Barbara Boxer

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, will my friend yield?

Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I wish to thank my colleague very much for pointing out the inconsistency of an attack on one organization that I guess my friend doesn't admire anyway, and that is his right. It is also our right to speak the truth on this floor. The fact of the matter is the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth went after a war hero and told stories to the American people that were not true and tried to sully a hero's reputation. But he is not the only Senator who was attacked, as my friend remembers what happened to our colleague, Max Cleland. I know he does. Here is a veteran who gave three limbs for his country--three limbs. It is harder for him, for the first 2 hours of every day, to get ready for the day than it is for the Senator from Texas or myself or the Senator from Illinois to do our work for a month. Yet this man was viciously attacked and his patriotism called into question. Oh, yes, my friend might say, it was during a political campaign. It was disgusting. So we raise these issues. What I wish to ask my friend is this: I was thinking--as the Senator from Texas, my friend and colleague, was speaking--I was thinking about some retired generals who spoke out against this war and said they were called traitors and worse. So I am looking at ways to incorporate into this a condemnation of anyone who would attack a retired general for speaking out against a war because I think that was low and it was horrible. It was frightening because, in a way, it was saying to these retired generals that they had no voice, no independent voice. So I wish to thank my colleague, and I wonder if he recalls these generals. I will have more details as I put together my second-degree amendment as well.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, today I rise to laud the passage of the College Cost Reduction and Access Act conference report, which is a strong symbol of our commitment to higher education access and affordability. This bill includes key tools and resources to enable students and families across our Nation to attain the American dream of a quality education. I would like to thank Chairman Kennedy, Ranking Member Enzi and their staff for their hard work on this important legislation. Their tireless efforts have succeeded in making higher education a reality for millions more young people. Specifically, a key component of this legislation is the increase in college aid by roughly $20 billion over the next 5 years, including the much needed increase in the maximum Pell grant award. For many years now, one of my top education priorities has been to increase the Pell grant award for college students with the greatest financial need. Twenty years ago, the maximum Pell Grant covered 40 percent of costs for attending a 4-year college in California. Today, it covers just 30 percent. This bill helps our students when they start out by increasing the maximum Pell grant award from $4,300 today to $5,100 in fall of 2008 and $5,400 in fall of 2011. This provision is particularly important to California, which has over 584,580 Pell grant recipients-- more than any other State in the country. The bill also includes a provision which I introduced with Senator Feinstein that would remove a barrier, known as the tuition sensitivity clause, in the Pell grant system that unfairly prevented students who attend lower-tuition colleges from receiving the maximum grant. According to the Congressional Research Service, the elimination of the tuition sensitivity clause will benefit approximately 96,000 students in the next academic year and would provide an average Pell grant scholarship increase of over $110 per student. The bill also tackles the problem of student loan debt upon graduation. Currently, 46 percent of seniors at 4-year colleges in California graduate with debt, owing on average $15,000 in student loans. This bill helps students by capping Federal student loan payments at 15 percent of a borrower's discretionary income. The bill also encourages public service by rewarding those who choose to work in nursing, teaching, or law enforcement for 10 years by forgiving their remaining debt after that time period. I also want to thank Senators Kennedy and Enzi for the consideration and adoption of my amendment regarding Upward Bound. Upward Bound seeks to capture potential, first-generation college students--many of whom are low-income youth--and prepare them for the rigors of college. Upward Bound is a fantastic tool for America's youth. These programs provide mentoring, academic tutoring, summer classes, and other services to youth across our Nation to provide them with the resources and skills they need to be successful in college. In my home State of California, we have 73 Upward Bound programs that serve approximately 5,600 students a year. Due to funding shortfalls, 186 programs nationwide are in jeopardy of being cut, including 11 programs in California. Four of these programs are in San Bernardino, a low-income area in southern California. These four programs were cut, not because of performance--they actually have proved to be very successful and have high program scores--but because of a lack of funding. The conference report also includes the creation of an Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Higher Education Serving Institution designation, a provision that I and Senator Akaka have championed in past. This designation would allow grants and other Federal assistance to be awarded to institutions that have a student enrollment of at least 10 percent Asian American and Pacific Islander and has a significant enrollment of financially needy students. The additional funding would help AAPI-designated institutions to fulfill their missions to assist students to meet their educational goals. The AAPI designation would apply to approximately 86 colleges and universities nationwide, and would apply to approximately 40 schools in California alone. I am pleased to strongly support the passage of the College Cost Reduction and Access Act Conference Report. No one should be denied the opportunity to go to college simply because of cost. This landmark legislation will help ensure that students and families across the country have the opportunity and freedom to attend the college of their choice. I strongly believe an investment in college aid is an investment in our Nation's future--and this bill advances this vision. (At the request of Mr. Reid, the following statement was ordered to be printed in the Record.)

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs, I remain deeply concerned about reports of extrajudicial killings in the Philippines. The people of the United States and the Philippines enjoy a close friendship that is deeply valued on both sides. Our nations have a strong bond that is supported and celebrated by the 3 million Americans of Philippine ancestry that live in the United States today. California alone is home to more than 1 million Filipino Americans. Because of the close ties between our two nations and our two militaries, it is essential that the government of Gloria Arroyo take strong action to end the killings and punish those who have committed abuses. Over the past 6 years, hundreds of extrajudicial killings have taken place throughout the Philippines. Those targeted have included journalists, religious leaders, political figures, human rights activists, and union leaders. For too long, the Government of the Philippines has not taken sufficient action to address extrajudicial killings and bring those responsible to justice. Last year, pressure from international human rights groups, foreign governments, and political leaders forced the government of President Arroyo to launch an investigation into the killings that was headed by retired Supreme Court Justice Jose Melo. The Melo Commission report, which was made public early this year, found that the killings of activists appear to be part of an ``orchestrated plan'' and that the Philippine National Police has made little progress in investigating or prosecuting cases. Philip Alston, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions has stated that the Philippine Armed Forces were in ``a state of almost total denial'' on the need to address ``the significant number of killings which have been convincingly attributed to them'' and that a ``culture of impunity'' exists within the Philippine justice system. In response, the Philippine Government has announced that it is taking steps to address these abuses. President Arroyo has said herself that ``these killings will be resolved and the military will continue to be a vanguard for freedom.'' Last week in Manila, hundreds of relatives and supporters of those who are missing or killed marched to demand action and justice. One of the marchers carried a picture of her son, an activist who was reportedly abducted from a mall last April by seven armed persons who identified themselves as police officers. The car used in the abduction was traced to a vehicle impounded at a Philippine military base. Despite an order from the Supreme Court, the military has not released the missing activist. During a hearing I chaired in March on this issue, a bishop from the United Church of Christ in the Philippines testified that, ``with such an appalling death toll of extrajudicial killings in our country at this time of the Arroyo administration, nobody could ever claim that she or he is not afraid and is safe. I admit that I have that fear . . . '' I am very pleased that Senator Leahy has included language in the Senate State Department and Foreign Operations appropriations bill that fences $2 million of military assistance on the condition that the Secretary of State certifies that the Philippine Government is implementing the recommendations of the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions, that the Philippine military is not engaging in acts of intimidation or violence against members of legal organizations that advocate for human rights, and that the Government is investigating and prosecuting those who have committed extrajudicial killings. This binding legislative language is critical. I hope that Secretary Rice is able to produce a report that states that the Philippine Government is taking real action and the Philippine military is no longer responsible for the deaths of innocent persons. Senator Leahy, if the Philippine Government fails to meet the three conditions contained in this act, will you work with me to place additional limitations on future U.S. military assistance to the Philippines?

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I offer this amendment on behalf of myself and Senator Snowe. I ask for the attention of colleagues because women's lives are on the line. The Senate has twice passed this amendment which overturns the Global Gag Rule, otherwise known as the Mexico City policy. Colleagues, I wish to tell you a story, a compelling story of what happened in Nepal in 2001. A little 13-year-old girl was raped in Nepal by her uncle. A family member took her for an abortion. Under the laws of Nepal, they sentenced that little girl to 20 long years in jail. Because a family planning agency helped her and because that family planning agency in Nepal, an NGO, spoke out on behalf of changing the laws that put a little girl in jail and let the uncle free, America withheld its funds. That is shameful. It is wrong. Please help me overturn this Mexico City global gag rule.

Mrs. BOXER. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, colleagues, if you voted to repeal the global gag rule, then the obvious way to vote on this amendment is no. What the Senator is trying to do is to strip a very simple thing out of the bill, which says that we are not going to deny contraceptives to family planning groups simply because they do not toe the line with the global gag rule. If you voted with us to do away with the global gag rule, you certainly would vote to do away with this amendment. Why would we deny contraception to families who need it desperately? It would be a terrible vote to vote aye on this amendment because you are consigning a lot of women to abortion, and we do not want to do that. We want to get them contraception. So if you believe in family planning, this is a very clear ``no'' vote on the Brownback amendment. I thank my colleagues very much.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, can you tell me what the order is, please.

Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, will you let me know when I have used 20 minutes of time?

Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I call up amendment No. 2719, and I ask for its immediate consideration.

Mrs. BOXER. I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I rise today with my colleague, Senator Olympia Snowe, to offer a very important amendment that could significantly enhance the health and well-being of millions of women around the globe. This amendment would overturn the so-called Mexico City policy, also known as the global gag rule, which undermines a number of key principles and goals on which our country is based. As many of you know, this policy was put in place at a conference in Mexico City in 1984. When we learned what it really did, we dubbed it the ``global gag rule.'' As many of my colleagues know, the policy literally gags foreign organizations that receive USAID family planning funds. Let me be clear about this issue. Under the gag rule, international family planning organizations that provide perfectly legal family planning services with their own funds in the countries in which they operate are prohibited from receiving U.S. assistance if they provide legal abortion services and those services include counseling or referral services, or they also do not get the funds if they publicly support the right to comprehensive reproductive health care. Let me bring this home to you. I know you are a mom of a young child. If a mom walks into one of these family planning clinics that receives USAID funds with her 11-year-old daughter who has been raped and wants to be counseled as to what the options are or wants to be told where she can take that child, this organization will lose all their USAID funds if they help that mom and that traumatized daughter. Is this America? We are talking about punishing family planning clinics all over the world if they use their own funds for perfectly legal activities to help families. I will give you a clear example. Until 2004, abortion in Ethiopia was illegal unless the life of the mother was at stake, and complications from unsafe procedures were the second leading cause of death among hospitalized women. The Government decided to have a national debate about how to fix this problem which was taking a terrible toll on Ethiopian women. That is right, the Ethiopian Government said: Let's talk about what is right for our people, what is right for our customs, what is right for our way of life, and how can we save women's lives. In order to weigh in on this debate, the two largest family planning organizations in Ethiopia actually had to give up their U.S. funding. That is why we call it a gag rule. The organizations were gagged from expressing themselves. They could not engage in the debate for fear of losing their funds. So the two largest family planning organizations in Ethiopia decided they would give up their U.S. assistance in order to spare women's lives. Imagine, as a result of this misguided policy, U.S. misguided policy, the two largest family planning organizations in Ethiopia lost U.S. funds simply because they wanted to weigh in on a debate about reproductive health care. One of the things about President Bush that we all love is when he speaks about democracy and how democracy should be the centerpiece of our foreign policy. I ask you, what is democratic about gagging people? What is democratic about saying you have no right to free speech unless you agree with me? Then, if you agree with me, I support your right to speak. That is what the global gag rule is. Free speech is only allowed, under this administration, when that speech agrees with them. What is happening as a result? Women are dying and there are unnecessary abortions. This is a terrible result of this policy. Basically, we say to people who are doing hard work to help their people: If you don't agree with us, gag it. If you don't gag it, you are not going to get funds. This feeds into the stereotype of America that is around the world today. Most foreigners do not like us very much these days. They look at this administration, and they say that our strategy is: Do as we say; don't do as you choose. I always thought that a legitimate democracy had the right to self- determination, that they were not punished if they said what they thought. We are not talking about spending a penny of U.S. money for abortions abroad. That has been illegal since 1976. We are not talking about using one cent of U.S. money to pay for lobbying for abortions. That also has been illegal all those years. We are talking, again, about gagging family planning organizations that use their own money, in a legal way in the country in which they are present, to help women who desperately need help, to help children who are raped, to help children who are victims of incest. In both 2003 and 2005, this Senate debated this exact amendment, and it passed with bipartisan support on both occasions. Why am I back? Because, sadly, the Senate never took final action on those bills, so we need to go back again and back again and back again until there is a clear decision on this issue. That clear decision is America, the greatest democracy in the world, is not going to tell other countries they have to see everything the way a particular administration sees it. They should have the right to make their own decisions. As a country that believes in democracy, free speech, and improving the health and well-being of people all over the world, it is time for us once and for all to do away with this harsh and cruel policy. The health and lives of millions of women depend on it, and that is why repealing this global gag rule is so important. This is not a small matter; this is a large matter. In the bill currently on the floor of the Senate and in the House bill, some steps have been taken to ease the burden of the global gag rule. However, it really does not go the distance. The bill before us today tries to address it by allowing contraceptives to be provided by the United States to international family planning organizations that would otherwise be ineligible. But at the end of the day, these organizations are still gagged, they still can't lobby for changes in the law in the countries in which they work. They still cannot even refer someone for an abortion. Again, I take the case of the mother who walks into one of these clinics with a child who is the victim of rape or incest and the mother is desperate: Where can I take my child? Please tell me. We can't tell you because if we tell you, we are going to lose our funding. Meanwhile, the child is losing time here in a battle to save her health. That is shameful. That is not something to be proud of. Let's face it, these organizations need the funding and they need the freedom to exercise the most basic rights of humankind: the rights to free speech and expression to try to change policies they think are fundamentally wrong. In truth, we need family planning clinics to have open doors, not just to provide contraceptive services--which are so important--but to attend to all the aspects of reproductive health care. Let me tell why I get so emotional about this issue. Approximately 500,000 women die from pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum complications every year--500,000. Think of your largest cities-- 500,000 women a year, 1 woman every single minute. This includes deaths from a horrific condition known as obstetric fistula, which occurs when women's bodies are too young or underdeveloped to give birth. In Ethiopia, this problem is particularly prevalent, where child marriage rates are extremely high and some girls actually get married at 7, 8, and 9 years of age. The fact that we as a country would do anything to harm access to comprehensive family planning is shameful. This is the 21st century. Even if you would never, ever want a member of your family to have an abortion, even if you would want a member of your family never to know that it even exists as an option, put aside your own feelings and allow other people to make their choice. Let me give a specific example of what happens when international family planning organizations are barred from speaking out against injustice in the countries in which they operate. I will tell you a story I have told on the floor before, a story that a nongovernmental organization leader from Nepal told us at a hearing I chaired in the Foreign Relations Committee in 2001. Like so many nonprofits, this NGO was forced to make an impossible decision when faced with the unjust imprisonment of a 13-year-old girl named Min Min. What did Min Min do? A 13-year-old girl--why was she in prison? Because she was raped by her uncle. A relative took her for an abortion, and instead of going after the uncle, they put her in jail; a 13-year-old girl, sentenced to 20 years in jail. But because of this outrageous gag rule, the organizations that operated inside Nepal were faced with a horrific choice: They would either lose their funding or they would keep their mouths shut and not try to free Min Min and change the laws. Do you know what they did? They gave up the money and they struggled, but they did the right thing, because Min Min was raped by a relative, she became pregnant, her family forced her to have an illegal abortion, and therefore she was sentenced to 20 years in prison. Imagine--a 13-year-old girl sent to jail for 20 years for the crime of being raped by an uncle. Is that the kind of country we are, that we would tie the hands of an organization that wants to help that child and tell them: If you try to help that child and change the laws here, you lose your American funding. Doesn't that make us proud as Americans? No, it doesn't. It certainly doesn't make me proud. I hope it doesn't make anyone proud who would vote on this important amendment later on today. I praise that nongovernmental organization, that health care agency for saying: You know what, it is not worth the money; it is not worth the money. These countries have people in them who struggle for money. This child celebrated her 14th birthday in prison, her 15th birthday in prison, but because that health care organization, that NGO, was able to change the laws, Min Min was set free. That organization lost $100,000 in funding because they saved a child, and they had to let 60 staff members go. That meant stopping a program that reached more than 50,000 people in remote communities. What are we doing? What are we about? Are we about helping families? Oh, we hear it all the time: family values. I have them. I want to help that mom who walks into a clinic with a pregnant 11-year-old girl who was raped. I don't want to punish the people who help her. I don't see how you stand for family values if you do that. It doesn't make sense. What we are doing by keeping the gag rule in place is saying to clinics and doctors: You have to choose between helping the people in your country by speaking out, by offering them referrals and counseling, or American dollars. This is not a good policy for this country. This is a shameful policy for this country. I am very optimistic that, again, we will have a successful vote to overturn this global gag order. President Bush says he will veto it. Let's have the debate. Let's have the debate because I think any moderate, sensible American will say this policy is misguided, and at the end of the day women and children are being hurt by it. I reserve the remainder of my time. I would ask how much time I have remaining.

Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I note the absence of a quorum.

Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I think this debate has been a good one, and Senator Brownback and I are used to debating this issue. I think we lay out our case the best we can. But let me be clear. I deplore gendercide. I am the mother of a daughter. I would do anything to protect her. I deplore hurting girls. I deplore hurting women. That is why it is so difficult for me to understand my friend's position on the Mexico City global gag rule policy. If he says he deplores hurting women, hurting children, hurting girls, then why would he support a policy that would punish a health care organization operating abroad from using its own funds to protect women, girls, children, families? Why would he support that? He says: Oh, we are not gagging anybody. They can say anything they want. They just will not get our money. Well, this is America. We help people who are doing good things. That is the reason at one time we were beloved in the world. Is it not a good thing to help an organization that is using its own funds to help girls and women, to protect an 11-year-old who was raped to make sure she gets the health care she needs? Would not we want to think that American funding should help get contraceptives to families abroad? Should we help them if they have an unintended pregnancy or a rape or incest in their family? That is why I do not understand how my friend's rhetoric matches his actions. I think it is cruel to continue the global gag rule. I think it is cruel to punish an organization that had to give up all of its money and all of its staff to go to work to change the law, to free a young girl who was raped by her uncle, and instead of the uncle going to jail, because of the laws in Nepal at that time, the child went to jail, and had her 14th and 15th birthday in jail and could have had 18 more years in jail had the organization not walked away from U.S. funding. How does that make you feel as an American? It makes me feel very sad. Then my colleague says he agrees that women are dying from these policies. But he does not define what are ``these policies.'' Well, let me define these policies. Women are dying because of Mexico City language, because of the global gag rule known as Mexico City. Let me read from the New Republic. The destructiveness of the gag rule is hard to overstate. The World Health Organization estimates that nearly 500,000 women in developing countries die each year from causes related to pregnancy and childbirth. Of those, roughly 70,000 die from back-alley abortions. And aid restrictions have hurt those groups best positioned to help. In Kenya, for example, two health organizations have had to shut down their clinics since 2001 after proving unable to abide by the gag rule and losing their USAID funding. Many of these clinics were the sole providers of health care for women and children in their respective regions, and most had offered post-abortion care-- critical in a country where abortion is illegal, unsafe, and causes an estimated one-third of maternal deaths annually. Imagine a clinic had to shut down its doors because America withheld its funding. They could not afford to keep it open. And women came crying into the front door there, bleeding from back-alley abortions. This is something my friend speaks about as being humane and kind and good. Well, today the Senate has a chance to take a stand against the global gag order. The Senate has a chance to express itself in favor of the health of women, of girls. I am proud to be offering this amendment. I ask unanimous consent to retain the remainder of my time, set aside the amendment, at which time we will have a vote on it at a later time.

Mrs. BOXER. Reserving the right to object.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I have come over to the floor, and I am a little out of breath because this amendment was somewhat of a surprise to me, although Senator Feinstein was a little worried about it possibly coming. I am sorry Senator DeMint isn't on the floor at this moment because I would like to look him in the eye and tell him that his amendment is misguided. It does damage to the veterans of this country and the faith they put in us. As Senator Feinstein eloquently stated, and just reiterated to me, the individual who gave this land for the veterans happened to be a Republican from Nevada who wanted to make a commitment to our veterans. So here we have a circumstance that is so bizarre because this amendment that Senator Feinstein wrote, which Senator DeMint is trying to pull out of the bill, and is now in the bill, is a very wise one. It is one that keeps faith with the veterans of this country at a time when they deserve that support. In some ways, I say to my colleagues, we have battled many times on this floor for California and for the environment and for women's rights and all the rest. But I remember when another administration at another time tried to sell the Presidio army base for billions of dollars, when the people were promised it would be a park and it was written in legislation that it would be a park. That administration said we could get billions of dollars. But the fact is that certain things you cannot put a price on because, in the long run, it is the wrong thing to do. In the long run, it is wrong in this case to harm our veterans. Now, here we have this land. As Senator Feinstein has explained to my colleagues, it is in the middle of Los Angeles. Land is a precious commodity in Los Angeles. We have a huge number of veterans who need services in Los Angeles--maybe the highest concentration of veterans in the country. I would have to check that out, but I would not be surprised; it is certainly one of the highest concentrations. Here we are in the middle of a war and we all know the horrors our soldiers are facing. We know there are great unmet needs in the Veterans' Administration all over this country, and certainly in California. For example, we didn't even have a burn unit in California and this war has brought so many problems with serious burns. We finally were able to accommodate some beds in San Diego for that purpose. We finally were able to accommodate some of those who have lost their limbs because they were not able to get the services in California. This, I say to my friend, Senator DeMint of South Carolina, is not the time, not the place, not the moment to say to our veterans: You are not important; it is more important to have a rental car agency here or a movie studio here. This is not the time to tell that to our veterans. They are sacrificing. We may have to have a women's clinic there someday. We may want to expand services for homeless veterans. Those of us who have lived through the Vietnam era know that homelessness followed our veterans. And still when you go on the streets of our cities, whether it is San Francisco, Los Angeles, or anywhere else, you will find a third to 45 percent of our veterans are from that era. They are Vietnam-era veterans who are homeless and struggle. We may need to have job training centers for these returning veterans. Posttraumatic stress--my senior Senator made the point that we are now learning the depth of the problems we have. Is this the time to take this land away from the veterans? It is outrageous, and it is wrong. Senator Feinstein has absolutely done the right thing in this bill. I praise all of her colleagues on the committee. I wrote to Mr. Nicholson about this issue several months ago saying: Why are you doing this? I will ask to place that letter in the Record in a moment. Senator Feinstein is right not only for our community in southern California but for the veterans throughout this country. I sent a letter on June 6, 2007, on this subject to the Honorable James Nicholson, Department of Veterans Affairs. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the letter I sent to Secretary Nicholson.

Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I talked about the fact that at least a million veterans reside within a 50-mile radius of the west Los Angeles VA property, more than in 42 other States combined. When we consider that this number continues to grow, this is clearly the wrong thing to do. Let me say that what my colleague has done in this bill is in concert with everyone in our area. I don't think she or I would walk in and offer an amendment that was a direct blow to a community in South Carolina. We would never do that. That would not be the right thing to do. The community is opposed to what Mr. DeMint wants to have happen. Local government, many veterans, from the mayor's office, to the city council, to the board of supervisors, to the full congressional delegation, there is enormous support for the provision that Senator Feinstein has placed in this bill. Dozens of local veterans groups are in support of her provision. I am going to read some of these supporters because I want to give a sense to my colleagues that they should stick with us on this issue because Senator Feinstein's language that she got placed in this bill is strongly supported. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the entire list.

Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I will name a few. The County of Los Angeles, the city of Los Angeles, Representative Waxman, and every other Representative from that area; Howard Berman, Harman, Sherman, the L.A. City Council president, State Senator Sheila Kuehl, all those local folks, former Los Angeles Mayor Riordan, AMVETS Post 2, AMVETS Post 116, American Legion Post 123, VFW Post 875, Vietnam Veterans of America Chapter 446, and then a slew of homeowners associations, including the Coalition of Homeowner Associations Council District 5, the Coalition for Veterans Land, Friends of Westwood, and it goes on and on. Then we have the religious community: St. Paul the Apostle Catholic parish. We have the chamber of commerce. We have the neighborhood council. It just goes on. The park conservancy, the civic association. The administration is wrong to take this action. Senator Feinstein is right. She mentioned colleagues on the committee who were very helpful to her. It is very important to note that she moved in a very bipartisan way. In conclusion, I thank my colleague, Senator Feinstein, for withdrawing her motion to table to give me this opportunity to express myself because I think what she did was so important, and certainly she spoke for both of us when she did it. I hope she will make this motion to table at the appropriate time, and we can table this amendment and send a message tonight to the veterans across this country that we stand with them. I yield the floor.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I thank my colleagues. I have never seen the Senator from New Hampshire so emotional and so excited. You would think the record we have seen in terms of this economy has been stellar. It reminds me of the expressions: ``He doth protest too much'' and ``the best defense is a strong offense. Get excited and wave your hands.'' Let's talk about what has happened here. This President and the Republicans in this Senate are trying to claim the mantle of fiscal responsibility. In fact, they turned a $236 billion surplus inherited from the Clinton administration into a $248 billion deficit. They oversaw the three largest budget deficits in U.S. history, and they are responsible for a $3 trillion increase in the national debt. Now, let me say this: Who owns that debt? Foreign countries--China, Japan. I don't hear the Senator from New Hampshire bemoaning the fact that they can hold us hostage. We need a change here. We need fiscal responsibility. We need investments in things that help our children, education, for one, and help our families, health care, for two, and a way to make sure our veterans truly get what they need. Instead, the President gives us as head of the OMB Mr. Nussle, who is closely associated with all of these policies and failed as chairman of the Budget Committee three out of six times to get a budget and work with Democrats. This is an absolute outrage. Now, I voted for so many of the President's appointees. I didn't vote for Alberto Gonzales, but I did vote for most.

Mrs. BOXER. I will not vote for a man who put a bag over his head in the House of Representatives. That, to me, shows complete hostility to this great democracy. I urge a ``no'' vote.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Would the Senator yield?

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I believe we need a short-term and long- term fix for FISA. It is important to extend the program now and then finish the job in the weeks and months ahead. Updating FISA has to be done in a meticulous way. The real work will come in the near future when there is time to debate how to update this important tool that we need to protect the American people