Benjamin Cardin

Mr. CARDIN

Mr. CARDIN. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. CARDIN

Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I take this time to talk about the pending business: the deficit of this country and the looming debt ceiling limit that will be exceeded in August if we don't take any action in the Congress. First, let me talk a little bit about the debt ceiling. There has been a lot of talk about the debt ceiling as to what is responsible for Congress to do. We all know that over the last 50 years or so, the debt ceiling has been increased over 80 times. It is done after the fact. That means we have already incurred the liability, and the question is whether we will pay our bills. The decisions we have to make in regard to our fiscal policies need to be made at the time we consider the budget, but now we have to pay our bills, and raising the debt ceiling is not only a legal responsibility that we have to pay our bills, it is also a moral responsibility and speaks to whether we are willing to live up to our obligations. The failure to raise the debt ceiling would be irresponsible. It would jeopardize our national security because it would cost taxpayers more money, and it would say to the world that U.S. bonds, which are the safest in the world, are called into question. I think we all should agree we need to make sure we increase the debt ceiling in time so we do not cause those adverse effects to our Nation. The debt ceiling debate gives us an opportunity to do something about the deficit. Our deficit is not sustainable. By that, I mean if we do not change course, our debt will be too large as a percentage of our economy to be sustainable. We need to deal with spending and we need to deal with revenue and bring them into balance. The discussions on the debt ceiling could be the opportunity for us to develop a credible plan to manage our deficit, and I certainly hope that is the case, that we come together with a credible plan to manage our deficit. I hope it will be bipartisan, that Democrats and Republicans will work together on a plan. It would not be exactly what either side wants. In fact, we will both have to make compromises. If we do that, if we have a credible plan, I believe it will stimulate our economy and clearly help us create more jobs, which is the best we can do to help reduce our deficit. To start, we have to understand how we got to this point. Ten years ago, we had surpluses. Ten short years ago, we had surpluses. We were concerned that we might be retiring all of our privately held debt. I was proud to have been part of the Congress that voted on the legislation that brought our deficits down and gave us a surplus and one of the longest periods of economic growth in America's history. Then, during the previous administration which inherited that large surplus, policies were brought forward to cut taxes, not once but twice. Many of those tax cuts went to our wealthiest people. The United States went to war in two countries and borrowed money in order to pursue those wars--I think the first time in modern history the United States went to war and asked the people to sacrifice by cutting taxes. The end result was large deficits, and when Barack Obama became President, he had huge deficits, unlike George W. Bush, who had huge surpluses. When George W. Bush took the oath of office for the Presidency, our economy was growing jobs. When Barack Obama became President of the United States, we were losing 750,000 jobs a month. That is the current situation. The situation we face today is we have these deficits we have to deal with. How do we deal with them? We need a balanced approach. I must tell you that I am proud Senator Conrad, on behalf of the Democrats on the Budget Committee, has come forward with a credible plan that preserves the priorities of this country to grow and does bring our deficit under control. I am proud to be a member of the Budget Committee. Working with Senator Conrad, working with my Democratic colleagues, we put together the plan Senator Conrad spoke about on the floor earlier this week. First, the most important aspect of Senator Conrad's budget is that it brings down the deficit by $4 trillion over the next 10 years. It actually has more deficit reduction than the House-passed so-called Ryan plan that the Republicans in the House sent over to us. The Conrad plan that the Senate Democrats have come up with will bring about more deficit reduction and substantially more deficit reduction than the Bowles-Simpson commission had recommended because we are using more accurate numbers. It would stabilize the debt by 2014. That is a very important point. I think what we are all trying to do is manage our deficit and at the same time help our economy. That is what the Conrad budget does. It stabilizes the debts by 2014, and it starts with reducing domestic spending. When we look at spending generally and what has happened, we are now spending about 24.1 percent of our GDP. The Conrad budget over 10 years would bring that down to 22.1 percent--a substantial reduction in our spending programs. Let me tell you, 22.1 percent would be the same amount of government spending as we were spending during the Reagan Presidency. This is not any radical approach to saying we are going to spend a lot more money. Instead, we are bringing spending down to the level it was when Ronald Reagan was President of the United States. The budget would also deal with our obligations for mandatory spending. We took major steps to do that in the last Congress. The passage of the affordable care act helped us to put forward a blueprint to manage our health care costs as a nation by providing universal coverage, by investing in health information technology, by investing in wellness programs, by investing in reducing readmissions to hospitals--the list goes on and on. We are getting a handle on health care costs. The CBO says to us that the bill we passed in the last Congress would reduce Federal spending by over $1 trillion over the next 20 years. By reducing health care costs, we reduce Medicare and Medicaid future responsibilities. So we have already taken some steps. The Conrad budget that the Democrats in the Senate have brought forward will build on that to bring about additional savings in domestic spending. But the important thing about the budget Senator Conrad has brought forward as compared to the Ryan budget, the Republican budget that passed the House, is that the Conrad budget invests in America's future because it is balanced. We invest in what is important for job growth in America. We continue to make education a top priority so American families can afford to send their children to college, so we invest in improving educational opportunities for all people in our Nation. The Conrad budget allows us to invest so America can continue to lead the world in innovation. That has been where we have created so many jobs. In my own State of Maryland, I look at where the job growth is, and I see small innovative companies developing ways to protect our Nation in cyber security, I see them finding ways to solve our energy problems, moving forward with health technology--all in innovation, all from the ability to use our creative genius to keep America in the lead economically. The Conrad budget allows us to continue our investments in NIH in basic research. The Ryan budget does not allow us to do that. There are significant cutbacks in all those areas. The Conrad budget, which the House and Senate Democrats have brought forward, allows us to invest in our infrastructure--our roads, our bridges, our water systems, our transit systems--so that America can truly be competitive in the future, creating more jobs for the people in this Nation. The budget also deals with our military spending. Let me tell you one fact that I think the people of this Nation should understand. America spends as much on defense as almost the entire amount spent by all the other nations of the world. It is difficult to see how our Nation can continue to grow the way we want to with so much of our budget tied up in national defense. We need to figure out a better way and one where we can save money. Between 1997 and 2011, the defense budget of our country grew from $254 billion a year to $688 billion a year. What does the Republican budget do? They just increase those numbers dramatically over the next year, 5 years, 10 years. The Democratic proposal recognizes the reality that we can bring our combat troops home from Afghanistan, that we can expect the international community to do more, and we can bring about savings on the military side. Let me talk about the last major component of the Conrad budget and how it differs substantially from the Ryan budget; that is, the area of revenues. I know there has been a lot of discussion about revenues. What does the Democratic budget do in this regard? It takes our revenues to 19.5 percent of our gross domestic product. That is the same amount that was raised during the Clinton Presidency when we had unprecedented prosperity and job growth in America. How do we get there? How do we get the revenues we need in order to be able to bring this debt under control? Senator Conrad has given us some direction on how we can do that. He has pointed out that shelters and loopholes need to be closed. These are inefficiencies in our Tax Code today. I have taken the floor on two occasions recently to talk about some that I think we should eliminate. One is the ethanol subsidy. We had a vote on the floor of the Senate, and the majority of Senators voted in favor of eliminating the ethanol subsidy. Why? Because it is not needed. Ethanol sales are not dependent upon a Federal tax break. Second, it is causing a disruption in the agricultural community. I pointed out that the poultry industry in Maryland suffers from the high price of corn, costing us jobs. Eliminating the ethanol subsidies is a win-win situation. Why not take that money and use it for deficit reduction? I also pointed out the major gas companies in this country are receiving subsidies from the taxpayers. Their profits in the first 3 months of this year were $34 billion. They certainly don't need the help from the taxpayers. The taxpayers have already given them too much in the price of gasoline at the pump, which has hurt our economy except for the profits of the gasoline companies. So there are tax loopholes, and there are shelters that could be closed that amount to a substantial amount of Federal expenditure. And, yes, the highest income taxpayers, the millionaires and billionaires, is it reasonable or right or fair to expect that they should continue to get these lower tax rates that were temporarily extended under the Bush administration indefinitely when we are trying to figure out ways in which we could bring the budget into balance? Senator Conrad has made it very clear that there would be no change from the current tax rates for those families who have $1 million of income or less. I think that is a pretty generous commitment about not changing tax rates, particularly during these economic times. Let's compare the budgets. The Republican budget, the Ryan budget, says: Look, all the savings are going to come out of the spending side and, in fact, we are going to have some additional tax cuts--asking middle-income families to pay more while our wealthiest enjoy even more tax breaks. The Democratic budget, submitted by Senator Conrad, says: We are going to be balanced. Mr. President, 50 percent of our deficit reduction is on the revenue side, but that includes reducing tax expenditures, tax spending. We spend money in the Tax Code, $1.4 trillion a year. I don't understand the difference if we are spending more on housing on the Tax Code or spending money on housing on the appropriations bill. Both should be subject to the same type of scrutiny. So why aren't we using a similar standard? Well, we have a chance to do that in the Conrad budget--50 percent from revenues, including tax spending, 50 percent from the direct spending cuts. That is a balanced approach. That is a credible approach. It is an approach that will protect our most vulnerable. Our students are protected to make sure we continue our commitment to education and to the cost of higher education through the Pell grants. Our seniors are protected in that we do not do what the Ryan budget would do with Medicare and Medicaid. Let me remind you, the budget the Republicans passed in the House would change Medicare fundamentally, changing it from a program that guarantees benefits to our seniors to a program where seniors would get a voucher and have to go out and buy from a private insurance company and be at the whim of private insurance companies for adequate protection against their health care needs. It is estimated their health care costs would grow when fully implemented by $6,000 a year. The seniors of Maryland cannot afford an extra $6,000 a year. That will be the difference between an individual getting adequate health care or not. The Conrad budget rejects that type of radical change in our Medicare system. The Ryan budget would require the block-granting of Medicaid to our States. Our States are already burdened. The chances of them being able to maintain their commitment to young people who depend on the Medicaid system, our seniors who depend upon it for long-term care, is very remote. The Conrad budget protects those programs to make sure we live up to our commitments to provide adequate protection to our families and seniors. Social Security is protected in the Conrad budget because Social Security didn't cause the deficit. Social Security should be considered outside the budget debates, and I think more and more of the Members are now coming to that conclusion. Let me mention one other point I think is very important about the Democratic budget that Senator Conrad has brought forward. It recognizes our Federal workforce. I know my colleague is particularly concerned about that representing the State of Virginia. I am particularly concerned about that representing the people of Maryland. We have a lot of dedicated Federal workers who have devoted their careers to helping this Nation by protecting our Nation in their service in homeland security or protecting us in regards to how they deal with health services or how they deal with our veterans. These are dedicated people, and they have already contributed to this deficit reduction. Two-year pay freezes have already been implemented. They have already done their share in helping us bring our budget into balance. The Conrad budget, I am proud to say, says that is enough. Let's not jeopardize our Federal workforce by reducing their compensation package in addition to the freezes. It shows we can do it that way. Take a look at the Ryan budget that the Republicans have sent over. It contains major reductions in the compensation packages going forward for our Federal workforce. There is a better way. The better way is the Conrad budget. Quite frankly, we have a choice. We have a choice on whether we are going to move forward and how we are going to move forward. I strongly support a credible plan to deal with the deficit. As I said, we need to get our deficit under control, but we can do it in a way that preserves opportunities for all Americans, creates job opportunities that are desperately needed for our Nation, and protects America's most vulnerable. To me, that is maintaining America's future. That is giving us the best hope so our children and grandchildren will enjoy the opportunities of this great Nation, and that should be the guiding force for our work. I certainly hope my colleagues will work together so we can come together for the future of this Nation. With that, I would suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CARDIN

Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that CPT Michael K. Lynch, a U.S. Army aviation officer who is currently serving as the defense legislative fellow for the majority leader, be granted the privilege of the floor for the duration of consideration of S. 1255, the Military Construction Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012.

Mr. CARDIN

Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, Baltimore lost one of its most beloved adopted sons last night, former Baltimore Colt tight end John Mackey. John revolutionized the position and was the second tight end to be enshrined in the National Football League's, NFL, Hall of Fame. He became the first president of the NFL Players Association, NFLPA, after the NFL merged with the old American Football League. He was a tenacious and effective advocate for the players, bargaining for higher salaries and better benefits. He organized a 3-day strike early in his tenure that generated an additional $11 million in pensions and benefits. Mackey also filed and won an antitrust lawsuit against the NFL which eliminated the so-called ``Rozelle Rule'' and ultimately paved the way for players' union to secure full free agency for its members. For the last 10 years, he suffered from dementia and had to move into an assisted living facility that cost much more than his pension. So he and his beloved wife Sylvia led the fight to convince the NFLPA and the NFL to establish the ``88 Plan,'' named for his uniform number, which provides adult day care and nursing home care for retired players suffering from dementia or Alzheimer's disease. Even in death, John continues to give: Sylvia has announced that his brain will be donated to a Boston University School of Medicine study of brain damage in athletes. Researchers at the university's Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy are examining potential links between repeated concussions and chronic traumatic encephalopathy, CTE, a condition which mirrors symptoms of dementia and Alzheimer's disease. John Mackey grew up in Roosevelt, NY. He was a man of strong convictions, a character trait he inherited from his father, who was a Baptist minister. John was offered an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy but turned it down to attend Syracuse University, where he studied economics, became an All-American football player, and roomed with Ernie Davis, who became the first African American to win the Heisman Trophy. The Colts drafted him in 1963 and he caught more touchdown passes and gained more yards as a rookie than the team's two wide receivers, Hall of Famer Raymond Berry and Jimmy Orr. John was big and strong, like other tight ends of his era, but he could run after catching a pass like no other tight end before him. As Hall of Fame coach Don Shula said, ``Mackey gave us a tight end who weighed 230, ran a 4.6 and could catch the bomb. It was a weapon other teams didn't have.'' John was a three-time All-NFL selection. He played in five Pro Bowls. In 1969, while still playing, he made the NFL's 50th anniversary team as pro football's all-time tight end. Over the course of his career, he caught 38 touchdown passes, 13 of which were for 50 yards or more, including an 89-yarder against the Los Angeles Rams in 1966. That particular touchdown pass was the longest of the 290 scoring passes in Hall of Fame legend Johnny Unitas's career. In a 10-year career, John caught 331 passes for 5,236 yards. Perhaps the biggest and most memorable play in John's career came in the 1971 Super Bowl, when he caught a pass from Unitas that had been deflected by two other players--Colts receiver Eddie Hinton and Dallas Cowboys defender Mike Renfro--and scored a touchdown on the 75-yard play. The Colts went on to win that game in dramatic fashion on Jim O'Brien's field goal with 5 seconds left in the game. By the time John retired, he had already endeared himself to the people of Baltimore, but he wasn't finished. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1992, but he refused to accept his ceremonial ring in Indianapolis, where the Colts had moved in 1984. He said, ``I will do it in Baltimore. That is where I played.'' And so he received his Hall of Fame ring in Memorial Stadium, at half-time of an exhibition game between Miami and New Orleans. I send my deepest condolences to John's wife Sylvia, to whom he was married for 47 years; his son John Kevin Mackey of Atlanta; two daughters Lisa Mackey Hazel of Bowie and Laura Mackey Nattans of Baltimore; and John and Sylvia's six grandchildren. John Mackey has been taken from us much too soon, but what a life he lived. He was one of the greatest collegiate and professional football players of all time. The Mackey Award is given annually to the best tight end in college. He is enshrined in the Hall of Fame. He led the NFLPA and then courageously led the fight for retired players which culminated in the ``88 Plan.'' His accomplishments and legacy will endure in the hearts and minds of his fellow players and Baltimore Colts fans and football fans forever.

Mr. CARDIN

Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, let me thank the senior Senator from Ohio, Mr. Brown, for his leadership for working families. We were colleagues in the House of Representatives and there was no more effective voice on behalf of working families than Congressman Brown, now Senator Brown. I just want to thank him for bringing these issues to our attention. He is absolutely right, there has been an all-out assault on the dignity of working families in this country at all levels. I will talk a little bit about the budget deliberations because I believe here, also, we find an assault on the middle-income families. As President Kennedy said, ``to govern is to choose.'' We have never had a clearer choice of two different visions of America. I wish to talk a little bit about that because I know we are all working hard to reach a fair compromise, and I am one of those who believe the final agreement will not be what the Democrats want or what the Republicans want. We will have to do a compromise. But I think the people of this Nation need to know the types of choices we are making here in Washington. I see the Republicans--and I have heard some of the speeches that were recently given on the floor--are really trying to protect the very wealthy, the millionaires. In the Republican budget, millionaires would get another $200,000 of tax cuts, where at the same time that budget would cost our seniors, who live on fixed incomes, an extra $6,000 a year in health care costs if their plan on Medicare were to become law. Those are the types of choices we are being asked to make here, being asked to continue the gas subsidies--the tax subsidies for the five biggest oil companies in this country. That is what the Republican budget would protect. They would protect those tax breaks. Let me remind you that those five companies in the last decade made $1 trillion in profits, that during the time we saw escalating gas prices here and our economy being hurt by it, people could not afford to fill up their gas tanks. Yet at the same time those five oil companies had record profits. So we say: Let's take away the government subsidies. Yet the choice for our Republican friends is to say: No, we can't do that. Instead, they look at cutting nutrition programs and Pell grants to make it more expensive for children to be able to go to college or nutrition programs to try to have a healthier America. Well, what we are pushing for is a balanced approach in how we deal with this budget deficit. We could talk a long time about how we got here, the policies of the previous administration. Just 10 years ago, we had these large surpluses. The previous administration cut taxes not once but twice, the second time using the credit card in order to pay for those tax cuts, went to war not in one country but in two countries and used the credit card in order to pay for those wars, and are wondering why we have all this debt today. Well, it is our responsibility to take care of this deficit because this deficit is affecting the strength of America. We know we need to have a balanced approach in order to do it. I, along with the Presiding Officer, am a member of the Budget Committee. We are working hard on the Budget Committee to come up with a way we can deal with it.The Democrats on that committee are united that there is a better way than the Republican budget that came over from the House of Representatives. Let me talk a little bit about whether this is class warfare. I have heard that mentioned many times. This might surprise you. I might agree with my Republican friends. I think the Republican budget is an attack on class. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said the Republican budget ``would produce the largest redistribution of income from the bottom to the top in modern U.S. history.'' We are asking the poor and working families to contribute so the wealthy can get more tax breaks. That is just wrong. What we want to see is a balanced approach, an approach that says: Look, this deficit is very serious. We have to ask and save money wherever we can to balance the Federal budget. It starts by looking at our domestic spending. We have been willing to say: Look, for programs that are not high-priority programs, we have to cut back on them. Programs that are not working we are going to have to eliminate. Let's get rid of duplicate programs. We say we are prepared to do that. But you also have to look at the nondomestic programs--our military programs and security programs. We know we are in the process now of bringing our combat troops home from Afghanistan. That can produce savings. Let's use that to reduce the budget deficit. There are ways we can get this deficit down. I was listening to one of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle talk about the so-called tax expenditures. Let me put this in context for one moment. Our Tax Code spends about $1.4 trillion a year in special provisions to give special breaks to different taxpayers. I think none of us are saying all of those should be eliminated. What we are saying is, when you find tax loopholes, when you find shelters, when you find tax havens, let's get rid of them. I have taken to the floor to talk about two areas where I think there is broad consensus. The ethanol subsidy--we do not need it any longer. It is questionable whether we ever needed it. The industry will do just fine without the subsidy. But let me tell you what the subsidy causes. It causes my poultry farmers in Maryland to pay a lot more for their corn, costing jobs in Maryland. So there is a tax subsidy we can get rid of. We had a vote on the floor, and it was quite obvious that the overwhelming majority agrees with that. Why can't we use that for deficit reduction? We talked about the gas industry. Why are we giving them subsidies? There is no need for them. So we can take those tax shelters, we can take those tax havens, and we can take those loopholes and use that. And, yes, I think there is a question as to why millionaires are going to continue to get a tax cut that was meant to be temporary in nature when we need as much revenue as we can get to pay off our bills. I think there is an issue here as to whether that is fair. How do we tell students they have to pay more for college, how do we tell families that fewer will be able to go to Head Start, how do we tell our seniors they have to pay more and yet we tell the millionaires they are going to get additional tax cuts? That is not fair, and it does not make good sense for our economy. There is a better way. I know my colleague from Rhode Island will speak next. He also serves on the Budget Committee. We Democrats have a better way of doing this. We know how we can reduce the budget deficit by even more than the Simpson-Bowles deficit commission proposed, where we can bring in the deficit and bring it under control to make it a reasonable amount of our economy rather than uncontrolled, as it is today. We can do that by bringing in not just domestic spending but also our defense spending in order to reduce spending more in this country. We can do that, and we can do it in a way that protects the integrity of Medicare. We do not want our seniors at the risk of private insurance companies. We do not want private insurance companies telling our seniors when they can get care and when they cannot. We tried that before we created Medicare, and we know the problems that were created by that. So in our budget, we want to protect the integrity of Social Security and Medicare and the programs that are critically important to our seniors. We will close the tax loopholes. We will eliminate shelters. We will make sure everybody is part of the solution. We can do it in a way that will help build this great Nation. Let me tell you what our objectives are, quite frankly. Our objectives are to manage our deficit, bring it down, bring it under control in a real way, to protect those who are most vulnerable in our country, and to invest in America's future so we can create more jobs, so we can continue to build our roads and our bridges, our water systems, so we can continue to invest in education, and, yes, so we can protect our Federal workforce and pay them decent salaries and compensation benefits. We can do all that. But if we are going to get the job done, Democrats and Republicans have to be honest in their debate and their compromise. It will not be what one side wants. We are going to have to compromise for the good of the American people. I took the time today to share with the people of Maryland and the Nation where I believe our vision should be in regard to the budget of this Nation. I hope we are able to achieve those objectives because I really do believe our children's and grandchildren's future depends on us getting this right. If we work together, we can pass a budget that is in the best interests of the American people and will allow our economy to grow to create jobs, which is the best answer to deal with our deficit. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. CARDIN

Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, this year marks the 75th anniversary of Catoctin Mountain Park, one of Maryland's most spectacular national parks. Located in northern Frederick County in western Maryland, Catoctin, MD, is a popular wilderness refuge just a few hours away from the bustling urban centers of Baltimore and Washington, DC. People of all walks of life visit Catoctin Mountain, whether it is working Maryland and Pennsylvania families taking a weekend camping trip to Misty Mount or U.S. Presidents taking a weekend retreat to Camp David to work or relax without the distractions of Washington. I am proud to celebrate the diamond anniversary of this wonderful natural treasure in my home State. Catoctin Mountain Park is 5,810 acres of wilderness in the foothills of Maryland's Blue Ridge Mountains. The name Catoctin is what the Algonquians, the predominant Native American tribe of the Mid-Atlantic region prior to European settlement, called the region where Catoctin Mountain Park is located. The Algonquians were known to use rhyolite rocks found throughout the rocky terrain for spearheads and European settlers and Algonquians alike would fish for trout in mountain streams that also supplied water for early agricultural settlements in the valleys around the mountain. The growth of the settler population in Maryland during colonialism and postrevolutionary America, gave rise to agriculture and industry in western Maryland. The growing industrial age changed the ecological and social condition of the wilderness of the eastern United States and western Maryland was no exception. Logging activities for ship and structural building, iron ore extraction and the arrival of the Western Maryland Railroad drastically changed the culture and natural state of Catoctin. The Great Depression of the 1930s slowed economic progress and thwarted industrial growth across the country. The extractive industries of the Mid-Atlantic suffered greatly. The Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal ushered in sweeping public works programs to help get Americans back to work building America's infrastructure and renewing the stewardship of our Nation's great resources. Catoctin Mountain Park is a testament to the success of the New Deal's Works Progress Administration and the Civilian Conservation Corps. In May of 1933 the Federal Emergency Relief Administration was appropriated $300,000,000 to be spent on public works projects designed to provide work for struggling Americans. In 1934 a land planning committee established under the Federal Emergency Relief Act was examining how to put fallow land to better use. Conrad L. Wirth, Assistant Director to the Chief Branch of Planning of the National Park Service served on the land planning committee. Based on the findings in a 1928 report of the Joint Committee on Recreational Survey of Federal Lands, Wirth decided one of the answers to the report's ``urgent need'' to ``provide quality outdoor recreation facilities at the lowest cost for the benefit of people of lower and middle incomes'' on natural areas near urban areas was to establish a recreational area in western Maryland proximate to Baltimore and Washington. By 1934, years of agricultural, logging and resource extraction activities had taken its toll on the economic value of the land comprising Catoctin. With $25 million transferred to Public Works Administration the Department of the Interior was able to purchase the ``sub-marginal'' lands that now make up Catoctin Mountain Park. Catoctin was officially placed into the program in January of 1935 and within a year and a half, and hundreds of man hours of work, Catoctin Recreational Demonstration Area was officially opened on August 8, 1936. In the years immediately following Catoctin's official placement under the National Park Service's jurisdiction, The Works Progress Administration and Civilian Conservation Corps provided work for hundreds of men looking to learn a trade, earn a wage and develop leadership skills. These programs are responsible for providing some of the base training these men needed before going off to fight in World War II. The programs themselves reforested the park and restored its natural beauty. The CCC planted thousands of Maples, Pine and Oak trees in the park. The CCC also helped restore mountain streams and create suitable habitat for native fish and wildlife to return to the mountain. These hardworking men also built many park structures still in use today including the Blue Blazes Contact Station which is now the Catoctin Mountain Park Visitor Center, Camp Round Meadow and Camp Misty Mount. The legacy of the hard work of these Depression-era CCC and PWA workers lives on today and will continue to be enjoyed for years to come. President Roosevelt personally experienced the success of the CCC and WPA at Catoctin on many occasions. This is because one major component of the Works Progress Administration's at Catoctin was to build Hi- Catoctin camp for Federal Government agents, now known as Camp David. FDR hosted Winston Churchill at Catoctin in May of 1943 and every President since FDR has made use of Camp David. Perhaps most famously is President Jimmy Carter who brought Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to Camp David where he brokered the Camp David Peace Accords in September of 1978. But many Presidents and their families go to Camp David, for the same reason everyone else does, to simply enjoy the spectacular outdoor recreational opportunities the park has to offer. More than 80,000 visitors a year come to Catoctin Mountain Park to experience the park's extensive trail system, scenic vistas, and terrific camping opportunities. When hiking around Chimney Rock or the old Whiskey Still or Sawmill it is not uncommon for visitors to see white tail deer, wild turkey, coyotes, dozens of species of songbirds or even the occasional black bear. With further dwindling resources for the National Park Service it has become increasing challenging for the NPS to manage the park resources. Invasive species like the emerald ashe bore threaten the health of the park's forest and the sustainability of park habitat for the wildlife that make the park so popular. It is essential that Congress and the Federal Government recognize the importance of preserving these natural resources. That is why I have been a staunch champion for robustly funding the National Park Service because I believe the treasures the NPS work to protect for the public's enjoyment and enrichment is invaluable and it is the responsibility of the Federal government to do this work. Despite tough fiscal times, the leadership at Catoctin Mountain Park is doing an outstanding job providing fun and educational activities for park visitors and have put together a wide range of special programs and activities to celebrate the park's 75 anniversary. I congratulate Catoctin Mountain Park and the National Park Service for 75 wonderful years and encourage my colleagues to take a trip to experience this wonderful located in the backyard of your home away from home just outside of Washington.

Mr. CARDIN

Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, this week in Budapest there are two events of particular interest to Americans. First, Hungary has unveiled a statue of President Ronald Reagan in front of the U.S. Embassy in honor of his contribution to the goal of ending communist repression and commemorating the 100th anniversary of his birth. Second, Hungary dedicated the Lantos Institute, named after Tom Lantos, our former colleague from the House of Representatives who worked tirelessly to promote democracy and human rights in the country of his birth. Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of State Clinton have represented the United States at these respective events. These gestures shine a light on Hungary's historic transformation as well as the close bonds between our two countries. Unfortunately, other developments in Hungary have cast a dark shadow over what should otherwise be happy occasions. Last year, Hungary held elections in which a right-of-center party, FIDESZ, won a landslide, sweeping out eight years of socialist government rejected by many voters as scandal ridden and inept. With FIDESZ winning 52 percent of the vote, Hungary has the distinction of being the only country in Central Europe since the 1989 transformations where a single party has won an outright majority--not necessarily a bad thing, especially in a region where many governments are periodically hobbled by factionalism. Those elections were also notable because more than 850,000 Hungarians--16 percent of the vote--cast their ballots for Jobbik, an anti-Semitic, anti-Roma, irredentist party. While Jobbik is an opposition party, it has clearly and negatively influenced public policy discourse. Under Hungary's electoral system, FIDESZ's 52 percent of the vote has translated into a two-thirds majority of the seats in parliament. The government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban has used that supermajority to push through one controversial initiative after another. One initiative that has generated particularly sharp criticism is Hungary's new media law. The OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media warned it could be used to silence critical media and public debate, it overly concentrates power in regulatory authorities, and it harms media freedom. In Ukraine, where democracy has put down only shallow roots, the Kyiv Post editorialized that ``Hungary's media law should not come here.'' Another area of concern stems from the government's fixation on ethnic Hungarian identity and lost empire in ways that can only be seen as unfriendly by other countries in the region. One of the government's first acts was to amend Hungary's citizenship law to facilitate the acquisition of Hungarian citizenship by ethnic Hungarians in other countries--primarily Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, and Ukraine. This expansion of citizenship was pushed through even though, in a 2001 statement submitted to the Council of Europe, the Hungarian Government firmly renounced all aspirations for dual citizenship for ethnic Hungarians. In a further escalation of provocative posturing, a few weeks ago Speaker of the Hungarian Parliament Laszlo Kovar said that military force to change the borders with Slovakia--a NATO ally--would have been justified and, in any case, he added, the ethnic Hungarians in Slovakia are ``ours.'' If one side of the nationalism coin is an excessive fixation on Hungarian ethnic identity beyond the borders, the other side is intolerance toward minorities at home. For example, one increasingly hears the argument, including from government officials, that while the Holocaust was a 20th-century tragedy for Jews, the worst tragedy for Hungarians was the 1920 Treaty of Trianon--the treaty that established the borders for the countries emerging from the defeated Austro- Hungarian Empire. This comparison is offensive and disturbing. Ethnic Hungarians were never targeted for extermination or subjected to mass murder by Trianon. Moreover, this line of argument presents Hungarians and Jews as mutually exclusive. But more than 400,000 Jews were sent from Hungary to Auschwitz, and more than 10,000 Jews were shot along the banks of the Danube--were they not also Hungarian? How could this not be a tragedy for Hungary? The government has also used its supermajority to adopt a completely new Constitution which has been reviewed by the Council of Europe's Venice Commission on Democracy through Law, a body of judicial experts. The Venice Commission expressed particular concern with the requirement that numerous issues can now only be addressed through supermajority or so-called cardinal laws. In other words, ``The more policy issues are transferred beyond the powers of simple majority, the less significance will future elections have and the more possibilities does a two-thirds majority have of cementing its political preferences and the country's legal order.'' In short, the Commission concluded, ``the principle of democracy itself is at risk.'' This combines, by the way, with a court-packing scheme--the expansion of the size of the Constitutional Court from 11 to 15--and a reduction of the retirement age for ordinary judges from 70 to 62, which will reportedly mean 10 percent of all judges will be replaced. To make exactly clear what he has intended with these reforms, Prime Minister Orban declared that he wants to tie the hands not only of the next government, but of the next 10 governments--that is, future Hungarian governments for the next 40 years. It is no wonder then that in Freedom House's latest ``Nations in Transit'' survey, released this week, Hungary had declined in ratings for civil society, independent media, national democratic governance, and judicial framework and independence. Ironically, just as attention shifts to the tantalizing possibility of democratic reform in the Middle East, the red flags in Budapest keep multiplying: Transparency International has warned that transferring the power to appoint the Ombudsman from the parliament to the president means that he or she will not be independent of the executive. NGOs have warned that a new draft religion law may result in a number of religions losing their registration. Restrictions by Hungarian authorities on pro-Tibet demonstrations during last week's visit to Budapest of the Chinese Premier were seen as an unnecessary and heavyhanded limitation of a fundamental liberty. Plans to recall soldiers and police from retirement so that they may oversee Romani work battalions have predictably caused alarm. In 1989, Hungary stood as an inspiration for democracy and human rights advocates around the globe. Today, I am deeply troubled by the trends there. I understand that it sometimes takes new governments time to find their bearings, and I hope that we will see some adjustments in Budapest. But in the meantime, I hope that other countries looking for transformative examples will steer clear of this Hungarian model.

Mr. CARDIN

Mr. CARDIN. Madam President, I take this time to talk about the budget issues and the debt ceiling vote that is approaching. It is a serious issue that we need to deal with. First, I think it is important to know how we got here. I say that because we don't want to repeat the mistakes we made in the past. It was just 10 years ago when we had not only a balanced budget, we had a budget that looked like we were going to pay off all of our privately held debt. I was part of the Congress that moved us toward that balanced budget and surplus. It was the Democrats who were prepared to do what was necessary to balance the Federal budget in the 1990s, and we got there. We didn't have a single vote from Republicans, but we balanced the budget in the 1990s. It was the right thing to do for our economy. As a result, our economy picked up and did extremely well. We also know that the previous administration cut taxes twice, in 2001 and 2003. We also went to war in Iraq--a war that was one of choice--and we went to war in Afghanistan, and we didn't pay for either one of those wars. It was these unpaid-for wars and tax policies that led us from a surplus to a deficit. Our economy then turned, and we now have these large deficits. I say that because we need to pay attention to how we got here to make sure we have a credible plan to get us out of this deficit. I think it is very important that this country move toward a manageable debt. It is very important for our economy, and for job growth, that we manage our deficit and bring it down. Let me give you what I think needs to be done in any plan that is presented to us for consideration. I hope we all agree that we need to raise the debt ceiling. That is after the fact. We have already spent the money. Now we have to pay the bill. We also would like to see a plan to bring our deficit under control. To do that, we have to have a credible plan, one that really does bring us within the realm of a manageable deficit. Secondly, it has to be fair. I notice that my Republican friends ask our children to give up some of their help for a college education. They want to cut the Head Start Program, and they want seniors to pay more for health care. How about the well off? Should they not be part of the plan? I think we need to have a fair plan in order to accomplish our goal. Third, we need to allow our Nation to move forward with economic growth. Jobs are critically important to deal with the deficit. As we create more jobs, we help our economy grow, it brings our budget into balance. I am for a credible plan. To me, a credible plan needs to get the job done. Managing our deficit needs to be fair, including all elements of government spending, and it includes tax expenditures. It has to allow for economic growth. If we are going to get the job done, we have to bring down spending--we all acknowledge that--on the domestic side and the national security side. We can do better in bringing our troops home from Afghanistan and save military dollars. There are things we can do, and we need to do that. But we also have to deal with the revenue side. Quite frankly, we can't get the job done without dealing with the tax loopholes and shelters that we have in the Tax Code. I am concerned that the Republican leader said we could not consider any revenue. Well, I have heard from a lot of my Republican colleagues who disagree with that. We need to include revenues in a credible plan or it can't get done. We cannot manage the deficit without closing those loopholes and eliminating those shelters. Yesterday, I talked about one of those--the ethanol subsidy. We have nearly $3 billion that we can save there. The ethanol subsidies are not needed. The market is there. More damaging, it is hurting our economy. I have the honor of representing the people of Maryland and the Delmarva Peninsula. The poultry industry is suffering because of the ethanol subsidies. It is costing more to produce poultry, making the industry less competitive. We can save and create jobs by eliminating the ethanol subsidy, which will help us in balancing the budget. Today, I want to talk about another tax shelter and loophole that we can deal with, and that is the section 199 manufacturing tax break used by the oil and gas industry. It is very interesting. We have seen gasoline prices rise, and we have seen the negative impact of that on our economy. But guess who is benefitting from the increase in the gasoline prices? You are right; it is the oil and gas industry. Their profits are up, while our economy has been suffering. In the first 3 months of this year, the gas and oil industry, the five largest companies, had record profits of $35.8 billion. Big Oil benefits from a variety of subsidies, including section 199, that amount to some $4 billion annually. So we are subsidizing the Big Five, who are on course to make a projected $140 billion profit in 2011, with $4 billion in taxpayer contributions. It is not needed. These funds could be used to help reduce our deficit instead. The worst part is that section 199 came about as a result of our Foreign Sales Act. What was that about? We wanted to put American manufacturers and producers on a level playing field for international competition. We tried to do that with a direct subsidy to help exporters, but the World Trade Organization held that to be illegal. So then we came back with this general manufacturers' credit, section 199, to try to help our exporters. The gas and oil industry are not manufacturers exporting a product. They should never have qualified for this taxpayer-funded subsidy. I asked that question in the Senate Finance Committee when we had the Big Five oil companies' chief executive officers (CEOs) before us. Not one of the CEOs could justify the fairness of this subsidy going to the oil and gas industry. Their only answer was: Well, everyone else is getting it. We need to reduce unnecessary government spending, whether it is on the appropriations side or the tax expenditure side. With regard to the oil and gas industry, repealing section 199 and the rest of the $4 billion or so in subsidies these companies receive each year could help us balance the budget. But the minority leader says we can't even consider that. He says we can't consider any of the revenues. To me, it is not a fair proposal, not a credible proposal, unless we tell the most wealthy and those companies that don't need the subsidies that they are going to be part of the plan to bring our budget into balance. There are many more provisions in the Tax Code we can look at where we can get the savings. I have just mentioned two. If we are going to have a credible plan that will allow for economic growth and allow us to create jobs--and the best way to deal with the deficit is to create more jobs--then we have to have a fair approach. So I urge my colleagues to get together on this. Look, I understand it is not going to be the budget the Democrats want, but I will tell you this: it will not be the budget the House Republicans want either. We have to work together, Democrats and Republicans. I think we can find common ground. Earlier this year, I think 62 Senators signed a letter saying, let's use the framework of the debt commission. So I think there was that willingness. Let's get back to that. Let's get the Democrats and Republicans working together in true compromise. We don't have to compromise our principles. We can get the job done, and that job means let's get our debt into a manageable state, let's do it in a way that is fair, so the well off also are part of a solution that includes revenues, and let's do it in a way that allows America to do what President Obama said we can do--out-educate, out-innovate, and out-build our competitors so we can create the jobs that won't just help us balance our budget but will keep America prosperous, too. That is our charge. That is what we need to do. Let's get on with the work. With that, I yield floor.

Mr. CARDIN

Mr. CARDIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that I be able to speak as in morning business.

Mr. CARDIN

Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, last night, S. Res. 185, a resolution that was cosponsored by about 90 percent of the Senate, passed the Senate by unanimous consent. I am very grateful to my colleagues for their help in developing this resolution. This resolution expresses the strong support of the United States for our closest ally in the Middle East: Israel. I was joined in this effort by my good friend, Senator Susan Collins from Maine. The two of us worked together to draft this resolution, and we are grateful that so many of our colleagues joined us in the process and that it has now passed the Senate by a unanimous vote. This resolution first and foremost expresses our strong support for Israel. It recognizes that these are extremely challenging times. It expresses our support for peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis and recognizes that the only way we are going to be able to move forward on the peace process is through direct negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians. That is the only way we can resolve these longstanding issues in order to achieve peace in that region. The resolution also reaffirms our opposition to the inclusion of Hamas in any Palestinian unity government unless it is willing to accept peace with Israel and renounce violence. An entity cannot negotiate with those sworn to bring about its destruction; therefore, Hamas' inclusion in the Palestinian Government is a nonstarter for any possibility for peace. Any unilateral attempt by the United Nations to establish a Palestinian State is detrimental to any final peace agreement. A permanent and peaceful settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can only be achieved through direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Any Palestinian effort to gain recognition of a state outside of direct negotiations demonstrates their lack of a good-faith commitment to peace negotiations. The Senate is now firmly on record that this kind of action would be directly counterproductive to peace. If the Palestinians pursue this, it may well have implications for the continued U.S. participation with the Palestinians. Israel has always been willing to come to the peace table for direct negotiations. Quite frankly, it has been the Palestinians who have been dragging their feet for many months, refusing to have direct negotiations between the parties, which is the only way it can be accomplished. Lasting peace can only come through direct negotiations that settle all outstanding issues to the satisfaction of both sides. Obviously, there is going to be give-and-take. There has to be give- and-take. There has to be mutual respect and security, and that requires active participation in the peace talks. The two sides can achieve a peace agreement only when they acknowledge each other's right to exist. That is pretty fundamental. This is particularly critical now for the Palestinians and their unity government that includes Hamas. Unless Hamas fully renounces violence and acknowledges Israel's right to exist, it cannot be a partner of peace and their inclusion in the Palestinian Government is a major obstacle. As Prime Minister Netanyahu stated so well in his speech before the joint session of Congress in May: I will accept a Palestinian state. It is time for President Abbas-- President Abbas, of course, is the head of the Palestinians-- to stand before his people and say: ``I will accept a Jewish State.'' It is clear it is in the interest of all parties for there to be two states--the Jewish State of Israel and the independent Palestinian State--living side by side with secure borders in peace. Let me again acknowledge what I think Prime Minister Netanyahu said. Israel is prepared to acknowledge a Palestinian State. It is time for the Palestinians to acknowledge the Jewish State. Difficult negotiations need to take place. There are critical issues such as security, power, and water concerns, as well as larger issues of historical, religious, and territorial matters still to be decided. That must take place through direct negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians. This is precisely why it is so important to discuss, negotiate, and ultimately resolve these issues rather than taking unilateral action that would leave them unsettled and unsustainable. Real and lasting peace will only occur at the peace table, and I am grateful the Senate has strongly and unanimously gone on record to affirm this approach. With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. CARDIN

Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 28, 2011, at 10 a.m. to conduct a hearing entitled ``Housing Finance Reform: Access to Secondary Market for Small Financial Institutions.''

Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Judiciary, Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees, and Border Security be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 28, 2011, at 10 a.m., in room SH-216 of the Hart Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``The DREAM Act.''

Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 28, 2011, at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 28, 2011, at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 28, 2011, at 10 a.m. to hold a hearing entitled ``Libya and War Powers.''

Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 28, 2011, at 10 a.m. in room SD-215 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Complexity and the Tax Gap: Making Tax Compliance Easier and Collecting What's Due.''

Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Environment and Public Works be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 28, 2011, at 10 a.m. in Dirksen 406 to conduct a hearing entitled ``Status of the Deepwater Horizon Natural Resource Damage Assessment.''

Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 28, 2011, at 2:45 p.m. in room 106 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 28, 2011, at 9:30 a.m.

Mr. CARDIN

Mr. CARDIN. Madam President, I am very pleased that soon we will be voting on Jim Cole to be the Deputy Attorney General of the United States. This is a person who puts principle over politics, a person who is very important in our war against terror and who will use all lawful tools to keep our Nation safe. So I am proud to take a few moments to urge my colleagues to vote for his confirmation. I think that is in our national security interests, and I know he will be and already is an incredible asset to this country in keeping us safe and doing so in the best traditions of the U.S. Attorney General's Office. I would like to talk for a moment on a personal basis because I got to know Jim Cole when I was serving in the House of Representatives. I was on the Ethics Committee. The Ethics Committee is not a committee, as you know, on which a Member asks to serve; it is something we must do. We had a very sensitive investigation in the House of Representatives concerning the Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, and the six of us who served on the Ethics Committee needed to come to a fair, nonpartisan conclusion to this very challenging investigation. To say we thought this would be impossible was an understatement of where we first thought we would be in regard to the investigation. But then we reached out and agreed to bring in an independent counsel to help us in our deliberations. That person was Jim Cole. Jim Cole worked with all of us to look at the facts and do what was in the best interests of the House of Representatives, the best interests of our country, and to leave our politics aside so that we could come out with a result that was fair and would restore confidence in the legislative process. In fact, we did that. We were able to reach a totally unanimous judgment, one that was agreed to on the floor of the House of Representatives and I think spoke volumes about our ability to get our work done in the best interests of our Nation. I thought Jim Cole did a fabulous job, a great job in helping us. That was also the view of Porter Goss, who was the Republican leader on the Ethics Committee and chairman of the committee at the time. He said he felt Jim Cole brought professionalism at the highest level to our investigation and allowed us to come forward with a fair nonpartisan conclusion. That is the exact person we need in the Department of Justice. It is the person we need to be Deputy Attorney General of the United States. The Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney General are our Nation's lawyers. They don't represent one party; they represent our country. We need leadership in the Department of Justice who will work in a nonpartisan way, a way that will bring nonpartisan leadership to the Department of Justice. Jim Cole is that type of person. He has the experience, he has the character, and he has the commitment to fill this very important position in our Nation, with 13 years in the Department of Justice and experience in public interest law. His career has been devoted to the public interest in community service. I was listening to my colleague and friend Senator Grassley talk about his concerns about some of the private law practice of Jim Cole. Here is a person who has devoted his life basically to community and his career in public interest law. He has been a prosecutor. He has been a person who has dealt with white-collar criminals. And, yes, he is an effective attorney. As those of us who are lawyers know, we will represent our clients aggressively, but we don't lose sight of our system. That has been Jim Cole throughout his career. He will bring the expertise he has had in his previous experience to represent our Nation well. These are tough times. We are dealing with threats around the world where we need an Attorney General and a Deputy Attorney General who will use all lawful tools in order to protect our country. It is interesting that Jim Cole enjoys endorsement from both sides of the aisle. When we look at high-ranking Department of Justice former officials, both Democrats and Republicans have endorsed Jim Cole's confirmation to be the Deputy Attorney General. Let me quote from one Republican source that I think is typical of the endorsements we have received encouraging the confirmation of Jim Cole. We received a letter from Fred Fielding. I think most of you know Fred Fielding. He was White House Counsel for former President George W. Bush. I think most of us had close dealings with and respected him greatly in the service to the Bush administration. This is what Fred Fielding said about Jim Cole: Mr. Cole combines all the qualities you would want in a citizen public servant. He understands both sides of the street and is smart and tenacious, and is a person of unquestioned honor and integrity. Well, I agree with Fred Fielding. This is the type of person we need to be Deputy Attorney General of the United States. I am pleased we are going to have this vote later on today. I encourage my colleagues to vote for his confirmation. It is important that we have individuals in these key positions who enjoy the full confirmation from the Senate, and I hope my colleagues will join me in supporting this nominee.

Mr. CARDIN

Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, today I wish to recognize the 100th anniversary of the Legal Aid Bureau in Baltimore, MD. Legal Aid was founded in 1911 in Baltimore to provide legal representation for the poor. In 1929, Baltimore attorneys H. Hamilton Hackney and John A. O'Shea took over leadership of Legal Aid. Mr. Hackney believed that justice should not be a matter of charity. He believed that people should be secure in the knowledge ``that their poverty does not necessarily mean that they will be in a position of inequality before the law.'' As a result of Hackney and O'Shea's efforts, Legal Aid evolved from a charity organization to an independent, private, nonprofit corporation. During the Great Depression, Legal Aid's poverty practice mushroomed. By 1932, it was serving 3,200 clients a year. In 1941, the staff consisted of five lawyers. In 1949, the caseload had grown to 7,000 a year and Legal Aid helped its 100,000th client. In 1953, Baltimore City built its new People's Court Building at Fallsway and Gay streets, with the third floor dedicated to Legal Aid's use. The 1960s were a period of change. In 1964, Congress passed the Economic Opportunities Act and launched the war on poverty, funneling funds for legal services to the Nation's cities. In 1971, Legal Aid established three offices outside of Baltimore and later in the decade, across the State. In 1974, one of President Nixon's last acts in office was to sign into law the National Legal Services Corporation Act; the next year the Legal Services Corporation, LSC, was established, and legal services organizations across the country continued a rapid expansion. Starting in the late 1970s, Legal Aid began to champion the cause of migrant farm workers, sued the steel industry to eliminate practices that prevented women and minorities from getting higher paying jobs, and targeted the cause of mentally disabled people. In the 1980s, President Reagan sought to eliminate LSC, submitting seven straight budgets without an appropriation for the corporation. While some of the funding was restored by a sympathetic Congress, Legal Aid lost $1.2 million in funding in 1982, forcing staffing cuts in most offices. In response to the cuts, under my leadership, the Maryland General Assembly established the Maryland Legal Services Corporation and provided funding through the Interest on Lawyer Trust Accounts, IOLTA, Program to provide additional funding to Legal Aid and other legal services programs representing the poor. Under the leadership of Wilhelm H. Joseph, Jr., who took the helm in 1996, Legal Aid has grown to be one of the Nation's largest and most respected legal services organizations. Today, there are more than 250 staff members in 13 offices statewide. Last year, more than 60,000 people from across the State were served, including residents of subsidized and public housing, the elderly, migrant farm workers, and neglected and abused children. I would ask my colleagues to join me in congratulating Legal Aid for its outstanding achievements and service to the people of Maryland over the past 100 years, reminding us of the importance of the words inscribed over the entrance to the U.S. Supreme Court, ``Equal Justice for All.''

Mr. CARDIN

Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I rise today to praise the National Labor Relations Board for issuing new proposed rules that will modernize the process that workers use to form a union. These new rules will improve the consistency and efficiency of the election process, protect workers' right to a timely vote, and limit opportunities for possible coercion by both employers and unions. America's middle class is struggling. Hard-working families are finding it hard to make ends meet. We are recovering from the deepest recession since the Great Depression, and there are workers who are trying to achieve for their families what we all want: financial stability that keeps our families secure. However, as workers see their benefits, hours, and pay being cut, they feel powerless. Meanwhile, executives can and do negotiate their employment contracts. Where is the fairness? Unions can level the playing field for workers, but the process for choosing a union is outdated. Current NRLB election procedures produce extensive delays, encourage litigious stall tactics, and provide opportunities for intimidation. Further, the organizational structure of the NLRB has created inconsistencies in the processing of the election petitions. It is time for the NLRB to address these important procedural shortcomings, and I am encouraged by their response. The new rules do not advantage nor do they disadvantage unions. The rules merely create a uniform process for resolving pre- and post- election disputes. Both sides are given the opportunity to present arguments to allow a fair and well-informed vote. It is also important to note that these streamlining rules apply equally to both elections seeking to certify a union and elections seeking to decertify a union. Workers deserve the right to choose a union or not to choose a union with a fair, timely, and well-informed up-or-down vote. The right to vote is central to our democracy, and we must continue to ensure that American workers are afforded this right without impediment or fear. Thus, I applaud the NLRB for their actions.

Mr. CARDIN

Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, 2 years ago today the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority experienced the most tragic metrorail accident the Greater Washington region has ever seen. With time, the wounds of this tragedy's survivors continue to heal, but the loss and pain will never be forgotten. My heart goes out to the families and loved ones of those who lost their lives in the tragic collision of two Metro trains on the Red Line at the Fort Totten metrorail station. My deepest sympathies remain with their families and friends whose lives will forever be affected having lost someone dear to them in this tragedy. Last summer, the National Transportation Safety Board, NTSB, and the Federal Transit Administration, FTA, concluded their investigations into the crash. The investigations revealed many troubling findings with the operation, maintenance, and management of the metrorail system, not the least of which is that the June 22, 2009, crash was entirely preventable and resulted from systemic failures to address ongoing track signal problems and a work culture that ignored safety. For several years WMATA failed to respond to or take adequate operational safety measures in response to repeated signal failures along the section of track where the accident occurred. During WMATA's efforts to fix the problem, Metro refused to heed warnings from the signal manufacturers about using third-party components to repair failed track signal equipment and in doing so prolonged and exacerbated the signal relay problems on the track. These findings coupled with an extensive Federal Transit Administration safety audit that revealed several shocking systemwide safety lapses, which include systemic failures to notify train operators about the presence of track maintenance workers on the right- of-way in tunnels throughout the system, helped shed light on the inexcusable and tragic series of accidents that have taken 12 lives and injured more than 80 people in the last year. I am pleased to say that under new leadership in the general manager and CEO position as well as the placement of several new members of the board of directors that Metro is working hard to resolve the safety issues that were becoming commonplace in the headlines of area newspapers. Metro's new comprehensive safety plan outlines a number of procedures that are being put in place to improve worker training and safety preparedness and a zero tolerance policy for texting and cell phone use by vehicle operators. According to the general manager, every Metro employee, including himself, has gone through the safety training program. Management is clearly making an effort to establish a culture of safety that has been absent at Metro for many years. These are important steps in the right direction but developing safety measures for employees to follow is just one piece of making Metro safer for years to come. There are, however, encouraging and lasting developments at Metro to improve safety. A year ago, the Metro board of directors announced that it was placing an order for 428 new 7000 Series railcars. These new safer railcars are in the prototype development phase and when the order is fulfilled, all of the remaining 1000 series that have been in use since the system opened in 1976 will finally be replaced. The 1000 series cars have always presented a safety hazard and it is the 1000 series cars that buckled and sheared apart on June 22, 2009, compounding the seriousness and costliness of the Red Line crash. Retiring and replacing these cars is a major step in the right direction towards improving the safety of the system. It is also worth noting that for the first time Metrorail cars will be built here in the United States at a rail car manufacturing facility in Lincoln, NE. Still, funding shortfalls hinder Metro's ability to make lasting infrastructure repairs and replacements throughout the system. I have visited the Shady Grove Station and witnessed firsthand how they literally are using wood planks and iron rods to prop up crumbling station platforms. Metro is forced to make improvised accommodations to keep the system running in the safest way possible on a diminished budget. Seeing these unaddressed safety issues firsthand, combined with each passing revelation of management missteps and safety lapses, has grown my frustration with how Metro handles safety issues, but has also hardened my resolve to improve Metro safety. On this somber day of remembrance we as Federal policymakers and the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority need to take inspiration from this tragedy and remember our responsibility to work to improve the safety of the transit system that serves Greater Washington area residents, tens of thousands of Federal workers, and members of the staff of nearly every Senator in this body every day. Last year's Metro tragedy has caused many of us, including the President, to address the safety crisis that looms at transit authorities across the country. I am confident that we will find a way forward through: increased Federal regulatory authority and oversight, as called for by the Federal Transit Administration; and increased openness and transparency at WMATA. While the FTA has an established national transit safety program and is responsible for setting minimum program safety requirements for the States, the FTA is prohibited by law from establishing enforceable national safety standards, requiring Federal inspections, or dictating operating practices. In response to this lapse in public safety policy, last Congress Senators Dodd, Menendez, Mikulski, and I introduced legislation requiring the Transportation Secretary to establish and implement a comprehensive transit public transportation safety program. Our legislation from last year would have given the FTA the ability to take decisive actions such as conducting inspections, investigations, audits, and examinations of federally funded public transportation systems. It makes sense for public transit systems that receive Federal funding to meet Federal safety requirements set by the FTA. It makes even more sense to grant FTA a degree of Federal authority to establish safety guidance over WMATA given Metro's unique relationship to the Federal Government. The Washington metrorail system is the second busiest subway system in America, carrying as many as 1 million passengers a day. It carries the equivalent of the combined subway ridership of BART in San Francisco, MARTA in Atlanta, and SEPTA in Philadelphia each day. Every workday, Metro provides tens of thousands of Federal employees rides to work. During peak ridership, more than 40 percent of riders on Metro are Federal employees and 10 percent of the overall ridership serves Congress and the Pentagon alone. Metrorail's alignment was designed to serve the Federal Government, with more than half of the system's stations located at or near Federal buildings. GSA has also established guidance that requires all new Federal facilities in the Greater Washington area be metrorail accessible. Traffic congestion in the DC metropolitan area is tied with Chicago for the worst in the Nation. Some may wonder how, or even if, Washington could function without Metro. Sure enough, in the winter of 2010 we learned that the Federal Government, in fact, cannot function without Metro. The Office of Personnel Management based its decision to shut down the Federal Government on WMATA's inability to operate above ground rail lines during the February snowstorms. This not only points out the Federal Government's reliance on Metro, but also highlights Metro's lack of resources to operate under weather conditions that other city transit systems like Chicago, New York, or Boston manage to do so. More than three decades after the first trains started running, the system is showing severe signs of its age. Sixty percent of the Metrorail system is more than 20 years old. The costs of operations, maintenance, and rehabilitation are tremendous. It is not just the responsibility of the local jurisdictions that are served by Metro--Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, DC--but it is also a Federal responsibility. Just like I believe that the Federal Government has a role in ensuring the safety of Metro for its riders and employees, I also believe the Federal Government has a responsibility to help fund the safe operation of the system since Metro provides the Federal Government and its employees vital transportation service. I was proud to work alongside Senator Barbara Mikulski and Senator Jim Webb and former Senator John Warner to pass the Federal Rail Safety Improvement Act, which was signed into law in October 2008. This law authorizes $1.5 billion over 10 years in Federal funds for Metro's governing Washington Metropolitan Area Transportation Authority, matched dollar for dollar by the local jurisdictions, for capital improvements. This arrangement will finally provide Metro with the dedicated funding the system needs. President Obama's fiscal year 2011 and 2012 budget requests to Congress included $150 million for Metro. This builds on the substantial down payment Senators Mikulski, Webb, Mark Warner, and I were able to secure for Metro in fiscal year 2010, and with the intrepid support of Chairmen Murray and Inouye we were able to secure this essential funding for Metro again in fiscal year 2011. While these are important investments, it is not nearly enough to fulfill all of Metrorail's obligations. Metro maintains a list of ready-to-go projects totaling about $530 million and $11 billion in capital funding needs over the next decade. Federal Transit Administrator Peter Rogoff, in testimony before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, made special note of the fact that WMATA does not have a dedicated revenue stream, rather it relies heavily on congressional appropriations which can fluctuate from year to year. Fortunately, Congress has taken an important step forward to remedy this situation. The Senate recently passed a new Metro Compact further advancing the final step in authorizing a 10-year $1.5 billion authorization providing Metro with a dedicated funding stream to ensure the safe and efficient operation of the system. For years, while Metro was a relatively new transit system, Metro was the epitome of safe, reliable, and modern public transit. After 35 years of operation, the results of placing disproportionate resources towards expanding the system rather than attending to growing repairs and maintenance needs of the existing infrastructure, Metro's age is beginning to take its toll on the safe operation and functionality of the system. I am hopeful that with the opportunities we have to establish better and more consistent funding for Metro, improved and enforceable Federal safety requirements for transit systems across the country, and the establishment of firm, accountable, and transparent leadership at WMATA we will restore the public standing and reputation of ``America's Subway System'' as one of the safest and most reliable transit systems in the country. I find it unacceptable that the transit system in our Nation's Capital does not have enough resources to improve safety and upgrade its aging infrastructure. I would again like to extend my deepest sympathies to all those who were affected by this horrific accident, especially to the families and loved ones of those who have been killed on Metro. I hope my colleagues will join together with me in working to ensure that this body is doing everything it can to prevent similar tragedies in the future.

Mr. CARDIN

Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Shane Knisley, a Department of Defense detailee, have the privilege of the floor throughout this discussion. I think all of us understand how valuable our detailees from the Department of Defense are in the work we do. Particularly in this matter, it has been helpful to me to have his sage advice. I appreciate that he is in our office and has been a valuable member of our team on this issue.

Mr. CARDIN

Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I wish to join in the comments of Senator Durbin and Senator Kerry. First--and I think Senator Kerry will agree-- Senator Durbin may be a new member of the Foreign Relations Committee, but he is one of the most thoughtful Members of the Senate on foreign policy issues and many other issues. He has been extremely helpful in working our way through what is the proper responsibility of the Senate and the Congress relating to the deployment of our troops. I concur completely in Senator Durbin's comments about Senator Kerry. We are proud of the work Senator Kerry does. He has traveled around the world representing our Nation and advancing the cause and issues of freedom and democracy, giving hope to so many people. We have seen the universality of democratic aspirations springing up around the world. They look to the United States as a facilitator to make those aspirations real. He has been an incredible voice in their hopes. We thank him for the personal commitment he has made. I thank Senator Kerry and Senator Durbin for their colloquy on this issue. I join in their view that we have a responsibility to act whenever our military is placed in harm's way, when the President commits our troops. I think we have a responsibility to act under the War Powers Act. I understand there may be different views about this. But I think most of us agree there is a responsibility for us to pass the resolution. I think the resolution brought forward by Senator Kerry clearly complies with that responsibility, first and foremost, making it clear we are acting under the authority given to us by the War Powers Act. Second, I appreciate the clarification the Senator made on the record about how this resolution limits the authority of the President, consistent with the current mission, which I think is very important. I agree with Senator Durbin that President Obama did the right thing in calling on our military to join the international community. This was a matter in which there was a clear will internationally to stop the atrocities being committed by Qadhafi on his own innocent people. The U.N. Security Council acted by resolution. Many other countries stepped forward, and NATO was prepared to take the lead. The United States was not going to have to take the lead. It is required of us to give some air support, which we are, in fact, doing. I think the President did the right thing. We want to make sure our resolution not only complies with the War Powers Act but makes it clear--and it is consistent on the authority given under the U.N. Resolution--that we are limiting our involvement. Senator Kerry has made that point very clear. It is limited in time, limited to the fact that U.S. ground troops cannot be deployed, except for the limited causes Senator Kerry pointed out. It is clear our authorization is consistent with the NATO mission to enforce Security Council Resolution 1973, as requested by the Transitional National Council. We have made it clear it is continuing the current mission, it is limited in time, it is limited in scope, and it is the right and responsible thing for us to do as Members of the Senate. I thank Senator Kerry and Senator Durbin for taking the time to explain the intent of the legislation. I think we could not be more clear. The President has been very clear, as it relates to the use of ground troops, and the Senate is very clear that ground troops cannot be interjected into this conflict under the authorization we are given. With that, Mr. President, I yield to Senator Kerry.