Sam Brownback

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. I object. Madam President, I would say, let's take pieces of that overall big bill that we can agree to. Unanimous-Consent Request--S. 1810 and Others I ask unanimous consent that we agree to consider S. 1810 which I cited, and then the PROTECT Our Children Act, and the Effective Child Pornography Prosecution Act--they have all been considered and cleared on both sides--and we move to the immediate consideration of those.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Madam President, I hope we could move forward with this. It would show that we can get something done in the body. There is no objection. We have worked on this for multiple years. We have got the funding worked out. This is a time in the country where people have heightened awareness of the genetic discrimination that takes place in utero. We have passed bills here that said you cannot discriminate against an individual for their genetic type once they are born, but in utero they are killed. That surely is not something that people want or defend or think is right. This is not even a limitation on that. It is saying that all we are going to do here is establish a registry and provide current information if you get a Downs syndrome designation. I hope in the interest of this wonderful gentleman Tom Vander Woude we could see this considered. I am sad that we are not doing that in this particular situation. The day after Trig was born to the Palins, they released the following statement. I thought it was so beautiful, I will read it here: Trig is beautiful and already adored by us. We know through early testing he would face special challenges. We feel privileged that God would entrust us with this gift and allow us unspeakable joy as he entered our lives. We have faith that every baby is created for good purpose and has potential to make this world a better place. We are truly blessed. All we are asking is that more people would really have that opportunity to do that or, if they don't feel they can handle it, to put that child up for adoption on a registry that we establish. It would be an important thing for us to be able to move forward with. I am sorry we cannot get that piece done here today. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Yes.

Mr. BROWNBACK. I will be happy to yield to the Senator from New Mexico.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Madam President, I thank my colleague from New Mexico. I note that when the nuclear industry comes back, I hope one of the first powerplants has ``Pete Domenici'' written over the archway going into it. We have an excellent nuclear powerplant in Kansas called Wolf Creek. My colleague recognizes this. It has been in operation for 25 years. It had huge protests before it got built. People were protesting the train that carried some of the main core elements into this spot. It has been operating efficiently, cleanly. It doesn't put off CO2. It was a huge investment that has been fantastic for our whole State. And it was a capital expense. It was expensive on the capital side of it, substantially so, but, boy, does it run well. It has been good to see. And if we need to bring that back, we need to bring it back on a cost- efficient basis, but that was one of our key elements on moving this forward and moving our car fleet with more electricity. But we are going to need that base power generation, and we want it clean, and here is a good spot to do it.

Mr. BROWNBACK. There is another bridge I would like to talk about, and that is the continuing resolution. I wish to point out to my colleagues these are annual limitations on drilling offshore, in the oil shale. These are annual things put in, these limitations. There is a building coalition and consensus of people saying I don't want those limitations put on this year's appropriations. We do a continuing resolution as a bridge. I am warning my colleagues if this doesn't get voted on and dealt with, I think you are going to see people starting to say: I am not willing to put that into that bridge funding into next year. I hope we can work this out on something on offshore drilling, on oil shale development of rules, before we get to that continuing resolution piece where this would normally, or often, be put in. People are saying I do not want that in this financing bill for the Government, the continuing resolution.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Madam President, I would like to first thank my colleague from New Mexico and ask him a question, because this will be the last year he is serving in this body. He has served in it for many years, very distinguished. It has been my pleasure to get to know him. Senator Domenici can be irascible sometimes, but he is always fair. I find he will get on both sides, depending on which way he makes the call. I just saw this, too, that we are not having this Appropriations Committee markup. I am on that committee. I am a relatively new member. Senator Allard is on it, and Senator Domenici has served on it in a distinguished capacity for many years. This is really striking. I have not seen this take place. I have not been in the Senate that long, but I wonder if my colleague has seen that sort of move taking place to stop a major issue that is confronting the American public?

Mr. BROWNBACK. I agree. Madam President, I join my colleagues from New Mexico and Colorado in talking about the energy issue, and I particularly want to associate myself with the comments of the Senator from New Mexico, who responded that we are not just focusing on drill, drill, drill. The point of the matter is two numbers. Those two numbers are 25 and 3. Twenty-five percent of the world's oil is consumed by the United States, and we produce 3 percent. Now, how long can we operate that way? You can say, as my colleague from New Mexico has pointed out: Well, OK, we are going to get off oil. We want some alternative. Lord knows, I want an alternative. I want more ethanol, which is produced in my State. I want it produced out of cellulose. The problem is, if we turned off oil tomorrow, we are not in a position to produce enough of that or virtually anything else. We are going to need to use oil for some period of time, and that 25 and 3 ratio doesn't work--our consuming 25 percent and producing 3 percent--when we could produce probably a good 50 percent more. Who knows what the actual number is. We know it is much higher than what it currently is. For every dollar we are not spending on oil here, we are spending it somewhere else. They are building these huge indoor sea complexes in Dubai in the Middle East and lavish buildings. They are building islands, whole islands, beautifully designed like a palm tree. That takes huge amounts of money. You sit there for just 2 minutes, and you think: Where is all that money coming from, I wonder? It is coming from our consumers' pocketbooks when people are pulling up at the gas station and paying 100 bucks or more for gas to fill up. Hopefully, there are people who have vehicles that are using substantially less than that, but the point is, it is a huge transfer of wealth from here to there, and it doesn't have to take place when we can produce it here. I would rather that money be going to Kansas or Colorado to work on their oil shale or to Alaska or to offshore areas but certainly working here. We have a Federal deficit that is taking place. What if instead of us shipping $500 billion overseas for oil, we were spending that money here. Then 20 percent comes into our Federal coffers. That is the general figure. I think that is a bit high, but it is about that right now. So you have $100 billion coming here in tax revenues. It is just common sense. My dad farms, and I have been talking with him about this issue. He is paying a lot for diesel fuel because he runs the tractors on diesel, and he is paying more than he used to. He is saying: Why aren't we doing this here? And I have a hard time explaining to him why we are not doing it here, when we could do it here, when we have the capacity, the ability, and the technology in the market. I say: Well, some people don't want us to. Well, why? Well, they are scared of what is going to take place in the environment, even though we can do it environmentally sound. Someone is going to be doing it somewhere else. Are they going to do it more environmentally sound than us? I don't think so. I know they are not going to in some of the places I have seen around the world. The U.S. standards are the highest in the world. So I would plead with my colleagues that drilling is part of the answer. It is clearly part of the answer when our numbers are 25 and 3; when we use 25 percent of the world's oil and produce 3 percent of it. We have to get our numbers up. It helps to balance the trade, it helps our deficit, it helps our people, and it spends it here at home. That is why I continue to join my colleagues in voting that we stay on energy instead of going to other issues. I would like to solve some of these other issues as well, as would my colleagues on the Senate floor. I want to deal with them. I want to deal with all these issues. But when you pass up the biggest issue that is confronting most Americans, and you don't deal with it, and for 9 days you don't deal with it when you could be, we are just simply saying: Let's deal with the biggest one here, and then we will be happy to deal with these other issues. We need to deal with these other things, but not until you deal with the biggest one. If we don't deal with it now, are we going to deal with it this year? I don't think so. I don't think that will happen. We are not going to get more time, nor will we have more political will the closer it gets to the election. So now is the time, now is the place, now is when the American people want us to deal with this matter. So I join my colleagues in continuing to vote this way; that we take up these amendments to increase production in the United States.

Mr. BROWNBACK. If my colleague from Colorado will yield as well?

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I rise to speak about S. 3046 and H.R. 6270, the Access, Compassion, Care, and Ethics for Seriously Ill Patients Act or ACCESS Act. The intent of this bipartisan, bicameral legislation is to expand access to investigational treatment options for patients with serious or life-threatening diseases. A provision of the ACCESS Act provides for three requirements for a patient to become eligible for access to investigational treatments that have completed at least phase one of the clinical trials process, labeled as compassionate investigational access, CIA. The second of the three requirements provides that a physician document in writing that a seriously ill patient has exhausted all treatment options approved by the Secretary for the condition or disease for which the patient is a reasonable candidate. For this particular provision, the intent of the congressional sponsors of the ACCESS Act is that a patient has examined, not necessarily tried, all Food and Drug Administration- approved treatment options for which the patient is a reasonable candidate. Accordingly, it is not the intent of the congressional sponsors of the ACCESS Act that a seriously ill patient has tried every combination of treatments for which the patient is eligible before the patient is granted compassionate investigational access or expanded access to the investigational treatment. Moreover, it is not the intent of Congress that the seriously ill patient has exhausted every treatment option for which the patient is a reasonable candidate where a treatment option is known to have severe negative side effects. The ACCESS Act will ensure that a patient with a serious or life- threatening disease has access to the largest scope of treatment options available to the patient and their doctor. I encourage my colleagues to join me in cosponsoring this important piece of legislation.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, many economists believe energy efficiency and conservation are absolutely critical to our efforts to reduce our reliance on foreign oil. I agree. We have passed major energy legislation in the past to promote research and development in the area of hybrid automobile research, including batteries. We will be holding a hearing tomorrow in the Joint Economic Committee on this issue. Clearly, we need to conserve more. We have two hybrid vehicles in my family, and it has worked well. We need to move that technology forward. But it doesn't change the fundamentals that we have to produce more here as well. I want to show a final chart of the oil shale area in the United States. It is currently off limits from drilling. It has the potential of 500 billion--or more--barrels in production. This is in Wyoming, Utah, and Colorado. Clearly, this is another area we need to open for development. My point is that we are not helpless and we can do more. We have to do it now. Time is of the essence. It is draining people's pocketbooks, and it is putting us in an unnecessary security risk. I am hopeful that the leader is going to allow us to put forward amendments. I hope we can put forward our flex fuel amendment. I hope we can put forward drilling amendments so that we can get production up in the United States. That is something we need to do. I yield the floor.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I wish to spend a little time talking about the energy topic which has consumed this body and rightfully so. It has certainly consumed the people's checkbooks and pocketbooks. I will then submit a course of action and suggestions, one of which is a bill that was recently introduced by a tripartisan coalition--Senator Salazar, Senator Lieberman, and myself--requiring that a third of the fleet of vehicles the United States produces sold here by 2012 be able to operate on flex fuel; that is, a car or a pickup--whatever it is that is being sold--can operate on either ethanol, methanol or gasoline or any combination thereto, to remove our addiction to foreign oil. I also wish to talk about the need to produce more energy here at home. I have a couple charts. This one is one people instinctively know about, but I think it is pretty dramatic when you look at it. Our consumption is going up. It has been a bit more level lately. Production. Look at what we have done with production since the mid- 1980s. It has gone down while our imports have made up the difference. We had this huge crossover in 1994. We are actually importing what we should be producing. We have to change this chart. Boone Pickens was in town last week--one of the famous oilmen in the United States--and he was saying we are on track to be importing $700 billion worth of oil on an annualized basis. If you think about that and the transfer of wealth that is taking place--that $700 billion comes from someplace, and it comes from people's pocketbooks. Then, instead of going into the U.S. economy, it is going overseas and on to places that often don't agree with us, whether it is into Venezuela or other regions of the world. Plus, think about the sheer economic activity. If you take $700 billion worth of economic activity out of here and are not generating further economic activity someplace else and are putting it someplace else, it degrades our tax coffers. Yet that $700 billion of economic activity here, if there were just a 20- percent tax rate associated with it, we are looking at $140 billion worth of taxes back into this country if we had that sort of economic revenue taking place. Imports of petroleum and petroleum products in the billions of dollars, and you can see the increase in the price of oil, what this is doing. It is skyrocketing from, again, 2004 on forward. If that activity were taking place here, those dollars would be back here. Instead of building enormous buildings or new islands or incredible facilities in Dubai, we could be building them here. That is why we need to produce more in the United States, and we can produce more in the United States instead of getting it from overseas. It is my hope that later this week, we are going to start voting on some of these resolutions, some of these bills to produce more in the United States. We cannot continue to consume 25 percent of the world's oil while producing only 3 percent of it. The world is not going to let that continue to take place. If you set all that aside and say: Well, I don't care, as long as it continues to take place--if you set all that aside, what is taking place now in the Middle East, of Iran developing nuclear capacity and the threat of that to the region, to a number of countries in that region, particularly Israel--and if there is a response to that, what happens then to oil prices and the availability of oil to the United States if that escalates further? It may get an escalation that happens out of our control. Then what happens to the oil supply and the price if we continue to be dependent on this much of a dollar amount for foreign sources of oil? What would the Venezuelans do? What would Chavez do if the Iranians are attacked? Do you think they are going to send oil to the United States? What would happen in Russia, where Russia has been moving to work more with the Iranians? I think we are looking at a scenario, from a security perspective and from an economic perspective, that is wholly untenable for us in the United States and one we have to deal with now. The way to deal with it is to produce more in the United States and to allow drilling to take place here. We must explore new areas. The Department of Energy, Energy Information Agency reports that 75 billion barrels of oil are off-limits today in the United States. The President has recently lifted the Executive ban on the Outer Continental Shelf, and unless Congress lifts its congressional ban, we will not have access to 16 billion barrels of crude oil. Lifting this congressional ban on offshore drilling would surely send the right signals to the marketplace and many believe it would help lower prices in the near term. It would show the world we are willing to explore for new energy. We should also explore in Alaska for oil shale in the Western United States. I wish to show quickly one other piece of information on biofuels, and that is a chart and a statement that was recently put forward by Merrill Lynch. Biofuels has been in a tough debate recently as there are a number of people accusing it of different things. One thing I wish to put on the table for sure is that biofuels has expanded our energy sources and expanded it away from the Middle East and it has expanded it away from foreign imports. That is something that has taken place. A recent study from Merrill Lynch found that because of the world's use of biofuels, gasoline is $21 per barrel less expensive than without these biofuels--$21 a barrel it took off oil prices. That is 50 cents less per gallon. We must continue to research and innovate in the world of cellulosic ethanol and biodiesel, soy, possibly from algae. What we have put forward in an amendment on this bill, if we are able to get to the Energy bill, is a requirement that half the new cars built and that are imported to the United States by 2012 be flex-fuel vehicles that can use ethanol, methanol or gasoline or any combination of those three. The big three auto manufacturers have said they can meet this goal to allow consumers to choose between gasoline, ethanol, methanol or, in some cases, biodiesel. So imagine you are pulling up to the pump and ethanol this day is selling for $1 a gallon less than gasoline is. Perhaps methanol is selling for $1.50 a gallon less than gasoline, and you are saying I am going to put in ethanol today. It is selling for cheaper. Those will continue to drive down the price of gasoline and will have a security benefit in that. If something happens in the Middle East or a part of the world that is out of our control and oil supplies dry up, we won't be left high and dry; we will have other sources of fuel to be able to move forward with. That is why so many security people are interested in this flex-fuel concept and a flex-fuel vehicle. I filed this legislation as amendment No. 5249 to the speculation bill that is currently on the floor. I ask unanimous consent that Senator Salazar be added as a cosponsor to that amendment.

Mr. BROWNBACK

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

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I rise to speak on the Energy bill that is on the floor today. This is a great debate, it is a needed debate, and one that is happening every day across our country, in every community and at every gas station and coffee shop--as to how to get these energy prices down and what we need to do to get these energy prices down. So I am delighted we are getting the chance to talk about it on the floor. I think people across the country are absolutely, there is no question about it, completely fed up. They are tired of it. It has hit them directly and it has hit them hard. It is making people change lifestyles or even do without essentials simply to be able to get to and from work or to and from appointments, schools, and hospitals. This is a big, huge problem that Americans are facing daily and that we need to address and that we need to solve and we need to deal with. Unfortunately, this base bill does not go to the heart of the question. I am delighted we are having a chance to talk about it, but I wish we would go to the heart of the question of what we need to do, which is to produce more, to create more options for people across the United States, and to conserve. A fact that I think people are recognizing, but one we don't talk nearly as much about, is the huge transfer of wealth that is taking place from this country to other places. This year alone, importing a million barrels of oil less per day in the first 5 months of this year would have reduced the year-to-date trade deficit by more than $14 billion. If we had imported a million barrels of oil less a day, we could have reduced that trade deficit by $14 billion. It would have increased our GDP and increased domestic employment and certainly had some impact on prices. That is something we don't talk about as much, but it is a big part of the equation as well. Obviously, we need more domestic energy production. We are witnessing this massive transfer of wealth because we don't have adequate domestic energy production. Every year, to buy oil, America sends well in excess of half a trillion dollars to foreign countries. In fact, in 1972, Saudi Arabia's foreign exchange earnings were about $2.7 billion. That was in 1972. In 2006, it was over $200 billion. Clearly, we are having a huge transfer of wealth. And where is that wealth coming from? It is coming from people pulling up to gas stations and filling up their pickups; diesel fuel consumption. It is coming from the American consumer, and it should be going back into Americans' pockets instead of going overseas. So we are seeing too much of that taking place right now. We have some options, and different people have talked about different ones, but I want to highlight several that I think are key for us to be looking at for our future in producing more. One is the oil shale regions of Wyoming, Utah, and Colorado. I have a quick picture of this. I think some people, hopefully, have seen this. Here is an area that has been frozen out of production by law that could be brought into production. It has huge reserves in it--500 billion or more potential--and it is being held off the market. So while we transfer billions and trillions of dollars of wealth to regions of the world--and in many cases they don't like us--we are holding off production of areas in the United States that we could produce from in an environmentally sound way. We have huge reserves here, and that makes no sense to most people across my State of Kansas as to why you would do that. What is the purpose here? We can do this in an environmentally sound way. We can do it with American technology and know-how, and we need to get that done. Another thing we need to do, particularly from my vantagepoint, coming from the Midwest, is to do more with biofuels. A recent study from Merrill Lynch found that the world's use of biofuels has kept oil prices 15 percent lower than they would be without these alternative fuels--15 percent lower. So you are looking at 60 cents a gallon of that $4 gasoline that is being held lower because we have biofuels. That is something we need to continue to do more of. We are producing ethanol plants throughout the Midwest and throughout the country. We are moving into cellulosic ethanol, and we have the first four of those plants coming on line. It is an innovative technology of taking, in many cases, what we would refer to as agricultural waste and turning it into ethanol. That is a key part of our growing and our marketplace that we can utilize. I think we also need to look at other fuel sources, such as methanol and biodiesel. Earlier today, a tripartisan group of my colleagues and I introduced a bill that would require 50 percent of the new cars made in the United States, or sold in the United States by 2012, to be flex- fuel vehicles. These are vehicles that you can pull up to a gas pump and put gasoline, ethanol, methanol, or any combination of those three into the car. This is a goal the big three auto manufacturers in the United States say they can achieve--50 percent by 2012--and then we up it to 80 percent 3 years later, adding a 10-percent increase of the new cars that have to have that option of the flex fuel. Now, if you were to take that situation today, what that creates, instead of having a monopoly of dependence on oil, you have an option and a competition, which is going to reduce price. You can pull up at the pump and say: Okay, I want to put in E-85 ethanol--85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline. What is the price on ethanol today? Versus: Okay, let's see what it is on gasoline versus methanol. What is it I can get here? The car or the pickup can read any of the fuels. This is a technology that is estimated to cost about $100 per car to put it in but is priceless in creating options and competition for the fuel sources in the United States. Somebody asked me at the press conference that Senators Lieberman and Salazar and I held on this: Well, isn't this going to hurt plug-in technology or plug-in cars? I said: It is my estimation and hope that in the future you are going to be able to buy a plug-in hybrid flex- fuel car that you plug in at night, go the 20 miles on electricity--it is a hybrid, so it recharges and uses that electricity whenever it can in the vehicle--and then it is a flex-fuel vehicle, so you can use ethanol, methanol, gasoline, or any combination thereof. That creates that competition on fuel sources, whether it is electricity, ethanol, methanol, or gasoline, and we will reduce price. These are things we need to do to move forward and get off of our reliance on foreign oil and the addiction we have to foreign oil. We also need to innovate. I am going to show a chart here of what I thought was a very innovative project in the western part of my State that is still on the drawing boards. It has been blocked to date, but it is an integrated bioenergy center near Holcomb, KS. It was going to use coal-fired technology to produce electricity. They were going to take their CO2 emissions and run them through an algae reactor. They were projecting they would reduce 40 percent of the CO2 emissions, running it through the algae, and then taking the algae and making it into biodiesel. So you have this integrated center where you have this sort of biodiesel and algae reactor fuel as well associated with it because of the heat production, and the use of that and the ethanol plant where you can get these integrated systems together. At the end of the day, you reduce your CO2 emissions, increase your fuel production, and it would be good for the economy. So you are balancing the economy, energy, and the ecology of the environment. You get the three Es balanced together and moving forward in an innovative made-in-America type of plant. Those are the sorts of innovative solutions that we need to move forward with and to discuss in this debate so that we create a competition. We need to create options, we need to produce more supply, and by producing more supply, we are going to reduce price in this price point. And by producing more supply in the United States, we are going to stop the transfer of wealth to the degree that we have seen taking place from the United States, out of our pocketbooks, and into, unfortunately, the pockets of our competitors, who, in many cases, don't like us. I am the ranking member on a subcommittee that has held hearings on this particular bill, and that is the Appropriations subcommittee that funds the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. We have looked at these issues. And while we are having an important debate here--I think it is a good discussion--I think the hearings we have held have been very positive in reflecting on how much money has been coming into a number of places in the futures market. Yet if we are going to get the answer to the basic question here of trying to reduce price, the clear way is to deal with the supply-and-demand equation--increasing supply and reducing demand--and not just saying: Okay, it is all because of speculation that these prices are going up. I do believe it would be wise for us to limit pension funds, the amount pension funds can put in the commodities market, but primarily as a feature of how you help the pension funds, because commodity markets are inherently volatile, moving wildly at various times, and it seems not to be a wise place to put large amounts of pension funds. But this bill goes far beyond that, to the point that the Kansas City Board of Trade--it is on the Missouri side of Kansas City, but a number of people working there live in Kansas--is strongly opposed to this and thinks it will hurt the commodity futures market rather than help it. You are going to hurt the price discovery mechanism, and you may well, in the long term, end up driving up prices through these features. They have been in my office previously drawing attention to outside funds coming in and saying this is something that ought to be looked at, but when they look at this answer, they are saying it is way over the top. It doesn't fit the need that we have of the day. I wish to make the point on where we need to limit the pensions funds in the commodity futures market. As public pension funds have grown in size and expanded their investment portfolios beyond traditional equity and bond investment activities, significant losses by some major pension funds have led to greater calls for scrutiny and investigation. For example, the San Diego County pension fund lost about half of its $175 million investment in a hedge fund when the fund crashed due to what turned out to be a disastrous bet on natural gas, getting into a commodity market. All told, approximately 20 percent of the pension fund's assets are invested in alternative strategies through hedge funds and other money managers. That is my point here. I think the right place to look is a limitation on the total amount of monies that can be put in hedge funds, into the commodities futures markets, to protect the pension funds, rather than saying this is the silver bullet that is going to cure the increase in energy prices that we have. Mr. President, I thank my colleagues for the chance to be able to speak on this bill. My colleague from Alaska, whose State is absolutely critical to expanding our energy supply, is here to speak further about the need for production. I yield the floor.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Madam President, I wish to speak in favor of the bill. I inquire of the manager if I need to receive any time allocation. I would like to speak for up to 10 minutes. I rise to speak in favor of the U.S. Global Leadership Against HIV/ AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Reauthorization Act of 2008 as it will be modified by the managers' amendment. I have had the pleasure over the years to work with Senator Lugar and Senator Biden. These are men of integrity, knowledge, and, I add, wisdom. They have seen a lot, done a lot. I think they have seen a few things that work, and I think they have seen a few things that don't work. This is one of those rare foreign policy programs that really works. Unfortunately, too often they do not. While I am here, I wish to recognize the work of my colleague from Indiana for getting nuclear material out of the Soviet Union as one of those programs that works, and the world is a safer place because it works. I have seen a lot of foreign policy issues that have not worked. Those sorts of things discredit foreign policy, particularly spending in the foreign affairs field. This is one of those programs that has worked. Because of it, hundreds of thousands of people are alive today who would not be alive. If we are able to get this reauthorization and some additional support, there will be more who will be alive. It is amazing how grateful people are if you help save their lives. The approval rating of the United States in Africa is the highest in the world, even including North America. I think it is primarily because of the health care support the United States does, and this is the leading bill to do it. I am pleased as well that it is HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. Those three are not the only scourges that exist, but they are certainly the main ones, and they are ones that if we can go at each of them together, we are going to save people's lives. We are going to take away a lot of the difficulty--not all of it, by any means--but we are really going to help people where they need help, and this bill does it. We all know that from whom much is given, much is expected. We have been given much in the United States. It is not that we don't have people struggling here as well because we certainly do. But a number of us have traveled to many of these countries where the HIV/AIDS scourge has been, and we have had a great deal of difficulty with it as well. I have been to places where they have not had any resources to combat this disease at all. People wasting and dying in these terrible situations just have no hope at all. This gives them hope. This gives them help. Since its creation in 2003, the Global AIDS initiative, commonly known as PEPFAR, has been a bright point of U.S. foreign aid policy. The United States has become the world's leader in prevention, treatment, and care for individuals suffering from this terrible disease. That 2003 law, which I was pleased to support and have somewhat a hand in helping it move on through, now needs to be reauthorized to continue this success. From the beginning of this program, it has been my intention to do all that I could to make sure any reauthorization of the Global AIDS Program stayed true to its mission. This is a mission that has worked. We should not be taking it into other fields. We should stay with what this one program has accomplished. Often Government programs, when they lose sight of their mission, also lose their effectiveness. This one needs to stay true to its mission. I want to be certain it stays with this lifesaving program and not slip into other areas, some perilous waters that some may want it to do as it will get divisive for this body and for the United States. Some people may want to push some of these funds over time into family planning or population control, possibly into abortion. That then divides us. Regardless of how one feels about these programs, it divides this body. If we can stay with the primary mission of what this has been about, it can keep us united. And the people on the ground receiving this treatment and assistance need us to stay together and stay closely focused on what the mission of this program has been. I further want to see to it that fidelity programs, which have proven their effectiveness internationally over the last 5 years, will remain an integral part of this program, and that recently with the President of Uganda and the First Lady--they were the ones who first started this program, ABC: A, abstinence; B, be faithful; and C, condoms. They started reducing their AIDS rates in Uganda. It worked so well. We want to make sure all three of those aspects stay in this program too. Again, I am grateful, in working with Chairman Biden and Senator Lugar, to keep this bill on its lifesaving course and keep us pulling together with the administration on this issue. While I, and I am sure many of my colleagues, have additional provisions we would like to see included, the carefully tailored compromise is a credit to the bill managers. On my part, I am pleased to see that abstinence and fidelity programs continue to be important components of prevention. The pledge to oppose sex trafficking is maintained. That is important. Conscious clause protection language is included to prevent discrimination against faith-based organizations such as World Vision, Catholic Relief Services, and many others that are so key to putting boots on the ground in this battle against AIDS. I am concerned about the price tag on this overall bill. I do have concern about ratcheting it up that much that fast, given our own deteriorating economy and the difficulty we have. We have had a slow growth rate recently. I am hopeful that can improve, but I think for us to look at that big of an increase when we are looking at a deteriorating Federal budget situation is not responsible on our part. I hope we can get that budgetary number up, but not as high as it is put forward in this bill. That would be responsible of us. The Global AIDS Program called for by President Bush and brought to fruition by a strong bipartisan effort in Congress in 2003 has touched, and I might indeed say saved, the lives of many people worldwide. I am proud to have supported that 2003 law. I am pleased to be able to support this reauthorization effort. Let's stay true to the mission, let's get a number that we can hit, and let's continue to save lives with the abilities that we have been granted as a country to be able to do that. Madam President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I rise to pay tribute to a great patriot--and a good friend--who passed away on our Nation's Independence Day. It seems somehow so fitting that Senator Jesse Helms should have left us on July 4, the anniversary of America's foundational document. Senator Helms was, above all else, a patriot who loved his country and the ideals we embody as a nation. And he spent his entire adult life defending those ideals, beginning with his service in the U.S. Navy in World War II. Jesse always fought for what he believed in, even at great personal-- or political--cost. Two things friends and foes alike acknowledged, and admired, about Senator Helms were that you always knew where he stood and that his word was as good as gold. He was a man of enormous integrity, as all who dealt with him on a personal and professional level can testify. While he was a formidable politician, there were some things that, for Jesse, were more important than political success or winning elections. He spent much of his three decades in the Senate standing up for the principles he believed so deeply in, even if that meant taking on powerful opposition, sometimes in his own party. But as Jesse famously said, ``I didn't come to Washington to be a 'yes man' for any president, Democrat or Republican . . . I didn't come to Washington to get along and win any popularity contests.'' What he did win in Washington was the enduring affection of people on both sides of the political aisle who found that this tough-as-nails politician was also a gracious, generous, compassionate human being. As Linda Chavez so aptly said in tribute to Senator Helms, ``he took his politics seriously, but he didn't use political differences as an excuse for bad manners.'' He embodied southern charm, good manners, and courtliness. He seemed to recognize that there is never a contradiction between standing up strongly for your political and philosophical principles and always treating people, including those who disagree with you, in a way that always respects their human dignity. Nor was this just a public display of good manners--Jesse Helms' Christian charity extended to his private life as well. Having been active in the pro-life movement for a long time I can't tell you how many times I have heard the accusation that pro-lifers only care about life from conception to birth--after that, they have no interest in caring for their fellow human beings. Well, suffice it to say that Senator Helms disproved this caricature. Jesse and his wife Dot were always what I like to call ``pro-life and whole-life.'' In 1963, after 21 years of marriage, they adopted a disabled child, their son Charles, after they read a newspaper article in which the child, who was 9 at the time, wished for a mother and a father for Christmas. Senator Helms never used adopting a child with cerebral palsy to soften his image as a hard, uncaring right-wing ideologues--in fact, he refused to talk about it in interviews. But Charles was, he said, a great blessing and was the center of his family. He served for years on the boards of private charities to help others with cerebral palsy. For those young people who had the opportunity to work with him, he was a wonderful mentor. More than anything else, he loved to talk to young people, give them guidance and encouragement, and show them the ropes of public service. Those who knew the dynamics of his office testified that he was always more accessible to young people than he was to high-powered lobbyists. One of his great legacies is the Jesse Helms Center near his hometown of Monroe, NC, an organization centered on young people and dedicated to assuring that future generations fully understand and appreciate the blessing and opportunities of this great country. What is perhaps most obvious about Senator Helms was that he was, simply put, a political giant. He was among the first to take up the pro-life cause in Congress, and his dedication to that cause never wavered. He was a lifelong opponent of communist tyranny, and his leadership in key Cold War battles was indispensible. Ronald Reagan could never have achieved all that he did achieve without Senator Helms strong and steady leadership as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. And that was not all the Reagan revolution owed to Jesse Helms. Like Ronald Reagan, he left the Democratic Party after many years as a Democrat because he believed it no longer embodied the principles he believed in. He was on the cutting edge of transforming the solid south from the Roosevelt coalition to the Reagan coalition. His support for Ronald Reagan in his State's primary in 1976 was the key to Reagan's victory, and the beginning of the revival of his fortunes that led to the Reagan landslides of 1980 and 1984. Senator Helms' political leadership will be missed, but his impact on our Nation will remain as his lasting legacy. We mourn the passing of this great American, and we offer our heartfelt condolences to his family, his friends, and to the people of his beloved North Carolina and across the Nation who loved him.

Mr. BROWNBACK

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

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I wish to speak to the body about an announcement made by the administration yesterday that is probably best captured on the front page of the Washington Times: `` `Axis of evil' member to be scratched from list.'' These are the announcements of the administration policy of what they are going to take that was announced yesterday regarding North Korea. I believe the administration's announcement yesterday about lifting sanctions on North Korea and removing it from the list of state sponsors of terrorism is shocking, is sad, and it belies the facts. I say ``shocking'' because of the extent to which we have allowed Kim Jung Il to manipulate the situations and the negotiations. I know some are calling this a victory, but I want us to just review what has taken place and the facts on the ground and the facts in North Korea and the facts for the North Korean people. I have spoken several times on this floor about North Korea, about its abysmal record of human rights, about the gulag system that is taking place, about 10 percent of its population being killed over the last 15 years through either starvation, depravation, or the gulag system. When this place finally opens up, we are going to see a level of depravity that is going to rival some of the worst situations we have seen in the last 50 years. Yet now we are removing them from the state sponsor of terrorism list, we are lifting sanctions on them for their nuclear explosions, and we are saying: OK, it is going to be brought into the normal group of nations. I wish to talk about factually what we know is taking place today in North Korea and ask my colleagues to ask themselves: Is this something we really should be doing? Does this really factually address what the situation is today in North Korea? North Korea sent the Chinese a declaration that is 6 months late on their nuclear involvement. It does not include any information on uranium enrichment. It has nothing on the secret, illegal nuclear reactor exported to Syria that was bombed a year and a half ago by the Israelis, and it has no indication on the number of nuclear weapons North Korea produced. That is what is missing. I will talk about what we have done, and yet we do not have that base of information about which I just spoke. In return for this paltry and, frankly, I think insulting lack of information handed over by Kim Jung Il--and I hesitate to call this a declaration for its severe deficiencies--our Government is legitimizing this regime by waiving the Trading With the Enemy Act and removing it from the list of state sponsors of terrorism. I have heard the argument that these sanctions are only symbolic and that there are many more sanctions still in place to continue the isolation. But let me show you what the State Department gave me on this very subject yesterday. As shown on this chart, this is the list of sanctions that remain, and they list on it the Glenn amendment sanctions, which I remind the body is a set of mandatory sanctions, that if you use or detonate a nuclear device, these sanctions automatically go on you. They are listed as sanctions being maintained, and yet yesterday this body, in the supplemental, provided the administration with waiver authority on Glenn amendment sanctions toward North Korea. This was something lobbied for heavily by the State Department and this administration. So we cannot say those sanctions are still in place when the administration now has the authority to waive those as well because of lobbying in this body. We may recall last month when the State Department came to the Hill and lobbied intensively for Congress to waive these Glenn amendment sanctions. I heard about how important it was to give the Department a waiver to carry out disablement and dismantlement. Then that waiver was included in the supplemental without any Senate hearings on the matter. There were no Senate hearings on waiving Glenn amendment sanctions toward North Korea. When the State Department says not to worry, I have very little reason to feel comforted by their assurances that there are plenty more sanctions on the books when they worked hard to lift these very sanctions. Another point on delisting: What does this say to the other state sponsors of terrorism? It tells President Bashir of Sudan or Castro from Cuba that the way to get off the list is to go out and start a nuclear program and then bargain it away in exchange for getting delisted. Does anyone really believe North Korea should be removed from this list? That is the pointed question I would like to ask Members of this body and the administration. Does anybody really believe North Korea should actually be taken off the state sponsor of terrorism list when they provided missile technology to Iran, a nuclear reactor to Syria, funding of any number of groups--I want to back off of that statement. I want to only state ones that are obvious and well known. While Iran remains the most active state sponsor of terrorism, North Korea is the only one as far as I know that has built a secret nuclear reactor for a fellow member of this malicious group. On top of that, the CRS report from just a few months ago provides ample evidence of significant North Korean assistance to terrorist groups. There are reports that North Korea sent trainers and advisers to southern Lebanon to help Hezbollah build tunnels. Other sources say they provided materials for the rockets fired into Israel. The other piece, as I mentioned, is that today's announcement is saddening. I say saddening because no progress was made on human rights despite all the concessions we handed over, no progress made on human rights in spite of 10 percent of the population being killed in the last 15 years in North Korea. No progress made on human rights--not a part of the agreement, not a part of delisting them, not a part even of the specific items listed by the President that must be done for North Korea to gain its way back into a reasonable relationship with other nations. Despite all the concessions we handed over, there has been no progress at all. We have no assurance that any will be made going forward in this process. Let me read what the President said about what North Korea must do to end its isolation. This is what the President said yesterday morning: To end its isolation, North Korea must address these concerns. It must dismantle all of its nuclear facilities, give up its separated plutonium, resolve outstanding questions on its highly enriched uranium and proliferation activities, and end these activities in a way that we can fully verify. What about shutting down the concentration camps? I want to show a picture from Google Earth, so anybody can go and see these. This is Camp 22. If you would like to spot it on Google Earth, these are blown up from Google Earth. The administration probably has a little better resolution on some pictures they have. This is one of the most notorious gulag prison camps in the world. It is in North Korea. Once you go into Camp 22, you do not come out. Nobody has come out of this camp alive. This exists in North Korea today. It continues to exist. Nobody in the administration or elsewhere is calling for it to be shut down. Yet we are going to take them off the state sponsor of terrorism list--while people go in and never come out of this place. Does this sound familiar? Have we heard this story before? Have we heard it before in any dealings with other regimes? Let me show you a few other pictures of this place from Google Earth. Anyone can go and look at it yourself. Here are some of the barracks at Camp 22. It is a large place. It is larger than the city of Los Angeles areawise, with big mining operations, timber operations where they work people to death. Shown in the picture are some of the barracks of this place. You have fencing, guard posts, the road coming in, the road going to a coal mine where people die mining for coal. This is a picture of some people--there is not much resolution, again, on that--people probably just going in, never to come out. If we stand here in a couple years, after this regime is no longer in power or it opens up, and we start to get the data and we start to get the evidence and we start to find the bodies and get the body count of how many people died here, I want you to remember this picture. We saw it. We have done this before where we have said: OK, well, yes, we think there may be something going on, but we are not sure about it, and plus it is more important that we just deal with this specific issue of plutonium and forget these people and them dying, when we have it in our power to negotiate this and say: No, we are not going to take you off this terrorism list until you do something on human rights, until you close down this camp and highlight that piece of it instead of just having this narrow piece, and then this is the way forward to deal with and delegitimize the regime and stop getting the people killed. The weapon of mass destruction is Kim Jung Il, and what he is doing it on right now is his own people, and we know it. As I have noted before, Google Earth has made a witness of us all. These images are available to anyone and everyone with an Internet connection. What about the starvation policy of the regime? What about the kids who are starving in the regime? Let me show you a picture. I do not have this one blown up. It is a picture of orphans looking out of an orphanage. You can see their emaciated bodies. The German physician, a few years back, who was going around and treating some people in North Korea snuck out pictures very similar to this--not very happy. What about the thousands of refugees who flee to China, many of whom are trafficked into the sex slave trade, while others get repatriated back to North Korea by Chinese authorities to face torture, execution, or a trip to Camp 22? These are issues that by law must be addressed in these negotiations under the North Korean Human Rights Act, signed under this administration, which declares it so. Furthermore, does anyone really believe we can trust Kim Jung Il to be truthful with these declarations that he is handing us when he has no qualms about treating his own citizens in such a barbaric way? There is a report in the Washington Post that the documents he handed over to us about plutonium and their plutonium plant actually had traces of uranium on the very documents themselves--on the documents. So while we are dealing with plutonium and we are delisting them as a State sponsor of terrorism, the documents they hand over to verify this have traces of uranium on the documents. Is that mind boggling? We are saying we are going to delist you because you dealt with plutonium, but we are not going to require anything on uranium and we are going to waive the Glenn amendment, push the Congress to waive the Glenn amendment for you detonating a nuclear device, when you built a nuclear reactor in another state-sponsored terrorism country of Syria. We are not going to require anything on that, and we are going to waive these sanctions of Trading with the Enemy Act when you are giving missile technology to Iran which has missiles pointed at Israel and other allies of ours in that region and possibly, in the future, to have range to the United States. I am stunned. The things we are saying and doing are absolutely counter to the facts on the ground. I am happy we are dealing with plutonium, but for what we are giving up--`` `axis of evil' member to be scratched from the list''--and we don't have anything on uranium. We don't have anything on human rights. We don't have anything on missile technology being shipped out to Iran, of all places; we don't have anything on the nuclear reactor that was built in Syria, and we are going to waive all of these things? Meanwhile, the people die. This seems like a very bad deal to me, but that is not the biggest reason I am mad. The biggest reason I am mad is because of people still getting killed and we end up with blood on our hands when we have the chance to be able to deal with this differently. I hope we will start to take into consideration this picture of these orphans. I hope we start to take into consideration uranium and what is happening in Iran, what is happening in Syria, and that we don't invite North Korea back into the fair standing of countries with what they continue to do. Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I rise in support of S. Res. 541, adopted on May 21, which is a resolution designed to support humanitarian assistance in Somalia. As you know, Somalia has seen one government after another fail to deliver for the Somali people for the better part of two decades. At the same time, the situation in Somalia and the broader Horn of Africa is of great strategic importance to the United States and of deep concern to me personally, having traveled to the region on several occasions. I do not think that we can overestimate the scale of the humanitarian challenges facing Somalia. At least a million people were uprooted during fighting between the Transitional Federal Government and Islamic insurgents last year, and their plight has become graver because of record food prices, drought, and hyperinflation. The 250,000 Somalis in a small corridor outside Mogadishu is now considered the largest camp of internally displaced persons in the world. The goal of the international community has been to support the formation of a viable government of national unity in Somalia to help stabilize the situation on the ground, and this resolution is designed to support this goal. Nevertheless, we should recall that the country recently faced the terrible prospect of rule by Islamic extremists and that without Ethiopia's intervention, the TFG would not have had this opportunity to bring some measure of stability to the country. For its part, Ethiopia eliminated the threat of a Taliban-like state taking root on its eastern border and scored a major victory in the war on terrorism. And for our part, this accomplishment furthered U.S. interests by helping ensure that the Somali government did not threaten or seek to destabilize its neighbors or provide protection for terrorists that threaten the United States and its allies. While I support the broad goal of stability for Somalia and a sustainable peace, let me be clear on an important point. No Somali government should include factions with ties to al-Qaida or al-Shabaab. Both groups seek to undermine the stability of the TFG, which is the internationally recognized government of Somalia, through violence and intimidation. While al-Qaida's status and animosity towards the United States has been clear for a long time, we should also not underestimate the threat that al-Shabaab also poses to stability in Somalia and the entire region. Indeed, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice designated the group as a foreign terrorist organization and as a specially designated global terrorist on February 29. In its assessment of the group's activities, the State Department explains the organization scattered leaflets on the streets of Mogadishu warning participants in last year's reconciliation conference that they intended to bomb the conference venue. Al-Shabaab promised to shoot anyone planning to attend the conference and to blow up delegates' cars and hotels. The group has claimed responsibility for shooting deputy district administrators, as well as several bombings and shootings in Mogadishu targeting Ethiopian troops and Somali government officials. In short, terrorist organizations such as al- Qaida and al-Shabaab seek to undermine the hard-fought and tenuous peace that has been achieved and their influence in Somalia must be curbed. In addition, while I support the resolution's call for Ethiopia to develop a timeline for the ``responsible'' withdrawal of its troops from Somalia, it is important to emphasize that this resolution does not call for either an immediate withdrawal or a rigid timeline irrespective of the availability of replacement peacekeeping forces. Any such inflexible approach would be counterproductive, undermine the TFG, and threaten the important gains that have already been achieved. Just as the presence of Ethiopian troops in Somalia derives, in part, from the intra-party Somali conflict, their departure should not occur until African Union or other international troops have arrived to keep the peace secure. To date, unfortunately, only 2,500 of 8,000 pledged AU peacekeepers have arrived. While some have claimed the presence of Ethiopian troops itself is destabilizing, there is no doubt in my mind that the alternative would be far worse. Lastly, I would be remiss if I did not comment on the impact that Eritrea has had in terms of making the withdrawal of Ethiopian troops more challenging. According to the United Nations, Eritrea is supporting insurgent groups to undermine the TFG. Under these circumstances, not only would it leave a vacuum for the Ethiopian troops to be withdrawn early, but such a withdrawal would be seized upon by Eritrean-backed insurgents to destabilize the situation in Somalia. This is why this resolution calls on Eritrea to play a productive--and not a destructive--role in Somalia. The United States has a deep and profound interest in securing the peace in Somalia and the broader Horn of Africa. There is no doubt that serious challenges remain. Nevertheless, I look forward to our continuing to work with our friend and ally Ethiopia, as well as the African Union, United Nations, and other countries in the region to secure a brighter future for all those people in Somalia who yearn to live their lives in peace and with the opportunity to provide for their families.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I rise to engage my distinguished colleague from Ohio in a colloquy.

Mr. BROWNBACK. I thank my friend, the Senator from Ohio, for introducing this important measure and for his remarks.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I rise to engage my distinguished colleague from Ohio in a colloquy.

Mr. BROWNBACK. I thank my friend, the Senator from Ohio, for introducing this important measure and for his remarks.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak on Senator Cornyn's time for up to 5 minutes, and I further ask unanimous consent that after I speak, the Senator from Illinois be recognized.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, last month in Kansas, I was able to be present for the commemoration of an important, but little known, event in American history. 150 years ago, May 19, 1858, a little defile in Kansas near Mine Creek was the site of one of the incidents that led up to the Civil War; the massacre of free State settlers by proslavery men. The Marais des Cygnes Massacre is considered the last significant act of violence in Bleeding Kansas before the final cataclysm of civil war engulfed the Nation. On May 19, 1858, 30 men led by Charles Hamilton, a southern proslavery leader, crossed into Kansas from Missouri. Once there, they captured 11 free State men, none of whom was armed and none of whom had engaged in violence. Many of them knew Hamilton and didn't suspect he meant to harm them. These prisoners were led into a defile, where Hamilton ordered them shot and fired the first bullet himself. Five men were killed. Hamilton's gang went back to Missouri, and only one man was ever brought to justice. William Griffith of Bates County, MO, was arrested in the spring of 1863 and hanged on October 30 of that year. The incident horrified the Nation, and inspired John Greenleaf Whittier to write a poem on the murder, ``Le Marais du Cygnes,'' which appeared in the September 1858 Atlantic Monthly. The incident and the poem strengthened the resolve of the antislavery cause around the Nation. In 1941 the Kansas Legislature authorized acceptance of the massacre site, including Hadsall's house, as a gift to the State from the Pleasanton Post, Veterans of Foreign Wars. In 1961 it provided funds for the restoration of the building, and in 1963 the entire property was turned over to the Kansas State Historical Society for administration. A museum was established in the upper floor of the building in 1964. The Kansas Historical Society has done great work in administering the site since 1963. Just recently Riley Albert Hinds, a young man from Pleasanton, did some work for an Eagle Scout project that was very important for the restoration of this site, and contributed greatly to the existing historical research on Marais des Cygnes. From 1854 to 1861 Kansas was the scene of a bitter struggle to determine whether the territory should enter the Union as a free or a slave State. We paid greatly as a Nation for the ``original sin'' of slavery in terms of blood and treasure, and there is still much healing that needs to take place. Part of our greatness as a Nation is our ability to acknowledge both the good parts and the bad parts of our history, and to make amends for injustices of the past. Keeping alive our historical memory is a key to understanding ourselves as a Nation and as people. Communicating the rich history of our Nation to every generation is of the utmost importance. Knowing and learning from our history is one of the keys to maintaining a healthy, democratic society.