Barbara Boxer

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. It is not only curious, it is wrong. That is why I am so proud of the work that Senator Conrad and so many others did to make this bill a balanced bill that meets the needs of our people. Yes, we are giving the President what he is asking for in Iraq. We have been critical that the President has not funded Iraq in the regular budget. So we are saying: OK. We are not happy about it, but, yes, we will give you every penny, plus what you ask for, for Iraq. But for goodness' sake, you are getting $102 billion for Iraq. How about $20 billion for the needs at home? I think my friend is right. It is curious, and it is wrong that he didn't balance his request.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for an additional 10 minutes.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I believe I have the time. I ask unanimous consent for the additional time, if there are no objections.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I am going to yield to my friend for a question. But I say to my friend, Senator Murray, when she has that agreement, I will be happy to suspend at that time.

Mrs. BOXER. My colleague is not only correct, but as I said, if we look at the Senate glossary written by both sides, its agreement on defining what a supplemental appropriations bill is--and I am going to quote it exactly for my colleague: Supplemental appropriations generally are made to cover emergencies, such as disaster relief, or other needs deemed too urgent to be postponed until the enactment of next year's regular appropriations act. So it is absolutely in the definition on our Senate Web site.

Mrs. BOXER. My colleague is exactly right. All we are saying as Democrats to our friends is: Take care of the American people. Take care of them. They deserve it. I am waiting for some photographs of the freeze that occurred in my home State. I see they have arrived. I need to share these with my friends. There is a song called ``Strawberry Fields Forever.'' I want my colleagues to look at what happened to the strawberry fields in California as a result of the freeze. When we look at this, I say to my colleague from Washington--I want to get her attention just to look at this and to thank her for helping us. This is a strawberry field. It looks like an ice rink. The strawberries are destroyed. I want to show my colleagues our oranges. This is an orange tree. This is what has happened because of the frost. This picture is of an orange. You can hardly see it beneath the frost. A picture is worth a thousand words. I say to the President and my Republican friends: Don't turn your backs on these good people who endured these losses. And, by the way, in my State, in the most Republican part of my State, what are you doing? We need to help people. We need to help the workers. That is what is in this bill. Yes, we provide all the funding for the troops and more. And, yes, thanks to the leadership of the Senator from Washington and the Senators from Hawaii and the majority leader, we have funds in this bill for Walter Reed Army Medical Center. And, yes, we look at what happened in Louisiana. We look at what happened with the levees, and we tried to help those living in FEMA trailer parks. Why would this President turn his back on the people of Louisiana once again? Once again. We saw the lack of response, and now in this bill we are saying help the people, Mr. President. You went down to New Orleans. You stood there--I will never forget the speech--and you said: We will stand with you. Yet he says he doesn't want help for the people of Louisiana in this bill. My farmers have suffered $1.3 billion in losses. I showed the pictures of the freeze. We know about the drought that hit the Midwest. So instead of pledging to work together, we find this administration threatening to veto this bill. I say to this President: If you veto this bill, then you come to my State and you look into the eyes of these farmers and you look into the eyes of these workers and you tell them they didn't have an emergency. You tell them they don't qualify for assistance from a country they love, to which they are devoted. It isn't right. And, yes, we added some language to the bill that says: We are not going to have an open checkbook forever for Iraq, and we are not going to have this continuous stream of wounded and dead coming back. Yes, we want to have a timeline that is fair and just. If the President vetoes that, he is ignoring the will of the people. I will suspend, Mr. President, withhold my time, not lose the floor, and let the Senator from Washington make her request.

Mrs. BOXER. I yield.

Mrs. BOXER. I was happy to yield. Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?

Mrs. BOXER. I won't do that, of course. I will complete in 5 minutes.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, we have spent half a trillion dollars from our Treasury on the war in Iraq, and we know there are 3,000-plus dead, 20,000-plus wounded. I think it is instructive to listen to what President Ronald Reagan once said. He said: History teaches that war begins when governments believe the price tag of aggression is cheap. Let me say that again: History teaches us that war begins when governments believe the price tag of aggression is cheap. Well, the Bush administration thought the price of this war would be cheap. They were wrong. We heard Secretary Rumsfeld tell Congress: The war will last 6 days, 6 weeks, I doubt 6 months. Budget Director Mitch Daniels said Iraq ``will be an affordable endeavor.'' And we remember the President saying, ``Mission accomplished,'' when it wasn't anywhere near accomplished. We remember Vice President Cheney proclaiming ``they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency.'' They were all wrong, and Congress has to weigh in. That is what this last election was about. We were weighing in with the help of a couple Republicans yesterday. We said to this President: Your one-man show in Iraq is over, Mr. President. You need to deal with the people of this country through their elected representatives. And don't issue these veto threats because that doesn't move us forward. Senator Reid has asked the President to please meet with us; we can talk, we can work things out. So it is really up to him. He is wielding a veto pen because he doesn't like the fact that Congress has finally a spine to say, no, we are not going to have an open checkbook anymore for Iraq, we are not going to keep sending our troops over there to die, we are not going to put them in the middle of a civil war, we are going to change the mission in Iraq from a combat mission to a support mission. We say to this President: Accept reality, please; it is time you do that. If you love the troops, you have to give them a mission they can accomplish. If you love the troops, you don't send them to moldy hospital rooms to recuperate from their injuries. And thanks to the Senator from Washington, we have money in this bill to fix Walter Reed. If you love the troops, you don't send them back to fight with a post-traumatic stress disorder and a bottle of antidepressants. We will give the troops what they need, but we will also be heard when we say: Don't put them in the middle of a civil war, Mr. President. Give them a mission that works, a support mission, to train the Iraqis. It is their country. They have to stand up and fight. We can no longer do it for them. And that was the importance of yesterday's vote. In this bill, we do a lot of good things. We deal with the problems we are facing in Iraq. We say we ought to change the mission and make it binding and give a date that says, yes, start bringing the troops home and a goal for when we will bring them all home, except for those limited missions. It is a smart piece of legislation, I say to the President. And, yes, don't forget America. Don't forget the people, the ``salt of the Earth'' people who are suffering because of this freeze. I will show a few more pictures as I wind down on my time. My State was devastated by the freeze. It left thousands of farm workers without employment. One of my constituents, a 46-year-old single mother of two in Tulare County, spent years working in the citrus fields and now has no job. In this picture we can see the ice icicles near these avocados. A look at this picture tells a thousand words. We can't turn our backs on these people. We can't turn our backs on our salmon fishermen who have been suffering so much. We can't turn our backs on the American people. In conclusion, we have to serve as a check and balance on the Executive. When this Executive says it has an open checkbook for Iraq, nothing for America, we say: Whoa, whoa, whoa, Mr. President. That is not right for the American people. Look at the people who have been suffering because of natural disasters. Look at for what we are supposed to use emergency appropriations bills. Come to the table with us. Don't wave your veto pen because we have a spine and we stand up for these people and we stand up for our fighting men and women. Come to the table, we say, let's work things out. If we read the Constitution, that is exactly what we are supposed to do. I was interested to hear Senator Hagel talk about the fact that this is not a monarchy, and he is right. We already had one King George, and that was enough. It is my sincere hope that the President will respect the rule of the people and come to the table. I strongly support this bill, and I will vote against any amendment that hurts the people. I yield the floor.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, today I am pleased to introduce the ``Public Buildings Cost Reduction Act of 2007.'' I am joined by my Environment and Public Works Committee colleagues Senators Inhofe, Lautenberg, Alexander, Cardin, Lieberman, Clinton, and Klobuchar. This bill will reduce air pollution and save taxpayer money by accelerating the use of cost-effective technologies that reduce energy use in public buildings. The goal of this legislation is to have the government lead by example. This bill will help to ensure less polluting and more cost- effective General Services Administration, or GSA, buildings. Under this legislation, the GSA, which is the Nation's largest public real estate organization, must establish a program to speed the use of cost- effective and energy-efficient technology and other actions, called ``cost-effective technologies and practices'', in its buildings. GSA also must assure that a manager is named who is responsible for accelerating the use of cost-effective technologies and practices for each GSA building. In addition, the GSA must review current and available highly- efficient lighting within 90 days, and complete a plan within 6 months for installing highly-efficient lighting in GSA buildings. Within 1 year after enactment, GSA must issue a detailed timetable to replace all existing inefficient lighting in GSA buildings as quickly as feasible, within 5 years, using available funds. A second provision in the bill requires GSA to complete a broader plan that will: (1) achieve a 20-percent reduction in operating costs at GSA facilities to the maximum extent feasible within 5 years after enactment through the application of cost-effective, highly efficient technologies and practices, using available funds; (2) describe the current and needed funding for these programs and any issues that may inhibit their implementation; (3) recommend uniform standards for federal agencies for highly efficient technologies; and (4) recommend ways to allow federal agencies to keep their savings from using efficient technologies and practices, to use them for additional investments and other purposes. The bill also creates an EPA grant program to help local governments make their buildings more efficient. This $20 million per year matching grant program at EPA will help local governments renovate their buildings to make them more cost-effective and energy efficient. The grant program will require a 40 percent match from the local government, and will require grantees to show they will cut utility bills by 40 percent through renovations of a building or buildings that use highly efficient technologies and practices. Further, EPA will have to verify the efficiency and savings and issue guidelines for the program. Grants of up to $1 million will be allowed. In addition, the bill requires reports to Congress on progress under the program, savings achieved, and recommendations. I ask unanimous consent that the text of my bill be printed in the Record.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, today I am pleased to introduce the ``Public Buildings Cost Reduction Act of 2007.'' I am joined by my Environment and Public Works Committee colleagues Senators Inhofe, Lautenberg, Alexander, Cardin, Lieberman, Clinton, and Klobuchar. This bill will reduce air pollution and save taxpayer money by accelerating the use of cost-effective technologies that reduce energy use in public buildings. The goal of this legislation is to have the government lead by example. This bill will help to ensure less polluting and more cost- effective General Services Administration, or GSA, buildings. Under this legislation, the GSA, which is the Nation's largest public real estate organization, must establish a program to speed the use of cost- effective and energy-efficient technology and other actions, called ``cost-effective technologies and practices'', in its buildings. GSA also must assure that a manager is named who is responsible for accelerating the use of cost-effective technologies and practices for each GSA building. In addition, the GSA must review current and available highly- efficient lighting within 90 days, and complete a plan within 6 months for installing highly-efficient lighting in GSA buildings. Within 1 year after enactment, GSA must issue a detailed timetable to replace all existing inefficient lighting in GSA buildings as quickly as feasible, within 5 years, using available funds. A second provision in the bill requires GSA to complete a broader plan that will: (1) achieve a 20-percent reduction in operating costs at GSA facilities to the maximum extent feasible within 5 years after enactment through the application of cost-effective, highly efficient technologies and practices, using available funds; (2) describe the current and needed funding for these programs and any issues that may inhibit their implementation; (3) recommend uniform standards for federal agencies for highly efficient technologies; and (4) recommend ways to allow federal agencies to keep their savings from using efficient technologies and practices, to use them for additional investments and other purposes. The bill also creates an EPA grant program to help local governments make their buildings more efficient. This $20 million per year matching grant program at EPA will help local governments renovate their buildings to make them more cost-effective and energy efficient. The grant program will require a 40 percent match from the local government, and will require grantees to show they will cut utility bills by 40 percent through renovations of a building or buildings that use highly efficient technologies and practices. Further, EPA will have to verify the efficiency and savings and issue guidelines for the program. Grants of up to $1 million will be allowed. In addition, the bill requires reports to Congress on progress under the program, savings achieved, and recommendations. I ask unanimous consent that the text of my bill be printed in the Record.

Mrs. BOXER

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

Mrs. BOXER. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

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

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, today, I rise to introduce the bipartisan Stop TB Now Act of 2007. I am joined in this effort by Senators Gordon Smith, Dick Durbin, and Sherrod Brown. For 8 years, I have worked with Senator Smith to fight the spread of international tuberculosis. I appreciate his help on this bill. I am also grateful for the support of Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, as well as Senator Brown, who was the leader on international TB issues when he was a member of the House of Representatives. The need for this legislation is clear. Tuberculosis kills 1.6 million people per year--1 person every 15 seconds. One-third of the world is infected with the bacteria that causes TB and an estimated 8.8 million individuals develop active TB each year. And tuberculosis is a leading cause of death among women of reproductive age and of people who are HIV-positive. While developing nations are most heavily impacted by TB, there is also a concern here at home. My State of California has more TB cases than any other State in the country and 10 of the top 20 U.S. metro areas with the highest TB rates are in California. The best way to treat TB is through DOTS, which stands for directly observed treatment, short course. This treatment ensures a steady and uninterrupted supply of drugs to prevent the spread of multi-drug resistant TB. It costs just $20-100 per person to treat regular TB with DOTS. But it costs 1,400 times that amount to treat a person with multi-drug resistant TB. Today, we face an even more dangerous problem--the outbreak of extremely drug resistant TB. In some cases, this form of TB is untreatable. In one South African town, 53 TB patients were found to have XDR-TB. All but one died. We must fully fund international TB control efforts because drug-resistant TB happens when people fail to complete treatment. To stop the spread of tuberculosis, the international community came together last year to develop the Global Plan to Stop TB, a comprehensive assessment of the resources and actions needed to cut the number of TB deaths in half by 2015. My bill will bring U.S. policy in line with this plan by authorizing $330 million for fiscal year 2008 and $450 million for fiscal year 2009. for foreign assistance programs that combat international TB. The bill also authorizes $70 million for fiscal year 2008 and $100 million for fiscal year 2009 for the Centers for Disease Control programs to combat international TB. TB kills more people than any other curable disease in the world. We have a moral obligation to take the steps necessary to meet this challenge.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, today, I rise to introduce the bipartisan Stop TB Now Act of 2007. I am joined in this effort by Senators Gordon Smith, Dick Durbin, and Sherrod Brown. For 8 years, I have worked with Senator Smith to fight the spread of international tuberculosis. I appreciate his help on this bill. I am also grateful for the support of Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, as well as Senator Brown, who was the leader on international TB issues when he was a member of the House of Representatives. The need for this legislation is clear. Tuberculosis kills 1.6 million people per year--1 person every 15 seconds. One-third of the world is infected with the bacteria that causes TB and an estimated 8.8 million individuals develop active TB each year. And tuberculosis is a leading cause of death among women of reproductive age and of people who are HIV-positive. While developing nations are most heavily impacted by TB, there is also a concern here at home. My State of California has more TB cases than any other State in the country and 10 of the top 20 U.S. metro areas with the highest TB rates are in California. The best way to treat TB is through DOTS, which stands for directly observed treatment, short course. This treatment ensures a steady and uninterrupted supply of drugs to prevent the spread of multi-drug resistant TB. It costs just $20-100 per person to treat regular TB with DOTS. But it costs 1,400 times that amount to treat a person with multi-drug resistant TB. Today, we face an even more dangerous problem--the outbreak of extremely drug resistant TB. In some cases, this form of TB is untreatable. In one South African town, 53 TB patients were found to have XDR-TB. All but one died. We must fully fund international TB control efforts because drug-resistant TB happens when people fail to complete treatment. To stop the spread of tuberculosis, the international community came together last year to develop the Global Plan to Stop TB, a comprehensive assessment of the resources and actions needed to cut the number of TB deaths in half by 2015. My bill will bring U.S. policy in line with this plan by authorizing $330 million for fiscal year 2008 and $450 million for fiscal year 2009. for foreign assistance programs that combat international TB. The bill also authorizes $70 million for fiscal year 2008 and $100 million for fiscal year 2009 for the Centers for Disease Control programs to combat international TB. TB kills more people than any other curable disease in the world. We have a moral obligation to take the steps necessary to meet this challenge.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, today, Senator Dianne Feinstein and I pay tribute to Bob Hattoy, a cherished friend and one of America's most passionate warriors for the environment and human rights. We will miss him dearly. We first met Bob during his decade of service to the Sierra Club as its regional director for California and Nevada. He was an outspoken advocate in the campaigns to protect our precious coast and desert, always increasing awareness about threats to California's environment with a unique mixture of inspiration and irreverence. It was only fitting that he was tapped by then-Governor Bill Clinton to serve as his Presidential campaign's top environmental adviser. But just as he was set to join the campaign, Bob's doctor discovered a lump under his arm that signaled his HIV had progressed. His instinct was always to fight on, so between agonizing treatments, Bob traveled the country relentlessly to speak out against AIDS. Taking on this fight--both privately and publicly--was a remarkable choice. But for those who were blessed to know him, it was not surprising. We will never forget the historic and moving address he gave at the Democratic National Convention in 1992. The first openly gay American with HIV/AIDS to speak at a political convention, Bob brought so many of us to tears and action by showing the real costs of AIDS and the real meaning of courage. He said that day: ``You see, I have AIDS. I could be an African- American woman, a Latino man, a 10-year-old boy or girl. AIDS has many faces. And AIDS knows no class or gender, race or religion, or sexual orientation. . . .'' Over the next 15 years, as many other activists moved on to other challenges, Bob never gave up the battle to make sure America truly lived up to its ideals. Sometimes that meant working tirelessly to elect progressive candidates. Sometimes it meant standing up and speaking out, whether it was taking on a bureaucrat or a President. Most recently, it meant moving to Sacramento to devote more time to serving as president of California's Fish and Game Commission. The last time we saw Bob was 2 months ago in Washington, DC, as we all celebrated the new majority in Congress and the historic election of Speaker Nancy Pelosi. If Bob was sick or struggling that day, he certainly didn't let on. He wanted to reminisce about the past and toast the future with that same larger than life personality that made him so special. Now, as so many friends mourn his passing, we also celebrate his life. We celebrate his candor and compassion, his sense of humor and sense of purpose, his ability to amuse and inspire us all. And we celebrate his lasting legacy in the relationships he forged, the rights he championed, and the natural resources he protected for generations to come.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I wish to express my support for S. 214, which would serve to protect the independence of our U.S. attorneys. The administration's attack on sitting U.S. attorneys is an unprecedented abuse of power. The White House and the Attorney General injected politics into the process and chose to fire eight U.S. attorneys, including our U.S. attorney in San Diego, Carol Lam. These attorneys were not fired because of poor job performance, as the Attorney General initially claimed, but because in one way or another they did not carry out the political agenda of the White House. Despite the administration's efforts to downplay and spin these events to Congress, we now know that this plan was orchestrated at the highest levels of the White House. For example, Karl Rove misled the public when he asserted that the Justice Department's action was comparable to President Clinton's actions. This is untrue. No administration has ever lashed out and fired a group of their own U.S. attorneys in the middle of a term. There is an immediate need for legislation to ensure that the administration can no longer appoint new U.S. attorneys without Senate confirmation. I thank my colleague, Senator Feinstein, for her superb leadership on this issue.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, will you state the parliamentary situation in front of the Senate at this moment.

Mrs. BOXER. So, Madam President, we are now debating whether to proceed to S.J. Res. 9. I am glad the Chair clarified that. I am here to speak briefly, to say I hope our colleagues will say yes and will proceed to S.J. Res. 9. I will go into why I think that would be an excellent vote for this Chamber to take. I wish to speak briefly as to where we are procedurally. Our Democratic leader, Senator Reid, has presented to the Senate S.J. Res. 9. Its purpose is to revise the policy of the United States in Iraq, and if ever we needed to revise the policy of the United States in Iraq, it is certainly now. In my belief, it was certainly a year ago and the year before. As someone who did not vote to give the President the authorization to go to war in the first place, I and a number of my colleagues have watched with horror as we have seen take place what we predicted. We said the President did not consider what would happen if our troops were not greeted as liberators and, in fact, were greeted as occupiers. We asked questions about the possibility of sectarian violence among the Sunni, Shia, and others. We said it was a mistake to take our eye off capturing bin Laden and finishing our work in Afghanistan, which is crucial. We wondered why the President was doing this when the whole world was with us after the tragedy of 9/11. He turned around and went after Saddam Hussein, told us he was going to get nuclear weapons, told us he was harboring al-Qaida, and I will tell you, Madam President, all of that proved to be false. So he took the country to war on false pretenses, and who has paid the price for that? The military families. The dead. These families have lost over 3,000 of their nearest and dearest, and they will never, ever--ever--be the same. The wounded are suffering the worst kind of wounds. These are the folks who have paid the heavy price and who continue to pay the heavy price. I am proud of Senator Reid and the Democratic leadership. We promised the people we would make this our No. 1 priority, and we are. We tried to debate Iraq before. The Republicans stopped us. Now we are trying to do it again. We have a resolution I wish to share with you, Madam President. I said it was called a Joint Resolution to Revise United States Policy in Iraq. It says, and I am going to truncate this: Whereas, Congress and the American people will continue to support and protect the troops who are serving or have served bravely and honorably in Iraq; and whereas the circumstances referred to in the authorization in 2002 have changed substantially; and whereas U.S. troops should not be policing a civil war, and the current conflict in Iraq requires principally a political solution; and whereas U.S. policy in Iraq must change to emphasize the need for a political solution by Iraqi leaders in order to maximize the chance of success and to more effectively fight the war on terror; therefore be it resolved that we transition this mission away from being in the middle of a civil war toward being supportive of the Iraqi troops and training them; that we shall begin the phased redeployment of the U.S. Forces from Iraq not later than 120 days after enactment of the resolution; that we then move forward with a comprehensive strategy so that we finally resolve this Iraq quagmire--it means that it has to be diplomatic and political and economic--and that there be a report every 60 days so we know how this redeployment is going. This is a breath of fresh air. This resolution is a breath of fresh air into a situation where you can't even breathe you are so suffocated from the tragedy, from the deaths, from the wounded, from the explosions every single day. So, yes, we are debating whether we should proceed to S.J. Res. 9, and I hope we will. In closing, let me say this. There is a lot of talk about loving the troops, and I think every one of us in this Chamber loves the troops, so I have a rhetorical point here. If you love the troops, and I believe we all do, why put them in the middle of a civil war where they can't tell who is shooting at them? If you love the troops, why do you give them a mission they can't accomplish? They can't solve the civil war. That has to be done diplomatically, politically. If you love the troops, why would you lower the standards for their future colleagues in arms? We are stunned to see that convicted violent felons are now being taken into the military, that is how desperately stretched the military is. If you love the troops, why would you put them in a place such as Walter Reed, where you have mold on the walls and vermin, and not give them the access when they leave Washington and go back home, not give them definitive access to the help they need? Why would you send them, if you loved the troops, out to battle again and again and again? I met a man yesterday whose son is on his third tour. I have the charts in front of my office with the names of the California dead. He looked at that, and I saw the look on his face, and I said, what is wrong? He said, I have a son in Iraq, third tour of duty, no rest. So why do you have a rule that says they have to have rest; they have to be properly trained; they have to have the proper equipment? If you love the troops, why would you continue to send them over in that fashion, without being properly equipped or trained? Why would you send them out on the battlefield with post-traumatic stress and a bottle of antidepressants, if you loved the troops? I am proud to be a cosponsor of S.J. Res. 9. This is a comprehensive solution. The other side of this debate keeps saying, well, where is your solution? Here it is. It is right there. We transform the mission to a mission that can be accomplished, not mission impossible. That mission will be to protect United States and coalition personnel and infrastructure, training and equipping Iraqi forces, and conducting targeted counterterrorism operations. Now that is a mission we can accomplish. As for sending our troops into the middle of a civil war, that is wrong, and I don't believe anyone who voted for that resolution--and I am so proud and so glad I didn't vote for that resolution to take this country into this ill-fated war, but if you voted for it, you didn't vote to put troops in the middle of a civil war. So if that is where we are right now, we need to change it. You know, Martin Luther King--and I read this recently--who is one of my heroes in life, said during the Vietnam war that what can happen to you when you are faced with these horrible options, these horrible choices--and by the way, the worst kind of leadership, no matter where it comes from, is a leadership that gives you no good choices, okay? But Martin Luther King said, when you are faced with that circumstance--and he was talking about Vietnam, where it was tragic, there were no good choices, what could we do--said, paralysis sets in and people can't change. What happens is the status quo prevails and it becomes a new reality: dead, dead, dead soldiers every day, suicide bombs, and we can't get out of it. The surge isn't a new strategy. It has been tried before. We know what is happening. The enemy tells us what is happening. They are leaving, going someplace else to cause trouble; waiting it out. We know they will adjust to this. There is only one solution, and that is why S.J. Res. 9 is so important. What is the solution? We spell it out. A comprehensive strategy shall be implemented as part of a comprehensive diplomatic, political, and economic strategy that includes sustained engagement with Iraq's neighbors and the international community for the purpose of working collectively to bring stability to Iraq. There is no more coalition of the willing. They are all leaving, whether it is Great Britain--which now is going to have only a few thousand troops there--Italy, Spain, Portugal. I could go through the list. They are all leaving. We need to redeploy our troops and we need a comprehensive strategy. I am proud to support S.J. Res. 9, and I hope when we have this vote we will vote to proceed to this very important resolution. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session on Wednesday, March 14, 2007, at 10 a.m., in 215 Dirksen Senate Office Building, to hear testimony on ``Charting a Course for Health Care Reform: Moving Toward Universal Coverage.''

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, March 14, 2007 at 2:30 p.m. to hold a hearing on the Philippines.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be authorized to meet in executive session during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, March 14, 2007, at 10 a.m., in SD-430.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be authorized to hold a hearing on drug safety during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, March 14, 2007, at 10:15 a.m., in SD-430.