Robert Byrd

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, in 1999, I helped enact the Emergency Steel Loan Guarantee Program to give American steel companies in difficult financial circumstances ready access to capital to enable them to restructure their operations, improve their productivity, and ensure a future for their hard-working employees. For more than 4 years, this program has successfully granted Federal loan guarantees to companies like Hannah Steel in Fairfield, AL, and Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel Corporation in my home State of West Virginia. Without the benefit of these Federal loan guarantees, it is almost certain that these companies would have gone out of business. Today, however, they are vibrant companies continuing to support thousands of workers, their families, and entire communities. The fiscal year 2004 omnibus appropriations bill, has included a 2- year extension of the Emergency Steel Loan Guarantee Program, which otherwise would have expired on December 31, 2003. The extension was included, without objection, in the omnibus appropriations bill that passed the U.S. House of Representatives; it was strongly supported by the full Senate Appropriations Committee; and it is now awaiting final action in the fiscal year 2004 omnibus bill now pending before the Senate. A separate provision was included under Division B of the fiscal year 2004 omnibus directing the Department of Commerce to rescind $100 million in prior year unobligated balances. It is my understanding that the provision was included in order for the CJS Subcommittee to meet their allocation.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I understand and respect the very tough decisions the chairman and ranking member of the subcommittee had to make in order to meet their allocation, but now, I understand that the U.S. Commerce Department intends to use that provision to rescind $17.7 million for the Emergency Steel Loan Guarantee Program even though they do not have the legal authority to do so. Receiving reports that, only a few weeks ago, the U.S. Commerce Department was pursuing this particular rescission, I wrote to the Comptroller General of the United States, who heads the General Accounting Office and issues decisions in the area of Federal appropriations law. I wrote to the Comptroller General, David Walker, on December 22, 2003. I inquired as to whether the Commerce Department would have the legal authority to rescind funds from the Emergency Steel Loan Guarantee Program under the terms of H.R. 2673, the fiscal year 2004 omnibus appropriations bill. On January 15, 2004, I received a definitive response from the General Counsel of the GAO, which states that the U.S. Commerce Department is without legal authority to rescind the balance of unobligated funds from the Emergency Steel Loan Guarantee Program. The GAO stated that the unobligated funds for the steel loan program, by law, are available only to the Board of the Emergency Steel Loan Guarantee Program, and those funds are not available to the Commerce Department. The exact words of the legal opinion that I have received from the GAO are as follows: The Secretary of Commerce may not legally rescind $17.711 million as planned from the unobligated balance of appropriated funds in the Emergency Steel Guarantee Loan Program to satisfy the rescission mandate in the fiscal year 2004 omnibus appropriations bill. The GAO legal opinion further states: Accordingly, we conclude that the unobligated balance of the $140 million appropriation from the 1999 Steel Act is not ``available to the Department of Commerce'' and thus would not be subject to the section 215 rescission. Thus, the Secretary of Commerce may not legally rescind $17.711 million as planned from the unobligated balance of appropriated funds in the Emergency Steel Guarantee Loan Program. So, I would ask my friend and colleague, Senator Hollings, the ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Committee's Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, State, and the Judiciary, if he agrees that the Commerce Department has no legal authority to rescind the unobligated balance of funds from the Emergency Steel Loan Guarantee Program in light of the legal opinion I have just obtained on this matter?

Mr. BYRD. Absolutely. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my letter to the Comptroller General, David Walker, dated December 22, 2003, and the GAO legal opinion dated January 15, 2004, be printed in the Record.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. I thank the very distinguished Democratic whip for his gracious comments. He has been an inspiration to me. I once served as the majority whip in the Senate. I counted myself a good whip, but remember those lines: You are a better man than I am, Gunga Din. Well, this whip from Nevada is the best whip that I can recall in my long service in this Senate, and I am a former whip. The distinguished Senator from Nevada mentioned ball games. No ball game ever changed the course of history. With all due respect to those who like football, basketball, and baseball--and I like them, too. I used to enjoy playing baseball in the sandlot back in the days when Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig were in that great murderous lineup, the New York Yankees. I can remember September 1927 when the sultan of swat, Babe Ruth, broke the record with 60 home runs that year. The Senator's mention of the line-item veto is of interest. I was right in what I had to say about the line-item veto. I know certain Senators whom I personally asked to vote against that line-item veto, and they did not. They did not heed my admonishments, but the Supreme Court of the United States called that law invalid. Thank God for the Supreme Court of the United States in that instance. I thank the distinguished Senator. Mr. President, this afternoon I want to talk about the 2004 omnibus conference report on those bills. The Senate opened the second session to the 108th Congress not many hours ago. While the year on the calendar has changed from the last time we met in this Chamber, the Senate finds itself handcuffed by the same authoritarian dictates from the same Bush administration that last year led to some of the most fierce partisan passions that this Senate has seen in decades. Gone is the traditional spirit of cooperation. Yes, the man in the White House who said that he was going to change the tone in Washington, he changed that tone all right. It is the worst that I have seen in my more than 51 years in Congress. Gone is that traditional spirit of cooperation. Gone is the belief that the needs of the Nation are above the needs of any political party. In their place is an agenda driven by pure rank, raw partisanship. This is a tragic turn for this historic Chamber, a tragic turn for these United States of America. Hope for a bipartisan Medicare prescription drug benefit was bright at the start of this Congress, but by the time the conference report returned to the Senate for final passage, all that was left was a prescription for protecting the pharmaceutical industry and a drug benefit that is a sham for American seniors. Progress on an energy strategy for the country began in a cooperative effort but quickly the Democrats were locked out while industry lobbyists were welcomed in to write the conference report with the executive branch. The fiscal year 2004 appropriations bills have suffered a similar fate. Between June 26 and September 4 of last year, the Senate Appropriations Committee reported all 13 appropriations bills, bills that were the result of bipartisan cooperation between the chairman and the ranking member of each subcommittee and those subcommittee members. The bills were tight and lean because of unrealistic budget limits, but Senators worked in tandem to craft balanced legislation. Despite the efforts of the chairman of the committee, the senior Senator from State of Alaska, progress on the bills waned, and as a result we faced the grim Frankenstein aberration of an Omnibus appropriations conference report. I warned the Senate that such an Omnibus appropriations bill could grow limbs like trees, limbs like an octopus, limbs that never were contemplated by the Senate. I warned Members on both sides of the aisle that they could not control the outcome when the seed of an omnibus bill was planted in a closed conference. I warned that a Senator's right to debate controversial legislation would be lost. Finally, I warned that such an omnibus bill would invite the White House to the table. Never was the White House invited to the table when I was chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee--never. It is all right for them to be in an outside room but not at the table, no. I warned that such an omnibus bill would invite the White House to the table and that the Congress would once again forfeit its constitutional right to write legislation. Negotiations on that legislation started well enough. The House and Senate Appropriations Subcommittees worked on their respective pieces of this mammoth bill. The conferees held an open session under the able leadership of Senate Chairman Ted Stevens and House Chairman Bill Young, and several of the chapters of this behemoth bill were settled. But this tale does not have a happy ending. No, this chariot, drawn by tall horses, quickly turned into a pumpkin. Have you heard that before? It quickly turned into a pumpkin, pulled by rats before the clock struck midnight. The White House decided--the White House--the White House decided that bipartisan negotiations were unacceptable. The White House pulled the plug on the conference and took it behind closed doors. The Republican congressional leadership bowed, bowed down to White House pressure. Suddenly, Democratic Members of Congress had no voice in the legislation. Senator Graham, the Democrats had no voice, suddenly, in the legislation they had only days before helped to move to the verge of passage. In the back rooms of the Capitol, the White House sat down with the Republican leadership and with fat-cat lobbyists representing big corporations and produced an unamendable 1,182-page, $328 billion conference report. They produced a conference report that turned the legislative process on its head. You think Speaker Joe Martin, Republican Speaker of the House--Joe Martin of Massachusetts--would have stood for that when he was Speaker of the House? Do you think John Taber of New York, Chairman of the Senate-House Appropriations Committee, would have stood for that in his day? No. Four of the bills contained in this omnibus did not have a recorded vote in the Senate. That is all right. A voice vote or a vote by division are just as legal and legitimate as is a rollcall vote. But one of the bills, the Commerce-Justice-State bill, was never even debated, never even debated in the Senate, let alone adopted by a vote of the Senate. Shame. Shame on us for letting that happen. So there you have it. The Commerce-Justice-State bill was never even debated in the Senate, let alone adopted. Scores of provisions were included in the so-called Miscellaneous Appropriations Act portion of the conference report that were never debated, never debated in this Senate. What has happened to the legislative process here under the leadership of the Republican administration, the Bush administration? Under pressure from the White House, provisions that were approved by both the House and Senate have been dropped. Get that. Under pressure from the White House, provisions that have been included, that were provisions included in both the House and Senate, have been dropped. A point of order could be made under rule XXVIII that would kill this conference report. Under pressure from the White House, controversial provisions that were written as 1-year limitations when they were before the House or Senate have been mutated into permanent changes in authorization law. This conference report includes an across-the-board cut never debated here in this Senate, an arbitrary cut that would apply to legislation already signed into law. It would cut homeland security. It would cut counterterrorism efforts. It would cut education and health care. This across-the-board cut would reach back into laws that agencies have been operating under for 4 months. In the view of the White House, the United States can afford $1.7 trillion in tax cuts. When it comes to the Medicare bill, we can afford $12 billion for subsidies for private insurance companies. When it comes to the Energy bill, we can afford over $25 billion of tax cuts and $5 billion of mandatory spending for big energy corporations. But when it comes to initiatives funded in these appropriations bills, initiatives that help ordinary Americans every day, the President insists on cuts. He didn't say anything like that in his big speech last night. No, he didn't say anything about that, a cut of 0.59 percent would reduce funding for No Child Left Behind programs by more than $73 million, resulting in 24,000 fewer children being served by title I. The across- the-board cut would reduce veterans medical care funding by $159 million, resulting in 26,500 fewer veterans receiving medical care. The President lauds the military, as he should. He applauds the soldier, the sailor, the airman, the marine. But when it comes to veterans, 26,500 fewer veterans will receive medical care, or 198,000 veterans not getting the prescription drugs they need. Was anything said about that in the speech last evening? Not a word. The across-the-board cut will chop funding for homeland security initiatives. How many more baggage screeners will be laid off, resulting in longer lines and less security at the airports? How many fewer flights will have air marshals on board? Nothing said about that in the State of the Union speech. No, no, no. How many more containers will come into this country uninspected? How many more illegal aliens will be able to remain in this country or how many more will be able to sneak into this country? Not a word said. How many potential terrorists will never be investigated because of cuts in the FBI? The Bush tax cuts will cost $293 billion in the calendar year 2004. More than $1 out of every $4 being spent on those tax cuts is going to the top 1 percent of taxpayers in this country. They didn't put me in office. No, those on that side of the track didn't put me in office. The Bush tax cuts-- let me say it again--the Bush tax cuts will cost $293 billion in the calendar year 2004. More than one out of every four dollars being spent on those tax cuts is going to the top 1 percent of taxpayers in this country. Are you in that category? Are you, Senators, in that category? I don't know. But I know a lot of people who sent me here who are not in that category. Taxpayers with incomes that average about $1 million per year will receive an average tax cut of $85,000 in the year 2010, while those taxpayers earning less than $73,000 will receive at best 1 percent of what a millionaire will receive and at worst a paltry $98 in the year 2010. How will we pay for this? Oh, that will be somebody else's problem. This President will be back on his ranch in Crawford, TX, living it up and having it good. What about your children and my children? They are going to be left to pay for this. How will we pay for it? With cuts in education, cuts in veterans' programs, and cuts in homeland security. In the dark of night, behind closed doors, the White House filled this conference report with favors for big corporations. Everywhere you look, you find the interests of corporate America coming first and the needs of working Americans coming in last. The Senate approved a provision to block for 1 year the administration's plan to take away the rights of as many as 8 million employees to earn time and a half for extra hours worked. This administration produced a rule so biased toward industry that it even included advice to corporations on how to avoid additional wages. Yet the Senate provision--what happened to it? What happened to that Senate provision? It is gone, obliterated under the darkness of night, taken out. At the request of the food marketing industry, rules to allow Americans to know where their food, such as beef and vegetables, is grown are delayed for 2 years, breaking the balance crafted as part of the 2002 farm bill. During the consideration of the 2002 farm bill, the Senate included a provision--the Senate; that is, us--included a provision to ensure that American consumers were provided with information about where their food originates--where it comes from. This so-called country-of-origin requirement became law and was immediately attacked by industry forces. When the smoke of the agriculture conference cleared, we found that industry forces had worked overtime to slip out of their statutory requirements. The country-of-origin issue was not even allowed to be discussed at the conference. The decision whether to keep or whether to kill the country-of-origin requirement was made behind closed doors after the conference was adjourned subject to the call of the Chair. I was in that conference. It was adjourned subject to the call of the Chair. They didn't have any use for me anymore. I was locked out. Senator Byrd can go home now. He will not be in on the decision. We don't need you there. You can go home now subject to the call of the Chair. Of course, the call never come. Roy Acuff used to sing, ``I called and I called but nobody answered. I called and I called but nobody answered.'' Democrats of either the House or the Senate were not in the room. I wonder how many of our listeners remember the first question that was ever asked in the history of man. What was the first question that was ever asked? It was asked in the cool of the day when God walked through that garden of paradise, the Garden of Eden, which we think was located somewhere between the two great rivers in old Mesopotamia, the Tigris and the Euphrates Rivers. God walked in that garden looking for Adam and Eve. But he couldn't find Adam. So he asked the question: Adam, Adam, where art thou? That is the first question ever recorded. Adam, where art thou? Well, Adam and Eve were hiding behind bushes and figleaves. Adam, where art thou? Well, Democrats in either the House or the Senate were not in that room. So when their constituents ask, where were you, where were you, Senator Graham? Where were you, Senator Byrd, you who has been in Congress 51 years, where were you then? Where were you on that day? The Democrats were locked out. We were locked out. We weren't included. I will tell you one thing. That was never done when I was chairman. Now we find that the delay in implementing the country-of-origin law is not just for 1 year, as the House provided and the Senate opposed, but 2 years. And that is not all. The House provision only placed a limitation on the labeling requirement for meat products. Now the agreement coming out of conference expands the limitation to all the other commodities covered by the law such as fruits and vegetables. American consumers may have thought they were going to know where their food came from, but the majority has made sure that those facts will remain a hidden secret in the deep freeze. Also, the 1-year limitation on the FCC media ownership rule was turned into a permanent cap at 39 percent. The practical effect of changes demanded by the White House is to protect Rupert Murdoch's FOX television network and CBS-Viacom from having to comply with the lower 35 percent ownership caps, the congressional version of the bill that was put in place. The White House is boosting special corporate interests. Why not? Look at the millions that are poured into political coffers by those special corporate interests. The White House is boosting special corporate interests at the expense of the people's interest for balanced news and information. Protections for Federal workers that were agreed to on a bipartisan basis in the public conference that would ensure fair competition with the private sector disappeared in the backroom. The White House sent its troops to the Hill last week to press the Republican leadership to reject entreaties from Members on both sides of the aisle to make any changes to this Frankenstein of a bill. This ``my way or the highway'' roughshod politics over the principled approach to Congress is incredible, especially from a White House that has done so much to undermine the credibility of this Nation and its Government. One year ago, the President used the State of the Union Address before this Congress, this Nation, and the world to make his best case for taking the Nation to war in Iraq under the doctrine of preemptive strikes, under the doctrine of preemption. In the State of the Union Address and in other speeches, he and others in the administration told Congress and the Nation that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction that were an imminent threat to this Nation. We were told that Saddam Hussein was trying to develop nuclear weapons. We were told that American troops would be received as liberators. We were told that Saddam Hussein was aiding terrorists, such as the al-Qaida. What an incredible tale. What an incredible squandering of the credibility of our Government in the eyes of the world. For this President, there seems to be no limit to his appetite for rhetoric, no recognition that there is a difference between his rhetoric and reality. Yes, he promised Americans to leave no child behind, but this omnibus bill would cut funding by $6 billion below the level authorized for title I in the No Child Left Behind Act which this President signed with such promise in January of 2002. This omnibus bill would leave behind 2.1 million children who are eligible for title I educational services. The President promised to secure our homeland and yet this bill would cut funding for port security and border security. On November 14, 2002, the Senate passed the Maritime Transportation Security Act without a dissenting vote. The vote was 95 to 0. The bill was signed into law by President Bush on November 25, 2002, during a celebratory White House ceremony. On that day, the President said: We will strengthen security at our Nation's 361 seaports, adding port security agents, requiring ships to provide more information about the cargo, crew, and passengers that they carry. Despite these requirements, the President has requested no funding for port security grants and this omnibus bill would cut the funding that Congress added last fall. Sixteen million cargo containers arrive in the United States by ship, truck, and rail each year. One hundred forty million passengers travel annually by ship each year. Thousands of employees work at our ports each day. Millions of citizens live in and around our port community. A terrorist attack through our ports would produce billions of dollars of losses to our economy. Was a thin dime requested by this President? No. No, the President did not request a dime. On November 19, 2001, the President signed into law the Aviation and Transportation Security Act. The act created the Transportation Security Administration and mandated that all cargo on passenger aircraft be screened. The administration has never requested sufficient funding to meet the goals of the law. In order to bridge a $900 million funding shortfall that it created for fiscal year 2003, the administration proposed delaying advanced firearms training for Federal air marshals at the same time that intelligence reports indicated an enhanced threat to aviation and the potential for hijacking planes transiting the United States. Regarding air cargo security, the administration has met the requirement of screening air cargo by expanding a program referred to as the Known Shipper Program. This program does not actually physically screen cargo going into the bellies of jumbo passenger aircraft but relies on paperwork to protect our citizens. Congress added $35 million above the President's request to enhance the deployment of detection equipment, research other methods to screen cargo and otherwise expand air cargo security. This omnibus bill would reduce that funding. The Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act of 2002, Public Law 101-173, was signed into law by President Bush on May 14, 2002. The act authorized funding for enhanced hiring of immigration inspectors and agents as well as for improvements to immigration facilities. The President did not request the authorized funds to hire additional immigration personnel, nor did he request funds to make the authorized improvements to immigration facilities or to hire the required number of Border Patrol agents. The omnibus bill would reduce funding for Border Patrol efforts. Just last month, 4 days before Christmas, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge announced that the Nation's terror alert level was being raised to orange. He said the strategic indicator, including al-Qaida's continued desire to carry out attacks against our homeland, was perhaps greater than at any time since September 11. He went on to say that information indicates that extremists abroad are anticipating near-term attacks that they believe will rival or exceed the scope and impact of those we experienced in New York. The President promised a safer nation when he created the new Homeland Security Department. But his Secretary says we are in greater danger than at any time since September 11, 2001. At the same time, the administration urged Congress to cut funding for Homeland Security. In May of this year the President signed into law a bill authorizing $15 billion over 5 years for international programs to combat HIV/AIDS. On July 12, while in Nigeria, the President said: The House of Representatives and the Senate must fully fund this initiative, for the good of the people on this continent of Africa. To ``fully fund this initiative'' requires $3 billion. The authorization bill, which the President explicitly referenced in his speech, authorized $3 billion in fiscal year 2004. Yet the President only requested that the Congress provide $2 billion for the program. This omnibus bill, after the across-the-board cut, would provide less than $2.4 billion for the Global AIDS Program, over $600 million below the level promised. Democratic Senators, including myself, on three separate occasions offered amendments that would have ensured that HIV/AIDS funding reached the $3 billion level. All three of these amendments were defeated by the Republican leadership working with the Bush administration. Rhetoric and reality are two different things. Now we understand that the President will be promising to put a man on Mars. Somewhere along the way the tail has begun to wag the dog. The legislative process is being steered from the Oval Office. The legislative branch is being used not as the Framers envisioned, to serve as a check on the executive branch, but instead as a tool to check off accomplishments on the President's political agenda. Whose fault is that? Shame on us for letting ourselves be used. Shame on us for letting ourselves be used. Shame on us for putting political party against the best interests of the Nation. Shame on us for putting political party above the Constitution of the United States. This is not the way the Senate should operate. I fault no individual Senator for bringing us to this point, but I do fault the system that places meaningless message votes and staged photo-op debates before the business of the Nation. I fault politicians for their weakness, for their failure to uphold their oaths to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Shame on us. In my 50 years in this Congress, I have never, never before seen such a Milquetoast Congress, a Congress that would cede power. This Constitution says Congress shall have power to declare war. Yet this Senate stood speechless--speechless--when we voted in 2002 to shift this power to determine when, where, and what military forces should invade a sovereign Nation. The Senate had little to say. That was not the Senate that was here when I came here. No, not the Senate that was here when I came here. Everett Dirksen stood at that place. Lyndon Johnson stood at that desk. There was Norris Cotton, George Aiken, Jacob Javits. Those were men. There was Senator Russell of Georgia, who stood at this place, right here at this desk, Richard Russell. Lister Hill stood there. John Pastore of Rhode Island stood here. No, not those men. They are gone. But the Constitution is not gone. The Constitution is still with us. And many times have I stood at that desk where the Presiding Officer sits today, put my hand on the Bible, as it were, and swore to support and defend the Constitution of the United States--not to support this President or that President, this party or that party. I did not have any oath of that kind. I did not take any oath of that kind. I never will take an oath of that kind. How many of us can say we have stood by that Constitution? How many of us would have to say: Oh, I have bent--I have bent, when my party, when my President--the President is the President for all of us. He is not just my President. But I say that we have become far too deferential to all Presidents, too deferential to all Presidents. Presidents are just hired hands like the rest of us. They are here only for a while. Then they go. I have seen 11 administrations go, and I hope I get to see another one. But we act, when we come here, as though we swear to support this President or that President, a President from the Republican party or a President from the Democratic party. Why? They are mere hired hands who are here for a little while, like the rest of us. No President sends the Presiding Officer here. No President can send that Presiding Officer home. Why so deferential to Presidents? Under the Constitution, we have three separate but equal branches of Government. How many of us know that? How many of us know that the executive branch is but the equal of the legislative branch--not above it, not below it, but equal? Why do we treat Presidents as though they were kings, clothed in royal purple? The real losers in this scenario are the American people. They are not well served by a Congress that fritters away opportunity after opportunity to probe, to analyze, to exercise its independent judgment on the urgent issues of the day in favor of rushing to do the bidding of the executive branch. Shame on us. Fie on us. The people of West Virginia and this Constitution that I hold in my hand have made me a U.S. Senator. No President made me a U.S. Senator. I came to Congress when Harry Truman was President. He did not make me a Member of Congress. Of course, I was indebted to him for coming to West Virginia and speaking on my behalf and on behalf of my colleague, Jennings Randolph, at that time. But I did not expect that to make him my boss. I admired Harry Truman. I did not like him for some of the language that he used in public, but I still admired him, and admire him to this day as a President who had courage. But he was just a President. So I have served with 11 Presidents--not under any of them. No, no President sends me here. And by what right do the people of West Virginia send me here if I am going to bow and scrape to a President? They expect me to speak up, and that is what I have tried to do, in the presence of Presidents, yes, but they put their pants on just like I put mine on; the same old way, no different. Under our Constitution, our Founding Fathers had the wisdom to establish three separate, equal, coordinate branches of Government. That is under this Constitution. This Constitution--perhaps one does not think about it often, but when one stops to think about it, this Constitution has something to do with every minute, every hour, every day of every life in this country in one place or another, and in some instances more than one place. This Constitution impacts your life, your life, and your life. Every day that you are here on this planet, this Constitution has a bearing on it. And then some would treat this as a piece of paper and put political party above the Constitution of the United States. When I do that, send me home and say: Good riddance. This is the Constitution of the United States. Many times I have sworn by oath before God and man, with my hand on the Bible, the King James version of the Holy Bible, to support and defend this Constitution. Yet we treat it as a piece of paper. We use it only when it is of a particular benefit to us. But every day, in some way or in some ways, this Constitution bears upon your life. It may be in the delivery of your mail. It may be in the hard surfacing of the roads upon which you drive. It may have something to do with the flights that you are about to depart upon. Yes, it is this Constitution. In this country, we don't say: God save the King. God save the King. God save the President of the United States. No. We say: God save the Constitution of the United States. This Constitution saved Congress from its error when it passed the Line-Item Veto Act. This Constitution did that. Under the Constitution, Congress writes the laws. The President executes the laws. Under the Constitution, the power of the purse rests here, right here--not downtown, not down at the other end of the avenue, but here. Most of the people who were in the Thirteen Colonies, in the 13 States, when the Constitution became a constitution, were British subjects. It took hundreds of years and blood spilled at the tip of the sword for Englishmen in 1688 to write that meetings of Parliament that should be held often, that there would be freedom of speech in the Parliament and in the House of Commons. Those were the men who placed the powers of the purse in the hands of the elected representatives of the people of England in Parliament. That is where the power of the purse rests, here in the legislative branch. We ought never to let the executive branch forget it. Yet we cower. We act like poodles when it comes to standing up against the Chief Executive of the United States. Who is he? With all due respect, whether he is Republican or Democrat, this is the Congress of the United States. This is the people's branch, this body and the other. Under the Constitution, the Congress determines how to write our laws, how to protect Members' rights to debate the important issues of the day. This omnibus bill leaves those pillars of our constitutional system in shambles. It is our duty as the people's representatives to protect those pillars of our constitutional system of government. In 1999 and in the year 2000, when President Clinton, a Democratic President, a President of my own party, supported efforts by the Republican Congress to produce Omnibus appropriations bills, I came to this floor to decry our loss of our right and our duty to write legislation. I came to this floor to stand up for Congress's power of the purse. It made no matter to me--not any, no matter--that this was a Democratic President calling for omnibus spending legislation. I stood up for the rights of this Senate as I do today. In 1993, there was a great effort to include President Clinton's comprehensive health care reform plan in a reconciliation bill. Proponents of the President's proposal hoped that such an approach would shelter the proposal from extended debate in the Senate. My own majority leader, George Mitchell, came to me. I said, no. My own colleague from West Virginia in the Senate pleaded with me. I said, no. President Clinton, a Democratic President, called on the telephone, called on me to support this effort. I said, no. I said, no. Without regard to party, I felt compelled to protect Members' rights to a full debate. I said: This is a comprehensive health bill. The people need to know what is in it. We Members of the Senate need to know what is in it. That is why we have the Senate, to debate and to amend. No. And so I turned my face like flint to the request of my own friend and the President of my own party. No. Did he think less of me? I doubt it. He thanked me. He understood what I was saying. I will say it again. How many on that side would say that to a President of their party? But with President Bush, he insists that members of his party march with him step by step. I can remember a great Republican Senator who refused to march step by step. That was Senator Mark Hatfield. He was scorned by many on that side of the aisle because he stood alone against a political party, his party. He was no coward for doing that. He was a man. President Bush insists that members of his party march with him step by step. Today, on the other side of the aisle, voices for a strong and equal Congress fall silent. Last week Senator Frist wrote to Senators and urged them to vote for the omnibus conference report because if the omnibus fails, then the only alternative, he said, is a full-year continuing resolution that would force the agencies for the seven outstanding appropriations bills to operate at last year's level. He argued that such a continuing resolution would produce deep cuts for food safety, veterans medical care, highway funding, and the Global AIDS Programs. However, the Senator presents the Senate with a false choice. If the omnibus is not approved, the Senate has other options to move forward. If the only alternative is a full-year continuing resolution, then that is the choice of the Republican leadership. It would be another example of putting political posturing before the needs of the American people. There is a clear alternative, and that is to sit down and work out a compromise that can overwhelmingly pass the Senate. If our distinguished and illustrious majority leader, Mr. Frist, had the will to do so, such negotiations could be completed, who knows, maybe even in 1 day. However, in its current form, I cannot vote for this bill. I cannot vote for this conference report that so ravages our constitutional process and puts corporate interests ahead of the people's interests. I cannot vote for a bill that undermines our credibility, undermines the credibility of the United States Senate with the American people. I urge Members to vote no when the Senate votes on the adoption of the conference report. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, last week, the Bush administration--in what has become its normal pattern--ignored the pleas of thousands of hardworking Americans. It lifted the steel tariffs it had promised the U.S. steel industry and imposed on foreign imports back in March of 2002. Despite its earlier pledge to stand by America's steelworkers, the White House, in typical fashion, decided to turn its back on our highest valued workers and most vulnerable retirees. In a fit of pique and hard-hearted hubris, the White House decided to lift U.S. tariffs on foreign steel imports 15 months ahead of time, instead of letting the tariffs stay in place until March 2005, as is permitted by U.S. law. Why? Why would the White House betray America's steel industry--the backbone of America's industrial base--particularly during this time of war? Of national emergency? No. Because the President feared retaliation from America's trading partners, he quivered at the threat that they would retaliate against U.S. exports if he did not lift the 201 tariffs. He cowered in the face of exactly those nations whose steel exports to the United States have driven 42 U.S. steel companies to their knees and into bankruptcy. His resolve collapsed in the face of retaliatory threats from America's most virulent competitors, whose illegal trade against the United States has already cost nearly 50,000 steelworkers their jobs. America's foreign trade opponents gambled that this President lacked the resolve to stand up to them and to the WTO. Do you know? They were right. They were sadly correct. But this President, George W. Bush, did not need to cave like a ``weak willy'' in the face of belligerent foreign bullies. Instead, he could have invoked Article XXI of the GATT, a viable trade tool that has been legitimately and successfully employed by the United States in the past to exempt itself from the GATT, now the WTO, in a time of war or national emergency. The President on July 31, 2003, formally proclaimed our Nation to be in a continued state of emergency. As a result of the President's own misguided and ill-advised actions, we remain engaged militarily in Iraq. On July 31, 2003, President Bush formally declared that, in accordance with section 202(d) of the National Emergencies Act, he was ``continuing for one year the national emergency with respect to Iraq.'' We also continue to face an ongoing war against terrorism, both here at home and abroad. So, President Bush had--and has--ample authority to invoke a provision of GATT 1994, negotiated by the United States and available to all WTO Members, that would permit him to exempt protections for the U.S. steel industry from retaliation by foreign countries. But this President has so far lacked the foresight or the fortitude to take that step. Confronted with real threats of economic retaliation by determined competitors, the President folds like a house of cards astride the San Andreas fault. That is why, today, I am introducing a bill that will do what the President refused to do. It will reinstate the 201 relief and reimpose the 201 tariffs against foreign steel imports. Under my bill, the 201 tariffs will be put back in place to stop foreign import surges, just as they did before the President so ill-advisedly lifted the tariffs last Thursday. And the tariffs will remain in place through March 5, 2005. This administration should not have been bullied into abandoning the U.S. steel industry. Our steel industry is key to the national economic security of our Nation. Without steel, we cannot guarantee America's national security. Without steel, we could not have rebuilt after September 11. And I am not the only one who thinks that steel is integral to America's economic and national security. Just a few days before that fateful September day, on August 26, 2001, President Bush told America's steelworkers: ``If you're worried about the security of the country and you become over reliant upon foreign sources of steel, it can easily affect the capacity of our military to be well supplied. Steel is an important jobs issue; it is also an important national security issue.'' With an annual take deficit of almost $500 billion, Americans have a right to expect that international trade rules with work for them; not against them. They also have a right to know that the United States can respond as it must to the type of trade crises that have been suffered by America's steel industry for years. There was absolutely no reason to lift the steel 201 tariffs. They are fully consistent with both U.S. law and our international agreements--regardless of the view of the WTO. The purpose of 201 relief is to give the domestic industry time to adjust to import competition. Our valiant steel industry is doing just that by pursuing unprecedented restructuring and new investment. Since the 201 tariffs were imposed, flat-rolled steel producers alone have invested more than $3 billion to enhance their productivity. Critics of the 201 relief have been proved wrong on every significant fact concerning that relief. They said that once the tariffs were imposed, steel prices would go through the roof. Yet, prices have risen only modestly, and much less than abroad. The critics claimed that U.S. steel companies would do nothing to improve their competitiveness. But our Nation is witnessing the most dramatic restructuring in the industry's history. The critics also claimed that the tariffs would be bad for the U.S. economy, but the non-partisan U.S. International Trade Commission, ITC, recently found that the potential costs are minuscule--only about 2 percent of what Americans spend each month at McDonald's--and not even a drop in the bucket compared to the value we gain by restoring a critical U.S. industry to long-term competitiveness. Other nations' actions in this Section 201 dispute have been truly disgraceful. The European Union originally threatened to retaliate against the United States immediately upon the President's application of the safeguard measures in March 2002. In the end, it hesitated. But its threat was sufficient to extort from the administration nearly unlimited exclusions from the tariffs to benefit foreign producers. Acquiescing to this type of bullying jeopardizes the future of the U.S. steel industry, and it undermines the integrity of, and support for, the entire international trading system. Americans cannot be expected to support a system that works against them, rather than for them. By lifting the tariffs, the administration is allowing Brazil, the European Union, Japan, and other nations, once again, to flood the U.S. market with imports. The Bush administration could have stood up for America's steelworkers like those at Weirton, WV, and Wheeling- Pittsburgh Steel in West Virginia, and demanded that other countries respect the legitimate rights of the United States in the world trading system. But this administration chose to back down, to lose face, to sit back and watch, once more, while thousands of additional U.S. steel jobs are destroyed by wave after wave of foreign imports. The administration does not seem to care if the U.S. steel industry is destroyed at a time of war and in the midst of a national emergency. President Bush did not even care enough to personally inform the U.S. steel industry, its workers, and their families of his decision to lift the tariffs. No!! Instead, he sent a trade negotiator, Mr. Zoellick, to do his dirty work. Ambassador Zoellick had the audacity to tell us that the tariffs are ``no longer necessary.'' No longer necessary. And why did he say that they are no longer necessary? They are no longer necessary because, he said, ``these safeguard measures have achieved their purpose.'' The only purpose that I can see in this decision to shut the tariff program down is to succumb to threats and demands from abroad. The only effect will be the loss of more steel manufacturing jobs here at home. On October 27, 2000, Mr. Dick Cheney--do you know him? He is now Vice President of the United States--just a few days before the elections he came to Weirton, WV, to campaign for the Bush-Cheney ticket. During that visit, Mr. Cheney forcefully pledged to help America's steelworkers. He said, ``We will never lie to you. If our trading partners violate our trading laws, we will respond swiftly and firmly.'' Promise made, promise broken. Unfortunately, like so many commitments this administration has made, its pledge to help America's steel industry got off to a headline-grabbing start, but has now been discarded, out of the glare of the campaign spotlight. So now, only 3 years after Mr. Cheney's campaign-season vow of honesty to America's steelworkers, this White House has taken an axe to the 201 tariffs and betrayed the trust of thousands of American families whose paychecks depend on the U.S. steel industry. Mr. President, the Bush White House has absolutely failed the working families across this country. This White House has traded the best interests of the American people for the big special interests of corporate campaign contributors. It is no surprise that the Bush Administration would turn its back on steelworkers. When the Bush-Cheney ticket needed West Virginia's votes in 2000, it pledged to help our steel industry. At first, it appeared as though the administration would follow through on that promise. The White House applied the steel tariffs, for which West Virginia was thankful and for which I and other Senators congratulated, commended and thanked the administration. But then the President exempted import after import from those tariffs. Now the President has eliminated the tariffs completely. The Bush White House may have forgotten the promise made to the steel industry in West Virginia, but thousands of West Virginians and other steelworkers across the Nation will not forget. The recognize a fair- weather friend when they seen one.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, last week, the Bush administration--in what has become its normal pattern--ignored the pleas of thousands of hardworking Americans. It lifted the steel tariffs it had promised the U.S. steel industry and imposed on foreign imports back in March of 2002. Despite its earlier pledge to stand by America's steelworkers, the White House, in typical fashion, decided to turn its back on our highest valued workers and most vulnerable retirees. In a fit of pique and hard-hearted hubris, the White House decided to lift U.S. tariffs on foreign steel imports 15 months ahead of time, instead of letting the tariffs stay in place until March 2005, as is permitted by U.S. law. Why? Why would the White House betray America's steel industry--the backbone of America's industrial base--particularly during this time of war? Of national emergency? No. Because the President feared retaliation from America's trading partners, he quivered at the threat that they would retaliate against U.S. exports if he did not lift the 201 tariffs. He cowered in the face of exactly those nations whose steel exports to the United States have driven 42 U.S. steel companies to their knees and into bankruptcy. His resolve collapsed in the face of retaliatory threats from America's most virulent competitors, whose illegal trade against the United States has already cost nearly 50,000 steelworkers their jobs. America's foreign trade opponents gambled that this President lacked the resolve to stand up to them and to the WTO. Do you know? They were right. They were sadly correct. But this President, George W. Bush, did not need to cave like a ``weak willy'' in the face of belligerent foreign bullies. Instead, he could have invoked Article XXI of the GATT, a viable trade tool that has been legitimately and successfully employed by the United States in the past to exempt itself from the GATT, now the WTO, in a time of war or national emergency. The President on July 31, 2003, formally proclaimed our Nation to be in a continued state of emergency. As a result of the President's own misguided and ill-advised actions, we remain engaged militarily in Iraq. On July 31, 2003, President Bush formally declared that, in accordance with section 202(d) of the National Emergencies Act, he was ``continuing for one year the national emergency with respect to Iraq.'' We also continue to face an ongoing war against terrorism, both here at home and abroad. So, President Bush had--and has--ample authority to invoke a provision of GATT 1994, negotiated by the United States and available to all WTO Members, that would permit him to exempt protections for the U.S. steel industry from retaliation by foreign countries. But this President has so far lacked the foresight or the fortitude to take that step. Confronted with real threats of economic retaliation by determined competitors, the President folds like a house of cards astride the San Andreas fault. That is why, today, I am introducing a bill that will do what the President refused to do. It will reinstate the 201 relief and reimpose the 201 tariffs against foreign steel imports. Under my bill, the 201 tariffs will be put back in place to stop foreign import surges, just as they did before the President so ill-advisedly lifted the tariffs last Thursday. And the tariffs will remain in place through March 5, 2005. This administration should not have been bullied into abandoning the U.S. steel industry. Our steel industry is key to the national economic security of our Nation. Without steel, we cannot guarantee America's national security. Without steel, we could not have rebuilt after September 11. And I am not the only one who thinks that steel is integral to America's economic and national security. Just a few days before that fateful September day, on August 26, 2001, President Bush told America's steelworkers: ``If you're worried about the security of the country and you become over reliant upon foreign sources of steel, it can easily affect the capacity of our military to be well supplied. Steel is an important jobs issue; it is also an important national security issue.'' With an annual take deficit of almost $500 billion, Americans have a right to expect that international trade rules with work for them; not against them. They also have a right to know that the United States can respond as it must to the type of trade crises that have been suffered by America's steel industry for years. There was absolutely no reason to lift the steel 201 tariffs. They are fully consistent with both U.S. law and our international agreements--regardless of the view of the WTO. The purpose of 201 relief is to give the domestic industry time to adjust to import competition. Our valiant steel industry is doing just that by pursuing unprecedented restructuring and new investment. Since the 201 tariffs were imposed, flat-rolled steel producers alone have invested more than $3 billion to enhance their productivity. Critics of the 201 relief have been proved wrong on every significant fact concerning that relief. They said that once the tariffs were imposed, steel prices would go through the roof. Yet, prices have risen only modestly, and much less than abroad. The critics claimed that U.S. steel companies would do nothing to improve their competitiveness. But our Nation is witnessing the most dramatic restructuring in the industry's history. The critics also claimed that the tariffs would be bad for the U.S. economy, but the non-partisan U.S. International Trade Commission, ITC, recently found that the potential costs are minuscule--only about 2 percent of what Americans spend each month at McDonald's--and not even a drop in the bucket compared to the value we gain by restoring a critical U.S. industry to long-term competitiveness. Other nations' actions in this Section 201 dispute have been truly disgraceful. The European Union originally threatened to retaliate against the United States immediately upon the President's application of the safeguard measures in March 2002. In the end, it hesitated. But its threat was sufficient to extort from the administration nearly unlimited exclusions from the tariffs to benefit foreign producers. Acquiescing to this type of bullying jeopardizes the future of the U.S. steel industry, and it undermines the integrity of, and support for, the entire international trading system. Americans cannot be expected to support a system that works against them, rather than for them. By lifting the tariffs, the administration is allowing Brazil, the European Union, Japan, and other nations, once again, to flood the U.S. market with imports. The Bush administration could have stood up for America's steelworkers like those at Weirton, WV, and Wheeling- Pittsburgh Steel in West Virginia, and demanded that other countries respect the legitimate rights of the United States in the world trading system. But this administration chose to back down, to lose face, to sit back and watch, once more, while thousands of additional U.S. steel jobs are destroyed by wave after wave of foreign imports. The administration does not seem to care if the U.S. steel industry is destroyed at a time of war and in the midst of a national emergency. President Bush did not even care enough to personally inform the U.S. steel industry, its workers, and their families of his decision to lift the tariffs. No!! Instead, he sent a trade negotiator, Mr. Zoellick, to do his dirty work. Ambassador Zoellick had the audacity to tell us that the tariffs are ``no longer necessary.'' No longer necessary. And why did he say that they are no longer necessary? They are no longer necessary because, he said, ``these safeguard measures have achieved their purpose.'' The only purpose that I can see in this decision to shut the tariff program down is to succumb to threats and demands from abroad. The only effect will be the loss of more steel manufacturing jobs here at home. On October 27, 2000, Mr. Dick Cheney--do you know him? He is now Vice President of the United States--just a few days before the elections he came to Weirton, WV, to campaign for the Bush-Cheney ticket. During that visit, Mr. Cheney forcefully pledged to help America's steelworkers. He said, ``We will never lie to you. If our trading partners violate our trading laws, we will respond swiftly and firmly.'' Promise made, promise broken. Unfortunately, like so many commitments this administration has made, its pledge to help America's steel industry got off to a headline-grabbing start, but has now been discarded, out of the glare of the campaign spotlight. So now, only 3 years after Mr. Cheney's campaign-season vow of honesty to America's steelworkers, this White House has taken an axe to the 201 tariffs and betrayed the trust of thousands of American families whose paychecks depend on the U.S. steel industry. Mr. President, the Bush White House has absolutely failed the working families across this country. This White House has traded the best interests of the American people for the big special interests of corporate campaign contributors. It is no surprise that the Bush Administration would turn its back on steelworkers. When the Bush-Cheney ticket needed West Virginia's votes in 2000, it pledged to help our steel industry. At first, it appeared as though the administration would follow through on that promise. The White House applied the steel tariffs, for which West Virginia was thankful and for which I and other Senators congratulated, commended and thanked the administration. But then the President exempted import after import from those tariffs. Now the President has eliminated the tariffs completely. The Bush White House may have forgotten the promise made to the steel industry in West Virginia, but thousands of West Virginians and other steelworkers across the Nation will not forget. The recognize a fair- weather friend when they seen one.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, both requests have thus far been objected to; am I correct?

Mr. BYRD. I thank the Chair.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, let me begin by thanking my colleague, Senator Stevens, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, for the excellent work he has done on the bill that is now before the Senate, H.R. 2673, the omnibus appropriations bill. It consists of seven appropriations bills. Senator Stevens has consistently sought to avoid having omnibus appropriations bills. He has zealously tried to have all of the 13 appropriations bills pass on time before the beginning of the new fiscal year and sent to the President of the United States for his consideration. Senator Stevens has at all times been fair--eminently fair to me and to all members of the Appropriations Committee. I congratulate Senator Stevens. He is an excellent chairman. And I congratulate the other members of the committee, both Democrats and Republicans, for working together as they have on this bill and as they have always done as long as I have been on that committee; and that is 45 years. I share the disappointment of the distinguished chairman of the Appropriations Committee. I share his disappointment. He has been valiant in his efforts. He has been consistent in his search for ways by which we can come together and pass a bill on time. I could ask for nothing more. Members of this Congress have a duty and a responsibility to the American people, to the men and women who send us to represent them in this great Capitol. Those men and women who send us to represent them in this Capitol do not expect us to rubberstamp legislation. They do not expect us to cash our own paychecks without doing the work that we were sent here to do. Senators are paid to be in the Capitol when votes are taken. Today is such a day, yet few Senators are present. The 1,182-page conference report before the Senate totals more than $328 billion. I hold my hand on the top of this 1,182-page conference report. Here it is. What a mammoth bill, 1,182 pages. Yet we were asked to adopt this mammoth piece of legislation by unanimous consent. The majority leader asked Senators for their consent to bring this bill up, which is in the form of a conference report, and pass it without a rollcall vote. Is that the way the American people want their business to be conducted? This bill totals more than $328 billion. It provides funds for 11 of 15 Federal Departments. It wraps together the work of seven appropriations bills. This conference report funds our Nation's schools and highways, our veterans clinics, workplace safety initiatives, and medical research. It funds priorities that directly touch the lives of every American citizen. Yet Members of this body do not have the time, apparently, or the will, to be here at their desks in the Senate and vote on this mammoth piece of legislation. Instead of a rollcall vote, the majority leader sought unanimous consent to take up and pass this legislation by voice. My voice is not so good today but it is good enough to say no. I object to passing this bill without a rollcall. I announced my intention days ago to object to any unanimous consent request to pass this bill without a rollcall vote. I am here, at my place, as I said I would be. Senators may have travel plans or schedule conflicts. They may prefer to be in their home States or traveling around the globe rather than be here in the Capitol. Our responsibility is here in this Chamber when we have an appropriations measure of this nature, of this size, of this importance. Our responsibility is to work. Our responsibility is to debate and vote on this conference report. We should not have postponed this matter until next year. We should not have put this matter off for several weeks. There is no good excuse for putting this debate on hold. Now, stop and think for a moment. We have had since April to pass these seven bills. The budget resolution was adopted in early April, on April 11. That gave us our directions and the Appropriations Committees could go forward at that time. Here we have been since April 11 and we have only passed and sent to the President of the United States six appropriations bills. So more than half of the total of 13 appropriations bills are right here in this conference report and no Senator--no Senator and I daresay no House Members, perhaps a few--I will leave myself a little wiggle room--I can say no Senator has seen everything that is in this massive bill. No Senator, under God's heaven, knows everything that is in this conference report. No Senator's staff person knows everything that is in this conference report. This represents the people's business. It is the people's money and Senators are asked to come here today and vote no. They were asked to come and pass this massive piece of legislation without a rollcall vote. This is an abomination. The American people deserve better from us. I understand the reluctance of the majority leader. The leadership worries there may not be enough votes to pass the conference report and send it to the White House. But we would not know that until we voted. It is not unheard of to ask Members of the Senate to come back and vote. It has been done before. I have done it when I was majority leader. It has been done by other majority leaders. I don't criticize the current majority leader. He is doing what he thinks he has to do under the circumstances. But I think we all could have done better. I think the Members should have been asked to come back and do their work and finish the job, debate the conference report, have a rollcall vote and then go home for Christmas. Make no mistake, there are many problems with this conference report: contracting out Federal jobs, stripping employees of bipartisan job protections, voiding an effort to protect overtime protections established by the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, taking away the right of as many as 8 million employees to earn time and a half for extra hours worked. Last minute closed-door changes would postpone country-of-origin labeling. Let me say that again: Last minute closed- door changes would postpone country-of-origin labeling on meat and vegetables, robbing Americans from knowing where their food was grown for 2 years and breaking the balance crafted as part of the 2002 farm bill. The 1-year limitation on the FCC media ownership rule was turned into a permanent cap at 39 percent. The practical effect of changes demanded by the White House is to protect Rupert Murdoch's FOX Television Network and CBS-Viacom from having to comply with the lower 35-percent ownership caps a congressional version of the bill would put in place. The White House is boosting special corporate interests at the expense of the people's interest for balanced news and information. One could go on for quite some time ticking off the problems that are in this conference report, problems dictated to Congress by the Bush White House. There are many provisions within this package that never came before the Senate--never. Yet Senators were asked to buy a pig in a poke, to vote for a pig in a poke, unknown, unseen, yet vote by unanimous consent--no, not vote, but asked to pass this gargantuan piece of legislation here by unanimous consent without a rollcall vote. Can you imagine, $328 billion and not even a recorded vote? What would Everett Dirksen say today? He said: A billion here and a billion there and pretty soon you have a lot of money. He should be here today. There is $328 billion. That is $328 for every minute since Jesus Christ was born. That is a lot of money. We are asked to close our eyes, plug our ears--no debate, no questions asked--just hold your nose and vote for it. Hold your nose and say: Pass it without a vote. That is what we are asked to do. Four of the bills contained in this omnibus did not have a recorded vote in the Senate. One of the bills, the Commerce-Justice-State bill, was never even debated in the Senate, let alone adopted. Scores of provisions are included in the so-called Miscellaneous Appropriations Act portion of the conference report that were never debated in the House or Senate. Under pressure from the White House, provisions that were approved by both the House and the Senate have been dropped. Under pressure from the White House, controversial provisions that were written as 1-year limitations when they were before the House or Senate have been mutated into permanent changes in authorization law. Now, that is going a far piece--going a fer piece, I would say. Houdini was nothing when compared with what the conference did here under pressure from the Bush White House. In fact, the majority leadership created a new appropriations authority: the Miscellaneous Appropriations Act. That is a new one on me. There are 13 appropriations subcommittees, but I have yet to meet the chairman of the Subcommittee on Miscellaneous Appropriations. That section, whatever its genesis, is home to administration pet projects and priorities. Scores of provisions are included in the so- called miscellaneous appropriations umbrella that were never debated in the House or Senate. Under direct pressure from the White House, provisions approved previously by both the House and the Senate have been dropped. Under pressure from the White House, controversial provisions originally crafted by the House or Senate as 1-year limitations, may I say again, have mutated into permanent changes in authorization law. This conference report includes an across-the-board cut that has never been debated in the Senate, an arbitrary cut that would apply to legislation already signed into law. It would cut homeland security. We are talking about your safety, and your safety, Mr. President, the safety of your home, your children, your grandchildren. Homeland security is the usual term. It would cut counterterrorism efforts. It would cut education and health care. This across-the-board cut would reach back into bills signed months ago and say: No, sorry. No, no, sorry, but that is just too much money. So we are going to take a little off the top. Apparently, in the view of the White House, the United States can afford $1.7 trillion in tax cuts. When it comes to the Medicare bill, we can afford $12 billion for subsidies for private insurance companies. When it comes to the Energy bill, we can afford over $25 billion of tax cuts and $5 billion of mandatory spending for big energy corporations. But when it comes to initiatives funded in these appropriations bills, initiatives that help Americans every day, the President insists: Cut, cut, cut, cut. A cut of 0.59 percent would reduce funding for No Child Left Behind programs by more than $73 million, resulting in 24,000 fewer children being served by title I. We are talking about this across-the-board cut now. This across-the- board cut does not sound like it would be much, a cut of 0.59 percent, but what does it do to the No Child Left Behind program? It would reduce funding for the No Child Left Behind program by more than $73 million, resulting in 24,000 fewer children being served by title I. Overall, the title I Education for the Disadvantaged program would be $6 billion below the level authorized by the No Child Left Behind Act that the President signed in January of 2002 with great fanfare-- another promise unfulfilled. The across-the-board cut would reduce Head Start funding by $40 million, resulting in 5,500 fewer children attending Head Start. Veterans medical care funding would be cut by $159 million, resulting in 26,500 fewer veterans receiving medical care or 198,000 veterans not getting the prescription drugs they need. I spoke earlier about cuts in homeland security. The across-the-board cut would chop funding for homeland security initiatives. How many more baggage screeners would be laid off resulting in longer lines and less security at our airports? How many flights will have fewer air marshals on board? How many fewer flights will have air marshals on board? How many more containers will come into this country uninspected? How many more illegal aliens will be able to remain in this country or how many will be able to come into this country? This is a threat to the Nation's security. How many potential terrorists will never be investigated because of cuts in the FBI program? All this, and the distinguished majority leader sought consent that this package be approved without a rollcall vote. That is no way to legislate. How would I feel facing my constituents and having to say: Well, it was getting close to Christmas and Members had other things they had to do; we did pass it; I wish now we would have had a rollcall vote but I wasn't there to object? That is no way to be accountable to the American people. Taxpayers of this country rightly expect Senators to be accountable for funds drawn out of the Federal Treasury. It is your money. How many times have we heard that? I say to those who are looking at the Senate Chamber today through those electronic lenses: It is your money. How can Members be accountable when they are scattered to the four winds across the globe? What kind of perversion of the appropriations process would result in Senators approving this monstrosity without a recorded vote? When Members took their oath of office, they pledged, standing right there at the Presiding Officer's desk with their hands on the Bible-- ``so help me God,'' they said--that they would support and defend the Constitution. So we have a responsibility to faithfully discharge the duties of the office of U.S. Senator. We took a pledge to do that. We took an oath to do that. We took an oath before God and man to do that. Senators did not pledge to do so just when it was convenient or when the schedule permits. The House of Representatives saw fit to return to vote on this conference report. Why then could the Senate not do the same? We all get the same pay. Senators as well as House Members are paid to work for 12 months each year, not 10 months. Chairman Stevens and I worked with each Senator on the Appropriations Committee to produce 13 individual appropriations bills to send to the President. I have commended--and do so again--the senior Senator from Alaska for his effort, but the process was hijacked. By whom? Who is doing the hijacking? The Bush White House. The White House hijacked the process. The process was hijacked by the White House and the Republican leadership in both Houses. Instead of sending 13 fiscally responsible appropriations bills to the President, the Senate was asked to close its eyes, plug its ears, and be gagged in order to rubberstamp a 1,182-page conference report combining 7 appropriations bills for 11 of the 15 Departments of the Federal Government, on an unrecorded approval of a unanimous consent request. No vote to it--no rollcall vote, no vote by division, no vote viva voce, no vote by voice, with only a handful of Senators. You could count the number of Senators in this Chamber on one hand this morning. This would be legislating without accountability. What is the use of having elections if the voters are prevented from knowing how their Senators voted on investing $328 billion of the people's money, your money? This is wrong. The people have a right to know how their elected representatives stand on this legislation which will affect the lives of so many. I am saddened by the majority leader's decision to postpone a vote on this legislation until January 20. This is no way to govern. We have had since April 11 to pass these seven bills. That is no way to serve the American people. I thank the Chair, and I thank all Senators. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BYRD

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

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, is the Senate still in morning business with a 10-minute limitation?

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I may speak as long as I must speak. I can assure the Chair it will not be over 30 minutes.

Mr. BYRD. I thank the Chair. (The remarks of Mr. Byrd pertaining to the introduction of S. 1997 are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

Mr. BYRD. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. I ask that the Senator from Montana be limited to 10 minutes.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I note on the floor the distinguished senior Senator from the State of Montana. I am sure he has a desire to speak and fill other appointments. I ask the Senator, without losing my right to the floor, how much time does the Senator desire?

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I have the floor; do I not?

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I yield the floor to the distinguished Senator from Montana not to exceed 10 minutes, with the understanding that upon the completion of his remarks I retain my right to the floor.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I thank my friend from Montana, Mr. Baucus.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I join with my colleagues to decry this appropriations process. This process has fallen apart. Despite the hard work of the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee and the bipartisan effort of members of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees, the omnibus bill is parked and the engine is cold. Why? Why is it that funding for 11 of the 15 departments of this Government is two months late? Why is it that the Nation's veterans haven't received funding? Why is it that our classrooms have been relegated to the sidelines? Why is it that health care, law enforcement, education, roads, airports, embassy security, worker safety, job training, farmers are put off, day after day? It is because the White House has insisted on legislating. The White House has overplayed its hand and, as a result, the nation is not served. On Thursday, the Nation will pause to celebrate Thanksgiving. But our colleagues on the other side of the aisle have decided to deliver to the Senate a turkey of an omnibus appropriations conference report. This turkey is filled with stuffing and all the trimmings, but as we stand here today, few Senators know what it is stuffed with. What we do know is that this turkey has been specially carved for special interests. The process for producing this bill was just one more example of the President's disrespect for the Congress. My way or the highway is the President's mantra. He expects the Congress to rubber stamp his budget. Initially, the conference process was bipartisan. Chairman Stevens wanted to do the right thing in producing this bill. The ranking members on the seven bills were at the table and worked out reasonable compromises on the bills. I commend Chairman Ted Stevens and House Chairman Bill Young for their efforts to get this bill done in a balanced way. But when it came time to make the tough decisions, the leadership went behind closed doors with the White House at the table. And they served up a turkey. They took a balanced package that was worked out by the conferees and at the eleventh hour insisted that they had to have it all. They insisted on changes that were not even contemplated when the bills were before the House and Senate. The President prevailed on every one of his veto threats. The overtime regulation prohibition, which passed the Senate by vote of 54-45 was dropped; virtually identical Cuba sanction provisions that were in both the House and Senate versions of the Transportation/ Treasury bill were dropped, as was a Cuba sanction provision in the Senate version of the Agriculture bill; the 1 year limitation on the FCC media ownership rule was turned into a permanent cap at 39 percent; the House language in the Transportation/Treasury bill, blocking OMB's plan to contract out 400,000 Federal workers was dropped. A bi-partisan compromise that was worked out by the conferees was rejected by the White House and what remains provides so many loopholes for OMB that little protection is provided for Federal workers. This is a bad bill. There are many provisions that are controversial and were not considered by the Senate. There is language that permits overfishing in the Northeast fishery. There is language that would mandate that the Justice Department destroy background check records for the purchase of guns within 24 hours of the gun purchase. These matters were never debated in the Senate because the Commerce/Justice/State bill was never debated in the Senate. There is language in the omnibus conference report that would postpone the country of origin labeling rule that was enacted as part of the Farm bill. Rather than the 1-year delay that was in the House bill, there is a 2-year delay, breaking up the balance of the 2002 Farm bill. The DC portion of the bill contains $13 million for approximately 2,000 school vouchers. The White House's approach to Congress is my way or the highway. Well, this turkey of a bill wandered out on the highway and the rights of Senators to amend legislation and the needs of the American people got crushed. Whenever the Senate Republican leaders decide to bring this turkey to the floor, the Senate will be asked to vote on this as a conference report, with no opportunity for amendment. Let's look at the overtime issue. This omnibus appropriations bill does not include the overtime pay protections included in the Senate Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations bill. That provision was included in that bill on a 54-45 vote in the Senate in early September. The House of Representatives voted to instruct its conferees to the Appropriations bill to accept the Senate language on overtime on a vote of 221-203. Yet the provision was dropped. It should be clear to the working men and women of this country that it was the Republican leadership, at the behest of the White House, that killed the overtime pay protections in the omnibus appropriations bill despite a majority of members in both the House and Senate voting to protect the overtime rights of American workers. As a result, the White House is responsible for the pay cut that 8 million American families will receive this holiday season. On the overtime issue, Congressman DeLay recently said, ``We're sticking with the White House. We're going to win.'' White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, on November 19, said the White House was unwilling to move away from its position of supporting the Department of Labor's proposed rules. ``We'll stick to it,'' he said. In September, Members of Congress received a letter from several women's organizations that concluded, ``Millions of working women would see their pay reduced and their workdays lengthened.'' Well, as far as the President is concerned it is my way or the highway and the Senate effort to protect American workers is gone. Let's look at the issue of the FCC media ownership cap. The original provision included in both the House and the Senate CJS appropriations bills limited funding to the FCC for purposes of keeping the media ownership cap at 35 percent for the next year. The CJS conferees agreed to the language. But behind closed doors, the White House said no, not good enough. In a back room, the Republican Leadership and the White House changed the rules. Instead of a 1-year limitation, we now have a ``permanent'' fix, authorizing the cap to be raised to 39 percent. A permanent fix was never debated by the Senate. This is a policy decision that should be made by the authorizing committees. Instead, it was made by a few individuals and that authorizing language is now being placed in an unamendable appropriations conference report. Let's look at the gun issue. As part of a carefully negotiated agreement, the C/J/S conferees agreed to drop language that was in the House bill that would have reduced the amount of time that the Justice Department has to retain records from gun purchases from ninety days to immediate destruction. Yet, the White House said that was not satisfactory. Agreements reached between House and Senate Republicans and Democrats did not make the cut for this White House. A significant national security provision, a counter-terrorism initiative approved by Congress, is being gutted by the Bush White House. Under current law, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms can retain for 90 days the records from gun purchases. This 90-day period gives the law enforcement community the opportunity to find individuals purchasing weapons who should simply not have access to those weapons. It is a simple matter of law enforcement, of national security. Yet the Bush White House wants no 90 day cushion. This administration is insisting that any federal record associated with the purchase of a weapon be destroyed after just 1-day. This current 90 day cushion is not a delay on the actual purchase. This is not a step that infringes on an American's right to bear arms. But it is a better protection for America's national security. At a time when we are in a heightened state of alert for terrorist attack, should we not provide law enforcement with more than 24 hours to examine information on weapons' purchases? This administration's own Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel, in an October 1, 2001, legal opinion concluded that having data from the gun transactions would aid in the investigation of 9/11. But for the White House, it is ``my way or the highway.'' No cushion, no security. Among the many outrages that I find with the substance of this Omnibus Appropriations bill and the process in which it was developed, centers around the language regarding President Bush's so-called ``competitive sourcing'' initiative. Competitive sourcing is President Bush's euphemism for throwing a federal employee onto the unemployment line for the purpose of contracting out his work to a private company. Division F of this Omnibus Appropriations Act includes the Transportation, Treasury and General Government Appropriation bill. One will find in that division of the bill, under section 647, a largely meaningless and ineffective provision, that is rife with loopholes intended to mask the Bush administration's determined efforts to fire thousands of Federal employees. This provision did not always read this way. Indeed, the conferees on the Transportation, Treasury and General Government Appropriations bill met in open conference on Wednesday, November 12th and it was anticipated at that time that the conference agreement would be sent to the President as a freestanding bill. That conference was chaired by the very able Subcommittee Chairman Senator Shelby. I was a conferee on that bill and I was proud to sign the conference report when it was presented to me. The original conference agreement reached by the members of that conference committee included a sound and balanced policy to govern the President's competitive sourcing initiative. The conference agreement ensured that there would be uniform rules for this initiative across all agencies of the Federal Government. It also ensured that the administration would have to demonstrate meaningful cost savings to the taxpayers before contracting out federal work. The agreement also provided Federal employees an opportunity to appeal a wrongful contracting out decision. Under the Bush administration's regulations, only private contractors have that appeal right. That tentative conference agreement was agreed to as a substitute for the amendment that was included in the House bill that was championed by Congressman Van Hollen of Maryland. The Bush White House made it quite clear to all the conferees that inclusion of the Van Hollen amendment would result in the Transportation/Treasury bill being vetoed. Ever since the day that conference concluded--Wednesday, November 12th--we have been waiting for the conference agreement on the Transportation-Treasury bill to be filed in the House and Senate. Instead, what has happened has been an unpardonable effort by the Bush White House to dismantle this agreement as it pertains to its beloved ``competitive sourcing'' initiative. Why did the administration not like this agreement? Because they do not care to have to demonstrate to the taxpayers that any real dollar savings will accrue to the taxpayer when they contract out Federal jobs; they do not want Federal employees to have the opportunity to appeal a decision that was made in error; and they do not want a consistent and fair policy for all Federal agencies in this area. Believe it or not, the Bush administration complained about provisions in the Transportation/Treasury conference agreement that were identical to provisions that President Bush had already signed into law on the Department of Defense Appropriations Act and the Department of Interior Appropriations Act. When one now reviews the Omnibus Appropriations bill, it is clear that the Bush administration has succeeded in neutering the original conference agreement in this area. Never mind that we met in full and open conference and agreed to a meaningful set of safeguards. Never mind that all the members of the conference committee signed on to that agreement--Democrats and Republicans alike. This White House would have none of it. So, working through the offices of the House and Senate Republican leadership, the White House has succeeded in undermining the provisions of the original conference agreement to the point of making them largely hollow. The Bush administration has made a sham of our Federal procurement process and a sham of the appropriations process. So, on the Transportation Appropriations bill, once again, the President says it is my way or the highway. Finally, there is the matter of the across the board cuts. The President set an arbitrary topline for discretionary spending of $786 billion. In the President's view, we can afford $1.7 trillion dollars of tax cuts. When it comes to the Medicare bill, we can afford $12 billion for subsidies for private insurance companies. When it comes to the Energy bill, we can afford over $25 billion of tax cuts and $5 billion of mandatory spending for big energy corporations. But when it comes to discretionary programs that help average Americans, the President insists on cuts. A cut of 0.59 percent would reduce funding for No Child Left Behind programs by over $73 million, resulting in 24,000 fewer kids being served by Title I. Overall, the Title I Education for the Disadvantaged program would be $6 billion below the level authorized by the No Child Left Behind Act that the President signed in January of 2002. Another promise unfulfilled. The across-the-board cut would reduce Head Start funding by $40 million, resulting in 5,500 fewer kids attending Head Start. Veterans Medical Care funding would be cut by $159 million, resulting in 26,500 fewer veterans receiving medical care or 198,000 veterans not getting the drugs they need. Funding for highway construction would be cut by over $170 million. Well, for this President, it is my way or the highway, but fewer Americans will be building highways next year. Chairman Stevens and I tried very hard to produce thirteen bills to send to the President. I commend him for his effort to do so. But, the process was kidnapped by the White House and the leadership. Instead of sending thirteen fiscally responsible appropriations bills to the President, the House is filing a turkey of a conference report. That is no way to govern. That is no way to serve the American people. I wish all Senators a happy Thanksgiving and a happy Christmas. I hope they stay safe for the holidays.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I thank again the Senator.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, Thanksgiving is one of the oldest and most cherished American holidays. Along with the Fourth of July, it is a uniquely American holiday. I realize that other countries and other cultures have their days of feasts, some even have them in autumn to glorify their harvests. But our Thanksgiving, our day of thanks, is a truly American holiday. Thanksgiving is our special day. It is a day on which we celebrate with Turkey, gravy, dressing, cranberry sauce. You should try Erma's cranberry sauce; there is nothing like it anywhere in the world, my wife's cranberry sauce. Just to think of it, just to think of it makes me want to go home now--cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie. In addition to being a time of family togetherness, it is a day of football games, parades, and the beginning of the Christmas holiday season--a little early for the Christmas holiday season, but that is the way it is in this commercial time in which we live. But more profoundly, Thanksgiving is a day for recognizing and celebrating our Pilgrim heritage--that small group of men and women who left their homeland, crossed a mighty ocean, and settled in a wilderness so that they could worship God as they chose. Before disembarking from the ship that brought them to these lands, the famous and legendary Mayflower, this gallant group of early American settlers gathered together and they formulated a government for their new world--a government based on the principle of self-rule. It was also a government under God--a government under God. The document that created that new government, the Mayflower Compact--we should have on our office walls. That government was anticipated in the Mayflower Compact. The Compact read in part--listen to this: In the name of God, amen, we whose names are underwritten . . . Having undertaken for the Glory of God . . . Do by these Presents, solemnly and mutually in the Presence of God and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politik. . . . How about that? That was the Mayflower Compact. A copy of that Compact ought to hang or appear in every schoolroom in this country. I know there are a few atheists around who wouldn't like it, but who cares that they wouldn't like it? Maybe we could win them over. But let us read it again. How wonderful it is to read that. I wonder if there would be those who would say it is unconstitutional. In the name of God, amen, we whose names are underwritten . . . Having undertaken for the Glory of God . . . Do by these Presents, solemnly and mutually in the Presence of God and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politik. . . . A year after landing--after months of privation, suffering, sickness, hunger, and death--these men and women set aside time to express their gratitude to God for protecting them and for the preservation of their community. With all the hardships and agony they had endured, they still set aside time to thank God for being good to them. They were not only men and women of great courage, they were also men and women of great religious faith. Two years later, in 1623, the Pilgrims made this day of thanks a tradition. The spirit of that glorious day, which some people recognize as the first official Thanksgiving, was captured in a proclamation attributed to Governor Bradford that read: Inasmuch as the Great Father has given us this year an abundant harvest of Indian corn, wheat, peas, squashes and garden vegetables, and made the forest to abound with game and the sea with fish and clams, and inasmuch as he has . . . spared us from the pestilence and granted us freedom to worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience, now I, your magistrate, do proclaim that all ye Pilgrims, with your wives and ye little ones, do gather at ye meeting house, on ye hill, between the hours of nine and twelve in the daytime on Thursday, November ye 29th, of the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred and twenty-three, and the third year since ye Pilgrims landed on ye Plymouth Rock, there to listen to ye Pastor and render Thanksgiving to ye all Almighty God for all his blessings. The tradition of Thanksgiving was reaffirmed again during the American Revolution. Following the Battle of Saratoga in October 1777, the American victory that marked a crucial turning point in the war and the birth of our Nation, the Continental Congress approved a resolution designating a day of ``Thanksgiving and praise.'' George Washington wrote of the day set apart--these are words I quoted--the ``day set apart by the honorable Congress for Public Thanksgiving and praise, and duty calling us to devoutly to express our grateful acknowledgments to God for the manifold blessings he has granted us.'' This was George Washington, the Father of our Country, Commander of the American Forces at Valley Forge--George Washington, the first President of the United States, the greatest of all Presidents of these United States--who said in part when he wrote of the ``day set apart by the honorable Congress for public Thanksgiving and praise, and duty calling us devoutly to express our grateful acknowledgments to God for the manifold blessings he has granted us.'' That was George Washington. Following the Revolutionary War, the Continental Congress used Thanksgiving as the day to give thanks to the proper authority for delivering the country from colonization and war into independence and peace. These were our forefathers--George Washington, of whom there is none greater--nay, of whom there is no peer, George Washington. On October 11, 1782, Congress proclaimed ``the twenty-eight day of November next, as a day of solemn THANKSGIVING to God for all his mercies.'' Think about that. On October 11, 1782, Congress proclaimed ``the twenty-eight day of November next, as a day of solemn THANKSGIVING to God for all his mercies: and they do further recommend to all ranks, to testify to their gratitude to God for his goodness.'' I was just verifying from the fine man who serves on my staff that this coming Thanksgiving again falls on the calendar on the day of November 28. The proclamation further stated: It being the indispensable duty of all Nations, not only to offer up their supplication to ALMIGHTY GOD, the giver of all good, for his gracious assistance in a time of distress, but also in a solemn and public manner to give him praise for his goodness in general, and especially for great and signal interpositions of his providence in their behalf. Following the establishment of the new government of the United States in 1789, President George Washington--he is now President; the President is George Washington--issued the first Presidential proclamation calling for ``a day of public thanksgiving and prayer.'' He asked that the public observe that day ``by acknowledging with grateful heart the many favors of Almighty God.'' At President Washington's request, Americans assembled in churches on the appointed day and thanked God for his blessings. Then during the awful Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln officially asked the people of the United States to set aside the last Thursday of November ``as a day of Thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father.'' ``In the midst of a civil war of unequal magnitude and severity,'' President Lincoln proclaimed in 1863 that the country should take a day to acknowledge the gracious gifts of the most high God. Perhaps we have noticed that in every one of these proclamations, the Founders and the early leaders of our country carefully and purposefully recognized and thanked Almighty God for their blessings. So in a year when we have been told that it is wrong to post the Ten Commandments in our courthouses, and we have Federal courts ruling that ours is not a nation under God, it is well to remember how the Founders of our country, going back to the Pilgrims, continuing through the Continental Congresses and our foremost Presidents, Washington and Lincoln, certainly considered ours to be a nation under God. I was a Member of the House of Representatives on June 7, 1954, when the House voted to insert the words ``under God'' in the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag. That was June 7, 1954. I was a Member of the House 1 year from that day, perhaps just coincidentally, when the House voted to place the words ``In God We Trust'' on the currency and coins of these United States. June 7, 1955, that was. There you have it, June 7, 1954, the words ``under God'' were inserted in the Pledge of Allegiance, and 1 year from that day, June 7, 1955, they put the words ``In God We Trust'' on the currency of our Nation. And there they are, the words ``In God We Trust.'' Do you think we would ever have to remove those words from the walls of this Chamber? Let us trust in God that those words will never be removed. No court will ever think that it can remove those words ``In God We Trust'' from the walls of this Chamber. So our foremost Presidents, Washington and Lincoln, certainly considered ours to be a nation under God. They used Thanksgiving, our special unique American holiday, as a time and a reason to celebrate it. That acknowledgment of divine blessing did not stop there. After 1863, President Lincoln issued other Thanksgiving proclamations, and subsequent Presidents who followed him, followed his example. In 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt talked of how appropriate it was to ``set apart one day in each year for a special service of thanksgiving to the Almighty.'' ``It is eminently fitting,'' he proclaimed, ``that once a year our people should set apart a day of praise and thanksgiving to the Giver of Good . . . [therefore] I ask that through the land the people gather in their homes and places of worship and in rendering thanks unto the Most High for the manifold blessings of the past year.'' In his 1938 Thanksgiving proclamation, President Franklin Roosevelt noted: [F]rom the earliest recorded history, Americans have thanked God for their blessings. In our deepest natures, in our very souls, we, like all mankind, since the earliest origin of mankind, turned to God in time of happiness. Mr. President, 20 years later in his 1958 Thanksgiving proclamation, President Eisenhower proclaimed: Let us be especially grateful for the religious heritage bequeathed us by our forefathers, as exemplified by the Pilgrims, who, after the gathering of their first harvest, set apart a special day for rendering thanks to God for the bounties vouchsafed to them. In 1962, President John F. Kennedy asked the American people to ``renew the spirit of the Pilgrims at the first Thanksgiving, lonely in an inscrutable wilderness, facing the dark unknown with a faith borne of their dedication to God and a fortitude drawn from their sense that all men were brothers.'' So it is that we celebrate this unique American holiday, a day devoted to family, to country, and to God. It always has been. I pray it always will be a day for giving thanks. With the turmoil of the past year with our sons and daughters in far away lands putting their lives in danger, we still have so much for which to be thankful. We can be thankful for the heritage of liberty bequeathed to us by our ancestors, and from whom we are entrusted to preserve for future generations of Americans. Mr. President, we can be thankful for the wisdom and the foresight of our Founding Fathers, who bequeathed to us a form of government unique in history, with its three strong pillars of the executive, the legislative, and the judicial branches, each balanced and checked one against the other. Like President Washington, we can be thankful for ``the many favors of Almighty God,'' including a government that ensures our ``safety and happiness.'' And like President Lincoln, we can be thankful for the ``gracious gifts of the most high God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.'' While we are saddened that there are so many young American men and women in uniform who will not be able to be with their families on this holiday, we can be thankful for their courage, thankful for their devotion to duty, and thankful for their service to our Nation. We can be thankful for those men and women who, 383 years ago, had the courage, the faith, and the devotion to our Almighty Father, to God, to embark upon the most difficult and dangerous of journeys and face the darkest unknown so that they, and we, could worship freely. We can be thankful, can we not, for the abundance of America, an abundance that includes an annual production of millions of turkeys, millions of pounds of cranberries and sweet potatoes and pumpkins. Mr. President, a few minutes ago, I read from President Lincoln's Thanksgiving Proclamation of 1863. Permit me now to read from the 1863 White House Thanksgiving menu. According to that menu, in 1863, the White House Thanksgiving dinner consisted of the following, and I quote from that menu: cranberry juice; that is good. How sweet it is, cranberry juice; roast turkey with dressing, cranberry sauce. Look at that man sitting in the chair, presiding over this Senate. Yes, there he is. I can see his mouth is watering like mine is watering. Sweet potatoes, creamed onions. Well, I like my onions just plain onions, not creamed, but that was on the menu. Squash, pumpkin pie, plum pudding, mince pie, milk, and coffee. Does that sound familiar? How about it, does it sound familiar? I hope my wife Erma is watching right at this moment because nobody in my lifetime can spread a table like my wife Erma. She has been spreading that table in my family now for 66 years, bless her heart. But does it sound familiar? It sure sounds like the 2003 Thanksgiving menu at the Byrd house. Boy, how I look forward to it. I am getting hungry just thinking about it. I am getting hungry. How about that? I hope that my listeners are getting hungry also, and thinking about the first Thanksgiving. The first Thanksgiving, how would you have liked to have sat with that incredible, intrepid band of men and women? So I am going to stop talking now, and I am going to head home, before too long, for our great Thanksgiving meal with my wife Erma and our two daughters and their husbands and our five grandchildren, their spouses, and our three great-grandchildren and our little dog, Trouble. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Happy Thanksgiving.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, the Republican leadership and even a member of the President's Cabinet twisted arms and bullied individual House Members late in the night and into the wee hours of Saturday morning. A roll call vote was held open for almost 3 hours--the longest House roll call vote in history--until enough Members ignored their conscience, cried ``mercy,'' and voted ``yes'' on the Medicare bill. I believe most Americans would find such tactics repulsive and unbecoming of how Members of Congress should behave. One might expect to see such arm twisting and intimidation during a prisoner interrogation scene in an episode of ``Law & Order,'' not a voting session of Congress--especially on a vote of such great importance to the citizens of this country. What happened the other night was nothing short of a subversion of the democratic process itself and a subversion of the democratic principles our Founders stood for. Is this the manner of legislating that our Founding Fathers had in mind when they so craftily designed the political institutions of this country? I do not believe it is the scenario our Founders envisioned when they created the Senate--to act as the ``saucer,'' as George Washington so wisely said, to absorb the overheated passions pouring out of the House of Representatives. If ever there were a time for the Senate to act as that ``saucer,'' it is now. It is a time when the health care security of 40 million senior citizens, and millions of Americans for years to come, could be on the brink of collapse as a result of this bill. We may even be in a race toward the finish line of Medicare itself. And I am afraid that the race is driven by partisan politics, extreme ideological fervor, and blatant special-interest greed--all at the expense of our Nation's most vulnerable citizens. Will the Bush administration and Republican leadership of this Congress stop at nothing in order to get what they want? I am bewildered as to why we are engaged in such a mad stampede to ram this bill through the Congress--especially when this legislation will not take effect until 2006. I have been around long enough in Congress to know that the actions of today's leadership smack of arrogant politics and calculated indifference. The more I read through this Medicare bill, the more I become convinced that history is again repeating itself. I can recall a painful experience during my majority leadership when an outraged citizenry, composed mostly of seniors, forced Congress to repeal the ill-fated Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act back in 1989. The year before, Congress was engaged in a Medicare debate eerily similar to the one we are having today. An agreement was reached to make the most sweeping change in Medicare's ``then'' 23 years of existence. At that time, Congress agreed to two key changes to the Medicare Program--a prescription drug benefit and a ``stop-loss'' protection from catastrophic medical bills. Facing deficits as we do today, Congress decided that beneficiaries should pay for the new benefits themselves, with the wealthiest paying the most. The new law included a complicated benefit that was too difficult to explain and a lengthy delay in the benefit's taking effect. In the end, seniors saw the bill, and wanted no part of it. After angry protests, it was repealed. We are poised to make the same mistake again. I foresee a great deal of confusion and dismay occurring around kitchen tables across America when people actually start to read beyond the newspaper headlines and see the fine print of this plan three years from now. Seniors may not know whether to laugh or cry. And if seniors reject this new Medicare plan, it will fail and fail miserably. When senior citizens wake up in 2006 and find out what this bill is really about, it will not be the turkey that needs to be eaten on Thanksgiving day, it will be all of us in Congress eating crow. We should not let political ideology drive our Nation's Medicare policy when we are dealing with the health care and lives of the most vulnerable in the country. I am worried that this body is being asked to hand over one of the most popular Government programs in history to private insurance companies. I have been down this tortured road before during my 51-year tenure in Congress. My constituents and others around the Nation are reeling from public programs that have been turned over to the so-called free market. Utility rates, cable rates, airline rates, you name it, the free market has ensured exorbitant prices with diminished service. Pensions and retirement security have taken a similar beating. So here we are again, this time being presented with a rosy scenario about how private industry competition will improve the Medicare program. The rhetoric is familiar: increased competition, lower costs, and greater services will be provided. Yes, the rhetoric is familiar, but so is the reality. This scheme will not deliver what it promises. I fear that we are going to wind up with a patchwork across the country of differing coverages, differing plans, differing copays and differing premiums. No senior will know for sure what they can count on. Analysis of the GOP Medicare bill estimates that 31,000 Medicare beneficiaries in West Virginia will lose their retiree health benefits as a direct result of this package. Nearly 45,000 Medicaid beneficiaries in West Virginia will pay more for the prescription drugs they need. As many as 27,700 fewer seniors in West Virginia will qualify for low-income protections because of the assets test and lower qualifying income levels. More than 7,500 Medicare beneficiaries in West Virginia will pay more in Medicare premiums because of income means-testing. Let's slow down and take a better look at this legislation and the unintended consequences. We need more time to explain this plan to our elderly citizens. Don't we need their feedback? I doubt that our Nation's seniors will be excited about accepting a bill that poisons the well. Seniors will likely want no part of it--especially when they see how it will undermine the rest of Medicare down the road. Just like they did almost 15 years ago, they may revolt, and Members of Congress could be back here scratching their heads and scrambling to find a solution and save their seats. This bill fails our seniors. It sells senior citizens out in exchange for big profits for prescription drug companies. America's senior citizens and disabled citizens deserve more than some new hocus-pocus scheme that leaves them naked to the whims of private insurance companies, and offers only a new-you-see-it, now-you-don't promise of coverage. Instead of selling illusions, Congress ought to go back to work and settle on a good, comprehensive, voluntary Medicare prescription drug benefit. Let's not shortchange our seniors. We owe them much, much better.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, our friend, the distinguished Senator from Idaho, who serves on the Appropriations Committee, is welcome. I thank him for his kind references to me. I thank the Chair, Senator Cornyn of Texas, who has had the good fortune of presiding over the Senate on many occasions this year. I say, I have had the good fortune of speaking on almost every occasion that the Senator from Texas has presided over the Senate, and he presides so well. He presides with a degree of dignity and skill and aplomb that is so rare as a day in June. I also thank my majority whip, the best whip the Senate has ever had. And I have been the whip. I was the whip for 6 years. But I say--I will repeat the words of a great poet--``You're a better man than I am Gunga Din.'' Harry Reid is a better whip than I was, and it wasn't because I didn't do my best. I don't grow lax in any job. Any duty that is placed on me, I do my very best. But he is a jewel, Harry Reid. Let me thank the Senator from Illinois also, the distinguished Senator, Mr. Durbin. He is always so gracious, but he can afford to be gracious. He is so able, an inimitable debater. He can speak at the drop of a hat, and the hat won't hit the ground. That man, Durbin, is a very fluent and ready speaker. I am so pleased that he is my friend and that he is a Senator on my side of the aisle. I thank him for his courtesies on this beautiful morning in November. It is a beautiful morning. May I say to the young pages who are here so early in the morning: Ah, great it is to believe the dream As we stand in youth by the starry stream; But a greater thing is to fight life through And say at the end, The dream is true! Mr. President, I had hoped to be out here on the floor talking about a plan to give senior citizens a prescription drug benefit for Medicare. I had hoped to be extolling the virtues of a bill that would give needed relief to the millions of our Nation's elderly citizens who have been serving their country and their communities for so long and who are entitled to needed relief. Instead, the Congress will be voting on a measure that would undermine Medicare--undermine Medicare, I say. Listen to me. Hear me now. The elderly citizens who are watching through those electronic lenses, and also the sons and daughters of the elderly citizens as well, will be affected. So instead of voting on a measure that would give relief to the elderly citizens of this country, we are going to vote on something else. In speaking of the elderly citizens, I speak of the young people as well. Why do I say that? I say it because I can remember the days when there was no Social Security or Medicare Program in this country. I used to go by the old county poor farm in Raleigh County, and as I traveled by there many years ago I would see sitting on the porch up there at the old county poor farm, sitting just within sight of the road, those old people in their rocking chairs. They had no dreams to look forward to. When they grew old, as some of them did--and those coal miners especially grew old early in life--they had no place to go, no place to go but to the homes of their sons and daughters. They would stand with their hats in their hands waiting to be taken in by their children. What a life. Then there came to the White House of this country a crippled man, a man who was paralyzed, a man who could not walk, as I can walk even at my young age of 86. There they stood waiting at the gates of their children hoping that they could be taken in. Then that man came to the White House and a Democratic Congress worked with him to give to the people of this country, the elderly citizens and their children, that promise. He fulfilled that promise of Social Security so that no longer would the old folks stand at the gates of their children with their hats in their hands. They could live out their lives with dignity and not be such a burden to their children. Then I remember Medicare when it came. I was a Member of the Senate and voted for that program. That was when Lyndon Johnson, a great Democrat, was President of this land. Again, the Democratic Congress, working with that Democratic President, gave to the country this program of Medicare, the most successful program that the country has ever had, a program that today's Senators know and trust. The Congress should be fashioning a real prescription drug benefit. That is what the American people have been told we are doing, but we are not doing that. Instead, the Congress debates a major restructuring and a step toward the privatization of Medicare. I watched them tearing a building down, A gang of men in a busy town. With a ho-heave-ho and a lusty yell, They swung a beam and a sidewall fell. I asked the foreman, ``Are these men skilled, As the men you'd hire if you had to build?'' He gave me a laugh and said, ``No, indeed! Just common labor is all I need. I can easily wreck in a day or two What builders have taken a year to do.'' And I thought to myself as I went my way, Which of these two roles have I tried to play? Am I builder who works with care, Measuring my life by the rule and square? Am I shaping my deeds by well-made plan, Patiently doing the best I can? Or am I a wrecker who walks the town, Content with the labor of tearing down? That is what we are doing here. That is what we are about to do. That is what we are getting ready to do. That is what the seniors and their children of this country are about to see happen. This building which was built by careful hands, by caring hands, is about to be torn down. This is a debate that has largely been hidden from the public, a debate for which our Nation's seniors did not ask. They did not ask for this. The conference report before us was hatched behind closed doors. We see so much of that time and again under this Bush administration-- programs, plots, hatched behind closed doors. Most Members of Congress have been largely excluded from the backroom deals--largely excluded from the backroom deals--that produced this conference report. Some have asserted this legislation is merely a Trojan horse designed to get rid of Medicare. I hope that is not true, but there is something awfully suspicious about this particular horse that is galloping through the Congress. We need to slow down and consider the unintended consequences of this massive bill. We may be signing off on the assisted suicide of Medicare as we know it. This legislation takes the first step to undermine a health care system that has benefited millions of retirees, and it is all happening within legislation designed to enhance Medicare to provide a drug benefit. Proponents are selling it one way but may be doing something quite different. You know the old magic tricks? I can remember vaudeville. I can remember when the vaudeville shows came to those coal camps in the hills of southern West Virginia and the actor would say: Watch my right hand, watch my hand, watch my hand. Don't look at this one. Watch this hand. Don't look at what's going on over here. There is my friend from Maryland--he knows; he remembers--Senator Sarbanes, one of the great pillars of the Senate, one of the truly great Senators, a thinker in the tradition of the venerable Socrates: Paul Sarbanes. So proponents are selling it one way but may be doing something quite different--a classic bait and switch. But seniors are not falling for the bait. Many letters coming to me clearly reveal a genuine fear that this Medicare bill will leave seniors worse off. West Virginians have not been clamoring for enrollment in HMOs. They don't want restrictions on their choice of doctors. They have not been pushing for a new Medicare system that could leave them bouncing in and out of private health plans. My constituents are rightly fearful at the thought of having to pay significantly higher premiums just to stay in their current Medicare plan. Some analysts of this bill estimate that as many as 29,000 beneficiaries in West Virginia will lose their retiree health benefits as a direct result of this bill and that as many as 45,000 Medicaid beneficiaries in my State will pay more for the prescription drugs they need. I thought our goal was to help seniors, not hurt them, as this bill may do. Senior citizens across America are fed up with fast rising drug costs that they cannot afford. They are traveling by the busload to Canada-- yes, traveling by the busload to Canada and Mexico--just to obtain the medications prescribed by their doctors. And this bill does nothing, zilch, to help reduce the price of prescription drugs. In fact, this legislation explicitly prohibits the Federal Government from directly negotiating with pharmaceutical companies to use the bargaining power of 40 million senior citizens to lower the cost of prescription medicines. This is something the Veterans' Administration, the Department of Defense, the Medicaid Program do every day to save money on drugs. Why in the world are we prohibiting Medicare from saving money? Unfortunately, this bill offers more of a figleaf than sufficient prescription drug coverage--a figleaf. Do Senators remember the first question that was ever asked in the history of the human race? It occurred during the evening, during the cool of the day when God came walking through the Garden of Eden looking for Adam and Eve. There they were in that paradise--how it might have been, how it might have been. God came through in the cool of the evening looking for Adam, and it was there and then that God asked that first question: Adam, where art thou? Adam, where art thou? Adam was hiding. Adam and Eve were hiding. They were trying to hide from that all-seeing eye that pierced through every veil. Yes, they were hiding back in the bushes with a figleaf--a figleaf. That question: Where art thou? These seniors, senior citizens all over this country, are going to be asking their Senators: Where were you? Where were you when the critical moment came? I hear the siren call: ``You better take it. It's all you are going to get.'' This Senator will never bow to that siren call. And there are others who will not. Rather than building on the traditional and successful Medicare Program, the measure in front of us would force Medicare beneficiaries to rely on a private, untried, untested, drug-only insurance market for their prescription drug coverage. Is that what our seniors want? Is that what the people of West Virginia want? No. No. It would cover less than a quarter of the Medicare beneficiaries' estimated drug costs over the next 10 years. The complicated coverage formula has a large, gaping hole smack in the middle, providing zero coverage just when seniors might need that coverage most--a large hole, large enough for Attila the Hun to drive his thousands of horsemen through. This legislation includes copayments, premiums, and deductibles that may be unaffordable for many low- and middle-income seniors. A closer look at the fine print of this legislation reveals that private insurers could choose to charge seniors double or even triple these amounts. Seniors may find that their premiums could fluctuate dramatically based upon where they live and how healthy they are. At the same time, the Federal Government will be handing over billions of taxpayer dollars to for-profit insurance companies, just to get them to participate in Medicare. Let's face it, the kind of prescription drug benefit that we have repeatedly promised to our Nation's seniors and they now rightly expect would cost at least $800 billion during the next decade. Drug costs for senior citizens alone are expected to total almost $2 trillion during this same period. Yet the Bush administration and congressional leadership have only set aside $400 billion for a Medicare prescription drug benefit. Although, isn't it remarkable that we can afford to spend $1 billion a week--$1 billion a week--in Iraq? I will have plenty more to say about that. I made 62 speeches on that gargantuan mistake. I will make some more, the Lord willing. Missiles? Yes. Medicines? No. Missiles? Yes. Medicines? No. Where are the priorities of this administration? Where are the priorities of the Congress? It seems that this Congress is trying to pull the wool over the eyes of our Nation's seniors hoping to claim victory and keep seniors in the dark until they become painfully aware of the fine print in this legislation upon a visit to their local pharmacy--in 2006. That will be my next election year, 2006, the Lord willing. In the Book of James, we are told always never to say, I will go here, I will go to this city or to that city, I will buy this, or I will buy that tomorrow, but always to say, the Lord willing, I will go to this city or I will go to that city and I will buy this or that. So, the Lord willing, 2006 is my next election day. Eighty-six is not too old. I am 86 years old. Abraham lived to be 175, Isaac lived to be 180, Jacob lived to be 147, Moses, 160; and so on.

Mr. BYRD. Was I wrong on that?