Thomas Coburn

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I appreciate the indulgence of the Senator from Vermont, and I yield back.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I have listened to the debate today and the majority leader's remarks this morning, and I do appreciate the job my senior Senator has done in trying to secure funds for infrastructure through the trust fund. I intend to support passing this. Begrudgingly I will support it because I think it is the wrong way to do it. It is not wrong to put the additional money in there; it is wrong to not pay for it. I can't help but note that the Senator from Washington stated that this is an emergency. Well, you haven't seen anything when you start talking about the emergencies we are getting ready to face. What about the emergency when, by law, Social Security benefits get cut, when we can't make Medicare trust fund payments? What emergency are we going to have? How is this going to compare to that? We are not allowed to do anything on this bill except debate. I wonder what the American people would think, that we are going to spend an additional $8 billion that we don't have--whether it is owed to the trust fund or not, we don't have it--that we are going to collect that money but we are not going to pay for it out of some of the $300 billion-plus waste we now know exists every year in the Federal Government? Imagine if you applied that to your own situation. You have a family. You have an emergency, as the Senator from Washington said, but you know that about 12 percent of everything you spend in your household is wasted. Are you going to go out and make a note at the bank and have your kids be responsible for paying for it or are you as a family going to get rid of some of the 11 percent or 12 percent of pure waste, pure fraud that you have going on in your family budget? None of us in America are going to do that. We wouldn't do that to our kids. We wouldn't do that in our family budget. But that is exactly what we are doing here today. This is a small one. This is a small one we are facing. We didn't have an amendment on the floor to say we will pay for this $8 billion by reducing the fraud in Medicare from $80 billion to $72 billion. There is $80 billion a year in fraud in Medicare. We weren't offered the opportunity to offer that amendment to get rid of the fraud in Medicare so we could afford to do this. It was just released 2 weeks ago that 31 percent of the payments Medicare makes are improper payments, with 80 percent of them overpayments. That is not included in the $80 billion worth of fraud. There is not any opportunity for us to offer an amendment to offset that incompetence and clean that up so we can pay for this. There are similar projects in Medicaid. The Social Security disability trust fund--the GAO tells us there is $2.5 billion a year in fraud in the Social Security disability trust fund. We didn't have an opportunity to offer an amendment to get rid of that fraud to help pay for some of this $8 billion shortfall. The American people are going to be scratching their heads. We are going to borrow more, and we are not going to eliminate any of the other problems, any of the other excess, or any of the other waste or fraud, which came to over $382 billion this past year of American taxpayers' money that was unwisely spent. We weren't given an opportunity to get rid of the performance bonuses at the Pentagon that are $8 billion that they pay every year to Pentagon contractors who do not meet the performance requirements of their contracts but they pay them anyway. There was no opportunity for us to offer that amendment, to be able to pay for this rather than charge it to our children. There is $15 billion worth of excess costs associated with no-bid contracts at the Department of Homeland Security. There is no opportunity to offer an amendment to change the discipline in the contracting at Homeland Security, which we could have easily done and mandated to pay for this. There is no opportunity to do that. There is $4 billion in wasted excess payments for crop insurance every year. We, in fact, passed a farm bill, but we didn't fix that. That is $4 billion a year of hard-earned taxpayer money that goes out the window, which doesn't benefit anybody. Yet we are not given an opportunity to try to grab that to pay for this, and $10 billion is wasted a year, at a minimum, on IT contracts in the Federal Government. There is no opportunity to offer to save that money to pay for the highways. The American people have to be scratching their heads and saying: What are we doing? Why aren't we addressing the real issues? We need to build infrastructure, take care of our highways and bridges and our roads. That is what the trust fund is for. Why would we not pay for it when we have such a large amount of fraud, waste, and duplication in the Federal budget? I could go on and on. There is mismanagement of U.N. contributions. We know at least $2 billion out of the $6 billion we send to U.N. is pure waste every year. There is no opportunity to offer that amendment against this. There is no opportunity whatsoever to say we are not going to send another penny to the U.N. until they show us how they are spending American taxpayers' money. The only government that is less efficient than ours is the U.N. The only one that obfuscates more of the numbers than ours is the U.N. The only one with less transparency than ours is the U.N. There is no opportunity to do that. We wanted to offer an amendment because part of the problem with the highway trust fund is that too much of the money doesn't go for bridges, roads, and highways. My senior Senator is committed to making sure we get back on that with the next Transportation bill. We have 242,000 bridges in disrepair in this country--242,000. This body rejected fixing that. Instead, we went on to build bike trails. Which do you think is more of a safety concern, building bike trails or building bridges? I hope the American people are paying attention to what we are doing and that they become very dissatisfied with what we are doing. We have earned our 11-percent approval rating. How we are handling this bill today exactly fits the expectations of the American people--that Congress doesn't get it, that we are different, that we don't have to meet the expectations that every small business and every family does. We don't have to eliminate waste because it may be hard to do or we may have to take a hard vote. We just fit the mold of their expectations. It is time for us to change that, not just for us but for the generations that follow. I will state to you today that the estimates for next year's budget deficit are far under what it will actually be. We will be much closer to $1 trillion than we will be to $500 billion. Think about $1 trillion. That is $3,300 for every man, woman, and child we are going to spend next year that we don't have. We are not going to add it to the seniors because they are never going to pay it back. If you are born today, instead of owing $410,000, which you will ultimately be responsible for in terms of unfunded liabilities, we are going to move you to about $500,000. None of our kids can afford that. We are stealing America away from our children. The process--not the goal; the goal is a worthy one--under which we are doing this is something that cannot continue if our Republic is to survive. Of every republic in the history of the world that has failed, none of them failed because they were conquered from without. Every one of them failed on fiscal issues. We should wake up. We should start addressing the waste, fraud, abuse, and duplication in the Federal budget before we ask the next child or grandchild to take on debt for our benefit. Like I said, I support that we are putting the $8 billion in there. What I don't support is the process under which we cannot eliminate other waste, fraud, and other duplication to be able to pay for it. We do a disservice to our country and to ourselves, and we do a disservice to the body of the Senate. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I heard, this morning, the majority leader talk about the objection to the request by Senator Gregg. I do not believe there is anybody in this body who does not want us to fix the highway trust problem, and it will probably be the fact that there will be no amendments offered at the direction of the majority leader, which I think is probably somewhat tragic because we would not be able to have the debate we need to have on this issue. But it should not be lost on the American public that some $16 billion in the last highway bill was not for roads, bridges or highways. One of the amendments that was going to be discussed, had we had the opportunity to amend it--which we are not because the majority leader is not going to grant that opportunity--was the idea that of the $8.5 billion we are going to put in there, no new projects ought to be started unless they are for roads, bridges or highways. In other words, we should not be building museums. We should not be building parking garages. We should not be doing ancillary work that does not have anything to do with true transportation needs associated with the trust fund. That was the only amendment we were going to offer. All the States are going to be at a significant disadvantage if we do not do this. But I found it somewhat curious that before we left we had an omnibus bill that had to spend $10 billion. We had to do it. We were contrasted as terrible because we did not agree with it. Now we have $8 billion, and we want to do it, we want to debate it, and we are not going to be allowed to debate or amend it. I would think that is to the detriment of the body, that, again, we are losing the history of this body, we are losing the deliberative nature of the body, and at the whim of the majority leader, because we have an emergency, we have to have a unanimous consent, we do not even have to have a vote, and that is the only way we can do it. I think it hurts the institution in the long run. As far as what Senator Reid said about the omnibus package he put forward, let me correct the Record. First of all, the childhood cancer bill was agreed to by unanimous consent. It was not even a part of that package he claimed it was. The irony is, as we heard from the majority leader's statement today his disdain for the largest deficit in history, do you realize the President of the United States cannot spend one penny unless we let him? If there is a deficit in this country, it says a whole lot more about this body and the House than it says about the President. We are the ones who approve the spending. So far, this year, we are going to spend off-budget about $270 billion. Where is that money going to come from? It is going to come from the next two generations paying it back. So I find it curious we have to have a bill that spends $10 billion and then we are critical of the deficit and now we have to have a bill that is going to spend $8 billion, but we cannot have any amendments and we cannot debate it in a thoughtful way and still get it done this week. We could get it done in less than 2 or 3 hours. It shows you the lack of consistency. To be fair, Senator Reid has a very difficult job. This is a hard place to manage, there is no question about it. But we are getting on the edge of a lack of fairness. We are getting very close to an edge where the traditions of the Senate are going to be thrown out the window. As we look at it, as Senator Reid complains about the deficit, I would remind that he sponsored $531.2 billion worth of new spending in the 109th Congress. So far, he has sponsored $56.7 billion in the first 8 months of 2007. So it is another $150 or $200 billion in this Congress. We cannot continue to have more and more new spending without getting rid of some of the spending that is not effective. So when we have the claims that we are disgusted with the deficit, and then we can have $500-plus billion sponsorship of new spending and routine votes against an earmark moratorium, against the idea of stealing money from Social Security to spend new money, against amendments that say we have a moral obligation to offset the cost of new spending so we do not charge it to our children, against prioritizing the reconstruction of Louisiana bridges instead of earmarks in Alaska, these are the votes of Senator Reid. So the disdain for the--and I have three pages of them by the way, all similar. So the fact is, our country is in trouble right now. We are going to have a trillion-dollar--a trillion; that is with a ``T''-- deficit next year. We have $382 billion worth of documented waste and fraud every year in this Government. We have not had one amendment to get rid of any of it in this body this year that has passed, save the hippie museum in New York. That is it. We saved $1 million out of $380 billion of waste, fraud, and duplication. So it rings hollow to come down and complain about the administration when they cannot spend one penny we do not send to them. We are at least as culpable and liable as the administration in terms of this deficit. To say we cannot debate and clean up the priorities of the transportation fund by saying it is going to be spent on some of the 240,000 bridges that are in desperate shape in this country and spend the money on highways and roads and bridges and not other things that benefit Members of this body but do not benefit the majority public and are outside the transportation goals of every State transportation department in this country rings hollow. There are a lot of great things we can do. We can help people with disease. We can solve problems. He mentioned the Emmett Till bill. He objected twice to a compromise that the Emmett Till board had agreed to--twice--that Senator Dodd had agreed to, that Senator Biden had agreed to. As far as the child pornography, Senator Dodd and Senator Biden had agreed to that too. It was offered as a unanimous consent request twice. Both had agreed to it. Is this about politics or is this about doing things for the country? I would tell you the evidence shows it is about politics. We need to wake up. Our country is at a crossroads. We had Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac taken over. The first number, of course, is low: $200 billion. It is going to be $600 or $700 billion that we are going to charge to our kids for the mismanagement of those two agencies. That is going to get added next year. We are getting ready to do another emergency supplemental that everybody is piling things on. It is going to be $50 or $60 billion. It is going to be another free-for-all. It is going to fly through here in spite of my votes against it. We are going to do another stimulus package--none of it we have the money for. We are going to borrow every bit of it. We are compounding to make the problems worse. Because we will not work on the $350 to $380 billion worth of waste, and we would not even put an effort out toward that, we are going to continue to see a downward spiral in our economic position in this world. So I would think most Americans, as we add $8.5 billion back to the highway trust fund, would want us to see that it goes for highways, bridges, and roads, not for earmarks, special pork projects that make us look good at home that are outside the boundaries and the priority lists of the State departments of transportation. That was the amendment I was going to offer. I knew I was going to lose, but we ought to have the debate. The fact is the majority leader does not want us to have the debate. We could dispense with the bill in less than 3 hours, be done with it, and it could be going to the President, but we have decided we want to make it political. It is not about what is best for the long-term interests of this country, but about what is best for the upcoming election in November. To me that is a disservice to this body and it is a disservice to the American people. I yield the floor.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be recognized for 10 minutes as in morning business.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record an article from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which profiles Mr. Alvin Sykes. Mr. Sykes and I have worked closely together to reach a compromise on this bill, and I would like the story of his life and his work on this legislation to be part of the record. I would also ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a message from Mr. Sykes to me, expressing support for the compromise. Finally, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record three letters. The first is to the bill's sponsor, Senator Chris Dodd, explaining my objection to the legislation. The letter is dated June 25, 2007. The second is a subsequent letter to Senator Dodd, seeking a UC agreement for floor time on the bill, dated June 19, 2008. The third is a similar letter to Senator Reid, sent the same day.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, there is no embarrassment or any pain on my part to try to do this. I have worked on these bills to try to do what I thought was right. I reject any statement that I am embarrassed. I have no pain about this. I am proud of the work I have done in trying to stop excessive spending and when we have appropriate programs to favor that spending through offsets of other wasteful spending. I ask unanimous consent to call up and pass subtitle D of S. 3297, the Effective Child Pornography Prosecution Act. This was never held by anybody on our side. It was never objected to by anybody on our side. There was never a hold and never an objection. I ask unanimous consent right now that we pass that one bill. Even if you want to play politics, the point is, here is one we can do tonight. Nobody has ever objected to it in the Senate. We can pass and still have the 34 or 33 bills. Here is one we can make a difference with tonight. I ask unanimous consent to call up and pass this item.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to call up and pass subtitle E of S. 3297, the Enhancing the Effective Prosecution of Child Pornography Act. This is a bill that also was never held on our side of the aisle. Again, I make the same argument that, in fact, we can do something tonight. There is no controversy surrounding this bill, no controversy about what we should be doing. I ask unanimous consent that we pass this item.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I thank the majority whip for his patience in dealing with this business tonight. I will end my remarks with the following: What we have had in the Senate this past week is an attempt to change the Senate to the House. The Senate's tradition is debate and amend. Every one of the bills I have had a hold on, I proudly hold those bills. I have notified everyone involved in the legislation on why I was holding those bills. The fact that we had no response to negotiate any sort of compromise whatsoever on those bills tells us there was no good intent in the first place to try to pass those bills. Let the record show that the Emmett Till bill could have been passed tonight, supported by the very people who started this bill in the first place, who started the effort to get it passed, who endorsed our efforts and, in fact, it was denied. I yield the floor.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, it is sad to note that this could not pass tonight. We could accomplish what everybody claims to want. The fact that nobody was willing to work on this bill, but held it without compromise and without offsets, it is the same issue again. We are going to grow the Government and not get rid of waste. There is $2 billion in waste a year in the Justice Department. Yet we are going to grow this program and not pay for it.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, at this time, I ask unanimous consent to call up and pass the modified Emmett Till Unresolved Civil Rights Crime Act, where it is paid for by taking money that is not appropriated. This is the problem everybody had, not offsetting. What this bill will do is, if we don't appropriate--and we won't this year, because we are going to have a continuing resolution--this will allow that money to be divided out in three categories in the Justice Department, which the Justice Department is accepting from both legal salaries, the FBI, and the U.S. Marshals--all the people working on these unresolved civil rights cases. I ask unanimous consent that it be called up and passed at this time.

Mr. COBURN. I also note for the Record that I spoke with Senator Dodd about the bill tonight. He had no objection whatsoever and he agreed with the compromise. He is the chief sponsor on that side of the aisle. Mr. President, I call up and ask unanimous consent to pass a compromise bill on child exploitation. The bill, S. 3344, is the Protecting Children from Pornography and Internet Exploitation Act of 2008. I had a conversation with Senator Biden this evening. He is in full agreement with this. He understands that others on his side of the aisle might not be in agreement. He is the chief sponsor of that bill. Our bill gives everything that was included, plus the SAFE Act, which everybody agrees needs to be a part of any approach we make. The authors on the other side of the aisle took a $1.3 billion authorization and compromised and lowered that. We compromised by accepting that spending on the basis that we would add the SAFE Act to it. This bill has been changed in substance in no way other than that. I ask unanimous consent that it be called up and passed.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for an extension of my time as I go through the rest of these. I will be as brief as possible.

Mr. COBURN. I also note, again, there were hard efforts to work this out. The fact is, the majority has decided that all the bills will be in one package, regardless of the efforts we have worked on. I also make the statement that this came out by a voice vote from the Committee. I didn't vote ``yes'' on the bill in the committee. No. 2, there is no requirement that a Senator, even if he votes for a bill in committee and is assured he can work on the bill after the committee, is obligated to support a bill that comes out of his committee. The next unanimous consent request I have is on this same bill, S. 3344, titles I and IV, which include the PROTECT Act and the SAFE Act. I ask unanimous consent that those two sections be called up and passed. They are identical; nothing has changed and there is nothing controversial. Again, I ask unanimous consent that they be passed.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, shouldn't an objection to the bill be stated?

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I may speak for about 7 minutes. I will try to do it in less time.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I thank the majority whip for being on the floor tonight. I am one of the reasons why he is here, so I beg his indulgence at this time. The Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act was first introduced in the 109th Congress. The Republican sponsor at that time on our side of the aisle agreed to the offsets in that bill. That wasn't agreed to by the other side, so that bill wasn't passed. Although the offsets were accepted, it was still opposed. Over the past 5 months, two press conferences have highlighted my ``obstruction'' of this bill and questioned my motives for holding it. I sent two letters to the prime sponsors of the bill and to the majority leader offering to negotiate a compromise on the bill. None of those were ever responded to. No sponsor ever contacted my office in the 110th Congress to try to work on this. Instead, I chose to work, because I couldn't get a response, with Alvin Sykes, a wonderfully incredible man, who is behind this bill. He has my utmost respect and admiration. I will submit for the Record an article dealing with his incredible life story and his commitment and arduous work for this legislation. Mr. President, I reached a compromise with Mr. Sykes and the Emmett Till Campaign for Justice, whose board of directors has endorsed our compromise language. I ask unanimous consent that an e-mail we got from Mr. Sykes be printed in the Record.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I will assure everyone I will not take 20 minutes. First of all, let my thank all of those on the committee who worked on this bill. The Higher Education Act of 1965, HEA, authorizes the Federal Government's major Federal student aid programs, as well as other programs which provide institutional aid and support. HEA also authorizes services and support to disadvantaged students, and to students pursuing international education and certain graduate and professional degrees. The last time the act was reauthorized was over a decade ago, in 1998. The Senate passed HEA reauthorize on in July of 2007, with a vote of 95-0. The House of Representatives passed their version February 7, 2008, with a vote of 354-58. The final conference agreement is the product of nearly 6 months of work between the House and the Senate. The Higher Education Act conference report, by the numbers, is nearly 1,200 pages, authorizes for appropriation of roughly $3.7 billion, creates 65 new programs, requires 24 new government studies, and requires the Department of Education to create and publish 26 different lists with information from more than 6,463 schools. This bill seeks to address an enormous concern for many American families and students who are struggling to afford the cost of a college education. During the 2006-2007 academic year, more than $130 billion in financial aid was distributed to students in the form of grants, Federal loans, work-study, and tax credits and deductions. However, this financial aid is hardly keeping pace with the increasing rate of tuition. According to the College Board, from 1996 to 2006, tuition rose 51 percent at 4-year public colleges and universities, after adjusting for inflation. Furthermore, according to the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics, the average rate for undergraduate tuition and fees has nearly tripled over the past decade. No one argues that the cost of college is rapidly rising, or that Congress, the States and institutions of higher education should examine this issue and work together to increase access and affordability for students. However, we must ask ourselves, is this bill the right solution? This bill dramatically increase general Federal financial aid to students through the following: Increase the Pell Grant maximum from $5,800 to $8,000 at a cost of potentially $1.6 billion per year; Permits students to receive Pell Grants year-round at a cost of $2.6 billion over 5 years; Increases the loan fund for Perkins loans at a cost of $1 billion over 5 years; Expands deferment for PLUS Loans and accrued interest would reduce direct spending $75 million over 5 years; and Extend Federal loan forgiveness to the following groups--at a cost of $10.9 billion over 5 years: Public-sector employees (including Federal Government employees in Washington DC), nutrition professionals, mental health professionals, medical specialists, dentists, STEM employees, physical therapists, occupational therapists, superintendents, principals and other administrators, fire fighters, librarians, early childhood educators, nurses, foreign language specialists, speech language pathologists, school counselors, and others. Dramatic increases in Federal student aid may sound like a helpful solution at first. However, research shows that increases in government funding only lead to further increases in tuition. According to a report by the Cato Institute, for every dollar increase in Pell Grants, private 4-year colleges increased tuition by more than two dollars. The findings of the College Board in ``Trends in Student Aid 2007'' are even more astounding. The College Board reported that student aid increased by about 82 percent over the decade from 1997 to 2007, and Federal loans increased by 61 percent. Interestingly, this increase in aid covered about two-thirds of the increase in tuition at private 4- year colleges and almost all of the increase in tuition at public 4- year institutions. These statistics demonstrate that both public and private universities are increasing tuition at the same pace--if not faster-- than the Government increases funding. If we truly wish to make college education more affordable for students and families, we must focus on why tuition is increasing, despite increased subsidies from the Federal Government. A July 31 editorial in the Washington Times discusses the correlation between increased government funding and rising tuition. The editorial states of the higher education conference agreement. This bill would do nothing to rein in rampant tuition inflation, by far the biggest problem in higher education. Indeed, by giving students yet more taxpayer-furnished aid, it will just keep exacerbating the problem . . . Just look at the numbers: It's no coincidence that while the inflation- adjusted price of college has gone up roughly 70 percent over the last two decades, aid per-student rose almost 140 percent. The best way to make improvements in higher education is to begin removing the Federal Government from the equation. When Congress and the U.S. Department of Education interject themselves into education matters, the result is generally less competition and individual control, more bureaucracy and an ultimately an inferior outcome. The American Council on Education states that the higher education conference agreement ``would create a huge number of new reporting and regulatory requirements . . . Complying with these new unfunded mandates will take time and will increase the administrative costs facing colleges and universities.'' Rather than increasing the role of the Federal Government in subsidizing and regulating higher education, Congress should create incentives for families to save money and ease tax burden for students. Federal education tax credits and the Federal tuition tax deductions generated $5.9 billion in savings for taxpayers in 2006. The Higher Education conference agreement does more than expand financial aid for students. The bill authorizes 65 new programs, many of which are duplicate, wasteful and unnecessary. By authorizing appropriations for these programs, Congress is allowing them to take funding away from student aid. Consider the following examples of misplaced priorities in the bill: Henry Kuualoha Giugni Kupuna Memorial Archives: Provides a grant to the University of Hawaii Academy for Creative Media for the establishment and maintenance of memorial archives--such sums as necessary; Campus-Based Digital Theft Prevention: Provides grants for schools to develop programs to prevent illegal downloading and distribution of music, movies and other intellectual property--such sums as necessary; Pilot Program for Course Material Rental: Provides grants for college bookstores to operate textbook rental programs--such sums as necessary; Off-Campus Community Service: Authorizes work study grants to institutions for recruiting and compensating students to supplement off campus community service employment--such sums as necessary; University Sustainability Programs: Provides grants to establish sustainability programs and practices on campus. The term ``sustainability'' is not defined in the bill--such sums as necessary; Modeling and Simulation Programs: Establishes a task force to study modeling and simulation and to support the development of the model and simulation field--such sums as necessary; and Teach for America: Authorizes a 5-year grant to Teach for America, Inc. for $20 million in FY 2009, $25 million for FY 2010 and such sums for each of the four succeeding fiscal years. It is important to note that if a Federal audit of Teach for America recently found that the organization did not properly account for $775,000 in Federal funds. The Department of Education Inspector General found that Teach for America was unable to provide documents to support roughly half its claimed spending. The New York Times reported that there was no documentation that any teachers actually attended and completed the class or that there even was a class. Rather than cleaning up the waste, Congress authorizes $45 million for the organization. According to a July 11 CBS Evening News report titled, ``Teach for America Gets Schooled; Organization That Trains Teachers Gets a Failing Grade for Its Accounting Skills,'' after the audit, Teach for America tried handing over some newly-found documents, but it didn't help. The Inspector General said they contained ``significant discrepancies.'' Another important way to help contain the skyrocketing costs of education is to simply ensure taxpayers' dollars and students' tuition are directed towards educational purposes, and not lobbying or earmarks. We cannot continue to earmark millions of dollars to universities with billion dollar endowments, while students and families struggle to afford the cost of college. The total cost of earmarks for colleges and universities exceeded $9 billion between 1995 and 2003. At the same time, average annual tuition at public 4-year institutions increased by 137 percent, from $2,357 to $5,836. The Chronicle of Higher Education recently reported that Congress set aside a record $2.3 billion in pet projects for colleges and universities last year, $300 million more than in 2003, when the total was $2.01 billion. Furthermore, in 2005 and 2006, colleges and universities spent more than $127 million on lobbying activities. This amount could have paid the full tuition for more than 21,760 students to attend public colleges and universities. Most students struggling to pay for housing and tuition may not be able to afford a tutor, much less a lobbyist. They should not, therefore, be forced to pay higher tuition so their school can hire Washington lobbyists. Nobody who listened to Senator Alexander can come away saying we have not done what we need to do. And this is certainly a compromise piece of legislation. But it is very worrisome to me that the only thing rising faster than the cost of health care in this country, other than gasoline in the last year and a half, is the cost of a college education. The only way we can compete globally is with an educated workforce. We have to ask ourselves the question, Why is it costing so much? Could it be the 10- foot tall--now with the passage of this bill--group of regulations that require billions of dollars to comply with every year that has taken away from the educational opportunities in this country? I think another thing that was not addressed in the bill that should have been added in the bill is the fact that we have had over $9 billion worth of earmarks in the higher ed bill over the last 7 years. That is $9 billion that did not get prioritized. It was put in in the dark of night, inside a bill, inside an appropriations bill, that did not go out on the basis of merit, did not go out on the basis of a competitive grant. And when the American people hear that $127 million was spent last year by colleges and universities to lobby this place, is it not any wonder that we are spending $9 billion on earmarks? I also want to spend a moment talking about realtime writers. I held that bill; am still in opposition to it. I know it is in the bill. That is the way things work around here. I am going to lose that. But I want you to ask yourself the question: If there is greater demand for realtime writers and we are seeing the salaries rise and we are seeing the numbers start to come in, why in the world are we going to create a program to pay for it when the market is going to create the demand and the pay to get people to do it? We are going to blow that money because those people are going to go do that because the amount of money that is being paid for someone to do that is rising. So we are going to get in the middle of the economics of that. We are going to create a false level of it because we are going to train them. Now, do you know what is going to happen? Everyone who is a realtime writer now is going to make less money in the future. So we are going to disown the economics of supply and demand, much like we are doing on energy, and we are going to put a grant program in, we are going to make sure these people are there, but everyone who is doing it now is going to make less money, and then we are going to have an overage. And so then what is going to happen is the people who went out and did it on their own and invested in it, they are going to go look for another job because we did not trust what has made this country great, which is the idea that if there is a demand, someone is going to fill the supply, and if they do not, the price is going to rise. So we have put that in this bill. It will be a part of the bill. It is going to become law. But we are going to waste that money. It is shortsighted. It is wasteful. This bill creates 65 new Federal Government programs. Thirty-six reports are demanded from this bill, and it gets rid of six programs. Of the programs we create, nary a one has a metric on it so we can measure it 2 years from now to know whether what we did was right or wrong. In Oklahoma we call that peeing into the wind. It is going to come back on us. As to the cost of a college education, we are seeing families squeezed by $2,400 a year in energy costs because we didn't act when we should have acted on energy, and we are not acting now. So they have less resources. Even with the wonderful increase in Pell grants and everything that we have done in this bill, the cost of a college education is going to rise about 9 percent a year. They can't keep up no matter what we do with Pell grants. The better part of wisdom would be to ask the question: Is what we are doing really making a difference to increase the availability of a 4-year education or a 2-year education post high school? The maintenance of effort in this bill will kill every community college in Oklahoma because they design programs for certain things and then walk away from them because there is not a demand for them anymore, whether it be for a new business, a new industry, or a new area where there is a shortage, and then they walk away. Now they have a maintenance of effort requirement. There is no exemption on that. You have killed one of the best things we have in Oklahoma, which is our community colleges. You are going to strangle them with this maintenance of effort. Now they will be very hesitant to create a new program that will make a big difference in the lives of Oklahomans, even though they will only run the program for 2 years because they will have to continue to fund it to be able to get anything else from us. It is shortsighted. I will not go on. I know everybody who worked on this bill is well intentioned. Their heart is in the right place. They want us to have better educational opportunities. They want us to be able to afford it. They want greater excellence in terms of academia. I just don't think we did it. If we didn't do it, we are not going to be able to measure because we don't have any metrics. The hope would be that maybe we could learn from this exercise. Maybe we ought to put in metrics. If we are going to create 65 programs, maybe we ought to think about getting rid of 65 instead of 6, and maybe we ought to measure the effect of what we are doing. I yield the floor.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, the Consumer Product Safety Bill, while well intentioned, will do little to improve consumer product safety. Since when should the Government be held responsible for the safety of consumers when time and time again the Federal bureaucracy has failed in its other safety obligations and responsibilities? In 2005, Hurricane Katrina was a stark and sad reminder that a bloated, inefficient, and incompetent bureaucracy does not have the ability to protect citizens. Just last year, the interstate bridge collapse in Minnesota reminded us all of the misplaced priorities of the Federal Government. Instead of ensuring the structural soundness of bridges, politicians were more concerned with their earmarks, and diverted funds away from bridges such as the one in Minnesota for their own political benefit. In another example of Government incompetence, the census is currently in grave peril of not completing its constitutional duty effectively and on time. This speaks volumes about the inefficiencies of our Government, as we have 10 years to prepare for the census with over two centuries of experience to draw upon to execute this responsibility. This bill is a perfect example of politicians rushing to legislate on a problem that really isn't there in order to pat themselves on the back to try to curry favor with their constituents in an election year. The truth is the paranoia and hysteria currently with consumer product safety is not proportional to the reality of the situation. Nancy Ord, Chairman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, stated in January, ``Last year was marked by intense media scrutiny of the agency and of toy recalls in particular . . . the coverage reached near-hysteria level, And then, of course, some politicians, sensing a possible political issue, jumped on the bandwagon.'' While there has been a rise in product recalls, in a sense, the recalls are themselves a positive sign, as dangers were identified by manufacturers and products were removed from the market. More importantly, these product recalls have not translated into dire health consequences, as there has been little evidence of any deterioration in overall product safety. There were few if any reports of consumer injuries from the recalled products. Although the number of injuries from toys increased somewhat in 2006, injury rates generally have decreased since 2001. Also, lead poisoning cases are at historic lows in many areas. Regardless, many of the companies that fall under the CPSC umbrella have raised the levels of their own self-policing. Wal-Mart has announced that this month it will require independent lab testing for all new toys as well as those it reorders. Mattei and others have ended the use of certain kinds of batteries. And the Toy Industry Association has worked with the Commission on a plan to test toy safety in the design and manufacturing process as well as the final product. The political reaction to the problem, like most Government solutions, is to throw money at it. While some statutory upgrades are needed, almost doubling the size of the agency, as this bill does, will not eradicate or drastically improve the issue. As we have seen time after time, when Government throws money at a problem, rarely does it improve a situation, and more often than not, it further complicates and aggravates the problem. In addition, there are also a lot of unintended consequences in this bill, as it is a trial lawyer giveaway. While the dramatic increase in authorization is troubling, the provisions that subject businesses to the wrath of the trial lawyer and plaintiffs bar are far more problematic as they will raise the cost of doing business, hurt or destroy small businesses, and could further exasperate an already unstable economy. Authorizing State attorneys general to initiate lawsuits, creating a consumer product safety database, and drastically increasing fines are free giveaways to trial lawyers that will do little for consumer safety and will unnecessarily damage small businesses. Allowing State attorneys general to bring lawsuits on behalf of their residents for violations of consumer safety rules would reverse 35 years of successful policy experience. Overzealous State attorneys general will now have the authority and discretion to interpret safety regulations and could unilaterally on a whim rule a business is noncompliant and could then hand over expensive lawsuits to their trial lawyer's cronies who are notoriously close with State law enforcement officials. State attorneys, then, would be hard-pressed to deny politically active State trial lawyers to sue companies when the litigation will not cost the State a dime and could, in many cases, bring the attorney general positive publicity. This provides false incentives for overzealous attorneys general and would run precisely counter to the CPSC's policy of carefully balancing cost and benefit in making safety regulations. Lawsuits, which are expensive, adversarial, and often drawn out, can be an impediment to a successful long-term relationship that maximizes compliance and safety. State attorneys general should not have the power to reduce the effectiveness of the CPSC's efforts by undermining its balanced approach to enforcement. Another free giveaway to trial lawyers is the creation of a consumer product safety database. The database is estimated to cost $10 million, which accounts for over 10 percent of the Commission's budget. This section requires the CPSC to establish a Web site to post any complaint, regardless of accuracy or merit, from consumer groups or individuals. While on the surface the database appears to aim to educate and warn consumers about potential product defect or harm, the reality of it is far from effective. It is highly doubtful that many consumers will know about or even care to peruse a Government Web site to validate whether a product is safe prior to purchase, especially considering the claims are not verified prior to posting. What the database does provide in much more practical terms however, is a centralized, consolidated data source where law firms, unions, and lobbyists are given access to cherry-pick consumer reports for potential lawsuits. There is already a consumer product database, called lawcash.com, that consolidates consumer product complaints. The Web site brags that its database provides consumers ``the information you need and the access you deserve to find out if you are eligible to claim your share of billions of dollars distributed yearly through thousands of class action lawsuits.'' This reveals the true motives for such ``consumer product batabases,'' and accordingly the Government has no role in serving as a conduit of information that promotes hit job lawsuits. This cumbersome endeavor will divert funds and resources from efforts that actually go toward consumer safety and redirect it toward maintaining a Web site that will only contain inflammatory information that unions and lawyers can utilize to sue businesses. The bill drastically increases maximum civil penalties more than tenfold and the individual violation more than twentyfold, subjecting each product that wrongfully enters the market to a $100,000 fine. The threat of a $100,000 fine will cause many small manufacturers and retailers who commit only minor violations to declare bankruptcy. Additionally, faced with these hefty fines, this provision could erode the healthy and productive relationship between businesses and the Commission. Faced with bankruptcy, many businesses would be much less inclined to voluntarily report violations and as a consequence would not receive the proper guidance to fix the problem, subjecting the business and its employees to potential harm. While allowing increases in frivolous lawsuits and drastically hiking up the fines for businesses may allow Senators to tout to the public that they are tough on consumer safety, these actions are unlikely to improve the situation, and more importantly, the unintended consequences would be to increase the cost of doing business, impairing economic and job growth at a time when our economy desperately needs economic and job growth.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, our side of the aisle has allowed me until 11:45 to speak. Katy French Mr. President, I am on the Senate floor for a lot of reasons at a lot of different times, but today is extremely unusual. I wish to spend the time talking about how important staff is in Washington. We are only capable of doing and accomplishing what we accomplish because we have staff here to help us. I have had the great fortune over the last 3\1/2\ years to have someone on my staff who has displayed character virtues like none other I have seen in my career. She will be leaving my staff. Her name is Katy French. She has a master's in public health from Harvard. She has been on the front lines of HIV/AIDS since the epidemic came about. She worked for both Senator Gregg and Senator Brownback. The characteristics about her that make her great--in Oklahoma we would say her ``plow runs deep.'' She is well-rooted in the principles of liberty. What she has done with that principle is recognize that if you are free, and you have liberty and yet you don't spend your life helping other people, the liberty is for naught. So she has been a great example to me and my staff over the last 3\1/2\ years for her tireless dedication--which all on our staff have--and for bringing with that well-rootedness, that deep-rootedness, the ability to challenge a Senator, to tell us what she thinks even though we may not like it, to bring forth ideas that aren't in the conservative realm yet are humanitarian, great ideas, the ideas to help people. The people who know Katy French know she means business, but that business has always involved taking care of people. One of the first things she did as my staff director on the Federal Financial Management Subcommittee was set up a hearing on malaria. What we know is millions of people today in Africa are being cured of malaria because we, in fact, changed that program. The oversight hearings we held changed the direction. I know the Presiding Officer of the Senate now, the Senator from Ohio, is very much interested in that topic. Through her work, millions of Africans are alive today who would not otherwise be alive because the program was changed where we actually made a difference. I can't think of any greater tribute to an individual who comes to work to help us in the Senate than to measure the value of what they have done in terms of the lives that have been made better, made healthier, and have forgone a serious disease and dread. She also conducted more hearings in our subcommittee than any other committee or subcommittee in the entire Senate in the 109th Congress. Most staff directors of committees know--and subcommittees know--how hard it is to put together and hold hearings. Probably the greatest tribute to Katy is the fact that she didn't stop with that. When the Pope was here in his visit this last year, he called on America's youth to reach out and make a difference. Katy is in the middle of her career. She has made a big difference in the Senate for three separate Senators. She has made a big difference in terms of the PEPFAR legislation--the original legislation and the legislation that we just passed and the President has signed. She listened to that call to make a difference. So it is both a sad time and a happy time for me to know that Katy is joining a religious order to further her life in giving to other people. She is foregoing money. She is foregoing material things. In fact, she will be in an order that was established some 30 years ago associated with the Catholic Church out of Argentina that she will dedicate the rest of her life to, making a difference--a real difference--in other people's lives. She will be focusing on troubled urban youth. Her characteristics and multilingual talents will lead her in that direction. To me, the greatest compliment you can have as a Senator is to have a staff member leave for such a higher calling. For Katy and all of those who work in our office and on behalf of the Senate, and as a reflection of the rest of the staff of the Senate, we thank you for your efforts on behalf of freedom. I thank you, Katy, for your efforts on behalf of our office and what we are trying to do for the people of Oklahoma. Most importantly, I thank you for your grasp of faith and what it means to truly give up your life so that in the words of that man from Nazareth: ``He who is last will be first.'' Katy French has lived that example. We will miss her. I thank the Senate for the time. I yield the floor, and I note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. COBURN. I thank the Chair.

Mr. COBURN. I think I have until 11:45, I believe.

Mr. COBURN. If we are in a quorum call----

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. I write a letter the day I hold it to the committee and the majority leader and minority leader and the sponsors. They know what I am holding. I will make one point to you. Most of the bills we hold at first are held so we can read them. It is a strange thing. We ought to read the bills before we say let them go.

Mr. COBURN. I thank the Senator from Pennsylvania for his question. I think you accurately assessed it. The fact is, this country has an energy crisis. We have chosen not to address American resources for that. We have chosen to do anything but that, and that is why we have seen bill after bill forcing political votes rather than solving the real problem Americans want the Senate to address, which is how do we stop sending $700 billion of our treasure out of this country every year, knowing we are going to be on carbon-based energy for at least the next 20 to 30 years, and how do we use American resources. You are absolutely right. That is the real question. That is what we should be about. That is why Republicans stood and said the thing the American people are interested in is us addressing the issues that are impacting them directly today, the $2,400 per family, trying to get to work or get to school. The question the Senator asked is absolutely right. The real question is energy and trying to take us off energy and run out the clock and not deal with this before we go on summer break.