four year college the average is $5,836, for a public 2-year community college the average is $2,272. More than half the students who attend these 6,000 institutions have a federal grant or a loan to help them to pay for college. That means that this year taxpayers will spend $13 billion giving 5.2 million students Federal Pell grants providing up to $4,310 each--which pays the entire cost of attending many 2 year schools and almost three- fourths the cost of a public four year school. Many States and private institutions and individuals provide generous additional scholarships and loans. Mr. President, 56,000 Tennessee students each year receive up to $3,800 if they attend a 4-year institution or $1,900 if they attend a year institution. Georgia's HOPE scholarship and grant programs benefit over 200,000 Georgia students a year, giving them grant and scholarship aid to attend a college or university. In addition, 14 million students will borrow 66 billion more dollars this year by taking out federal guaranteed loans to help pay for college. I once asked David Gardner when he was president of the University of California why his institution was one of the world's finest. Without a moment's hesitation he said, ``First, autonomy. Fundamentally the state of California gives us the money, then our board decides how to spend it. This authority has permitted us to set high standards.'' And then he said, ``We have a large amount of federal and state dollars that follow students to the educational institution of their choice.'' So, autonomy, excellence choice--Federal dollars following students to the schools of their choice. That is the California formula for excellence. It is the American formula for excellence since the GI bill for Veterans was enacted in 1944, and veterans were given the opportunity to attend the college of their choice. Congress could have given the dollars to institutions. Instead, it created this marketplace and fueled it even further with the addition of Pell grants and loans--all following students to the institution of their choice. Who, then, is the regulator of this marketplace? Well, first, the marketplace itself. Students armed with scholarship dollars may choose or reject courses and colleges. Colleges must compete to attract faculty. Most Federal grants are awarded competitively after review by peers. Such competition and choice has permitted both excellence and a breadth responding quickly to a changing world that a more highly regulated system never would have. For example, the fastest growing institutions are 2-year colleges and for-profit institutions--the institutions in the closest touch with the rapidly changing global workplace. The second regulator is the Federal Government. This stack of regulations I have here represent the 7,000--yes, 7,000 regulations-- that each one of the 6,000 colleges and universities who accept federal aid must deal with in order to accept students with Federal grants or loans. The president of Stanford has estimated it costs 7 cents of every tuition dollar just to deal with federal regulations and loans. Universities have compliance officers and divisions to keep track of regulations from almost every Cabinet agency in Washington. Then there are the State regulators. The Governor is chairman of the board of all Tennessee public universities. Of course, the State legislature has its say when it passes budget funding public universities. The Tennessee Higher Education Commission reviews budgets, duplicitous programs and standards--and it also has some rules for private universities. Fundamentally the autonomous college or university regulates itself. As president of the University of Tennessee system of institutions, I had overall responsibility for admissions and standards of quality for faculty and students established by the board of trustees to which I reported. A chancellor supervised each campus. The faculty senate on each campus played a major role. Then there is also the self-accreditation system--an elaborate, time consuming review of programs in each department for the purpose of determining whether that department held true to its mission and its level of quality. With these multiple layers of regulation, higher education needs less, not more regulation from Washington, DC. In fact, I believe the greatest threat to excellence of higher education is overregulation, not underfunding. Not long ago, the president of the North Carolina higher education system--Erskine Bowles--visited me along with several of his presidents of public and private institutions. That system has for years been one of the Nation's best. Their message was, ``Of course accountability is important. We believe in it. But we are the ones to do it and we are doing it.'' The best way for Congress to assure the quality of higher education is to determine that State regulators and accrediting agencies are doing their jobs.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, Senator Salazar and I asked the leadership for 30 minutes this morning to discuss Iraq. I thank the leadership for giving us that time. I ask unanimous consent that the time be allocated in the following way: 5 minutes each for, first, Senator Pryor, then Senator Bennett, then Senator Casey, then Senator Gregg, then Senator Alexander, and finally Senator Salazar. If the Chair would let each Senator know when 5 minutes has expired, I would appreciate that.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from New Hampshire. I can think of no two Senators on our side of the aisle whose words are listened to more carefully and more respectfully than the Senator from New Hampshire and the Senator from Utah. I salute the Senator from Pennsylvania for his statement and leadership, and the Senator from Arkansas, who spoke so constructively, and especially the Senator from Colorado, who is the principal sponsor of this legislation and whom I am proud to join. Senator Pryor is exactly right when he said this morning that it is time for us to stop having partisan votes on Iraq. If I were an American fighting in Iraq, I would be looking back at us and wondering: What are they doing in Washington, DC, arguing and sniping at each other while we are fighting and dying? I would be thinking: If they are going to send us to Iraq to do a job, at least they could agree on what the job is. We owe it to our troops and to our country to find a bipartisan consensus to support where we go from here in Iraq. We need a political solution in Washington, DC, as much as we need a political solution in Baghdad. The announcements today by four more Senators, each well respected-- Senators Pryor, Bennett, Casey, Gregg--suggests the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group is the way to do that. Three Republicans, three Democrats from the North, South, East, and West, some relatively new Senators, some who have been here a long time, fresh voices, a fresh approach for a fresh attitude for this debate. Before the end of the week, I believe there will be two more Senators--one Democrat, one Republican. Then in June when we return to Washington, the six or the eight of us intend to offer the legislation Senator Salazar and I have drafted to implement the recommendations of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group. Today we are only six, perhaps eight--a modest beginning. But even we six or eight are a more promising bipartisan framework of support for a new direction in Iraq than we have seen for some time in the Senate. Those who know the Senate know we usually do our best and most constructive work when a handful of Senators cross party lines to take a fresh look at a problem, embrace a new strategy, and try to do what is right for our country. We are not going to put hundreds of thousands of American troops into Iraq. We are not going to get out of Iraq tomorrow, and the current surge of troops in Baghdad, which we all hope is successful, is not by itself a strategy for tomorrow. The Iraq Study Group report is a strategy for tomorrow. It will get the United States out of the combat business in Iraq and into the support, equipment, and the training business in a prompt and honorable way. It will reduce the number of troops in Iraq. Those who stay will be less in harm's way--in more secure bases, embedded with Iraqi forces. Special forces will stay to counter al-Qaida. The report says this could--not must but could-- happen in early 2008, depending on circumstances. The report allows support for General Petraeus and his troops by specifically authorizing a surge, such as the current surge. Because there would still be a significant long-term presence in Iraq, it will signal to the rest of the Middle East to stay out of Iraq. It aggressively encourages diplomatic efforts. The President of the United States has spoken well of this report recently, and embraced parts of it, but it is not his plan. The Democratic majority has borrowed parts of the Iraq Study Group report, but it is not the Democratic majority plan. That is why the report has a chance to work. It has the seeds of a bipartisan consensus. We six or eight, or hopefully more, will introduce our legislation in June, making the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group the policy of our country and inviting the President to submit a plan based upon those recommendations. I hope President Bush will embrace this strategy. I hope more Senators will. It is ironic for the oldest democracy, the United States, to be lecturing the youngest democracy, Iraq, about coming up with a political consensus when we, ourselves, can't come up with one. This is the foremost issue facing our country. The Iraq Study Group report is the most promising strategy for a solution: getting out of the combat business in Iraq and into the support, equipping, and training business in a prompt and honorable way. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, today, Senator Carper and I introduced the Internet Tax Freedom Extension Act of 2007. Other cosponsors were Senators Feinstein, Voinovich, and Enzi. All of those Senators have been interested in this subject for the last few years. The bill would, very simply, extend a moratorium on Internet access taxes by State and local governments for another 4 years. This is a commonsense compromise of what can sometimes be a very complicated discussion about continuing the moratorium, without blowing a hole in the budgets of State and local governments. We all want to be careful about so-called unfunded Federal mandates. We want to respect State and local governments. But at the same time we want to create an environment that encourages technology. We believe this would do that. The background of all this is, briefly, that originally Congress passed the Internet Tax Freedom Act in 1998, which did an extraordinary thing. It said State and local governments could not tax Internet access for three years. That sounds like a good thing, but we could just as easily pass a bill we might call the food tax freedom act, because that would keep State and local governments from taxing food; or because we are against income taxes, we might say the income tax freedom act and ban Tennessee from having an income tax; or we might say the sales tax freedom act, or the property tax freedom act, or the telecommunications tax freedom act. But instead we created the Internet Tax Freedom Act, meaning, in effect, that States could not tax Internet access. The rationale was that the Internet and electronic commerce is a fledgling industry, and Congress extended that in 2001. In 2004, after extensive debate, we worked out a compromise extending this moratorium over the next 4 years. The compromise we worked out in 2004, according to the National Governors Association, may have saved State and local governments up to $12 billion in revenue. All of us want to keep taxes low, but here is where I am coming from. When I was Governor, nothing made me angrier than for Members of Congress coming up with a big idea to pass a law, take credit for it, and send the bill to the Governors, legislators, mayors, and county commissions. That is what we will do if we are not careful about the Internet access tax because, as we saw 4 years ago, telephone calls moved to the Internet. If we banned taxes on telecommunications as part of Internet access, telephone calls over the Internet would be free from taxation. That sounds good, except States might have to increase college tuition, increase sales tax on food, or some States might have to put in, for the first time, a State income tax. Mr. President, $12 billion in revenue is a lot of money. The definition of Internet access that is in this new compromise that Senator Carper and I introduced on the moratorium would, for the next 4 years, protect State and local governments, while continuing the moratorium on Internet access. It is sensible. I think we will debate it more over time. Maybe it will even be accepted by all parties. I wanted to signal on my behalf, Senator Carper's behalf, and on behalf of the National Governors Association, the National Conference of Mayors, and the National Association of Counties, that we believe it is very important to do no harm to State and local government. If we want to give a tax break to the telecommunications companies or to Internet companies, then we in Congress should pay for that and not send a bill to State and local governments. This avoids our having to do that because the moratorium carefully defines Internet access to mean States are free to continue to make their own decisions. This doesn't mean States should attempt to tax the Internet; it means States may, if they choose, impose a sales tax on Internet services, just as States may impose a tax on food, or on medicine, or on gasoline, or may impose a tax on income. That is the job of State and local government. That is not the job of the Congress. I am glad to join with Senators Carper, Feinstein, Voinovich, and Enzi in introducing the Internet Tax Freedom Extension Act of 2007. I am glad to extend a commonsense moratorium on State and local taxation of Internet access, and I look forward to passage of that legislation before long.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. If there are no other comments regarding Senator Dodd, I would like to talk about immigration.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I think I am next in order, but I see some of Senator Dodd's colleagues, and if they want to speak to Senator Dodd, I would be happy to defer.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I am glad I have had an opportunity to hear this and will only say, to make certain the same sentiment is expressed from this side of the aisle--I knew Senator Dodd's father. I didn't know him well or personally, but I knew him because I was Senator Howard Baker's legislative assistant at a time when Senator Dodd served here. I admired him. I respected him. More importantly, I remember the respect Senator Baker and others had for him and for his long and distinguished career. My own father would be 100 years old this year, so I understand the enormous pride this Senator Dodd has for his father, Senator Dodd. Senator Durbin and Senator Conrad and others said this as well: The father would be proud of the son. I had the privilege of serving as sometimes the chairman, sometimes the ranking member, of committees with Senator Chris Dodd. It is a tremendous pleasure to see how he cares, especially for children and families in the workplace and contributions he has made here. This is a day for a tribute to the father and a day that we are sure his father would have great pride in his own son.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I thank the Chair. (The remarks of Mr. Alexander pertaining to the introduction of S. 1393 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, Senators from both parties are working very hard these days to put together an immigration bill. The majority leader is working hard to create an environment in which that can happen, and I appreciate his doing that. It is not easy to do. But it is absolutely essential that we have a comprehensive immigration bill. This is not something Members of the Congress can blame on anybody else. It is not the Governors' job, it is not the mayors' job, it is not the county commissioners' job, it is not the Sheriff's job, it is our job to decide what our immigration policy should be. It is our job to secure the border. It is our job to make certain that those who come here are legally here. It is also our job to make sure that those who come here legally have an opportunity to become Americans, a chance to become part of our country. We have a motto above our wall that says, ``One from many.'' It doesn't say ``Many from one.'' We are very proud of our magnificent diversity in this country. People come here from virtually every country in the world. Anyone who has gone to the naturalization ceremonies can attest, where last year 650,000 new citizens stood in courthouses all across America, raised their right hands and swore their allegiance to this country--nothing is more moving than that. But as much as we prize that diversity, what we prize even more is our ability to turn all that diversity into one country. Unity is harder than diversity. There are a lot of diverse countries in the world, and they are ripped apart by their differences. We have been fortunate. As other countries struggle with the idea of becoming French, becoming German, becoming Japanese--it is hard to do. But in this country, if you become a citizen, you have to become an American. How do you do that? You don't do it by your race. In fact, our Constitution says that race cannot be used. You don't do it by any other form of ancestry. It doesn't matter where your grandparents came from. What does matter is that you subscribe to a few principles and that you learn a common language. Those are the most basic elements of the unity, this fragile and important unity that makes us the United States of America instead of just another United Nations. In anticipation of the immigration debate next week, I introduce today, along with Senators Cochran and Cornyn, what we call the Strengthening American Citizenship Act. It is an essential part of any immigration bill because it addresses what happens after one lawfully becomes a resident of this country and begins to think about lawfully becoming a citizen. This legislation will help legal immigrants who are prospective American citizens learn our common language and learn about our ways of government. I introduced this legislation last year, in the 109th Congress, when we considered an immigration bill. It had several cosponsors and it passed this body 91 to 1. It was an amendment to the Senate immigration bill, in April of 2006. I hope the Senate will agree again to make it a part of the bill. It might not make the most headlines, but it will make as much lasting difference in immigration legislation as possible. Here, in brief, is what the legislation would do. First, it would help prospective citizens learn English and it would do that in two ways. It would provide education grants of up to $500 for English courses for immigrants who declare their intent to become American citizens. They might use these grants of $500, for example, to go to any accredited agency such as ``Fuentes,'' in Los Angeles, a place I happen to know about, which can do, for that amount of money, an excellent job of helping, in that case mostly Spanish-speaking citizens, learn also to speak English. So it is a $500 voucher, in effect, to help any lawful person learn English. Second, it will change the citizenship rules to allow those who learn to speak English fluently to reduce from 5 to 4 years the amount of time they have to wait to become a citizen. These are two ways we are trying to help people learn English and by doing that value our common language. There are other ways to do that. Senator Kennedy and I have talked about the fact that there are lines of people in Boston, his State, and Nashville, in my State, of adults who want to learn English, but there is no room for them in the adult education programs we fund. Perhaps when we pass the Workforce Investment Act, or other appropriations bills, we can find other ways to help people who want to learn English, learn English. But this legislation focuses specifically on prospective citizens who want to learn English by giving them a grant to help them do it and by giving them an incentive to learn the language fluently. They can become a citizen then in 4 years instead of 5. Also, it helps prospective citizens learn more about the American way of life. Albert Shanker, the late President of the American Federation of Teachers, said the common school was created in America, the public school, to help largely immigrant children learn reading and writing and arithmetic and what it means to be an American, with the hope they would go home and teach their parents. The last time we had such a large percentage of foreign-born people in our country was in about 1900, the turn of that century. Organizations all over America got busy helping new arrivals learn about our country, learn about our Declaration of Independence, learn about our Constitution and the ideas that were part of it because they knew that, since you do not become a citizen based upon your race or your ancestry and you do it upon the idea of America, that someone needed to help these people learn about the idea of America. Many were very eager to do that. The legislation I introduced today would establish a foundation to support the activities of the Office of Citizenship within the Department of Homeland Security so that organizations that want to support and cooperate in efforts to reach out to prospective citizens can do so. It would provide grants to organizations to provide classes in American history and civics. We are talking about a lot of prospective citizens--650,000 or so last year. After this immigration bill it may be more, because if you become a citizen, you are going to have to be legally here. So we want to make sure we have plenty of help for these who want to do that. Third, codify the oath of allegiance. One of the most remarkable oaths, I suppose, in the American language, is the oath of allegiance that the 650,000 new citizens take when they become Americans. It is an oath that goes all the way back to George Washington's time and Valley Forge. It was essentially the oath that Washington and his officers took at the beginning of the American revolution. It says that I, George Washington, or I, the new citizen, declare that we owe no allegiance or obedience--in that case, to King George; . . . and that we renounce, refuse and abjure any allegiance or obedience to him and do swear that I will, to the utmost of my power, support, maintain and defend the said United States. Essentially, that same oath of allegiance is the oath new citizens take. This elevates that oath of allegiance from a bureaucratic rule to a part of the law and gives it the same dignity that the Pledge of Allegiance has and the national anthem has. Finally, this legislation would celebrate new citizens by focusing on these hundreds of ceremonies that we have, in which people from all over the world wear their best clothes, prove that they have good character, that they have waited 5 years, that they have learned English, that they have passed a test about citizenship, and they are ready to say: As proud as I am of where I came from, I now pledge my allegiance to the United States of America. We want to celebrate those events. This instructs the Secretary of Homeland Security to develop and implement a strategy to make those naturalization ceremonies more important in the fabric of our everyday life, and establish an award for citizens who have been naturalized in the last 10 years who have made an outstanding contribution to the American Nation. We all know in our own experiences that new Americans are sometimes the best Americans. They make the largest contribution. They have the best understanding of our country. We want to celebrate what they have done. This is legislation the Senate adopted before. Senator Cochran, Senator Cornyn, and I are introducing it to make sure we adopt it again when immigration comes up. I also wish to mention that I intend on looking at a comprehensive effort toward the same goal, which I like to call the American citizenship agenda; learning English and what it means to becoming an American. I have identified several areas, and I may introduce amendments in many of these areas to the immigration bill. These were not introduced the last time, but they would include clarifying the mission of the Office of Citizenship within the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service, establishing State citizenship advisory boards in a number of States, coordinating efforts toward helping immigrants learning English, American history, and civics. It would create an employer tax credit for businesses that help their employees learn English. As I mentioned earlier, at the beginning of the 20th century, there were a great many businesses hiring new Americans who spent their money, their time, and their effort to make sure those new employees understood what it meant to become Americans. One way to meet this need of a large percentage of foreign-born people in our country is to provide tax incentives to businesses that help their employees learn English. Another proposal is to require a demonstration of English language proficiency when an individual renews his or her green card; establishing a Presidential award for companies that go above and beyond in bringing their employees together as Americans; finally, asking for a Government Accountability Office study to identify the need of lawful permanent residents not speaking English and the associated costs; in other words, how many people living in our country do not speak English and what would be the cost and the most effective programs of helping them learn English. That is my purpose today, to introduce the Strengthening American Citizenship Act, legislation that passed when we considered the immigration bill in 2006, and which Senators Cochran and Cornyn and I hope will be a part of this legislation; then to discuss what I call the Strengthening American Citizenship Agenda, which will be looking for a variety of other ways to help make sure we not only celebrate our diversity but we find ways to celebrate our unity. We can look across the ocean at Europe and see the struggle in Turkey right now for that nation's identity. We can see the difficulty France and Germany are having as Muslim workers have a hard time integrating into their country. We do not want the United States of America to become a country where we have enclaves of people who have no loyalty to the idea of this Nation. We want to create an environment where everyone has an opportunity to think about loyalty to this country, where almost all have a chance to think about becoming a citizen one day, and where every single person who lives here has an opportunity to learn to speak our common language, not just for their benefit but so we do not become a tower of Babel or a United Nations, that we become a United States of America, as our Founders envisioned.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Today, I am making that same suggestion again, and I am going one step further. The Senator from Colorado and I are offering to our colleagues on both sides of the aisle--and to our country--a way to go forward on a bipartisan basis. I was surprised and disappointed that the President didn't take advantage of this opportunity during his State of the Union Address in January. He knew then that a majority of Americans didn't support his strategy. Fewer do today. He knew then his strategy cannot be long sustained without that support. That is still true today. The President could have invited the distinguished members of the Iraq Study Group to sit in the gallery during his speech and, as Presidents often do, introduced them, 10 of America's most distinguished citizens from the Reagan, Carter, and George H.W. Bush administrations, and the U.S. Supreme Court. One of these is now the Secretary of Defense. They are ideologically and politically diverse. They spent nine months, met nine times, went to Baghdad, interviewed 171 individuals, and made 79 recommendations. They are all in this book. They didn't shy away from the unpleasant facts. They told us 79 percent of Iraqis have a mostly negative view of U.S. involvement in their country. Then they said 2,900 American lives were lost, and another 21,000 wounded; $400 billion was spent, with estimates as high as $2 trillion for the final cost. They said this is not a perfect option, but it is the best option. The President could have said in January: This isn't my recommendation, it is theirs, and I accept it for the good of our country, and I ask the American people to accept it. That is not Presidential weakness, that is Presidential leadership. The President's job is not only to see urgent issues and lay out a strategy. It is the rest of his job--at least for a sustained military strategy--to persuade half of the people he is right. It is not too late. The President has the option before him today, and we are trying to make it easier for him. What we are respectfully saying in our legislation is, if the President should choose to develop a way forward based upon the Iraq Study Group's recommendations, we will support that plan and we will encourage our colleagues and our country to do so on a bipartisan basis, so that Iraq, the Middle East, our troops, and the world will know that in the United States we are unified in our purpose. Such a plan will not satisfy everybody. It will not pull out our troops tomorrow. It will not get us out of the combat business immediately. It won't add 100,000 or 200,000, or 300,000 troops for ``victory'' in Iraq. It will get us out of the combat business in Iraq and into the support, training, and equipping business, in a prompt and honorable way. It will reduce the number of forces in Iraq. Because there will still be a significant but limited military presence in Iraq, it will signal to the rest of the Middle East to stay out of Iraq. It will give support to General Petraeus and his troops, who are in the midst of a surge. It will expand diplomatic efforts to build support for Iraq national reconciliation and sovereignty. It will recognize, as Prime Minister Blair said, it is time for the next chapter of Iraq's history to be written largely by the Iraqis themselves. As a Republican Senator, my message with respect to the President is that I hope he and the White House seriously consider this. We are not introducing this bill today. It will be introduced in 2 or 3 weeks. Then, we hope other Senators will support it. I hope the President will embrace it. There is plenty within this report that gives him the opportunity to continue our mission in Iraq. The difference is that this is not the President's report, and that is its advantage. It has a better chance of success, in terms of developing bipartisan support here and in our country. Finally, there are some issues that are simply too big for one party to solve. Iraq is, as the Senator from Colorado has said, the foremost among these. Here we are, the oldest democracy, lecturing Baghdad, an infant democracy, for not coming up with a political solution, when we ourselves cannot come up with one. Until we do come up with one, we should spend less time lecturing Baghdad and more time working together to fashion a way forward on the foremost issue facing our country. Coming together in support of the plan based upon the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group offers that best opportunity. We invite our colleagues to join us. Exhibit 1 President Bush Should Take the Iraq Study Group Report Down Off the Shelf My purpose today is to say that it is time for President Bush to take the Iraq Study Group report down off the shelf and use it for something other than a bookend. There is a reason why we don't have 535 commanders-in-chief or 100 commanding generals each saying charge down this street or over that hill. The founders of our country made the President Commander- in-Chief and gave to Congress the power to declare war and to pay for it. That is why I will vote against any of the resolutions that seek to micromanage this war. Once a war is authorized, as this one was by a bi-partisan vote of 77-23 in 2002, it is the president's job to manage the war. As an example of why we don't need 535 Members of Congress micromanaging this war, consider this: since last January, the new Democratic majority has offered 17 different bills and resolutions outlining what to do in Iraq. Undoubtedly there will be more in the coming weeks. And I am not about to cut off funds for General Petraeus' troops in the middle of the current military exercise, which congress clearly does have the power to do but should not do. I do have the responsibility as a United States Senator, to say what I believe is the right way forward for our country in Iraq, and my belief is this: the President would be wise to take down off the shelf the recommendations of the bipartisan Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group, to develop a strategy based upon those recommendations, and to ask Americans to accept that strategy as the way forward in Iraq. The President would have been wise to do this in January during his State of the Union address. The country was then looking for a new way forward in Iraq. The Iraq Study Group, after nine months of careful, bipartisan work, offered such a plan. Instead, the day after the report was announced in December, some who wanted another 100,000 or 200,000 troops to ``win the war'' said the report was a ``recipe for defeat.'' On the other side, those who wanted the U.S. out of Iraq immediately dismissed the report as more of the same. So the report was put on the shelf. Not much was heard about it. That is, until lately. Lately, the President's national security adviser has cited the Baker-Hamilton report as authority for the surge of troops in Baghdad which, in fact, on page 73, the report did say might be necessary. Over the weekend, the United States participated in meetings with Syria and Iran, perhaps the most controversial recommendation in the report. Now, the timetable and strategy for reducing U.S. combat strength in Iraq contained in the newest Democratic senate resolution sounds very much like the Iraq Study Group report, calling for combat troops to be largely withdrawn from Iraq by March of next year. But the Iraq Study Group specifically opposed setting timetables or deadlines for withdrawal, noting that its recommendation should be ``subject to unexpected developments on the ground.'' At the same time, like one of the Republican-sponsored resolutions, the Iraq Study Group recommended that the U.S. work closely with Iraq's leaders to support the achievement of specific ``milestones'' on national reconciliation, security, and governance. In short, if there is any bipartisan consensus emerging about how the United States should go forward in Iraq, the best blueprint of that consensus can be found in the Iraq Study Group report. The membership and process of the Iraq Study Group is as important as the substance of what it said. It included 10 of America's most distinguished citizens from the Reagan and Carter and George H.W. Bush administrations, from the Congress and from the Supreme Court. One of its former members is now the Secretary of Defense. On its face, it was ideologically as well as politically diverse. The group spent nine months, met nine times, including a trip to Baghdad, and interviewed 171 individuals in the U.S. and in Iraq. Its report is comprehensive, with 79 specific recommendations. Its assessment of the ``dire'' current conditions in Iraq is honest and sobering. It did not shy away from reporting unpleasant facts--that 79 percent of Iraqis have a mostly negative view of the influence that the United States has in their country, that 2,900 (at that time) Americans had lost their lives and another 21,000 wounded, that we have spent roughly $400 billion on the Iraq war and that estimates run as high as $2 trillion for the final cost. The group acknowledged that its recommendations were not perfect options but seemed to be the best options. As much as America needs a new strategy in Iraq, we also need a consensus in support of that strategy. To put it bluntly, a majority of the American people do not now have confidence in the President's course in Iraq. The Iraq Study Group offered the President an opportunity to say, ``Okay, here is a different approach suggested by a bipartisan group of distinguished Americans. It is not my strategy. It is theirs. I accept it and, for the good of our country and the armed forces fighting for us, I ask you to accept it.'' Such a statement would not exhibit presidential weakness. This would be presidential leadership--recognizing that the president's job is not only to choose the right strategy but to successfully persuade at least half the people he is right. The president still has this option before him. He would be wise to exercise it today--this week. Come back to Congress. Report on the last few weeks' progress in Iraq. Invite the Iraq Study Group members to sit in the gallery. Compliment their work. Accept their recommendations. Ask the Congress and the country also to accept their recommendations. This course will not satisfy those who want 100,000 more troops for victory in Iraq. Neither will it satisfy those who want all troops out on a specific timetable. But it will get U.S. troops quickly out of the combat business in Iraq, and into the support business. It will reduce the number of American forces in Iraq over the next year. It will leave American special forces in Iraq to go after al Qaeda and troops to help guard the borders. Because there will still be a limited U.S. military presence, it will send a signal to the rest of the Middle East to stay out of Iraq. It will give support to General Petraeus and his troops who are in the midst of a surge to make Baghdad safer. It will expand diplomatic efforts to build support for Iraqi national reconciliation and sovereignty, including with Iraq's neighbors. And it will begin to recognize that America has done most of what it can do to help Iraq. As Prime Minister Blair has said, it is time for the next chapters in Iraq's history to be written by the Iraqis themselves. Finally, this course will recognize that while the United States can and should be a shining example of democracy and does have the mightiest military force in the world, that a conservative view of human nature and our own national interest places limits on what we can do to make it possible for others to adopt our democracy and our way of life.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I salute the Senator from Colorado for his leadership, initiative, and patriotism, and the way he is approaching the foremost issue facing our country: Where do we go from here in Iraq? There is too much partisan game playing on the issue of Iraq. We owe it to our country and our troops to find a bipartisan consensus to support where we go from here. We need a political solution in Washington, DC, as much as we need one in Baghdad. We need to get out of the combat business in Iraq and into the support, training, and equipment business as soon as we honorably can. That is why Senator Salazar and I have drafted legislation to implement the recommendations of the bipartisan Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group. As the Senator said, we will introduce our legislation after Congress and the President have worked out the Iraq supplemental appropriations bill. We invite our colleagues--both Democrats and Republicans--to join us. We believe the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group offer the best opportunity for a bipartisan consensus on a new course in Iraq. In fact, these recommendations seem to already be guiding the President's efforts and the efforts of those on the other side who were calling for change. For example, the administration has begun to act on these recommendations by increasing the number of troops embedded with Iraqi forces, using milestones to help chart progress, and by meeting with Iraq's neighbors, including Iran and Syria. The President's national security adviser has pointed to the Baker-Hamilton report as authority for the surge of troops in Baghdad. Just last week, the President himself told the Associated General Contractors of America at their convention that he liked what Baker and Hamilton had to say. ``It is something we should seriously consider. Their idea was that, at some point in time, it makes sense to have a U.S. presence configured this way,'' the President said. ``It is an interesting idea.'' At the same time, Democratic proposals in Congress have also been guided by the ISG report, for example, working on milestones for improvement in Iraq, limiting the role of the United States to one of training, equipping, and counterterrorism operations, and stating as a goal a drawdown of combat forces by March of next year. In short, the seeds of bipartisan consensus about how the United States should go forward in Iraq are best found in the Iraq Study Group report. Former Secretary of State Jim Baker and former Congressman Lee Hamilton prefaced their report by saying this: Success depends on the unity of the American people in a time of political polarization. Americans can and must enjoy the right of robust debate within a democracy. Yet, U.S. foreign policy is doomed to failure--as is any course of action in Iraq--if not supported by a broad, sustained consensus. The aim of our report is to move our country toward such a consensus. Yesterday and today, I talked with Secretary Baker and Congressman Hamilton. Each said the Salazar-Alexander legislation accurately reflects the recommendations of their report. I have learned that sometimes a Senator has to say something two or three or more times on the Senate floor before anybody pays much attention. For example, on March 14, I said that it was time for the President to take the Iraq Study Group report down off the shelf and use it for something other than a bookend. I ask unanimous consent to have my statement of that date printed in the Record at the end of my remarks.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, at the end of March, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued the Salvation Army for allegedly discriminating against two of the Salvation Army's employees in a Boston-area thrift store by requiring them to speak English on the job. This lawsuit means that every business in America, from the shoe shop to Wal-Mart, will need to hire lawyers to prove it has a legitimate business purpose if that business wants to require employees to speak our national language while at work. I asked the chair of the EEOC in what language she holds staff meetings. She said, in English. We conduct Senate debates in English. Since 1906, no immigrant has been able to become an American citizen without first learning English. At Hillsboro High School in Nashville, where my daughter graduated, students speak 28 native languages, but classes are conducted in English. Federal law requires that all children in public schools be tested in English, and that if they do not know English, they must learn it as soon as possible. Over the last 40 years, I have voted for or supported, I believe, almost every civil rights or anti-discrimination law that has been offered. But in America, requiring English in the workplace is not discrimination; it is common sense. More important, it is our common language. Our common language helps unite the diversity in this Nation of immigrants. That is why, during the debate on immigration a year ago, the Senate adopted my proposals: First, to provide $500 grants to help prospective citizens learn basic English; second, to allow someone who becomes fluent in English to become a citizen after 4 years instead of 5. The Senate also declared English to be America's national language and provided that anyone illegally here must first learn English before gaining legal status. A few Senators said we were wasting our time debating national unity and language. But other nations are discovering just how important and difficult it is to unite one's country. Look at how today Turkey is struggling with whether to become more secular or more Muslim, struggling with what to do about its Kurdish minority. Germans are struggling to absorb Turkish workers. Italians are establishing agencies to help new Muslim residents ``feel Italian.'' Three alienated British citizens, children of Pakistani immigrants, blew up a London subway 2 years ago. The children of disaffected Muslim immigrants in France burned cars during that country's elections this weekend, a small echo of much larger riots 2 years ago. We Americans are rightly proud of our diversity. But Iraq and Jerusalem and the Balkans are also diverse. America's greatest accomplishment is not our magnificent diversity. Our greatest accomplishment is that we have united that diversity into one country. Our original national motto inscribed in the wall right above the Presiding Officer's chair is ``One from Many,'' not ``Many from One.'' Most nations unite around ancestry or race, making it hard for newcomers. Imagine ``becoming Japanese'' or ``becoming German.'' In other words, the United States Constitution says race or ancestry can have nothing to do with someone becoming an American. Instead, American unity is based upon ideas, principles found in our founding documents-- such as liberty, equal opportunity, and the rule of law. New citizens must, therefore, pass an exam, which was recently improved, about the Declaration of Independence, our Constitution, and United States history. The first Europeans in America were French and Spanish, but our cultural beginnings and primary institutions and laws were Protestant and English. So English became the way Americans of many backgrounds communicated with one another. In the 20th century, according to the late president of the American Federation of Teachers, Albert Shanker, American common--or public-- schools were created primarily to help immigrant children learn arithmetic and to read and write in English with the hope that they would go home and teach their parents. Then, in 1906, all new citizens were required to know English. That has turned out to be a fortunate choice. English has also become a unifying language internationally. For example, every Chinese student is expected to study English. When Carlos Ghosn, who speaks several languages, became chief executive officer of Nissan, he began conducting business meetings in Nissan's Tokyo headquarters in English. The most fortunate children in our country are those who grow up learning more than one language, but American parents know that one of those must be English. Mastering English is how an American succeeds in school, in the workplace, on the computer, and in international affairs. A century ago, many American companies and private associations led an effort to Americanize new immigrants. They taught their employees English and the National Anthem. Today, the EEOC is suing the Salvation Army for doing the very same thing, insisting that its employees learn and speak this country's common language. According to an article that appeared today in USA Today: The number of charges filed with the Federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) alleging discrimination based on such English-only policies is . . . six times as large as 10 years ago, [growing] from 32 charges in 1996 to about 200 in 2006. This is not only an astonishing waste of the EEOC's time and taxpayers' money--the EEOC has a backlog of 56,000 cases--but it is also contrary to everything we know about the importance of achieving unity in our country. Speaking English is not a punitive requirement; it is a requirement to help us communicate with one another. A 9-1-1 telephone call isn't of much help to a Chinese-speaking person if the employee answering the phone speaks only Spanish. In this case, the Salvation Army posted its requirements that employees in thrift stores speak English. The two employees in question had worked for the Salvation Army for 5 years. They were then given an extra year to learn English. When they didn't, they were let go. I intend to introduce legislation to put an end to these lawsuits by making it clear that requiring employees to speak English is not illegal discrimination as long as the policy is clearly posted. More than that, I can think of nothing that would be more in our national interest than helping anyone in our country learn our common language. That is why later this month, when the immigration legislation comes to the floor, I will introduce again my amendment that the Senate adopted last year giving every adult immigrant a $500 voucher to receive English instruction and allowing those immigrants who want to become citizens to do that in 4 years instead of 5 if they become proficient--rather than just achieve a basic level--in English. Senator Kennedy and I have discussed the fact that there are too many adults eager to learn English standing in line in Boston and Nashville for adult learning programs. They need help learning English, and I hope we can rectify that soon. For 10 years I have suggested, most recently to Bill Gates at a hearing, that I would like to see established a private foundation that would loan $500 to any person living in this country who wants to spend it at an accredited institution learning English, with the hope that someday that student would pay it back. The payoff to American unity would be worth the cost by itself. But I believe such a bank would eventually grow to a huge size funded by grateful new Americans. Without our common language we would be a giant Tower of Babel. It would be difficult for Americans to talk with one another, to debate political issues, and to vote. It would be harder to function as a democracy and to unite as one country. Without English, we would risk becoming just another United Nations instead of the United States of America. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the article from the USA Today to which I made reference.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 10 minutes as in morning business.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I ask the managers through the Chair--I have about a 10-minute speech on another subject I would like to make at an appropriate time. I don't want to interfere with the progress of the bill. I ask the Chair whether now would be an appropriate time or whether they would like me to wait.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, first I would like to congratulate Senator Dodd and others who over the past 10 years have developed this piece of legislation. It has been remarkably effective. I think it is important as we talk about this that we remind ourselves what we are saying. What we are saying is, we live in this country with all of these wonderful pharmaceutical drugs for adults, but in many cases, before this legislation had been enacted, doctors were flying blind. They were guessing about the effect of these drugs on children. That sometimes had very unfortunate results. I know that in my home State of Tennessee a drug for whooping cough was given to a number of children. There had been a clinical trial for the effect it would have on adults but not on children. And the children were so seriously harmed by the drug that the Centers for Disease Control later found that the drug was the reason they needed stomach surgery. So it is remarkable that 10 years ago Senator Dodd and others-- Senator DeWine, Senator Hatch, and many others who have been mentioned--came up with the idea that if we strike this balance that Senator Dodd has referred to several times and give the companies that make the drugs a little more time, 6 months with their patent, that they in return would then conduct trials on these drugs on how they affect children. No one knew at that time exactly what would happen. They were guessing. This is long before I came to the Senate. But they guessed well. As a result, as has been said, about one-third of the drugs that are given to children now have had testing and trials for use in children. Now doctors, when we bring our babies and grandbabies in, have a better idea of what they are doing. They are guessing less. It is better for the children. In my family we have two new grandchildren under the age of 2. Senator Dodd, being younger than I am, has two children who are young like that. Maybe he has heard what I have heard. My mother used to say to me when I would go to the babies and they were happy, she would say: ``Son, don't try to make a happy baby happier.'' In effect, what she was saying is, leave it alone if it is happy. Well, this is a happy piece of legislation for which Senator Dodd and others should have a lot of credit. My suggestion would be let's not try to make a happy piece of legislation happier. It is happy because one-third of medicines are being studied, and doctors know more about what they are giving to their patients who are children. What the Allard amendment would do is keep the law the way it is. It is the bill that is on the Senate floor that would change things. I understand this is an estimate, but I listened to the testimony. The Senator from Connecticut suggested we are all racing here at the last minute and changing it. Wait a minute. We had a hearing on this some time ago. It was a terrific hearing. I was there. We heard various points of view, a lot of celebration about the effect of this act over the last 10 years. The only reason I was not a cosponsor of this legislation was because I wanted to hear the testimony about what the effect would be of changing this law that is a happy law that has worked so well for so long. As a result, it created the situation where a third of the children have drugs that doctors know more about. After listening to all the testimony, if I were going to change the law, I would make the incentive 7 months or 8 months or 9 months. Why would I do that? The reason is, at the hearing it was said that while a third of the drugs that are administered to children have had been tested for use in children, probably we need two-thirds of the drugs that are ready for adults to have that sort of testing. In other words, we are about halfway where we want to go if we want to have drugs that are tested to see what their effect will be on children. So my question was, if giving 6 months' incentive has gotten us halfway where we want to go, then maybe to get all the way where we want to go, we should go to a 7 months' or 8 months' incentive. But my feeling at the end of the hearing was, well, the existing law has worked well by providing an incentive of 6 months. Let's leave it like it is. The end result of the legislation that is on the floor is not to leave it like it is but to change it, to reduce it from 6 months to 3 months, which is exactly backwards. What the effect of this reduction will be is to reduce the opportunities for tests of drugs for children, which would fail to move us along toward the goal of having two-thirds of drugs studied for use in children. I applaud Senator Dodd. I give him great credit for this. When he retires from the Senate in another 30 years, this will be one great feather in his cap, as well as for Senator Clinton and others who have worked on this. But I would go back to what my mother said: ``Don't try to make a happy baby happy.'' Let's not try to make a happy piece of legislation happy. Let's leave it the way it is. It has worked for 10 years. Let's let it work for another 5 years the way it is. Adopting the Allard amendment would keep it the way it is. I have one suggestion for Senators Kennedy and Enzi, if I may. Maybe they would want to consider it as part of the managers' amendment. We heard testimony at our hearing that perhaps our goal should be someday to get two-thirds or three-fourths of the drugs that are for adults studied for use in children. Today it is one-third. I think it would be useful for us at a future time to know exactly what our goal ought to be. Maybe it ought to be 90 percent. Maybe it ought to be 50 percent. But I wanted to suggest to the Senator from Massachusetts and the Senator from Connecticut that we might want to include in this legislation asking the FDA or the appropriate agency to study what percent of drugs approved for adults should also be tested for children, what is that proper goal, so that the next time this issue comes up we have some informed judgment about it. A quick review of the medical literature shows there hasn't been any such study. I could be corrected if there has been. If there hasn't been, I suggest we make that a part of the legislation. I make that simply by suggestion, not amendment. I intend to vote for the Allard amendment, and I have stated the reasons why. If we have a happy piece of legislation, let's keep it happy. That will do it. I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, last week, while the media covered Iraq and U.S. attorneys, the Senate spent 3 days debating and passing perhaps the most important piece of legislation of this 2-year session. Almost no one noticed. The America COMPETES Act, which was the name of the legislation, authorized $60 billion over 4 years to, among other things, double spending for physical sciences research, recruit 10,000 new math and science teachers, and retrain 250,000 more, provide grants to researchers, and invest more in high-risk, high-payoff research. These were recommendations of a National Academy of Sciences task force that had been asked to tell Congress--to tell us--exactly what we needed to do to help America keep its brainpower advantage so we can keep our jobs from going to China and India. Last year, the Senate--but not the House--enacted task force recommendations to encourage ``insourcing brainpower'' by giving legal residency to skilled foreign students and researchers. Both Houses extended the research and development tax credit. The process for this legislation was as exemplary as the substance. Senators and their staffs worked across party lines for 2 years. Senior committee members, chairmen and ranking members, waived jurisdictional prerogatives. The administration participated in extensive homework sessions with Senators and outside experts. The effort was so bipartisan that when the Senate shifted to the Democrats in January, the new majority leader and minority leader introduced the same bill their predecessors had in the last Congress. Seventy Senators cosponsored the legislation. Even though no cloture motion was filed, 9 amendments were voted upon, and 32 more amendments were addressed within 4 days. The final vote was 88 to 8. Anyone who knows the Senate knows that the final margin masks how difficult passage was. There were concerted efforts to derail the bill by those with different ideas about policy and about spending. Yet this success with competitiveness suggests three lessons for dealing with other issues that are simply too big to be solved by one party alone, such as immigration, to which the majority leader has indicated we will turn in May, such as health insurance, such as energy independence, such as terrorism, and such as Iraq. These are the three lessons as I see them: First, most ideas in the Senate fail for lack of the idea. The first step in our success was when Senator Jeff Bingaman and I asked the National Academy of Sciences the following question more than 2 years ago: What are the top 10 actions, in priority order, that Federal policymakers can take to enhance the science and technology enterprise so that the United States can successfully compete, prosper and be secure in the global community of the 21st century? The Academy's 21-member task force, headed by former Lockheed Martin chairman and CEO Norm Augustine and including 3 Nobel laureates, gave up their summer, reviewed hundreds of proposals, and presented us with 20 specific recommendations in response to our question. These 20 recommendations, along with the work of the Council on Competitiveness and the President's ideas, gave us something to work with other than pet projects of various Members of Congress. The second lesson is that bipartisanship is possible, even on complex issues. From the framing of the question to the introduction of the final legislation by the majority and minority leader, every effort was bipartisan. When Senator Domenici, for example, went to see President Bush, he invited Senator Bingaman, a Democrat, to go, as well as me, a Republican. Staffs worked so closely together that no one could say whether it was a Republican bill or a Democratic bill. Third, and finally, the last lesson is that, unfortunately, bipartisan success, even on the biggest, most complex issues, has an excellent chance of remaining a secret. Despite the size of the accomplishment, the passage of the 208-page America COMPETES Act was barely noticed by the major media. This is not a complaint, merely an observation. More than ever, the media, outside interest groups, and party structures reward conflict and the taking of irreconcilable positions. There is little reward for reconciling principled positions into legislation. Here is another example: The work of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group was consigned almost immediately to the shelf as a bookend. Somewhere, there is a letter to President Bush from 10 Senators, 5 from each party, offering to work together with him to help every American have affordable health insurance. Although there is not much attention paid to this kind of legislative activity, I am convinced the American people and most Senators are hungry for it. I believe the last election was as much about the conduct of business in Washington, DC, as it was about the conduct of the war in Iraq. Americans are tired of what they perceive as Senators playing petty, kindergarten, partisan games while there are big issues that cannot be solved by one party alone. Americans know we need a political solution to Iraq in Washington, DC, as much as we need one in Baghdad. The irony is that last week's culmination of 2 years of work on the America COMPETES Act demonstrates that the Senate is capable of tackling big, complex issues in a bipartisan way, but that we will have to look beyond the influences of the media, special interest groups, and the political party apparatus for encouragement to do it. Virtue, as ever, will be its own reward. Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, if you would let me know when 3 minutes remain. I am trying to respect Senator Sununu's amendment, because he is a very careful student of these matters, and I am looking at the authorization bill, and I want to ask the Senator a few questions in a moment, if I may, and I will do it on my time. I am looking at the authorization bills for fiscal years 2003, 2004, and 2005, which is the current authorization bill. In each of those years--the authorization bill--there is a number for specific authorized allocations for, first, research; next, for education and human resources, which is the area the Senator is objecting to; next, a specific authorized allocation for research equipment; next, for salaries; and next, for the Office of Inspector General. Then we go to 2004 and it is the same there. In each year, there is a specific authorized allocation for each area; one for research, one for education, and one for each of the others. The difference in this proposed authorization is that for education it says the number. The allocation for education shall go up as much as the specific authorization for research. Would the Senator be more comfortable--and this is my question, through the Chair, if I may ask this--would the Senator be more comfortable if there were specific number allocations which are enacted now for future years? In other words, if we turn the percentages or the suggestion that it ought to go up the same amount and say, instead of that, we will take a number and insert it in there for each of those years? Because that is exactly the way it is done in the current bill.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, let me say to Senator Bingaman, I greatly appreciate working with him. I do not believe there will be a more important piece of legislation to come before Congress this year because it goes right to the heart of something every American understands, which is, How do we keep our jobs? This is the way we do it. We keep our brainpower advantage. We keep our jobs in competition with China and India. There are other factors as well, but what we know is--and we have a broad consensus in the Senate--that most of our remarkable standard of living, a situation where we have 30 percent of all the money in the world produced in this country for about 5 percent of the people, comes from our brainpower advantage, kindergarten through the twelfth grade, a wonderful higher education system, and our research institutes. That is the importance of this legislation. The second thing about the legislation is that, to a remarkable degree, we rely on the people we ought to rely on in giving the answer to the question, How do we keep our brainpower advantage? Senator Bingaman and I, with the encouragement and under the leadership of Senator Domenici, who last year was chairman of the Energy Committee, asked the National Academy of Sciences: Please tell us the 10 things we need to do in order to keep our brainpower advantage so we can keep our jobs. So they asked Norm Augustine, the former head of Lockheed Martin, to chair a distinguished group of about 21, and they gave up their summer 2 years ago. They included three Nobel laureates, the former head of MIT, and others of that caliber, and they gave us 20--in priority order--things to do. At about that same time, the Council on Competitiveness had finished its work. Senator Lieberman and Senator Ensign had introduced their bill. That legislation, which was the Domenici-Bingaman legislation, after a lot of work with the Bush administration, became the Frist-Reid bill toward the end of last year. Then, when we changed parties in the Senate, the very same bill became the Reid-McConnell bill. So we had worked closely together in a bipartisan way where we were able to overcome differences. I do not want the 88-to-8 vote to fool anybody. This was not that easy to do. This has been 2 years of work, with lots of different committees, many different ideas. But it has been a successful effort. As I said, briefly, just before the vote, it is a privilege always to be a Senator. It has especially been a privilege this week because the Senate is acting as the Senate should. We are dealing, first, with one of the biggest issues facing our country. Second, we are recognizing it is one of that handful of big issues that cannot be solved by one party alone. The Democrats could have charged up and down the hill all night long, and they could not have done it. The Republicans could have done the same, and we could not have done it. We could only have done it in the way we did it, and we did. There are other issues out there like that. I think of immigration, which the majority leader has said we will be moving to soon. There is the question of affordable health insurance for every American. There is the question of energy independence. I hope this is a model for how we can work together and avoid some of the petty bickering we sometimes fall into. I think the American people would appreciate that, and I hope they will appreciate this. I wish to thank especially the Senators whom Senator Bingaman talked about. He and his staff have been a delight to work with. Senator Domenici, of course, has been terrific to me as a junior member of his committee last year, allowing me to work on this. But when Senator Stevens and Senator Inouye and Senator Kennedy and Senator Enzi, basically, lent their prestige and sense of urgency to this legislation and stepped back and allowed it to proceed and participated rather than claim some jurisdictional advantage, that is what really helped. Senator Ensign made a tremendous difference within the Republican caucus, and Senator Hutchison and Senator Bond, and Senator Mikulski on that side. Senator Chambliss and others from the very beginning have worked on this issue. That is why we had 70 Senators on the Domenici- Bingaman bill last year--35 Republicans, 35 Democrats. And that is why we had 63 cosponsors of the Reid-McConnell bill. Finally, Senator Reid allowed this to come forward, and Senator McConnell worked with him in a way that permitted this environment. It is pretty remarkable. We have had nothing like this in the Senate this year. We had no cloture--not one bit of cloture. We had a very complicated bill. We dealt with 40 amendments, and we got it all done within a week--on one of the most important pieces of legislation. That is a significant achievement. We should not forget the role Senator Frist played last year in helping to move things along. So I thank my colleagues for the privilege of being a part of it. Senator Bingaman read the names, I believe, of all of the Democratic staff and Republican staff. I do not think he left anyone out. I want to especially, therefore, say--I hope this is appropriate to do--to Jonathan Epstein and Senator Bingaman's staff how much we appreciate all of them. They really have been indispensable to this effort. I also thank Matt Sonnesyn, who has been our lead. He has been indispensable, as well, and David Cleary; and Kathryn Clay on Senator Domenici's staff, who has been crucial to the effort. The staff have spent hundreds of hours, literally, in the last 2 years working carefully through the bill. I might say this, in conclusion--I know Senator Domenici has something to say--I took the legislation home over the weekend and reread it, all 208 pages. It is remarkably coherent, well written, and well organized. Maybe this process would be a good model for other legislation. The House of Representatives is already moving. Congressman Gordon and Congressman Boehlert joined Senator Bingaman and me in asking the National Academies for their recommendations 2 years ago. Those recommendations have been introduced in the House. It is my hope that after our legislation goes there, the House will act soon, and we will be able to send this legislation to the President. Senator Domenici took us to the White House last year to talk with the President about this issue. He secured the invitation, and it was not just a Republican Senator or another Republican Senator, it was a Republican senior Senator and a Democratic senior Senator meeting with the President. That is the way we worked on this issue. So we appreciate the President's attention and priority to this issue. It would not have happened without that, either. Thank you, Madam President.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I ask unanimous consent to add the following Senators as cosponsors of S. 761, the America COMPETES Act: Senators Snowe and Hatch.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, out of respect to our colleagues, I am going to defer my remarks until after the vote except to say--all of the thank-yous, except to say one thing: There are a number of issues before this body that are too big for one party to solve. This has been one of them. But after 2 years of work across party lines, we ended up with 63 cosponsors, 208 pages of legislation. We dealt with 40 amendments in the last 3 days without any cloture. I hope this sets an example for dealing with some of the other large issues we have that are too big for one party to solve. I thank my colleagues for working with us in this way. I will be more specific about those thanks to the leaders and the other Senators after the vote.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I thank the senior Senator from New Mexico for bringing this matter to our attention. I, too, recognize the significant contributions of the Department of Energy Office of Science to our Nation's commitment to basic research. It is the largest Federal funding source of basic research in the physical sciences. So it is, of course, extremely important that we get the funding right. I will also be pleased to work with my colleagues to make certain we provide optimal support for these programs.