Larry Craig

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, today I join Senator Akaka in introducing legislation that would provide a cost-of-living adjustment to the rates of disability compensation provided to our Nation's disabled veterans and to the compensation provided to survivors of veterans and servicemembers who died, or who will die, as a result of military service. Every year since 1976 Congress has enacted an annual COLA adjustment for veterans with disabilities and survivors. The regularity of Congress's action on COLA legislation underscores its importance. Without it, inflation would erode the purchasing power of millions of beneficiaries. According to its fiscal year 2007 budget, VA estimates that it will provide disability compensation to 2,867,013 veterans with service- connected disabilities in the upcoming fiscal year. Among the veterans estimated to receive such compensation are 5 World War I veterans; 335,180 World War II veterans; 160,889 Korean-conflict veterans; 992,360 Vietnam-era veterans; and 762,230 veterans of the Persian Gulf war era. The COLA legislation will also benefit an estimated 348,479 survivors. The Congressional Budget Office, CBO, estimates that inflation, at the close of this fiscal year, will be at 2.2 percent as measured by the consumer price index published by the Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics. Once the actual inflation level is known, this legislation would adjust payment rates in effect on November 30, 2006, and be applied to payments made to veterans and survivors effective December 1, 2006. CBO also estimates that the legislation will increase direct spending by $530 million in fiscal year 2007. Again, because of the importance accorded to annual COLA legislation, all of this spending is assumed in the budget baseline and, thus, requires no offset. In summary, this legislation is critical to the lives of over 3 million beneficiaries who have served our country well and faithfully. I ask my colleagues for their continued support for our nation's veterans. And I ask for their support of the Veterans' Compensation Cost-of-Living Adjustment Act of 2006. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the legislation be printed in the Record.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session on Thursday, April 6, 2006, at 2:30 p.m., in 215 Dirksen Senate Office Building, to hear testimony on ``Saving for the 21st Century: Is America Saving Enough to be Competitive in the Global Marketplace?''.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, April 6, 2006, at 2 p.m. to hold a hearing on Nominations.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session on Thursday, April 6, 2006, at 10:30 a.m., in 215 Dirksen Senate Office Building, to hear testimony on ``Health Care Coverage for Small Business: Challenges and Opportunities.''

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet to conduct a markup on Thursday, April 6, 2006, at 10 a.m. in the Dirksen Senate Office Building Room 226. I. Nominations Norman Randy Smith, to be U.S. Circuit Judge for the Ninth Circuit; Steven G. Bradbury, to be an Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel; Timothy Anthony Junker, to be United States Marshal for the Northern District of Iowa. II. Bills S. 489, Federal Consent Decree Fairness Act, Alexander, Kyl, Cornyn, Graham, Hatcher; S. 2039, Prosecutors and Defenders Incentive Act of 2005, Durbin, Specter, DeWine, Leahy, Kennedy, Feinstein, Feingold, Schumer; S. 2292, A bill to provide relief for the Federal judiciary from excessive rent charges, Specter, Leahy, Cornyn, Feinstein, Biden; S. 2453, National Security Surveillance Act of 2006, Specter; S. 2455, Terrorist Surveillance Act of 2006, DeWine, Graham; S. 2468, A bill to provide standing for civil actions for declaratory and injunctive relief to persons who refrain from electronic communications through fear of being subject to warrantless electronic surveillance for foreign intelligence purposes, and for other purposes, Schumer. III. Matters S.J. Res. 1, Marriage Protection Amendment, Allard, Sessions, Kyl, Hatch, Cornyn, Coburn, Brownback; S. Res. 398, A resolution relating to the censure of George W. Bush, Feingold.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet to conduct a hearing on ``Orphan Works: Proposals for a Legislative Solution'' on Thursday, April 6, 2006, at 2 p.m. in Room 226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building. Panel I: Jule L. Sigall, Associate Register for Policy & International Affairs, U.S. Copyright Office, Washington, DC; Victor S. Perlman, Managing Director and General Counsel, American Society of Media Photographers, Inc., Philadelphia, PA; June Cross, Documentary Filmmaker, Visiting Professor, Columbia University, New York, NY; Brad Holland, Founding Board Member, Illustrators' Partnership of America, Marshfield, MA; Maria Pallante-Hyun, Associate General Counsel and Director of Licensing, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation (Guggenheim Museum), New York, NY; Thomas C. Rubin, Associate General Counsel, Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, VA; Rick Prelinger, Board President, Internet Archive, San Francisco, CA.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Veterans' Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, April 6, 2006, for a committee hearing to examine the VA's 5-year capital construction plan. The hearing will take place in room 418 of the Russell Senate Office Building at 2 p.m.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on National Parks be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, April 6 at 2:30 p.m. The purpose of the hearing is to recent testimony on the following bills: S. 1510, a bill to designate as wilderness certain lands within the Rocky Mountain National Park in the State of Colorado; S. 1719 and H.R. 1492, bills to provide for the preservation of the historic confinement sites where Japanese Americans were detained during World War II, and for other purposes; S. 1957, a bill to authorize the Secretary of Interior to convey to the Missouri River Basin Lewis and Clark Interpretive Trail and Visitor Center Foundation, Inc. certain Federal land associated with the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail in Nebraska, to be used as an historical interpretive site along the trail; S. 2024 and H.R. 394, bills to direct the Secretary of the Interior to conduct a study to evaluate the significance of the Colonel James Barrett Farm in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and assess the suitability and feasibility of including the farm in the National Park System as part of the Minute Man National Historic Park, and for other purposes; S. 2252, a bill to designate the National Museum of Wildlife Art, located at 2820 Rungius Road, Jackson, WY, as the National Museum of Wildlife Art of the United States; and S. 2403, a bill to authorize the Secretary of the Interior to include in the boundaries of the Grand Teton National Park land and interests in land of the Grand Teton Park subdivision, and for other purposes.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Seapower be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on April 6, 2006, at 2:30 p.m., in open session to receive testimony on Navy shipbuilding in review of the defense authorization request for fiscal year 2007.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Strategic Forces be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on April 6, 2006, at 3:30 p.m., in open session to receive testimony on military space programs in review of the defense authorization request for fiscal year 2007.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the National Ocean Policy Study be authorized to meet on Thursday, April 6, 2006, at 10 a.m., on Offshore Aquaculture.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I become very frustrated when it is evident that nobody wants to do what is the will of the Senate. It is a historic responsibility when you bring a piece of legislation to the Senate, which is to allow Senators, Democrat and Republican, to work their will with offering amendments that are, hopefully, germane and responsible to be debated and voted on. Why would I want any amendments? I have all I want in the bill. The Judiciary Committee included agricultural jobs, a guest worker revised program, and a program that will deal with illegal undocumented workers already in country that relate to agriculture in the bill. Would I want anymore amendments? In fact, the Senator from Georgia has already offered an amendment against me. One of my colleagues on this side of the aisle has openly said he wants to kill the AgJOBS provision in this bill, and he has a multiple of amendments he wants to offer. I am willing to let him offer them. I am willing to debate him. I think I can defeat him. I hope I have the prevailing argument. But what is at hand here is a very important piece of work done by the Judiciary Committee, S. 2454. I am not going to suggest it is perfect in every way. The amendment process does refine and direct the will of the total Senate instead of the will of a single committee. I suspect the chairman of the Judiciary Committee would be hard pressed to say this bill is flawless, it is perfect, it is without reproach. That is not what my phone calls are saying. That is not what the public is saying. In fact, the public in many instances disagrees with the provisions I have put in the bill. What is important is exactly what the other Senator, Senator Isakson, said. This is one of our major domestic issues. It is an issue of national security. It is an issue of border control. It is an issue of recognizing the diverse economies of our country and the need for an employment base that is legal, documented, and controlled. It is a matter of immigration. To suggest we are going to play games with who is on first and who is on second about who makes an amendment, who offers an amendment--why is the other side so nervous and frightened that somehow this bill might be changed a little bit? Better or worse, I don't know. I think all who have spent time on this issue and know the issue are certainly willing to debate it or we wouldn't be with the issue. We would simply be running politically away from it as this Congress has done for a good number of years. But the American people, in frustration, in anger, in fear, are now saying deal with it, control your border, our border, our Nation's border. Define and prescribe, background check, inspect those who cross it, at the same time, recognize that a certain type of employee is critically necessary in American agriculture to do the tough, hard, backbreaking work in the fields of America or to change the beds in our resorts or to work in certain forms of manufacturing or in oil patch. Now, that is at that level of work, and that is an entry-level job, and it is critical to our economy that we have them. Americans, on the large part, have chosen not to do that kind of work anymore. But I recognize the need to recognize American citizens who do, and in my AgJOBS reform of the H-2A program, we create a national labor pool and recognize, first, if someone who is an American citizen is seeking that kind of employment, we make sure they are eligible and eligible first. It is Americans first in this instance, as it should be. At the same time, there must be a clear recognition that there are now millions in this country, yes, here illegally, but all of them working, and working hard, and paying taxes, and not getting the benefit of those. Why? Naturally, they are not citizens. We understand that. They probably ought to go home when they are through working, and 90 percent of them want to go home. But the irony is, as we continue to control our border, we create an impenetrable line, as we should, and those who have moved back and forth across that border historically no longer can do that. Well, it is an interesting thing. It is an interesting issue. The House tried to deal with it in one way--I do not think appropriately, I do not think responsibly. I am not suggesting it is not responsible to control the border. We are doing that in this bill. But I believe we are doing it in a much more sensitive and humane way. The border has to be secured or what we do here will not work. You cannot try to control and identify and direct employment traffic, if you will, in this country if you cannot control the flow of the traffic. That is part of what we are all about in trying to deal with this issue. There are those who would say: Round them up and throw them out-- round up 8 million, round up five times the size of the population of the State of Idaho and somehow identify them and treat them as legally as you have to under the law and get them out? We cannot do that, will not do that. It is impractical to do that. That is what this bill has struggled to accomplish. But let's stop and suggest that if this is the issue we all believe it is, why are we fearful of amendments? Why has the other side sleepwalked us for the last 2 days? We ought to have voted on 3, 5, 8, 10 amendments by now. What are we fearful of? I have my provision in the bill, but let Senator Chambliss amend it. Let him try. Let us debate it. Let us see the differences between what he believes and what I believe. We both agree on so many things as it relates to the agricultural employment base, but we disagree on some things. There is nothing wrong with that kind of healthy debate. I do not fear it. I will not fear it. And I must say to my colleague from Illinois, when you tried to make the straw person the Senator from Arizona, there is an expression south of the Mason-Dixon line that is simply said: That dog don't hunt. Find a new straw person. This one does not work. I yield the floor.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. CRAIG. You are really going to suggest that the last 2 days of effort are called heavy lifting? Shouldn't we redefine what work in this body is all about?

Mr. CRAIG. You did not use that term; I just did. But you have suggested we have been at great industry here over the last 2 days?

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Does that have to do with basketball?

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, for at least a few moments this morning, we have an order to continue discussion on this critically important legislation. Let me say in general that S. 2454, attempting to be a comprehensive reform of national immigration law, setting forth very strict border control efforts, authorizing tremendous expenditures for the purpose of controlling our borders, is a bill that finally is awakening the Senate. Some of us have been engaged in the debate on immigration for a good number of years, but many of my colleagues have, for whatever reason, chosen not to be. They are busy. But there is no question in my mind and I think the minds of almost every Senator today that the American people have said immigration reform is a priority, border control is a priority: Congress, get with it. We no longer can, nor should we, tolerate within our boundaries whatever that number is-- 7 million, 8 million, 9 million? If you want to listen to Lou Dobbs on television, he will say it is 20 million. Lou Dobbs doesn't know, nor do we know, exactly how many undocumented foreign nationals are here. We do know some fundamental basics. If we do not control our borders, if we do not control in-migration, in time we can lose our character as a country. We are a nation of immigrants and we are proud of it. We are, as has been said by many, over a historic period of time, a melting pot of the world. It has proved us as a nation to be unique. It has given us our strength. It makes us something no other nation is. How many people can become Japanese? How many people can become an Italian? How many people can become a German? Any one of those nationalities can become an American. Why? It is the uniqueness of our country. But in becoming an American, we have always put parameters around it. We have always said you had to study, you had to learn, you had to move yourself into the American culture and the American dream. You had to have, and we allowed, an assimilation. What we have lost in the last two decades by not controlling our borders is that very assimilation in the style with which it operated in the past. Many of us, and most Americans, wish to regain that. It isn't that we deny our heritage; we are tremendously proud we are a nation of immigrants. We want to continue that tradition. It is our strength. But in doing so, you control your borders, you control the in-migration, and you do so in an orderly fashion. If we control our borders, if we are successful in shutting them down and only allowing to move through that which is legal, in an orderly fashion, what do we do then? With the unknown number of some 8 or 10 million foreign nationals who are here illegally, what do we do with them? Mr. President, 99 percent of them are hard workers. Many have been here for years. They are a part of our economy. They are a part of our lifestyle. Most of them are contributors. Very few of them are detractors. A few are. A few are criminals, and they ought to be arrested, if we can find them, and they ought to be thrown out of the country. But what do we do if we take all the rest and toss them out? Who fills those jobs? Who meets those demands? Who does the kind of work about which the average American citizen today says, ``I won't do that,'' yet it is critically important--for the food on the supermarket shelves of America, for the beds in the resorts and the hotels, for the landscape, for construction, for the oil patch. You name it. Illegal foreign nationals are everywhere in our economy today whether we like it, whether we are willing to admit it. They are here in part because of our negligence, but they are also here because they have been needed, because our economy asked them to come and there were no restrictions for them to gain entry other than to walk across a border that was unguarded and uncontrolled. In that act they broke the law, our law. This bill tries to fix it. I can't tell you on face value it does. What I do know is it will take billions of dollars and a lot of trained personnel to go job site by job site to secure those who are illegal and to move them through a process toward legality or out of the country. I am not sure we are prepared to do that yet. I am convinced of one thing: We can control the borders and we should. Starting nearly 5 years ago, I recognized this in American agriculture because American agriculture came to me. I have worked with them closely on a variety of issues. And they said: Senator, nearly 70 percent of our workforce is illegal and we know it, and it is wrong and we want to fix it because we don't want to be operating on a shaky base. We need these people to pick the crops, to harvest the crops, and to process the crops. We need them on a timely basis. They need to be reliable. The current system is broken and it doesn't allow it. It only identifies 40-some thousand legal agricultural workers a year, and there are 1.2 million that are necessary. The system is broken. I began to work with them. We worked collectively and came up with a bill. We worked with Democrats and Republicans, House and Senate. We worked with Hispanic groups, we worked with labor unions, we worked with the farm organizations, and we produced a bill known as AgJOBS. We looked at all of the compromises that had to be made. We tried to recognize those who had been here illegally but had been here for a long while, and those who were just coming and going--the day laborers on the Mexican-Arizona-California border who come across to work for the day and go back across at night to their homes. This is a phenomenally complicated issue. S. 2454 is the bill that I and others crafted known as AgJOBS. For just a few more minutes, I will walk you through one portion of it. It is a two-part bill. It deals with those who are currently here working in agriculture, and then it goes over and reforms the H-2A guest worker program, to streamline it, to take out the bureaucracy, to make it function in a way that is the kind of program that many are talking about today, a seasonal worker, guest worker program, to come to work, to go home but to recognize the need to treat those folks humanely, to offer to them the jobs that Americans won't do, to assist where we can, to recognize that our economy needs them and they ought to be dealt with appropriately. How do we then deal with this 8 million? Let me talk to you this morning not about 8 million but about 1.2 million, just a small window but I believe an opportunity while looking through that window to see what the rest of America is like and in part what those 8 million illegals might be like. It is to recognize them, it is to identify them, it is to have them come forward if they have been here 3 years-- since 2003--working and can demonstrate that they worked for 150 days in agriculture and then to allow them to earn the right to stay by continuing to work in agriculture for another 150 days up to 5 years. It is a pilot program. It allows only 1.2 million during that 5-year period. It allows them to adjust and to gain a blue card--legal working status. Is it amnesty? Well, somebody will call it that. Others have already called it that. I call it earning a status. They have to pay a fine. They have to pay a $500 fine. They have to have a background check. If they have a legal record of misconduct and criminal conduct, they don't qualify. They will have to be deported. So there is a true tightening of the relationship with these workers, but it is a clear understanding that those workers are needed and necessary in the workforce. Agriculture, like no other business, is what it is at the time it is. By that I mean when the fruit is ripe, you pick it. If it isn't picked, it rots on the vine. Much of what we do in agriculture is hand labor. It is intensive, hard work, backbreaking in the hot Sun kind of labor. The average American citizen says: I don't do that kind of work anymore but, oh, do we love the abundance of the supermarket shelf. There are people who will do that work. Many of them are here as migrant workers, illegal foreign nationals doing just that work. They see it as an opportunity because any job in America is better than an entry job in Mexico. They come here, earn money, and 90 percent of them want to go home after they have earned their money. They go back to their nation, Mexico. They can live better than they have ever lived because of the money they earned in America--in the United States. But 90 percent of them say: We don't want to become American citizens. We want to come and work. We are Mexicans. We like being Mexicans. We are proud of that. The story goes on and on. I will spend more time on the details of this issue. There are those offering amendments to change the AgJOBS provision. Some may pass, I don't know. I believe we have a quality product that has been years in the making, not only before the Judiciary Committee but Democrats and Republicans alike. Farm workers and farm organizations and American agriculture have been meeting for 5 years to try to identify the problem and to correct it. That work effort is here in this bill. It is a quality work effort. It is one that ought to be defended. It is one that clearly recognizes all of the differences in the American economy today and the uniqueness of agriculture. Let me close with this thought. The average illegal in our country today will say when asked--and they have been asked by people they trust--how long do you stay in an agricultural job? It has been said by some--and I believe it is true because it has been said by those who are here in those jobs--they say: We see agriculture as the door to entry. We stay there a couple of years. We learn the ropes. We get to know your country a little better, and then we go out to other jobs-- construction, home building, the service industry and oil patch, and a variety of other areas across the country where day laborers, backbreaking labor, hard labor is required as the uniqueness of that particular place of employment. So agriculture is kind of the window, the door of entry that many come and work in before they go elsewhere. That is why it is important, no matter what we do, that we try to get this right, to control our borders, to begin to identify where the borders are controlled, where people go, and what our needs are and what their needs are and to treat them appropriately and humanely. That is the essence of a part of the bill. Other amendments will come as we work through this bill in the coming hours and in the coming days. To all of my fellow citizens who are listening and watching, the Senate is now focused. You have asked us to deal with immigration in one form or another. There are 100 different ideas on how we get it done, some very Draconian and some very forward-looking. I think AgJOBS kind of fits in the middle. I think it kind of sorts out the problem. It is a realistic, practical approach to identify how the fruit of America literally gets picked in a reasonable, responsible fashion while at the same time treating those who do that work in a humane and appropriate way. I yield the floor.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, now that we are back on the immigration bill, I thought I might for a few moments discuss in general some of the provisions in it that I think are extremely important and that are being discussed by a good number of my colleagues. I understand the Senator from Colorado wishes to discuss in general an amendment he will offer later. I hope no one would object to that because it does not actually offer the amendments but allows the debate to move forward while the chairman and the ranking member are determining the schedule of events here.

Mr. CRAIG. I yield for that purpose.

Mr. CRAIG. With the understanding following that the Senator from Colorado will be recognized? Does that fit his schedule?

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the ``Specialty Crop Competition Act of 2006.'' This bipartisan legislation co- sponsored by the distinguished Senator from Michigan, Senator Stabenow, increases the focus on the contribution that specialty crops add to the U.S. agricultural economy. This bill specifically provides the proper and necessary attention to many challenges faced throughout each segment of the industry. Most do not realize the significance of specialty crops and their value to the U.S. economy and the health of U.S. citizens. According to the United States Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service, fruits and vegetables alone added $29.9 billion to the U.S. economy in 2002. This figure does not even include the contribution of nursery and other ornamental plant production, which our bill recognizes. The specialty crop industry also accounts for more than $53 billion in cash receipts for U.S. producers, which is close to 54 percent of the total cash receipts for all crops. A surprising fact to some is that my State of Idaho is a top producer of specialty crops. Idaho proudly boasts production of cherries, table grapes, apples, onions, carrots, several varieties of seed crops and of course one of our most notable specialty crops, potatoes. Maintaining a viable and sustainable specialty crop industry also benefits the health of America's citizens. Obesity continues to plague millions of people today and is a very serious and deepening threat not only to personal health and well-being, but to the resources of the economy as well. This issue is now receiving the necessary attention at the highest levels, and specialty crops will continue to play a prominent role in reversing the obesity trend. The ``Specialty Crop Competition Act'' will also provide a stronger position for the U.S. industry in the global market arena. This legislation promotes initiatives that will combat diseases both native and foreign that continue to be used as non-tariff barriers to U.S. exports by foreign governments. Additionally, provisions in this bill seek improvements to federal regulations and resources that impede timely consideration of industry sanitary and phytosanitary petitions. This bill does not provide direct subsidies to producers like other programs. This legislation takes a major step forward to highlight the significance of this industry to the agriculture economy, the benefits to the health of U.S. citizens, and the need for a stable, affordable, diverse, and secure supply of food. Although we near the end of the 109th Congress, I look forward to working with my colleagues and the Administration to consider this comprehensive and necessary legislation as we begin to discuss new initiatives for the 2007 Farm Bill.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the ``Specialty Crop Competition Act of 2006.'' This bipartisan legislation co- sponsored by the distinguished Senator from Michigan, Senator Stabenow, increases the focus on the contribution that specialty crops add to the U.S. agricultural economy. This bill specifically provides the proper and necessary attention to many challenges faced throughout each segment of the industry. Most do not realize the significance of specialty crops and their value to the U.S. economy and the health of U.S. citizens. According to the United States Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service, fruits and vegetables alone added $29.9 billion to the U.S. economy in 2002. This figure does not even include the contribution of nursery and other ornamental plant production, which our bill recognizes. The specialty crop industry also accounts for more than $53 billion in cash receipts for U.S. producers, which is close to 54 percent of the total cash receipts for all crops. A surprising fact to some is that my State of Idaho is a top producer of specialty crops. Idaho proudly boasts production of cherries, table grapes, apples, onions, carrots, several varieties of seed crops and of course one of our most notable specialty crops, potatoes. Maintaining a viable and sustainable specialty crop industry also benefits the health of America's citizens. Obesity continues to plague millions of people today and is a very serious and deepening threat not only to personal health and well-being, but to the resources of the economy as well. This issue is now receiving the necessary attention at the highest levels, and specialty crops will continue to play a prominent role in reversing the obesity trend. The ``Specialty Crop Competition Act'' will also provide a stronger position for the U.S. industry in the global market arena. This legislation promotes initiatives that will combat diseases both native and foreign that continue to be used as non-tariff barriers to U.S. exports by foreign governments. Additionally, provisions in this bill seek improvements to federal regulations and resources that impede timely consideration of industry sanitary and phytosanitary petitions. This bill does not provide direct subsidies to producers like other programs. This legislation takes a major step forward to highlight the significance of this industry to the agriculture economy, the benefits to the health of U.S. citizens, and the need for a stable, affordable, diverse, and secure supply of food. Although we near the end of the 109th Congress, I look forward to working with my colleagues and the Administration to consider this comprehensive and necessary legislation as we begin to discuss new initiatives for the 2007 Farm Bill.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I come to the floor this afternoon to participate in what I believe is a fundamentally important, if not historical, debate about national security and border control and immigration and local law enforcement, of a magnitude and an importance that this country has not seen in a long while. This afternoon, I want to focus on border control because border control is synonymous with national security. If there is one responsibility our Government has--it is, in fact, a constitutional responsibility--it is that of national security. It is crucial, for observers, citizens, listening in, watching, trying to understand this debate--and oftentimes frustrated by it--to understand that while there are many contentious issues that will be discussed and debated over the course of the remainder of today and tomorrow and next week--and that the news media may well focus on only segments of it, attempting to dramatize it, attempting to suggest there are great divisions amongst Members of the Senate and the Congress as a whole, and the citizens as a whole--Congress will start and end with legislation that serves, first and foremost, the national security interests of our country. The bill that is now before us includes provisions that are unique and important and truly address those kinds of concerns that Americans have been speaking out about ever since 9/11, ever since we were thrust upon the issue of immigration and a reality that we had anywhere from 8 to 12 million foreign nationals, undocumented people within our country, and that some of them, while but a few, were intent on doing us harm, were intent on attacking our citizens and not here to work and to benefit themselves and their families. So it is appropriate that we start this discussion by looking at a critical element of national security, and that is simply border control. I must tell my colleagues, that is as difficult, if not more difficult than attempting to address, understand, and identify some 11- plus million undocumented foreign nationals who are now in our country. Why? Because we have phenomenal borders. The United States has 7,458 miles of land borders and over 88,600 miles of tidal shoreline. We cannot possibly build a fence that long, that high, and that deep everywhere to accommodate with absolute surety that those borders are impenetrable. I grew up with this as a very common statement amongst most Americans. When you read the history books and the government books of my day, while I was in the sixth and seventh and eighth grade and in high school and college, America was tremendously proud that it had literally thousands and thousands of miles of northern border and southern border that were unguarded, that we were a peaceful nation. And the nation to our north, Canada, and the nation to our south, Mexico, were peaceful nations. We didn't have to have guarded borders, and we didn't guard them. It was not only impractical in that day, it was simply unnecessary. We realize the world has changed significantly and that clearly establishing workable security policies that act in many ways as a fence or a border must be called a virtual fence, a virtually impenetrable border because it won't be just building the fence where many propose it ought to be built. It goes well beyond that. It truly is a policy that works, that allows, that identifies, that controls, that shapes the relationship of our border so that while we want to stop those who may do us harm and control those who want to cross the border undetected, we must also recognize that we have to allow and we must allow movement of innocent citizens and commercial traffic. That is the nature of a border--to control, to shape, to clarify, to identify those who move across our borders. In the last 5 years, we have increased funding for border security by 60 percent. For those who say you have done nothing, you are just flat wrong. This Congress, understanding from 9/11 to today the responsibility of controlling our borders, has invested dramatically the resources of the American taxpayer. We now have some 10,000 Border Patrol agents along the southwestern border and 1,000 along our northern border. Our border protection agents have removed more than 4.5 million people, of whom some 350,000 have criminal records. In fiscal year 2005 alone, the U.S. Border Patrol apprehended 1.19 million people attempting to enter our country illegally. Through the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program, Congress has provided more than $4 billion to State and local governments to help with the cost of incarcerating criminal aliens. It isn't just making sure the border is impenetrable, but when they cross the border making sure that we at the local level can bring about the kind of law enforcement that apprehends at least the criminal element and incarcerates them and holds them for future prosecution. Last year's emergency supplemental funding bill contained an amendment by Senator Robert Byrd and myself reprogramming funds from other programs to make an immediate and substantial downpayment on increasing Border Patrol as well as adding hundreds of other law enforcement agents and nearly 2,000 more detention beds for illegal immigrants the law requires to be held for criminal activity. We didn't even have space, once arrested, once apprehended, to put the criminal element or those we felt might be engaged in criminal activity. However, even as we have increased border enforcement, net illegal immigration continues to be estimated at 400,000 to 500,000 people a year. We were all stunned last week at the report that undercover Federal agents managed to smuggle radioactive material through security checkpoints at the border. For all the billions we have invested, while there is no question the border is tightening, it is still penetrable in an illegal way. Clearly, despite the resources we have poured into the border, and with many successes, there is still much left to be done. The legislation before us, incorporated in a much broader immigration policy, is the kind of legislation that ought to go first, coupled with a responsible national immigration policy. Both bills before the Senate today contain numerous provisions aimed at improving our border security. They will increase the number of Federal officers policing our borders and improve their training. These bills will clean up Federal laws addressing criminal aliens, increasing the penalties for alien smuggling and gang violence and illegal entry and reentry, and expanding the definition of aggravated felony that is the basis for removing aliens or denying them entry in the first place. These bills support the President's decision to end the catch-and- release program. Can you imagine, that is exactly what we have been doing. You catch an undocumented worker, you file it, you release them. Why? We didn't have the capacity to detain them and hold them, to process them appropriately and make sure they were returned to the other side of the border. Clearly, that is now in here, instead of requiring detention of all aliens caught illegally across the border until they could be formally removed. We couldn't handle that. Now we are increasing the number of ports of entry and provide for improvement of existing ports. There is much more to improve border security in this legislation. I thought I would refer to a few of the other areas of enforcement policy. The bill authorizes 250 new Customs and border protection officers, 200 new positions for investigative personnel to investigate alien smuggling, and 250 additional port of entry inspectors annually from fiscal 2007 to fiscal 2011. It also increases the number of Customs enforcement inspectors by 200 in section 5203 of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004. It authorizes 2,400 additional Border Patrol agents annually for 6 years, adding an additional 4,400 agents to the border over 6 years to the 10,000 already added by the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, for a total of 14,400 new Border Patrol agents by 2011. If America says nothing is being done, then America, listen up: This Congress is as committed as you are concerned about border control and building that fence. But it will not be a steel and concrete fence stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of California and the west coast. It will be a virtual fence of electronics, of surveillance flights, of the recognition of new ports and people, personnel, because the other is, at best, impractical and, at worst, once done, unworkable. That is why what we are doing now, many of us who have studied and worked with this issue for a good number of years believe, is the right approach. Technical assistance and infrastructure: The bill authorizes such sums as are necessary in the acquisition of unmanned aerial vehicles, cameras, poles, sensors, and other kinds of technology to achieve operational control of the borders and to construct all-weather roads and add vehicles and vehicle barriers along the borders. It requires the Department of Homeland Security to replace damaged primary fencing and double- or triple-layered fencing in Arizona's population centers and on the border, and to construct at least 200 miles of vehicle barriers and all-weather roads in areas that are known transit points for illegals who traffic the border. Is this nothing? This is a phenomenal, historic investment in building that virtual fence that is necessary and appropriate at this time. It is safe to say that nobody in Congress, House or Senate, believes our job is done until we have acted to increase security for America's citizens, knowing that those who cross the border cross it legally and that those who cross are not a criminal element, are not putting our citizens at risk. None of us believes our job will be done until the border is closed but open to legal entry, open to those who have a right to come across because we have so designated them, so recognized them for the purpose they would come--to work in our economy to provide for themselves and their families, to come here to work, to go home, to someday become an American citizen if they choose and if they stand in line and make the application and make the effort to become just that. I have been very outspoken about agriculture and agriculture's need for foreign national workers. American agriculture needs some 1.2 million workers annually. Many will be foreign nationals, as they have been in the past. Without them, it is possible that we could collapse American agriculture. If we cannot find the workforce for American agriculture to come here to work, then American agriculture's investment will go elsewhere to fill the supermarket shelves of our country with the quality of plentiful food that American consumers have grown and expect to be there. What American consumers have not recognized is that over the last 20 years, most of that food has been harvested by illegal foreign nationals. Next week, I will talk in detail about changes in policy that are embodied within this legislation to improve our immigration policy, to recognize those who have come who deserve to be treated fairly. But today, tomorrow, and clearly throughout the week, I hope Americans understand that first and foremost our effort is to gain control of our borders, to make them secure, to make Americans feel comfortable that we have done our very best to take the thousands and thousands of miles of border, both land and sea, and to secure them for the sake of our Nation's security. I yield the floor.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I never had the opportunity to serve with Bruce Newcomb in the Idaho State Legislature, but having been privileged to get to know him, I very much would have enjoyed working with a man of his caliber. Bruce is retiring from the Idaho House of Representatives at the end of the 2006 session, and he will be sorely missed by his colleagues in the legislature and his constituents in Idaho. Bruce has developed a reputation of being an honest and evenhanded speaker of the house whose sense of humor helps in tackling contentious issues and a heavy workload. In addition, he is a strong leader who is not afraid to make a strong stand when the situation calls for it. Having grown up on a working farm and ranch in Idaho myself, I understand the difficulty of going to Boise to serve in the legislature in the middle of the calving season. Bruce has been able to handle his work as a rancher while serving the constituents of Idaho, without sacrificing the quality of either profession--not to mention his important duties as a family man, the husband of Celia Gould and father of five children. It takes a truly talented man to handle all these responsibilities and continue to have such strong loyalty and respect from colleagues, family, and friends. Over the 2006 President's Day recess, I had the opportunity to share the floor with Bruce at the Mini-Cassia Lincoln Day Luncheon in Burley, ID, to answer questions from the constituents of Idaho. Bruce fielded all the State-related questions and handled them with impressive knowledge, not to mention a down-home country charm which made complicated issues easy to understand. After seeing Bruce in action with his constituents in his home district, it is easy to understand why he will leave such huge boots to fill when he retires. Bruce served 20 years in the Idaho House of Representatives, where he held many different leadership roles: majority caucus chairman, assistant majority leader, majority leader, and four terms as speaker of the house. His four terms as speaker marks him as the longest- serving speaker in the Idaho House of Representatives. Bruce, thank you for your service to our State. You truly are a speaker who speaks for Idaho.