Lamar Alexander

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I would like to congratulate Dr. Thomas F. Frist, Jr., a cofounder of HCA and its former chairman and CEO, on his induction into the Healthcare Hall of Fame. The Healthcare Hall of Fame honors individuals who bring a legacy of enthusiasm, vision, and perseverance to the healthcare industry. I cannot think of a more deserving recipient of this honor. Dr. Frist began his hospital administrative career shortly after his service as a military flight surgeon. In 1968, he founded HCA in Nashville, with his father, the late Dr. Thomas F. Frist, Sr., and the late Jack C. Massey. In 1977, Dr. Frist became president of HCA and subsequently became chairman, president and chief executive officer in 1987. When HCA merged with Columbia in February 1994, Dr. Frist served as chairman of the board and later as Vice Chairman, following the company's April 1995 merger with HealthTrust Inc. Dr. Frist returned as chairman and CEO of the company in 1997. He was chairman and CEO until January 2001 and chairman until January 2002. Not only is Dr. Frist a great physician and hospital administrator, he is also a great benefactor to his hometown of Nashville. He served as vice president of the Vanderbilt University Board of Trust from 1995-1997. He was chairman of the board of Governors of the United Way of America in 1995, and founded the United Way's Alexis de Tocqueville Society. He was the 1999-2000 chair of the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce. Currently, Dr. Frist is chairman of the board of The Frist Foundation and chairman of the board of the Frist Center for the Visual Arts. Dr. Frist also serves on the board of Montgomery Bell Academy in Nashville and is chairman of the Nashville Healthcare Council's 2002- 2003 board of directors. Dr. Frist is also the brother of our own majority leader, Dr. Bill Frist, a leader on healthcare issues in the Senate. Dr. Frist's father, the late Dr. Thomas Frist, Sr., was also a member of the Healthcare Hall of Fame. Dr. Frist's induction makes them the first Hall of Fame father-son pair. All of us in Tennessee appreciate Dr. Frist's dedication and great work in the healthcare industry, and I would like to congratulate him today on this great honor.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I am glad I had the opportunity to hear the Senator from Utah talk about our friend Pat Moynihan because in 1969 the Senator from Utah and I had different jobs. I was working for Bryce Harlow in the White House and he was working for Secretary Volpe, both of us in the Nixon administration. One of the things I think many people will look at, about the Nixon administration, is what an extraordinarily diverse group of individuals the President was able to attract. The Senator from Utah and I were young persons. I am not talking about us at that time. But I am talking about Henry Kissinger and Arthur Burns and Bryce Harlow and foremost among them was Pat Moynihan. Particularly when we look at a Washington, DC, where so many issues are so divisive and so partisan--and there was a lot of partisanship back then. Look back at 1969. Here was Pat Moynihan, a Harvard professor, Kennedy Democrat, who became the Republican President's domestic policy adviser. He was an extraordinary person. He was, as the Senator from Utah pointed out, a man who could see a long distance. In the 1960s he coined the phrase ``benign neglect,'' when he talked about the breakdown of the American family and the effect it might have on African-American families. He was courageous enough to talk about that. He predicted at that time that if the rate of breakdown of families that was then occurring among African-American families were to occur among all families, it would be a catastrophe for America. That percentage has long since passed. Pat Moynihan was willing to talk about it. He was a great teacher. He attracted into the White House at that time a cadre of young Moynihan devotees who are still around today--for example, Checker Finn, a young Harvard graduate who is a leading education expert; and Chris DeMuth, who has had a distinguished career here. All of those young people were attracted by his intellect and his sense of public service. He had an ability even then to be a person who crossed party lines. He was one of the old Democratic liberals such as Al Shanker--some of them are now called neoconservatives today--who saw our country in a very accurate and clear way. He believed in America. He was an immigrant, a great immigrant, an Irish immigrant, with all the characteristics that we think of when we think of great Irish immigrants, but he was an American first. He was proud of where he came from but he was prouder of the country to which he came. He loved politics. His favorite character was George Washington Plunkett, the boss of Tammany Hall. He wrote a forward for a book on Plunkett. Plunkett's favorite comment was: I seen my opportunities and I took them. He went to the United Nations where he pounded the desk. He went to India as Ambassador. He ran for the Senate. Think of this. He ran in 1976, a Republican from the then-disgraced Nixon administration. I know what that was like. I was in that administration. I had been a candidate myself in 1974--lost; and here was Pat Moynihan in New York State, a Democratic State, running for the Senate as a Democrat, able to be elected because of the respect people had for him. I watched him during his whole career. When I was Education Secretary he came down and lectured me from this body because he wanted me to be more aggressive on standards. But he was always such a gentle person. As I have gone along in life, I have especially appreciated people who are well known and famous who take time for people who are not so well known and famous. I can remember when my wife and I, in our early 30s--I was, she was younger--went to Harvard, to the John F. Kennedy School of Government, where Pat had gone in the early 1970s. He was a famous man, a great professor, a former adviser to Presidents. Everyone knew him. No one knew us. But he saw us and he spent 45 minutes or an hour with us. He was a teacher and we were his students. I am glad to be on the floor today to hear my friend from Utah speak of such a distinguished American. We need more Senators, more public leaders, with the breadth and the intellect and the understanding of American history that Pat Moynihan had. We need more who have the capacity to work across party lines, to solve tough problems such as Social Security, which he helped to solve, and to enjoy politics, to love George Washington Plunkett, and the rough and tumble of Tammany Hall politics, but at the same time, when the Nation's issues are foremost, to put them first. So I rise today to salute a great American, a real patriot, and perhaps a person who most of us--Senators or students--will remember as a great teacher. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of a speech I gave before the Heritage Foundation on March 14 be printed in the Record.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I thank the Senator. Last night, most Americans stayed up late watching for news of the war. Most Senators did, too. This morning, many Americans got up and said a little prayer for the men and women who will be fighting overseas for our country. I suspect most Senators did as well. Today, most Americans went about their jobs and the Senate did, too, but our discussions about the budget and our everyday jobs seem a little less important today compared to what our men and women overseas and our Commander in Chief are doing. We pause today to try to show in a united voice the same respect for our President and our men and women who are fighting overseas and our civilians who are involved, to show the same respect for them that they show for our country. The President has shown real courage. He has told us news we really don't want to hear, and he has been calm. He has used restraint, and he has been determined. But today, we think especially of our Armed Forces. Tennesseans have a rich history of serving in the armed services. We are the Volunteer State. We earned that name in the War of 1812, in the Mexican War and ever since, and the tradition continues today. Twenty thousand men and women from Fort Campbell have been deployed in the vicinity of Iraq, and another thousand active duty military personnel from across the State as well. More than 4,000 Tennesseans from more than 80 Reserve and National Guard units have been called up. They come from units like the 134th Air Refueling Wing from McGhee Tyson; K company, 3rd Battalion, 23rd Marines in Memphis; and the 3397th U.S. Army Garrison of Chattanooga. They are protecting us from a great threat, and we are grateful to them. I hope and trust that we speak with a united voice, not just for this one day. I think of Larry Joyce, who sought me out in Chicago in 1995. He was a Vietnam veteran. His son Casey was killed in Somalia while serving in our armed services. He wanted to make sure that I or anyone else who might serve in public life remembered the lessons of Vietnam and Somalia. They were these: First, have a clear objective. Second, have more than enough force to win. And third, have the stomach to see any military action we undertake all the way through to the end. Mr. President, we have a clear objective. By 77 to 23, we voted to give the President the authority he exercises today. We would disarm Saddam Hussein, liberate Iraq, and help rebuild a strong democratic Iraq. No. 2, we have more than sufficient force to win, maybe more force than has ever been assembled in a military action. The question that remains is whether we, not our armed services, but whether we in the Congress and the American people have what we did not have in Vietnam and what we did not have in Somalia, which is the stomach to see our mission all the way through to the end. I rise today to join in expressing bipartisan support to our President and our Armed Forces and to hope and trust that we will have the stomach to see this mission all the way through to the end. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my name be added as an original cosponsor of the resolution.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I thank the Senator from Virginia.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I congratulate the Senator from New Hampshire and other Senators who have been working hard on the Leave No Child Behind legislation. I am a new Senator and was not here when it was done. I watched it from a distance as a former Education Secretary, to see how the Federal Government, which contributes about $650 or so out of the $7,000 or so we spend per student in this country on K-12 education, could make a difference. The principles of flexibility and accountability and the addition of more options for parents and significant additional funding have been a very good bipartisan start. The funding, which is the area at issue today, has been generous. When I look at my own State of Tennessee, for example, we can always use a little more of the Federal dollars to help do what needs to be done, but the amount that has come in has been very helpful. For example, in fiscal year 2000--and this follows to a great extent what the Senator from New Hampshire said--and then in fiscal year 2001, President Clinton asked for $8 billion and then $8.3 billion. In fiscal year 2000, the Congress appropriated roughly what the President requested, and in fiscal year 2001, it appropriated $8.7 billion. Tennessee got $137 million in fiscal year 2000 and $141 million in fiscal year 2001 for title I funding, the largest federal program that helps low-income children. This is the money that focuses on leaving no child behind. When President Bush came in, he asked for $9 billion and the Congress appropriated over $10 billion, and the share of title I funding for Tennessee went up to $152 million. In the budget we just finished in January, the President asked for $11 billion, and Congress provided $300 million more, and Tennessee's share went to $164 million. With the newest recommendation from the President, an increase of $1 billion, Tennessee is up to $174 million. These increases in title I funding are moving more rapidly than other parts of the federal budget. Could it be more? Maybe I will suggest over time we spend more. But we need to recognize these are significant increases in spending to fund the new programs from the Federal Government, while staying within a reasonable budget. In Nashville last week, I picked up an article about teachers, which you do not see that often, that talked about how much they appreciated the additional federal funding for ESL, English as a second language, and how it was helping and how the new money for this year, which we just finished appropriating a few weeks ago, is making its way into the school system. One of the teachers said this was the first year for major funding and it should really improve services. So I stand here today to say that I compliment President Bush, and this Senate, and this Congress, for what they have accomplished in the last 2 years--significant increases in funding for title I and the IDEA program over what was being spent when President Bush took office, even in a time when we have a budget under stress and are considering a war. Education funding is growing at a more rapid rate, as it should, I believe, than virtually any other part of the budget. I am glad to see that. I ask unanimous consent that the article from the Tennessean be printed in the Record, and I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. In Missouri, instead of $3 million, there would be $7.7 million. In Washington State, there is $3 million for neighborhood parks under the President's proposal; this would raise it to $8.3 million. I call to this body's attention two parts of the budget resolution. The first part has to do with drilling in ANWR. The second part is a new reserve fund that would permit taking the first $250 million of money that comes from the oil drilling and put it in the State grant program for the Land and Water Conservation Fund which would more than double the amount of Federal dollars available for neighborhood parks. I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I ask unanimous consent for 1 more minute.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, it compares on one side the administration's proposals for this budget we are debating. For the year 2004, there is $160 million in President Bush's budget. By my calculation, with full funding of the State side of the Land and Water Conservation Fund, we would go to $450 million. That would mean, for example, in California, instead of having $13 million for neighborhood parks, there would be $35 million, or in Tennessee, instead of $3 million for neighborhood parks, there would be $7.7 million.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I support the Budget Committee's recommendation that there be an instruction to the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, on which I serve, to permit leasing and drilling for the oil in Alaska. I listened carefully to what the senior Senator from Alaska told us about history tonight. He reminded us that most recently, in 1980, our country made a decision. Congress debated it here, and President Carter, during his administration, made this decision. He approved of and made both parts of the decision as President. One was to set aside 100 million acres of land in Alaska, an astonishing amount for wilderness area--of which I approved--and then to set aside 1.5 million acres for drilling. That was the decision our country made. Almost all of our decisions about energy and the environment intersect. They almost always are balanced. In 1980, we decided 100 million acres in Alaska for conservation and 1.5 million acres for drilling. And then we are talking, in this proposal, about 2,000 of those 1.5 million acres that we would drill. I would not stand here and say there is no environmental burden when we drill for oil. Of course, there is. But I would like to assert that we almost always seek to find a reasonable balance. What is on the other side of the balance? Why do we need the oil? We are being reminded of that in a great many ways today. We are a nation about to go to war. We are a nation where gasoline prices and gas prices are going up in remarkable numbers. That means for us fewer jobs. That means for us cold homes. We know we are a nation that depends upon a reliable supply of energy. We also know that this Alaskan Refuge we are debating tonight has--as the Senator from Alaska reminded us--more reserves than the State of Texas. So it is not incidental, unless somebody wants to call the oil of Texas incidental. I would not. It is also more than a million barrels of oil a day through the pipeline. By one estimate--the one by the Senator from Alaska--it is 1.4 million a day. So it seems the 1980 balance that this Senate, this Congress, and President Carter made was the right balance, which ought to be honored. A hundred million acres in Alaska for conservation, 1.5 million for drilling, and we will drill on 2,000 of those 1.5 million. I, too, agree that I am ready to see us become serious in our country about finding a new energy base for our economy. I was pleased with the President's proposal for a hydrogen car. In the Energy Subcommittee, which I chair, we will spend a lot of time on that. But the hydrogen car and a hydrogen-based economy are 20 years away. In the meantime, we need jobs and we need to be able to drive to work. We cannot afford to have energy prices and home heating oil and natural gas prices going up to a level our citizens cannot afford. So we have to strike a reasonable balance. I believe the Budget Committee did that, and I support that. Second, I want to point out something else the Budget Committee did that hasn't been mentioned in the debate, as far as I am able to tell. The Budget Committee has within it the creation of a new reserve fund for the State grant program of the Land and Water Conservation Fund. If this budget resolution is passed by the Senate, I, along with Senator Sununu of New Hampshire, and Senator Stevens and Senator Murkowski of Alaska--and I hope many other Senators--will introduce legislation to take the first $250 million of each year's revenues from drilling in this Alaska venture and put it into the State side of the Land and Water Conservation Fund. Let me repeat that. If we produce, by authorizing this drilling for oil in the 2,000 acres, the $1 billion a year that is expected, which should happen in about the year 2005 or 2006, the legislation I propose, along with other Senators, would take the first $250 million and put it into the State side--not the Federal side--of the Land and Water Conservation Fund. This money is used by States and cities and communities to create neighborhood parks, greenways, and land trusts. In other words, we would be balancing what we are doing. We might be creating some environmental burden, taking some environmental risk, but we would be balancing that by a huge environmental benefit on the other side by helping build numbers of State parks and greenways and land trusts, closer to where people live, near their homes. The legislation I propose would more than double the Federal dollars, creating critically needed neighborhood parks, trails, and greenways. More important, it would substantially and reliably fund that State grant program, as Congress intended and the President pledged we would do. The Land and Water Conservation Fund is one of the most popular programs in America with State and local officials. It stems from the recommendations of the Rockefeller Commission, appointed by President Johnson in 1963. When Ronald Reagan was President, he sought to have a followup to the Rockefeller Commission. I was its chairman. We called it the President's Commission on America's Outdoors. It had four Members of Congress as participants. The vice chairman was Gilbert Grovner, president of the National Geographic Society, and it included such distinguished members as Patrick Noonan, who is today president of the Conservation Fund. We made a number of recommendations in 1985 and 1986 to Congress, to the President, and to the Nation. One of the most important of those recommendations was that we use money from nonrenewable energy sources to create permanent assets for the Land and Water Conservation Fund. This was a conservation commission, and we recognized that we would be drilling for gas and oil, but we wanted to use some of that money to build neighborhood parks. Twenty years after President Reagan's Commission on America's Outdoors, I still believe in that principle. I believe we should use revenue from oil and gas drilling, and other activities that deplete our natural resources, to fund conservation efforts, and I believe smart development always includes strong environmental stewardship. The State grant part of the National Park Service Land and Water Conservation Fund provides matching grants that can be used for planning, acquisition, and site development in all 50 States. Many States have actually increased their revenues so that they can match these popular programs. But the State grant program of the Land and Water Conservation Fund has been underfunded by 70 percent, or more, and it has been very unreliable. It has gone up, and it has gone down. Our cities are in desperate need of more funding for neighborhood parks and recreation areas. It is a nice idea to drive all the way out to Yellowstone if you live in New York City, or in Nashville, but most people cannot drive that far. Eighty percent of the people do their outdoor recreation in the neighborhood where they live. The most important park to them is the park that is somewhere in their neighborhood, and this $250 million a year would help create thousands and thousands of new neighborhood parks, walking trails, and greenways. It would create a source of reliable funding. The funding, as I said, has been volatile and inconsistent. This legislation would make the reserve fund from the ANWR revenues mandatory. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge--the land we are discussing that is near there--is owned by all the people, and all should benefit. By allocating a portion of these revenues, a generous portion, in a mandatory way for the benefit of communities everywhere in America, we would be making sure that we balanced our conservation ethic with our need for energy and oil. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to print in the Record a comparison of land and water conservation funds.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my statement count against the opposition's time on the amendment, which is our side's time.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I thank the Senator.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, last week the Senate confirmed the Presidential nomination of Thomas A. Varlan to be a United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Tennessee. While I did not have an opportunity that day to make a floor statement in support of Mr. Varlan, I did want to come to the floor to express my support for him and to express my gratitude to my colleagues for the expeditious confirmation of this superb nominee. Mr. Varlan was recommended last year by the current Senate majority leader, my colleague, Senator Frist, and former Senator Thompson. As someone who, as Governor of Tennessee appointed some 50 judges, I am confident that Mr. Varlan will be an able Federal judge. Mr. Varlan was born and raised in Oak Ridge, TN. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Tennessee in 1978, graduating with the highest honors. He received his Juris Doctorate from Vanderbilt University School of Law in 1981, where he served as an editor of the law review and was selected for membership in the Order of the Coif, the national law school honor society. After receiving his law degree, Mr. Varlan worked for 6 years as an associate with the law firm of Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan in Atlanta, Georgia. In 1988, he returned home to Tennessee and from 1988 through 1998 he served as Law Director for the city of Knoxville, managing all the legal affairs for Tennessee's third largest city. Mr. Varlan has been a partner at the Knoxville law firm of Bass, Berry & Sims, PLC since 1998. Mr. Varlan has practiced law in the areas of employment, school, commercial, patent and trade secrets, antitrust, contracts, product liability, civil rights, tort, annexation, tax, zoning, condemnation, workers' compensation, constitutional, telecommunications, real property, governmental relations, and labor law. Mr. Varlan has practiced in federal, state, and administrative law courts throughout his career and has conducted a number of jury and bench trials. Mr. Varlan has also been active in his community, providing legal services to disadvantaged persons and for organizations such as Volunteer Legal Arts Services in Atlanta, GA, and the Knoxville Bar Association's Mentor for the Moment Program. I am confident that Mr. Varlan will be a fine addition to the Federal bench in Knoxville, and I thank all of my colleagues for their overwhelming support for him.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I support the nomination of John Daniel Breen to be a United States District Judge for the Western District of Tennessee. I am pleased that the Senate has moved so expeditiously to confirm this exceptional nominee. Mr. Breen is currently a United States Judge in the Western District of Tennessee. Judge Breen was recommended last year by the current Senate Majority Leader, my colleague, Senator Frist, and former Senator Thompson. I am pleased to add my voice in support of his nomination. As someone who, as Governor of Tennessee appointed some 50 judges, I am confident that Judge Breen will continue to be an able Federal judge when he is confirmed as a United States District Judge for the Western District of Tennessee. Judge Breen was born and raised in Jackson, TN. He was a summa cum laude graduate of Spring Hill College in Mobile, AL in 1972, and was valedictorian of his class. He received his Juris Doctorate from the University of Tennessee College of Law in 1975, where he served as a member of the law review. After receiving his law degree, Judge Breen worked for sixteen years with the law firm of Waldrop and Hall, P.A. in Jackson, TN. Judge Breen has been a United States Judge for the Western District of Tennessee since 1991 and has an excellent reputation in this position. Judge Breen has vast litigation experience. As a practicing attorney, he practiced general civil litigation primarily in the areas of tort law and workers' compensation. Judge Breen was involved in litigating one of the premier lawsuits in Tennessee in the 1990's, which resulted in the adoption of comparative negligence. Judge Breen has been actively involved and held leadership positions in local, State and national bar associations throughout his legal career. He has also been extremely active in his community by, among other things, providing pro bono legal services to disadvantaged persons and serving as a member on a variety of community organizations. I am confident that Judge Breen will be a fine United States District Judge for the Western District of Tennessee, and I thank all my colleagues who supported this nomination.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I join the distinguished Senator from Kentucky in saying a word about the Chaplain, Lloyd Ogilvie. I am a new Senator, as is the Presiding Officer, and there have been a great many wonderful things about coming to the Senate. But nothing has surpassed the privilege of getting to know Lloyd Ogilvie in these first couple of months. I have watched him and listened, and I have learned from him. I have been comforted by him. I am deeply grateful for that. This month in Billy Graham's publication, ``Decision,'' Lloyd Ogilvie's picture is on the front, and there is an interview with him about his 8 years in the Senate. It is a clue about why he has been such an inspiration to so many Senators. The questioner notes: A current Senator remarked that your prayers often ``make reference to specific turmoil'' in the Senate. The questioner goes on: I understand that sometimes following your opening prayer you sit through the Senate sessions. And Lloyd's answer was: The task of any spiritual leader is to listen. You can't minister to individuals or to a group unless you know what is going on. That is the reason that I have to be there. Lloyd Ogilvie has been a counselor. He is a minister. He is a listener--maybe a listener above all. I have found in my conversations with him that I suspect he knows more about the Senate than any other individual because he knows the hearts of the Senators. So I rise to thank him, to wish him the very best with his wife Mary Jane, and to let him know that one more Senator has been touched by his presence here in a very short period of time. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the interview with Dr. Ogilvie that appears in the March 2003 edition of ``Decision,'' the Billy Graham publication.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I thank the Senator.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, the Senator from Illinois earlier brought up the distinguished late Judge Frank Johnson of Alabama and commended him for doing the right thing. I wanted to remind the Senate of why Judge Johnson was able to do the right thing in desegregating the south. It was because of John Minor Wisdom of Louisiana and John Brown of Texas and Elbert Tuttle of Georgia, who were Republican appellate court judges appointed by a Republican President named Eisenhower at a time in the 1950s when the Democratic side of the Senate was using the filibuster to kill every important piece of civil rights legislation that was proposed in the Senate. Senator Eastland of Mississippi, Senator Stennis of Mississippi would never have approved Judge Wisdom's nomination or never have agreed with it if they had known that he and Judge Brown and Judge Tuttle would order the admission of James Meredith to the University of Mississippi. So at a time when these distinguished former Democratic Senators were filibustering every piece of civil rights legislation in the Senate, they didn't even consider filibustering an appellate judge. That way Judge Wisdom, Judge Brown, and Judge Tuttle all were confirmed, and all ordered James Meredith to be admitted. The relevance of the point of the Senator from Illinois is that today's Democrats, our friends on the other side, are going further than the Democratic filibusters against the civil rights bills in the 1950s. They are denying the President the traditional right to nominate and appoint judges. I don't know what happened in the past, but I know what this one Senator will do in the future. If there is a Democratic President and I am in this body, and if he nominates a judge, I will never vote to deny a vote on that judge. If two or three more Senators on both sides will do the same thing, we could go back to having more respect for our judicial nominating process.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I rise to congratulate the Senator from Alaska and to associate myself with the remarks of the Senator from Minnesota. I mentioned a few moments ago that if our future Federal judges had a few more courses in American history and civics, we might not have these decisions. I see the Senator from Alabama is in the Chamber. I think of the pivot point of the Revolutionary War when all the Europeans on the western side of the mountain in Tennessee were enraged. They were tired of paying taxes to support the bishop of a church to which they did not belong. So they helped fight the Revolution; that is separation of church and state. They did not want to pay taxes to support another church. Before they went over the mountain to the Battle of King's Mountain in Watauga, they went down on their knees to pray. The great pioneer preacher, Samuel Doke, prayed about the sword of the Lord and Gideon. They knew how to separate church and state and still be a religious country. If they knew it, why don't Federal judges know it? Why don't they know that George Washington went down on his knees at Valley Forge, and that Abraham Lincoln turned the war over to the Lord, and General Pershing advised troops to pray? Did they not see President Bush take America to church after 9/11 and then walk across the street to a mosque? We know how to be a religious country and separate church and state, and our Federal judges ought to know how to do that. I suggest one more lesson for teaching American history and civics in our public schools, as the Senator from Alaska suggests, is that we have more Federal judges grow up understanding we are a country that can be as religious as any country in the world and still separate church and state. Those principles can work together.

Mr. ALEXANDER. The Senator from Alabama is exactly right. One of the most remarkable aspects about America is we have a country that is filled with people from everywhere. If one goes to a naturalization ceremony in any Federal court in America and looks at the men and women coming into our country from everywhere, one will see the variety and diversity of our country. We know how to do that. Our country is distinguished because despite our diversity, we do not have religious wars in our country. We respect everybody's right. The greatest aspect of our country is not all that diversity; it is the fact we figured out how to turn all that diversity into one country. Federal judges need to know we have two principles running through this country: We have the Pilgrims who arrived here and saw the shining city on the hill, and we have the great diversity where we are more religious virtually than any country, but we separate church and state. When the chaplain starts every day here with a prayer, he is not establishing a church in the United States of America; he is recognizing the religious nature of our country, and judges should know that.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Yes, of course.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I first thank the majority leader for his comments and his friendship and his encouragement of the new Senators in these first addresses. I thank the Senator from Nevada for his encouragement and his willingness to join me in cosponsoring the legislation that I hope to talk about. I thank my colleagues for taking the time to be here today. From the Senate's earliest days, new Members have observed, as we just heard, the ritual of remaining silent for a period of time, ranging from several weeks to 2 years. By waiting a respectful amount of time before giving their so-called ``maiden speeches,'' freshmen Senators hoped their senior colleagues would respect them for their humility. This information comes from our Senate historian, Richard Baker, who told me that in 1906 the former Governor of Wisconsin--I am sensitive to this as a former Governor--Robert La Follette, arrived here, in Mr. Baker's words, ``anything but humble.'' He waited just 3 months, a brief period by the standards of those days, before launching his first major address. He then spoke for 8 hours over 3 days and his remarks in the Congressional Record consumed 148 pages. As he began to speak, most of the Senators present in the Chamber rose from their desks and departed. La Follette's wife, observing from the gallery, wrote: There was no mistaking that this was a polite form of hazing. From our first day here, as the majority leader said, we new Members of the 108th Congress have been encouraged to speak up, and most of us have. But, with the encouragement of the majority leader and the assistant minority leader, several of us intend also to try to revive the tradition of the maiden address by a signature speech on an issue that is important both to the country and to each of us. I thank my colleagues who are here, and I assure all of you that I will not do what the former Governor of Wisconsin did and speak for 3 days.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I rise today to address the intersection of two urgent concerns that will determine our country's future, and these are also the two topics I care about the most, the education of our children and the principles that unite us as Americans. It is time we put the teaching of American history and civics back in its rightful place in our schools so our children can grow up learning what it means to be an American. Especially during such serious times when our values and ways of life are being attacked, we need to understand just what those values are. In this, most Americans would agree. For example, in Thanksgiving remarks in 2001, President Bush praised our Nation's response to September 11. ``I call it,'' he said, ``the American character.'' At about the same time, speaking at Harvard, former Vice President Al Gore said, ``We should fight for the values that bind us together as a country.'' Both men were invoking a creed of ideas and values in which most Americans believe. ``It has been our fate as a nation,'' the historian Richard Hofstadter wrote, ``not to have ideologies but to be one.'' This value-based identity has inspired both patriotism and division at home as well as emulation and hatred abroad. For terrorists, as well as those who admire America, at issue is the United States itself--not what we do but who we are. Yet our children do not know what makes America exceptional. National exams show that three-quarters of the Nation's 4th, 8th, and 12th graders are not proficient in civics knowledge and one-third do not even have basic knowledge, making them ``civic illiterates.'' Children are not learning about American history and civics because they are not being taught them. American history has been watered down, and civics is too often dropped from the curriculum entirely. Until the 1960s, civics education, which teaches the duties of citizenship, was a regular part of the high school curriculum. But today's college graduates probably have less civic knowledge than high school graduates of 50 years ago. Reforms, so-called, in the 1960s and 1970s, resulted in widespread elimination of required classes and curriculum in civics education. Today, more than half the States have no requirement for students to take a course--even for one semester--in American government. To help put the teaching of American history and civics in its rightful place, today I introduce legislation on behalf of myself and cosponsors, Senator Reid of Nevada, Senator Gregg, Senator Santorum, Senator Inhofe, and Senator Nickles. We call it the American History and Civics Education Act. The purpose of the act is to create presidential academies for teachers of American history and civics, and congressional academies for students of American history and civics. These residential academies would operate for 2 weeks, in the case of teachers, and 4 weeks in the case of students, during the summertime. Their purpose would be to inspire better teaching and more learning of the key events, the key persons, and the key ideas that shape the institutions and democratic heritage of the United States. I had some experience with such residential summer academies when I was Governor of Tennessee. It was a good experience. In 1984, we began creating governor's schools for students and for teachers. We had a Governor's School for the Arts. We had a Governor's School for International Studies at the University of Memphis, a Governor's School for Teachers of Writing at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, which was very successful. Eventually there were eight governor's schools in our State, and they helped thousands of Tennessee teachers improve their skills and inspired outstanding students in the same way. When those teachers and students went back to their own schools during the regular school year, their enthusiasm for teaching and learning the subject they had been a part of in the summer infected their peers and improved education across the board. Dollar for dollar, I believe the governor's schools in our State were the most effective popular education initiatives in our State's history. We weren't the only State to try it; many did. The first State governor's school I heard about was in North Carolina, started by Terry Sanford when he was Governor in 1963, and then other States have done the same--Georgia, South Carolina, Arkansas, Kentucky, and Tennessee. In 1973, Pennsylvania established the Governor's Schools of Excellence, with 14 different programs of study. Mississippi has done the same. Virginia's Governor's School is a summer residential program for 7,500 of the Commonwealth's most gifted students. Mississippi and West Virginia also have similar programs. They are just a few of the more than 100 governor's schools in 28 States. Clearly, the model has proved to be a good one. The legislation I propose today applies that successful model to American history and civics by establishing presidential and congressional academies for students and teachers of those subjects. The legislation would do one more thing. It would authorize the creation of a national alliance of American history and civics teachers to be connected by the Internet. The alliance would facilitate sharing of best practices in the teaching of American history and civics. It is modeled after an alliance I helped the National Geographic Society start in the 1980s. Their purpose was to help put geography back into the school curriculum. This legislation creates a pilot program, up to 12 presidential academies for teachers, 12 congressional academies for students, sponsored by educational institutions. The National Endowment for the Humanities would reward 2-year renewable grants to those institutions after a peer review process. Each grant would be subject to rigorous review after 3 years to determine whether the overall program should continue or expand or be stopped. The legislation authorizes $25 million annually for the 4-year pilot program. There is a broad new basis of support for and interest in American history and civics in our country. As David Gordon noted in a recent issue of the Harvard Education Letter: A 1998 survey by the nonpartisan research organization Public Agenda showed that 84 percent of parents with school age children say they believe the United States is a special country and they want our schools to convey that belief to our children by teaching about its heroes and its traditions. Similar numbers identified the American ideal as including equal opportunity, individual freedom, and tolerance and respect for others. Those findings were consistent across racial and ethnic groups. Our national leadership has responded to this renewed interest. In 2000, at the initiative of my distinguished colleague Senator Byrd, Congress created grants for schools that teach American history as a separate subject within the school curriculum. We appropriated $100 million for those grants in the recent omnibus appropriations bill, and rightfully so. They encourage schools and teachers to focus on the teaching of traditional American history and provide important financial support. Then, last September, with historian David McCullough at his side, President Bush announced a new initiative to encourage the teaching of American history and civics. He established the ``We The People'' program at the National Endowment for the Humanities, which will develop curricula and sponsor lectures on American history and civics. He announced the ``Our Documents'' project, run by the National Archives. This will take 100 of America's most prominent and important documents from the National Archives to classrooms everywhere in the country. This year, the President will convene a White House forum on American history, civics, and service. There we can discuss new policies to improve the teaching and learning of those subjects. This proposed legislation takes the next step by training teachers and encouraging outstanding students. I am pleased today that one of the leading Members of the House of Representatives, Roger Wicker of Mississippi, along with a number of his colleagues, is introducing the same legislation in the House of Representatives. I thank Senator Gregg, the chairman of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, for being here and also for agreeing that the committee will hold hearings on this legislation so we can determine how it might supplement and work with the legislation enacted last year in this Congress and the President's various initiatives. In 1988, I was at a meeting of educators in Rochester when the President of Notre Dame University asked this question: ``What is the rationale for the public school?'' There was an unexpected silence around the room until Al Shanker, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, answered in this way: ``The public school was created to teach immigrant children the three R's and what it means to be an American with the hope that they would then go home and teach their parents.'' From the founding of America, we have always understood how important it is for citizens to understand the principles that unite us as a country. Other countries are united by their ethnicity. If you move to Japan, you can't become Japanese. Americans, on the other hand, are united by a few principles in which we believe. To become an American citizen, you subscribe to those principles. If there are no agreement on those principles, Samuel Huntington has noted, we would be the United Nations instead of the United States of America. There has therefore been a continuous education process to remind Americans just what those principles are. In his retirement at Monticello, Thomas Jefferson would spend evenings explaining to overnight guests what he had in mind when he helped create what we call America. By the mid-19th century it was just assumed that most Americans knew what it meant to be an American. In his letter from the Alamo, Col. William Barrett Travis pleaded for help simply ``in the name of liberty, patriotism and everything dear to the American character.'' New waves of immigration in the late 19th century brought to our country a record number of new people from other lands whose view of what it means to be an American was indistinct--and Americans responded by teaching them. In Wisconsin, for example, the Kohler Company housed German immigrants together so that they might be Americanized during non-working hours. But the most important Americanizing institution, as Mr. Shanker reminded us in Rochester in 1988, was the new common school. McGuffey's Reader, which was used in many classrooms, sold more than 120 million copies introducing a common culture of literature, patriotic speeches and historical references. The wars of the 20th century made Americans stop and think about what we were defending. President Roosevelt made certain that those who charged the beaches of Normandy knew they were defending for freedoms. But after World War II, the emphasis on teaching and defining the principles that unite us waned. Unpleasant experiences with McCarthyism in the 1950's, discouragement after the Vietnam War, and history books that left out or distorted the history of African-Americans made some skittish about discussing ``Americanism.'' The end of the Cold War removed a preoccupation with who we were not, making it less important to consider who we are. The immigration law changes in 1965 brought to our shores many new Americans and many cultural changes. As a result, the American Way became much more often praised than defined. Changes in community attitudes, as they always are, were reflected in our schools. According to historian Diane Ravitch, the public school virtually abandoned its role as the chief Americanizing institution. We have gone, she explains, from one extreme--simplistic patriotism and incomplete history--to the other--``public schools with an adversary culture that emphasizes the Nation's warts and diminishes its genuine accomplishments. There is no literary canon, no common reading, no agreed-upon lists of books, poems and stories from which students and parents might be taught a common culture and be reminded of what it means to be an American.'' During this time many of our national leaders contributed to this drift toward agnostic Americanism. These leaders celebrated multiculturalism and bilingualism and diversity at a time when there should have been more emphasis on a common culture and learning English and unity. America's variety and diversity is a great strength, but it is not our greatest strength. Jerusalem is diverse. The Balkans are diverse. America's greatest accomplishment is not its variety and diversity but that we have found a way to take all that variety and diversity and unite as one country. E pluribus unum: out of many, one. That is what makes America truly exceptional. Since 9/11 things have been different. The terrorists focused their cross-hairs on the creed that unites Americans as one country--forcing us to remind ourselves of those principles, to examine and define them, and to celebrate them. The President has been the lead teacher. President Bush has literally taken us back to school on what it means to be an American. When he took the country to church on television after the attacks he reminded us that no country is more religious than we are. When he walked across the street to the mosque he reminded the world that we separate church and state and that there is freedom here to believe in whatever one wants to believe. When he attacked and defeated the Taliban, he honored life. When we put planes back in the air and opened financial markets and began going to football games again we honored liberty. The President called on us to make those magnificent images of courage and charity and leadership and selflessness after 9/11 more permanent in our every day lives. And with his optimism, he warded off doomsayers who tried to diminish the real gift of Americans to civilization, our cockeyed optimism that anything is possible. Just after 9/11, I proposed an idea I called ``Pledge Plus Three.'' Why not start each school day with the Pledge of Allegiance--as we did this morning here in the Senate--followed by a faculty member or student sharing for three minutes ``what it means to be an American.'' The Pledge embodies many of the ideals of our National Creed: ``one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.'' It speaks to our unity, to our faith, to our value of freedom, and to our belief in the fair treatment of all Americans. If more future Federal judges took more classes in American history and civics and learned about those values, we might have fewer mind-boggling decisions like the one issued by the Ninth Circuit. Before I was elected to the Senate, I taught some of our future judges and legislators a course at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government entitled ``The American Character and America's Government.'' The purpose of the course was to help policymakrers, civil servants and journalists analyze the American creed and character and apply it in the solving of public policy problems. We tried to figure out, if you will, what would be ``the American way'' to solve a given problem, if such a thing were to exist. The students and I did not have much trouble deciding that America is truly exceptional--not always better, but truly exceptional--or in identifying the major principles of an American creed or the distinct characteristics of our country; such principles as: liberty, equal opportunity, rule of law, laissez faire, individualism, e pluribus unum, the separation of church and state. But what we also found was that applying those principles to today's issues was hard work. This was because the principles of the creed often conflicted. For example, when discussing President Bush's faith- based charity legislation, we knew that ``In God We Trust'' but we also knew that we didn't trust government with God. When considering whether the Federal Government should pay for scholarships which middle and low income families might use at any accredited school--public, private or religious--we found that the principle of equal opportunity conflicted with the separation of church and state. And we found there are great disappointments when we try to live up to our greatest dreams; For example, President Kennedy's pledge that we will ``pay any price or bear any burden'' to defend freedom, or Thomas Jefferson's assertion that ``all men are created equal,'' or the American dream that for anyone who works hard, tomorrow will always be better than today. We often are disappointed when we try to live to those truths. We learned that, as Samuel Huntington has written, balancing these conflicts and disappointments is what most of American politics and government is about. If, most of our politics and government is about applying to our most urgent problems the principles and characteristics that make the United States of America an exceptional country, then we had better get about the teaching and learning of those principles and characteristics. The legislation I propose today, with several cosponsors, will help our schools do what they were established to do in the first place. At a time when there are record numbers of new Americans, at a time when our values are under attack, at a time when we are considering going to war to defend those values, there can be no more urgent task than putting the teaching of American history and civics back in its rightful place in our schools so our children can grow up learning what it means to be an American. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record several items: A syllabus from the course that I taught, an article from the National Association of Scholars, and memoranda outlining the various Governors' schools in our State and other States. I also highly commend to my colleagues a report from the Carnegie Corporation and CIRCLE titled ``The Civic Mission of Schools.''