Judd Gregg

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. I would say the Senator from Tennessee has hit on a very appropriate disclosure issue that should be on every one of those loans.

Mr. GREGG. I appreciate the courtesy of the Senator from Tennessee.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment and call up amendment No. 2361.

Mr. GREGG. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. GREGG. Madam President, this is an amendment that shouldn't have to be offered, to be very honest with you. Today there are a lot of projects being pursued under the stimulus package, and every one of those projects that is a road project, unfortunately, finds itself having to put up a sign that says this is a good project being paid for with tax dollars. These are self-congratulatory signs. They are political signs. They are there so lawmakers can pat themselves on the back and say: Wow, look at this project we are doing. But these signs cost money. Actually, when you add them all up, they cost a lot of money. They are a total waste of money. There is no reason to have these signs by every project that occurs in America. It is projected there will be somewhere around 20,000 to 22,000 projects. The signs cost about $400 in New Hampshire, and they cost as much as--I think it was around $3,000 in New Jersey for each sign. New Hampshire is a little more efficient. I suspect in North Carolina they probably don't cost much more than $400, but if you add that up, we are talking about a cost of somewhere between $6 million and $15 million being spent on signs. That is an inexcusable waste of money. That money could be used for something valuable, for example, rather than a sign. The practical effect of this is, the signs should say ``Wasting taxpayers' dollars; project funded by the future generations of Americans,'' if they are going to be honest signs. But I am not asking for any signs. There shouldn't be any signs. Instead, the highway departments across this country are being basically required to put up these signs as the projects are built. In fact, there was one example in New Hampshire--there were lots of examples in New Hampshire, but there was one community in New Hampshire where the leadership of that community said: We don't want to put the signs up because we think they are a waste of money, and they were told, if they didn't put up the signs, they wouldn't get the money. That is happening all across the country. So this amendment should be unnecessary. It should be obvious-- obvious--that we don't have to put these signs up; that we shouldn't be spending money in this way. If we are going to spend $6 million to $18 million to $20 million on something, let's spend it on what actually produces some value rather than creates a self-congratulatory event for the local political leaders and for the Congress. We do enough self- congratulating around here. We shouldn't have to make the taxpayers pay for it. Instead, we should be a little more responsible with the taxpayers' money. It is a very simple amendment. That is why I am not going to spend a lot of time on it, because I think it is so obvious it should be accepted and passed, that it should occur. It is one of those amendments where you sort of scratch your head and say: Why did we even have to offer this? Why should we have to offer this amendment saying you don't put up signs spending taxpayers' dollars to congratulate yourself for a project the taxpayers paid for. But we do, of course, in this instance because the Department has insisted on these signs across America. That is what the amendment does. I reserve the remainder of my time, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. GREGG. Madam President, the issue isn't the stimulus package, although I have reservations about that. I would be happy to debate that with the Senator from California at some length because I think adding almost three-quarters of a trillion dollars of new debt to our children's backs on a package that will spend out through 2019 is hardly stimulus, especially when we see only 20 percent of that package will spend out by the end of this year, and maybe 50 percent next year. We had Chairman Bernanke saying, essentially, that we are out of the recession. That all comes from borrowing that our children will have to pay. In my opinion, it is not fair to pass that debt on to our children, that $787 billion. That is not the debate. This debate is about whether we should be congratulating ourselves with tax dollars. It is self-aggrandizement at the expense of the taxpayer. This is going out and buying advertising to promote ourselves and having the taxpayer pay for it. We can clearly spend these dollars more efficiently doing something else. Sure, it is not a lot of dollars, but when we add it all up, $18 million is a lot of money. We can do something more constructive besides putting up a sign that says we are wonderful because we are spending their money. If we want to say we are doing great things for them, we can say here is a sign telling them that. But rather than having the people pay for that sign and telling them they are going to have to pay for it, let's have the Democratic Senatorial Committee or the Republican Senatorial Committee pay for that sign. Let's do that if we think it is that important as a piece of political promotion. But it is not. I don't think the Democratic Senatorial Committee would pay for that sign because they would see it as a waste of money. I don't speak for them, but I don't think the Republican Senatorial Committee would pay for this either. I would recommend that they not do it. These signs are a waste of money. Do they create jobs? Well, actually the signs in New Hampshire are made in prisons. They cost money because the materials cost money. I guess that is why we get them for $300. In New York, it is $3,000 a sign. As a practical matter, I don't think we can argue that making these signs is somehow stimulating the economy. All it is doing is saying: Hey, we are wonderful; we are going to take your money and use it to tell you what a wonderful job we are doing with your money. It is not fair or appropriate. I hope people will support the amendment. As has been mentioned by the Senator from California, this is not a major amendment, but it is one that states an attitude toward how we spend money. I think it is important in that context. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GREGG. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, this amendment does a very simple thing. It says taxpayers don't have to pay for signs which tell them their money is being spent well. It makes no sense that taxpayers should be spending millions of dollars to put up signs to tell them their money is being spent well. It has to be extraordinarily frustrating to taxpayers to see that happening. It certainly is not a good use of their money. The money can be used on a lot of other things--building a road, repairing bridges, improving buildings that need to be improved, improving parks. Let's not put up signs on every one of these sites across America saying we congratulate ourselves for doing the project. It is self-congratulatory, it is political, and it is inappropriate. These truly are signs to nowhere. A total waste of money. They should not be required. We should reject them as being required. That is what the amendment does.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask for one point of personal clarification. I did not vote for President Bush's stimulus package either.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, do two wrongs make a right?

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I rise today to recognize the Pease Greeters for their consistent and unwavering support for our brave men and women in uniform passing through New Hampshire on their way to combat assignments in Iraq and Afghanistan or returning home to their loved ones. The Pease Greeters provide a loud and welcoming voice not only to servicemembers from New Hampshire but to all of the soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen who pass through the Pease Air Terminal in Portsmouth, NH. During the Spring of 2005, when members of the Seacoast Detachment of the Marine Corps League met a flight returning from the Middle East, no one could have known that this small volunteer group of veterans and citizens would be the nucleus of a group that has met every one of the more than 130 flights landing in New Hampshire, however briefly, with soldiers heading to or returning from combat operations overseas. The Greeters, now numbering over 200 members, have helped to ensure that each of the thousands of servicemembers has received the welcome home and best wishes that they so richly deserve. The Pease Greeters travel from all over New Hampshire to meet every military flight in to Pease, at any hour, day or night. Arriving troops are met with applause, handshakes, and a boisterous welcome, and if the flight is taking them into a combat area, the Pease Greeters assure them that they will be met right there upon their safe return. These honored guests are provided with refreshments and the opportunity to make free phone calls to their loved ones. Each of these events has been recorded and the photographs line the Pease Air Terminal Hall that is known as the ``Heroes Walk.'' It is my privilege to recognize the time and energy these men and women of the Pease Greeters have devoted and continue to devote to assuring our Armed Forces that their country and its citizens appreciate the sacrifices they and their families are making on our behalf. Thank you to each and every member of the Pease Greeters for providing such a warm welcome home to those returning and a warm memory of home to those departing to carry out their missions.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Madam President, if nobody is seeking time in opposition, I suggest on this amendment that all time be yielded back, if the Senator from Arizona is agreeable.

Mr. GREGG. Madam President, I ask further proceedings on this amendment be set aside and I be allowed to call up amendment No. 2302.

Mr. GREGG. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. GREGG. Madam President, the senior Senator from Arizona alluded to the fact that basically this bill is unpaid for--$2 billion. There is a figleaf representation that the money in this bill is somehow being taken out of another account, and, therefore, it is offset--the account being the Renewable Energy Loan Guarantee Program under the stimulus package. But that is a total fraud--a total fraud. This is the ultimate bait and switch because, as the senior Senator from Arizona pointed out, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee in the House, for whom I have a lot of respect and I think his forthrightness is refreshing, quite honestly, said on the floor of the House, when he was asked the question: What is going to happen to the fact that $2 billion has now been taken out of the Renewable Energy Loan Guarantee Program, what is going to happen to the loan guarantee program? Congressman Obey said: If the gentleman would yield, I share the gentleman's view that the Renewable Energy Loan Guarantee Program is of vital importance to creating a new, green economy. We have talked with the White House. We have talked with the Speaker and I want to assure you-- This is the chairman of the Appropriations Committee; when he assures you, you can be assured it is for sure-- and I want to assure you that all of us certainly have every intention of restoring these funds. They are doubling down on the debt. It is bad enough--this should be called the ``debt for clunkers'' bill to begin with because basically what we are doing is creating debt for our children. We are suggesting, we are proposing, we are allowing $4,500, $1 billion, now $3 billion out the door to buy cars today, but the bill to pay those cars is going to come due on our children and our grandchildren as they have to pay the debt off, which this is going to go to increase. This is nothing more than a program which is being funded entirely by debt and an increase in the Federal debt, as Congressman Obey forthrightly stated when he said: We are going to find the $2 billion we took out of this account, and we are going to refill that $2 billion, which they will have to borrow to do. Everybody knows that. I don't happen to support the program, but I at least would like to have some integrity in this process, and I would like to have the program paid for. If we are going to represent to the American people that this program is paid for, let's pay for it. So my amendment does that. That is all it does. It creates a mechanism to make sure we are not going to replenish an account we allegedly took the money out of in order to pay for this account. The way I have set this up, it does not have to necessarily affect the loan guarantee program. In fact, it is not specifically the loan guarantee program at all what I have done. What I am suggesting we do is that next year, in order to make sure this program is paid for, we reduce what is known as the 302(a) allocation cap by $2 billion. That way we can be reasonably confident that before this money can be spent twice, there will have to be a vote, a 60-vote point of order brought against it on the floor of the Senate, and people will have to forthrightly say: Oh, we are actually borrowing from our children to do this. Or alternatively and refreshingly, we will not borrow from our children to do this; we will actually pay for it by reducing the 302(a) allocation cap. It is an attempt to bring some integrity to the process, some honesty to the process, and actually pay for the program we allege we are paying for rather than use this gamesmanship, which is the ultimate bait and switch of saying we are going to pay for it today from funds we are taking out of the account tomorrow, and then we are going to refund that account tomorrow so we end up borrowing the money from our children. In this case, it would be twice because we had to borrow the money on the stimulus to begin with. That is all it does. It tries to put a little integrity into the process and make the pay-fors for this program honest and straightforward and reasonably real. Nothing is real around here when it comes to money and paying for things, but hopefully it would be more substantive and more substantial relative to the integrity of the process than under the proposal as it is presently drafted. On the underlying program, though, I do have to make this point because it is an interesting point, not made by me, but I want to paraphrase it. It was made by the editors at the Web site Edmunds. Edmunds is an automobile Web site where you can get an evaluation of cars, sort of like consumer reports on cars. They will tell you how much your car is worth. They will tell you what the rating on your car is. They have a valuation of your car. They are totally independent. They have no dog in this fight. They looked at this program and said: Something is wrong here. We have $4,500 per car being the amount that is reimbursed to people. You can buy about 220,000 cars, $4,500 a car. Their point was that over the time period this bill has been in place, in the typical course of business, 200,000 cars would have been turned in, old mileage, used cars that would have been turned in anyway. If there was no repossession, no ``debt for clunkers'' program, 200,000 cars would have been turned in to purchase new cars during this same timeframe. That is their estimate, and they are professionals. They look at it in a totally independent way. That was their estimate. So the incremental increase in the number of cars that are being turned in under this program is about 20,000 to 22,000 cars. That does not work out to $4,500 a car; that is costing the American taxpayers about $45,000 a car to get those extra 22,000 cars off the road. Ridiculous. The program has so many inconsistencies about it, but the ultimate inconsistency is we are borrowing from our kids to pay this. If this bill passes, we will have added $3 billion to the debt of our children. It is not appropriate. It is certainly not appropriate to spend it to buy a car today and pay for it 10, 15 years from now and have our children have to pay for it 10, 15 years from now by adding to the debt of this Nation. My amendment attempts to address that issue by trying to enforce the pay-fors in this bill by reducing the 302(a) allocation next year. I reserve the remainder of my time. I yield the floor.

Mr. GREGG. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to include additional cosponsors to my amendment: Senator Alexander, Senator Corker, Senator Cornyn, and Senator Enzi.

Mr. GREGG. Madam President, I don't happen to agree with this proposal, but what I certainly don't agree with--and I assume most of my colleagues don't agree with--is that we should be paying for this by putting the debt on our children's backs. Yet that is exactly what is going to happen. The chairman of the Appropriations Committee in the House has been very forthright. He said he spoke to the White House, he spoke to the Speaker, and he said the funds with which this program is being funded were taken out of the stimulus, and what he is going to do is replenish the stimulus. So we are essentially going to borrow twice to do this program, and both times we are borrowing from our kids. My amendment simply enforces our ability to actually pay for this program, which is what we should do--No fig leaves, just a real exercise in actually paying for a program, rather than passing the bill on to our kids, as we seem to do around here so regularly. I hope people would vote for this amendment.

Mr. GREGG. Madam President, pursuant to Section 904(c), I move to waive the 306 point of order, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Madam President, yesterday was not a great day for our Nation. For the first time in our history, the deficit of this Nation passed $1 trillion--$1 trillion. That is a number I do not think anybody ever expected to see as a deficit for our country. To try to put it in perspective, as a percentage of our GDP, that is about 13 percent. We have not had that size deficit since we were in World War II. The implications of that deficit are staggering for us as a nation but, more importantly, it represents a clear and present danger to our children and our children's children and to this Nation's fiscal solvency. Remember, we are not through the fiscal year yet. It is estimated that this deficit will continue up for the rest of the year. It is estimated that $1.8 trillion will be the deficit we will be facing in 2010, and over $1 trillion the next year. These are numbers which are so huge they are incomprehensible--incomprehensible to myself and to most Americans. But they translate into a very significant problem, which is that we will be passing on to our children, as a result of all this debt, a nation which they cannot afford. What is the cause of this debt? What is causing this massive expansion in deficits? Primarily it is spending. It is not that we are a nation that is undertaxed. It is that we are a nation that is simply spending too much. My colleague on the other side of the aisle, the chairman of the Budget Committee, Mr. Conrad, is fond of saying the debt is the threat. He is absolutely right because that is the threat to this Nation. It is important to put in context, though, that this is not a momentary event. We are not running up these deficits just today. But as we look into the outyears under the Obama budget, the deficits go up astronomically for as far as the eye can see, leading to debt which is unsustainable. Over the next 10 years, the average deficit of this Nation will be $1 trillion. Again, let's try to put that in context. That is about 4 to 5 percent of our gross national product every year. If you were in Europe and you wanted to get into the European Union, which is a legitimate group of industrialized nations, they have rules for how fiscally solvent you must be as a nation. One of their rules says your deficit cannot exceed 3 percent of your gross national product. Yet under President Obama and his proposed budget, our deficit will average 4.5 percent to 5 percent of our gross national product for the next 10 years, over $1 trillion a year. To what does this lead? It leads to massive expansion of debt, as this chart shows, a debt which will be 85 percent of our GDP. What does that mean, 85 percent of our GDP? The public debt of a nation is the debt held by other people, specifically Americans and other countries, primarily, in our case, China. They are the biggest holder of our debt. Historically, whether a country or individuals are willing to buy the debt of a nation depends on whether that nation is seen as being able to pay off that debt, that there is a reasonable likelihood of that, or whether the Nation has the strength to pay off that debt. There are rules of thumb here too. Again, in order to get into the European Union, you have to have a ratio of less than 60 percent public debt to your nation's debt, to your nation's GNP, gross national product. Yesterday, under this proposal, under this administration, as we are seeing in action as we passed the $1 trillion debt line yesterday, that public debt goes well past 65 percent very quickly within the next 2 years, and then it continues to head up to 80 percent. In other words, our public debt will be so high we would be considered so irresponsible as a nation fiscally that the European nations, which are industrialized countries, under their rules would not be able to allow us into the European Union. Not that we wish to seek entry, but clearly that is a standard at which we should look. If you look at it historically, our public debt--and what most economists agree is reasonable--has been between 30 and 40 percent of gross national product. That is a manageable public debt. But when you double that debt as a percent of GDP, you are putting us on a path, a spiraling path downward into fiscal insolvency and a nation which cannot sustain its own debt. To try to address this in another way, President Obama's proposals for spending will more than double the debt in the next 5 years and triple it in the next 10 years. In fact, if you take all the debt that has been run up in our Nation from the beginning when George Washington was President through George W. Bush's term in office, take all that debt, President Obama has proposed and is spending--this government is spending--at a rate that will double that debt in just 5 years. It is an inexcusable action to pass this much debt on to our children. This chart, called the ``Wall of Debt,'' puts it in numerical terms. We can see how it goes up and up and up and up. By the end of this budget, the debt will have increased three times--three times from about $6 billion to $16 billion, about $5.5 to $16 trillion--excuse me, trillion dollars. It is hard to use the term ``trillion.'' This is intolerable. How do we address this situation? We need to control spending, and we need, to the extent we raise taxes, use those taxes to reduce our debt, not expand the size of government. Yet what are the proposals we are seeing coming from this administration and Members on the other side of the aisle? We have seen a House of Representatives proposal in the area of energy called the cap-and-trade bill, which should be more accurately described as the cap-and-tax bill because it creates a national sales tax of inordinate size. We have never seen anything of this size before. Every time you hit your light switch, you are going to end up paying a new tax under this bill for the purpose of addressing climate change and energy policy. Yet it does not really accomplish any of that. The primary polluter in America today is the automobile. All that the new tax that is being put in place from the House bill does is increase the cost or increase the tax on gasoline. It does not reduce the mileage. It does not reduce the pollution. It just increases the tax. As Senator Alexander spoke prior to my speaking, in the area of energy production, electrical production, cap and trade simply becomes a windfall, a pure and simple corporate welfare program for a lot of large, major electrical producers. They get this asset, a certificate to sell, which we have seen generate huge amounts of income to them, in exchange for theoretically reducing the amount of emissions that go into the atmosphere. If you wanted to address this issue, you don't do it with a massive new tax on American workers, which is then basically given back to the industry which uses it, which gets an advantage from it. Rather, you should use the ideas Senator Alexander has talked about and we have been talking about on this side. Build 100 nuclear powerplants in the next 20 years, move the automobile fleet to at least half electrical by the year 2020 so that you have actually brought online nonpolluting electrical power and you have put in place automobiles which do not pollute also. That is not the proposal. The proposal is this massive new tax, not used to reduce the debt or the deficit but basically used in many areas to expand the government with lots of new programs but also to underwrite a huge corporate welfare program. Then the other proposal we have from the administration that is major public policy is the issue of health care. Again, proposals are about expanding dramatically the size of government. In fact, the bill being worked on in the HELP Committee, by its own scoring, is at least $1 trillion unfunded. That adds to the debt. That is going to go on top of this debt. To the extent there are new taxes being talked about--and there are a lot of them, especially in the House of Representatives--those taxes are not being used to reduce the debt. They are being used to grow the size of government, to increase the government. As a result, the debt does not go down; the government's size goes up when we should be focusing on this debt issue. It is unconscionable that we as one generation would be running up these types of deficits and passing this type of debt on to our children. There may be an excuse for it during a period of recession-- --

Mr. GREGG. Madam President, I ask for 1 additional minute.

Mr. GREGG. Madam President, there may be an excuse for it during a recession--and we are in a recession, a severe one--but there is no excuse for it as we move out of this recession, and we are moving out of this recession. There is no excuse for having deficits that are $1 trillion for the next 10 years. There is no excuse for running deficits of 4 to 5 percent of GDP for the next $1 trillion. There is absolutely no excuse for putting a debt on our children's backs that is 80 percent of the GDP of this country because what we are doing is passing on to our children a nation with fiscal policies that are unsustainable and which will basically give them less of a lifestyle than we received from our parents. No generation should do that to another generation. Yet there are no policy proposals coming forward from this administration which would turn this debt line down. None. Instead, their policy proposals increase the size of government and increase the tax burdens of Americans without reducing our debt by any significance. It is an unfortunate situation and a difficult situation and one which we better start addressing for the sake of this country and for our children's future. Madam President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, first, I thank the Senator from Minnesota for yielding me this time and, second, I wish to talk today about waste. We are all concerned about waste. I have an amendment which I understand I cannot call up because the parliamentary situation is such that the floor leaders did not wish to have another amendment brought up. This sign here, which is a type of sign that is proliferating across our Nation everywhere, reflects waste. It is totally inexcusable. It is a political advertisement for money that is being spent as a result of the stimulus package. That is all it is. The sign says: ``Project Funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Completion August 2009.'' That is a political statement, the purpose of which is to promote spending on the stimulus package. I did not vote for the stimulus package. I thought a program which is going to spend almost 50 percent of the money after the year 2011 made little sense and was not stimulus at all. But I certainly would not have expected that as a result of this program we would be funding these signs all over America to promote this program. These signs are not cheap, by the way. In New Hampshire we get them for less than most places. They cost about $300 a sign. But in Georgia they cost $1,700 a sign; in Pennsylvania they cost $2,000 a sign; in New Jersey they are costing $3,000 per sign. Literally, there are 20,000 projects going on--most of them paving projects across this country, paving projects most of which may have occurred anyway, but in any event they are paving projects. If you start multiplying the number of signs going up, and each one of these projects require having two or three signs put up, you are talking very significant dollars, you are talking tens of millions of dollars for self-promotion of these programs. Ironically, these signs are actually required before people can get the funds. We had a gentleman in one of our towns in New Hampshire, I think it was Derry, who said, before he would be released the dollars to do the project in his town that the town had applied for and it had approved, they had to agree to put up this sign. He didn't want to put up the sign. He thought it was a waste of money, but he was required to put up this sign. Why are we doing this? The American people are sort of tired of us wasting dollars. They are especially tired of us wasting dollars trying to blow our own horn around here. If the administration believed these signs promoting the stimulus package were so valuable, let them spend campaign funds--because that is what they are, they are campaign signs--to put them up. But instead we are putting these signs up. What these signs should say if we are going to put them up is: Project funded by the future generations of American taxpayers--and they add to the debt of our children. That should be added under here, ``add to the debt of our children.'' The signs have no value at all, none, other than self-promotion of these projects. Maybe some of the projects are legitimate. I think probably most of them are legitimate. To the extent they are done within this period of recession, I support them. The problem I had with the stimulus package was so much of the money was being spent outside the period when we know the recession will be over. But even if the projects are legitimate, which most of them I am sure are--although some have been questioned, such as the crossing path for turtles. That received a fair amount of press. I have to say I didn't understand why we had to build an underpass for turtles, but I don't live in whatever State that was in. But as a very practical matter, the underpass for turtles had a sign which said the project is being built at the expense of the American taxpayers, promoting the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. This is foolish. This is the type of thing that drives taxpayers crazy, and it should. It is so inexcusable. People get outraged by us doing things such as this and by the Government doing things such as this. You drive by this sign and, if you have a chainsaw in the back of your truck, you want to cut them down. Of course, they put them up in steel so you have to have a blowtorch, but in any event they should not be out there, and they certainly should not be out there costing $300 to $3,000 per sign. That money, at the minimum--first, it should not have been spent. But if it is going to be spent, it should have been actually spent on the project itself or other projects which were deserving. But certainly there was no reason to spend it to promote the project through these signs. I will have an amendment which says, essentially, no more signs, no more wasting taxpayers' dollars on signs that cost $3,000 promoting projects for the purposes of political aggrandizement. I hope to be able to call it up as we move forward on the Defense bill. I recognize it is not immediately a defense issue, but unfortunately this is the only authorizing bill floating around the body. These signs are going up like weeds across the Nation. Every time they go up, they cost our children a few thousand dollars on the national debt. So if we are going to stop that type of profligate spending, we have to act now. Therefore, I am going to call up this amendment when the proper time occurs on the floor. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, it is my honor to rise today in special tribute to SCPO Daniel Healy of Exeter, NH. I am proud to recognize the dedication ceremony of the ``SCPO Daniel Healy USN SEAL'' Memorial Monument and Bridge in honor of his courageous service to the United States of America. On June 28, 2005, Daniel lost his life when his helicopter was shot down during a rescue mission to save the lives of fellow soldiers in Kunar Province, Afghanistan. For his fearlessness under fire, Senior Chief Petty Officer Healy was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star with Combat ``V'' for Valor, the Purple Heart, and the Afghanistan Campaign Medal. In recognition of outstanding performance throughout his military career, Daniel was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal, the Joint Meritorious Unit Award, the Meritorious Unit Commendation, the National Defense Service Medal, and the Good Conduct Medal. On Sunday, July 19, 2009, the town of Exeter, NH, will honor Daniel by renaming the Guinea Road Bridge and Exeter Town Pool, in remembrance of his life and service. Although we can never truly do enough to honor his sacrifice, this bridge and monument will stand as a lasting testament to a dedicated individual that selflessly paid the ultimate sacrifice in support of his brothers in arms. This dedication speaks volumes about Daniel's character. At a time when we have two wars ongoing, it is an extraordinary reminder of the kind of person who serves this country and commits him or herself to the protection of others, even until death. I am sure that Daniel would be the first to say that although this bridge and pool will bear his name, the honor truly belongs to everyone who proudly wears the uniform of our great Nation. Daniel's kind and determined attitude will always be remembered by those who knew him and it is with the utmost respect that we remember his life with this entry into the official Congressional Record. On behalf of my wife Kathy, and myself, I want to express our deep gratitude and respect for a father, husband, son, brother, and true American hero. With this, I ask my colleagues to join me in thanking Daniel's family for his service to the Nation and his devotion to our freedom.

Mr. GREGG

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