Lamar Alexander

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. I thank the Senator from Washington. I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I congratulate the Senator from New Mexico. He has been working at this a long time. He helped originate the report by the National Academy of Sciences to which he referred, ``Rising Above the Gathering Storm.'' He has also performed a service to the Senate and the country by doing some of the hard, less glamourous work, because he has worked his way through the budget process and, in his words, we are making sure with this amendment that we have room in the budget to appropriate funds to support what I believe is the single most important legislation before the Congress this year; that is the America COMPETES Act which has been introduced by the Democratic leader, Senator Reid, and by the Republican leader, Senator McConnell. At one stage in its development over the last 2 years it had 70 Senators, an equal number of both parties, supporting it and has been vetted and worked on by at least a half dozen of our committees. I thank Senator Bingaman for his long-time leadership on this effort, especially for making sure there is room in the budget for it. On this side of the aisle, we talk a lot about progrowth policies and progrowth investments. We usually mean tax cuts when we talk about that. I learned a long time ago that while low taxes and balanced budgets are one important part of a progrowth strategy, they are not the only important part. When I was Governor of my State, the Senator from New Hampshire was Governor of his State. That is a low-tax State. It was nearly as low a tax State as Tennessee when we were both Governors. That was important. But we also found out in Tennessee that if we wanted an auto industry, we had to have good four-lane highways. If we wanted to grow new jobs, we wanted to have a good banking. That was part of a progrowth strategy. But more than anything else, the most important part of a progrowth strategy in my State was schools, colleges, and universities. We learned that better schools, colleges, and universities meant better jobs. So this legislation we are talking about is about America's brainpower advantage. It is the reason why we produce a third of all the money for about 5 percent of all the people in the world. It is because of the big ideas that have come out of our country. From the automobile, to the electric light bulb, to Google--they have been created here. The jobs are here and the standard of living is higher here. But the rest of the world has figured that out. They have the same brains we do, and suddenly China is recruiting the most distinguished Chinese professors from great American universities to come back to China to build up China. You heard what Senator Bingaman said about what is happening in India. We are talking about a little money for progrowth investments here. We would make room for $1 billion the President requested--that the President requested--to restore funding for basic scientific research in math and science education so we can keep our brainpower advantage. This is the real way to keep our good jobs from going to China and India and other countries in the world. It is important to keep that $1 billion over the next year in perspective. That is half what we spend in the war in Iraq in a week. We spent $237 billion on debt last year, $378 billion on Medicare, $545 billion on Social Security, at least $70 billion on hurricanes. We are going to be asked to pass a $100 billion supplemental request for the war in Iraq. We will not have enough money to pay all these important bills unless we keep enough money in the budget for the investments that keep our brainpower advantage so we can keep our jobs. That is where we get all that money. The Bingaman-Alexander amendment would help make room for the $1 billion requested by the President to fund basic research in math and science education. Specifically, one, it would restore $398 million for the National Science Foundation, bringing the total to $6.429 billion, as requested by the President. Two, it restores $610 million for the Department of Energy's Office of Science, bringing the total to $4.481 billion, which meets the President's request, and then adds $70 million extra for three programs that are part of the Reid-McConnell America COMPETES Act: Discovery institutes, PACE Graduate Fellows, and Distinguished Scientists. It adds $11 million for the National Institute of Standards and Technology, as authorized for next year by the Reid-McConnell legislation. The majority leader and the minority leader, in the midst of some contentious discussions in the Senate--which we have regularly--are rising above that and putting this piece of legislation into play. I know of no other piece of legislation that has that kind of bipartisan support that is that important to the future of our country. It is based on work Senator Bingaman, Senator Domenici, Senator Mikulski, Senator Ensign, Senator Lieberman, Senator Hutchison, and many others have been a part of. Senator Frist and Senator Reid put the bill in, in the first place, toward the end of last year. It began because Senator Bingaman and I and others walked down the street to the National Academy of Sciences and said: Please tell us exactly what we ought to do, in priority order, to keep our brainpower advantage. Give us 10 specific things to do. They gave us 20, in priority order. That was put together with other important work done by the Council on Competitiveness. Then here we are today with the ``Rising Above the Gathering Storm'' report and with the Council on Competitiveness' report. The bill, the America COMPETES Act, to which this amendment relates, authorizes $16 billion in new spending over 4 years. But this is a significant savings over the original legislation, the one that was sponsored by 70 Senators and reported by the committees. We took out $3 billion from the bills passed by Energy and Commerce. We avoided a number of duplicative undergraduate scholarship programs. We wanted progrowth investment, but we wanted to do it wisely and prudently. I wish to conclude my remarks with some of the provisions of the America COMPETES Act. I know the Senator from South Carolina is waiting to speak, and others will be speaking, too, so I will conclude my remarks quickly. But it includes such matters as doubling funding for the National Science Foundation. It will set the Department of Energy's Office of Science on track to double in funding over 10 years. It will strengthen the skills of thousands of math and science teachers, and others. As I said, provisions of the America COMPETES Act include double funding for the National Science Foundation, or NSF, from $5.6 billion in fiscal year 2006 to $11.2 billion in fiscal year 2011; setting the Department of Energy's Office of Science on track to double in funding over 10 years, increasing from $3.6 billion in fiscal year 2006 to over $5.2 billion in fiscal year 2011. Another provision is to strengthen the skills of thousands of math and science teachers by establishing training and education programs at summer institutes hosted at the National Laboratories and by increasing support for the Teacher Institutes for the 21st Century program at NSF. Another provision is to expand the Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program at NSF to recruit and train individuals to become math and science teachers in high-need schools. Another provision is to assist States in establishing or expanding statewide specialty schools in math and science that students from across the State would be eligible to attend--as they do now in North Carolina and other States. Another provision is to expand Advanced Placement, AP, and International Baccalaureate, IB, programs by increasing the number of teachers prepared to teach these math, science, and foreign language courses in high schools. This would allow thousands of new students to take these outstanding college preparatory classes. Another provision is to provide grants to universities to establish programs modeled on the successful UTeach program at the University of Texas--where students getting a bachelor's degree in math or science can concurrently earn teaching credentials and become the new generation of math and science teachers. Another provision is to create partnerships between National Laboratories and local high-need high schools to establish centers of excellence in math and science education. The challenge America faces today is really about brainpower and jobs. We Americans--who constitute just 5 percent of the world's population--produced about 30 percent of the world's wealth last year. Yet we worry that America may be losing its brainpower advantage. We see what is happening in China and India and other countries, too, such as Finland, Singapore, and Ireland. We face a new ``flat'' world where more and more countries can compete with us, and we must rise to the challenge. That is why we must fund this progrowth investment in our economy and create the best new jobs here instead of shipping them overseas. That is why I hope all my colleagues will join in supporting this amendment. One more point. We asked our National Academies what to do to keep our brainpower advantage. We worked 2 years through various committees and many changes to bring our legislation to this point. We still have some way to go, although a parallel path is being pursued in a bipartisan way in the House. I believe we will get there, and get there soon, with this kind of leadership. But we should realize President Hu of China walked over to the National Academy of Sciences in China last July, and they do things in a little different way. He announced to his joint academy meeting in the Great Hall of the People exactly what China's innovation effort would be over the next 10 years, how they are going to increase their percentage investment in the gross domestic product, how they are going to improve their universities and elementary and secondary schools, and exactly what they would do to recruit distinguished Chinese leaders to come back, because they know their brainpower advantage, to the extent they can develop and improve on it, is the most important aspect of creating good jobs and a higher standard of living here. So this legislation is a step in that direction for us. We have much more to do. We have the research and development tax credit to make permanent. We have provisions in the immigration legislation which have passed once, which I hope pass again, to in-source brainpower, to give a preference to people with high skills in science, technology, engineering, and math. Let them stay here, create jobs here instead of in other countries. We are going to continue to work on that. But Senator Bingaman has, by his leadership and persistence, come up with an amendment, which I join him in cosponsoring, which will make room for funding. We need to properly support the America COMPETES Act that Senator Reid and Senator McConnell have cosponsored, along with 40 of us right now. Hopefully, we will be keeping that brainpower advantage and, therefore, keeping our good jobs. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I urge a ``yes'' vote.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I thank the Senator from New Mexico. He is precisely correct. This is an amendment to help America keep its brain power managed so we can keep our good jobs. It is necessary to make room in the budget for the amount of money President Bush recommended in connection with legislation that Senator Reid and Senator McConnell have introduced.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Up to 15 minutes, please.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Will the Chair let me know when 2 minutes remain, please.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, my purpose today is to say I believe 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. But first let me say something about the resolution that we are about to consider. 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 the Commander in Chief and gave to Congress the power to declare war and pay for it. That is why I will vote against this resolution and any of the resolutions that seek to micromanage the war. Once a war is authorized, as this one was by a bipartisan vote of 77 to 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 the war, consider this: Since last January, the new Democratic majority has offered 17 different bills and resolutions outlining what we ought to do in Iraq, and there will be more coming in the next few weeks, I am sure. I am not about to cut off funds for General Petraeus's troops in the middle of the current military exercise, which clearly Congress has the power to do but should not do. I have--and each of us has--the responsibility as a 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 on those recommendations and to ask Americans to accept that strategy as the right way forward in Iraq. I believe the President would have been wise to do that 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 9 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 United States out of Iraq immediately dismissed the report as more of the same. So the report was put on the shelf. 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. The timetable and strategy for reducing our combat strength in Iraq contained in the new Democratic Senate resolution sounds very much like the Iraq Study Group, calling for combat troops to be largely withdrawn from Iraq by next March. 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 the United States work closely with Iraq's leaders to support the achievement of certain ``milestones.'' 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 report of the Iraq Study Group. The membership and process of the Iraq Study Group is as important as the substance of what it said. It included some of America's most distinguished citizens from the Reagan and Carter and the first Bush administrations, from the Congress, and the Supreme Court. One of its former members is today's Secretary of Defense. It was ideologically and politically diverse. The group spent 9 months, met 9 times, including a trip to Baghdad, interviewed 171 individuals, and made 79 specific recommendations. Its assessment of the ``dire'' current conditions in Iraq was honest and sober. It didn't shy away from bad news--that 79 percent of Iraqis have a mostly negative view of United States influence in their country; that 2,900 Americans at that time had been killed, with another 21,000 wounded; that we had spent roughly $400 billion, and that estimates run as high as $2 trillion on this war. The group acknowledged its recommendations weren't perfect, but were 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. The President could say, I accept it, and for the good of our country and the Armed Forces fighting for it, I ask you to accept it. Such a statement would not exhibit Presidential weakness. That 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. I respectfully suggest he would be wise to exercise it today, this week. Come back to Congress, report on the progress of the last few weeks in Iraq, invite the Iraq Study Group members to sit in the gallery, compliment their work, accept their recommendations, and ask the Congress and the country to also accept their recommendations. Now, this course won't satisfy those who want another 100,000 or 200,000 more troops to win the war in Iraq. Neither will it satisfy those who want all troops out on a specific timetable. But it will get United States 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-Qaida and the troops to help guard the borders, because there would still be a limited United States 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 recognize, or at least begin to recognize, that America has done most of what it can do to help Iraq. As Prime Minister Tony Blair has said, it is time for the next chapters in Iraq's history to largely 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 while the United States does have the mightiest military force in the world, 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 to adopt our way of life. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the privilege of the floor be granted to a fellow in my office, Jonathan Burke, for the duration of the debate on S.J. Res. 9, the Iraq resolution.

Mr. ALEXANDER

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

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for up to 5 minutes.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from North Dakota for his courtesy. I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I thank the Chair. (The remarks of Mr. Alexander pertaining to the introduction of S. 835 are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, today I rise to introduce a bill to rename the Federal building in Memphis as the Clifford Davis and Odell Horton Federal Building. My colleague Senator Corker is a cosponsor. It is the same legislation that was introduced in the House of Representatives by our new Representative Steve Cohen, and it is cosponsored by the rest of the House delegation, both Republicans and Democrats. Representative Cohen's bill, H.R. 753, was approved by the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure on March 1 and awaits further action by the full House. Judge Horton has a remarkable legacy. He was the first African- American federal district court judge appointed in Tennessee since Reconstruction. He was recommended by former Senator Jim Sasser and appointed by President Carter on May 12, 1980. I remember those days of transition very well. It was in that same year that I was Governor of Tennessee. I appointed the first African- American supreme court justice in Tennessee, Judge George Brown, who served with distinction. At that time, there had not been an African-American chancellor, which is one of our lower court's State judges. I appointed Irwin Kilcrease to that position, and he served with a distinguished record and retired only within the last couple of years. Judge Horton was a real pioneer who came at a time of transition in Memphis, where he lived, and in our State's history. He served as chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee from January 1, 1987, until December 31, 1993. Odell Horton was born in Bolivar, TN, just outside of Memphis, on May 13, 1929. He said he grew up in a ``typically rural Southern and typically segregated [environment], with all of the attendant consequences of that''. At about the same time, growing up maybe 40 miles away was a young man named Alex Haley who would sit on the front porch of his grandparents' home and listen to his great-aunt tell stories of Kunta Kinte, which ultimately became the story of ``Roots.'' Odell Horton's father was a laborer. His mother took in laundry. His first job at the age of 6 was delivering laundry for his mom. He and his three siblings also picked cotton, stacked lumber, and took other odd jobs. After high school, he enlisted in the Marine Corps. He enrolled in Morehouse College using the GI bill. He served with the Marines during the Korean war. He graduated from the U.S. Navy School of Journalism. After the Marines, he earned a law degree from Howard University, and after graduating from Howard Law School in 1956, he moved to Memphis and rented a one-room office on Beale Street--the music street of Memphis--and opened his own law practice. He did that for 5 years. He served as an assistant U.S. attorney after that. In 1968, he was director of the city's hospitals, making him the only Black division director at city hall at that time. He served as judge on the Shelby County Criminal Court. He was a commentator on a local television station. He ran for district attorney general in 1974, narrowly losing the primary, at that time considered a very strong showing by an African-American candidate in a county that today has an African-American mayor of Memphis and an African-American mayor of Shelby County. He was a U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge before being appointed as a U.S. district judge by President Carter. He was married to his wife Evie for 50 years, with two sons, Odell, Jr., and Christopher. He died on February 22, 2006. I commend Representative Cohen for his bill to rename the Clifford Davis Federal Building to the Clifford Davis and Odell Horton Federal Building. Representative Davis was a Congressman who served in the House of Representatives from 1940 to 1965. He was one of those five Congressmen in the U.S. Capitol when four Puerto Rican nationalists opened fire from the visitors' balcony in the Chamber. He was shot in the leg at the time. Keeping both names on the Federal building is symbolic of the transition that took place in Memphis and across the South during Odell's lifetime and my lifetime and reminds us that our country is committed to equal opportunity, but it has been and is and will be for a long time a work in progress. Odell Horton is one of the finest examples of that work in progress. Having his name on a Federal building will remind all of us of that.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, today I rise to introduce a bill to rename the Federal building in Memphis as the Clifford Davis and Odell Horton Federal Building. My colleague Senator Corker is a cosponsor. It is the same legislation that was introduced in the House of Representatives by our new Representative Steve Cohen, and it is cosponsored by the rest of the House delegation, both Republicans and Democrats. Representative Cohen's bill, H.R. 753, was approved by the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure on March 1 and awaits further action by the full House. Judge Horton has a remarkable legacy. He was the first African- American federal district court judge appointed in Tennessee since Reconstruction. He was recommended by former Senator Jim Sasser and appointed by President Carter on May 12, 1980. I remember those days of transition very well. It was in that same year that I was Governor of Tennessee. I appointed the first African- American supreme court justice in Tennessee, Judge George Brown, who served with distinction. At that time, there had not been an African-American chancellor, which is one of our lower court's State judges. I appointed Irwin Kilcrease to that position, and he served with a distinguished record and retired only within the last couple of years. Judge Horton was a real pioneer who came at a time of transition in Memphis, where he lived, and in our State's history. He served as chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee from January 1, 1987, until December 31, 1993. Odell Horton was born in Bolivar, TN, just outside of Memphis, on May 13, 1929. He said he grew up in a ``typically rural Southern and typically segregated [environment], with all of the attendant consequences of that''. At about the same time, growing up maybe 40 miles away was a young man named Alex Haley who would sit on the front porch of his grandparents' home and listen to his great-aunt tell stories of Kunta Kinte, which ultimately became the story of ``Roots.'' Odell Horton's father was a laborer. His mother took in laundry. His first job at the age of 6 was delivering laundry for his mom. He and his three siblings also picked cotton, stacked lumber, and took other odd jobs. After high school, he enlisted in the Marine Corps. He enrolled in Morehouse College using the GI bill. He served with the Marines during the Korean war. He graduated from the U.S. Navy School of Journalism. After the Marines, he earned a law degree from Howard University, and after graduating from Howard Law School in 1956, he moved to Memphis and rented a one-room office on Beale Street--the music street of Memphis--and opened his own law practice. He did that for 5 years. He served as an assistant U.S. attorney after that. In 1968, he was director of the city's hospitals, making him the only Black division director at city hall at that time. He served as judge on the Shelby County Criminal Court. He was a commentator on a local television station. He ran for district attorney general in 1974, narrowly losing the primary, at that time considered a very strong showing by an African-American candidate in a county that today has an African-American mayor of Memphis and an African-American mayor of Shelby County. He was a U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge before being appointed as a U.S. district judge by President Carter. He was married to his wife Evie for 50 years, with two sons, Odell, Jr., and Christopher. He died on February 22, 2006. I commend Representative Cohen for his bill to rename the Clifford Davis Federal Building to the Clifford Davis and Odell Horton Federal Building. Representative Davis was a Congressman who served in the House of Representatives from 1940 to 1965. He was one of those five Congressmen in the U.S. Capitol when four Puerto Rican nationalists opened fire from the visitors' balcony in the Chamber. He was shot in the leg at the time. Keeping both names on the Federal building is symbolic of the transition that took place in Memphis and across the South during Odell's lifetime and my lifetime and reminds us that our country is committed to equal opportunity, but it has been and is and will be for a long time a work in progress. Odell Horton is one of the finest examples of that work in progress. Having his name on a Federal building will remind all of us of that.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that Stanford Swinton of Senator Grassley's Finance Committee staff be given floor privileges for the remainder of the day.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Maine and I salute the Senator from Maine. She is paying close attention not just to the security of our country but the fact that we need strong States and cities in our country at the same time. She, obviously, is in tune with the people in Maine because they, like people in Tennessee and other States, have taken a look at the so-called REAL ID law and wondered what we are doing up here. She has made a very thoughtful and sensible suggestion, which is that we delay for 2 years the implementation of the so-called REAL ID law, and let's make sure we know what we are doing. Senator Collins, because she is ranking member of the committee that deals with homeland security and a former chairman, and because she served in State government, is more sensitive to this issue than perhaps some of our colleagues. But she understands it is very easy for those of us in Washington to stand up here and come up with a big idea and think it might be a good idea, and then turn it into a law and hold a press conference and take credit for it, and then send the bill to the Governor and the legislature and say: You pay for it. Senator Collins is more polite about this than I might be. Nothing used to make me madder when I was Governor than for legislators and Congressmen to do just that: to pass a big bill, take credit for it, and send the bill to the State. Then that same Congressman would usually be back in Tennessee making a Lincoln Day speech or a Jefferson Day speech or a Jackson Day speech about local control and saying how we need strong States and strong cities, but they dumped a big unfunded mandate on top of us. So let me see if I can be in support of Senator Collins, who has made a very reasonable, sensible amendment: First, to think about what we are doing with REAL ID and to make sure if we want to continue down this path, we do it in a way that respects the privacy of Americans. We are, after all, for the first time in our history actually creating a national identification card with all the ramifications of that. That is what the REAL ID law did. Second, to make sure that we don't create an unfunded mandate. The Republican Congress in 1994 was ushered in claiming no more unfunded mandates. The Congressmen stood on the steps over there in the House and said: If we break our promise, throw us out. Well, they threw us out this past election, so why would we persist with unfunded mandates? This is an $11 billion unfunded mandate on State governments over the next 5 years. What does that mean? Higher property taxes, higher tuition costs, less funding for higher education so we can stay competitive with China and India, less money for lower classroom sizes, and less money for rewarding outstanding teachers. That is what unfunded mandates will mean, so we shouldn't do that. Then the third thing that is unfortunate about this REAL ID law that passed is we didn't have the opportunity to say anything about it over here in the Senate. Now, we are not always the wisest people in Washington, DC, but we have half the say. The REAL ID Act came up in the House of Representatives. It was stuffed into the supplemental appropriations bill for Katrina and the troops in Iraq. So of course we had to vote for the bill. We had no chance to amend it, no debate, no hearings, and no consideration of other alternatives. Yet we impose on every State in this country a total of $11 billion worth of unfunded mandates, and we create for the first time in the history of a liberty- loving nation a national identification card. I would say we wouldn't be doing our job if we didn't stop and think about what we have done. Fortunately, we have time to stop and think about it, because while the law has been passed, it is not implemented yet. Here is what Senator Collins has done, and I give her great credit for this. For her to introduce this amendment is especially useful because of her position as former chairman of the affected committee and now its ranking member. She has quickly attracted several cosponsors, Republicans and Democrats. She would extend the deadline for compliance with REAL ID to 2 years after final regulations are issued by the Department of Homeland Security. Now, from the point of view of a Governor, that makes sense. If I were sitting back in Nashville, I would say: Well, now, Madam Congressman or Mr. Congressman, you are not going to expect me to take 3 or 4 million Tennesseans and run them through the State driver's license offices and find out if they are terrorists or if they are illegally here, or send them back home to grandma's attic and dig up their birth certificates, are you? I mean how many Tennesseans have their birth certificates handy? How many want to go back to the driver's license office and stand in line? That is a lot of people, 3 or 4 million people, and that is only Tennessee. There are over 196 million people with driver's licenses in the United States. There is another section or two in Senator Collins' amendment. She gives a little more discretion to the Secretary of DHS to waive State deadlines. That is a reasonable approach. She reestablishes the negotiated rulemaking committee that was created as part of the National Intelligence Reform Act of 2004. That means in plain English that States that have the job of implementing this law will have a chance to come to the Federal Government and say: Well, in Minnesota, we have longer lines during this part of the year because it snows and shorter lines during that part of the year because there is ice. And in other times of the year people are fishing on their lakes, and so we have some local conditions here. This gives more time to take into consideration the local conditions. Also, it requires figuring out what a fair system of reimbursement is. Here are the figures I have seen: Apparently we have appropriated $40 million for this. The Senator from Maine is nodding her head. Yet, the Governors tell us it is going to cost $11 billion. We have appropriated $40 million. They say it is going to cost $11 billion. We have a 60-vote point of order against unfunded Federal mandates. We couldn't even raise that when this went through like a freight train in the middle of a Katrina and troops-in-Iraq bill. There would have to be 60 votes in order to impose on the States this kind of financial burden. So that is basically it. This amendment says let's stop and think about this since this is the first national identification card we have ever had in this country. And since it is a massive unfunded mandate that would have the effect, if the Governors are right, of raising State taxes, raising tuition, cutting the amount of money available for colleges and competitiveness, cutting money for reducing classroom size, and cutting money for State health care plans. Then the third thing is we had no discussion--I don't believe there was a single hearing anywhere in the Senate--about this bill. I am delighted to have a chance to be a cosponsor of this legislation that Senator Collins has introduced. I will say one other thing about this idea of a national identification card. I have lived long enough to have changed my mind a few times on important issues. When I was Governor of Tennessee, I vetoed twice the photo identification card I now carry in my billfold because I thought it was an infringement on civil liberties and I didn't think it was anybody's business to have my picture on the identification card. Well, the retailers wanted it for check cashing, and law enforcement people wanted it so they could catch more criminals. So the legislature overrode me. Plus, when I tried to get into the White House one time as Governor, they wouldn't let me in because I didn't have a photo identification card and I said: Well, I vetoed it, and they didn't think that was a good reason. The Governor of Georgia had to vouch for me, and after that indignity, Tennessee finally got a photo identification card. We have a right in America to be skeptical of national identification cards. We love liberty more than anything in this country, and that could infringe on our liberty. We have seen what happened in South Africa when people carried around passports and they were classified based on race, and their lives, their activities, everything about them was regulated that way. We can think back on Nazi Germany and other totalitarian countries where so much information was on a single card that it gave the Government a good chance to keep up with every single person. I have changed my mind after 9/11. I believe we need a national identification card of some kind, and we, in fact, have one now. It is a de facto identification card. We call it the driver's license, but it is completely ineffective. It gets stolen. It gets copied. We show it when we go through the line at an airport. For a long time, mine said on the front that it expired in the year 2000, but if you turn it over, it said 2005. Well, at the airport they never turned it over so it is not a very effective identification card, and that is the impetus for the REAL ID. I understand that. The first thought was let's take all of these 196 million driver's licenses and turn them into identification cards, but that might not be the best thought. There are other options. For example, we might need a work card in the United States. A lot of the impetus for this came from immigration problems. Since many of the immigration problems are the result of people wanting to come here and work, maybe one way to think about identity theft is to say: Let's have a Social Security card that is biometric and let people apply for that; let people who get new cards get that, and let's have a work card. Or maybe we need a travel card for people who want to travel on airplanes, and they would have a travel card. Maybe we need to expand the number of passports. Twenty- five percent of us have passports. I am not sure what the right answer is. My instinct is that probably a work card would be a good card to have. Maybe we ought to have two or three cards that meet certain Federal requirements, any of which could be used for other identification purposes. That way we would technically avoid having the national identification card, but for convenience, people could have a work card, a travel card, and a passport. All of those are just ideas. But I wouldn't suggest that the Senate wait until midnight and take Senator Alexander's ideas, ram them through, and send them to the House and tell them to pass them with the next Iraq supplemental bill just because we thought of it. I think it would be better to let Senator Lieberman and Senator Collins and others consider all of these options very carefully. I think it might be best when we get to the immigration bill and we talk about having an employer identification system, because that is going to be an essential part of the comprehensive immigration bill. Well, if that is the case, then we are probably going to need some kind of work card. If that is the case, we might end up with a secure Social Security card. If that is the case, we might not need REAL ID at all. So that is an even better reason to adopt the Collins amendment, because between now and the expiration of 2 years, we should pass a comprehensive immigration bill here in Congress. In fact, if we don't, we should all be severely criticized, because it is our job to do it. So I urge my colleagues respectfully to look at the Collins amendment and see it as a reasonable approach. It says: Let's delay 2 years. Let's hold some hearings. Let's ask the States to be more involved in what the cost is. Let's think about any privacy issues that might result from a de facto national identification card, and let's even make sure, if we are going to have an identification card, that the idea of using driver's licenses is the best way to do it. As my last comment, I would underscore the fact that there are a number of States already considering taking the action Maine has already taken, the Senator's State, in passing a resolution rejecting the REAL ID card. Those are Hawaii, Georgia, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Vermont, and Washington State. If the REAL ID card were to go into effect in those States in May, next spring, and they didn't have the REAL ID card, according to the law they can't fly on a commercial airplane. Well, that is going to create a situation I don't think any Member of this Senate wants to see. So I am here to salute the Senator from Maine for being diligent in protecting our liberty and in protecting the rights of State and local governments, and making sure that if we are going to have some kind of more secure card, whether it is a driver's license or a work card, a travel card, or even a passport, that we do it right after we have suitable hearings. I am proud to be a cosponsor of the Collins amendment, and I thank the Senator for yielding time to me.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, are we now in morning business?

Mr. ALEXANDER. I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 15 minutes.

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

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, if the Chair would please let me know when I have a minute left. Mr. President, when we come back from the recess we are going to turn our attention to the 9/11 Commission recommendations which have been enacted by the House. I want to discuss an issue I hope will come up when we discuss the 9/11 Commission recommendations and that has to do with the so-called REAL ID card, the de facto national ID card. This is a law that was enacted in early 2005. It was House-passed legislation that would require States to turn more than 190 million driver's licenses into de facto national identification cards, with State taxpayers paying most of the costs. I am not very much of a prognosticator. My predictions have never been all that accurate, but at the time of that passage, I objected to it. The first thing wrong with the REAL ID law was that the House stuck the law into an appropriations bill that supported our troops in Iraq and sent it over to the Senate. None of us wanted to slow down support for our troops in Iraq while we debated ID cards, so it was stuck in there and we passed it. But the second and larger problem with what the House did 2 years ago, and which we agreed to and it became law, is that States not only got to create the ID cards, but they will likely end up paying the bill. I said to my colleagues, and at that time we had a Republican Congress: This is one more of the unfunded Federal mandates we Republicans promised to end. Well, now we have moved ahead about 2 years, and I believe I have turned out to be right about that. Just last month, the Maine Legislature became the first State to approve a resolution urging Congress to overturn the Real ID Act before it takes effect on the States in May of 2008. Only 4 of the 186 Maine lawmakers voted no. In the following other States there are bills, according to USA Today, that are considering asking us to overturn the law: Hawaii, Georgia, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Vermont, and Washington. One reason they are asking us to overturn it is that according to the National Governors Association, implementing the law will cost more than $11 billion over 5 years. We have provided $40 million of the $11 billion. That is an enormous unfunded Federal mandate. The Presiding Officer is a former State official. I don't know if he had these same feelings when he was in his State of Colorado, but nothing used to make me madder when I was Governor of Tennessee than for some group of Congressmen to come up with a big idea, turn it into law, hold a big press conference, take credit for it, and send the bill to the States to pay for it. Then that same Congressman would usually be back home making a Lincoln Day speech, bragging about local control. I am afraid that is what we have with REAL ID. It sounds pretty good maybe to say: Oh, we have a war against terrorism, and we have illegal immigration and other immigration issues. We need some sort of identification card that will make it possible to do a better job of fighting terrorists and impose the rule of law on our border. That sounds good, but there is a right way to do it and a wrong way to do it. Here is what we should have done and what I hope we will do. I hope the week after next, when Senator Collins of Maine comes to the Senate, which I hope she will, and offers an amendment that will, in effect, set up a thoughtful process for, first, delaying the implementation of this bill and, second, give us a chance to consider all of its ramifications, I hope we will adopt that as part of the 9/11 Commission Report. In other words, give the idea of a national identification card the kind of thoughtful attention it deserves in the Senate. No. 1, we should do it because it is a huge break with our tradition of liberty in this country. We do not have to look very far around the world--South Africa is the first place to look--to see the abuse a national identification card can cause. In South Africa, it was used to classify people according to race. Everybody had to have one. Everybody had to carry it around. In this age of technology in a country that values liberty above everything else, there are a lot of questions about whether we should have a national ID card. Those ought to be explored in the Senate. We ought not push one through in a bill no one wants to vote against because it is primarily about supporting troops. When I was Governor of Tennessee, I twice vetoed the photo driver's license which we all now carry around in our pockets. I did that, first, because I thought it was an infringement upon civil liberties; and, second, I did it because I thought what would happen was we would have lines around the block of people waiting to get their photo ID card--and that still happens sometimes--but I was gradually overruled by the State legislature and we got an ID card. What helped getting overruled was when I showed up at the White House once to see the President at the National Governor's Conference and they asked to see my photo ID. I said: I don't have one. They asked: Why not? I said: Because I vetoed it. And I had to be vouched for by the Governor of Georgia. The push for this was law enforcement saying it would help with check cashing and other identification. While as a liberty-loving country, we say we do not want a national ID card, at the same time, we have allowed a de facto national ID card. That is a State driver's license. We have over 190 million of these. We all know the de facto driver's license ID cards are very ineffective. They are easily duplicated, they are often stolen, and we go around not just using them to prove we can drive, but we use them to get on airplanes, we use them to cash checks, and we use them to get a passport. They are not an effective ID card. I have reluctantly come to my conclusion. Despite the fact I vetoed those early ID cards, on September 11, one way our world has changed is we do need a national ID card. Maybe our discussion in committees would show we do not want one but that we want authorized two or three forms of identification cards which meet certain standards which can be used for different ways. For example, there could be a travel card that one could use to get on an airplane. If you had that travel card that allowed you to get on the airplane, you might use it for other purposes, as we have come to use the driver's licenses in that way or we might use the passport. About a quarter of Americans have passports, 68 million Americans. That is one form of an ID card though not as common as 196 million driver's licenses. There is also the Social Security card. My initial instinct is that a Social Security card that had the proper technology attached to it would be the wisest, the most effective, and most useful ID card because most of the immigration problems we have are related to work, either as a student or as a worker. It would be natural to have an ID card, to have a Social Security card such as the card we carry around in our pockets that also serves as a de facto national ID card. There was a case of the Swift Company, which was using, under our antiquated immigration laws, the basic pilot program, which is what we say to businesses to use if we want them to do everything they can to make sure they are only hiring people legally in the United States. Swift and other companies do that. Even if they do that, they cannot be assured that the people they are hiring are legally here because many of the Social Security numbers have been stolen, as it turns out, and it is against our laws to inquire too far into someone who applies for a job and presents evidence they are a citizen. Our laws say you cannot ask more questions to second-guess that. We have some work to do. All of us who think about the immigration issue--which is what brought all this up, along with the September 11 disaster--we think of the immigration issue and we think of the need for employer verification. For employers in this country to verify that people they hire are legally here, we are going to have to supply those employers, in some way, with the ability to ask for a good identification card. Perhaps it is the Social Security card, perhaps it is a travel card, perhaps it is a passport, perhaps it is a bank card, maybe there are two or three of those. That might be a way to avoid having a single card and could diminish the concern about civil liberties. Or maybe the needed ID is the driver's license, but I doubt it is the driver's license. Certainly, we should not expect the men and women in the Tennessee Department of Public Safety who are in charge of issuing a few million driver's licenses, to be turned into CIA agents whose job it is to catch terrorists. I don't think they are expected to do that. They are not prepared to do that. What we will be requiring is the citizens of the various States to show up to get their driver's license or a renewal with different forms of identification, some of which they may not have. It will be a very expensive process and a big mess. My first impression is that the State driver's license system is not the best place to look if we want to create an identification card. Here is my suggestion. My suggestion is we pay close attention to the Senator from Maine, Susan Collins, when we come back after the recess. She has a thoughtful recommendation to the Senate which suggests, over the next couple of years, we have time to look at this issue of whether we need a national identification card and what kind of identification card we might need. I hope the hearings would be held this year in the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and the Judiciary Committee or whatever the appropriate committees might be, and then we might deal with this issue in the immigration bill which I hope we pass this year. We need a comprehensive immigration bill. That bill needs to have an employer verification system. I don't see how we can have an employer verification system without a good form of identification card. I hope we will deal with this in the way the Senate normally deals with issues; that is, through its committees, considering all of the options. In the meantime, we have the Real ID law in place with the estimate that it may cost up to $11 billion, a huge unfunded mandate. We have States saying we are going to opt out of that program. If they do, that means the citizens of Maine or Montana or some other State will not be allowed to fly on airplanes, for example, because they will not be from a State that has an approved ID card. That will create a lot more confusion and a lot more angry constituents. I am here today to wave a yellow flag, to remind Members of the Real ID issue. It may not be part of the 9/11 Commission recommendation when they come to the floor, but it is relevant and certainly germane. I hope the Senator from Maine will provoke a discussion of it, and we will move to delay its implementation until we can think this through and do it right. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record an article I wrote for the Washington Post on Wednesday, March 30, 2005, about the Real ID and my views.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Thank you very much. Someone over in the House of Representatives, before they sent that continuing resolution or joint funding resolution over here, had taken the Teacher Incentive Fund, which was to be funded at $100 million a year, and reduced it to $200,000. In other words, they killed the funding. I couldn't imagine someone would do that on purpose, and so I came here to say so. I know it was a confusing time and there were lots of different priorities to be met. Perhaps, in the difficulty of putting together the joint funding resolution, it was just a slip-up. I said I hoped it wasn't the signal of what the new Democratic majority's education policy would be because I couldn't imagine the new Democratic majority--or the old Democratic minority, for that matter--or any of us on either side being against the Teacher Incentive Fund. What the Teacher Incentive Fund does is almost the most crucial thing we need to do in helping our schools succeed. It makes grants to States and cities that are doing the best work in trying to find fair ways to reward outstanding teaching and to reward good principals. Every education meeting I go to, and I have been going to them for years, that ends up being the No. 1 thing we need to do. First are parents, second are teachers and principals, and everything else is about 5 percent. In other words, a child who has a head start at home is a child who is going to get an education almost no matter what else happens. But if you add an outstanding teacher and an outstanding principal to whatever happens at home, the school is better and the classroom is better and the child succeeds. This is especially true for low-income children in America, which is exactly what the Teacher Incentive Fund is designed to meet. Well, I wasn't disappointed because within 5 minutes after I began, the distinguished Senator from Illinois, Mr. Durbin, the assistant Democratic leader, came on the floor, and I think I am being fair in characterizing his remarks when he said: Whoa, wait a minute. This is a good program. In fact, I just received a call this afternoon, said Senator Durbin, from the superintendent of the Chicago schools, and he said we need this program. He said we have a lot of low-income, poor kids who aren't making it, whom we are leaving behind, we want to help them, and this helps us do that. He said we have a grant under the Teacher Incentive Fund to do it. We heard further testimony at a roundtable in our Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee that in the Chicago schools they closed some schools where children were not learning year after year after year. What did they do? They put in a new team--a new principal, a new set of teachers. And what did they do with the teachers? They paid them $10,000 a year more than they were otherwise making to make sure they would go there because they were the teachers known in Chicago to be able to help low- achieving students achieve. We all know from our experience and research that virtually every child can learn. Some children just need a little extra help getting to the starting line. If you don't get it at home, you especially need it at school. And where you get it at school is from outstanding teachers and principals. So it wasn't Senator Durbin, who is the assistant Democratic leader in the Senate, who was trying to kill the Teacher Incentive Fund. So I have been wondering for the last few days, well, then, who was it? Who was it? Well, now I know, Mr. President, because they have announced it. Today comes a letter to me--``Dear Senator Alexander''--on behalf of the National Education Association, the NEA, with 3.2 million members, saying: We urge your opposition to several ill-conceived amendments to the continuing resolution. Specifically, we urge you to vote ``no'' on an amendment to be offered by Senator Alexander, Republican of Tennessee, that would provide $99 million for the teacher incentive fund. So the NEA, in its brilliance, has written me a letter to ask me to vote against my own amendment. I am astonished. That doesn't surprise me so much. Any of our offices can make a mistake. But what I want the President to know, and I want our colleagues to know--I want them to know who is against this, and I want the world to know what they are against. What they are against is helping find a fair way to pay good teachers more for teaching well and to train and help good principals lead schools, especially in big cities where we have a lot of low-income children who are falling behind. This is not some abstract notion. The President had recommended $100 million for the Teacher Incentive Fund as part of the No Child Left Behind legislation. In a bipartisan way it passed several years ago, and we are in the midst of a remarkably bipartisan approach to see what we need to do about NCLB as we reauthorize it for 5 years, and part of it is the Teacher Incentive Fund. In a very tight budget, President Bush has recommended not just $100 million for the next year, he has recommended $200 million. I placed into the Record a few days ago Secretary of Education Spellings' letter saying this is very important. We have just started this program. We made a number of grants to cities all across America, 16 grants across the country, at least one State--in South Carolina. You have cut us off. You stopped us from making an evaluation and reporting back to the Senate, to the Congress, how this is working. You are disappointing these school districts who have stepped up to do this. That is what has happened. Just to be very specific, here is the kind of thing that the Teacher Incentive Fund grant does. Memphis, our biggest city, has an unusually large number of our lowest performing schools. It is our poorest big city, one of the poorest big cities in America. It has a real solid school superintendent, she's excellent, and they are working hard to improve. A lot of the Memphis citizens are putting together a special effort to say: One of the single best things we can do in Memphis is to take every single one of our school principals, put them through a training program for a year, hook up with New Leaders for New Schools to do that, continuing after the year, and then we will put them back in charge of their school. We will give them autonomy to make the changes they need to make, and we will see if these children can succeed because we know if they can succeed, if we help them the correct way-- we give them extra hours, as we have in our charter schools, give them extra training, we know they will succeed. Memphis City Schools and New Leaders for New Schools were awarded a grant for $3.1 million in the year 2006, the first year after the 5- year grant totaling $18 million. Over the 5-year grant, Memphis plans to provide training and incentive grants to 83 principals serving almost one-third of the schools in the Memphis school system. Principals will receive incentive grants of at least $15,000 a year. What is wrong with that? Why would the largest educational association in America oppose taking a city with low-performing students and saying we are going to kill the program that trains your principals and pay them $15,000 more a year to do a better job? Why would they do that? The assistant Democratic leader doesn't agree with that. At least he said so on the floor of the Senate. I don't agree with it. I don't think the parents of the children agree with it. The school superintendent doesn't agree with it, nor does the mayor. Who is against this? We are trying to pay more money to the members of the association that is trying to kill the program. That is what we are trying to do. It is not just Memphis. I think it is important that my colleagues in the Senate--if the snow and the ice has not caused them to flee to the suburbs. I think most of them are in their offices, maybe a few are even listening. I want them to know that the National Education Association wants to kill the program for the Northern New Mexico Network, the Northern New Mexico Network for Rural Education, a nonprofit organization, one of the 19 grantees of the Teacher Incentive Fund. It is partnering with four school districts. They serve a region with high levels of poverty, high concentrations of Native Americans and Hispanic students, extreme rural conditions, small schools. So the NEA wants to kill the program to help make those teachers and those principals better. Here's another project, New Leaders for New Schools in the DC public schools. This is a coalition with DC public schools and several others, to provide direct compensation to teachers and principals who have demonstrated their ability to move student achievement. What a terrible thing to reward--teachers who have demonstrated an ability to move student achievement. Let's kill that program right away. We don't want that happening in the District of Columbia, do we? Let's go to the Chicago public schools. Chicago has taken a lot of steps in their public schools. The mayor deserves a lot of credit for that. The school system deserves a lot of credit. They know these children can't wait 5 or 10 years to have a good education experience, so, as I mentioned earlier, in some cases they are not moving the school, they are just transforming it. How do you transform a school? There is only one way. You move in a new principal and you move in some really good teachers. There is only one way to transform a school, and that is it. So the Chicago public schools in collaboration with the National Institute for Excellence in Teaching proposes the Recognizing Excellence in Academic Leadership. At the heart of that is multiple evaluations, opportunities for new roles and responsibilities, recruitment, development, retention of quality staff in 40 Chicago high schools that serve 24,000 students. The NEA wants to kill that program. That is the third grantee. Let's go to Denver. The Denver public schools proposed a twofold district-wide expansion of its professional compensation system for teachers--that means we pay them more--to develop and implement and evaluate a performance-based compensation system for principals. My goodness, Denver wants to pay its best principals more money so they might stay in the school? And how are they going to do that? They are going to think about it. They are going to work within the system. They are going to ask for outside help. They are not just imposing a one-time bonus, merit pay system. They are trying to lead the country in doing this. The National Education Association says: No, let's kill it. The National Education Association not only said, no, let's kill it, they issued a threat to Members of the Senate. ``Votes associated with these issues may be included in the NEA legislative report card for the 110th Congress.'' That means if you vote against the Alexander amendment or anybody else's amendment supporting the Teacher Incentive Fund, what we, the National Education Association, will do is write all the teachers in Tennessee or Rhode Island or wherever we may be and say: Your Senator is anti-education. Why is the Senator anti-education? Because he wants to support a program to find a fair way to reward outstanding principals and teachers who are teaching low-income children and helping them succeed. California--my goodness. The Mare Island Technology Academy--here is another thing that NEA would like to stomp out. It proposes to extend a current project to award incentives to teachers and principals instrumental in increasing student achievement. We can't have that in California, at least under the NEA. The Houston independent school district--maybe Senators Cornyn and Hutchison would like to know about this. It is the largest public school district in Texas, the seventh largest in the United States. It proposes an incentive plan for teachers that focuses on teacher effectiveness and growth in learning. We don't want that in any school, do we? Guilford County, NC--maybe Senator Burr and Senator Dole would like to be aware of this because their schools proposed a financial recruitment project called Mission Possible and plans to extend the program to an additional seven schools, charter schools in various States. Another project. Alaska--one school district there serves as the fiscal agent. They are working on the same sort of progress and expanding on a current program with the Re-Inventing Schools Coalition. South Carolina Department of Education. A modified version of the existing teacher advancement program to implement a performance-based compensation system to address problems with recruitment and retention in 23 high-need schools in six districts. We wouldn't want 23 high-need schools in six South Carolina districts to have a program to pay good teachers more for teaching well, would we? We would like to kill that in the Congress because the National Education Association might put us on their list of not voting for the NEA legislative report card. Dallas independent school district--they have a similar program. They want to identify and reward principals and teachers based on a combination of direct and value-added measures of student achievement. Can't have that. The school district of Philadelphia, PA. Let's pay particular attention to this one. The overall purpose of Philadelphia's initiative is to pilot a performance-based staff development and compensation system that is teacher pay and principals, that provides teachers and principals with clear incentives that are directly tied to student achievement, growth and classroom observations conducted according to an objective standards-based rubric at multiple points during the school year. Twenty high-need urban elementary schools that have demonstrated high degrees of faculty buy-in--that means the teachers want it--will participate in the pilot. Nobody is making them do it. They are volunteering to do it. The teachers want it. Leaders from the school district of Philadelphia's administration and from two unions, representing all Philadelphia teachers and principals, have designed the pilot and will oversee its implementation. So the National Education Association says kill the program in Philadelphia for a lot of high-need kids, even though the program involves the unions who work in those schools. That is a very arrogant attitude, it seems to me. Ohio, State Department of Education, Eagle County, CO, and Weld County, CO--those are just the schools and school districts and the States where the Department has made 16 grants in the first year of its operation. As you can see, the common thread running through here is, can we find a fair way to reward outstanding teachers and help in training and reward outstanding principals so they will stay in the classroom, so they will have an even better idea of what they are doing, so we can honor them, treat them in a more professional way? If we were to do that, wouldn't that be better? Why wouldn't the largest educational association in America welcome this? I know in Chattanooga, TN, when the new Senator from Tennessee, Bob Corker, was mayor, he was more effective than I was in working with the local teachers association or union, and he did just this-- generally with their participation and agreement. And he helped, in a model school system in Chattanooga, TN, find a way to attract teachers to the schools where children were having trouble learning and needed extra help. These were teachers who had shown an ability to help these students achieve more. So they were paid more for that. They were paid more for that. Let me conclude my remarks. I ask unanimous consent for another 5 minutes, if I may?

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

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

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to speak for up to 20 minutes on the continuing resolution.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Thank you, Mr. President. A few days ago, I came to the floor deeply concerned because someone, someone over in the House of Representatives--first, let me ask the Chair, will you please give me a minute's notice when my 20 minutes is up?