Robert Byrd

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, March 29, 2007, at 9:30 a.m. to hold a hearing on Iran.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Indian Affairs be authorized to meet on Thursday, March 29, 2007, at 9:15 a.m. in room 485 of the Russell Senate Office Building to conduct an oversight hearing on Indian trust fund litigation. Those wishing additional information may contact the Indian Affairs Committee at 224-2251.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet to conduct a hearing on ``Preserving Prosecutorial Independence: Is the Department of Justice Politicizing the Hiring and Firing of U.S. Attorneys?--Part III'' on Thursday, March 29, 2007 at 10 a.m. in Dirksen Senate Office Building Room 226. Witness: D. Kyle Sampson, Former Chief of Staff to the Attorney General of the United States.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet to conduct a markup on Thursday, March 29, 2007, at 2 p.m. in Dirksen Room 226. Agenda I. Committee Authorization: Authorization of Subpoenas in Connection with Investigation into Replacement of U.S. Attorneys. II. Bills: S. 236. Federal Agency Data Mining Reporting Act of 2007, Feingold, Sununu, Leahy, Kennedy, Cardin; S. 376. Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act of 2007, Leahy, Specter, Grassley, Kyl, Sessions, Cornyn; S. 849. OPEN Government Act, Leahy, Cornyn, Specter, Feingold; S. 119. War Profiteering Prevention Act of 2007, Leahy, Feinstein, Feingold, Schumer, Durbin; S. 621. Wartime Treatment Study Act of 2007, Feingold, Grassley, Kennedy. III. Resolutions: S. Res. 108. Designating the first week of April 2007 as ``National Asbestos Awareness Week,'' Baucus, Leahy, Kennedy, Feinstein, Durbin.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate for a markup entitled, ``Small Business Disaster Response and Loan Improvements Act of 2007''on Thursday, March 29, 2007, beginning at 9:30 a.m. in room 428A of the Russell Senate Office Building.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Veterans' Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, March 29, 2007 at 9:30 a.m. in room 226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to hear the legislative presentation of the AMVETS, American Ex-Prisoners of War, Military Order of the Purple Heart, Gold Star Wives of America, Fleet Reserve Association, The Retired Enlisted Association, Military Officers Association of America, and the National Association of State Directors of Veterans Affairs.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 29, 2007 at 2:30 p.m. to hold a closed hearing.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, Federal Services and International Security be authorized to meet on Thursday, March 29, 2007 at 10 a.m. for a hearing entitled, Eliminating and Recovering Improper Payments.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Yes, I would be pleased to enter into a colloquy.

Mr. BYRD. Yes, that is my understanding.

Mr. BYRD. I thank the Senators and want to assure them that I understand their concern. Although I cannot commit to any particular outcome, I will work with them during the conference committee to address their concerns, and those of the American Samoa and the CNMI leadership, regarding their desire for Special Industry Committees under the FLSA to assure a smooth transition from the current local minimum wage to the national minimum wage.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, today Senator Warner and I have introduced an important and potentially landmark bipartisan resolution. My good friend and colleague from Virginia has correctly highlighted what is one of the most critical issues before us as we debate our continued occupation of Iraq: the capacity of the Iraqi Government to take responsibility for the security of its own country. The President said in November 2005 that ``as the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down.'' But are the Iraqis standing up? If, in the President's formulation, our continued military occupation of Iraq is dependent on the readiness of the Iraqi security forces, is it not crucial that we know what kind of progress those Iraqi forces are making? The Warner-Byrd resolution will hopefully provide the Congress with the unvarnished truth about this issue, instead of more of the same rhetoric and obfuscation doled out to the Congress since the war began. Under Warner-Byrd, within 120 days of passage of this Act, a designated independent private sector entity will report to Congress on the readiness of the ISF to assume responsibility for maintaining the territorial integrity of Iraq, denying terrorists a safe haven, and bringing an end to sectarian violence. The report will also address whether continued support by U.S. troops is likely to contribute to the ISF's readiness to take on those missions in the coming months. We have had 4 years now of rosy reports coming from the Pentagon and the White House about the steady progress being made in Iraq, but events on the ground regularly belie those sunny assessments. Our soldiers have been training and equipping Iraqi troops and police for several years, and the White House continues to tout the ``real progress'' made by the Iraqi security forces. However, an article in the February 5 edition of the New York Times noted that the Iraqi units arriving in Baghdad are showing up at 55 to 60 percent of their full strength. Even more problematic, the Iraqi police force is itself seen by many in Iraq as simply an extension of the sectarian militias, terrorizing the population with rape, extortion, and murder. Considering the record to date of the Iraqi troops, will any amount of training produce a reliable and capable national army? If this is what we are waiting for--if we are truly planning to ``stand down'' once the ISF ``stands up''--I, for one, want to know when we can expect that to happen. And if it is not going to happen, we should know that as well. How long will we continue to spend American lives and treasure training Iraqi troops that can't be counted on? Six months? A year? Five years? If this is an ultimately hopeless endeavor, we should find out now, and change our strategy accordingly. The situation in Iraq has devolved into a full-blown civil war, as sects which have been battling for centuries continue to attack each other--and us--in an ever-widening bloodbath. In the words of the President's own National Intelligence Estimate, the term `` `civil war' accurately describes key elements of the Iraqi conflict,'' which has become a ``self-sustaining inter-sectarian struggle between Shia and Sunnis.'' U.S. troops have no constructive role to play in fighting another country's civil war. Increasingly in Iraq, there is no clearly defined ``enemy'' for our soldiers to engage, only various indigenous groups that hate us almost as much as they hate each other. The President's plan calls for the Iraqi troops to assume responsibility for halting this death spiral, but the NIE again casts doubt on this strategy. It states that ``the Iraqi security forces--particularly the Iraqi police--will be hard-pressed in the next 12-18 months to execute significantly increased security responsibilities.'' I suspect that further training is not really the answer. We can train a soldier how to fire a weapon; we can give him communications equipment; we can teach him how to conduct a raid or defend a post. But we cannot give him a sense of national identity. We cannot provide him with allegiance to government and country that transcends ethnic or sectarian hatreds. The bottom line is that the violence in Iraq requires a political solution. Everyone--everyone--now acknowledges that. Only when the Iraqi people, through their government, are able to overcome the sectarian divisions that are splitting the country apart, will stability and peace be achieved. U.S. Central Command Commander Gen. John Abizaid said it himself in testimony before Congress on November 15, 2006: ``I believe that more American forces prevent the Iraqis from doing more, from taking more responsibility for their own future.'' The Warner-Byrd resolution seeks to address that issue head-on, with an unbiased, nonpartisan report on the likelihood that continued U.S. involvement will contribute to the capacity for the Iraqis to take responsibility for their own future. This report will provide us with a clear-eyed view of what is going on in Iraq, and whether the President's plan has any realistic hope of success. amendment no. 740

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, today the Senate Rules Committee reported S. 223, the Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act. I am a cosponsor of this legislation, and I voted in favor of reporting the measure. This bill would require Senate candidates to file election-related designations, statements, and reports in electronic form with the Secretary of the Senate. It also would require that the Secretary of the Senate forward a copy of those filings to the Federal Election Commission within 24 hours so that they can be made available to the public. I note for the Record that the bill as introduced and reported would require that Senate candidates file directly with the Secretary of the Senate, and not the Federal Election Commission. I support continuing this policy, and ensuring that the Senate as an institution retains custody of these campaign-related filings. According to testimony before the Rules Committee last month, the office of the Secretary of the Senate is fully capable of implementing this requirement and ensuring that these documents are made available to the public expeditiously. I support the efforts of the Rules Committee on this matter

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I thank the able Senator from Washington. While I oppose the amendment by the Senator from Mississippi, I thank him for his courtesy in bringing this bill to the floor. In order to facilitate Senate action on this critical supplemental bill, the Senate Appropriations Committee reported a bill by voice vote on Thursday, March 22. Again, I thank the able Senator from Mississippi, Mr. Cochran, for his support. In this 2007 supplemental, the Congress is providing nearly $100 billion to support our military and diplomatic efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. This brings total appropriations for the wars to nearly $170 billion for this year alone. When Congress approves this supplemental, it will have appropriated $448 billion for the war in Iraq. As the conflict in Iraq enters its fifth year, more than 3,220 members of the uniformed services have sacrificed their lives, with over 24,000 more wounded, many grievously wounded. The Iraq conflict most certainly has become a civil war. The American people need to know what we are accomplishing by remaining in Iraq. How much longer will Congress continue to blindly write checks for this failed strategy in Iraq? Supporting the troops means doing all we can to remove them from this violent internal sectarian conflict in Iraq. The American people have made it very clear where they stand on this matter. A large majority of Americans, according to any number of polls, wants the troops home, and the sooner the better. I, for one, am not so stubborn that I will keep marching on toward some intangible success in Iraq, no matter how many may die, no matter how many may be wounded, and no matter how many families are torn apart by grief. A continued U.S. presence is a catalyst for violence in Iraq and in the region. It is time to remove that spark from this volatile situation and pursue a diplomatic track which may lead to a national reconciliation for the people of Iraq. The language in this bill encourages a decrease in Iraqi reliance on U.S. troops to keep the peace in Iraq and pave the way for the Iraqi people to take steps toward national reconciliation. The language in the bill is not Draconian, nor is it precipitous. It is simply a recognition of the reality of the situation in Iraq. It calls for a gradual redeployment of U.S. troops in conjunction with concerted efforts to train and equip Iraqi security forces while building regional and international support for the Iraqi Government. The language permits continued counterterrorism operations by U.S. forces and allows a limited number of U.S. forces to remain in order to protect U.S. and coalition personnel and infrastructure. That is not a precipitous withdrawal. It is not cutting and running. Rather, it is a commonsense compromise between those who want all the troops home now and those who advocate a continued massive American presence in Iraq. It is time--yes, time--to change course in Iraq before 3,000 more Americans and thousands more Iraqis are killed. I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment to strike section 1315(a) and (b) of the bill. I yield the floor.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I do have an amendment, and I will speak to that amendment.

Mr. BYRD. Very well.

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

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Madam President, I send an amendment to the desk.

Mr. BYRD. I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. BYRD. Madam President, today we take up a supplemental bill to fund our troops in the field, to send a strong message about the direction of the war in Iraq, to improve the veterans and defense health care system, to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina rebuild, to secure the homeland, and to provide emergency relief to farmers impacted by major drought and freezes. We are now in the fifth year-- the fifth year--of the war, this terrible war. I was against it. I voted against it. We are there. We are now in the fifth year of the war in Iraq. The debate about the war has deteriorated into a series of buzz words--preemptive war, mission accomplished, exaggerated intelligence, inadequate body armor, and surges--and on and on. Our job in the Senate is not to look backward but to look forward. The Constitution clearly gives the Congress the power--yes, it does; it clearly gives the Congress, us, the power--to decide when this Nation should go to war, and it gives Congress the power of the purse, money. Money talks. Funding such conflicts is the responsibility of the Senate Appropriations Committee, the Senate Appropriations Committee. The buck stops here, and don't you ever forget it, the Senate Appropriations Committee. Because of that power over the purse, it is certainly our duty to debate the future of the war in Iraq. The bill before the Senate includes a provision that would give the war a new direction, and it points the way out--out, out--of the civil war in Iraq. There is no restriction on funding for the troops--no restriction on funding for the troops. We fully fund the needs of the troops. We do that, yes. In fact, the bill provides more funds than the President requested for the Department of Defense, with an increase of $1.3 billion for the defense health care system, $1 billion for equipping the Guard and Reserve, and $1.1 billion for military housing. The language in the bill narrows the mission of our troops in Iraq, keeps pressure on the Iraqi Government to meet benchmarks on national reconciliation, requires the President--yes, hear me now; requires the President--to send Congress a phased redeployment plan. It sets a goal for the redeployment of most of the U.S. troops from Iraq by March 31, 2008. This country was not attacked by Iraq on 9/11. There was not a single Iraqi, not one, involved in the devastation in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania on that fateful day. According to our own Government, the perpetrators of 9/11, Osama bin Laden and his organization, are alive today and rebuilding in Afghanistan and Pakistan at this moment, as I speak, so help me God. Language in this bill would allow the President to refocus our military and our intelligence on the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11. During the debate on this bill, assertions will be made, yes, that it is inappropriate to add to this bill funding to meet domestic needs. In fact, the White House has claimed that efforts to add funding for our veterans, for Katrina victims, and for homeland security will hold hostage the funds for the troops. What nonsense--hear me--nonsense. Just more buzzwords. In fact, funding for the war is not the only critical need worthy of supplemental funding this year. The war must not obliterate every other concern. Last week, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, Rob Portman, said the President would veto the bill if the Iraq language and additional spending remain in the bill. He said: We're disappointed the Senate is allowing politics-- humbug-- to interfere with getting needed resources to our troops. Politics? Politics? I ask the Senate, is it politics to ensure that the VA has a health care system that can provide first-rate care for the wounded? Is it? No. It is a moral imperative--yes, a moral imperative. Is it politics to provide critical resources to help the gulf region rebuild after Hurricane Katrina? Is it? Is it politics? No, it is not politics. It is compassion--compassion. Is it politics to help rural America recover from drought and freeze? Is it? No. It is common sense, do you hear me, common sense and good economics. This bill meets some of the most urgent needs of our country. It includes $1.7 billion to ensure that the VA has the resources it needs to help the brave men and women wounded in the war. The VA needs resources in order to provide first-rate care to profoundly wounded, terribly wounded, horribly wounded soldiers. We are morally bound--hear me; yes, we are morally bound, aren't we, to care for our wounded troops. This is not politics. No. Shame. This is not politics; it is common decency. This bill also includes $3.3 billion above the administration's request for the victims of Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma. The President proposes to pay for the increased costs of repairing the existing levees in Louisiana by cutting the funding that Congress provided to improve the capacity of the levees to protect New Orleans from future hurricanes. Shame. That makes no sense. The bill provides new resources to repair the levees. We will not follow a nonsensical strategy of repairing the existing levee system that failed during Katrina by cutting funding already appropriated for actual improvements to the levee system. We will not. We also include funding for health and education, for law enforcement, and for transit systems in the gulf region to help rebuild, to bring people back to work, and to bring the region back to life. Not politics, just plain old common sense. The bill includes $4.2 billion for agricultural disaster relief. The agricultural economy has been hit with drought and freezes. In 2006, 69 percent of all counties in the United States were declared primary or contiguous disaster areas. Fourteen States had 100 percent of their counties declared disaster areas by the Department of Agriculture. I commend Senator Dorgan and Senator Feinstein and Senator Bond for their hard work on this disaster package. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that a letter from California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger requesting agricultural disaster assistance be printed in the Record.

Mr. BYRD. Providing agricultural disaster relief is not politics, no. It is good policy. The bill that is before the Senate also includes $2 billion for securing the homeland. In the State of the Union, the President said: The evil that inspired and rejoiced in 9/11 is still at work in the world. And so long as that's the case, America is still a nation at war. Despite hundreds of innocent people being killed in train bombings in London, Madrid, Moscow, Tokyo, and Mombai, India, and despite the aviation sector remaining at a high terrorist threat level since August, the President did not request one extra dime--not one thin dime--in the supplemental for securing the homeland. This bill includes funding for purchasing explosive detection systems for our airports, for grants to help secure our rail and transit systems, and for securing our ports and borders. The money is needed now. For 5\1/2\ years, since the attack on 9/11, this administration has raised fears of another terrorist attack. The administration has announced a high, or orange, threat level for possible terrorist attacks on eight different occasions. In every State of the Union Address, the President has stoked the fires of fear. Periodically, the Attorney General, the Secretary of Homeland Security, or the FBI Director helped to fan those flames. Yet the President consistently sends to Congress budgets for homeland security that do not reflect this perceived threat. Rather than spreading fear, the administration should be reducing vulnerabilities by doing everything it can to deter another attack. Providing funding to secure the homeland is not politics; it is an essential duty. The President's ``rob Peter to pay Paul'' approach to funding domestic agencies has real and demonstrably severe consequences. The failed response to Hurricane Katrina proved that. The inability to provide first-class health care to our wounded veterans proved that. But we never learn. Another important aspect of this bill is in the oversight and accountability that it mandates. For far too long--far too long-- oversight has been a lost cause, yes, around this Congress. Tough questions are ditched in favor of softballs. Honest answers are buried in political spin. This legislation says ``no more.'' Real oversight is back, and it will not be denied. This legislation makes major investments in inspectors general, from the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction to inspectors general for the Department of State, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Justice. Let's hope we can begin to get the waste, fraud, and abuse in Government under control. The legislation presses forward with GAO audits of the use of these dollars as we try to put an end to the contractors' bonanza of big dollars free from the prying eyes of Congress or the public. Insisting that U.S. tax dollars are wisely spent is not politics. What is it? It is our duty. Hear me. It is our duty. The Appropriations Committee has made careful choices. The White House assertion that spending in this bill is excessive or extraneous or political--humbug. It simply has no foundation. The committee has chosen to provide first-rate care to the war wounded, to provide resources to help the gulf region rebuild after Katrina, to improve homeland security, and to provide agricultural disaster assistance. This is a good bill. I urge prompt action on this legislation. Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. BYRD. Madam President, I expect that a number of Senators will want to debate the Iraq amendment tomorrow. I look forward to a good debate on this matter. I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that Adam Morrison and Tad Gallion be granted floor privileges during the debate on this measure.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, after many long years of flawed budget policies that have eroded our Nation's infrastructure and recklessly taken from the health and safety of American working families, the Senate finally has an opportunity to change course. The President has submitted a grossly inadequate budget request for the fiscal year 2008, built around the erroneous premise that tax cuts are sacrosanct. I reject that argument. I hope that my colleagues will reject that argument. The President's budget includes $2 trillion of new tax cuts, many of which will benefit those who least need them. In order to fund those tax breaks, the President cuts the programs that working Americans rely on the most. The President proposes to cut the Medicare and Medicaid Programs, which provide health care to seniors and children. He proposes to cut funding for housing for the elderly in rural America. He proposes to cut funding for first responder programs, jeopardizing the safety of our firefighters and law enforcement officers, and those of us whom they protect. He proposes to cut funding for our children and schools, for health care research and rural hospitals, and for our communities and economic development. The President is proposing to take an awful lot from working American families in order to pay for his tax breaks. His budget cuts are not funding the troops overseas, or being used to pay down the national debt. The president's own budget tables show that the gross federal debt will continue to increase to record levels, $12 trillion in the next five years, even if his spending cuts are enacted into law. I reject the argument that seniors must give up their health care, and that children must give up funding for their schools, in order to fund tax breaks for the wealthiest of the wealthy in America. The President's budget continues the dangerous practice of chipping away at domestic priorities, and trying to get away with spending as little as possible on critical infrastructure. There are consequences-- sometimes significant consequences, and sometimes deadly consequences-- when the administration tries to hide the impact of its budget cuts in order to fund more tax cuts. H.G. Wells wrote that human history is a race between education and catastrophe. The Congress must get into the race to avert the next catastrophe. The squeeze on domestic discretionary spending these past years has done a lot of damage to the infrastructure of our Nation. It has resulted in budgetary shortfalls that are wholly irresponsible, and they must be addressed. Look at FEMA's inability to respond to natural disasters. Look at the shortfalls in the Low-Income Home Energy Assistant Program, LIHEAP, affecting so many of our States. Look at the shortfalls in our homeland security, where glaring vulnerabilities along the border are left to linger year after year after year. Look at the shortfalls in the funding for our veterans. The problems at Walter Reed did not happen because our military is not committed to caring for its wounded. It happened because we have an administration that is trying to cut corners in order to pay for its tax breaks for wealthy Americans. Look at the Department of Labor, where the administration chipped away at the mine safety budget for 6 years until it had lost 217 inspectors, undermined the enforcement of the Mine Act, and left coal miners underground with inadequate safety equipment. It is no coincidence that mining deaths increased to record numbers last year, while the administration cut the coal enforcement budget, reduced the number of safety inspectors, and reduced the severity of enforcement actions against habitual violators. Gas and energy prices are on the rise again, and, still, the President's budget does not adequately address our Nation's congested roads, our overcrowded transit and rail systems, or the energy bottlenecks causing higher prices and electricity failures and power outages. These are the festering signs of our Nation's infrastructure slowly being starved. When the catastrophes come, they are Hurricanes that brutalize our cities and people, or scandals that surface at our Nation's veterans facilities, or tragedies that take the lives of our coal miners underground due to lack of sufficient Federal inspections. I reject the administration's tactics of cutting funds and hiding the consequences until a catastrophe hits. I reject that kind of Russian roulette. I reject the notion that the health and safety of the American people is less important than extending a tax cut. Today, the Congress has an opportunity to reject that approach, and I hope that it does reject it. We must have a budget that sets realistic spending levels. That is the only way to real budget enforcement and discipline. The last Congresses pinned their expectations to pie-in-the-sky, fantasy spending levels that were totally disconnected from reality. When those budgets proved inadequate and the appropriations process stalled, the Congress was forced to consider massive off-budget supplementals and end-of-the-year continuing resolutions and omnibus spending bills that exempted hundreds of billions of dollars of spending from the oversight of the regular appropriations process. The result was always higher deficits, and less accountability to the American people. The budget before the Senate today rejects that approach. It sets realistic spending levels that would allow the Congress to consider the annual appropriations bills in a timely manner, and subject those bills to debate and amendments in the Senate. That is the best kind of enforcement mechanism--full and open debate and amendments. This budget sets a discretionary spending level of $949 billion in the fiscal year 2008, $16 billion above the President's request, and above the President's requested freeze at fiscal year 2007 levels for domestic programs. The Congress must address the unacceptable cuts in health care, veterans programs, and other critical priorities that have been proposed by the President. This budget is practical, and it is tough. This is not a budget lacking in enforcement mechanisms, and they would apply equally and fairly to all pieces of the budget revenues, mandatory entitlements, and discretionary spending. This budget caps discretionary spending in the fiscal year 2008, subject to a 60-vote point of order. It caps advance appropriations in the fiscal years 2009 and 2010, and it creates a 60-vote point of order against both emergency defense and nondefense spending, to limit the kind of budget gimmickry that has been used in the past to circumvent the discretionary spending caps. On the revenue and mandatory entitlement side of the ledger, this budget restores pay-go budget enforcement, subjecting new mandatory spending and tax cuts that are not offset to a 60-vote point of order. It also creates a 60-vote point of order against reconciliation legislation that worsens the deficit, causes a deficit, or reduces a surplus by decreasing revenues or increasing spending. Here, more than anywhere else, is where the budget process has been abused the most. Budget reconciliation has been used to shield controversial tax cuts from debate and amendments in the Senate, which have added trillions of dollars to the national debt. This budget will stop such egregious practices from continuing. This budget gives the Congress the flexibility it needs to address the gross deficiencies in the president's request, and it demands savings from every piece of the budget--revenues, discretionary, and mandatory--in order to do it. This budget is evenhanded and fair, and its spending levels can be enforced. I commend the chairman of the Budget Committee for writing a budget that sets a new course. I hope that the Senate follows the lead of our chairman. He is trying to address the next catastrophe before it happens. He is trying to set enforceable spending limits to rein in this administration's budget deficits. He is doing the right thing with this budget. It deserves the support of the Senate.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, once again, we welcome in the Spring. Blows the thaw-wind pleasantly, Drips the soaking rain, By fits looks down the waking sun: Young grass springs on the plain; Young leaves clothe early hedgerow trees; Seeds, and roots, and stones of fruits, Swollen with sap put forth their shoots; Curled-headed ferns sprout in the lane; Birds sing and pair again. There is no time like Spring, When life's alive in everything . . . --Christina Rossetti. March 21 is the vernal equinox, when the day and night are, briefly, in perfect balance. It is the first day of spring. This year, of course, the early switch to daylight savings time has created the illusion of an earlier spring with the artificial and arbitrary establishment of darker mornings and longer evenings. I, for one, am happy to welcome an early spring. It is my favorite season, full of new hope and untarnished promise. West Virginia has seen some snow this winter. The snow was welcomed by skiers and farmers, but those of us who neither ski nor plow view snow more as a nuisance--something to be moved out of the way, something that complicates our commutes and closes the schools. Snow makes the world monochromatic, a palette that ranges along a single line from blinding white through the shades of gray to the tired black of grime-crusted snow along the roadways. We are ready for spring, ready for some light and for lots of vibrant color around us. This year, the March winds again worked their artistry, blowing away the flotsam and jetsam of winter to uncover a clean canvas with just the sweeping curves of earth and the angular armature of tree limbs sketched in charcoal, awaiting the Master's hand to apply delicate springtime washes of color. Over the past weeks, we have seen the Master's skill at work in the first creeping stain of green across the lawns and fields, the soft blush of blossoms in the wild plum trees, the deepening blue of the sky. Each day, the colors have grown darker, richer, and more vibrant, as if the warm breezes carried them to us from some distant sunny clime. Bright details have begun to take shape in the scattered spangles of violet and yellow crocus and the bright accents of hardy daffodils amid their grass green leaves. Oh, daffodils--the poets write of you! The Boston poet Amy Lowell (1874- 1925) wrote of you: Thou yellow trumpeter of laggard Spring! Thou herald of rich Summer's myriad flowers! The climbing sun with new recovered powers Does warm thee into being, through the ring Of rich, brown earth he woos thee, makes thee fling Thy green shoots up, inheriting the dowers Of bending sky and sudden, sweeping showers, Till ripe and blossoming thou art a thing To make all nature glad, thou art so gay; To fill the lonely with a joy untold; Nodding at every gust of wind to-day, To-morrow jeweled with raindrops. Always bold To stand erect, full in the dazzling play Of April's sun, for thou has caught his gold. Mr. President, spring would not be spring without the daffodils. Their delicate beauty and seemingly fragile petals belie their toughness. Year after year, the daffodils spread, competing with the grass and the tree roots to expand their beds. They manage to deter the onslaught of determined squirrels and other wild creatures who unearth and consume dainty and expensive spring bulbs like so many canapes at a reception. They push their way up into the sun through frozen ground and choking mats of fallen leaves. They defy howling winds and frigid nighttime temperatures. They survive people and houses to bloom on around the decaying foundations of long ago farmsteads. And they do it all with effortless beauty, inspiring us and filling us with joy. The first daffodil, like the first robin, is akin to the dove that brought the olive branch back to Noah--a reassurance to worried man from God that the spring, like the land, will return. I do not want to take up too much of the Senate's time. We have important matters before us, matters of war and peace, matters of spending and accounting. But even in the heat of debate, we can each find joy in those first spring days. We can each feel peace in the steady warmth of the springtime sun, calm in the soft breeze that carries the scent of hyacinths, and delight in springtime flowers. The first day of spring is truly a time to stop and smell the flowers. There is no time like Spring, When life's alive in everything, Before new nestlings sing, Before cleft swallows speed their journey back Along the trackless track--God guides their wing, He spreads their table that they nothing lack, Before the daisy grows a common flower Before the sun has power To scorch the world up in his noontide hour. --Christina Rossetti.