Lindsey Graham

Mr. GRAHAM

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, there is a lot going on in this world. We have a mountain of debt and wars and rumors of wars, and people are nervous throughout the country. But I thought I would take a few minutes of the time of the Senate to acknowledge something that is a very big deal where I come from. The University of South Carolina has won back-to-back College World Series. They defeated the Florida Gators last night 5 to 2. Florida played a great series, and they left a lot of men on base. I am sure they are going to look at the tape and talk about next year how to get some runs in. But Coach Tanner and the Gamecock team repeated. They were only the sixth team in NCAA history to do this, to win back-to-back titles. It was very rewarding and poetic. The University of South Carolina won the last series in Rosenblatt Stadium. This was the first series to be held in the TD Ameritrade Park in Omaha, NE, in front of 26,000 people. They set a record for the NCAA with 16 consecutive post-season wins, 11 consecutive wins in the College World Series, dating back to the 2010 season. The pitching staff had a 1.31 ERA. The bullpen was 6-0. Great hitting. Great coaching. More than anything else, big hearts. So to the Gamecock nation, congratulations on back-to-back titles. You make us all proud. And if you are watching Gamecock baseball, and you have a bad heart, you need to turn the channel because they win in the most dramatic fashion. They never give up. They believe in themselves. Michael Roth, the winning pitcher of the last game, said: We don't have the most talented people at every position. But we play together with heart. We believe in each other. Maybe the country could learn something from Gamecock baseball. If we all work together for a common purpose and put our differences aside, maybe we could achieve greatness too. So congratulations to Coach Tanner for back-to-back titles. We are very proud of your team. Not only did you win two titles, you did it with style, grace, and dignity. You won with honor. I look forward to meeting the team when they come up to the White House. And I know Columbia is rocking tonight. Congratulations to the Gamecocks. You won in fine style, and we are all proud of you. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. That is a very good question. Who are these people and what makes them tick? Why would people who could leave by just not reenlisting keep going back to Iraq and Afghanistan? My view of our forces is that they see the face of the enemy, they believe they have a strategy that is working, and they don't want their kids to go back. So when you use the troops as a reason to shortcut this war, I don't think you are really listening to what they say and what they do. If they were exhausted and hopeless, they would change careers. I have never seen Afghanistan change as much as I have in the last year, and my fear is that the successes we have achieved are going to be compromised for no good reason. Both of us believe that you could, at the end of 2012, if you do this right, remove all of the surge forces. But what we have been trying to argue to the President and anyone else who will listen is that this fighting season and the next fighting season are the best chance we will have in our lifetime to bring about permanent, sustainable change. And I think General Petraeus has been trying to tell the country and the President: Give General Allen the ability to take the fight to the east like we did to the south. From the troops' point of view, the reason they go to Afghanistan and Iraq over and over is they understand this enemy better than you and I. They see what the enemy is capable of doing. They saw it in Anbar, where children were killed in front of their parents by al-Qaida. They see what happens when the Taliban hangs a 9-year-old boy because they believe he is providing information to the coalition forces. I think our troops understand the danger America faces, to the point that they are willing to leave their families time and time again to protect all of us back here at home. If you do not believe Afghanistan matters, then I think you are going to be in for a rude awakening. If it goes bad in Afghanistan, if the Taliban can survive and wait us out and they begin to reemerge, a lot of people who helped us, I say to Senator McCain, are going to get killed. And when America goes off to some future conflict to help the oppressed, we are going to be seen as an unreliable ally and our enemies are going to be stronger. One final thought. This is a consequential week. The negotiations dealing with our national debt have broken down. My colleagues in the House, whom I respect, are about to vote to cut off funding, which will send a signal to Muammar Qadafi that I think is unhealthy. At the end of the day, the decisions we make here in Congress are going to affect our Nation long after you and I leave this body. Qadafi is on the ropes. NATO has limited capacity, but if the American Congress tells Qadafi we are out of the fight, I am afraid that is going to give him a sense of hope he does not have today. What does it matter if he stays? I think logically you can expect, if he outlasts NATO, the Arab spring is over. We can't go into Syria, but he will take it out on his people. I think it will affect the price of oil. That will be the end of NATO, because with NATO taking on Qadafi and losing, it is going to be very hard for that organization to go off to another war and be taken seriously. I hope we can survive this week, that cooler heads will prevail. I am going to tell Mike Mullen, when you come to get confirmed for this job, please let us know if you are having to make hard decisions because of a lack of resources. Give the President that information and let Congress know so we can adjust the strategy. I hope the President is right and that we are both wrong. But General Keene and General Petreaus have come up with a strategy that I think, given time and patience, will work. This new strategy is something that is untested, that is unnecessarily risky. The way to keep America safe, Ronald Reagan said, the way to prevent a war--he said: When people who love freedom are strong, not weak, that is the best way to prevent war.

Mr. GRAHAM. I did. And if I could respond to my colleague about his statement on the floor, I would like to associate myself with it. I thought it was a very well articulated statement about the times in which we live. For about 18 months, we have had additional military capacity that was never known to Afghanistan, all because of President Obama's decision to send 33,000 troops at General Petraeus' request. Now, the request was for 40,000, but at the time, I said: I do appreciate President Obama giving the commander the resources that could do the job, but you have to do it differently. General Keene is the architect of counterinsurgency. He is a mentor of General Petraeus. He and General Petraeus and others came up with the strategy that succeeded in Iraq. Here is what has happened, from my point of view. I go about every 3 months. About 2 years ago, I was very afraid we were going to lose. How could the Taliban come back with about 100,000 NATO forces in Afghanistan? The truth was that the rules of engagement for NATO really were law enforcement rules. The NATO forces could not engage the enemy in an effective way. We were looking at this from the eyes of a law enforcement activity, and the number of American forces was about 30,000. That wasn't enough to help build the Afghan Army, train and equip the Afghan Army, control the population, provide safety, and give governance a chance to flourish through better security. That is why we needed more troops. To all the commanders before General Petraeus, you were holding Afghanistan together, in many ways with duct tape. I believe Iraq is a pivotal moment in the war on terror, but it is a fair observation to make that because of the war in Iraq, resources were taken away from Afghanistan. The truth is that even though we have been there almost 10 years, we really have only been there with the capacity to bring about change for the last 18 months. So what has happened in the last 18 months? The 30,000 surge forces were sent to the southern part of Afghanistan. This really is a Pashtun civil war. It is a fight between the Taliban, a radical element of the Pashtun community, and a majority of Pashtuns and other Afghans who want a different way. Kandahar is in the south. It is the spiritual home of Mullah Omar. That is the place he lived, and there is an American operating base within a mile of his compound. You can get up on the roof of a prison there, and you can see Mullah Omar's compound. So the argument is, if we can win in the south, we can win anywhere. So we took 30,000 troops into the southern part of Afghanistan, and we broke the enemy's back. We have allowed the Afghan Army and security forces to develop. In September 2009, there were 800 people a month joining the Afghan Army and 2,000 a month leaving. I am not very good at math, but that is not a way to build an army. From December 2009 to the present, we have been recruiting 6,000 a month in the army, 3,000 in the police. What happened? Better pay and a sense that we were going to win. So in 17 months, we have built up the Afghan security forces by 90,000. We will have 305,000 by the end of this year. What is the problem with the President's drawdown of forces? Why can't you do it with the numbers we have? Counterinsurgency is a very labor-intensive operation. Its goal is to provide population security and focus on training by fighting with a unit. Instead of training them during the day and hoping they do well at night, you literally go out and live with the police and the army. It is a very labor-intensive activity, but it is the best way to provide training and build capacity. Here is the problem. The surge forces under President Obama's withdrawal plan are now going to compromise next summer. Drawing 10,000 down this year is going to make it hard to finish out the fighting season we are engaged in now. But here is General Allen's dilemma. Because we had 30, not 40, we couldn't go to RC-East, where the Haqqani Network exists, and fight the Taliban in the south at the same time. So we took our full force of the surge and put it against the Taliban in the south. We broke their back. We have been holding RC-East, and the game plan was to take those surge forces out of the south and go to RC-East next summer and deliver a decisive blow to the Haqqani Network. That way, the two forces undermining Afghanistan would be put at bay. Because of the President's decision and the rejection of General Petraeus' advice, come next summer the surge forces will be all gone by September, and General Allen is in a box. How does he hang on to the security gains in RC-South? Because the enemy's will has been broken, they have been put on their knees, but they are not yet defeated because they can go across the border to Pakistan. So next summer, the surge forces we were going to have available for General Allen are going to be gone, and RC-East cannot be engaged in the same fashion as RC-South. What does that all matter? That means one of the enemies of the Afghan people is getting a reprieve and the ability to develop security forces all over the country so that when we leave, they can fight and win has been compromised. Counterinsurgency requires math. You need a certain amount of soldiers against the enemy. I was asked last night: There are only 50 al-Qaida. Why do you need so many troops? One Navy SEAL could defeat 50 al-Qaida. Those who suggest that simplistic formula don't understand what we are trying to do. We are trying to take a country that has been beaten down and involved in civil war for 30 years and provide better governance through better security. The way you beat the Taliban is you go and take them on with an overwhelming show of force. You inspire the local population to come your way and get off the sidelines because they don't want the Taliban to win, but they are afraid that at the end of the day we are going to leave and the Taliban will take over. Because of this surge, the people in the south jumped our way. And this is what is so heartbreaking. We are on the verge of being able in two summers to deliver decisive blows to two enemies of ours and the Afghan people--the radical element of the Taliban and the Haqqani Network in the east. But because of this adjustment in strategy, I think we now have lost capability, and General Allen is going to have a much more difficult job. Things to watch.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I rise in support of the nomination of Leon Panetta for Secretary of Defense. The President has chosen wisely. He has a terrific national security team in place. General Petraeus has become the CIA Director. Mr. Donilon has done a great job as National Security Adviser. In Leon Panetta, the President could not have chosen better. I am pleased with Ambassador Crocker, Ambassador Eikenberry, and General Petraeus did a heck of a job in Afghanistan. Ambassador Crocker will be the best we have to offer on that side for the military-civilian partnership in Afghanistan. Leon Panetta heading up the Department of Defense is a home-run choice. I have known Leon for quite a while. I want to let the country know I think the President made a very wise decision. Tomorrow night, he is supposed to tell us about Afghanistan.

Mr. GRAHAM. Yes.

Mr. GRAHAM. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. GRAHAM. This is the time to have some good bipartisanship. Senator Levin, is it not true--I have to ask you a question--that you have been saying as long as I can remember that the surge that really needs to occur is on the Afghan side? You have focused like a laser in the last couple of years on training capacity. Not only are we producing 90,000 additional Afghan Army and police forces, 97 percent of them now can pass Western shooting standards. Two years ago, that number was less than a third. Of the NCOs--noncommissioned officers--graduating from the schools in Afghanistan, there is about an 80-percent literacy rate. Two years ago, it was less than 50 percent. So what I wish to acknowledge is that Senator Levin has been focusing on what I think is the ticket home with honor and security: building up an Afghan army and police force that can fight the fight without 100,000 Americans. We are well on the way. If we had not changed our training program--which the Senator has been focused on for a very long time--we would not have had this success. And General Caldwell is one of the unsung heroes of this war. But I couldn't agree more with my colleague from Michigan. The reason we can bring American troops home is because there are more Afghans to do the fighting. And the Senator mentioned that during the surge in Helmand, it was a 10-to-1 ratio. For every Afghan, there were 10 American forces. It is almost 50-50 today, with a climb to where it will be Afghans in the lead. The final thought is that among the trainers themselves, the goal by 2013 is to replace NATO trainers with Afghan trainers, and we are well on our way to having a majority of the training done by Afghans themselves. So if we can get the fighting ratios to 1-to-1 this year and improve on that by 2014, we will be able to turn the country over to the Afghan security forces. And I think we have a good plan. Let's just stick with it.

Mr. GRAHAM. If the Senator will yield for one final thought, the two big impediments to our success in Afghanistan are Pakistan and poor governance. The reason the Taliban came back is because the governance in Afghanistan was poor, not well-accepted by the people, and lack of security. We now have better security, and I do see signs of better governance. And we have to fix the Pakistan side of the equation. On the Afghan side of the border, we are doing about everything we can do to build up the Afghan people. We will deal with Pakistan and we will deal with better governance, but none of that is possible without better security. Now we have a security environment that I think will lead to better governance. But don't lose sight of the prize, and that is to leave the country in a sustainable manner. I look forward to working with Senator Levin to push the Afghan Government to do their part and also to engage Pakistan and say: What you are doing in Pakistan is unacceptable. Stop the double-dealing. Get involved. I thank the Senator.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, that shows you how bipartisan it is going to be--Graham and Schumer. That shows you the depth and breadth of Leon Panetta--the way people view him here. One of the first decisions he will have to make is what to tell the President about Afghanistan. I know we are war weary and have been there for 10 years. We didn't just throw a dart at the map when we decided to go there. That is the place the Taliban was controlling, they invited al-Qaida to be their honored guests, and bin Laden had a welcome home in Afghanistan. The rest is history. President Bush understood that the Taliban was a force for evil. They allowed bin Laden to come to Afghanistan and plan the 9/11 attacks. They had a choice to make, and they chose poorly. We went in there to take the Taliban down. We have a war in Iraq--and we can debate whether we should have done that. One of the reasons we are still not where we would like to be 10 years later is because a lot of the resources we had in Afghanistan went to Iraq. Now we finally got it right. For the last 17 months, we have had enough troops in Afghanistan to make a difference. To President Obama, that was a hard decision for you to make--to add 30,000 additional troops at a time when most people said: Why are we still there? Can't we come home? But the President chose wisely, and 2014 is the transition goal--to transition to Afghan control. I think we are well on track. Tomorrow night, the President will tell us about withdrawing troops. I believe we can, not because we are tired but because of the success on the ground. Let me point out some successes that would allow the President to make a reasoned judgment to withdraw troops. The one thing I urge the President to do is never lose sight of why we went there and our national security goals in Afghanistan. We will all be judged by what we leave behind. We want to leave behind the ability of the Afghan people to say no to the Taliban and reject extremism. They have the will, but they don't have the capacity yet. But they are getting there. Anytime you have the desire of the people who are oppressed by the Taliban and al-Qaida and you can help them help themselves, that makes it all safer. Here is what happened since the President sent surge forces in. In November of 2009, there were two nations and 30 NATO trainers--two nations helping train the Afghan security forces from NATO. They had a combined 30 people. You could put them all in a bus. One thing the President did when he surged American forces in was that he insisted NATO step up their game. Here we are today, and we have 1,300 NATO trainers in Afghanistan with 32 countries providing assistance. We have 49 different countries helping in some form of training. In the last 17 months, we have added 90,000 Afghan Army and police forces. So there has been a surge, far beyond the American coalition surge, in Afghan forces. How did that happen? We have better training. In September of 2009, 800 people were joining the Afghan Army per month. They were losing 2,000 a month. That was a terrible trend. In December of 2009, because of this new construct we came up with, we have been averaging 6,000 army recruits a month and 3,000 for the police. Today, we have 160,000 in the Afghan National Army and 126,000 in the Afghan National Police. By the end of the year, we will have 305,000 army and police under arms in Afghanistan. And the reason that has happened is because we have changed the way we train the Afghan security forces. So I hope the President, listening to Leon Panetta, Secretary Gates, and Secretary Petraeus, will tell the American people we can start bringing forces home beginning this summer because we have been successful, and we are not going to do anything to undermine that success because it has come at such a heavy price. In reality, ladies and gentlemen, we have been in Afghanistan with the right configuration for about 18 months. The army retention rates today in the Afghan Army are 69 percent--almost doubled. The literacy rate among the Afghan Army and police force is twice that of the national population because we have focused on literacy. It is hard to be a policeman or army officer if you can't read or write. We are helping a people who have been dirt poor, who have been at war for 30 years, and who have been treated very poorly by everybody in the world. At the end of the day, it is in our national security interest to make sure the country where the Taliban took over and allowed bin Laden to come in as an honored guest never goes back into the hands of an extremist. I am confident Leon Panetta has the wisdom and background, as the CIA Director, as a former Member of Congress, and as a successful businessperson, to lead the Pentagon at the most challenging time since World War II. He is taking over from Bob Gates. There is not enough we can say or do for Secretary Gates to thank him. He has had the job for 5 years. When he came on board, Iraq was a hopeless, lost cause in the minds of many, and he and General Petraeus, Ambassador Crocker, and many others--mainly our troops and coalition forces--took an Iraq that was on the verge of an abyss and we are now on the verge of a representative government that can defend itself and be an ally of the United States. Having Saddam Hussein replaced by a representative government in Iraq aligned with us is priceless. If we could as a nation take the place from which we were once attacked and turn it over to people who want to go a different way than the Taliban, and they have the ability to fight back and say no, all of us will be safer. I congratulate the President on picking Leon Panetta to be Secretary of Defense. I know he has had a lot of hard decisions in the war on terror, and one of the biggest decisions he will make is coming up maybe tomorrow night. I want to work with him, Republicans and Democrats together, in making sure our Nation is never attacked again from Afghanistan. That is possible. We are on the verge of getting that right. As we draw down troops, I ask the President to please tell those who are left behind still fighting in Afghanistan that he hasn't lost sight of the prize. The prize is not just bringing our troops home, the prize is to make sure their children never have to go back and fight in the future. That is the goal--to withdraw from Afghanistan in a way that we are safer and that our national security is enhanced. We are on the verge of achieving that goal. What Secretary Panetta and others are going to be challenged with as we go forward in the 21st century is going to be substantial. The enemy is still alive, even though not well. We have punished the enemy--al- Qaida and other extremist groups--but they will not give up easily. At the end of the day, the goal is for our country to be safe, and it will take more than killing bin Laden to do that. Killing bin Laden was a form of justice long overdue, and it did make us safer, but the ultimate security in this world lies not with our ability to kill individuals but with our ability to help those who need to fight in their own backyard and protect themselves from terrorism. That really is security that is sustainable. If we can leave Afghanistan in 2014 in a fashion that they have the capacity to marry up with their will to say no to the Taliban and turn their country around toward the light and not the darkness, then I say without any doubt that our country did them right. If we cut this operation short because we are tired and weary, we will pay a price. Our values are so much better than the enemy's. They have patience and bad ideas. We have a lot of good ideas for the future of mankind. The question is, Do we have the patience to make sure those ideas can flourish? This is a long, hard war, fought by a few. We are on the verge of success. I could not think of a better person to lead us to a complete success, an enduring success, than Leon Panetta. So I look forward, in a bipartisan fashion, to voting for I think one of the best choices the President could have made as Secretary of Defense. To Bob Gates, I would say: Whatever you do in retirement, wherever you go, you have my respect, my admiration, and on behalf of the American people you will go down in history as one of the steadiest hands America could have ever had during challenging times. With that, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Madam President, I thank my colleague from South Carolina, who has been terrific in trying to bring reason to this issue. Senator DeMint has been a very strong voice for free enterprise, and that is really what this is all about. To Senator Alexander from Tennessee, thank you for listening to what is going on in South Carolina and understanding this is not just about our State, it is about the Nation as a whole. The Right to Work Protection Act is a very solid piece of legislation that is going to serve the country as a whole. When a State chooses to be a right-to-work State, what does that mean? That means no one can be forced to join a union. The union can ask for your vote. If you say no, that is your decision to make, and if the group says yes, you do not have to join. In a lot of States, that is not true. If 51 percent of the workforce or 60 percent of the workforce says: We are going to go union, everybody else is drafted whether they want to be or not. So the concept of right to work is really at stake here, and I do appreciate this legislation because it would preserve the ability of the State to go down that road without suffering at the Federal level. It would prohibit Federal Government contracts, Federal Government action from punishing a State that chose to adopt right-to-work laws. That is why Senator Alexander's legislation is so important. We are not making anyone become a right-to-work State. We are saying: If you choose to do that, your Federal Government in the NLRB and other organizations of the Federal Government cannot use that against you. We are protecting that status. I think that is the balanced approach to this dilemma we face. Now, what is this dilemma? Boeing is one of the great companies in the world. They have a history of producing terrific airplanes. They have been located in Washington for decades. As a South Carolinian who is very happy Boeing has come to South Carolina, I want to acknowledge the Washington workforce as one of the best in the world. We hope to build great airplanes in South Carolina, but the first thing I want to do is acknowledge that my complaint or concern is not with the people of Washington, not with the workforce in Washington, it is with the actions of the NLRB and this complaint filed by the machinists union. So I hope to be in partnership with my colleagues from the State of Washington in the Senate and on the House side to pursue good policies that not only will be good for Boeing but for the country as a whole. South Carolina is going to enjoy the status of being a teammate with the people of Washington when it comes to trying to help Boeing and manufacturing in general. But what happened is that in October of 2009, Boeing decided to create a second assembly plant in South Carolina. This is a new assembly plant because the orders for the 787 were so large, it necessitated building a second line. Boeing, under the contract with the machinists union, reserved in that contract the right to locate new business wherever they thought it would be best for Boeing. They negotiated with the people in Seattle about producing the second line in Seattle, and they went all over the country looking for other locations to create a second line. They came to South Carolina, and I can assure you, after a lot of negotiations, the reason they chose South Carolina was because it was the best business deal for Boeing. They negotiated in Washington. They negotiated everywhere in the country, really, where they thought they could do good business, and South Carolina won out. And there is criticism back home that the package we gave Boeing was too generous. So I can assure you this was a legitimate business deal, and the idea that moving to South Carolina somehow was retaliation that violated the National Labor Relations Act section 883 is legally absurd. Under that act, a company cannot retaliate against a group of employees or a location that decides to unionize. You would have to prove in a retaliation complaint that the people suffered. Well, in this case, not one person in Pugent Sound or in the State of Washington lost their job. Because of the additional business being generated in South Carolina, 2,000 people have been hired in the State of Washington. Not one benefit was cut from the workforce in Washington. Nobody's pay was cut. Nobody's benefits were reduced because they moved to South Carolina. So this complaint is just frivolous. It is motivated by all the wrong reasons. Let's just for a moment assume that it is granted and this is the new business model. It would mean basically that if you decide to do work in a union plant, you are locked into that location forever; you could never move. That is crazy. That is not what the law is all about. The law prevents retaliation, and that is a specific concept in the law, and none of the factors that would lead to that conclusion exist in this case. There is new work. No one lost a job. This is a new line of business. And we are arguing about the right of a company to be able to make a business decision when it comes to new production. That is why this complaint, if it ever gets to Federal court, will fail. It is sad that Boeing may have to spend millions of dollars defending itself against what I think is a very frivolous complaint. But let me tell my colleagues a little bit about this if they are wondering about it. Here is something I want to put on the table for you to consider. One of the members of the Boeing board at the time they chose to come to South Carolina--after a lot of negotiations in different places, including Washington and South Carolina--one of the board members who approved the second assembly line in South Carolina was Bill Daley, the Chief of Staff of the President of the United States. At the time, he was not Chief of Staff, he was a member of the Boeing board, and they voted unanimously to create a second assembly plant in the State of South Carolina. I would argue that Mr. Daley, when he cast that vote, understood it was best for Boeing to make this decision to locate new business, and he did not believe he was violating the law or retaliating against unions. One thing you can say about the Daley family, it is not in their DNA to retaliate against unions. This was in 2009. In March 2010, the machinists union filed its complaint with the NLRB. Now, the general counsel, the person holding that title a few weeks ago, submitted the complaint to the board. But the story is even more interesting. In March of 2010, the complaint was filed by the machinists union. The vote to come to South Carolina was in October 2009. In January of 2011, Mr. Daley was chosen to be President Obama's Chief of Staff--a decision I supported and thought was a good decision for the administration and the country as a whole because Mr. Daley is a Democrat, but he is a very well respected member of the business community, someone who has a lot of skill and talent, and the President chose wisely. I would assume that in the vetting process they looked at Mr. Daley's record of involvement in business and other matters. I am assuming the vetting team knew the complaint had been filed by the machinists union in March of 2010 and that Mr. Daley voted along with the rest of the members of the board to come to South Carolina. And they must have concluded that this complaint was frivolous. I assume that because if they did not know about the complaint, that was one of the worst vetting jobs in the history of the world. And if they thought he did engage in illegal activity, it made no sense to hire him. So, to my colleagues, I want you to consider the fact that Mr. Daley, the current Chief of Staff, voted to come to South Carolina. After he voted--a year and a half later--he was chosen to be the Chief of Staff of the President of the United States. The Boeing CEO, Jim McNerney, was chosen by President Obama to lead his Export Council to create jobs for Americans by looking at export opportunities. I would argue that President Obama would not have chosen Mr. McNerney if he thought he led an effort to retaliate against Washington unions. All I can say is this complaint is frivolous. It is taking time and money away from creating jobs in South Carolina and Washington. And it has national implications. To Senator Alexander, you have found the right way for the Congress to address this issue. We are not forcing anybody to be a member of a union. We are just saying, if a State such as South Carolina or Tennessee chooses to be a right-to-work State, that cannot be held against them. This legislation would say to the country and the business community as a whole: When you look at where to locate, you can consider a right-to-work State without violating the law. That is an important concept. I can assure you, Boeing came to South Carolina because it was the best business deal. They had a lot of choices. They chose South Carolina not to retaliate but to create a second line. And here is the logic of it: Would you put everything you own in one location in today's world? So the idea that they expanded into the second plant in a different State, in a different location, makes perfect sense. The fact that South Carolina is a low-cost right-to-work State I am sure they considered. But under the law, no one in Washington lost one benefit they had. No one in Washington lost a job they already had with Boeing. The goal of this decision by Boeing is to grow their company. If we do well in South Carolina, Boeing does well in Washington. This complaint is dangerous. This complaint is a dangerous road to go down. This complaint is politics at its worst. The law is designed to protect us, and it is being abused, in my view. Politics is about 50 plus 1. The law is something that should protect us all. This complaint filed by the general counsel at the NLRB sets a dangerous precedent, and the Congress should speak. The administration should speak out and say this is frivolous; they are an independent agency; nobody can tell them what to do. But we have an independent duty to speak out in a constructive way. Senator Alexander's legislation is the appropriate way to address this issue, and I wish to thank him on behalf of the people of South Carolina and the country as a whole, and I look forward to working with him to have this passed. To my colleagues on the other side, what is going on in this complaint is dangerous for us all and not just South Carolina. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, a lot of Members now understand the problem we have with the port of Charleston in 2011. There is no money in the President's budget to do a scoping study. Under the new rules concerning earmarking, it has been very difficult to find a way forward. With the help of the majority leader and his staff and the people on Appropriations--the staffs of Senators Feinstein and Lamar Alexander--we came up with language that would allow 12 different ports to have studies completed in fiscal year 2011, if the Corps chose to engage in those studies. It was not a requirement, and it had no sums required in terms of what the Corps had to spend. It was purely discretionary. Unfortunately, our House colleagues did not accept that language. My problem is that in fiscal year 2011, there is no mechanism as of yet to allow a scoping study to be done for the potential deepening of the Charleston harbor to accept supercargo ships coming through the Panama Canal in 2014. This harbor, along with others, has to be deepened to accept these new ships. The amount of money is $40,000 on the Federal side to be matched by the State. People ask me: Why can't you come up with the money? Boeing, BMW, Michelin, the State of South Carolina? I would do the $40,000, but I can't. You cannot have a private entity take over a Federal Government responsibility. So this is one of those situations that is a catch-22. It is an anomaly in the law. The Vice President's office and Congressman Clyburn, a lot of us, Congressman Scott, have been working diligently, with the assistance of the majority leader, to find a pathway forward within the current system. We are very close to finding a way to get this study done because it was a previously authorized program under current law. I have put a hold on everything I could put a hold on. Now I believe we are making progress. The majority leader has some needs, and I want to let him know I am willing to work with him and others to end the Senate well before we go out on Easter break. I thank him for the help he has given me to take care of a problem that no one could have anticipated. But it is a real problem for the people of South Carolina. I wish to let him know I appreciate the effort.

Mr. GRAHAM. I thank the majority leader very much. It is appreciated on behalf of all of us in South Carolina. And I look forward to finding a solution for the country as a whole.

Mr. GRAHAM. I ask unanimous consent to enter into a colloquy with my good friend, the majority leader.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, Le Grand Concours French competition consists of oral and written portions and is given by the American Association of Teachers of French to over 100,000 students learning French in all 50 States and abroad. The MathFest was created in 2001 to provide an extended math initiative that would motivate students, parents, and teachers to raise the standards and expectations in math. This year the South Carolina MathFest was held in Columbia, and 4,000 math students from around the State participated in the competition. I would like to take a moment to recognize and honor Cailley Factor of Charleston County for winning first place in the second division at the State MathFest competition and for being named a national champion of Le Grand Concours 2010 French competition. Additionally, I would like to recognize Memorable ``Mem'' Factor of Charleston County for winning first place in the first grade division at the State MathFest competition and for being named a national champion of Le Grand Concours 2010 French competition. This is the first time in the history of the competition that siblings have been named winners in the same year. The achievements of both Cailley and Memorable Factor serve as an example which all students should strive towards. I applaud them both in their accomplishments and look forward to their future success.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. How many States have joined the lawsuit?

Mr. GRAHAM. One final question, and I do appreciate the Chair's indulgence. The whole idea of the status quo being acceptable is not what we are talking about. None of us believes the current health care situation is sustainable. Medicare and Medicaid need to be reformed, but so do private health care cost increases. There are monopolies out there by insurance companies. To be able to buy across State lines makes a lot of sense to me. Briefly, if my colleague could, what does he see--I want to repeal the bill, not just to maintain the status quo, but to replace it with a bipartisan product that does improve quality and lowers costs. Is that the Senator's position, and how can we do that?

Mr. GRAHAM. On that note, I would say to the Presiding Officer and to my friend from Wyoming, there seems to be a lot of ways to lower costs. The status quo is not acceptable. The solution we have chosen in a very partisan way I think is going to drive up the budget deficit and eventually lead to more people being in government-run health care at a time when the government is broke and is, quite frankly, going to take the State budget problems and make them unsustainable just by expanding Medicaid. Our bill is pretty simple. If you think this is a very good idea, let it be tested by your Federal citizens through an opt-out provision. If you think this is a bill that most people would opt out of if they could on our side, give them a chance. The lawsuit is important, but this is a decision the Nation needs to make, and the lawsuit is one way to approach this. But the best way to come up with health care solutions is not going to court but having the Congress and the States and the people of America work together in a partnership. That is what we have not been able to achieve--a partnership where we listen to the States and the people, and from their input we pass laws in a bipartisan fashion. That is what I hope will happen.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, if I could interrupt and ask the Senator from Wyoming about waivers that have been given. Can the Senator tell us a little bit about the waivers that have been granted? Aren't we basically allowing a State to request a waiver by our bill?

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I ask the Senator, what percentage of the waivers involve union plans?

Mr. GRAHAM. I thank my colleague. I have enjoyed the discussion. I yield the floor.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, along that line, if I could pose a question to my colleague: How many States have joined the lawsuit saying the individual mandate is unconstitutional, if the Senator knows that number? The Senator just indicated how many States have passed State laws saying we shouldn't be required to comply with individual mandates.

Mr. GRAHAM. Yes. If I may, Mr. President.

Mr. GRAHAM. No. 1, Senator Barrasso, who is an orthopedic surgeon, has been a great addition to the Republican conference and to the Senate as a whole. He is a doctor and has practiced medicine longer than he has been in politics, I am sure, and he sees this problem from the physician's point of view, from the patient's point of view. And our Presiding Officer was recently a Governor. Here is what my Governor is telling me: that Medicaid is a program that needs to be reformed, not expanded the way we are doing it. The second largest expense to the State budget in South Carolina is Medicaid matching money. For those who are home who may be watching, Medicaid is a program for low-income Americans. It is a Federal program and a State program, but it is a Federal Government mandate that if you reach a certain income level, you are eligible for Medicaid services to be administered by the States. But, quite frankly, the flexibility the States have is very limited, and this bill, the Obama health care bill, expands Medicaid eligibility to the point that 29 percent of the people in South Carolina would be Medicaid eligible. Our State has an $850 million shortfall in our budget. I think Wyoming is in pretty good shape, but I think we are probably closer to the average State. We have had a dramatic decrease in revenues, and the cost of complying with the Medicaid expansion in this bill would be $1 billion to a State that cannot afford it. I am sure West Virginia is very similar. So here is my commitment to the body. I would like to give the States an opportunity to speak as to whether they want the individual mandate, the Medicaid expansion, and employer mandate that I think adds a lot of cost to businesses that will decrease job opportunities at a time when South Carolina needs every job it can get. But one thing we could do by passing this legislation is get this debate out of Washington, where everybody has kind of dug in their heels, and listen to the people. That is the one thing we have not been able to do. This bill passed under the cover of darkness on Christmas Eve in a process that is not reflective of the hope and change we all would like to have. It was the worst of Washington. It is not as if the Republican Party has never, behind closed doors, passed bills on a party line. But we are all trying to break that formula. And this bill passed on a party-line vote on Christmas Eve. To get the 60th vote, quite frankly, was unseemly. So what I am hearing from my Governor is, please give me some relief from a Medicaid Program that is drowning my State. So after this opportunity comes to take the debate to the State level, I would like to join with Senator Barrasso and the Presiding Officer and anyone else in this body who wants to come up with a way to fix Medicaid before it bankrupts all the States. So this opt-out approach I think would make the debate more meaningful. It is not just about what people in Washington think; it is about what America wants and what Americans think. The best way to get their opinion is to allow them to speak at the State level. So if my colleagues on the other side believe this is a great bill, then give other people a chance to validate what you think. We may be wrong. Senator Barrasso and I may be wrong. We may be hearing criticism from this bill that is very limited and unique to Wyoming and South Carolina. I don't think so, but we will never know if we don't give people the chance to speak. That is what this bill does. It allows States, if they choose, to opt out of the individual mandate and the employer mandate of Medicaid expansion. What is my colleague from Wyoming hearing about the effect of this bill on the State of Wyoming, and where do you think we should go as a nation?