Bob Graham

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida. As a member of the Finance Committee, I can say that the Finance Committee has just voted out a financing program to support this legislation. We were not informed as to what the Banking Committee's number would be for public transit. It was estimated that it would be $36.6 billion over 6 years. I don't know if that is the final number that the committee recommended.

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida. Absolutely. I am privileged to serve on the Environment and Public Works Committee with our distinguished colleague from Nevada, and we both know the state of our water and sewer systems are even worse than our transportation system, in terms of their degradation and inadequacy, and with every year that passes, that degree of decline further accelerates. So we have many needs in America to reverse the decline of our infrastructure so that we cannot only have a quality of life today--water systems that will serve our people's needs, highways that are not excessively congested and are safe to drive on but also are absolutely fundamental to our economic well-being.

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida. Yes.

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida. I will conclude first and then I will take a question. I believe two of the fundamental parts of being able to answer that question are that the United States needs to have the best educated population on earth so that we can continue to generate the innovative ideas and the efficiency in production that has hallmarked our economy. Second, the key responsibility of the public sector is to maintain an infrastructure that will be as efficient as possible. Those are two of the keys to American productivity which will allow us to compete in the global economy and maintain an average income and standard of living that is dramatic and above the rest of the world. In my judgment, this legislation will not achieve that objective, while at the same time adding to our national deficit. For those reasons, I believe we should take more time with this legislation, see what comes out of the Banking Committee for public transit, be able to understand the implications of the financing program that was just reported by the Finance Committee, and what is going to be required in order to avoid another 6 years of degradation of our basic public surface transportation system.

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida. I look forward to doing so. Let me make my last point with which you might not agree. I think we need to establish what are we trying to do with this legislation. We are not just passing a piece of legislation in order to shove money out the door. When we passed TEA-21 5 years ago, I made on this floor a prediction which saddened me but has come to pass; that is, that as a result of TEA-21, our highways, our bridges, and our public transit systems are in worse shape with greater congestion than they were the day we passed TEA-21. Why is that? It is because we have either inadequately funded those basic parts of our American infrastructure or, if we did adequately fund them, the resources were not distributed to where the needs were the greatest. Let me cite a few examples. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation's conditions and performance report, which is prepared every other year to measure the needs of the Nation's highways and transit system, let me quote from that report: Capital investments by all levels of government between 1997 and 2000 remain below the ``cost to maintain'' level. Consequently, overall performance of the system has declined. That same report estimates that over the 6 years of TEA-21, the quality of the highway system has degraded by 6 percent and that 29 percent of America's bridges are considered structurally deficient. On the issue of congestion, there is a study which was done by the Texas Transportation Institute, I believe, at Texas A&M University. This was what they had to say about congestion: In 2001, 5.7 billion gallons of fuel were wasted as a result of congestion; 3.5 billion hours of lost productivity resulting from traffic congestion. Those hours and gallons lost cost the Nation $69.5 billion, a $4.5 billion increase from the year 2000. The estimate is that if we appropriate the funds that are currently being suggested, that loss in gallons of gasoline and productivity will rise to $90 billion by the year 2009. Mr. President, we have lots of deficits in this country. We are talking today about the deficits in our budget. We talk regularly about the deficits in our trade balance. But we have another deficit, and that is the deficit in our basic infrastructure. While it is not as graphic and we do not get a report on it as frequently as we do on the trade deficit or the fiscal deficit, it is just as pernicious and maybe even more so. If you ask yourself the question, how is the United States of America going to compete in a global economy which worships at the altar of lowest unit cost of production and be able to maintain American living standards, that will be a major challenge for the next generation of the American public and their political representatives.

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida. Yes, I have observed it. And I might say, it will be somewhat larger when the public transit section and the financing section are added.

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida. I yield, yes.

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida. Mr. President, I would like to take a few moments to raise some questions about the wisdom of invoking cloture on this bill at this time. I am concerned that this is a deficient bill in a very fundamental sense. One, it is deficient because one of the key parts of this bill, public transit, has not yet been voted out of the committee of jurisdiction. So we are dealing with a bird which is missing its right wing and a significant number of tail feathers. I believe we ought to wait until we can see the full program before we vote cloture on proceeding on this bill. Second, the Finance Committee has just voted on the legislation relative to how to finance this bill. I will have to say, I am very concerned about the approach we are taking. Essentially the approach is, by whatever words you wish to use to describe it, to take money from the general revenue fund and use it to replace funds which historically have come from the users of the transportation system. At a time when we just received a budget from the President that is over $500 billion in deficit--I repeat, $500 billion in deficit for this next year--to be further adding to the deficit by stripping out funds which would otherwise have gone to general revenue seems to me to be more than reckless. Even if you accepted the proposition that it was all right to use general revenue to finance highway and transit purposes, the key portions of these funds come from what I would call, charitably, ``funny money sources.'' As an example, we use the closure of certain tax loopholes, which even have names such as the Enron tax loophole. That is probably a very good thing to do. The problem is, we have already done it twice before. We used the same set of tax closures of loopholes to finance the jobs bill. That is the bill that relates to international taxation and has been precipitated by the fact that the European Union declared--supported by the World Trade Organization--a portion of our taxation of international transactions to be illegal. And if we don't provide an acceptable alternative, we face the prospect of very significant retaliatory tariffs against our products. So there is going to be a lot of impetus to get that bill passed. The second bill which uses these same items is the CARE bill which is the charitable giving legislation that I know has a significant amount of support. Since we can't use the tax loophole closures more than once, are we making the decision that we are going to do it for the highway bill and, therefore, have it unavailable for the jobs bill and the CARE bill?

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida. Mr. President, as Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence during most of the 107th Congress, I worked with colleagues from the House and Senate to accept the responsibility of reviewing the horrific events that struck our Nation's symbols of commerce and security on September 11, 2001, claiming the lives of nearly 3,000 Americans. From New York City and the Pentagon to a field in rural Pennsylvania, 9-11 demonstrated the vulnerabilities of our free society. But in my view, and after the careful review of the Intelligence Committees, the most tragic aspect of this day never to be forgotten is that it could have been prevented. Had our intelligence agencies been better organized and more focused on the problem of international terrorism--particularly Osama bin Laden--September 11th would have been prevented. I also have concluded that, had the President and the Congress initiated the reforms that our joint inquiry recommended, we might well have avoided the embarrassment of the flawed intelligence on weapons of mass destruction--or the misleading use of that intelligence--which formed the basis of our war against Iraq. Surely, the people of America would be safer today had these reforms been undertaken. So today, and in remarks in the next 2 days, I would like to review with my colleagues the conclusions of the House-Senate joint inquiry. We have learned that intelligence failures played a central role in the events of 9-11. Let me illustrate some of those failures: The Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, was tracking two of the hijackers and knew that they had been to a summit meeting of terrorists in Malaysia in early January of 2000. However, the CIA failed to inform the Federal Bureau of Investigation, FBI, the Federal Aviation Administration, FAA, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, INS, or Customs officials that these individuals were on their way to the United States. The result is that when they arrived on a commercial airliner in the United States in order to execute their dastardly plan, they were welcomed into our country by unwitting entry agents. These same two hijackers were living with an FBI asset, but the informant failed to ask basic questions. Others in the FBI recognized the danger of Islamic extremists using airplanes as weapons of mass destruction, but their warnings were ignored by superiors. Still others failed to understand the legal avenues available to them that may have allowed available investigative techniques to be used to avert the 9-11 plot. Current national security strategy demands more accurate intelligence than ever before: Terrorists must be found before their strikes. This will require intelligence agents capable of penetrating their cells to provide intelligence early enough to frustrate the terrorists' intentions; If preventive or pre-emptive military actions are to be a central part of our national security strategy, to maintain its credibility of those actions with the American people and the world, will require the support of the most credible intelligence; If we are to frustrate the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, America must provide an intelligence capability for all of those regions of the world which are suspect. Now, as never before, intelligence matters. In responding to the events of 9-11, Congress created a joint committee consisting of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees. A bipartisan, bicameral panel of this type had never before been formed in the 213 years of the U.S. Congress. Our effort reflected the unique circumstances and the national unity we all felt in the immediate aftermath of 9-11. One of the principal reasons for conducting the inquiry in this way was to give our recommendations the maximum credibility, above the usual cries of partisanship that frequently taint the work of congressional committees. The importance of our task cannot be understated. We sought to identify the problems in the intelligence community that allowed the 9-11 attacks to go undetected and propose solutions to those problems. In the end, we were successful in identifying the problems because we all understood how much was at stake and that our enemy would not rest while we attempted to fix our problems. We were less successful in securing consideration of the solutions from the intelligence agencies, the White House, and the Congress. The fact that we conducted this bipartisan, bicameral inquiry and submitted recommendations creates a new heightened level of congressional responsibility. If the terrorists are successful in another attack in the United States, the American people will demand to know what the institutions of government learned from 9-11, and how the intelligence agencies, the White House, and the Congress used that knowledge to harden the United States against future terrorist attacks. Congress was largely able to avoid accountability for 9-11. Mark my words: There will be no avoidance of responsibility for the next attack. There will be no avoiding responsibility for the President. September 11, 2001, was a wake up call--it told us we had severe deficiencies in our intelligence community. If 9-11 was a wake up call, the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was a report card on how far we have come since 9-11 in correcting the problems in our intelligence community. The grade we received on that report card is F. The President and Congress have failed to initiate the reforms recommended by a series of review panels and our bipartisan, bicameral joint committee of inquiry. This failure of the President and the Congress has contributed to yet another intelligence failure. What troubles me more than the President's unwillingness to make the necessary changes is his unwillingness to even admit that our Nation has a problem. Just last week, the President responded to questions about the inaccuracies of his statements about Iraq's WMD capability by saying he has ``great confidence in our intelligence community.'' How can he have great confidence in our intelligence community after it has been proven confused before September 11 and completely wrong on the threat posed by Iraq? The expected appointment by the President of a commission to review the intelligence on which the war in Iraq was predicated is not an excuse to delay reform of America's intelligence community. Rather, I am concerned that it appears as though the goal is simply to avoid political accountability and embarrassment. America continues to be in a state of denial. A White House aide was quoted over the weekend as saying, ``We cannot afford another one of those''--referring to the public outcry after the misstatement of intelligence in the 2003 State of the Union speech. It has now been more than a year since the joint inquiry made its recommendations. This is a good time to review the progress made in implementing those recommendations and to identify critical areas of reform that have not yet been addressed. Unfortunately, this is not going to be a report card that we would like to show to our parents--or to our voters. There has been little accomplished with regard to most of the recommendations. The joint inquiry report made nineteen recommendations for reform. Today I would like to discuss those recommendations that fall into the category of specific actions to combat terrorism. In speeches on Tuesday and Wednesday, I will deal with those that involve intelligence community reform and those that deal with the FBI and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act process. Of the nineteen recommendations, there are six that contain specific actions to combat terrorism. Recommendation No. 2 directs ``the National Security Council to expedite their efforts to examine and revamp existing intelligence priorities.'' It further directs the President to ``take action to ensure that clear, consistent, and current priorities are established and enforced throughout the Intelligence Community. Once established, these priorities should be reviewed and updated on at least an annual basis to ensure that the allocation of Intelligence Community resources reflects and effectively addresses the continually evolving threat environment. Finally, the establishment of Intelligence Community priorities, and the justification for such priorities, should be reported to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees on an annual basis.'' It was very clear from the work of the joint inquiry that the intelligence community had not adapted or changed its intelligence priorities to reflect the changing nature of the world. While some modifications had been made since the end of the Cold War, our intelligence priorities remained states like Russia, China, Iran and Iraq. In spite of the fact that George Tenet, the Director of Central Intelligence, had declared war on al-Qaida in 1998, al-Qaida was not at or even near the top of the intelligence priority list on September 11, 2001. Only on September 12, 2001, did al-Qaida become priority number one. It was also clear from our investigation that there was no formal process for regularly updating and reviewing intelligence priorities to ensure that they reflected changes in the security environment. Bureaucratic inertia worked to keep old priorities on the list long after they should have dropped down in favor of emerging threats. While George Tenet may have recognized that non-state actors like al-Qaida needed more attention, this was not widely known or accepted throughout the Intelligence Community that he heads. When asked if he was aware that George Tenet had declared war on al-Qaida in 1998, a former director of the National Security Agency, NSA, our Nation's electronic eavesdropping agency, responded that yes, he was aware that George Tenet had said that, but he did not think it applied to him or his organization. A formal process that was clearly understood throughout our government would have prevented some of the problems we identified. One example involves the Predator unmanned aerial vehicle, a pilotless drone capable of long-duration flight and armed with high resolution cameras and an ability to fire missiles at targets on the ground. The Predator has proven to be one of the most effective intelligence collection assets we have in the war on terror. Unfortunately, it took far too long to build the Predator because of internal disputes in the administration. This type of aircraft was not a priority for the Air Force and its production was therefore delayed several months. The lack of established and accepted intelligence priorities was a major cause of the delay in fielding the Predator. This issue of setting new priorities was also raised by the National Commission on National Security in the 21st Century, also known as the Hart-Rudman Commission. This Commission, which issued its final report in February of 2001, included a recommendation that ``the President order the setting of national intelligence priorities through National Security Council guidance to the Director of Central Intelligence.'' Unfortunately, at the time the Joint Inquiry issued its report almost 2 full years after the Hart-Rudman Commission had made its recommendation sufficient progress had not been made in setting national intelligence priorities. Therefore, we included a recommendation on this point. Our investigation determined that the failure to have clear, consistent and current intelligence priorities that were understood by the entire intelligence community was a significant contributing factor to the failure of intelligence on 9-11. Since the joint inquiry issued its report, some progress has been made in establishing a systematic process for establishing intelligence priorities. However, it is not clear that these priorities are being communicated to the domestic intelligence agencies responsible for our security here at home. Recommendation No. 3 focuses its directive on the counter terrorism components of the intelligence, military, law enforcement, and homeland security agencies, which will be key in counter terrorism. This recommendation directs the National Security Council to ``prepare, for the President's approval, a U.S. government-wide strategy for combating terrorism, both at home and abroad, including the growing terrorism threat posed by proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and associated technologies.'' There should be an intelligence component of this strategy that identifies domestic and foreign based threat levels, programs, plans and budgets to address the threat posed by Osama bin Laden and al- Qaida, Hezbollah, Hamas, and other international terrorist groups. The strategy should include specific efforts to improve human intelligence, better utilize technology to analyze and share data, enhance domestic intelligence, maximize the effective use of covert action, which is action taken by the United States Government where the role of the United States is hidden, develop programs to deal with terrorist financing, and facilitate the ability of CIA and military special operations forces to conduct joint operations against terrorist targets. The joint inquiry found that there was no commonly agreed-upon approach among the federal agencies for dealing with terrorism. Each agency or department seemed to have its own ideas about fighting terrorism, and they were all independent actors. Success in the war on terror will require a coherent, coordinated effort that can only be accomplished by having everyone work toward a common goal outlined in a national strategy. Prior to 9-11, the CIA was trying, albeit unsuccessfully, to penetrate foreign terrorist organizations and disrupt their operations. Unfortunately at the FBI, fighting the war on terror meant calculating the threat by counting the number of known terrorists, not how many were estimated to have been placed in American communities. The FBI was waiting for acts of terror to occur and then trying to arrest and convict the guilty party. The need for a national strategy to combat terrorism has been the subject of several other commission reports. The Gilmore Commission, also known as the Advisory Panel to Assess Domestic Response Capabilities for Terrorism Involving Weapons of Mass Destruction, in its second report in December of 2000, recommended that ``the next President should develop and present to the Congress a national strategy for combating terrorism within one year of assuming office.'' The broad recommendation to develop a national strategy, as well as what should be included as specific components of that strategy, is broadly supported by virtually everyone who has analyzed our intelligence capabilities. In addition to the recommendation of the Gilmore Commission calling for a national strategy to combat terrorism, other commissions have made recommendations that are consistent with the full joint inquiry recommendation on developing a national strategy. For instance, the Hart-Rudman Commission, the Gilmore Commission, and the Bremer Commission, also known as the National Commission on Terrorism, in its report of June 2000, all made recommendations calling for improving and intensifying our human intelligence efforts with respect to terrorism. We should remember that until the hijackers stood up on those four airplanes and took control, it was as if their plot had been undetected. It was as if their conspiracy represented no violations of American laws or regulations. Good intelligence is our principle line of defense against these types of terrorist plots. Only by penetrating these organizations and by bringing together all available raw intelligence into cohesive analytical products will we ever be able to feel confident that we can avoid future tragedies. That is the only way we will get the timely, accurate intelligence that is required to disrupt sophisticated modern terrorist organizations like al-Qaida. Improving our human intelligence capability must be Job Number One in responding to global terrorists. Penetrating these organizations will require a new, more aggressive human intelligence capability. Osama and his cohorts are unlikely to turn up at an embassy cocktail party. We must be capable of getting human sources close to the leaders of these organizations. John Walker Lindh was a misguided California college student who became a member of al-Qaida and even met Osama bin Laden. Unfortunately, John Walker Lindh did not work for the CIA. The Bremer Commission includes a recommendation to increase funding for technology development to exploit terrorist communications, and devotes an entire section to improving efforts to attack terrorist financing. The Gilmore Commission recommends improving technological applications to enhance analysis and dissemination, as well as improving domestic intelligence collection. In response to the good work done by the Gilmore Commission and the recommendation of our Joint Inquiry, a national strategy to combat terrorism was issued by the Bush Administration in February of 2003. It is difficult to understand how a President who claims that defeating terrorism is the principle mission of his presidency took 17 months to produce a strategy to accomplish that mission. And even the strategy that was produced is inadequate when it comes to defining the intelligence components of that strategy. Instead, it calls on the intelligence community to review its capabilities and make recommendations for improvement. Why would it take 17 months to task the intelligence community to do such an assessment? The strategy that was produced after this long delay does not meet the requirements published in the recommendation of the joint inquiry. The Bush administration's strategy is not so much a strategy as a list of objectives. What is lacking is clear guidance on how we can achieve these objectives. What is also lacking is a level of specificity that will allow all agencies in our government to work towards this common set of priorities and goals through the common strategy. Recommendation No. 4 calls for the establishment of a National Intelligence Officer for Terrorism on the National Intelligence Council. The National Intelligence Council works directly for the Director of Central Intelligence and is responsible for providing coordinated analysis of foreign policy issues for the President and other senior policymakers. To date, no such position has been established. The lack of a central coordinator for terrorism analysis has been a continuing shortcoming in the Intelligence Community. While there are some outstanding individuals doing analysis on terrorism in several of the intelligence community's component organizations, there is no single focal point for policymakers to direct analytical requests on terrorism. A more recent example of the need for an NIO for Terrorism is the debate over Iraq's connection to al-Qaida. While the CIA consistently reported that they had uncovered no reliable evidence of any links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida, others in the government-- particularly at the Defense Department and the White House--made repeated statements about a solid link. Implementing this recommendation would give us a point of ultimate accountability. The joint inquiry found that there was some confusion as to who to go to with intelligence queries on terrorism, and there was no arbiter within the community to help reconcile various approaches or conflicting analyses of terrorism. We found too much mis-communication and an inability to identify who was responsible with regard to terrorism analysis. There was no individual who could coordinate a National Intelligence Estimate on terrorism, something that may have helped bring the seriousness of the threat posed by al-Qaida to members of the intelligence community outside of CIA. A National Intelligence Estimate is the highest level of intelligence analysis produced by the intelligence community and represents the best estimate of the entire intelligence community. Without the establishment of this position, there is also a lack of outreach to academia and the private sector on terrorism issues, something that is needed in this critical fight. We have national intelligence officers for each geographic region as well as several crosscutting issues, such as conventional military issues, strategic and nuclear programs, and economics and global issues. It is a sign of the continuing lack of organizational restructuring to deal with the terrorist threat that we still have no national intelligence officer for terrorism, yet we have one for economics. This should not be very hard to do, yet one full year after issuing our recommendations it has not been done. Recommendation No. 18 of the joint inquiry report calls on Congress and the administration to ensure the full development within the Department of Homeland Security of an effective all-source terrorism information fusion center. This center should have full access to all terrorism related intelligence and data, participate in the intelligence requirements process, and ``integrate intelligence information to identify and assess the nature and scope of terrorist threats to the United States in light of actual and potential vulnerabilities.'' One example of an intelligence fusion center that functions effectively is the Joint Interagency Task Force South in Key West, Florida. This organization fuses intelligence information from a wide variety of sources in a single facility which is jointly manned by military, law enforcement, intelligence and foreign government officials. What makes this organization particularly effective is that it is able to directly control operational activity to respond immediately to the intelligence it gathers. If it identifies a ship traveling toward the United States that it believes is carrying illegal narcotics, it can direct a Coast Guard vessel to intercept and search that ship. The failure to bring together all the available intelligence on terrorism and to analyze it in a way that is most useful in preventing attacks was most evident in our inquiry. The FBI had smart agents working in field offices throughout the country who identified troubling trends, such as an unusual interest in flight training among some foreign visitors. Unfortunately, the FBI was not organized in a way that allowed all intelligence on terrorism to go to a central location so that it could be analyzed as a whole. That problem was compounded by the fact that there was little to no information sharing between the FBI, responsible for counter-terrorism within the United States, and the CIA, responsible for foreign intelligence collection outside the United States of America. Too much fell through the cracks. This recommendation was directly supported by the legislation, passed by Congress and signed by the President, that established the Department of Homeland Security. That legislation authorized an intelligence component in the new Department to do exactly as was recommended by the joint inquiry, including the requirement that this new intelligence component have full access to available intelligence information. Senators Shelby, Lieberman, and Thompson deserve particular credit for their efforts to ensure that the new Department of Homeland Security have a robust intelligence organization. The intelligence component of the Department of Homeland Security was envisioned to be the one place where our domestic vulnerabilities are evaluated and mapped against all threats to the homeland. The idea was that the threats could come from a variety of sources, not just terrorists, and one agency needed to be responsible for having the entire picture on its radar screen. Unfortunately, the administration has chosen to gut the intelligence function at the Department of Homeland Security. The position of director of intelligence for the new department has been vacant for much of the time the department has been in existence. This is indicative of the lack of attention and significance it is given. The staff is totally inadequate for the mission outlined in the legislation that established the department. Instead, the administration has chosen to create a new organization at the CIA called the Terrorist Threat Integration Center, TTIC. While this new organization may address some of the problems that we have identified, it does not meet the requirements set out in the legislative authorization, nor does it meet the criteria set out in the Joint Inquiry recommendation. Finally, I would like to address Recommendation No. 19 of the joint inquiry report. This recommendation calls on ``the intelligence community, and particularly the FBI and CIA, to aggressively address the possibility that foreign governments are providing support to or are involved in terrorist activity targeting the United States and U.S. interests. The FBI and CIA should aggressively and thoroughly pursue related matters developed through this Joint Inquiry that have been referred to them for further investigation.'' Mr. President, this may be the most important--and at the same time, the most troubling recommendation. Significant evidence of foreign government involvement in the 9-11 attacks was uncovered by the joint inquiry. It is incomprehensible why this administration has refused to aggressively pursue the leads that our inquiry developed. One example of the failure to pursue leads that point to foreign government involvement is the refusal of the FBI to aggressively follow the money trail that flowed from officials of a foreign government to at least some of the terrorists. In spite of being provided evidence by our committee, the FBI and the administration refused to use all the law enforcement tools at their disposal to follow the money trail. Why would the administration not use all of its available powers to track this money? In addition, the question of whether other terrorists were getting similar support was not pursued. Therefore the extent of the involvement of the foreign government has never been fully investigated. Recent press reports indicate that there is even more suspicious activity than was known at the time we issued our report. Another example of the failure to aggressively pursue the sources of foreign support of terrorism is reported on Page A14 of today's Washington Post. A panel which was established by the United Nations to pursue sources of support of al-Qaida has been disbanded. Our government joined with Russia and Chile to sponsor a resolution at the United Nations that disbanded the panel investigating al-Qaida's financing. We are talking about the possible involvement of foreign governments in the 9-11 attacks. If a government was involved in those attacks, we should leave no stone unturned to identify the extent of that involvement and hold those responsible accountable. There should be no sanctuary from justice for those involved with terrorists, no matter who might be embarrassed by such revelations. I wish I could be more specific in discussing the involvement of foreign governments in the 9-11 plot. Unfortunately, the administration will not allow me to do so. After 7 months of effort to de-classify the report that we filed on December 20, 2002, the CIA, the FBI and other agencies decided to keep significant portions secret. In particular, there are 27 pages that were virtually completely censored. These are pages 396 through 422 from Part Four of the report, which is entitled, ``Finding, Discussion and Narrative Regarding Certain Sensitive National Security Matters.'' This censorship is troubling for a number of reasons. First, it reduces the information available to the public about some of the most important government actions--or to be more accurate, inactions--prior to September 11. Second, it precludes the American people from asking their government legitimate questions, such as: Was there a reason that some, but not all, of the terrorists were receiving foreign support while they were in the United States? Or is it not more likely that they were all receiving similar support? What evidence do we have that the infrastructure of support that existed prior to 9-11 has been dismantled? Or is it not more likely that such an infrastructure is still in place for the next generation of terrorists? How many trained operatives of al-Qaida, Hezbollah, and other international terrorist organizations are there inside the United States of America? What are the skills and capabilities of these operatives? What was the scale and skills of Iraqi operatives inside the United States prior to the war in Iraq and at the current date? What was the comparative threat to the people of the United States of Iraq and the trained agents of international terrorists placed inside our country? Has the number, skill set, funding or ability to avoid disclosure of international terrorist operatives within the United States of America been enhanced by support from foreign governments? How professional and aggressive have been the efforts of agencies such as the FBI and the CIA in answering those questions? And, how was the information that our government might have had prior to September 11th utilized after September 11th to enhance the security of our homeland and American interests abroad? Unfortunately, almost 2\1/2\ years after the tragedy, the administration and the Congress--in the main--have not initiated the reforms necessary to reduce the chances of another 9-11. Given the seriousness of that situation, some of what was withheld from this report bordered on the absurd. For examples of the absurdity, some of the information censored from these pages actually appears in other parts of the report. Let me cite three examples. First, much of the censored information about Omar al-Bayoumi is available on pages 173-175. Mr. Bayoumi was an employee of the Saudi Civil Aviation Authority and a suspected Saudi intelligence agent based in California. He had extensive contacts with two of the Saudi hijackers, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi. The same day that Bayoumi picked up the hijackers at a restaurant in Los Angeles, he had attended a prior meeting at the Saudi consulate in Los Angeles. Bayoumi co-signed a lease for the two hijackers, paid their first month's rent, hosted a welcome party for them, helped them get driver's licenses and flight school applications. He also introduced them to others who served as their translator and in other support roles. Second, much of the censored information about Osama Bassnan, another Saudi national who was a neighbor of the two hijackers in San Diego, which appears on pages 175 through 177. Third, much of the information about a San Diego business manager which was censored also appears on pages 179 and 180. I would note that the declassified sections of the report point out that, despite public assurances from U.S. officials that Saudi Arabia has cooperated in counter terrorism efforts, the Joint Inquiry received testimony that Saudi officials in fact ``had been uncooperative and often did not act on information implicating Saudi nationals.'' What this indicates is that in the months following the release of our recommendation that the administration ``aggressively'' address the foreign government involvement in 9-11, the Bush administration not only failed to pursue and investigate foreign government involvement, the administration misused the classification process to protect the foreign governments that may have been involved in 9-11. There is no reason for the Bush administration to continue to shield make-believe allies who are supporting, either directly or indirectly, terrorists who want to kill Americans. The recommendations we have made here are consistent with recommendations made by other bodies that have been formed to analyze our intelligence structure over the last decade. The political reality is that there is a broad agreement that these reforms need to be made, yet there is institutional resistance that has been too great to overcome. Congress has assumed responsibility for reform of the intelligence community. Now is the time to act so that we might receive the appreciation of the American people for reducing the likelihood of another tragedy like 9-11. The consequence of inaction will be legitimate, strong and unavoidable criticism should we be struck again. If 9-11 was not a big enough shock wave to overcome the resistance to change, what will it take? I ask unanimous consent that The Washington Post article ``U.N. Dissolves Panel Monitoring Al Qaeda'' be printed in the Record.

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida

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

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida. Mr. President, as fate would have it, the first vote this new session of Congress has before it, as our first measure, is an omnibus appropriations bill for fiscal year 2004. This first-of-the-year appropriations bill is the product of negotiation among the leadership, primarily Republican leadership in this Chamber and their House counterparts, to meld together a series of appropriations bills that had been unable to be passed prior to the time of our adjournment in 2003 and have now been presented to us as a single bill. This single bill will provide for discretionary domestic spending of $328 billion--$328 billion. In fact, it contains over 7,000 earmarks, which means specific projects that have been added to this bill, almost exclusively projects that were never considered by the Senate. Senator McCain has given a speech, as has Senator Byrd, outlining adequate reasons to vote against this omnibus bill based on those facts alone. I would probably have voted against the bill based on those facts alone because I consider myself to be a fiscal hawk, and I consider that the kind of spending in this bill is illustrative of the undisciplined practices into which this Congress and this President have too often fallen. But that is not the reason I am going to discuss today. It is the fact of what is not in this bill. What is not in this bill is a provision which was adopted on a bipartisan basis by the Senate and by the House of Representatives which would protect the overtime rights of our Nation's workers. A brief background. In 2003, the Department of Labor developed a regulation which would modify the current overtime pay standards. The practical effect of this will be to make some 8 million American workers, who are now eligible for overtime, ineligible for overtime. My colleague and good friend from Iowa, Senator Harkin, who also has spoken eloquently on this matter today, offered an amendment to protect the overtime our Nation's workers earn from this new Bush administration policy. Senator Harkin's amendment passed the Senate by a vote of 54 to 45. That same measure was then endorsed by the House of Representatives when they instructed their conferees, who would be responsible for negotiating any differences between the House and the Senate bills, to accept the Harkin amendment by a bipartisan vote of 221 to 203. In spite of that history, this provision, which would have rolled back the Department of Labor's denial of overtime to 8 million Americans, was removed from the bill, ostensibly at the insistence of the White House. I have had a practice, now for almost 30 years, of taking different jobs. My next-to-the-last job was as a coal compactor. That consisted of driving a very big piece of equipment, made by Caterpillar in Peoria, IL, over a large field of West Virginia coal in order to keep it at the necessary compaction so that it would not be subject to self- ignition and fire. There were three other men who worked with me in that job. It took place at the Gainesville regional utility generating plant. At the lunch break, we avoided talking politics. That is sort of my rule when I am on these workdays. I talk about hunting or fishing or football or whatever but not politics. These three men brought it up at lunch. They said: We heard somewhere that they are talking about messing with our overtime. I said: Well, how much will this affect you? They said: It will affect us a lot because we typically work maybe 50, 60 hours a week doing this job, and that overtime is what makes the difference between us sort of getting along and getting along with a little extra money to do the things our families need. I cite that example to indicate this is not an inside-the-beltway issue. This is an issue which the American people understand and about which they are emotional. Under the Bush administration's overtime plan, millions of salaried workers who make between $22,101 and $65,000 a year--just think how many millions of families fall within that range of $22,101 and $65,000 a year--could be reclassified under more lenient standards as executive, administrative, or professional employees and would no longer qualify for overtime. I indicated earlier that the plan would affect approximately 8 million workers in 257 occupations. This is the estimate of the Economic Policy Institute, that that many workers in that many occupations would lose their right to overtime. In my State of Florida, the change is estimated to affect 441,000 workers. Those numbers dramatically understate the real impact of this legislation. Let me give two illustrations of its extended impact. We are concerned about a jobless recovery. Yes, the stock market is up. Yes, we are showing a significant increase in our domestic economic output. But in the month of December, do you know how many jobs were created as a result of all that economic activity? One thousand. I have not made a mistake. I didn't misstate 100,000 or 150,000. One thousand new jobs were created in the month of December. While there is no single reason that that is true, I believe one of the reasons is the math I am about to give you. Assume you are an employer. You have four employees. As part of this economic upturn, you have generated enough demand for your product that you really need to hire a fifth employee. So you have a choice: Hire a new person or you can ask the other workers to add 10 hours a week to cover the amount of additional demand that has been generated. Assuming these workers earned $20 an hour, that would mean that while they are in their overtime period, they would be earning $30 an hour. So each of the four people would earn 10 hours at an additional $10. So they would earn, as a result of overtime, $100 a week times the four workers which is $400 a week. The employer could very well look at those numbers and say: Look, it is less expensive for me to pay these existing employees an additional amount to work overtime than it is to undergo the training cost and the insurance cost, particularly the health insurance cost, of bringing a new person on board. I believe this extensive use of overtime is a significant factor in causing a jobless economic recovery. If it is a significant problem today, when the employer is having to pay an additional $10 an hour in overtime, think what it is going to be like when the employer doesn't have to pay the additional $10 an hour in overtime, where the amount of work that the four current employees do would be paid at the same rate as those four plus a fifth working at 40 hours a week? No. 2 is another example. A plant has 100 employees, all of whom are currently eligible for overtime. Under these new rules, let's say that 20 of those 100 are reclassified as being ineligible for overtime. The plant has a certain number of hours of overtime which are going to be incurred. Today they are distributing that among the 100 overtime- eligible employees. I can tell you with a high level of confidence that if we allow this Department of Labor regulation to go into effect, whatever overtime is generated in that plant is going to be assigned to the 20 employees who no longer are eligible to get overtime pay. At a time of a jobless economic recovery, to propose cutting overtime earnings, which will give an even greater incentive not to employ people, is to cause one to question the common sense of the people who are proposing this. This plan offers no incentive for economic stimulation. It is an incentive to further reduce employment by relying on now no longer overtime compensated additional hours of work by your current workforce. This also offers no economic incentive to our general economy. We have debated this issue for much of the last 3 years: What is the most appropriate way to stimulate the economy? Last night the President didn't talk about changes in trade policy. He said we were going to stimulate the economy by making tax cuts permanent. As Senator Byrd discussed with vigor and eloquence a few hours ago, 75 percent of these tax cuts go to 1 percent of the American taxpayers. That is not a program of economic stimulation. Rather, it is a program to compensate the most affluent people in the country by cutting their taxes and letting the crumbs of the other 25 percent of the tax cuts fall down on the rest of us. If we were serious about economic stimulation through the Tax Code, we would have a different tax cut policy. I have advocated, as an example, that we ought to have a program to make the first $10,000 of earnings free from the payroll tax. That would put approximately $780 in the pocket of every American, the largest share of which would go to where the largest share of Americans are--into the middle class. I can tell you, from common sense, those people will actually spend the $780 because they have kids who need new clothes; they have a car that needs to be replaced; they have a new bedroom they may need to add to the house because they just had another child. We didn't take that approach. We didn't focus our tax cuts on the Americans who are most likely to use the tax cut to stimulate the economy by increasing demand. Having committed that first error, we are now about to compound it by taking away overtime pay from the same group of Americans who, if they get the overtime, are most likely to spend it, create demand, and create new jobs in our economy. It is just confounding that, at a time when we are concerned about the future of this country and we are concerned about economic stimulation, when we have concerns about the fairness by which our people are viewing their Government's action, we would go an additional mile to cut away the eligibility for overtime pay for 8 million Americans. This policy is not just bad economics; it is also bad security because many of the people who will be affected by this are people who are our first responders. They are police officers, firefighters, air and traffic controllers, nurses, and others involved in emergency medical care. All of these will potentially see their wages diminished as a result of this one provision in a bill which does not justify passage even on its own merits--a provision which has stripped out a proposal that passed by bipartisan majorities in both the Senate and the House, passed at the instance of the White House, wanting to assure that its policy of cutting back on average American workers' overtime is implemented. I would vote against cloture on this bill today; I will vote against cloture on this bill tomorrow; I will vote against cloture on this bill at any time we have the opportunity to do so. And should we, in a moment of lack of wisdom, grant cloture and this bill is passed, then I will join my colleagues in every effort to see that what the Congress of the United States wants to happen, what the people of the United States desperately want to happen--which is to retain their overtime pay benefits--will occur. Even though it is not what President George W. Bush wants, this will be a battle the American people will win.

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida. Madam President, I am saddened to report that on December 18, 2003, our Nation lost one of its leading advocates for the care of older veterans, Marsha Goodwin-Beck. The Director of Geriatrics for the Veterans Health Administration from 1989 until her death, she dedicated her career to serving veterans in many capacities. Ms. Goodwin-Beck was instrumental in the growth and development of VA's nationally prominent Geriatric Research, Education and Clinical Centers, as well as its multidisciplinary geriatric training programs. She also had a key role in coordinating the implementation of the Veterans Millennium Health Act of 1999, a bill that made an impact on a countless number of our Nation's veterans. Ms. Goodwin-Beck began her career at VA in 1983 as an education specialist, later moving into various positions with the Office of Geriatrics and Extended Care. In 2003, VA recognized her long-time service on behalf of older veterans by awarding her the VA Undersecretary for Health Commendation. As a testament to her expertise, Ms. Goodwin-Beck authored several articles on geriatric and long-term care issues. She also was active in local and national nursing organizations, including as a founding member of the National Alliance for Caregiving, and she served on the Education Committee of the Gerontological Society of America. Shortly before her death, Ms. Goodwin-Beck was elected to the national board of directors of the American Geriatrics Society. Prior to her Government service, Ms. Goodwin-Beck had a distinguished career in clinical care as a certified adult nurse practitioner and nurse educator. Between 1981 and 1982, she was awarded a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation fellowship as a primary care nurse practitioner at the University of Maryland. Ms. Goodwin-Beck was also an assistant professor at Catholic University's School of Nursing and was on faculty for the university's Teaching Nursing Home project. In addition, she was a consultant to the American Health Care Association, coauthored the book ``How to Be a Nursing Aide in a Nursing Home,'' and conducted workshops on quality assurance for staff in nursing homes throughout the country. On behalf of the members and staff of the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs, our hearts and thoughts are with Ms. Goodwin-Beck's husband, Jeffrey Beck, and her entire family. VA has lost one of its most dedicated and caring members, but I know that Ms. Goodwin-Beck's contributions to veterans' care will continue to be felt for years to come.

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida. Mr. President, today I rise to introduce the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act. In 2000, Florida grabbed the national spotlight as an unfortunate example of an electoral process gone awry. The question of who would assume our Nation's highest office became contingent on such things as whether a chad was bulging or hanging. In the aftermath of that debacle, Americans demand that Congress improve the accuracy and integrity of our electoral process. Congress responded with the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), which we passed in 2002. HAVA aimed to modernize our electoral system and there have been some positive developments. Under the law, States have replaced punch card and lever voting systems with modern computer voting machines. Modernization, however, has failed to overcome all the pitfalls seen in recent elections. In 2002, Floridians were subject to another failure of our electoral process when a software error failed to court approximately 100,000 votes. As it now stands, computer-voting systems--including the popular touch screen models--are not mandated to include a paper record verifying voter intent. In the absence of a paper trail, confirming the accuracy of a computer voting machine is very difficult, sometimes even impossible. Further, voting irregularities, security intrusions and electronic errors can go unnoticed. We have a duty to our democracy to continue to address challenges that threaten to undermine the security and reliability of our electoral system. The Voter Confidence & Increased Accessibility Act renews our commitment to fulfilling that obligation. It will take us one step closer to our ultimate goal: ensuring that every vote really counts. This legislation responds to a set of challenges presented by computer voting systems. It would require all voting systems produce a verifiable paper record. States would also be given assistance in meeting this standard through funds dedicated to HAVA. The Voter Confidence & Increased Accessibility Act also stipulates several other provisions to ensure that every vote really counts. It would prohibit the use of unreported software and wireless communication devices in all voting systems. It would also restrict electronic communications from voting machines, permitting outgoing transmissions of vote totals only. The legislation specifies that voting systems must comply with these standards in time for the November 2004 general election. In the event that a locality is unable to get their computer voting systems compliant by this deadline, they are authorized to use a paper system as an interim measure. The Federal Government would be authorized to pay the cost of these paper systems for the November 2004 election. The Voter Confidence & Increased Accessibility Act also requires that individuals with disabilities must be accommodated with electronic voting systems by January 1, 2006, a year earlier than mandated by HAVA. While a paper record of a disabled persons vote is not expressly required, voting systems for disabled persons must include a means for voter verification. In the event a jurisdiction cannot meet this standard, disabled voters must be given the option to utilize a temporary paper system, with the assistance of an aide of their choosing. Finally, the legislation would require the Election Assistance Commission to conduct unannounced recounts in .5 percent of domestic jurisdictions and .5 percent of overseas jurisdictions. This way, Congress and America's voters can be assured that the election equipment is operating properly, and votes are really being counted. Creating these new standards will help ensure that our elections accurately reflect the intent of the voting public, and put into place an election system in which Americans can have full confidence.

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida. Mr. President, today I rise to introduce the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act. In 2000, Florida grabbed the national spotlight as an unfortunate example of an electoral process gone awry. The question of who would assume our Nation's highest office became contingent on such things as whether a chad was bulging or hanging. In the aftermath of that debacle, Americans demand that Congress improve the accuracy and integrity of our electoral process. Congress responded with the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), which we passed in 2002. HAVA aimed to modernize our electoral system and there have been some positive developments. Under the law, States have replaced punch card and lever voting systems with modern computer voting machines. Modernization, however, has failed to overcome all the pitfalls seen in recent elections. In 2002, Floridians were subject to another failure of our electoral process when a software error failed to court approximately 100,000 votes. As it now stands, computer-voting systems--including the popular touch screen models--are not mandated to include a paper record verifying voter intent. In the absence of a paper trail, confirming the accuracy of a computer voting machine is very difficult, sometimes even impossible. Further, voting irregularities, security intrusions and electronic errors can go unnoticed. We have a duty to our democracy to continue to address challenges that threaten to undermine the security and reliability of our electoral system. The Voter Confidence & Increased Accessibility Act renews our commitment to fulfilling that obligation. It will take us one step closer to our ultimate goal: ensuring that every vote really counts. This legislation responds to a set of challenges presented by computer voting systems. It would require all voting systems produce a verifiable paper record. States would also be given assistance in meeting this standard through funds dedicated to HAVA. The Voter Confidence & Increased Accessibility Act also stipulates several other provisions to ensure that every vote really counts. It would prohibit the use of unreported software and wireless communication devices in all voting systems. It would also restrict electronic communications from voting machines, permitting outgoing transmissions of vote totals only. The legislation specifies that voting systems must comply with these standards in time for the November 2004 general election. In the event that a locality is unable to get their computer voting systems compliant by this deadline, they are authorized to use a paper system as an interim measure. The Federal Government would be authorized to pay the cost of these paper systems for the November 2004 election. The Voter Confidence & Increased Accessibility Act also requires that individuals with disabilities must be accommodated with electronic voting systems by January 1, 2006, a year earlier than mandated by HAVA. While a paper record of a disabled persons vote is not expressly required, voting systems for disabled persons must include a means for voter verification. In the event a jurisdiction cannot meet this standard, disabled voters must be given the option to utilize a temporary paper system, with the assistance of an aide of their choosing. Finally, the legislation would require the Election Assistance Commission to conduct unannounced recounts in .5 percent of domestic jurisdictions and .5 percent of overseas jurisdictions. This way, Congress and America's voters can be assured that the election equipment is operating properly, and votes are really being counted. Creating these new standards will help ensure that our elections accurately reflect the intent of the voting public, and put into place an election system in which Americans can have full confidence.

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I thank Senator Kennedy. We have had a long and quite illuminating debate over the past week on one of the most important issues that our Nation faces; that is: Shall we turn a program which for 40 years has protected older Americans and disabled Americans against illness into a program which promotes wellness? In order to do that, we understand that fundamentally we will have to make access to prescription drugs affordable, comprehensive, universal, and reliable because prescription drugs are now fundamental to a preventive health care policy. There is much to criticize about this legislation, and I intend to vote no. We have heard that at great length in recent days. Let me take a slightly different approach. I am assuming that this legislation is going to pass. The challenge will then be before us: What do we do next? Let me suggest three things that we ought to do next. One is that we have to look realistically at the cost of this bill. As Senator Ensign said during last night's debate, the $400 billion figure is a mirage. This bill is going to cost substantially more than $400 billion. The Congressional Budget Office is estimating that in the second 10 years, it will be over $1 trillion. What are the suggestions of how to deal with this reality? One of those suggestions is to reduce benefits. Another one is to set some type of a formula relating Medicare expenditures to general revenue, and then scaling back Medicare expenditures when they break through that barrier. Of course, one of the things that we ought to have done in terms of cost is not start this year by passing a massive tax cut which added substantially to the Federal deficit and narrowed the range of realistic options that we have today. This has been truly an amazing year for the Congress and the President. We started the year with a proposal for almost a $1 trillion tax cut. We reasserted our commitment to fight and win a war against terror in Afghanistan. We started a war in Iraq. We have seen surging Federal Government expenditures in the nondefense area, and now on what will likely be the last day of the session, we conclude by passing a $400 billion unfunded new entitlement. My answer to the question of cost, at least a significant part of it, lies in the fact that in this bill we are failing to sanction the use of the tremendous marketing influence which the Federal Government, through the Medicare Program, can have over the cost of prescription drugs. Just as we did over 10 years ago--and the Presiding Officer's colleague, Senator Murkowski, was a prime sponsor of this legislation-- we authorized the VA to negotiate to get the best prices it could for American veterans. I think the high priority for 2004 should be to give to the administrator of the Medicare Program similar authority. Second, I think we need to pass a Patients' Bill of Rights. If we are going to be herding millions of older Americans into various forms of health management, we have a responsibility to give them some assurance as to what the standards of that access to health care will be. Third, we have a strange provision in here for the distribution of prescription drugs. That is, we use private insurance programs rather than traditional Medicare. It would be like having to get a private insurance program to get anesthesiology or any of the other services that have traditionally been provided through Medicare. Then, in order to encourage--I would say more than encourage--mandate the maximum number of Americans participating in that program, we say there has to be at least one prescription-only insurance provider in the region and, second, then a preferred provider organization, essentially a variant of an HMO, in the region. It is only if both of those fail, there is not one or more drug-only insurance plan or a PPO, only under those circumstances will a person be able to consider using standard fee-for-service Medicare as the means of getting their prescriptions. It is ironic that in another part of this bill, which is going to create a demonstration project on the totality of Medicare, we line up all of the choices side by side, including staying in traditional fee for service, which over 85 percent of Americans are electing to do, and then choose on an equal basis, as we do in the Federal health insurance program. We do not have to wait until all of the other choices have been rejected, because they are not being provided, and then drop back into a Blue Cross/Blue Shield-type fee for service. We ought to do the same thing with prescription drugs. If we are going to have what I think is a rather irrational program-- incidentally, the prescription drug-only proposal is not in existence in any other area of American health care. A person cannot buy that through the Federal health care system. A person cannot buy it through their employer system. The reason they cannot buy it is because no insurance company is providing it. That ought to tell us something about what they think of the management and fiscal implications of providing a drug-only prescription plan. At least we should not require our oldest citizens to go through a so-called fallback process. We should allow older citizens to assess all of the options at the same time and make the decision they consider to be in their best interest. As I conclude this long debate, I urge that the agenda of cost, patients' rights, and providing the more rational process for elderly determinations as to how they will receive their drugs be the starting point of the agenda for reform next year.

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida. Mr. President, given my expanded amount of time, I would like to talk about two aspects of this. In 2001, first with Senators Zell Miller and Ted Kennedy, and then with Senator Gordon Smith, I offered variations of a prescription drug bill to this Senate. In the case of the first legislation, there was, in fact, a point of order, precisely the one that is now before the Senate, offered against both of those provisions. In the first instance, the vote to waive the point of order was 52, so the bill had a majority of the Members of the Senate prepared to support it, which would have meant we would not be having this debate today because senior citizens and disabled Americans would be going to the drugstore and getting their prescription drugs today. The second bill which Senator Smith and I offered was very similar in structure to the one that is in this current legislation; I would say somewhat better and more public spirited but similar. On that bill, there were 50 votes exactly not to waive the point of order. So this is not a unique, unusual, or inappropriate motion to make. It was made twice in 2001. In the one case, it denied passage of legislation. In the other case, on virtually the same bill we have before us today, it denied us the opportunity because we could not get the 60 votes in order to override the point of order. What I really want to talk about, however, is the last point that my friend and fellow-departing Member of the Senate, Mr. Nickles, just said, and that was about the issue of cost containment. Senator Nickles has a definition of cost containment. That definition is that we will impose limits on the amount of funds which can be spent on the Medicare Program, the most prominently suggested approach being to say that if more than 45 percent of the nontrust fund monies of the Federal Government are going to be spent on Medicare, then there will be a complex Rube Goldberg of votes and countervotes to determine if that can occur. If those limits are imposed, then the only way that 45-percent excess can be replaced are through things which are clearly going to be very onerous upon the Medicare beneficiaries, such as increasing the payroll tax or increasing the amount of premiums that seniors would pay. The idea that we might go to general revenue as the means of meeting that excess is not allowable. It has to come out of the Medicare Program itself. I have a different definition of what a cost control ought to be, and it is not a bureaucratic maze. It is a very straightforward, capitalist, free enterprise, marketplace approach. It also is not a new idea. In the early 1990s, this Senate passed legislation which authorized the administrator of the Veterans' Administration to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies on behalf of the VA. That bill was sponsored by Senator Alan Simpson, retired Republican from Wyoming; Senator and now-Governor Frank Murkowski of Alaska; retired Senator Alan Cranston from California, and our colleague today, Senator Jay Rockefeller. Those were the four sponsors. When the bill came before the Senate, there was not a request for a recorded vote. It passed unanimously. So that does not sound like it was a very radical bill, given who its sponsors were, or that it raised any great cries in the Senate. What has happened over the intervening decade plus since this legislation was passed? Well, here is a chart that shows some of the common prescriptions which are now being purchased by the VA under this legislation. Let us take one which I happen to know well because I take it myself, and that is Zocor. It was designed to control high cholesterol. On Veterans' Day of this year, I spent the day at the VA hospital in Miami. A lot of the day was spent in the pharmaceutical dispensing area. I asked the question: What are you paying for Zocor? Well, the answer was 66 cents a tablet. I then asked what would it be if they went to the drugstore and bought the same identical tablet. It was $3.77. I said: Is that illustrative of the kind of discounts you are able to negotiate? The answer was: No, it frankly is a little bit deeper than average. We, this year, will dispense about $39 million of prescription drugs through the Miami VA. I asked: If you went down to the drugstore and bought it at the same price that, for instance, seniors under Medicare would pay, what would it cost? It was $81 million. So there is more than a 50 percent discount--in some cases much more dramatic discounts. The question that I think we should anticipate, so we had better ready with an answer, is the question: Why, in light of the success of the VA in providing for its 27 million eligibles--why do we have this in this legislation, under the clause ``noninterference?'' I might correct a statement I made yesterday when I said it was on page 54. In the final version of the printed conference report it is moved to page 53, lines 18 through 26. Here is what those lines say: Noninterference. In order to promote competition under this part and in carrying out this part, the Secretary--[who was in the Chamber just a few moments ago]--(1) may not interfere with the negotiations between drug manufacturers and pharmacies and PDP--[which is the drug-only insurance policy] sponsors; and (2) may not require a particular formulary or institute a price structure for the reimbursement of covered part D drugs. What all that legalese means is that we are about to prohibit the Secretary of HHS from using the tremendous bargaining power which Medicare has, similar to the Veterans Administration, to accomplish for Medicare beneficiaries the same cost control that we are now achieving in the Veterans Administration. Some people say: Why are we doing this? What is the reason we would have such diametrically different policies for two very similar groups of Americans? One answer was: Well, veterans, they are a special class. There are not as many veterans; therefore, they will not have the impact. I agree, veterans are a special group of Americans. They deserve to be honored. But so are the other members of the greatest generation. So are the wives who stayed home with the children while their husbands were fighting abroad. The fact is, there are 27 million veterans eligible to get these reduced costs. When we pass this Medicare bill, until such time--and I am afraid it will not be very long--that we see a mass retreat of private pre-employers--that is the persons, the businesses that used to employ the current retirees--start to drop coverage--until that happens, there will be about 10 million to 12 million of the 40 million Medicare beneficiaries who are likely to take most advantage of this prescription drug benefit. You can't tell me if 27 million veterans can take advantage of this program, and they have not brought the pharmaceutical industry to its knees, that 10 to 12 million Medicare beneficiaries are going to cause that to occur.

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida. I ask for an additional 5 minutes.

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida. There is a question more serious than the question I just asked, and that is, How do we answer the question? This is Ms. Kitterage. She is 75 years old. She lives in Tamarac, FL. She has about $4,900 a year expenses over a range of prescription drugs. That is her annual expense. Here you see some of the vials of her prescription drugs. This is not the case--at least I don't know it to be the case--but let's assume that Ms. Kitterage either is married or is a widow and that her husband was about her age, which would have meant that he would quite possibly have been one of our brave soldiers in the Korean war. As such, he would be eligible, as one of the veterans, to get the VA discounts. She is not eligible today. Because of this provision we are proposing to put into law, she will not be eligible in the future to get the benefit of Medicare's tremendous purchasing power. I want to just leave this question. When we stand up before an audience of elderly Americans and Ms. Kitterage comes and asks this question: My husband is the same age I am; why is he able to buy prescription drugs at half the price that I have to pay because he can do it at the VA, that is the question we are going to be required to answer. I would like to offer that to my colleagues for a response. Would somebody please tell me what is the public policy that justifies utilizing the purchasing power of the VA to get these kinds of discounts? Yet to the wives of the veterans we say: You have to pay the full amount. I can't find a justifiable reason for that. I am a capitalist. I am a free enterpriser. I am a marketplace person. I don't believe in socialism. Why should we bring the marketplace to the veterans but bring the red flag of socialism to Medicare? I hope, during the course of this debate, we can engage on this issue because I think it is maybe the most central issue. If we did this one thing, if we eliminated this specific paragraph and wrote in the language that we did over 10 years ago for the VA, we would be doing the seniors of America a greater benefit than anything we are considering and we would be saving the American taxpayers an enormous amount of money, therefore avoiding further additions to our national debt.

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida. Mr. President, I leave that question with you and hope during the course of this debate we will be engaged in answering.

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida. Madam President, since its creation in 1965, the Medicare Program has helped millions of our Nation's elderly and disabled when they desperately needed it, after they became ill. It has been an extremely successful and popular program, and has improved the health of countless seniors. Now that we are in the 21st century, it is time to reap the full benefits of the advances made over the years, and shift the focus of the Medicare Program from assistance after illness to one that promotes wellness. To achieve that, a prescription drug benefit is mandatory. Ninety percent of seniors have at least one chronic condition; drugs are often the best way to manage those conditions. The bill we are considering is frequently divided into two parts--one part is the prescription drug benefit, and the other part is Medicare reform. Let me state what we all ought to know by now: A prescription drug benefit is the most fundamental reform that we can make to the Medicare Program. If we want to truly reform Medicare, we must change the approach of the program from one of sickness to one focused on wellness. This prevention approach will require access to prescription drugs. Modern medicine has been altered fundamentally by prescription drugs, notably by improving the quality of people's lives, ending the need for surgeries and long recovery periods. A side benefit of this change would be that the cost to the Medicare Program could be lower by reducing these procedures. I have introduced several prescription drug bills over the past few years because I believe a reorientation toward wellness is in the best interest of our seniors, as well as the Medicare Program. However--and this is critical--not just any prescription drug bill will do. The bills I have authored have been constructed to provide an affordable, comprehensive, reliable prescription drug benefit to our seniors and Medicare beneficiaries with disabilities. The bill I introduced in 2001, cosponsored by Senators Zell Miller and Edward Kennedy, was voted on in July of that year. It received 52 votes. That bill would have made a significant, and positive, difference in the lives of the nearly 41 million older Americans and disabled citizens who are covered by Medicare--more than 2,770,000 of whom live in Florida. The conference agreement that we are now considering would also make a significant difference in the lives of our seniors. However, that difference will not be a positive one. I have many grave concerns about this legislation. The drug portion of the bill is deeply flawed. It includes an enormous coverage gap. When a senior has reached $2,250 in total drug expenses, all drug coverage stops. The drug benefit doesn't begin again until total drug spending reaches $5,100. That is a gap of $2,850. And during all of the months the senior is in that ``gap'', the senior is required to keep paying premiums. The bill is projected to cause 2.6 million retirees nationwide, and over 160,000 in Florida, to lost their retiree prescription drug coverage. It will cause 6 million low-income seniors nationwide, and over 360,000 in Florida, to pay more for their drugs, and to face more restrictions on the drugs they can get. It relies on an untested delivery system which would either herd seniors into what we know they don't like, a managed care organization, or would turn them into guinea pigs for a never previously utilized drug-only insurance plan. Millions and millions of seniors who will not have access to drugs through the traditional Medicare Program will suffer the fate I have just described. In addition, the legislation that was supposed to be about adding a prescription drug benefit now includes provisions that will privatize the Medicare Program beginning in the first year of implementation fragmenting the health insurance group by subsidizing health savings and increase the costs of comprehensive health insurance for our non- Medicare citizens. I am not alone in my concern about this legislation. In a recent survey conducted by Hart Research, of voters aged 55 and older, only 19 percent said we should pass this bill. Sixty-four percent said we should go back to the drawing board. This isn't the Medicare prescription drug benefit that they need. And although the AARP has taken the inexplicable position of supporting this legislation, the national organization may want to listen to its members. Only 18 percent of AARP members want Congress to pass the bill. Sixty-five percent have instructed us to go back to the drawing board. The percent of seniors in favor in my State is even lower. I have received over 1,000 calls from seniors opposed to this agreement, representing about 80 percent of all calls. Listen to what some of my constituents are saying about the bill: Earl Dangler of Beverly Hills, FL said: This prescription drug benefit is going to cost my wife and I an additional $750 to $1,000 per year whether we use it or not. Many of my constituents have expressed outrage at AARP for endorsing this conference agreement. One constituent said: I'm really mad at the AARP and I am going to cancel my subscription that I've had for 20 years. Another constituent remarked: I've been a member of AARP for many, many years, and I can't believe that they have sold out to the pharmaceutical industry and the insurance companies. The real test of the reaction to this legislation is a bit down the road--but it will come. The impact of the bill won't be felt until at least 18 months after enactment. I would predict the vote we cast on this legislation will be politically inconsequential for those running in the year 2004. The stunning impact will be felt first in the fall of 2005, when Medicare beneficiaries get the notice that it is time to enroll in the drug benefit. What choices would the senior face in 2005 when considering whether to enroll in the new, highly touted program? Many Medicare beneficiaries will have to consider the following: No. 1, sign up for a prescription drug plan, PDP--a private drug-only insurance plan with no limits on the premium that may be charged, or No. 2, enroll in a managed care plan. Given that more than 85 percent of seniors today have rejected managed care, I anticipate a ``1980s''catastrophic outrage. But, that is not the end of the outrage. In fact, it may be just the beginning. As the senior considers his choices, he will soon realize that the private plans hold all the cards. They have all the flexibility, all the options, and none of the commitments. The plan defines the classes, or categories of drugs, then decides what drug is in the class or category, and how much the senior will be charged for the drug. The plan doesn't even have to tell the senior prior to enrolling what the charge for the drug will be, and can change which drugs are in each category at any point in the year. But the senior? The senior has to make an enrollment decision prior to the beginning of each calendar year, based on limited and subject- to-change information, and cannot change plans at any time during the year. The private insurance plan can make changes during the year, but the senior cannot. Once enrolled, in the first part of the year 2006, seniors will begin to feel the impact of the deck being stacked in favor of the private plans. They will discover that the plan can make changes to the drugs covered and the price of the drugs at any time. They will discover that the drug prices aren't all that low, and they will discover that they have to pay the full cost for part or all of January as they struggle to meet the $250 deductible. At this point, you may be thinking that things are bound to improve for the senior. But, hold on, because the summer of 2006 is coming. What happens then? That is when, for the first time, seniors--voters-- will experience the infamous ``gap.'' Beginning sometime after Memorial Day 2006, many seniors will reach, and fall into, the gap. At this point the senior has been going to the drugstore for about 6 months, each month filling prescriptions for treatment of any number of chronic illnesses. The senior has met his or her deductible, has never missed a monthly premium payment, and dutifully has been paying 25 percent of the cost of each prescription. But when the drugstore counter is reached in July, the senior finds he is now responsible for paying 100 percent of the cost of the prescription, and yet still is responsible for paying the monthly premium. I predict that by Labor Day of 2006, seniors will have made loud and clear their opinions about this prescription drug benefit. And yet, there is still more ahead. In the year 2010, a vast experiment called ``premium support'' will be imposed on millions of seniors in several parts of the country, including Florida. Seniors in my State, as in others, will be forced to choose between enrolling in a health maintenance organization or paying a much higher premium to stay in the traditional fee-for-service Medicare Program. Although we are beginning to hear the outrage now, it will be nothing compared to what we will hear in the summer of 2006. The voters have been polled and my constituents have been calling, and they all cite many concerns with the bill--many of the same issues I mentioned a few moments ago. Each of these issues should be discussed in great detail, and I hope we have the time to do so. Today, I am going to concentrate on one of the aspects of the bill that I find to be the most troubling, and one that is shared by 64 percent of those polled: the legislation does little to contain drug costs. The legislation actually forbids Medicare from negotiating with the drug companies to reduce costs. It doesn't seem to make much sense. A Medicare prescription drug benefit should allow the Medicare Program to do whatever it can to get the best possible prices from the drug companies. Why? Because both seniors and taxpayers would benefit. Under this legislation, the majority of seniors would have to pay either 100 percent or 25 percent of the price of the drug--100 percent before the deductible is met, and during the time the senior is in the enormous ``gap'' in coverage, and 25 percent after the deductible and before reaching the ``gap.'' In 2001, the median income of a Medicare beneficiary was $19,688. After covering the cost of housing, food, and transportation, there isn't a lot left. We need to make sure the prices are as low as possible so that our seniors are able to actually purchase the drugs they need to keep them well. Of course, the taxpayers would also benefit from Medicare serving as a tough negotiator. The taxpayer is going to pay the portion not paid by the senior. Both parties--the seniors and the taxpayers--have an interest in keeping drug prices as low as possible. The party that does not share that interest is the pharmaceutical industry. The interests of that industry can be the only reason for a provision included at the top of page 54 of the conference report. The provision is designed to appear helpful by being called a ``noninterference'' clause. What is a ``noninterference'' clause? According to the authors of this legislation, it is the following: Noninterference.--In order to promote competition under this part and in carrying out this part, the Secretary-- (1) may not interfere with the negotiations between drug manufacturers and pharmacies and PDP sponsors; and (2) may not require a particular formulary or institute a price structure for the reimbursement of covered part D drugs. Let me get this straight. A provision that prohibits the Secretary of HHS from negotiating with drug manufacturers to lower the price of drugs--a provision that prohibits the Secretary from using the purchasing power of 41 million Medicare beneficiaries to lower the price of drugs--and thus lower costs to seniors and taxpayers alike--is ``noninterference''? I put my money on this being a form of ``interference'' that senior wouldn't mind. Saying this provision is about not interfering, and about promoting competition, is akin to the fox putting on the San Diego chicken costume and heading into the chicken coop to ``protect'' the chickens. This may sound like dry stuff. But it has very real life implications. Take the case of Patricia Kittredge, a 71-year-old woman who lives in Tamarac, FL. She takes 6 different prescription drugs to stay healthy, which add up to $409 a month, or approximately $4,908 annually. Fortunately, her former employer picks up the majority of these costs so that she pays $65 a month, or $781 annually. A former credit analysis for a major employer in South Florida, Mrs. Kittredge has good retiree health coverage. Yet she is far from wealthy. She makes about $18,000 a year when you combine her pension and Social Security income. Because the conference bill does not allow the Medicare Program to negotiate on her behalf--should Ms. Kittredge find herself among the 4 million Americans who will lose their retiree coverage--her out-of- pocket costs, including her premium, will explode to $3,830. That is nearly 5 times what she currently spends, nearly 5 times what she now pays, and nearly $4,000 in out-of-pocket drug costs on an income of $18,000 a year. What kind of benefit is that? But don't take my word for it, this is what Patricia Kittredge has to say: That would really hurt me. The handwriting is on the wall. The companies that have retiree coverage will be walking away from it to save money and won't feel bad about it at all. Were Medicare able to use its bargaining power to negotiate with the drug manufacturers, our seniors would likely see drug prices more in line with the VA drug prices. Mrs. Kittredge's drug costs under the proposed plan would decrease dramatically. Yet the conference bill strictly forbids Medicare from using its bargaining power to negotiate lower drug prices for seniors. How good are these VA prices? Let's compare the VA prices of Mrs. Kittredge's drugs to their retail prices. Diazepam, which Mrs. Kittredge takes to help her sleep, costs the VA $0.84 for one hundred 5 milligram tablets, while the same pills cost $16.70 at the drug store. In addition, a month's supply of pravachol which she takes to regulate her cholesterol, costs the VA $19.80 at 40 mg per pill for the clinical equivalent, while the drug store charges $116.75 for the same amount. Mrs. Kittredge would face similarly high prices for her other prescriptions: a 20 mg dosage of accupril, a drug to treat her high blood pressure, costs the VA $7.69 for 30 pills goes for $32.00 at the drug store. Diltiazem, which Mrs. Kittredge also takes for her blood pressure, costs $69.20 at the drug store but only $32 through the VA. Metrocream, which she takes for a skin disorder, costs $69.99 at the drug store compared to $25.13 through the VA. If the Medicare bill we are now considering actively negotiated on Mrs. Kittredge's behalf, she would likely pay prices more in line with the prices available to veterans. Her total bill would be $2,188 rather than the $3,830 as she will pay under the conference agreement. Mrs. Kittredge's example is not unusual. Look at the price differentials between the VA price and the average retail price of some common drugs. How is the VA able to secure such good prices for veterans? In 1992, concerned about the prices veterans were paying for drugs, Congress passed the ``Veterans Health Care Act''--a Rockefeller, Simpson, Murkowski, Cranston amendment--by voice vote. It is interesting that an issue that was and is so controversial could be passed by voice vote. We are only asking that Medicare not be prohibited from negotiating prices for seniors. This legislation gave the VA the authority it needed to secure better drug prices for our veterans. What was the result of that legislation? In the first 5 years alone, the VA saved more than $1 billion. VA's savings have continued to grow exponentially, as both the cost of pharmaceuticals and the number of veterans seeking prescription drugs have grown. The savings represent valuable Federal dollars that have been used to provide quality health care to our Nation's veterans. In addition, the savings on pharmaceuticals have allowed VA to provide a long-term care benefit, including nursing home care, adult day care. What are the implications of allowing Medicare to negotiate prices? In 1998, the Inspector General, IG, of HHS, studied 34 drugs currently covered by the Medicare program. The IG found that Medicare and its beneficiaries could save more than $1 billion a year if the allowed amounts for just these 34 drugs were equal to the prices obtained by VA. If the Medicare program were able to achieve similar savings on the outpatient drugs covered in this legislation, Congress would be able to provide a much richer prescription drug benefit for the same $400 billion we are proposing to spend now, reduce the costs to taxpayers, or both. In terms of the drug benefit: we could give seniors a lower deductible and fill in the gap; we could remove the gimmicky definition of what counts toward reaching the catastrophic limit so that employers wouldn't drop their retiree drug coverage; we could remove the assets test; We could allow the Medicare Program to pay to the cost-sharing of our low-income seniors. What would allowing Medicare to use its purchasing power do to the pharmaceutical industry? Some would have us believe that only the proposal we are discussing today would allow the industry to thrive and continue to develop life- savings drugs. But in June 1999, reaching to the prospect of a Medicare prescription drug benefit, Merrill Lynch advised investors that volume increases could overwhelm negative pricing impact. It is important to remember that a reduction in prescription drug prices, both with or without associated prescription benefit coverage, is likely to be associated with price elasticity and increased utilization. The proposal before us fractures the Medicare market. One of the great strengths of the Medicare Program has been its universality. Seniors from Anchorage to Key West knew they would get the same benefits for the same premium. The proposal before us also uses scarce Federal dollars in an attempt to force private insurers into a line of business they have repeatedly said they do not want to enter. Instead, we should be using the purchasing power of the nearly 41 million Medicare beneficiaries waiting for a drug benefit to drive down prices--for their benefit, and for the taxpayers benefit. I ask unanimous consent to print an editorial at the conclusion of my remarks. The PRESIDENT OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. (See exhibit 1.)

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida. Mr. President, as ranking member of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, I ask my colleagues to join me today in passing S. 1136, the Servicemembers' Civil Relief Act. This important bill would restate and update the Soldiers' and Sailors' Civil Relief Act of 1940, a law that protects servicemembers from worrying about civil lawsuits and pre-existing debts while they are in uniform defending the United States. The bill reasserts our commitment to protect and care for those servicemen and women who often make tremendous sacrifices to serve our nation. Civil protections have been afforded to servicemembers in the United States since the War of 1812. The first modern version of the SSCRA was enacted after the U.S. entered World War I. In 1940, Congress reenacted many of the WWI provisions, but raised the protection on rent evictions by $30 to reflect the rise in the cost of living. Congress continued to update and supplement provisions over the years to adapt the protections to the changing needs and circumstances of servicemembers. In 2002, responding to the lengthy mobilization of National Guard members to safeguard the nation's airports after the attacks of September 11, Congress extended SSCRA protections to Guard members called up by the President to respond to national emergencies who remain under the authority of the State Governors. This legislation would restate, clarify, and revise the Soldiers' and Sailors' Civil Relief Act of 1940, SSCRA, and its subsequent amendments. The SSCRA's main purpose has been to suspend some of the legal obligations incurred by military personnel prior to entry into the service or mobilization for active service in the Reserves or the National Guard. The core protections provided by the SSCRA are: stays of civil legal proceedings during a person's period of military service; an interest rate cap of 6 percent on debts incurred before active duty; protection from eviction and termination of pre-service residential leases; and legal residency protection. Also, servicemembers are able to terminate a lease on a home if given orders to move. Because of the SSCRA, servicemembers have not had to worry about being sued or being evicted from their homes while deployed. Instead, the legislation has allowed them to properly keep their focus on military duties. The legislation before us, S. 1136, would update the SSCRA to better address the obligations servicemembers incur today. For example, due to the escalating costs of rental housing over the past few decades, this act will provide greater protection for servicemembers and their families from being evicted during times of military service. Currently, servicemembers are protected from eviction if they have a monthly rent of $1200 or less. This legislation will raise the bar to $2,400, to be adjusted annually based on the annual increase in the Consumer Price Index, thus avoiding the future need for frequent amendments to the law. Continuing the effort to make the SSCRA applicable to today's servicemembers' lifestyles, this legislation would allow servicemembers to be released from a lease for an automobile if they are deployed for an extended period of time or moved overseas. It was necessary to add this protection because auto leasing has become such a popular alternative to purchasing in recent times, yet many leases prohibit the removal of cars from the United States. This bill would also look after the needs of small business owners who serve, particularly those in the Reserves and National Guard. If passed, the bill would preserve the assets of small business owners during military service if the servicemember is personally liable for trade or business debts. I thank the leadership of my colleagues who serve on the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs, Senator Specter, and Senators Ben Nelson and Zell Miller, who have all worked together to provide a comprehensive and necessary set of benefits which will relieve many of the personal burdens some of our servicemembers face when they are called into duty. The benefits will allow them to continue focusing their efforts on their heroic duties for our Nation. I urge my colleagues to support this critical measure and restore the fundamental justice due our veterans.

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, the Energy bill before the Senate today is the newest chapter in the book that we have been writing throughout this year. The title of that book is ``At War With Our Children.'' This legislation would represent another example of this generation taking the benefits of our profligate behavior and then asking our children and grandchildren to pay the cost. This chapter begins with the addition of over $30 billion in sanctioned appropriations and some $70 billion in authorized appropriations. This will be added to an already gigantic deficit. If it had been added to this year's deficit, it would have increased it by approximately 7 to 8 percent. This cost will be paid by our children. But this goes beyond just adding to the financial burdens of our future. It adds to the vulnerability of our children and grandchildren--a vulnerability that will be occasioned by the fundamental philosophy of this legislation, which is to drain America first. There are some small vows to conservation and alternative sources of energy, but the principle that lies behind this bill is to extract as much of our national treasure as quickly as possible and to accelerate the date when we will have depleted our domestic source of petroleum and other critical natural resources. Our generation gets whatever short-term benefits--physical maintenance of low prices of gasoline, the benefits to the oil and gas industry--that will come from this bill. But we again declare war on our children because they will end up paying for it. Let me suggest what I think should be some goals of a reasonable, comprehensive energy policy. These would be illustrative of the kind of long-term goals that should be but, regrettably, are not the focus of this Energy bill. As an example, my goal No. 1 was that we must take a long-term approach to energy policy, establishing goals to reach for the next 50 years with milestones for each decade to guide our progress. We cannot be the generation that sets our national energy policy on a course which will inevitably result in totally depleting our domestic energy reserves by the time our grandchildren are adults. The United States is the model to the rest of the world. We should lead by example, using energy conservation and efficiency measures. We should husband our domestic reserves, particularly of petroleum, for times of international turmoil. Goal No. 2: We must wean ourselves from our unhealthy dependence on petroleum, both foreign and domestic. Current estimates show that the United States is consuming between 19 and 20 million barrels of oil each day. From the mid-1970s into the 1980s, use of petroleum sharply dropped in the United States. I propose we return to that path and aim to decrease the use of petroleum by approximately 10 percent over the next decade, with the ultimate goal of finding a cleaner and more efficient way of operating automobiles and expanding our transportation options such as high-speed rail. Goal No. 3: We must reduce our importation of foreign oil, which currently accounts for about 65 percent of the oil we consume. We must conserve our current use of domestic oil and gas in order to stretch their availability as far as possible. Under current levels of extraction and projected levels of use, in approximately 50 to 75 years, about the time our grandchildren will be our age, we will have exhausted our domestic petroleum reserves at current economic and technological levels of extraction. This is not a new problem, it is one that has been pointed out to us for more than half a century. In 1946, James Forrestal, then-Secretary of the Navy, said this: If we ever go into another world war, it is quite possible that we would not have access to reserves held in the Middle East. But in the meantime, the use of those reserves would prevent depletion of our own, a depletion which may be serious within the next 15 years. Secretary Forrestal's statement is remarkable for a couple of reasons. First, he was looking far over the horizon, beyond the short term, and trying to see what would be happening over the next 50 years. Second, he did not succumb to the mantra of independence from foreign oil through draining America first. Rather, he viewed use of foreign oil as a method of husbanding our domestic reserves. This Energy bill, with its drain-America-first policy, is a step backward from Forrestal's policy. It will assure that we deplete our own resources in the near future. Forrestal sets the examples of the kind of policy we should be making in this energy Bill today. Goal No. 4: We must increase the amount of renewable and alternative energy we use. This would include wind, solar, hydro, geothermal power, and municipal solid waste. It should also include clean coal and nuclear as alternatives to current fossil fuel use. Goal No. 5: We must eliminate our overreliance on a single source of power for electric energy generation. I am becoming increasingly concerned about our tendency to turn to natural gas to solve all of our energy woes. Clearly, natural gas has some significant advantages in terms of emission reduction, but we as a nation, in my judgment, would be foolish to have only a single or even a single dominant source of fuels for our electric supply. The National Association of State Energy Officials estimates that natural gas used for electricity generation will increase by 54 percent between 2000 and 2015 as new powerplants are built and older plants are converted to natural gas. In contrast, our friends in Europe are making great strides in expanding their energy portfolios to include renewables. Denmark, for example, has a plan to eventually generate about 20 percent of its energy needs from wind power. The United States should take serious steps to include all available energy sources. One way to accomplish this would be to establish a national renewable portfolio standard. This simple measure would go a long way in putting us on the path to a sustainable energy future, by encouraging innovation in renewable energy technologies and by increasing the demand which would have the result of more efficient production. It would create jobs in America for Americans. Unfortunately, the Energy bill we are considering today ignores the renewable portfolio outright, even though Senator Bingaman's amendment to this effect was accepted by a strong bipartisan vote by the Senate conferees. Goal No. 6: We must provide Americans with a reliable electricity system. We all know that millions of people were affected by the blackouts of this past summer. What we do not know is how to prevent it from happening again. I am pleased that this bill begins the process, although distressed that this bill does not go as far as the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has recommended to give us greater reassurance about the avoidance of August 14 calamities in the future. But there is even a more basic step we should be taking, and that is to accomplish the goal of a reliable electric grid, we must gather data about the current state of reliability. It is shocking to realize there is presently no national reporting of outages, which makes it difficult to determine the scope of the problem and the range of solutions. Electricity customers have the means to find information about the price of their electricity should we have such national data. They do not have such an opportunity today. I propose that consumers should also have the means to judge the reliability of the system that provides them their electricity. Goal No. 7: We should reduce the impacts of the use of energy on our environment. In the 1990s we proved that the American economy could grow while making meaningful progress to improve our environment. This means we should not drill America first without considering real conservation and real efficiency standards, as well as the effects of such drilling on the depletion of our domestic energy reserves. It also means striving to reduce carbon emissions. This bill does neither. It focuses, with laser-like precision, at giving big oil every item on its wish list while running roughshod over the rights of the States that depend on, for instance, healthy coasts for their economic security. Section 325 weakens the consistency guidelines of the Coastal Zone Management Act. Currently, States have the right to review proposed offshore projects and object if they find that these projects are inconsistent with the State's plans or policy. This Energy bill would impose severely restrictive guidelines and deadlines for decisions appealing States' consistency determinations. The practical effect of this would be to limit opportunities for States to comment and provide important information on issues which directly affect their coastal zones. Coastal States deserve to have a say in the fates of their shores. This is the basis upon which the Coastal Zone Management Act became law. This Energy bill includes provisions to get every drop of oil out of domestic reserves while refusing to improve CAFE standards for SUVs. With advances in technology, it is not difficult to improve the efficiency of vehicles while providing the other features that drivers want. Yet this bill creates the likelihood that fuel efficiency standards will continue to lag. We should resolve to move to at least the 35 miles per gallon level for new cars within this decade. The National Academy of Sciences says this is a reasonable goal. If we pursued this goal, we would lessen the impact of any oil interruption, we would sharply reduce the amount of money going to areas of the world where the cash might support undesirable activity, and, in addition, we would also make a significant dent in reducing greenhouse gases, an issue which is also ignored by this Energy bill. Any comprehensive Energy bill that doesn't commit to at least some reductions in the emission of greenhouse gases is not worthy of passage. Furthermore, this Energy bill goes one step further and actually rolls back important environmental standards. One example of this is the exemption of the hydraulic fracturing process from the Safe Drinking Water Act protection for drinking water sources. I have grave concerns about this action from public health, environmental, and legal perspectives. Hydraulic fracturing is a means by which certain energy sources are retrieved through the use of a heavy hydraulic process. The consequence of this is that after the useful materials have been recovered, there is a significant amount of water laden with materials which contain potentially serious carcinogenic and toxic substances. There are potential serious consequences for drinking water quality in areas where this hydraulic fracturing occurs. In many cases, the fracturing fluids being pumped from ground water contain toxins and carcinogenic chemicals. Diesel fuel is a common component of fractured fluids. The Energy bill before this conference permanently exempts the oil and gas industry from storm water pollution activities at construction sites. Since 1990, large construction sites have been required to control storm water runoff in order to prevent pollution from entering adjacent waterways, harming wildlife and impairing water quality. The irony of this is that the Senate will soon consider the transportation bill, the Surface Transportation Act. This act was amended in the Environment and Public Works Committee to mandate that States earmark at least 2 percent of their highway funds to deal with storm water runoff. While we are doing this to our public agencies, requiring them to devote substantial funds and attention to storm water runoff, we are permanently exempting the oil and gas industry at its construction sites from doing so. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for an additional 3 minutes to complete my remarks.

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida. Mr. President, in the year 2003--this year-- smaller sites were to have been required to adopt the same pollution controls which, since 1990, have applied to large projects. Under industry pressure, the EPA issued a 2-year extension for the oil and gas industry. All other sectors, including small municipalities, still have to comply. This section of the Energy bill adopts a permanent exemption for all construction at oil and gas sites, including those sites that held permits for over 10 years. These are only some of the examples of environmental rollbacks in this Energy bill related to clean water, clean air, the National Environmental Protection Act, and other important enactments designed to protect the environment and the public health. The Energy bill we have before us today cannot guarantee Americans that their energy future is secure. Returning to the illuminating remark of Yogi Berra, if we look at this legislation, we begin to get some sense of where we are headed. With this Energy bill, we have written the next chapter in the book ``War On Our Children,'' and it describes the next battle: Drain America First, overlook conservation measures, ignore strategies to reduce depletion of domestic reserves. The residue of these outdated ideas will undoubtedly stain the future. Our children and grandchildren will live in an America where water is more contaminated, where air is further clogged with pollution, where access to clean rivers and streams for drinking, swimming, and fishing will be diminished. The cost of this destruction is not only economic or environmental, it is societal. Future generations will be forced to fix our mistakes instead of focusing on a better tomorrow for their children and grandchildren. For these reasons, I strongly oppose this legislation and will vote no.

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida

Mr. GRAHAM of Florida. Mr. President, the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act takes important and valuable steps, and I would have voted for it had I been present, but I am concerned that it may not go far enough. Syria has long been recognized as a state sponsor of terrorism. In fact, the Syrians themselves openly speak of their support for terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Intelligence reports and terrorism experts tell us that the next generation of terrorists is being trained in a network of training facilities that exist in Syria and the Syrian-controlled parts of Lebanon. These international terrorist organizations that run these camps already have the capacity to kill Americans, and they have state sponsors with access to weapons of mass destruction. Prior to 9/11, Hezbollah was responsible for the deaths of more Americans than any other terrorist group. On September 18, 2001, the Senate passed S.J. Res 23, which authorized the President to use ``all necessary and appropriate force'' against those responsible for the attacks of 9/11. This authorization for the use of force is therefore limited to al-Qaeda. We ignore other terrorist networks at our peril--and at one point, President Bush recognized that. Nine days after the terrorist attack of September 11, the President declared: ``Our war on terror begins with al-Qaeda but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.'' In his State of the Union speech on January 29, 2002, President bush re-stated our priorities: Our nation will continue to be steadfast and patient and persistent in the pursuit of two great objectives. First, we will shut down terrorist camps, disrupt terrorist plans, and bring terrorists to justice. And, second, we must prevent the terrorists and regimes who seek chemical, biological or nuclear weapons from threatening the United States and the world. I supported those statements and hoped to help the President carry out his pledge. Last October, Congress authorized the use of force against Iraq. I voted against this authorization because I believed it was a distraction from the war on terrorism. At that time, I attempted to amend the resolution to provide the president the authorization to use force against other terrorist organizations that met the following criteria: they have a state sponsor with access to weapons of mass destruction; they have a history of killing Americans; and they have the ability to strike inside the United States. I remain concerned that the President does not have the necessary authorization to use force against these additional terrorist organizations. Without such authorization, he cannot fulfill the commitment he made in his January 2002 State of the Union speech. I hope the administration will take this occasion to review its existing authorities and report back to Congress on where there may be deficiencies in its authorities to carry out the war on terrorism. Only then will we be able to hold Syria and similar states that sponsor or harbor terrorists truly accountable.