Kit Bond

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, did I hear the majority leader ask unanimous consent that votes would have a 60-vote requirement?

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I object to any measure coming up that does not have a 60-vote requirement. We conditioned our approval to bring up these amendments on agreeing to 60 votes; otherwise, we will use the prerogatives of the Senate.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I wanted to share a few views on matters that have been just raised. I thought it was important to bring these up. I will have longer remarks when we actually get on the bill. I appreciated hearing from our colleague, who is an original cosponsor of the first FISA bill, and to learn about the negotiations which went on then. But I was a little puzzled to hear how this bill-- this bill, which includes significantly more protections for Americans' civil liberties and constitutional rights--somehow goes back on the original FISA. The original FISA required a court review of targeting of U.S. persons. We have gone far beyond that in this bill. As a matter of fact, the Protect America Act, which he decried, contained all of the protections that were in the original FISA bill. Now, we have, on a bipartisan basis--I keep emphasizing that the Intelligence Committee, on a bipartisan basis, after being fully briefed--fully briefed--by several elements of the intelligence community--and we asked them questions. We had briefings. We went to the NSA to see how it worked. We went through all of these ideas with them. They said: We understand your objective. Here is how to accomplish it. I think we have prepared a very good bill that by any fair reading-- any fair reading--will extend the protections beyond what the original FISA, and even the Protect America Act, had for the surveillance, electronic surveillance of anybody either in the United States or a U.S. person abroad. I am very much surprised that he says somehow, this bill, which provides more protection, doesn't provide the basic protections of FISA. I regret to say that is just not right. I also want to address some questions about immunity which have been brought up. I thought our committee report, a bipartisan product, said it pretty well when talking about why providing immunity--and it is not amnesty because these companies, the companies alleged to have done wrong, did nothing wrong. This is what the Intelligence Committee said. We concluded: The providers had a good faith basis for responding to the request for assistance they received. The intelligence community cannot obtain the intelligence it needs without assistance from these companies. Companies in the future may be less willing to assist the government if they face the threat of private lawsuits each time they are alleged to have provided assistance. The possible reduction in intelligence that might result from this delay is simply unacceptable for the safety of our Nation. Allowing continued litigation also risks the disclosure of highly classified information regarding intelligence sources and methods. In addition to providing an advantage to our adversaries by revealing sources and methods during the course of litigation, the potential disclosure of classified information puts both the facilities and personnel of electronic communications service providers and our country's continued ability to protect our homeland at risk. It is imperative that Congress provide liability protection to those who cooperated with our country in the hour of need. Now, there was some talk about article II, and some suggested that the FISA Court would not have--this could not have been approved by the FISA Court. Well, my understanding is the FISA Court knew about it. The FISA Court has acted on this measure, and in one of the few published reports of the FISA Court of Review, In Re: Sealed Case--that is a very compelling and provocative title, but that is the name of the case--it is stated in one of the footnotes dealing with the case that: The Truong case, where a warrantless search of U.S. persons in the United States was approved by the court, the FISA Court of Review said: The Truong court, as did all the other courts to have decided this issue, held that the President did have the inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information. It was incumbent upon the court, therefore, to determine the boundaries of that constitutional authority in the case before it. We take for granted that the President does have that authority and, assuming that is so, FISA could not encroach on the President's constitutional power. The court went on to say: The question before us is the reverse, does FISA amplify the President's power by providing a mechanism that at least approaches a classic warrant and which therefore supports the government's contention that FISA searches are constitutionally reasonable. That is the view of the FISA Court of Review. Everybody is saying, well, we need to find out what the FISA Court of Review has to say about these certifications, about the authorizations. What I just read is what the FISA Court has said. The President does have the power under article II of the Constitution to conduct warrantless surveillances. Once that determination is made, then to go back and say that any company, any U.S. person, or any corporation that got a notice from the Attorney General to carry out an order of the President through the Intelligence Committee to conduct foreign intelligence surveillance is breaking the law is just absolutely beyond the bounds. I am very sorry we have such a disjoint in the reading and understanding of the constitutional powers. And to say now that these people should be dragged back into court where they will be subjected not only to the potential of large legal bills, the potential loss in terms of any judgment--although I think that is minimal; I don't think anybody is going to be able to show any harm that would warrant the court to grant a monetary recovery--but what they will find, what they will find is great damage to their reputation, as the people who are enemies of the United States go out actively and trash any company or any individual who cooperates with the United States. There are evil people out there who would love to be able to get information and confirm what companies may have participated. Once that happens, those companies would be at great risk abroad. Their reputations would suffer, and they and their personnel could be at great risk of physical harm. So there are many good reasons not to bring these cases in court against the providers. Please note, as we have stated before, that this measure only protects the private sector people who might have cooperated. It does not protect Government employees. I hope by clarifying this, people will get a better understanding of why immunity is necessary to protect the legitimate interests of the United States in collecting foreign information. Many of my colleagues want to speak, so I appreciate the opportunity to clarify the question of immunity. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I am a little bit confused. We certainly don't want to cut short the remarks of our friend from Connecticut, but I thought this was supposed to go back and forth. I believe there is an hour limit under postcloture on time that can be consumed by any Senator. I thought we would go back and forth to enable people on both sides and let the chairman and me perhaps respond where necessary.

Mr. BOND. I wanted to know, through the Chair, what the procedure is right now.

Mr. BOND. All right. Again, I seek recognition, and I thank my colleagues for sharing their views.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I thank the Chair, and I thank our minority leader, Senator McConnell, for outlining the importance of the Peru Free Trade Agreement and the other trade agreements. We have 3 short weeks to get to work and do the work we have not done so far this year. I wanted to address three aspects of it. First, for the intelligence community, we must act, and we must act now, to assure that the community has the ability and the tools they need to fight terrorists. Over the last 30 years, the world has experienced a technological revolution, and our laws governing terrorist surveillance have not kept pace. The old 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that I will refer to as FISA was drafted to deal specifically with the technology in use at the time. This spring, a court ruled that because of the change in technology, the old FISA law severely limited our ability to collect intelligence. Essentially, it made us deaf to collection of vitally needed information. Following that ruling, the Director of National Intelligence, Admiral McConnell, told Congress the United States was unable to conduct the critical surveillance of foreign terrorists planning to conduct attacks inside our country because of the outdated law. It not only affected our ability to protect the United States, but it also threatened the safety and lives of our troops abroad. In May I heard that directly from the commander of our Joint Special Operations in Iraq, who told me the limitations in the old law prevented him from capturing key information needed to protect our troops in theater. He could kill or capture a top al-Qaida leader, but he was not able to collect signals intelligence on them. The bottom line is that terrorists were able to use technology and our own outdated laws to stay a step ahead of us. Congress acted. On August 3 and 4, fortunately, we were able to pass the Protect America Act. I was proud to be the lead sponsor of it because passage of this temporary law essentially put our national security forces back in the business of collecting the information they needed. But this is only a stopgap measure and expires in February. It did not include all of the reforms we wanted. I hope this week the Senate will move to pass a permanent fix, or at least a longer term fix, to our intelligence surveillance law. It is critical we act before we leave for the holidays to make sure that our intelligence laws will be up to date and we will not run into a deadline when we come back in January and have to rush through a bill at the end or leave our intelligence community deaf to the new collections they need. We have two bills before us. Unfortunately, the Senate Judiciary Committee took the bill that came out of the Intelligence Committee and changed it so much that it would gut our intelligence surveillance ability. The committee ignored significant concerns expressed by the working level officials in the Department of Justice and the intelligence community, the very operators who know how the system works. The Senate Judiciary Committee ignored the concerns of its own minority members. The bill was voted out on a straight party line. The good news is there is another option. Earlier this year, the Senate Intelligence Committee voted out a bipartisan bill to update FISA. After the members of our committee had months and months to study this program, most of our committee members went out to the agency to see how it worked, to see the layers of protection built in to make sure it stayed within the law. We put together, Chairman Rockefeller and I, a bipartisan agreement which added more protections to the constitutional rights and the privacy rights of American citizens. We worked with the intelligence community representatives and the Department of Justice lawyers to make sure it would work. This bill we reported out of the Intelligence Committee gives our intelligence operators and law enforcement officials the tools they need to collect surveillance on foreign terrorists in foreign countries planning to conduct attacks inside the United States or against our troops, our allies. It is the balance we need to protect our civil liberties without handcuffing our intelligence agencies. I hope we can do the right thing and bring that bill to the floor. Now while we are working together to get our intelligence community the tools they need, our military needs Congress to provide the funds to get them the equipment, supplies, and fuels they need in the field. We have got men and women fighting for security in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and our own security. Regrettably, the Democratic leadership in Congress wants to hold these funds hostage to a far-left agenda which does not represent anything more than a sliver of popular opinion in this country. There is no excuse for stalling much-needed funds for American troops. These are American troops fighting in the field, and we are not giving them funds. By kowtowing to the far left moveon.org and the Code Pink constituency, some of the leaders of the Democratic Party in Congress who have control of it are playing a dangerous game with the safety of our troops in the field and the readiness and morale of our troops here at home. The latest partisan move comes despite the good news out of Iraq. Even the media, who has been opposed to our involvement in Iraq, is recognizing that as a result of the new Petraeus strategy, a surge on the counterinsurgency, working with the Iraqi security forces, our forces together with the Iraqis have been successful in eliminating key terrorist safe havens and hampering the enemy's ability to conduct coordinated attacks. There has been a consistent and steady trend of progress over the last 6 months. There are positive stories describing Baghdad's marketplace coming back to life. All over the place violent attacks in Iraq are falling. Even some of the war's loudest and strongest opponents in the House have acknowledged the signs of progress. But despite this, the leadership has failed to give us the opportunity to improve the funds our troops need in the field. With only a few legislative days left, our soldiers, sailors, our airmen, and marines cannot afford more of the partisan delay. We have got men and women risking their lives, and we are denying the funds they need for support. That is unthinkable. That is unthinkable. We have got to abandon the far left's strategies of retreat and defeat and allow our troops to do their jobs. Peru Free Trade Agreement While we are talking about winning the war, there is also the war that is the soft war, the war of economic progress and opportunity. That is why, as Leader McConnell said, the free trade agreements are so important. We have the opportunity to help countries that are less developed get the free markets, the economic opportunity, the democratic chances to influence their government that we treasure and that have helped make our country successful. One of the most important things we can do is adopt the free trade agreements. We have four agreements pending. If enacted, these four pending FTAs would expand market opportunities between the United States and countries that have nearly 126 million consumers. Today's vote on the Peru FTA is very important. I urge us to support that. This will generate U.S. exports, create jobs, enhance the well- being of farming communities such as those I represent in Missouri. Ask these farmers and the small businesses how important these agreements are. Opening these markets would boost U.S. farm exports by $1.5 billion. Under the Peru FTA, more than two-thirds of current U.S. farm exports will become duty free. Tariffs on all farm products would be eliminated in 17 years. The FTAs are vitally important. When FTAs are defeated, it is bad news for progressive government supporting the United States. In particular, it would be a blow to President Uribe in Colombia, who has been successfully fighting the leftist FARC terrorists, curbing illicit drug production. He is the most important counterweight to the anti- American vitriol of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. Chavez was rebuffed by students in his own country. We have an opportunity to establish good working relationships with Peru, with Colombia, with Panama, to show the leaders of the opposition in Venezuela that there is a better way than Hugo Chavez and his blind adherence to the Castro model in Cuba. Every President since World War II, Republican and Democrat, has fought to reduce the kind of trade barriers that triggered the Great Depression of the 1930s. This administration has followed that example. I hope that in addition to Peru, the leadership of Congress will seek approval of free trade agreements and pass them for South Korea, Panama, and Colombia. It is vitally important not only for free trade between those countries but for our standing in leading for security, peace, and freedom in Latin America. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. I object.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, here we go again. We have had an effort to take another vote on whether we should pull out of Iraq. Apparently, it is based on public opinion polls. Some think it would be popular, and certainly the moveon.org and Code Pink wing of the majority party would be very happy if we could have crammed down a measure to make a substantial change in our policy without even allowing an amendment. It is absolutely unacceptable on its face. I object not only on behalf of myself and many of my colleagues but for the brave men and women from America who volunteered to go into harm's way for our security and to promote security in the world. Retreat and defeat may be politically popular with some, but this kind of poison pill does great injustice to what our American volunteers have done. From the people on the ground, when we first started considering these retreat-and-defeat measures, I heard a very heartfelt plea: We have made too many contributions and made too many sacrifices to see it all go for naught because of political maneuvering on Capitol Hill. That comes from people who have seen their comrades fall in battle. This year alone, the Democrats have attempted at least nine times to force the President to change the military strategy and tactics in Iraq, on the misbegotten notion that somehow we, in this comfortable setting of Congress, can make better military, tactical, and strategic decisions than our commanders on the ground. I find that deplorable. It used to be the tradition of this body, of America, that we supported our troops when they were going in harm's way. Now some are doing everything possible to undermine their efforts. Nine times they have tried to change the policy. After 77 of us voted to send troops into Iraq because we knew it was a dangerous place, we found out--by the Iraq Survey Group--that it was even more dangerous. Make no mistake, while some in this body may not think Iraq is important, two people whose activities I try to follow fairly closely in intelligence, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, his No. 2 man, think Iraq should be the headquarters of their caliphate, the headquarters of their vicious terrorist empire that wants to subjugate the region and threaten the United States. Now, however, there is a key difference from earlier because we are seeing dramatic improvements in the security situation in Iraq, in particular in Al Anbar Province, which a year ago was a deadly place, a deadly place into which American troops could only go under heavy fire. My son and several thousand marines are coming home because they have succeeded. Yes, there is a strategy for drawing down our troops. The President has announced it. It is called ``return on success.'' We bring the troops back when they have succeeded in their mission. In Iraq, in Al Anbar, I have heard from people who are imbedded with Iraqi security forces that times have changed. There now are Iraqi citizen groups, citizen watch groups, who look for IEDs, who will identify foreign terrorists--al-Qaida types--who come into the area, and who will point out factories designed to build explosive vehicles. They turn that over to the Iraqi police in the area, and they clean it up. I have heard from a guy on the ground who is responsible for maintaining stability and security from the terrorists that the marines were no longer needed. So they are coming back. This is being replicated in places throughout Iraq. Have we finished? We have not finished the job. There are still other areas, but it means we are succeeding. Iraqis are going about their normal business. Unfortunately for our fighting men and women and the Iraqi people who put their trust in us to see this mission through, too rarely are their successes being reported. They are ignored, although the New York Times, on the back page, I think, this past weekend, pointed out that we had routed al-Qaida in Iraq. Surprise. That wasn't on the front page, did not make headlines, because it has indicated a major change. Have you heard much about the success of General Petraeus and the counterinsurgency strategy after he testified on Capitol Hill? If you are like most Americans, the answer is you have heard very little, because it has fundamentally changed. While the media has always been quick to report bombings and failures in Iraq, it is simply not providing all of the good news. They have been remarkably successful in 2007 in reducing violence. Yes, with the surge, with the new strategy, there was violence. But, according to General Odierno, the operational commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, enemy attacks are now at their lowest level since January 2006 and continue to drop. There has been a 60-percent decrease in IED attacks. The reduction in violence is partly as a result of the presence of additional American forces and their adoption of the sound counterinsurgency strategy--go in and clear an area, work with the Iraqi security forces, and help them build an economy, a neighborhood, a safe place. It is also because the leaders on the ground in Iraq, the Sunni sheiks, have said--they have seen what continued terrorist attacks do to their country, to their people. The most frequent victims are Iraqis, good Muslim Iraqis who are being killed by the terrorists. They want to cooperate with us, and they are building, from the ground up, a stable, reliable, peaceful control over the area with the Iraqi security forces. Yes, some of them fought against us in the past, but they are now on our side because we are on their side and we are helping them. And when they take over, we will move back. Now, I am fully aware of and concerned about the lack of political reconciliation. But, again, from boots on the ground, I hear: How do you expect them to establish a perfect democracy when this country is still not secure? Our goal in Iraq must be to work with the Iraqis, the Iraqi security forces, and responsible leaders to establish relative peace and security in the area. What would happen if we withdrew precipitously for a political goal? We learned in an open hearing of the Intelligence Committee in January that if we pull out before we have stabilized this area and left in place Iraqi security forces, there would be chaos, and three bad things would happen: No. 1, there would be greatly increased violence among Sunni and Shia; there would likely be intervention by other states coming into Iraq to protect their coreligionists, potentially a civil war spreading into a region-wide war in a vital security and energy part of the world; but most dangerous for United States, and this is something my colleagues who want to cut and run seem to refuse to acknowledge, is that al-Qaida would be able to establish a safe haven. Yes, they have been driven off to the hills, the mountainous regions somewhere in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but they cannot mobilize and exercise their command and control. If they had a place for command and control, had access to the oil riches of Iraq to fund their deeds, we would be significantly at greater risk to weapons of mass destruction attacks by terrorist groups funded and supported by al-Qaida. We need to be realistic in defining what reconciliation is. It is a long process. To this day, for example, not all outstanding political tensions have been reconciled in Northern Ireland, in Bosnia, or Kosovo. Yet the civil wars and the terrorist campaigns that once threatened to engulf those areas have ended, and competing factions are pursuing their agendas primarily by peaceful political means. Our men and women in uniform are fighting in Iraq to bring violence under control, to destroy al-Qaida, to drive out destabilizing Iranian meddling, and to establish a relatively stable and secure structure in Iraq, and they are making progress to those goals. Getting a perfect democracy--we thought we had a perfect Jeffersonian democracy; then we had to have a Lincolnian republic after the Civil War. We are continuing to see the democracy. While it is the best of all the other bad situations, it is not perfect and does not work in a clear upward path; it takes time. And now we are seeing the questions being worked out at the local level on revenue sharing, oil revenue sharing. But to push a retreat-and-defeat, a delay-and-deny battle for the funds for our troops on the ground is unthinkable. This unanimous consent agreement to which I objected would be the ultimate cut and run: declare defeat, and hope to be rewarded in 2008 at the polls--a very regrettable effort by our colleagues on the other side. The 2008 Defense appropriations bill recently passed by Congress includes no funding for our current operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the global war on terror. For 3 years prior to this, we included emergency funding for the regular Defense appropriations bill to cover the cost of military operations until a full supplemental could be adopted. We are now seeing, coming over from the House, a pittance of what is needed, encapsulated in all kinds of restrictions that tie the hands of the troops on the ground and put unreasonable restrictions on them that are likely to cause much greater danger to American personnel, military and civilian, over there. What we need to provide-- and I hope we will be able to put an alternative emergency funding bill on the floor--are funds for force protection initiatives, body armor, helmets, ballistic eye protection, even knee and elbow pads, flares, and armor. The 2008 Defense spending bill did include funding for MRAPs, but why did the Democrats insist on omitting other critical items? Now that DOD will be forced to continue robbing Peter to pay Paul in order to fund operations, it has a tremendously negative impact, not only on the way we conduct the war but how the Department of Defense operates. Important equipment reset and other procurement programs have to be slowed down. It will impact the availability of equipment, including critical equipment for the National Guard needed to respond to domestic emergencies. Without this funding, the Pentagon is forced to divert money from their regular accounts to fund overseas operations, about $13 billion a month. I have a letter that has just been sent by Gordon England. He has pointed out what this would mean to the Defense Department. It means, among other things, the Deputy Secretary of Defense said, they will have no choice but to deplete appropriations accounts, and it will result in a profoundly negative impact on the defense civilian working force, depot maintenance, base operations, and training activities, and within a few weeks they will be required by law to issue notices of termination to civilian employees. In addition, a lack of any funding for the Iraqi security forces and the Afghanistan national security forces directly undermines the ability of the United States to continue training and equipping Iraqi and Afghanistan troops who are needed to take over. This makes absolutely no sense in a time of war. We deny the needed funding that will keep our troops--not only keep the troops in the field but support those who are working to assure that we can turn over the responsibility to them. This is absolutely the wrong message to send to our deployed troops. We must provide emergency funding without political timetables to win votes at home but undermine our troops. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a letter from Deputy Secretary of Defense England to House Defense Subcommittee chairman John Murtha and an article in today's Washington Times called ``War Funds Under Attack.''

Mr. BOND

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

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I thought I would talk about agriculture and the farm bill today. I have a number of amendments I would like to offer. For example, I have one that we hope will spur the planting of cellulosic feedstock on CRP land, which I think is necessary if we are going to go to cellulosic ethanol, growing switchgrass on CRP land, maintaining the Conservation Reserve Program requirements, and providing a reduced payment, CRP payment, in exchange for allowing that switchgrass to be harvested for cellulosic ethanol. That is just one of the steps we need to take in renewable fuels. Today, I have filed an amendment at the desk called the Farm Red Tape Reduction Act. I think it is very important to give farmers a voice in Federal rulemakings whenever a Federal regulation threatens to impose severe economic pain on farmers. As we saw with small business, many times the Government overlooks the plight of the little guy who does not have the resources or know-how to weigh in with big Government agencies in Washington. In 1976, Congress created the Office of Advocacy to ensure that small businesses have an advocate in Government and a seat at the table when new regulations affecting them are drafted. I wish to share that same success with farmers. We also did something along the same lines in the Small Business Committee about 10 years ago. We introduced--I introduced and we passed something called the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act, or SBREFA. That has allowed small businesses and small business advocates to have a say in regulations affecting them. I believe we need to do the same thing for farmers. This amendment would help provide a more transparent Government, ensure that the Government listens to the people most affected by the regulations, and it would hold the Government accountable for its action. It is a message I think we all want to take to our constituents; that is, the Federal Government is meant to serve its citizens, not bully them. We want to make it an easy process. Citizens should be heard while Government is deciding on a regulation that affects them, not after the decision is made. The difference is subtle but important: Listen to farmers and agriculture first, to be inclusive. Cutting unnecessary redtape will provide greater flexibility for agricultural businesses by removing barriers to enterprise. Encouraging enterprise is essential if the United States is to compete in a global environment. Farms and other agricultural businesses will benefit from simplified rules. This measure will help in cutting redtape with a view to improving the environment for agriculture and business. My experience on the Small Business Committee tells me there are currently dozens of regulatory proposals before Federal agencies but most without a true assessment of the impact on the very people they will affect. What are the initiatives necessary? Are they all essential? What are the consequences? I want the agencies to look into that question. It is not my intention to throw out regulations simply as a matter of principle if, for example, they involve costs for agriculture. I am more concerned with obtaining solid impact analysis that can serve as a basis for informed decisionmaking. It is also quite clear that better regulations will be possible only if those affected also play their part since they will be responsible for implementation. I ask my colleagues to support this amendment. Carbon Cap Speaking of burdens, Mr. President, this morning the Environment Committee conducted a hearing on the proposed Lieberman-Warner carbon cap legislation. I addressed then how I think this proposed legislation will hurt farmers in the farm economy. As part of the farm bill discussion, I want people who are focusing on agriculture and the impact on farmers to know what could be happening to them if we were to pass the Lieberman-Warner bill. Now, I have great respect for both of these gentlemen. I also am concerned about reducing emissions, but I believe this legislation will be very expensive for them. It will make it much more expensive for all of us cooling our homes in the summer, heating them in the winter. It will make more expensive the electricity we need to light our homes. It will make more expensive the gasoline we need to power our cars and trucks. An economist at that hearing today gave testimony that the Lieberman- Warner bill would cost American families and workers at least $4 trillion--that is trillion with a ``t''--$4 trillion over the life of the bill. She expects a net loss of some 1.2 million jobs by 2015, and annual losses of U.S. production will top $160 billion in 2015, rising to at least $800 billion to $1 trillion in production lost per year in the outyears. The bill's sponsors have tried to say that farmers will be spared some of the pain by goodies they put in the bill, but no farmer should fail to understand that the farm costs of this bill far outweigh its benefit. Already record-high prices farmers now face will go even higher under Lieberman-Warner. For years, ammonia fertilizer cost farmers $250 dollars a ton. No one thought it would break through $400, and now we have seen $500 per ton. Even corn at $6 a bushel cannot support where fertilizer prices are heading. As one who buys a small amount of fertilizer, 13-13-13 fertilizer, I have seen the cost of fertilizer go up because nitrogen very often comes from natural gas. Well, Lieberman- Warner would make expensive fertilizers' main ingredients much more expensive. Now, electric utilities competing for natural gas to meet their own cap requirements can pay higher natural gas prices and then just pass them on to all of us as consumers of natural gas. But farmers will have to look to Middle East countries to import their fertilizer. That would make farmers dependent on Persian Gulf imports. Farmers will also face higher fuel costs to run their trucks and tractors, higher drying costs, and higher transportation costs to get their products to market. The Lieberman-Warner ag offset program could decimate small farm communities. Electric utilities that lack the technologies to cut emissions to levels demanded by the bill will have to take full advantage of the bill's so-called offset provisions. They will have billions of dollars to spend to retire cropland for its sequestration benefits. Those of us from farm country know the existing Conservation Reserve Program authorized through the farm bill has already taken more than 30 million acres out of production. The CRP is a conservation success. I support it. But that program has limits that prevent harm to local economies such as capping participation at 25 percent in any given county. Nevertheless, we would be potentially taking even far more land out of production, land we need to ensure that our abundant food supply for people at home and export markets is met by farmers. Areas which exceed the level of 25 percent, especially in States to the west, show what happened to small communities. The resulting economic damage drove merchants out of business, people out of the communities. In the past, excessive CRP enrollment has led to a disinvestment in infrastructure and rail line abandonment which, in turn, triggered higher transportation costs for remaining farmers. Of course, our Environment and Public Works Committee has not considered these farm problems. That is no surprise since we on the Environment and Public Works Committee don't deal with farmers, and some have even less farm expertise. I share with my colleagues who are concerned about agriculture and the impact this could have on farmers what they need to know about this bill that will cut carbon emissions. We need to cut carbon emissions without cutting family budgets or imposing a devastating impact on certain sectors of our economy. I am one who supports a broad list of measures to result in lower carbon emissions. An overwhelming majority of this body would. We have on the shelf, ready to go, carbon-cutting initiatives such as aggressive but achievable new CAFE vehicle standards to raise the mileage of automobiles and trucks. We have clean portfolio strategies to require a certain portion of power from renewable and clean sources such as wind, solar, nuclear, hydro, even tidal power. Help for zero carbon emissions nuclear power has been advanced in measures passed by this body. We need to do even more. We need to make sure we have the workers available to install those plants. We need more low carbon emission biofuels. That is why I propose making switchgrass planting on CRP land permissible. We need to do more on clean energy technologies, such as clean coal, that can capture and sequester forever the emissions from our Nation's abundant fuel source. We have 250 years of energy in the coal under our ground. We need to move more quickly to convert that coal to liquid coal, to gas, which will be cleaner burning and will allow us to sequester carbon emissions generally. I urge my colleagues to consider that we have legitimate carbon- cutting strategies. I urge my colleagues in the name of agriculture, as well as vulnerable families and workers, to reject strategies such as Draconian carbon caps which have not worked in Europe and which will not work here and will result in great economic displacement and hardship. I thank the Chair. I hope we will be able to introduce some of these very good amendments we have on the farm bill.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I thank my friend from Oklahoma. I congratulate him and the Chair, Senator Boxer from California, for bringing this balanced and much needed bill to the floor so we may expeditiously override the veto. Now WRDA is supposed to be authorized every 2 years, but there has not been a bill passed by this Congress during the entire administration. I have been working on this bill since 2001, so we are calling it WRDA 2001. The reason I have a direct interest in it is my State has nearly 1,000 miles of Missouri and Mississippi River frontage in addition to our lakes. Our communities rely on Corps projects for affordable water transportation, flood protection, energy production, environmental protection, and recreation opportunities. When we talk about the environment--and in a minute I will be telling you why the environmental benefits of transportation by water are so important--my constituents know that Corps projects mean jobs, trade competitiveness, reliable and affordable energy, drinking water, and protection from floods which ruin property and kill people. We are not alone because States up and down the Mississippi River, up and down the Missouri River, up and down the Ohio River, States in the central part of the Nation, depend on the lakes; and States on the coasts depend upon their ports as well. So this is truly a national bill. But I can speak to it directly from what I have seen and what I know in my part of the world. I am delighted we are completing our long journey to permit modernization of the Mississippi River locks. These locks were built during the Great Depression, some 75 years ago, for paddlewheel boats--paddlewheel boats--that only pushed 600-foot barge tows. Now we have 1,200-foot barge tows trying to get through 600-foot locks. They have to double lock. And these locks are old. I have spent a lot of time with the people who depend on these locks--the farmers; shippers of cement, building materials, fertilizers, energy, coal, and petroleum that travel by water. They showed me and I have seen that these locks are not just leaking, sheets of water are coming through them. You can only use so much bailing wire and duct tape on a 75-year-old lock to keep it from going out. Now one medium-sized 1,200-foot barge tow carries the same amount of commodities that 870 large semitrucks would carry. It would take a train car unit 2\1/4\ miles long to carry the same load. But there is not room on our highways to put 870 trucks for every barge tow that would be used. The rails are filled. There is not room to put a 2\1/4\ or 2\3/4\ train on our railroads. If we want to get our commodities to the market, if we want to have the most environmentally friendly and efficient means of transportation, we have to be able to move goods up the Mississippi River. The locks in the bottleneck begin just above St. Louis. So all of the northern Midwest depends on those locks. The Mississippi River itself carries about 60 percent of the grain moving in international commerce, foreign trade--getting better prices for our farmers, keeping our rural communities healthy with good prices, and also lessening our balance of trade deficit. If you believe in selling our goods abroad, if you believe foreign sales are good for us--and I am strongly convinced they are--then we must have transportation. We have had a long, arduous process to get the 2-year bill in 7 years, and we have been blessed with strong bipartisan support. From my part of the country, Senators Grassley, Harkin, Durbin, and Obama have played key roles, and I express my gratitude. Now the administration says they vetoed this bill because they say it is too big. If it were a normal 2-year bill, it would be big. But this is a 7-year bill, taking into account literally four different WRDA bills. If you total only three WRDA bills during the 5-year period-- 1996 to 2000--the authorization levels are comparable. I think we must override the veto because this bill does not spend a dollar. It is an authorization bill. It says these projects are approved for consideration for funding. The Corps of Engineers has gone through extensive processes--engineering, public comment--to come to this point, and we are giving congressional blessings. This just adds projects to the list eligible. Put another way, it is a license to hunt. You still have to go out and hit the bird, and you cannot go beyond the limit. The limit is the budget. The White House should know this bill spends not one dollar. The breakfast menu is larger, but the breakfast budget is unchanged. To say otherwise is to either misinform or purposely mislead. The unfortunate reality for our State and the farmers and shippers in our State is that water resources and water transportation do not seem to be a high priority of this administration, despite the expectation of supporters in 2000. The previous administration was not supportive, and this one is no better. I know the White House staff will disagree, but OMB ought to try to go out and talk to the people who live in our part of the country. There are many areas where these projects are needed. In November of 2005, the Washington Times reported that President Bush noted during a press conference with Panamanian President Torrijos: [I]t's in our nation's interest that this canal be modernized. Well, I think that is a great idea: modernize the Panama Canal. But while we are at it, why not modernize our own shipping areas? The administration does not oppose modernizing the Social Security-aged locks on the Mississippi River built for paddlewheel boats, but they also have not endorsed it or lifted a finger to endorse it. Endorsement was reserved for upgrading the waterways in Panama. My colleagues and I believe our Midwestern exporters deserve as much consideration as Chinese exporters who transit the Panama Canal. I could list the supporters of it: the National Corn Growers Association, Carpenters Union, Operating Union, American Farm Bureau Federation, American Soybean Association, scores of members of the Waterways Council, and a whole lot of hard-working folks in Missouri and Illinois with whom I have met. Our staffs have worked tirelessly on this legislation--not for days or weeks but years. There are many who have worked hard. I thank Ruth Van Mark, Ken Kopocis, Angie Giancarlo, Joe-Ellen Darcy; and a very special thanks to the bipartisan staff support of a very good friend of mine, Let Mon Lee, who has worked on the committee. The success of our economy and its people owes a great debt to the investments that were made by those who came before us. I urge my colleagues to vote for investments that will provide opportunity, value, competitiveness, and growth to our future so our export growth will not be limited to exporting barges. This, as shown on this chart, is what we are exporting. We are exporting the barges to countries in Latin America so they can ship efficiently, economically, in environmentally friendly waters and take markets away from American farmers. My thanks to the committee and the staff of Environment and Public Works. We appreciate their work. I urge my colleagues to join with us and adopt this bill by a veto override. I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, that is what we all live with, I assure my friend from New Jersey.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I agree with that. Of course, I would agree in some areas there are no rail lines available to relieve that congestion. While many metropolitan areas do have rail lines, they are definitely an efficient alternative. In many areas of the country, people do not have rail service, existing rails. So rails cannot solve all of our transportation congestion problems.

Mr. BOND. I didn't say that, no.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, if I may respond, I don't see any clearly defined mission. If my colleague doesn't agree that Amtrak should be providing efficient and effective passenger service in those travel markets in which passenger rail offers a trip time and service quality, competitive or complementary travel option consistent with the goal of continuing to reduce Federal operating subsidies--we are not saying it should be a for-profit company, but it certainly should not be a continual growing loss operation. I believe we must have some discipline that I do not see in the law and particularly saying ``best business practices''--best business practices to do what? I hope we can continue this discussion, and I thank the Chair and my colleagues for the time.

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

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to temporarily set aside the pending amendment and call up amendments Nos. 3467, 3468, 3469, and 3470 en bloc, on behalf of Senator DeMint.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I rise to offer an amendment to S. 294, the Amtrak reauthorization bill. I applaud the authors of the bill for their hard work in putting this legislation together. As one who hopes to see a robust, efficient passenger rail service, I have long been a supporter and rider on Amtrak. As Governor of Missouri, I started the State support of Amtrak to run trains between Kansas City and St. Louis. As I have watched Amtrak over the years, I have been increasingly concerned about the rising costs and relatively stagnating ridership. As I look at this bill, I do not believe it includes all the needed reforms that are crucial to the success of Amtrak. While there are many positive aspects of the bill, the fundamental problem with Amtrak is that it has no clearly defined mission. Is it supposed to provide only those services where it can make a profit? Is it supposed to supplement air service in specific markets regardless of cost? Is it supposed to serve rural markets regardless of cost? Is it supposed to provide tourist travel regardless of cost? All of these have been held out from time to time as reasons to subsidize Amtrak and as excuses for why it should not be held accountable for the effective use of the taxpayers' money. However, those are empty excuses. The money continues to flow out, and I believe strong reforms are necessary. While Amtrak's revenue, ridership, and cash operating loss numbers improved this year, this improved financial performance reflects labor costs held low by the absence of a labor settlement. Once a settlement is reached, Amtrak's costs will jump up, reflecting the pay raises that have largely been deferred during the past 7 years during which time there has not been a labor contract. Amtrak has made no significant progress in restructuring its operations to become less reliant on Federal funds. The pace of Amtrak's reform savings has slowed from $61 million in fiscal year 2006 to a planned $46 million in fiscal year 2008. There is little chance Amtrak will achieve anywhere near the $500 million in annual reform savings it promised when it adopted its 2005 plan. GAO reports consistently cite that Amtrak has lost the focus of its statutory mandate to be operated and managed as a for-profit company. Just last year, over 10 percent of Amtrak's operating subsidy was spent on food and beverages and a like amount subsidized first-class service. There is no critical public purpose associated with such expenditures. Yet there are some who assume they are OK because that is what Amtrak has always done. S. 294, I regret to say, will not change this deplorable system. While section 208 would have FRA and Amtrak develop performance metrics, there is no clear statement of Amtrak's mission on which to base these metrics. After 36 years, we should not miss the opportunity to finally and clearly state Amtrak's mission. It is for that reason that I offer as an amendment to S. 294 the establishment of Amtrak's mission. That mission should be: To provide efficient and effective intercity passenger rail mobility in those travel markets where passenger rail offers a trip-time and service quality competitive travel option consistent with the goal of continual reduction in Federal operating subsidies required to provide service. With this mission clearly established, then FRA and Amtrak can establish meaningful performance measures that hold Amtrak accountable for accomplishing that mission. Obviously, meaningful benchmarks will help both Amtrak and those of us in Congress measure its efforts at reform. In fact, failure to meet benchmarks will be a good reason to lessen or terminate these excessive subsidies. My colleagues may say that the bill contains benchmark reforms under section 208, Metrics and Standards. The section reads: Within 180 days . . . develop new or improve existing metrics and minimum standards for measuring the performance and service quality of intercity passenger train operations, including cost recovery, on-time performance and minutes of delay, ridership, on-board services, stations, facilities, equipment, and other services. Such metrics, at a minimum, shall include the percentage of avoidable and fully allocated operating costs covered by passenger revenues on each route, ridership per train mile operated, measures of on-time performance and delays incurred by intercity passenger rail. Exactly what reforms are contained within these metrics and standards? There is no mission, no goals, and no benchmarks for operating subsidies and, as I said, quite frankly, no reform. If the authorizers were truly offering operating metrics, they would have year-over-year improvement on metrics applied on a route-by-route business line or corporate basis on some of the following: Operating ratio--operating revenues relative to operating costs, excluding depreciation to measure improvements in cost recovery; two, cash operating loss--would measure revenue expense improvements; three, savings from reform initiative--while the operating loss includes these savings, monitoring these savings allows for tracking the implementation of structural reform improvements; four, cash operating loss for passenger mile--an overall efficiency measure; five, labor productivity--passenger mile per employee; and finally, six, equipment reliability--percent of units out of service. The other thing missing from Amtrak oversight has been real teeth. So I propose changing the language in section 210 from being permissive, which says the FRA ``may'' withhold grants from trains that don't measure up, to being mandatory, to say that FRA ``shall'' withhold grants from trains that don't measure up. Today, the Secretary of Transportation has the ability to discontinue service on specific routes, but none have been proposed for elimination because perhaps there is no mission statement for Amtrak on which to make a determination for closure. This measure I propose does not push Amtrak off the cliff, but it recognizes we cannot afford for Amtrak to be all things to all people. It requires Amtrak to take a degree of responsibility that has been lacking in the use of the taxpayers' money. It would require Amtrak to improve efficiency and effectiveness of its service, to reduce the demands it makes of our taxpayers, including, where appropriate, recognizing that passenger rail is not the best option in all places. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that those amendments be temporarily set aside.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 3464, which is at the desk.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with. (Purpose: To amend section 24101 of title 49, United States Code, to clarify Amtrak's mission) On page 10, between lines 12 and 13, insert the following:

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I wish to respond to my friend from New Jersey and point out that while I may have had some operating delays coming into downtown Washington this morning because of the rain, I am not the only one. Service reliability continues to plague Amtrak. Amtrak systemwide in 2007 had ontime performance through August at only 68 percent and long-distance ontime performance was only 40 percent. The Senator points out that there are constraints on Amtrak. With the exception of Connecticut, which I believe has its lines, most of the Amtrak lines run on lines established, bought, and paid for by freight railroads. For the lines to be kept operating, they have to continue to use freight. If the chairman of the subcommittee is proposing that we build a national network of passenger rails--buy the land, buy the equipment, install the rails--I will be happy to take a look at the numbers that would be involved, whether they are billions or trillions, but I question whether we could make that investment. What I have stated only in this amendment is that we should come to an agreement on what the mission of Amtrak is. What is it supposed to do? If you don't know where you are going, it is hard to tell when you have gotten there. Yes, we put money into a capital operating plan, a 5-year plan in 2005. There were supposed to be operating savings. The operating savings are not being realized. What I propose is simply good management techniques. My colleague has run a successful business, and I assume to run a business he had to have a mission and he had to have standards and goals by which to judge the achievement of that mission. S. 294 talks about all kinds of metrics, but it doesn't say there are any goals. How do you know if you have gotten there? Where are you going? You don't know. Maybe I have missed it, but I don't think any of us are clear on the clearly stated mission of Amtrak and any standards by which the achievement of that mission should be judged. I would be happy to have a discussion--and this is the appropriate place to do it--on what should be the mission of Amtrak. Maybe for my edification, I ask my friend from New Jersey to cite to me what the written mission of Amtrak is because I will have to admit, I am not familiar with that specific mission statement and the standards and goals by which Amtrak and the FRA and we in Congress can judge the effective accomplishment of the objectives within the parameter of that mission. Through the Chair, I ask my friend from New Jersey to enlighten me.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I wish to thank everyone for all their work in putting this bill together. I fully appreciate the significant challenges that Chairman Harkin and Ranking Member Specter face in balancing spending priorities with limited resources. I want to thank them for restoring $99 million in funding for the Children's Hospital GME program. Unfortunately, that level is still almost $200 million below last year's level. CHGME is a valuable investment. It made it possible for children's hospitals to sustain and expand their teaching programs without having to sacrifice their commitments to clinical care for all children and research to improve children's care. These hospitals are major safety net providers of inpatient and community-based ambulatory care for low- income children and--as most of us know--the hospitals we depend on to care for seriously and chronically ill children. Spending has grown less than 4 percent over 5 years since the program was fully funded. Congress reauthorized the program with overwhelming bipartisan support last year and set a new funding level at $330 million, which is based on continuing equity with Medicare GME. The House Labor-HHS appropriations bill funds the program at the $307 million level, which I hope we can achieve in conference. I know that both the chairman and the ranking member are strong supporters of this program, and it is my hope that we will be able to work together to secure the House number in conference.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, today our friends and colleagues Senators Lieberman and Warner are introducing their bill to cap carbon emissions. I would like to outline some of the ways their approach will unfairly and unnecessarily hurt our most vulnerable families and workers. To begin with, capping carbon will make more expensive what we all depend upon in our everyday lives. Our heating bills in the winter, air conditioning bills in the summer, every time we put gas in our cars; they will all be much more expensive under their plan. While the rich can afford higher power bills, millions of struggling families cannot. Will we force them to choose between heating their homes or buying school clothes for their children? I support higher Federal LIHEAP funding, but almost 30 million American families still cannot afford to pay their heating bills. How many millions more will suffer under this bill? Millions of fixed-income seniors have no room in their budget for higher power bills. Will we force them to choose between air conditioning in the summer or buying their prescription medicine? Blue collar workers supporting middle class families will also suffer when their manufacturing jobs flee the U.S. for cheaper energy sources in other countries. Are we telling millions of auto assembly, steel, aluminum, plastics, fertilizer, cement, and lime workers we do not care about them supporting their modest families? The Lieberman-Warner bill admits it hurts vulnerable families and workers and tries to help them through rebates funded by carbon auctions. But vulnerable workers cannot afford to pay higher energy bills now and wait months later for a rebate check. Where do they get the extra money to pay their higher energy bills now? What do they go without while they are waiting to get their rebate check later? The whole carbon auction and rebate system is inherently unfair and unnecessary. Some push it so that companies will not see windfall profits. I oppose windfall profits too, but they are only possible in 14 States, mostly in the northeast and west coast where electricity markets are deregulated. In the other 36 states with regulated markets, utilities are prevented by law from reaping windfall profits. That means a national carbon auction unfairly punishes 36 States in the midwest, mountain, west and south where there would be no problem. Mr. President, 36 States will pay higher energy bills then needed. Families and workers in 36 States will suffer unnecessarily. We must find a better way. Europe, in their system, made the mistake of passing out more carbon allowances then needed. We can easily avoid that mistake. As long as the obligation we impose to submit carbon allowances for carbon emissions is greater then the amount of allowances we pass out, there will be no surplus profits in those 36 regulated States. We must address the issue of preemption. We will create havoc with a national carbon cap system on top of regional systems. We also need to set up a liability system for sequestering carbon underground. We do not want to set up an impossible situation where we capture all this carbon and have nowhere to put it. We need to guarantee that we will not harm low income families and vulnerable workers. Protections should kick in automatically at a set level, so that our struggling elements of society are not left to the whims of a fickle and vague cost containment system. We need to calibrate any cap plan to the ability of technology to meet that plan'' The welfare of millions are too important to roll the dice that low carbon solutions are around the corner. We also cannot inflict too much pain on struggling families and workers in the interim while we wait for those clean energy solutions to come on line. There are many things we can do now to reduce carbon emissions. We have on the shelf or stuck in stalled legislative vehicles, measures to promote energy efficiency, promote low-carbon biofuels, cut vehicle emissions through aggressive but achievable stronger CAFE standards, require renewable and clean energy generation, increase renewable energy transmission, green buildings, carbon storage research and development, and clean energy research, development and deployment. That is 8 different ways I am prepared to reduce carbon emissions today. So before we go down the road of hurting the poor, hurting vulnerable workers, sending jobs overseas, let us take advantage of what we have now. Let us get serious about our energy future and fund a Manhattan project for clean energy. Let us get to work where we can join together and do so now.