Bob Casey

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, here is how Trisha Urban concluded her letter. She said: If my story is heard, if legislation could be changed to help other uninsured Americans in a similar situation, I am willing to pay the price of losing everything. I am asking you to share my story with others in Congress and I am willing to speak on behalf of my husband so that his death will not be in vain. In this one single letter from a woman in Pennsylvania, a mother and now a widow, is contained all the challenges that we face in this budget, specifically with regard to health care. But I think it speaks to so many other challenges we face as well. So every budget we do, and especially at this time of economic crisis, is about people, and we all have to remember that. I think President Obama understands this budget is about people--it is about people who are leading lives of struggle and sacrifice and setback. But at the same time he understands the American people, even at this difficult time in our Nation's history, understand we will overcome this. We will pass a budget, and we will get to work on these important priorities--priorities such as health care, the priority of education, and also of making progress on a whole range of energy issues. As we are passing this budget, we should remind the American people that even as we work on health care, energy, and education, this budget contains plenty of middle-class tax relief, and it is important to talk about that. Now, I don't want to look in the rear-view mirror and talk about the past too much, but I think it is important to provide a brief assessment of where we are. We can't make progress ahead of us if we don't know where we are and where we have been. Here is where we have been the last couple of years. The prior administration inherited a $236 billion surplus. When the prior administration ended, it was the exact opposite--record deficits at that time. The Congressional Budget Office projected the surplus-- this is back in the early part of this decade--the projection was the surplus would grow at $710 billion--a surplus of $710 billion--by 2009. We know that is not the case today. President Obama and the American people have inherited a deficit of almost $1.3 trillion. If you look at it in terms of gross debt, it is like looking at the side of a mountain. We went from $5.8 trillion up to over $12 trillion in debt. That is what we face. And I think it is important to understand that is where we start. But President Obama didn't spend a lot of time talking about the problem he inherited, he focused on solutions. So he put before the Congress an open, honest, and accountable budget. This is a budget that will come about because of his work and his leadership as President but also the work that Chairman Kent Conrad and others in Congress do. I want to commend Chairman Conrad for the work he has done on this budget. He has a great array of charts we are going to be using in the next couple of days to highlight some of these issues. But this is an honest budget. It is not perfect, but it is honest, and it focuses on those priorities I mentioned before--health care, energy, education, deficit reduction, and tax relief. Let me take a couple of moments to talk about health care. The story I told before, encompassing the letter from Trisha Urban, is an unusual story, a graphic and difficult story to tell about tragic events in the life of one family. But the problems that families are having with health care are not all that unusual. For the first time in a decade, we have a budget that tackles one of the biggest problems in the country--the health care crisis. We can't put it off to 2010, 2011, or 2012. We have to deal with this now, this year, with a new President and a new Congress committed to doing that. Across Pennsylvania this issue comes up all the time when I talk to people in our State. If you look at it in terms of the Nation, there are nearly seven times the number of Americans without health insurance today as there were in 2000. Families USA is an organization that analyzes health care in the country, and then they focus specifically on a particular State. The most recent report of Families USA finds that nearly 3 million Pennsylvanians under the age of 65 were uninsured for some period of time in 2007 and 2008. The overall number of Pennsylvanians without health insurance is growing faster than the nationwide average. So we have a major challenge on our hands with regard to health care, and the President has been very focused on making sure health care is a major component of this budget. We are going to be talking about the specifics of that in the days ahead. The President also made a strong commitment to energy independence. We all know it is important. We know it is an urgent priority, and we have talked a lot about it--year after year of talking and not acting, year after year of explaining the problem instead of putting the solutions into law, into the budget, into the programs we know can work. Energy independence is not just a nice thing to do, it is not just another way to go about heating our homes and powering our economy. Energy independence is essential for our national security. The more we ignore it, the less safe we are. The more we ignore energy independence, the more the terrorists have an increasing advantage over us. We have to deal with this this year as well. We are dependent for oil on some of the most politically unstable areas of the world. We know that, but we can't just acknowledge that, we have to act on it. This budget addresses the need for investments in clean energy that will help us combat global warming and create the new green jobs of the future--not just any jobs, the green jobs that will pay wages on which you can sustain a family. This budget, with regard to energy, builds on the investment we made through the recovery and reinvestment bill we passed not too long ago, for renewable energy, energy efficiency and conservation, electric grid modernization, and low-carbon coal technology, which is so important for our transition to this new energy economy. I wish to conclude today by addressing the issue of education. We know that the challenge we have with regard to education is a lifetime of challenges, and we have to think about education as a continuum, a continuing series of challenges we have to face as Americans. We cannot say we want a growing economy or higher GNP growth or a skilled workforce to compete in the world economy--we cannot really say that with any degree of truth or integrity unless we are willing to make investment in children in the dawn of their lives. As Hubert Humphrey said a long time ago--he talked about how the test of government is how we treat those in the dawn of life, the shadows of life, and those in the twilight of life. When he spoke of the dawn of life, of course he was speaking of our children. The United States of America today has no prekindergarten education policy beyond the important program of Head Start. But we have to not just make the funding commitment to Head Start, which has been so important to our economy and to our children and our families, we have to do more than Head Start. We need a full commitment to prekindergarten education--early learning. President Obama understands that. He campaigned on it. He promised the American people he was going to work on it, and he put it in his budget. It is so critically important to make this a priority in our budget. But he knows that making sure a child has access to early education and health care and the promise of a bright future will not reach fulfillment unless we invest in higher education as well. Access to higher education and the opportunities it affords is one of the fundamentals of what makes this country strong. I really believe his commitment on higher education is a seminal part of his budget. But I really believe also that when President Obama talks about education, he is not just talking about it in some abstract form. When he focuses on the needs of our children, it is not an abstraction--not only because he is a husband and a father but because President Obama believes, as I believe, that every child in America, no matter where they live, no matter who they are, no matter who their parents are, every child in America is born with a bright, scintillating light inside them. It is up to us, those of us who are elected officials, who are given power to help people, who are given power to get things right in this country as best we can, it is up to us to make sure that whatever that light is inside a child, it burns ever brighter, that that child's full potential--if it is unlimited or if it is much more limited--whatever that potential is, whatever the brightness of that light is, we have an obligation here to make sure that potential, that light burns brightly. I really believe what President Obama has tried to do on education speaks directly to that obligation we have as Members of the Senate or Members of Congress. We have a lot more to talk about in the days ahead. We have a lot more challenges to face as we face the challenge not only of passing a budget but of making sure these programs work for people. But in the end, this is about people. It is about Trisha Urban and families who face the impossible challenge of having health care for their family. It is also about a lot of families in Pennsylvania and across the country who lost their homes, may have lost their jobs, and have lost their hopes and their dreams. I believe with all my heart that this budget is one of the ways we speak to their concerns, one of the ways we do our best to speak to the worries they have about their own future, one of the ways we give integrity to the promise we have when we say we are working here to make sure the families of America can reach their potential: that children's lives will be better than their parents' lives. There are many people worried about that basic feature of American life. This budget is not perfect. We will continue to work on it. I and others will have amendments, but President Obama has put us on a path to make the investments in health care, education, and energy; to cut the deficit in half; to provide tax relief; and also by making those investments to put us on a path not just to getting our economy out of the ditch and back on the road but making sure we are making the investments to grow our economy in the future--to create jobs, to create opportunity, and to create a future for our families and especially for our children. We have a long way to go, but I really believe President Obama-- working with leaders such as Chairman Conrad here in the Senate and others in the House as well to make sure we are on that path to fiscal responsibility--is on the path to investing in priorities such as health care, education, and energy. If we work together, we can reestablish the kind of economy we used to have and reestablish and reenergize the priorities the American people elected us to work on. I know we can do that together, but it is not going to be easy. We look forward to the challenge. We look forward to working with President Obama. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the budget that is before the Congress, before the Senate, and before the American people. Like many others in this Chamber, as well as people from across the country, we look forward to working with President Obama to get this budget passed. When we consider what a budget is, I believe it is a lot of things, of course, but it is not just a series of proposals and policies and numbers and charts and data. I believe a budget is really a reflection of our values. It is a mirror into which we look--at least here in the Federal budget--once a year to make an assessment or a reassessment of our values and our priorities. I think President Obama understands that. His budget reflects that understanding; that a budget is a set of values and priorities, and in the end it is also about people. It is not just about data and programs, but a budget is about people. I was thinking this morning about some people with whom I have had contact through correspondence--people who write to our office and talk about their lives--such as Trisha Urban, who wrote to our office not too long ago. She is from Berks County, the county that has the city of Redding in it, on the eastern side of our State. Trisha has a story about her life, her family, and about health care. Imagine this happening, Mr. President, in the life of one family--in this case Trisha Urban's family. Trisha was pregnant and awaiting the birth of a child, and at the same time her husband dies, literally within the same timeframe. She wrote to me and said: We were anxiously awaiting the birth of our first child. A half hour later, two ambulances were in my driveway. As the paramedics were assessing the health of my baby and me, the paramedic from the other ambulance told me that my husband could not be revived. This happened all in 1 day, all in 1 hour, literally. She goes on to say in her letter: My husband's death may have been prevented. Like many other Americans, we have difficulty with our health insurance. My husband had to leave his job for 1 year to complete an internship requirement to complete his doctorate in psychology. The internship was unpaid; we could not afford

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Madam President, I rise first to talk about an issue so many of us have been deeply concerned about--frankly, beyond concerned but outraged by--and that is what is happening with AIG and the effect of the decision the executives made there about bonuses, in relation to our economy. I think it is important to step back from the obvious frustration we have. So many Americans are expressing their outrage and anger, and a deep sense of betrayal has been generated almost because of this action. I want to step back for a second and review where we are. Basically, what we have is an American company of international reach that has said to the American people: We know you gave us $170 billion, at last count; you gave us your tax money because we were in trouble. And we have to ask them: Why were you in trouble? One of the big reasons is because a group of employees in one division of AIG developed schemes. That is the best word to describe what they developed. These were sophisticated schemes to make money, which caused the near collapse of this company. That is what we are talking about. This isn't complicated. It is that simple. The employees of that division concocted these schemes to make money, and now the company is in near collapse, while the American people--the American taxpayers--were asked through their elected representatives, through their Government, to provide tens of billions in help--by one count, $170 billion in help. And what do we get for that? We got little in the way of accountability with all these transactions AIG has entered into, very little in the way of accountability, and now we find out this past weekend that the very division--not just a broad section of employees but the very division that concocted the schemes that led to the problems is getting tens of millions in bonuses--$160 million, $165 million in bonuses. So this is beyond the insult of getting billions and tens of billions and hundreds of billions in taxpayer help and then asking for bonuses for anyone. This is much worse than that. This is giving bonuses to the people in the very division that caused most, if not all, of the problems at AIG that taxpayers were then called upon to provide some remedy or rescue. That is the outrage here. That is the insult to the American people, that this company now is thumbing its nose at the American people. This comes at a time when, for example, in Pennsylvania, our employment rate hit 7 percent. I never thought we would get to an unemployment rate that high. Thank God we have been a little lower than the national rate, but 7 percent is a very high number in any State, and many States have been there for a year or more. So we have been spared somewhat in Pennsylvania. But at the very time we have an unemployment rate of 7 percent, when people have lost their homes, they have lost their jobs, they have lost their hopes and their dreams, we have a major international company that got what comes from the sweat and blood and work of the American people, they got the benefit of all that, the $170 billion in taxpayer help, and what do we get for it? We get the insult and the betrayal of bonuses to the very people who caused the problem. You couldn't write fiction as disturbing as this or as outrageous as this. So I and others have said to the company very plainly--as I said in a letter today when I gave them two choices, neither of which they may go along with--I said have these employees forgo the bonuses or fire them. Simple as that. And if you are not going to take the step and ask them or somehow compel them for the good of the country, if not for the good of their own well-being, their own ethics, to forgo these bonuses, then they should be fired. Now, I realize they may say: That is an interesting suggestion from Congress, but we are not going to do either. Well, if they want to go down that path, then Congress will act. The Finance Committee of the Senate, as the Presiding Officer knows, is working on a piece of legislation right now. If there is legislation that says we are going to tax these bonuses at 70 or 80 or 90 percent, I, along with other people, am going to vote for it. Whatever it takes to impose the maximum amount of penalty or punishment--pick your phrase--as long as it is legal and constitutional, we are going to support it. The American people have every right to demand that Congress take action because they are the ones who have been insulted at the worst time. They have been kicked in the face at a time when they have been struggling month after month, despite all of the promises from companies that they would get back on track with taxpayer help. So that is what is happening. The American people will monitor this. And stay tuned, because it is not over today. We can do more than express outrage. We can take action, and I think that is appropriate in this instance. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I want to speak about a very happy and positive topic, something that is close to my heart but I think also close to the heart of a lot of Americans. Today, we have the double benefit of it being not only St. Patrick's day, but in my case, as a Pennsylvanian and one of Irish descent, I had the great news announced today by the President of the United States that Dan Rooney--from the great Rooney family of Pittsburgh, owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers and a great friend of the people of Ireland, who has been active in the peace process, as has his family for a generation or more with their time, their effort, their money, and their wisdom--has been nominated to be Ambassador to Ireland. He is a Pittsburgher and a Pennsylvanian, and we are so very proud today to be able to report that for those who haven't yet heard the news. I will work, as a member of the Committee on Foreign Relations, to get him confirmed because we should confirm him. Dan Rooney is well known as the owner of the Steelers, the Super Bowl champs several times over in the last generation, and that is wonderful that he is, but he is a son of Pittsburgh, a very humble man, a very decent, kind, caring, and compassionate man, someone who has the kind of integrity and the kind of commitment to service you would want in an ambassador to any country but especially one such as Ireland. Pennsylvania has a pretty significant percentage of its population that traces its ancestry to that small island, and across the ages we have been proud of that connection, that affinity we have for the people of Ireland. In this case, if all goes as it should with the confirmation-- and I am sure it will--we will have a son of Pittsburgh, a son of Pennsylvania, a resident of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania serving as Ambassador to Ireland. Dan is someone who not only has the character and integrity and commitment to his country, and his concern about the Irish people, but he is also someone who has broad experience in running a major organization and motivating people to meet goals. There is so much that our country can do together with the people of Ireland. That country will see, if they do not already know, what we have always seen in the character and the decency and the strength and experience of Dan Rooney. So we are very proud today that President Obama made that announcement, especially for someone who has the kind of character and commitment to public service that Dan Rooney has. One final note about the celebration today of St. Patrick's Day. There are a lot of reasons to celebrate, even in the context of some of the recent violence in Ireland. There are more reasons than not to celebrate the enduring peace of Ireland, even in the midst of that setback, even in the midst of that violence. We have a lot to be thankful for, those of us who care about that kind of peace--one of the longest conflicts in the history of the world brought to resolution back in the 1990s. George Mitchell and the Clinton administration worked very hard on this, and I know the Obama administration will be equally committed to making sure that peace endures. As we are thinking today about Ireland and thinking about St. Patrick's Day and thinking about the bond between our two countries-- and earlier today I heard Senator Durbin speak of the senior Senator from Massachusetts, Mr. Kennedy, for a whole variety of reasons--I think of Ted Kennedy as someone who spent a lot of his time in the Senate working on peace issues the world over but in particular working on the peace process in Northern Ireland. Over his lifetime of service in the Senate, he is someone who has given meaning to the values we cherish on a day like today--values of service, the value of peace over war, the value of integrity, and the value of trying to love one another the best we can. Ted Kennedy has a long connection not just with the peace process and not just with the people of Ireland and his heritage, but his family has had a long connection with my home State of Pennsylvania--and not just on St. Patrick's Day but on a lot of other days. In fact, one of the reasons I highlighted Senator Kennedy and am thinking of him tonight is because of all the work he has done on health care, on civil rights, on education, as well as issues as important as the peace process in Ireland. I am also thinking of him tonight because of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick of Lackawanna County, which has had many storied speakers, but one of the greatest speeches given at that dinner--really in the history of the American Irish--was given by then-Senator Robert Frances Kennedy of New York in 1964. So we are thinking tonight of the inspiration Senator Robert Kennedy provided to the American people, to the people of the State he served, New York, and to people across the country in his Presidential campaign in 1968 before his tragic assassination. In a special way, I am thinking of the speech he gave not long after--literally just a few months after his brother, President Kennedy, was killed. I had the occasion a little more than a year ago to give an audio recording of that to Senator Ted Kennedy. I know he had heard of the speech and maybe even heard the actual recording, but I wanted to make sure he had a CD of that speech. So we are thinking of him tonight and thinking of his family and the great sacrifice the Kennedy family has made for the American people; one as President, two in the Senate, and one of them in the Senate who served as Attorney General. That is just a highlight of the kind of service they have provided. So on this St. Patrick's Day, we cherish the memory of so many things that are Irish, but we are also whispering a silent prayer for our country, whispering a prayer for the people of Ireland and for those who made this peace possible, people such as Ted Kennedy and George Mitchell, and others who worked so hard. In this very special way today, I am grateful for the chance to be able to stand on the floor of the Senate and say that a friend of mine, a friend of Pennsylvania, and a proud son of Pittsburgh has been nominated by President Obama to be Ambassador to Ireland. That friend is Dan Rooney. So congratulations, Dan. We are thinking of you and your family tonight as we celebrate St. Patrick's Day.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Agriculture Smart Trade Act along with my colleague Senator Stabenow. The goal of this legislation is to ensure that, as we consider the various free trade agreements that come before the Senate, we are also looking at the big picture, including the increased risk of accidentally importing invasive pests or diseases and the ability for American agricultural producers to access new export markets once trade agreements are in effect. Our bill is supported by United Fresh, the national association of fruit and vegetable growers and processors, and the U.S. Apple Association. The bill does two things. First, it requires the administration to send a report to Congress prior to the start of formal trade negotiations with a foreign nation detailing potential invasive pests and disease that could pose a risk to U.S. agriculture. Furthermore, this report must identify what additional agricultural inspectors and other personnel are needed to prevent these pests and diseases from being brought into the United States. Second, the bill requires the administration to disclose in the same report all sanitary and photosanitary, also known as SPS, trade barriers that could unduly restrict export markets for American commodities. What we have seen in the past is that a trading partner will raise SPS barriers to prevent American products from entering their country. Some of these SPS barriers are not grounded in science are simply non-tariff trade barriers. As the Administration begins negotiations for a trade agreement, we all need to take a look at what kinds of SPS issues we have with potential trading partners. Are their SPS concerns based in science? We need to be sure that once an agreement is in effect, we will have access to those foreign markets as stipulated in the trade agreement. I want to be very clear that this bill does not in any way limit the President's authority to negotiate trade agreements under Fast-Track, nor does it prevent trade legislation from being considered by the Congress. What this bill does is provide the Senate and the House of Representatives with a more complete picture of what potential trade agreements involve beyond the obvious import and export quotas. Regardless of how any senator feels about the free trade agreements that we review and debate, I think all of my colleagues will agree with me that increased international trade means an increased risk of importing bugs and diseases that have the potential to devastate our food sources, jeopardize the livelihoods of our farmers, and cost our states a fortune. We need to acknowledge the risk and put in place the best safeguards we can to prevent the accidental introduction of these harmful pests. I am not merely speculating about the risk of invasive pests and disease. It is a fact that all of our states are battling insects and crop diseases and dreading the next outbreak. Most recently in Pennsylvania we discovered that the western part of our state is infested with the Emerald Ash Borer, an invasive beetle that was accidently imported to the U.S. through Detroit via wooden shipping pallets from China. This beetle is costing our commercial nursery growers millions of dollars in lost stock. Senator Stabenow knows better than anyone how much money, time and other resources the Ash Borer has cost the states of Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. But that's just one example. Orange growers in Florida have spent the past decade fighting to contain and eradicate citrus canker, an invasive disease that causes citrus trees to produce less and less fruit until they prematurely die. And California and Texas have dealt with expensive eradication programs to deal with the Mediterranean fruit fly or ``Med fly.'' The list goes on and on. There is not a single state that has not been impacted by invasive pests or diseases. So I hope that my colleagues will support the Agriculture Smart Trace Act, and help us make smart decisions that will protect our growers and our economy while opening new export markets. Because that is what this bill is about--smart trade. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Agriculture Smart Trade Act along with my colleague Senator Stabenow. The goal of this legislation is to ensure that, as we consider the various free trade agreements that come before the Senate, we are also looking at the big picture, including the increased risk of accidentally importing invasive pests or diseases and the ability for American agricultural producers to access new export markets once trade agreements are in effect. Our bill is supported by United Fresh, the national association of fruit and vegetable growers and processors, and the U.S. Apple Association. The bill does two things. First, it requires the administration to send a report to Congress prior to the start of formal trade negotiations with a foreign nation detailing potential invasive pests and disease that could pose a risk to U.S. agriculture. Furthermore, this report must identify what additional agricultural inspectors and other personnel are needed to prevent these pests and diseases from being brought into the United States. Second, the bill requires the administration to disclose in the same report all sanitary and photosanitary, also known as SPS, trade barriers that could unduly restrict export markets for American commodities. What we have seen in the past is that a trading partner will raise SPS barriers to prevent American products from entering their country. Some of these SPS barriers are not grounded in science are simply non-tariff trade barriers. As the Administration begins negotiations for a trade agreement, we all need to take a look at what kinds of SPS issues we have with potential trading partners. Are their SPS concerns based in science? We need to be sure that once an agreement is in effect, we will have access to those foreign markets as stipulated in the trade agreement. I want to be very clear that this bill does not in any way limit the President's authority to negotiate trade agreements under Fast-Track, nor does it prevent trade legislation from being considered by the Congress. What this bill does is provide the Senate and the House of Representatives with a more complete picture of what potential trade agreements involve beyond the obvious import and export quotas. Regardless of how any senator feels about the free trade agreements that we review and debate, I think all of my colleagues will agree with me that increased international trade means an increased risk of importing bugs and diseases that have the potential to devastate our food sources, jeopardize the livelihoods of our farmers, and cost our states a fortune. We need to acknowledge the risk and put in place the best safeguards we can to prevent the accidental introduction of these harmful pests. I am not merely speculating about the risk of invasive pests and disease. It is a fact that all of our states are battling insects and crop diseases and dreading the next outbreak. Most recently in Pennsylvania we discovered that the western part of our state is infested with the Emerald Ash Borer, an invasive beetle that was accidently imported to the U.S. through Detroit via wooden shipping pallets from China. This beetle is costing our commercial nursery growers millions of dollars in lost stock. Senator Stabenow knows better than anyone how much money, time and other resources the Ash Borer has cost the states of Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. But that's just one example. Orange growers in Florida have spent the past decade fighting to contain and eradicate citrus canker, an invasive disease that causes citrus trees to produce less and less fruit until they prematurely die. And California and Texas have dealt with expensive eradication programs to deal with the Mediterranean fruit fly or ``Med fly.'' The list goes on and on. There is not a single state that has not been impacted by invasive pests or diseases. So I hope that my colleagues will support the Agriculture Smart Trace Act, and help us make smart decisions that will protect our growers and our economy while opening new export markets. Because that is what this bill is about--smart trade. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I support annual votes on congressional pay raises to avoid automatic cost of living increases. I was a cosponsor of an alternative by Senator Reid that would have accomplished this goal without derailing the Omnibus appropriations bill. The underlying Omnibus appropriations bill cancels the pay raise that would have gone into effect in January 2010. Additionally, I have previously stated that I will give the 2009 cost of living increase to charity. Unfortunately, this amendment was nothing more than political grandstanding and a poison pill designed to block necessary appropriations bills from passing and I was forced to vote against the amendment.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Madam President, I rise to amplify a little bit the prepared remarks I made regarding Bill Coleman. I thank Senator Specter for the words he spoke of someone he has known a long time and for his presence here on the floor, as well as we will be seeing him at a great symposium later this afternoon when we further discuss not only Mr. Coleman's life but what it means in the larger context of the American story. There are a number of people in the gallery here whom both of us would like to point out, although the rules do not allow that. So as I look at the Presiding Officer, I want those people in the gallery to know we know you are here. We are thrilled you are here, but the rules do not allow us to acknowledge people in the gallery and to wave and do the kinds of things we would like to do. But we will do that later. But I do want to thank Senator Specter for highlighting so many features of Bill Coleman's life. I think maybe the best way to sum it up, to encapsulate what his life means for America, is to allow us today, on just 1 day, to highlight such a remarkable life, such a great American story as an inspiration not only to people like me and others but, of course, to young people, to convey the message that if you are committed to academic excellence, if you are committed to achievement, if you are committed to doing things the right way and to working hard, there is virtually nothing you cannot do. Bill Coleman, and so many people in his generation like him, had to overcome so many obstacles. I think it is a great lesson for all of us but especially for young people. So we will be remembering that today when we celebrate his life of great achievement at the symposium. I do commend and thank Senator Specter for being with us today. With that, Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. CASEY. I say hello to Senator Specter. We have a lot of visitors from Pennsylvania here today. We are honored by their presence. I thank Senator Specter for being with us today. We will be seeing him a little later. william t. coleman Madam President, 2009 marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, the 200th birthday of our 16th President, who ushered in a new era of race relations and brought an end to the legalized degradation of institutionalized slavery that people of color endured in the United States for more than 200 years. Every year the month of February is dedicated to celebrating Black History Month and serves as a time of reflection and reconciliation for the country. I rise to honor the lifetime of achievements of a man whose life story has embodied Lincoln's vision of a nation committed to the rule of law and equal justice under the law. William Thaddeus Coleman, Jr., built upon the legacy of Abraham Lincoln and distinguished himself and continues to distinguish himself as a pioneer in legal advocacy and the struggle for civil rights. Bill Coleman was born in Philadelphia into a world where only strength of character, intellectual prowess, and hard work could defeat the evils caused by the Great Depression and the era of Jim Crow laws. His mother was a teacher. His father was the director of the Wissahickon Boy's Club and Camp Emlen. They led him, early on, to pursue excellence while always enriching the larger community by enhancing the lives of everyone he encountered. Bill Coleman achieved academic excellence, first, in a racially segregated elementary school before entering Germantown High School, where he was one of seven Black students. Despite the environment of bigotry, he attained excellent grades and was admitted to the University of Pennsylvania, where he graduated summa cum laude, after just 3\1/2\ years, with a B.A. degree in 1941. To fulfill his childhood dreams of becoming a lawyer, he entered and graduated magna cum laude and first in his class from the Harvard Law School in 1946, as one of only three minority students. Bill Coleman interrupted his studies at Harvard to enlist in the U.S. Army Air Corps to serve in World War II for nearly 3 years, training as an aviator at Tuskegee Army Airfield, a statistical control officer at the Harvard Business School, and a defense counselor of soldiers during court- martial proceedings. After the war, Coleman returned to Harvard and received the highly esteemed Joseph E. Beale Prize and became the third person of color to serve on the Board of Editors of the Harvard Law Review. In 1947, Coleman began his legal career as a law clerk to the late Judge Herbert F. Goodrich of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Soon after in 1948, he became the first person of color to clerk for the U.S. Supreme Court, under the late Justice Felix Frankfurter. After his clerkship, Bill Coleman joined the New York law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkin, Wharton & Garrison as an associate. In 1950, he was approached by Thurgood Marshall, to help develop a legal strategy and prepare legal briefs in the five cases commonly referred to Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. The ruling in this historic case brought an end to the previously accepted doctrine of separate but equal, establishing that separate educational facilities were inherently unequal, tearing down the barriers of racial segregation to pave the way for a new era of integration. In 1952, Coleman returned to Philadelphia to be the first lawyer of color at Dilworth, Paxson, Kalish, Kohn and Levy. While serving as a senior partner and head of the Litigation Department, he specialized in corporate, trademark and antitrust litigation and gained national recognition for his expertise in transportation law, nuclear energy matters, and banking issues. In 1950, Bill Coleman was appointed to the President's Commission on Employment Policy, a.k.a. the Branch Ricky Commission, under President Dwight Eisenhower to increase minority hiring in the Federal Government. In 1964, he served as cocounsel in McLaughlin v. Florida, a case he argued before the Supreme Court, which found part of the antimiscegenation laws of Florida to be unconstitutional and paved the way for overturning other statues prohibiting interracial marriage. Soon after in 1965, former Governor of Pennsylvania William Scranton retained Bill Coleman to remove the racial restrictions at Girard College in Philadelphia. Mr. Coleman continued a distinguished life of public service as a member of the U.S. Delegation to the 24th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in 1969; member of the National Commission on Productivity for 1971-1972; member of the Price Commission from 1971- 1973; consultant to the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency from 1963 to 1975; senior consultant and senior counsel to the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy in 1964; and a member of President Eisenhower's Committee on Government Employment Policy from 1959 through 1961 and member of the Federal Advisory Committee on the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. In 1975, Bill Coleman was sworn in as the fourth Secretary of Transportation under President Gerald Ford, making him the second person of color in history to hold a position in the United States Cabinet. He developed a comprehensive national transportation policy and was instrumental in creating the 53-page study ``A Statement of National Transportation Policy'', which he sent to Congress in 1975, outlining general principles that he felt should guide the government's decision making process. In 1977, upon his resignation when President Carter took office, Mr. Coleman returned to the private sector to join the Washington office of O'Melveny & Myers as senior partner and senior counsel, where he continues to work today. In 1982, Coleman was appointed amicus curiae by the Supreme Court to support the lower courts' holdings in Bob Jones University v. United States and Glasboro Christian Schools, Inc. v. United States which found that discriminatory private nonprofit schools were not entitled to federal tax exemptions. Bill Coleman continued his fight for civil rights as Chairman of the Board of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, where he currently serves as the Senior Director. In all, Bill Coleman has served as a trusted attorney and public servant of our nation for more than 50 years and has advised seven presidents of the United States. He has received numerous distinguished honors including: the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1995 from President Bill Clinton; Officer of the National Order of the Legion of Honor from the Republic of France; the Thurgood Marshall Lifetime Achievement Award from the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund; The Chief Justice John Marshall Award from the American Bar Association Justice Center; the Judge Henry J. Friendly Medal from the American Law Institute; the Marshall-Wythe Medallion from the College of William & Mary, Marshall-Wythe Law School; the Thaddeus Stevens Award from the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia; the Lamplighter Award from the Black Leadership Forum; the ``We the People'' Award from the National Constitution Center; the Fordham-Stein Prize from the Fordham University School of Law; the Golden Plate Award from the Academy of Achievement; the Legends of the Bar Award from the District of Columbia Bar Association; the Spirit of Excellence Award from the American Bar Association; the David A. Clarke School of Equal Justice Award from the University of the District of Columbia Law School; the Founder Award from the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. When we encapsulate those awards, we are reminded that in terms of honorary degrees, Bill Coleman has received honorary degrees from 21 colleges and universities throughout the Nation. Bill Coleman is married to the former Lovida Mae Hardin of New Orleans, LA. The Colemans have three children, two of whom are practicing lawyers and one of whom is the dean of the School of Education at Boston University. Mr. and Mrs. Coleman have five grandchildren. It does give me great pleasure to highlight Mr. Coleman's life of extraordinary achievements in this 200th year since the birth of Abraham Lincoln during Black History Month. William T. Coleman, Jr., is an American whose life of public service and advocacy, whose life of integrity and excellence, courage and commitment to justice under the law has helped to make our great Nation a more perfect Union. I yield the floor.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce, along with my colleague Senator Grassley, the EAT SAFE Act of 2009. Our bill is an important piece of foodsafety legislation that brings common sense solutions to give Americans peace of mind that the foods they eat and give their families is safe to consume. We continue to see major problems in our food safety systems. Most recently, there was both contaminated salsa and a massive peanut butter recall. Two years ago, there was the major recall of animal feed and pet food that contained contaminated Chinese gluten. These examples highlight the need for action to ensure the safety of both domestic and foreign food products. Ensuring the safety of food products and food ingredients brought into this country from other nations has taken on a greater urgency. A report issued in September 2007 by the Interagency Working Group on Import Safety stated that, ``aspects of our present import system must be strengthened to promote security, safety, and trade for the benefit of American consumers.'' The EAT SAFE Act that we are reintroducing today is designed to address one of those critical aspects of the food and agricultural import system that, in the face of the mounting imported food safety crisis, has received little public focus. That issue is food and other agricultural products that are being smuggled into the United States. When many people think of food smuggling, they likely think of it as something that occurs when travelers attempt to bring small amounts of foreign food or agricultural products into the U.S. by concealing it in their vehicles, luggage, or other personal affects. While this type of smuggling is unquestionably a problem that U.S. authorities must and do address, the larger threat of smuggled food and agricultural products comes from the companies, importers, and individuals who circumvent U.S. inspection requirements or restrictions on imports of certain products from a particular country. The ways in which these companies, importers, and individuals circumvent the system can happen in any number of ways. Many times smuggled products are intentionally mislabeled and bear the identification of a product that can legally enter the country. Other times, smuggled products gain import entry through falsifying the products' countries of origin. And, many times, products that have previously been denied entry are later ``shopped around,'' that is, presented to another U.S. port of entry in the effort to gain importation undetected. Just some examples of prohibited products discovered in commerce in the United States in recent years include duck parts from Vietnam and poultry products from China, both nations with confirmed human cases of avian influenza; unpasteurized raw cheeses from Mexico containing a bacterium that causes tuberculosis; strawberries from Mexico contaminated with Hepatitis A; and mislabeled puffer fish from China containing a potentially deadly toxin. These smuggled food and agriculture products present safety risks to our food, plants, and animals, and pose a threat to our Nation's health, economy, and security. The EAT SAFE Act addresses these serious risks by applying common- sense measures to protect our food and agricultural supply. This legislation authorizes funding for the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration to bolster their efforts by hiring additional personnel to detect and track smuggled products. It also authorizes funding to provide food safety cross training for Homeland Security Agricultural Specialists and agricultural cross training for Customs' Border Patrol Agents to ensure that those men and women working on the front lines are knowledgeable about these serious food and agricultural threats. In addition to focusing on increased personal and training, the EAT SAFE Act also seeks to increase importer accountability. The legislation requires private laboratories conducting tests on FDA- regulated products on behalf of importers to apply for and be certified by FDA. It also imposes civil penalties for laboratories or importers who knowingly or conspire to falsify imported product laboratory sampling and for importers who circumvent the USDA import reinspection system. Finally, the EAT SAFE Act will also ensure increased public awareness of smuggled products, as well as recalled food products, by requiring the USDA and FDA to provide this information to the public in a timely and easily searchable manner. These commonsense measures are an important first step towards safeguarding American's food and agricultural supply and ensuring our Nation's health, economy, and security. I urge all of my colleagues to support this legislation. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce, along with my colleague Senator Grassley, the EAT SAFE Act of 2009. Our bill is an important piece of foodsafety legislation that brings common sense solutions to give Americans peace of mind that the foods they eat and give their families is safe to consume. We continue to see major problems in our food safety systems. Most recently, there was both contaminated salsa and a massive peanut butter recall. Two years ago, there was the major recall of animal feed and pet food that contained contaminated Chinese gluten. These examples highlight the need for action to ensure the safety of both domestic and foreign food products. Ensuring the safety of food products and food ingredients brought into this country from other nations has taken on a greater urgency. A report issued in September 2007 by the Interagency Working Group on Import Safety stated that, ``aspects of our present import system must be strengthened to promote security, safety, and trade for the benefit of American consumers.'' The EAT SAFE Act that we are reintroducing today is designed to address one of those critical aspects of the food and agricultural import system that, in the face of the mounting imported food safety crisis, has received little public focus. That issue is food and other agricultural products that are being smuggled into the United States. When many people think of food smuggling, they likely think of it as something that occurs when travelers attempt to bring small amounts of foreign food or agricultural products into the U.S. by concealing it in their vehicles, luggage, or other personal affects. While this type of smuggling is unquestionably a problem that U.S. authorities must and do address, the larger threat of smuggled food and agricultural products comes from the companies, importers, and individuals who circumvent U.S. inspection requirements or restrictions on imports of certain products from a particular country. The ways in which these companies, importers, and individuals circumvent the system can happen in any number of ways. Many times smuggled products are intentionally mislabeled and bear the identification of a product that can legally enter the country. Other times, smuggled products gain import entry through falsifying the products' countries of origin. And, many times, products that have previously been denied entry are later ``shopped around,'' that is, presented to another U.S. port of entry in the effort to gain importation undetected. Just some examples of prohibited products discovered in commerce in the United States in recent years include duck parts from Vietnam and poultry products from China, both nations with confirmed human cases of avian influenza; unpasteurized raw cheeses from Mexico containing a bacterium that causes tuberculosis; strawberries from Mexico contaminated with Hepatitis A; and mislabeled puffer fish from China containing a potentially deadly toxin. These smuggled food and agriculture products present safety risks to our food, plants, and animals, and pose a threat to our Nation's health, economy, and security. The EAT SAFE Act addresses these serious risks by applying common- sense measures to protect our food and agricultural supply. This legislation authorizes funding for the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration to bolster their efforts by hiring additional personnel to detect and track smuggled products. It also authorizes funding to provide food safety cross training for Homeland Security Agricultural Specialists and agricultural cross training for Customs' Border Patrol Agents to ensure that those men and women working on the front lines are knowledgeable about these serious food and agricultural threats. In addition to focusing on increased personal and training, the EAT SAFE Act also seeks to increase importer accountability. The legislation requires private laboratories conducting tests on FDA- regulated products on behalf of importers to apply for and be certified by FDA. It also imposes civil penalties for laboratories or importers who knowingly or conspire to falsify imported product laboratory sampling and for importers who circumvent the USDA import reinspection system. Finally, the EAT SAFE Act will also ensure increased public awareness of smuggled products, as well as recalled food products, by requiring the USDA and FDA to provide this information to the public in a timely and easily searchable manner. These commonsense measures are an important first step towards safeguarding American's food and agricultural supply and ensuring our Nation's health, economy, and security. I urge all of my colleagues to support this legislation. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. It is my understanding that the House version of the recovery bill includes funding for biodefense and medical countermeasures within the public health and social services emergency fund. I am sure my colleagues would join me in urging the Senator to agree to include funding for capabilities to support the development and production of biodefense medical countermeasures to address the bioterrorism threat in the conference report of this bill. We believe there is no better use of American taxpayers' dollars to both create high-quality jobs, retain biotechnology expertise domestically, and address a terrible threat to our Nation.

Mr. CASEY. I rise to engage the esteemed chairman of the Appropriations Committee, Senator Daniel Inouye; Senator Tom Harkin, chairman of the Labor, Health & Human Services, and Education Subcommittee; my Pennsylvania colleague, Senator Arlen Specter; and my Kansas colleague, Senator Sam Brownback in a colloquy regarding funding for creating capabilities to develop and manufacture biodefense medical countermeasures. As the chairmen and Senator Specter are aware, our country faces the rising threat of a bioterrorist attack against the U.S. homeland. Indeed, most experts agree that a bioweapons attack could be launched against the United States within the next few years. Such an event could inflict civilian casualties on a scale that would threaten the viability of a city's or region's key institutions and impose a widespread sense of vulnerability across the country and internationally. Moreover, President Obama has stated on numerous occasions that the bioterrorist threat is real and increasing. And, I believe, he will make responding to such a threat a key element of his national security strategy.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 10 a.m. Friday, February 6; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and the Senate resume consideration of H.R. 1, the Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand adjourned under the previous order.

Mr. CASEY

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

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I wish to speak as well on the bill we are debating from a couple of different vantage points. One is on the bill itself and what is confronting the American people and our economy. Secondly is an amendment I will speak of briefly. I think in a broad sense we are at a point now where we are getting close to the point at which we will vote on the bill itself--the recovery bill--the Recovery and Reinvestment Act. We have heard a lot of debate and discussion about parts of this bill that people don't like--and there is no reason why we shouldn't debate those points of contention--but I think we should also step back and look at what is going to work from this bill and why this bill is so essential to our economy. The bad news is that this bill is not being debated and these amendments are not being voted on in a vacuum. The reason why we are debating this bill is because we have about the worst economy that we have seen since the 1930s, at least the worst economy in more than a generation. That is without question. I know the Presiding Officer as well as others know how bad this is in our own States. I know from the people in Pennsylvania whom I talk to and the stories and accounts that I read about our economy, it is graphic. I won't go through all of it, obviously, but if you look at it from the unemployment rate, it is more than 7 percent nationally. Some projections are that if we don't take strong decisive action very soon, that number could go up to 10 percent--numbers we never would have imagined even 6 months ago. In Pennsylvania, our unemployment rate is a little less than that. As of December--the State numbers tend to lag by a month or so-- we were about 6.7 percent, but a month earlier it was 6.2. In our State in November we lost more than 27,000 jobs. In December we lost another 27,000 jobs. We saw the numbers today on claims for unemployment, help for unemployment claims. The number is going way up: well over 650,000 people in this week's tally. We can also look at it from the vantage point of a budget. Pennsylvania has a budget where they have to balance it every year, as virtually every other State. Governor Rendell has worked very hard over the 5 years he has been in office to target investments in priorities such as education and health care and job creation and creating new sources of energy, but at the same time he has done that, he has also made sure that he has tried to hold the line on spending. Despite all of that effort, revenues are collapsing. In a State such as ours we are facing almost a $2.5 billion shortfall. The rainy day fund, which has been built up to three-quarters of a billion dollars, has been decimated or will be in the next year. So we need action, and we need it very soon. We should vote on this bill this week, I believe. We can't wait any longer. We shouldn't wait another month or two to continue to debate strategies that we know will work, even with a bill that is imperfect. But what are we talking about in this bill? We are talking about helping people get through this recession with unemployment insurance, which also has a jump-starting effect on spending and job creation. We are talking about health care for people who have lost their jobs so they can take care of their families. We are talking about assistance to States so that States don't have to jack up State taxes and so that local school districts and local communities don't have to increase their taxes exponentially because we won't help them. Some people want us to do nothing, and doing nothing right now I know means one thing: It means much higher local and State taxes over the next couple of months. We can't allow that to happen. People are paying too much already across the country. It has tax cuts that are prudent and targeted. It has investments in health care IT which will pay dividends short term with jobs and long term with better health care outcomes and better quality. It invests in science and technology. It invests in clean drinking water and better ports and rails, better energy strategies, housing, school modernization--the whole range of strategies that we know will create jobs in the short run, but will also have a strong impact on our economy. So we should move forward and we should make sure we do the right thing now, and the right thing is to act and to pass a piece of legislation which may be imperfect, but we should emphasize what is working. One note about two amendments, and then I will conclude. Senators Specter, Leahy, Dodd, Schumer, Kerry, and I have an amendment which is a smart idea for housing. We know that with the leadership of Chairman Dodd, the chairman of the Banking Committee, last year we passed very good legislation to deal with our housing and economic recovery, the so-called HERA Act, which helped to allocate dollars--$4 billion--last summer in emergency assistance to State and local governments to use for the rehabilitation of abandoned and foreclosed properties across the country. What we are asking for in this amendment--the amendment to the recovery bill--is to say that an additional $2.25 billion which is already in the bill for the neighborhood stabilization program will allow some flexibility in how those dollars are spent so that under our amendment, it permits up to 10 percent of the funds to be used for foreclosure prevention, which we are not doing enough on right now. It also allows States that are receiving the minimum allocation under the stabilization program to use their funds to address Statewide concerns. Finally, it sets aside $30 million for legal assistance for low and moderate income homeowners and tenants related to home ownership, preservation, home foreclosure prevention, as well as tenancy associated with home foreclosures. So it is a prudent amendment to this important legislation. But when we step back from the bill overall--and I have amendments as well on stronger oversight--there are lots of ways we can improve it today and tomorrow, as we did over the last couple of days. But in the end, we need to vote, we need to pass this bill and make it as strong as we can. The worst thing we could do in a terrible economy right now is to say, Well, it is not a perfect bill, and we are going to hope that things work out. If we don't pass a bill, State and local taxes are going to go through the roof, our economy will fall further into the ditch. We have to get this economy out of the ditch, create jobs, and begin to grow our economy once again. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, I rise tonight to speak as well on the challenge we have ahead of us with regard to the legislation we are debating this week. We will be considering a lot of amendments to that legislation; that is, the Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Act. I want to speak, first of all, in a broad way about the challenge ahead of us. I sent a letter toward the end of last year to both our majority leader Senator Reid, as well as to Senator McConnell, outlining priorities, as I saw them, from the vantage point of Pennsylvania's challenges as well as the country's. I used a phrase that we have heard often, the last word of which might be a little different than we have heard. We have heard summaries of this strategy where the priorities of any kind of recovery bill should be focused on being timely, targeted, and transformative. I believe all three are essential: Timely, meaning we cannot sit on this for too long; we have to act. I think that is essential; targeted, in the sense we cannot have broad spending. We have to make sure we target the dollars to strategies that work; transformative, in the sense that as we are making investments in infrastructure or in people to get them through the recession, and also to generate spending, we also have a chance to be transformative, to change our economy for the better and to transform people's lives. In Pennsylvania--and it is true of virtually any State in the country; we just saw the data that unemployment went up in every single State in the month of December, and I know the Presiding Officer understands this from his work as a Governor and now as a Senator--in a State like ours in Pennsylvania--whether it is the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania or the Commonwealth of Virginia--we are seeing challenges all around. We have had record job loss. Even foreclosure rates, which have been a lot lower than the rest of the country, are now spiking up. Families have been hit with a kind of economic trauma we have not seen in more than a generation. The same is true of businesses. Their bottom lines have been decimated by the downturn in this economy, principally because businesses and families have not had access to credit to borrow money for a small business or to borrow money for student loans or for the purchase of an automobile or something that a family wants to spend money on but cannot do it without credit. So we know the trauma that has been visited upon the American people. We also know that just as that has been happening, there has also been a real crisis of confidence, some of this emanating from the way the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the so-called TARP, was implemented by the Treasury Department in the prior administration. One of the obligations we have in the Senate in this debate, but even beyond this debate, is to do everything we can to restore that confidence. You could express it as confidence, you could express it as trust. However you describe it, a good bit of that--too much of that-- was lost in the last couple months. As people were feeling the trauma of this economy on their own lives or on their own families or on their own communities, there was also a loss of trust and confidence in what the Federal Government did or did not do and what the Federal Government can do going forward. So as we consider this legislation, this is not just about a program and dollars and whether the strategy will work. This will be a test of the Senate, a test of the Congress and the administration, in terms of our ability to restore some of that confidence and literally to restore trust in our Government. One of the ways we can begin to repair that relationship between the American people and the Congress, between the people who pay the taxes and the Government that spends those dollars, is to work on a couple of areas of oversight. It is not the whole answer, but it goes a long way to helping. So I have two amendments I will be offering this week on oversight. The first amendment will allow for a comprehensive assessment through the creation of a joint select committee on economic recovery oversight. This oversight committee will be made up of Members of the House and the Senate and will be required to submit reports to every Member of the House and the Senate but, more importantly, to the American people every 3 months. The reports will focus on, first, the success of this act in creating jobs and the details behind that; and, no. 2, any instances of waste, fraud, and abuse in programs funded by this act. Membership on the panel will break down as follows: 10 Members of the Senate, including the chairmen and ranking members of the Committees on Finance and Appropriations, 4 Members appointed from the majority party by the majority leader of the Senate, and 2 Members from the minority party appointed by the minority party itself; secondly, 10 Members of the House, including the chairmen and ranking members of the Committee on Ways and Means and the Committee on Appropriations; and it goes on from there in the same way as the Senate. While I recognize the administration has pushed for and the bill before us includes a new Recovery Act Accountability and Transparency Board, I want to make sure the legislative branch is in a position to carry out our oversight responsibilities. Congress has not always done a good job on that, and we have to ensure that a good job is done in this instance for this kind of oversight. The second amendment I have would direct the Government Accountability Office, known by the acronym GAO, to compile reports of the Offices of the Inspectors General in each of the Federal Departments or agencies that expend or obligate funds under the Recovery Act. The GAO would in turn submit reports to Congress that would contain the following: No. 1, a summary of oversight activities of the Offices of Inspectors General relating to expenditure of recovery funds; and, No. 2, an evaluation of the effectiveness of this act. So you have the GAO, an independent entity, reviewing what has been happening under this legislation. The aim of these GAO reports would be to assess which provisions of the act have been effective at creating jobs. The whole intent of this legislation is to create jobs. We better make sure that happens. The reports would be submitted no later than 120 days from enactment of the act, with followup reports submitted at 180 days after enactment as well as 240 days, again, after enactment. Both of these amendments are focused on oversight. That is the language we use to make sure the bill and to make sure the Government is doing its job to carry out the purposes of this recovery and reinvestment act. But we have to do more than that. This effort with the two amendments is a way to very specifically begin to rebuild the confidence the American people must have in what the Congress does and to recover and reinvigorate some of that trust we should have in our Government, especially at this time. No piece of legislation can do that on its own. No Senator or Member of the House can do that on his or her own. But we have to try collectively to do all we can to rebuild confidence because if we do not have that kind of confidence going forward for the effectiveness of this legislation, then we cannot expect the American people to support this legislation and the programs infused with capital by this legislation over a long period of time. So we have much work to do to strengthen oversight, and by doing that to begin to increase the confidence the American people have in our Government and in this legislation. Mr. President, I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation that would establish the Susquehanna Gateway National Heritage Area in York and Lancaster Counties, Pennsylvania. Since 1984, Congressionally- designated National Heritage Areas have fostered partnerships between the public and private sectors for undertaking preservation, educational, and recreational initiatives in diverse regions throughout the country. Through these efforts, National Heritage Areas have helped to protect our nation's natural and cultural resources while promoting local economic development. Today, I am proud once again to join my colleague from Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter to propose a bill that would grant national recognition to the Susquehanna Gateway region, an area that has played a key role in the development of our nation's cultural, political, and economic identity. As the Senate continues its work in the 111th Congress, I look forward to working with my colleagues to pass the Susquehanna Gateway National Heritage Area Act soon so that the region can begin to play a national role in sharing America's story. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation that would establish the Susquehanna Gateway National Heritage Area in York and Lancaster Counties, Pennsylvania. Since 1984, Congressionally- designated National Heritage Areas have fostered partnerships between the public and private sectors for undertaking preservation, educational, and recreational initiatives in diverse regions throughout the country. Through these efforts, National Heritage Areas have helped to protect our nation's natural and cultural resources while promoting local economic development. Today, I am proud once again to join my colleague from Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter to propose a bill that would grant national recognition to the Susquehanna Gateway region, an area that has played a key role in the development of our nation's cultural, political, and economic identity. As the Senate continues its work in the 111th Congress, I look forward to working with my colleagues to pass the Susquehanna Gateway National Heritage Area Act soon so that the region can begin to play a national role in sharing America's story. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Let me finish.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, January 27, 2009, at 9:30 a.m.

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Health IT: Protecting Americans' Privacy in the Digital Age'' on Tuesday, January 27, 2009, at 9:30 a.m., in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.