Robert Byrd

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I always enjoy listening to my friend Ted Stevens. Ours is a long friendship, and it will be as long as the days we both live. He is going to go fishing. He loves to fish. He loves to go back to his State, which he so ably represents, and which has accorded him the great title of ``Alaska's Son of the 20th Century.'' Indeed, he is one who is entitled to that kind of recognition and respect.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, will the distinguished Senator yield?

Mr. BYRD. I wish to associate myself with the remarks of the distinguished Senator, and I would appreciate if he would add my name as a co-sponsor.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, will the distinguished Senator yield?

Mr. BYRD. I wish to associate myself with the remarks of the distinguished Senator, and I would appreciate if he would add my name as a co-sponsor.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I thank the Chair. Mr. President, on April 6 of this year, Senator Dorgan and I introduced S. Res. 100, a resolution to prevent a 2-year extension of the so-called fast track or trade promotion authority, which the Congress granted the administration in the Trade Act of 2002. If our resolution were approved, existing fast-track negotiating authority would expire this year. If only it would. If only it would. Wouldn't it be ideal if it would expire? I think so. But, instead, it will be extended through 2007. That is a crying shame. Senator Dorgan and I introduced that resolution of disapproval to fast track because we oppose giving any executive--any chief executive, Democrat or Republican--the unfettered authority to negotiate trade agreements such as CAFTA which cannot be amended by the Congress. It cannot be amended. All of this praise I hear of CAFTA--we have too little time here to consider and no time to amend. We cannot amend. Too little time. Too much praise. Too much short shrift. Too much short shrift is given to this, the Constitution of the United States, which I hold in my hand. Yes, too much praise, too little time, too much short shrift. I opposed fast track when it was used to negotiate the NAFTA; I opposed fast track when it was used to negotiate the Uruguay Round; and I oppose fast track today. Let me restate what I have said so many times--so many times--in the past, something that I think people may be finally beginning to comprehend. Article I, section 8 of this Constitution, which I hold in my hand, states that the Congress--hear me--that the Congress, not the executive, shall have the power to ``regulate Commerce with foreign Nations.'' And under Article I, section 7, the Senate is permitted to ``propose or concur with'' amendments to all revenue bills. But under fast track--this shabby, shabby piece of trash--under fast track--this trumped-up power grab called fast track which is now disingenuously called trade promotion authority--listen to that: trade promotion authority--the Congress is left with no ability to modify the text of these trade agreements. And we did it to ourselves. Congress did it to itself. As a result, they are negotiated by a small band of bureaucratic gnomes--bureaucratic gnomes--accountable to whom? Accountable to no one, bureaucratic gnomes accountable to no one. But we should not blame them. We should blame ourselves. The Congress of the United States cut its own throat. Under fast track, the Congress cannot modify, the Congress cannot amend, the Congress cannot delete any section of trade agreements negotiated by the USTR. Congress is excluded from the process, just like we did to ourselves when we shifted the power to declare war to a President, one man. We did it to ourselves. We shifted power under this Constitution--lodged in the Congress, which shall declare war under this Constitution--we shifted that power to one man, and in so doing we relegated ourselves to the sideline. So today what can we say? We cannot say anything. We did it to ourselves. We said: Here, Mr. President, take it. It is yours, lock, stock, and barrel. That is what we did when it came to declaring war. And we are paying for it in Iraq. But let's get back on this matter. We did it to ourselves again. We excluded ourselves from the process. We cut ourselves out of the loop. We cast ourselves aside, like excess baggage, shunned, shunned like the woman who wore the scarlet letter. But unlike Nathaniel Hawthorne's Hester Prynne, who had to sport only one letter as a symbol of her wrongdoing, the shamed in this story should be forced to wear three letters to highlight their humiliation. And those letters are ``TPA,'' which stands for ``trade promotion authority.'' What a misnomer. How disingenuous can we become? Fast- track negotiating authority is an abomination--an abomination. Is this what we think the Founding Fathers had in mind when they created our three separate branches of Government? We don't pay too much attention to that these days. Is this what they had in mind when they created our three separate branches of Government? First, in this Constitution, the legislative branch, then the executive branch, then the judicial branch. But that first branch, the people's branch, is this what they had in mind when they created that first branch? Blind adherence to agreements negotiated behind closed doors, dictated word for word by only one branch of the Government, the executive branch? Is that what they had in mind? That is not what the Constitution says. It says that the Congress shall regulate foreign commerce. But the Congress, like blind mice or hyperactive lemmings, time and time and time again just keeps on making the same mistake. It approves fast track. Each agreement negotiated under fast track destroys more American jobs and leads our Nation into deeper and deeper deficits. The overall U.S. trade deficit in 1993, when NAFTA was enacted, was $75.7 billion. Today what is it? Not $75.7 billion. It is nearly $700 billion. Back in 1993--that hasn't been too long ago, back in 1993--the United States had a trade surplus with Mexico of $2.4 billion. Not too long ago, 1993. Look backward, O time, in thy flight. We had a trade surplus with Mexico of $2.4 billion in 1993, $2.4 billion. Last year we ran a trade deficit of $45 billion with Mexico. There you have it. The facts speak for themselves. Were these some of the promised benefits of NAFTA? It is too easy to forget. Were these some of the promised benefits of NAFTA? Sky high, yes, way up in the stratosphere, sky-high trade deficits? Since NAFTA and the Uruguay Round were negotiated under fast track, the United States has lost thousands--thousands, I say--of manufacturing and service jobs, a substantial portion of which have been outsourced--we hear much of that word these days, ``outsourced''-- to India or to China, leaving American workers' jobs without health care and with diminished pensions. I have seen it over and over again in West Virginia. I have seen it happen time and time and time and time again, firsthand, in West Virginia. It has happened in our steel industry in West Virginia. It has happened in the aluminum industry. It has happened in the glass industry. It has happened in the communications industry. It has happened in the special metals industry. It has happened in the furniture industry. It has happened in textiles. It has happened in handtools. Were these the promised benefits of NAFTA? Were these the promised benefits of the Uruguay Round? Who could have foreseen that these agreements would cause such massive dislocation, such grief? Who? Who? I will tell you who: Those of us who wisely voted against them. I did, and so did about a third of the U.S. Senate. But the majority back then refused to see what was coming. The majority refused to look. The majority blindfolded itself and refused to see what was coming. I hope they recognize what they see today. Administrations like to allege that because they sometimes deign to ``consult'' with the Congress on fast track trade agreements, their consultations satisfy the need of Congress to be involved in drafting the text of these agreements. We all know what a sham that is. Yes, they condescend to consult with Congress, the people's elected representatives. The President is indirectly elected by the electors, the representatives of the people. We are elected by the people, directly by the people. I come here, as it were, directly from the voting booth of the people. Despite all the assurances we heard during the 2002 trade debate, I have been told that even members of the Finance Committee, the Senate Committee that is charged with jurisdiction over trade matters, have been shut out. Can you believe it? Let me say that again. I can hardly believe what I am saying. Despite all the assurances we heard during the 2002 trade debate, I have been told that even members of the Senate Finance Committee, the Senate committee that is charged with jurisdiction over trade matters, have been shut out of substantive consultations on CAFTA. My, how the mighty have fallen. Since only certain members of the Finance Committee are part of the congressional oversight group which was supposedly created in 2002 to ``consult'' with the White House, other Senators on the Finance Committee who are not a part of that group have rarely been consulted on CAFTA at all. What kind of consultation is that? What kind? Similarly, the majority-controlled Senate Finance Committee refused to hold a hearing on the TPA resolution of disapproval that Senator Dorgan and I introduced in April. The committee also refused--maybe I should say ``declined''--to discharge the resolution so it could receive an up-or-down vote on the Senate floor. You hear that a lot around here, this demand for an up-or-down vote. I hear it said that nominees deserve an up-or-down vote. Who said that? The President and others say the nominees deserve an up-or-down vote. The Constitution doesn't say that. Here is the Constitution. It doesn't say that. What do the American people deserve? That is what counts. Well, the Senate leadership refused to give our resolution an up-or- down vote. Instead, they killed it in committee. It died a natural death. They killed it in committee, despite a written request asking for its discharge that was sent by Senators Dorgan, Graham, Rockefeller, Johnson, Levin, Inouye, Dayton, and myself. The proponents of fast track, TPA, and CAFTA argue that by expanding free trade in Central America we will help the workers in those countries--I have heard some of that today--become more stable and less of a national security threat. That is what we were told about NAFTA. What happened? Did NAFTA stabilize immigration? No. Since NAFTA was implemented, the number of those migrating illegally into the United States to seek work has doubled. Perhaps this is because the wages of Mexican workers have declined and the number of people in poverty there has grown. Yet the administration wants us to enact now another NAFTA, this time called CAFTA--NAFTA, CAFTA; NAFTA CAFTA. Poetic, isn't it? It has a rhyming sound. NAFTA, CAFTA. Yesterday NAFTA, today CAFTA, what the AFL-CIO tells us will not require its members to maintain or improve their labor laws or to protect the core labor rights of their workers. So the administration continues to negotiate these failed free-trade agreements, when it should be focusing on the real trade crises that face our Nation. For example, while the administration has been spending its resources on these agreements, it is doing nothing to address our Nation's enormous trade deficit, which soon will surpass $700 billion. What a deficit--$700 billion.

Mr. BYRD. I am so sorry about that, Mr. President. I ask unanimous consent that I may be given 5 more minutes.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I want, first to compliment the subcommittee chairman of the Energy and Water Appropriations bill, Senator Peter Domenici, and the ranking member, Senator Harry Reid, for the outstanding job they have done in putting together this bill. The well- being of the Nation depends greatly upon adequate investments in the many programs and activities contained in this bill. Through this measure, we are supporting the backbone of our Nation's water transportation and flood protection programs through the Army Corps of Engineers; the irrigation water supply systems for the western States through the Bureau of Reclamation; the protection of our Nation's nuclear weapons stockpile; the advancement of science programs to help ensure that the United States remains a leader in the international scientific community; a number of independent agencies and commissions, including the Appalachian Regional Commission, the Denali Commission, and the Delta Regional Authority; and now, due to the restructuring of subcommittee jurisdictions, the entire Department of Energy, DOE. As part of that restructuring, the Energy and Water Subcommittee was charged with oversight and appropriations responsibilities for the fossil energy research and development, R&D, within the Department of Energy. Senator Domenici and I have long worked on these programs, and I thank him and Senator Reid and their staffs for their hard work, diligence, and support for fossil energy research in this bill. Through the Fossil Energy R&D programs, DOE supports research involving economically and environmentally sound use of our Nation's domestically produced fossil energy resources. It forges partnerships between Government and industry to accelerate the development, demonstration, and deployment of advanced technologies that show promise in helping to ensure cleaner, more reliable, and more affordable energy, now and in the future. While the subcommittee did not hold a fiscal year 2006 budget hearing on the fossil energy R&D programs this spring, I appreciate Senator Domenici's commitment to hold annual oversight hearings on the fossil energy programs beginning next year. I look forward to participating in these hearings as our fossil energy resources will continue to be important to this Nation. I would also like to mention that the clean coal program, which falls under the fossil energy portfolio, has been critical to the development of cleaner, low-carbon fossil energy technologies. I created the Clean Coal Technology program in 1985, and I am very proud to report that after five solicitations, 32 projects have been completed, with a combined value of $3.7 billion Government/industry investments to develop advanced technologies that are resulting in cleaner, more efficient, and more cost-effective power generation. The subsequent Clean Coal Power Initiative, started by President Bush in 2000, was to be a $2 billion demonstration program over 10 years, consisting of four rounds of solicitations. The administration's fiscal year 2006 budget request of $50 million falls woefully short of being able to keep the CCPI on a 2-year solicitation schedule. However, I am very appreciative of the additional $50 million that was provided by Senators Domenici and Reid, at my request. This funding will help to pave the way for a third CCPI solicitation in the near future. If we ever hope to increase our energy security, reduce our dependence on foreign energy resources, and develop fossil energy technologies that allow us to burn coal with little to no pollution, we must adequately invest in these critical programs. There are no better champions for energy research than Senator Domenici, Senator Reid, and me. We have been able not only to authorize initiatives so critical to America's energy independence, but we also have been able to direct resources to those important efforts and keep them adequately funded for at least another year. On Tuesday, June 28, 2005, the Senate passed a bipartisan Energy bill, and I was happy to support that bill. It is generally a positive bill, but it is also very much of a business-as-usual approach toward energy policy. This bill simply provides authorization for new and existing programs related to energy policy. Despite the fact that the administration is strongly pressing for an Energy bill, I have to wonder if the necessary funding to support this legislation will ever emerge in subsequent administration budgets. Certainly, the administration's track record on funding other important measures like No Child Left Behind makes one wonder if energy funding will face continued shortfalls despite the prized rhetoric and Rose Garden ceremonies. Due to very constrained budget allocations, the Appropriations Committee is likely to find it extremely difficult to maintain funding for current energy programs, to say nothing of adding funding for the new or expanded energy programs in an Energy bill. At least for the next fiscal year, the Senate's mark for the fossil energy programs will keep these programs moving in the right direction, despite the administration's budget cuts. Again, I thank the chairman and the ranking member of the Energy and Water Subcommittee and their staff, Scott O'Malia, Roger Cockrell, Emily Brunini, Drew Willison, and Nancy Olkewicz, for their extraordinary efforts in this regard and for producing a bill that I believe we can all support.

Mr. BYRD. I thank the Chair for his courtesy. May I say that the chairman of the Finance Committee is a man whom I like. He is always friendly, always courteous to me, and in Shakespeare's words, ``He's a man after my own kidney.'' The administration also refuses to bring WTO cases against other countries that violate international law. Yet it acquiesces when the WTO unfairly and deliberately twists international rules to strike down our own laws. In fact, the current administration has taken on only 12 cases to the WTO in over 4 years, compared with its predecessor, which filed an average of 11 WTO cases per year. The U.S. Trade Representative sits idly by while the WTO tries to undermine and/or eliminate our most critical trade laws, including the Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act, also known as the Byrd amendment. A strong majority of the Senate supports the Byrd amendment, and this law will not be repealed or modified in response to the WTO. In fact, in the fiscal year 2004 and 2005 Consolidated Appropriations Acts both Houses of Congress directed the administration to start negotiating a solution to this WTO dispute. In response to this congressional mandate, the administration, in early 2004, submitted a proposal to a negotiating group in Geneva to reverse this WTO ruling against our law. But the administration has done nothing to advance those negotiations since April 2004. The administration needs to stop stalling and start solving this problem. History shows that it is a big mistake for the Congress to cede its authority to negotiate trade agreements to the Executive--and I am not just talking about this administration. I have been in Congress 53 years, and it is the same in every administration, Democratic and Republican. They follow the State Department line all the time--because the outcome of those agreements can have disastrous consequences for American industry. How much more negative history, how many more flawed consequences must our Nation suffer before we wake up and realize that fast track has been a disaster? Instead of negotiating more unfair, at any rate, agreements such as CAFTA, we should be fighting aggressively to preserve our Nation's trade laws and to protect the American workers and their families, and also protect the Constitution of the United States. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, yesterday I voted for both of the amendments offered by Senators Burns and Boxer in relation to studies that test pesticides on humans. I believe that they are both partially right. We should not cut off vital products from the market that are needed and used in our homes, businesses, and farms. Using the best available scientific data is essential in assuring the public that these valuable products are safe and also readily available. Senator Burns's amendment would support a thorough review of human dosing studies to make sure that they comport with certain conditions and would report back to the authorizing committees as well as the Appropriations Committee. At the same time, the EPA should establish strong scientific and ethical standards on studies that expose people, especially young children, to various pesticides, fungicides, and other toxins that are used in commerce. I am concerned that the now-halted study on small children from Jacksonville, FL is an irresponsible example of how to conduct such reviews. Strong standards should apply both to the agency's own studies as well as to third-party studies. Important questions have been raised about the protocols and guidelines of certain studies, and therefore it is only prudent to step back for a year to scrutinize that process. For this reason, I voted for the Boxer amendment. I hope that the study required by the Burns amendment will be carried out in a timely and responsible way and provide the necessary information so that approach decisions can be made about the Environmental Protection Agency's rule-making standards applying to the studies human dosing and their toxic effects.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I may yield to Senator Smith for a brief statement without losing my right to the floor.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, there is a crisis in the veterans health care system. The VA has belatedly admitted it is desperately short of cash and cannot make ends meet. What are the results? As a result, our veterans are in real danger of being shut off from the medical care they so urgently need and so rightly deserve. They are already suffering the indignity and the physical toll of understaffed medical facilities and dangerous delays in treatment. This is a shabby way to treat America's veterans. There are some who will say it is premature to add emergency funding for the VA to this bill and that we need to wait for more data to be collected and more numbers to be crunched. I say we have waited too long already. We have been hearing since the beginning of the year of the difficulties the current budget shortfall has caused the VA hospitals and clinics around the country. Due to budget shortfalls at the regional level, many of our local VA hospitals and clinics are being forced to institute hiring freezes and having to spend money set aside for equipment and maintenance on health care. Let me give Senators one example. According to information gathered by the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs, the Togus Veterans Medical Center in Maine came up against a $14.2 million shortfall in mid-January for this fiscal year. To reduce the budget gap to $7 million, the center has diverted funds intended for equipment and left staff vacancies unfilled. The facility has not been able to purchase a needed magnetic resonance imaging, MRI, machine due to the budget shortfall. That is just one example. The administration's plan to deal with the current shortfall includes postponing $600 million worth of repairs and equipment such as the MRI machine that the Togus Medical Center cannot afford to provide to its clients. Sophisticated diagnostic and imaging machines that produce MRIs, high-resolution X-rays, Sonograms, and CAT scans are essential to the delivery of first-rate health care. We cannot have first-class health care in an outdated facility with second-class equipment. I am not willing to postpone fixing the roofs of clinics or purchasing needed equipment, and the VA should not be willing to do so either. The people at the VA headquarters do not like to talk about these problems. They would like us to believe that everything is just fine. But from the stories many of us--many of us on both sides of the aisle--are hearing from our own States, we know better. The doctors and the nurses and the medical technicians in the field who are working in these understaffed, underequipped facilities, also know better. And our veterans--our veterans, the men and women who have put their lives on the line; our veterans--who are bearing the brunt of the budget shortfall know better, also. The Department of Veterans Affairs continues to claim that it can work around the budget shortfalls this year, but to do so, they will have to rob Peter to pay Paul. By deferring spending for some items and shuffling money around in other accounts, the VA is just pushing the problem off into next year and compounding the difficulties already facing the VA health care system. Even Secretary Jim Nicholson admits that this is not a one-time problem. According to his testimony yesterday before the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee, the VA faces a budget shortfall of about $1.5 billion--$1.5 billion, with a capital ``B''--in fiscal year 2006. Mind you, now, mind you, Mr. President, this is on top--this is on top--of the $1-billion-plus shortfall the VA is experiencing this year. Senator Patty Murray warned of this shortfall 2 months ago. She was right. She was right then and she is right now. One does not wait for depth soundings to throw a lifeline to a drowning man, and we should not wait for the administration to keep testing the water before we throw a lifeline to our deserving veterans. The crisis in veterans' health care is now--now--now--and the time to act is now, today. The Murray-Byrd-Feinstein amendment addresses the current shortfall. Our amendment provides $1.42 billion to restore the funding that the VA has had to divert from current requirements to balance the books this year and to provide a much needed shot of supplemental funding to the VA's regional operations. I understand that our colleague, Senator Larry Craig and others, as a result of his Veterans' Affairs Committee hearing yesterday, intend to offer a second-degree amendment to the Murray-Byrd-Feinstein amendment today that would round up--or round off--the amount of 2005 supplemental funding for the VA from $1.42 billion to $1.5 billion. I welcome Senator Craig's initiative. I hope we can come to an agreement that the entire Senate can support. And I look forward, to cosponsoring Senator Craig's modification. Make no mistake about it, this amendment addresses only the administration's shortfall for 2005, which is why we are designating these funds as emergency funds. This will not solve the problem in fiscal year 2006 or beyond. To address those problems, we call on the administration--we call on the White House--to send up a 2006 VA budget amendment immediately and to budget responsibly for veterans health care in future budget requests. But we cannot afford to wait until next year to address the immediate shortfall in the 2005 VA budget. This is not business as usual. This is not business as usual. The ability of the VA to deliver health care to scores and more scores of veterans is at stake. I welcome my Republican colleagues to the table. Come, sit down. Join us. I urge Senators on both sides of the aisle--over to my right and those on my left--to do the right thing for our Nation's veterans. The VA needs this money now. The Senate has both the opportunity and the obligation to provide it now. Let us not delay. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I compliment the distinguished Senator from Pennsylvania and the other Senators, including Senator Craig, for their offering of this amendment. As I indicated earlier, I want to be a cosponsor of the amendment, and I ask the distinguished Senator from Pennsylvania if he would ask that I be included as a cosponsor.

Mr. BYRD. I thank the Senator.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I wish to thank the very distinguished senior Senator from the State of Texas for her leadership, her dedication. She is a member of the Appropriations Committee, a very fine member. I thank her for her leadership, and I thank her for her kind remarks today. I ask unanimous consent that Senator Feinstein be added as a cosponsor of the amendment that has been offered by the distinguished Senator from Pennsylvania, Mr. Santorum.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Steve Borchard, a congressional fellow in Senator Reid's office, be granted floor privileges for the remainder of the Interior appropriations bill.

Mr. BYRD

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

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I ask for the regular order regarding amendment No. 1053.

Mr. BYRD. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I have no remarks at the moment. If the Senator who stands in front of me, with his hand across his heart, wishes to make some comments, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on the adoption of my amendment.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following Senators be added as cosponsors to amendment No. 1053: Warner, Kennedy, Mikulski, Landrieu, Johnson, Stabenow, Murray, Bingaman, Jeffords, and in that order, please.

Mr. BYRD. Also, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my colleague from West Virginia, Senator Rockefeller, be included and that his name occur in the order listed.