Johnny Isakson

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I apologize for keeping the Presiding Officer and the rest of the staff here a little later than they might want, but I have an important message that will be brief. I introduced legislation not too long ago called the Representation Fairness Restoration Act, S. 1843. It was a reaction to the NLRB's decision in the specialty health care case, where a group of nurses within specialty health care asked for permission to unionize and organize within that unit. The NLRB granted that, and that became the first microunion that has ever existed in the United States of America. Today it is my understanding that the NLRB has approved the following: the second floor designer shoes department and the fifth floor contemporary shoes department at Bergdorf Goodman in New York-- the two combined have 45 employees out of 370. They have granted them the right to organize. This is a gigantic leap that differs from 75 years of settled labor law. Microunions within any retail establishment, medical establishment, or any other type of business prevents cross-training, causes discord, and is a way to upset an organization that otherwise is not upset. Labor law in this country has been settled for a long time. Last year 70 percent of all the union calls in the United States of America passed on their vote. There is not a problem with unions being able to organize. But there is a huge problem if we continue to tear down the firewalls that have had the playing field level. Just recently the courts have twice thrown out rulings of the National Labor Relations Board--one on ambush elections where they tried to reduce the average period of time from 58 days to 10, which is totally unrealistic, and, even more importantly, on the posting rule where the employers were asked to post proorganization posters within the break rooms in their companies. Both times the courts threw them out and said the NLRB has reached too far. It is my hope the same thing would happen here again. But in the meantime, I want to encourage the Senate to allow us to bring S. 1843 to the floor and have this debate. In the free enterprise system, in the tedious economy we have today in this country, the last thing we need is to begin changing labor law and pitting organized labor against management in an adversarial type of way. This example at Bergdorf Goodman today is an example of the National Labor Relations Board doing in regulation what we ought to be doing in legislation on the floor of the Senate. My biggest concern is that now it seems as if the administration's leadership in every Department has determined if we can circumvent the legislative body and through regulation do what we cannot do on the floor, we will forget about the House, we will forget about the Senate, and it will be the executive and judicial branches that run the United States of America. That is not good for our country, and that is wrong. So I am going to call on the Senate and ask our leadership to let us bring this bill to the floor, to let us debate it and see if we want to change 75 settled years of labor law and unbalance the playing field between management and labor. I do not think we do. I am sorry to rush to the floor after just hearing this information, but I think it is so important we nip it in the bud; that we let the playing field remain balanced, and we not turn over the operation of settled labor law to an NLRB that, quite frankly, seems to have run amok as far as I am concerned. Mr. President, I appreciate the opportunity to speak and yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. I thank the Senator from Nebraska for the question and for his service. As a former Governor of the State of Nebraska, he knows full well the responsibility we have in terms of budgets. But I will tell you what the impact of no budget for 3 years is, no discipline for 3 years. The result of no discipline for 3 years is we spend $10.4 trillion without a budget. I do not know how good you are with your memory, I do not know how good I am with mine, but if I do not have a budget or a guidepost to go by, and I am spending $10.4 trillion, I am making big mistakes. I am making big mistakes not with my money but with the money of the people of the United States of America. Last night I did a telephone townhall back to Georgia. At one time we had a little over 3,200 callers on the line. Question after question, with a very simple question: How can you guys operate without a budget? Why can't you get a budget? Why can't you bring a budget to the floor. The fact is it is because our budget requirements cast out 10 years of planning for taxes, 10 years of planning for expenditures, 10 years of planning for the government. A lot of people just do not want us to know what their plans are for the next 10 years. But every American family in this county has had to sit around their kitchen table, reprioritize their expenditures, and budget what income they have because of difficult economic times. The government should ask of itself only what it forces upon all of its people. I have a suggestion to consider, a suggestion that 20 of our 50 States practice. Forty percent of our State governments now have a biennial budget. It is a proposal that has been before this body for years. I am proud to be the cosponsor with Senator Jeanne Shaheen from New Hampshire. It is a budget process and a discipline that ends this no budget and also memorializes the most important thing we need to do and the least thing we do in this body; that is, oversight. The biennial budget proposes we would do our budgeting in odd- numbered years and our appropriating in odd-numbered years and do it for a 2-year period rather than a 1-year period. Then, in the even- numbered year--an election year--we would do oversight of spending. We do not ever do any oversight. The best oversight person in the Senate sits to my right. His name is Tom Coburn. He is going to be the closing act in this colloquy. He is going to show some pictures that cast a lot more than 1,000 words about the duplication of expenditures in this government, primarily because we have no oversight and we have no discipline. We go back at appropriations year after year after year but never look at justifying what we spent in the year before. So to the Senator from Nebraska, I say to the people of Georgia and the people of the United States, I want to expect of myself and our government at least what is mandated upon you. I want us to begin to be accountable for our spending and hold accountable those who spend that money. I want us to do our appropriations in a balanced way, in a disciplined way, and never again go 1,000 days without a budget, never again have $10.4 trillion of spending without a budget, never again look the American people in the eye and say: I, as your government, am not willing to do what you must do. It is absolutely time we stop the redundancy, start prioritizing, and start conducting oversight. When we do that, America will be better off, our fiscal policy will be better off, our debt and deficit will come down, and we will return to those days all of us yearn for, with better prosperity and absolute accountability. I thank the Senator from Nebraska for giving me the opportunity to expound on the biennial budget.

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I haven't been able to hear all the speeches, but I commend Senator Enzi on his detailed and eloquent explanation on how we arrived where we are today. I wish to add a history lesson of my own to tell you my journey in terms of where we are. As a student in college in the 1960s, in business management, I learned a lot about the Industrial Revolution, the labor revolution, the development of labor unions and labor/ management practices as they developed from the 1920s until the 1960s and now up until today. It is absolutely correct that the playing field was unlevel in the 1920s and 1930s. It is absolutely true that we had poor working conditions, safety risks were high, and wage-an-hour issues were debated. There was a place and an appropriate nature for us to level the playing field so management and labor could go together, head-to-head, and negotiate and arbitrate and have binding agreements upon themselves to protect the safety of workers and also improve the environment of the workers in the United States. For 75 years those laws served us well. All of a sudden, it seems there is a perfect storm. From every corner, the NLRB seems to be making proposals to try to tilt the playing field away from fairness and equity and it is not right. Last year, 70 percent of the elections for unionization in the United States of America were successful. There is not a problem in terms of people being able to organize and negotiate collectively. The problem is that the regulatory bodies are attempting to circumvent the legislative branch of government and to rule and regulate what they cannot pass on the floor of the Senate. When Mr. Becker was appointed to the NLRB last year by the President, over the objection of the Senate and during the recess--it was an example of where the President used a recess appointment to go around the lack of approval, and advice and consent of the Senate. This particular legislation we are talking about is similar to the specialty health care decision. The specialty health care decision allowed unions to create micro unions within the same working body, where there could be a plethora of unions in one store, all to fracture and fragment the ability of a business to cross-train and compete effectively. It is an attack on the free enterprise system and circumvents what our Founding Fathers intended us to do. We have a legislative branch with the House and Senate; an executive branch with the President, the Vice President, the Cabinet and his appointees; and we have a court system. The President makes initiatives that go through the legislature. The legislative body takes initiatives and passes laws. Ultimately, the courts are the arbiters if either one or both ever challenges the ruling of one or the executive order of another. That is the way it should be. But right now we have a two- legged stool in America. Instead of legislative, executive, and judicial branches, we have a judicial and executive branch trying to run the country. We all know what happens to a two-legged stool. It falls over. I talked with some businesspeople this morning who talked about the uncertainty of doing business in America. It didn't all have to do with ambush elections or specialty health care movements or special posters to promote unionization in the workplace, but they were part of it. The regulations that come from the administration through the Department of Labor, the National Labor Relations Board, the National Mediation Board, and a plethora of other organizations, are making it difficult for America to do business in a time where it is essential that we do business. When the stimulus passed 18 to 24 months ago--maybe 30 now--it was designed to bring unemployment down to 6 percent. Unemployment remains above 8 percent, and one of the reasons it does is that the deployment of capital by businesses is not taking place because of the uncertainty of the workplace and what lies ahead, whether it is health care, whether it is ambush elections, card check, or whatever it might be. So I come to the floor to commend the Senator from Wyoming for taking an initiative that is available to the Senate to bring a resolution of disapproval forward for a resolution of an executive branch body that circumvents the legislature itself. I hope he is successful in sending the message that it is time for us to take American politics and American justice and American legislation back to what our Founding Fathers intended. Let's stop trying to take a playing field--one that has been level for 75 years, where we have had the greatest labor-management relations in the history of any country in the world--and tear it up or put us into a situation where we are adversaries, as we were 75 years ago. Let's stop the ambush election. Let's stop the arbitrary posting. Let's stop the specialized unionization. Let's stop all of this and return to the laws that have worked for three-quarters of a century. Three- quarters of a century is a great test of time. There is no reason now, through appointments to a regulatory body, to change the history of the Senate and the history of the court system. I will end by quoting a President of the United States--a Democratic President of the United States--who, on April 21, 1959, was U.S. Senator John Fitzgerald Kennedy. In his campaign for the Presidency, he declared that elections should have at least 30 days between their call and the vote so employees can be fully informed on their choices from both sides of the issue. If it was right for John F. Kennedy on April 21, 1959, it is right for the Senate today, on April 24, 2012. I commend the Senator from Wyoming on his presentation, his intensity, and his ability to bring this issue before the American people and to the floor of the Senate. I yield the floor.

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I rise to speak to the Senate, but in a broader sense to the American people and, in particular, to the young people of America. An Internet posting went viral a few weeks ago, by a group called Invisible Children about Joseph Koni in Uganda, the Central African Republic, Congo, and the South Sudan. As a member of the Africa Subcommittee of the Foreign Relations Committee and one who travels to Africa quite frequently, I have just returned from a trip to meet, in part, with our special forces and U.S. advisers who have been deployed in those countries to help assist in the search for Joseph Koni. I wish to share with the Senate the information about what America is doing, what Joseph Koni has done, and how important our commitment is to Central Africa and to see to it that this evil man is brought to justice. Joseph Koni is under indictment by the International Criminal Court today, but for 26 years he has roamed Central Africa with his Lord's Resistance Army, killing, raping, and maiming the African people. By some estimates, Joseph Koni has abducted 66,000 children into his army and young women as sex slaves. He has displaced over 2 million Africans into camps, and they have had to be displaced because their villages were destroyed and their families disrupted. He has killed untold tens of thousands of people. He is by any stretch of the imagination an evil person. Invisible Children's posting, which went viral on the Internet, has caught the attention of America's youth, because they see the damage that has been done to the youth of Africa, and they want to know what America is doing. I am proud to include in my remarks what America is doing, and has been doing even before the posting went viral on the Internet and most people didn't know who Joseph Koni was. Our President deployed 100 special advisers to the Central African Republic, in the Sudan and Uganda, about 2 months before this posting went viral. I met with them in a private, secured briefing, a lot of which I cannot talk about but a lot of which I can. Because of U.S. technology, U.S. resources, and the commitment of these individuals, we are assisting to a much higher level in the intelligence that we are gaining on Joseph Koni. A lot of people think Koni is in Uganda. He isn't there and hasn't been there for 5 or 6 years. He is somewhere near the Central African Republic, where it is extremely easy to hide. We thought Vietnam had jungles. You haven't seen foliage until you've seen the Central African Republic, the Sudan, and the Congo. There is no electricity, no roads, no paths, and no listening devices. Intelligence is all human intelligence. We are fortunate to have great intelligence operatives over there and great resources there, and we are gaining more and more information. I commend our forces also in what they have done in an amnesty program. They dropped leaflets in villages that are known to house some of Koni's workers and cronies. They drop leaflets that offer amnesty for anybody who leaves Koni, comes back to their village, and gives information to our forces, the Ugandan Army, and the African Union Army as to where Joseph Koni might be. We are getting closer all the time. We are not there yet, but thanks to the assistance of our foreign- deployed individuals, the commitment of our country, the commitment of Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Central African Republic, and the new country of South Sudan, we are going to close that noose and stay until the job is finished, because Joseph Koni needs to be brought to justice. He is an evil man who has killed and raped far too many people and maimed far too many people, and Africa is too good a friend of the United States for us not to offer the necessary assistance. My message to the American people and our youth is we are doing our job. Joseph Koni hasn't been caught, but we are in pursuit. I commend Senator Kerry, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee; Senator Coons, chairman of the Africa Subcommittee; and Senator Lugar and myself have joined together to support legislation that will be introduced in the Senate to include Joseph Koni, or information leading to the arrest and conviction of Joseph Koni, in our rewards program that we offer mostly now for terrorist capture. That will be an incentive for more information to be brought forward so that the noose will grow tighter. It is time for Joseph Koni to be brought to justice, and the United States is making every effort to assist in that process in Central Africa. My other reason for going to Central Africa is equally important. I was accompanied by members of CARE. CARE is a tremendous nongovernmental organization that delivers humanitarian aid, assistance, education, knowledge, and technical assistance to countries around the world and, in particular, in the nation of Africa. It was the second time I traveled with CARE; the first time was 10 years ago to Ethiopia, where I saw CARE's outreach in terms of basic education and improvement and enhancement of educating young Muslim women. On this trip, I got to see what they are doing firsthand in the city of Gulu on the border with the Congo and Northern Uganda--an area that 5 or 6 years ago, because of Joseph Koni, had been destroyed, people were displaced, everybody was in hunger, and there was a lot of violence. It is now a beautiful village. Granted, it is not a village such as you and I might know, Mr. President--thatched huts with thatched roofs, mud huts with thatched roofs, small enclaves of African citizens eking out an existence in a very difficult part of the world. Because of what they are doing in their project, known as the village savings and loan, they are bringing about microeconomics in Africa, and they are empowering women. The village savings and loan program is a very simple program that teaches basic economics and capitalism to these villages. Groups form together, they are given a strongbox, literally like the ones that used to be on the stagecoach in the old ``Lone Ranger'' days. In that box, each of the women will make contributions of the money that they have into the strongbox, and they get a passbook savings account just like the occupant of the chair and I used to get when we were in elementary school a long time ago. Then they make loans out of that money they save to other people in the village to start businesses, whether it is making beads, using the shea tree to make shea butter, or doing boutique cloth, or whatever it may be. As those industries develop, those cottage industries develop, the money they make goes back into the savings and loan to be reinvested in other plans. We met a young lady who was making beads, and I bought about 12 strands. My wife and grandkids love them. She makes beads for a German distributor in Europe. It is unbelievable what you can see being developed because of what CARE is doing. They are empowering African women and families and are bringing about the principles of economics that you and I enjoy and appreciate, and they are uplifting people who need that with empowerment, so they can be sufficient on their own, so they can rise up economically and educationally. I also visited with the CDC folks delivering PEPFAR and health care and better awareness and better testing to identify those with AIDS, to get our retrovirals distributed to those mothers who are pregnant, so their babies can be born without AIDS and live a happy life. One of our great challenges now in Africa--it used to be that the challenge was what we did with all the children who died because they were born to a mother with AIDS. Now we see what we can do to keep them through their life because they live a normal and happy life. And their mother, although infected with AIDS, because of the U.S. technology and retrovirals, and the CDC is providing them with a lifetime of drugs and an opportunity to live as normal and productive a life as possible. It was great to go with CARE and to see U.S. tax dollars deployed and helping uplift the nation, uplift the people, help solve the greatest scourge on the continent, which is AIDS and its spread, and help people to be able to reinvest in themselves. CARE is a great nongovernmental entity that happens to be housed in Georgia, which is helping all over the continent of Africa, and they are empowering women and African citizens, and they are making their plight in life better, and they are reducing the amount of Federal assistance we will provide in the years to come because they will be more productive, which is the payback you want to see from foreign assistance dollars when they are invested. As far as Joseph Koni is concerned, America knows he is a bad man, that he is indicted by the International Criminal Court, and America is making the investment of intelligence and manpower to assist the Central African Republic, Uganda, the Congo, and the South Sudan to pursue him until he is captured. He needs to be brought to justice for the evil and terror he has contributed to the continent of Africa. I was proud to go and see America's investment of our best, our men and women in harm's way in Africa who are looking for him and providing the assistance necessary to bring him to justice. With that said, I yield the floor.

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to address the Senate as in morning business.

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Cate Cravath, Katie Hoppe, and Michael Finn, interns with the Budget Committee, be granted the privilege of the floor during the remainder of today's session.

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. I would note that it is never an inconvenience to be deferred by a beautiful lady, and again I take all the remarks made by the leader about Ms. Dove, and I would add one thing about the best and greatest institution in America, the U.S. Senate, and that is that a young mother of two has become an institution to herself. Laura, we appreciate all you have done. Missile Defense

Mr. ISAKSON. Madam President, I rise to talk about two specific subjects, one of them a very troubling comment picked up by a microphone that was not believed to be live, made by President Obama to President Medvedev of Russia. It is a troubling comment to me because I spent most of the previous year in the Senate as a member of the Foreign Relations Committee working on the New START treaty, which the Senate adopted with 71 favorable votes a year ago, a treaty that is a treaty on offensive missiles, not defensive missiles nor strategic missiles. It is a treaty that began under Ronald Reagan, was ratified by George H.W. Bush shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, was extended under George W. Bush and terminated a couple of years ago and needed to be renewed. It is a treaty that did three things. First of all, it reduced offensive weapons held by the Russians and the Americans; second, gave us unilateral access to Russia and the Russians unilateral access to us to trust but verify the warheads that existed; and third, new identification systems and holographs that made it almost impossible to hide or mimic nuclear warheads. It is a comprehensive treaty that is important to America, important to the free world, and, quite frankly, important to Russia. I would like to quote from the Washington Post exactly what the President was picked up as having said when he was talking to Mr. Medvedev after their official conversation. I quote from the Washington Post: On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this, this can be solved-- I underline, nobody knows what ``this'' means-- but it's important for him to give me space. President Medvedev said back: Yeah, I understand. Then the President said the following: This is my last election. After my election, I [will] have more flexibility. That flexibility obviously refers back to ``this,'' which was in the first comment. So as a continuing member of the Foreign Relations Committee, one who is proud of the work we did on the START treaty but one who understands particularly the commitments of the country, I think it important that the President clarify what ``this'' meant and how flexibility would be applied if he were reelected as President of the United States for this reason: In the President's letter to the Senate to endorse the New START treaty and ask for its ratification, he said the following: that he pledged in his message to the Senate on the New START treaty ``to continue development and deployment of all stages of the Phased Adaptive Approach to missile defense in Europe, including qualitative and quantitative improvements to such system.'' That is a unilateral statement. I met with Vice President Joe Biden in his office outside this Chamber during the debate. Vice President Biden committed the administration in terms of continuing on missile defense. I met with Secretary of State Clinton. I met with Ellen Tauscher, who was one of the chief negotiators and chief operatives, a former Member of the House working for the State Department. There was never any wiggle room nor need for flexibility. The United States was committed to missile defense in Europe, we remain committed to this day, and it is important that the President reaffirm that and it not be in any way confused or blurred by the comments picked up by that microphone. It is too important to the country, it is too important to this body, and it is too important to me for us to be able to trust the words of each other, not to find out sometime later that they want flexibility to possibly move from those words. Nuclear defense clearly is very sensitive with the Russians, and I understand that. If there are negotiations on that, that ought to be in the open, not after we have time for flexibility. It ought to be forthright. I also would like to add that there is another missile defense issue that looms out there that we have to pay attention to. Israel is surrounded by missiles with warheads to injure the people of that country and take the country down. A missile defense system for Israel would be equally as important as missile defense deployment would be for the Eastern European countries. So missile defense was a vision of Ronald Reagan's, continued under every President of the United States since Ronald Reagan, and it is important that we remain committed to it. I believe it is particularly important to understand what the President said, particularly on missile defense, what ``this'' meant when he asked for flexibility, because there should be no wiggle room in our desire to protect and defend democracy not only in the United States but around the world. Madam President real quickly, we talked all week about gas prices, and there has been a lot of demonization from both sides. I am a pretty simple guy. I was a businessman for 33 years, went and got a degree in college in business, studied economics in high school, and learned one principle of free enterprise and competition: prices are determined by supply and demand. If your supply goes down and your demand goes up, your prices go up. On the contrary, if the supply is plentiful and demand goes down, your prices go down. You can blame gas companies, presidents' salaries, anything you want to blame; the fact is, we are talking out of the side of our mouth--and particularly in the administration--when it comes to exploration for natural resources in the United States of America, and only can we become energy independent when we develop all of our resources. I support that. I drive a hybrid car. I am not just somebody who talks about it, I believe it is important. It reduces my consumption, it extends my miles per gallon, and it is better for the environment. But we have proven through the Solyndra and other cases that some of the alternative energy sources were either not perfected or frankly just don't work. So while we are developing ones that do, we should be robustly exploring in the gulf, in Alaska, in the Midwest, in the Northwest, and offshore, such as my State of Georgia, the resources we know exist to raise the supply of petroleum in the United States and lower the price to the American taxpayer. All four sources of energy that are safe and reliable should be promoted. That includes nuclear energy. I am very proud and I am thankful to the President that he issued the loan guarantee on the first reactors licensed in this country since 1978. They are in Plant Vogtle in Augusta or Burke County, GA. But his Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission voted no on that final approval. He was outvoted 4 to 1, but he voted no. That sends a signal that we may talk on one hand about having robust development of all resources, but when it comes to playing our hand on the actual vote, we really don't do it. The same thing is true with the Keystone Pipeline. You can't just approve the pipeline to the south without connecting it to the north because if you do, you don't get the petroleum. We can blame whomever we want to blame, but the fact is facts are stubborn, and supply and demand is what dictates price. We should robustly be exploring the natural resources of the United States for America to have less dependence on foreign oil and more dependence on our own oil where we know we have resources. We should pay attention to our environment and recognize that no country in the world has done a better job in the modern era since the industrial revolution of cleaning up its environment than the United States of America. No one looks after their environment harder than the United States of America. We owe it to our people to look equally hard at the cost of gasoline, the price of petroleum, and the robust exploration of our own natural resources here at home for less dependency overseas. I yield the floor and defer to the Senator from Louisiana, who has a lot of offshore resources of his own.

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. Madam President, I consider it an honor and a privilege to rise for a moment to pay tribute to Senator Mikulski from the State of Maryland, And in so doing, I think it is only appropriate that I quote from a speech made on November 22 in 1922 by the first woman ever to serve in the Senate. Rebecca Latimer Felton was the first woman Senator. She was appointed for 1 day. Governor Brown had run against Walter George for the Senate. Walter George won. And because of Ms. Felton's unending help to him in his race, he asked the Governor if he would appoint her for a day to his seat before he took it and was sworn in. She came to Washington, DC, to serve for 1 day and she made one speech. In that speech she had a paragraph that to me exemplifies Barbara Mikulski. She said, ``Let me say, Mr. President, that when the women of the country come and sit with you, though there may be but very few in the next few years, I pledge you that you will get ability, you will get integrity of purpose, you will get exalted patriotism, and you will get unstinted usefulness.'' That was Rebecca Felton in 1922. Today, in March of 2012, we honor a Senator who has lived up to every one of those promises Ms. Felton made almost 100 years ago. I have had the privilege to serve on the HELP Committee with the Senator, worked very closely on the Alzheimer's legislation which she has been such a leader on, worked with her on many other projects, including one I am happy to remind her about, and that was the confirmation of Wendy Sherman a few months ago when together on the floor of the Senate, we worked together to see that she was appointed and named and confirmed Under Secretary of State for the United States of America, serving under Hillary Clinton. On that night when we worked on getting that UC done, and it was not easy, I saw the tenacity, I saw the grace, I saw the patriotism, and I saw the integrity of Barbara Mikulski. It is an honor for me to rise today and commend her on a great individual achievement, not just for herself but for all of the women who have gone before her and all the women who will come later on, and to my five granddaughters and my daughter. She has led the life in the Senate exemplary of the contributions that all women can make to our society. I commend her on her service, her compassion, her integrity, and all that she has done for the State of Maryland, the United States of America, and peace on this Earth. Barbara, congratulations to you on a great achievement. It is an honor for me to be here.

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. Madam President, this past weekend, Georgia lost a great citizen. Furman Bisher died in Fayetteville, GA, on Sunday afternoon of a tragic heart attack. He was the premier sports writer in the United States of America, covered every Super Bowl, every Masters, was at every major heavyweight fight. From the day he started on his Royal manual typewriter until the day he died, he typed on that same manual typewriter that was over 60 years old. He was a brilliant writer, a compassionate individual, a great friend, and someone I looked up to very much. He was a pacesetter. He actually got the only interview of Shoeless Joe Jackson ever done by a reporter. He did it because of his cunning ability to be in the right place at the right time, and that twinkle in his eye that always made you want to take to Furman Bisher. So as on the floor of the Senate today I pay tribute to Furman and his life, to all of his accomplishments in terms of the writing of sports in our State and around the world. To his family and loved ones, I extend my sympathy on behalf of not just myself but all of the citizens of Georgia.

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, today I wish to honor in the Record the 120th anniversary of Horton's Books & Gifts in Carrollton, GA. In March 1892, N. A. Horton officially opened his business in the northeast section of the public square in Carrollton, GA. During his early years, N. A. Horton and his Carrollton Book Store supplied books and school supplies to local students as well as items such as sewing machines, carpet squares, china, and stationary. As Mr. Horton was an undertaker by training, his store also carried coffins and caskets. After N. A. Horton died from a stroke in December 1916, his 20-year- old son Hewling, also known as ``Hap,'' took over the operation of the store. The store was relocated several times to different buildings around the town square, but in 1955 Hap moved the store back to its original location. In 1968, Doris Shadrix, a longtime employee, became a partner in the business and eventually the sole owner of the store. After spending a total of 42 years as an employee and owner, Mrs. Shadrix sold the business to Larry Johnson. In 1997, Mr. Johnson sold the business to the present owner, Dorothy Pittman. Although Horton's has had five owners in its 120-year history, each proprietor has stamped his or her brand of creative individualism on the store, which has become a beloved institution in the community. Horton's has been an active participant in the continued vitality of the Carrollton downtown business district, supporting its employees as leaders and active participants in civic affairs and helping with community projects, education, and organizations. Just as in the past, Horton's Books & Gifts continues to adapt and change to meet the needs of its customers and the community. In 2000, the store was featured as one of the Nation's bookstores over 100 years old, and it has been the subject of many magazine and newspaper articles in the past 15 years. When the store mascot, Chloe the cat, died at age 15, she was featured on the front page of the local newspaper, the Times- Georgian. One of the first book signings for Atlanta Journal- Constitution writer Celestine Sibley was held at Horton's, as was her last. Other authors who have visited the store include Mary Kay Andrews, Terry Kay, former Georgia Governor and U.S. Senator Zell Miller, and former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich. It gives me a great deal of pleasure and it is a privilege to recognize on the floor of the Senate Horton's Books & Gifts as we honor its place in Georgia history as one of the oldest bookstores in Georgia and in the Nation.

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I am proud to stand here today on International Women's Day, the 8th day of March, 2012, to pay tribute to women around the world but also to acknowledge that women around the world, on Monday, March 12, will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Girl Scouts of America, founded in Savannah, GA, a beautiful town, by a wonderful Georgia lady, Juliette Gordon Low. Girl Scouts around the world will be celebrating the founding of that great organization, which has had a positive effect on women around the world. Each of us right now is well aware of the Girl Scouts because of boxes like this box the Acting President pro tempore gave me permission to display, which is what is left of a box of Thin Mints. The Girl Scouts sell boxes of cookies this time of year to raise money for their operations around the world. I eat far too many of them. They are good. They are good for me, they are good for America, and they are good for the Girl Scouts and the fundraising they do. The Girl Scouts is an organization of leadership, developing women for the future. While only 17 percent of this body are women, almost all of them were Girl Scouts. Almost all women of business were Girl Scouts. And almost all women who were in Girl Scouts pay tribute to the Girl Scouts of America and the contribution they have made to their lives. There are 3.2 million active Girl Scouts in America today, and there are 50 million Girl Scout alumni in America. That has a tremendous impact on all that is right about America. The Girl Scouts have been pacesetters. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a native of my city of Atlanta and a native of our State that Juliette Low was from, cited the Girl Scouts of America as ``a force for desegregation'' during the troubled times of the 1950s and 1960s. The Girl Scouts were at the forefront of integration and leadership for youth. The Girl Scouts of America also pledge themselves and they make a promise, which I would like to read. On my honor, I will try: To serve God and my country, To help people at all times, And to live by the Girl Scout law. Which reads: I will do my best to be honest and fair, friendly and helpful, considerate and caring, courageous and strong, and responsible for what I say and do, and to respect myself and others, respect authority, use resources wisely, make the world a better place, and be a sister to every Girl Scout. That is not a motto just for the Girl Scouts but one that would serve us all well in this body. So on this International Women's Day on March 8, I would like to acknowledge that on Monday, when we are not here, around the world women will celebrate the founding of the Girl Scouts of America, and the 3.2 million Girl Scouts in America today will be building for the future the Acting President pro tempore and I work for today in this body, the U.S. Senate. I yield back the remainder of my time and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. ISAKSON

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

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I would also like to ask the permission of the Chair to display this box during my remarks.

Mr. ISAKSON. Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. ISAKSON

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

Mr. ISAKSON. I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 10 minutes in morning business.

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I am glad to be able to come to the floor. I wish to talk about a subject that was talked about to me a lot during the Presidents Day break back in Georgia. I spent most of that week traveling in my State, going to townhall meetings, listening to Georgians from Savannah, GA, to Murray County, GA, and everywhere in between. It was absolutely easy to tell what the No. 1 issue for the average American or the average Georgia family is; that is, what the price of gasoline is doing to their budget. Gasoline prices continue to escalate. In fact, I have a Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck that I use from time to time and I had to fill it last weekend. It cost $78 to fill it, and it wasn't totally empty. That is a big pricetag to fill a pickup truck. When I think of every carpenter or farmer or landscaper or student taking their goods back to school to their dormitory room and how much they have to pay for gasoline to deliver those goods and services or that furniture, I realize how harmful current gas prices are and I fear how high they are going to go. We need a comprehensive energy policy in the United States of America. I was listening to the distinguished majority whip speak before me. He made an interesting comment about the Keystone Pipeline. He said, even if we approve the Keystone Pipeline, it would not do anything for gas prices today. He is right because we have to build the pipeline. But if we had approved it 2 years ago and it was operating, we would have 700,000 barrels of petroleum more a day coming into the United States. So to say that just because it would not be ready today doesn't help gas prices is not keeping our eye on the ball. What we have to recognize is, in the absence of a comprehensive policy, in the absence of foresight, in the absence of putting all the general items on the table that generate energy, we are putting off the day in which the United States of America is energy independent. Because we are not energy independent, then what goes on in Iran, in the Strait of Hormuz, and in Venezuela affects the speculation on gasoline and petroleum which affects the prices of gasoline in the United States. I am not one of these ``burn gas right and left, drill as much as you can, fossil fuels are fine.'' I know we have problems with carbon. I drive a hybrid vehicle, not because I am trying to drive a point but because it makes sense. Anytime you can reduce carbon, that makes sense. But you cannot eliminate it. You cannot eliminate it. What we have to do is we have to put all sources of energy on the table. And one of those is to continue to explore for gasoline and petroleum in the domestic United States of America--off the Gulf of Mexico, off of our coastline, in our national lands that we own where we know we have shale oil and where we also know we have natural gas. That exploration ought to be replete throughout the country, so we are expanding our supply and reducing our dependence on foreign imports. The best way to lower the price of gasoline in the future for Georgians and for Americans is for the Congress of the United States and the President of the United States to have a comprehensive energy policy that embraces all forms of energy. To the credit of the President, he approved not too long ago the loan guarantees on reactors 3 and 4 at Plant Vogtle. They will be the first nuclear reactors built in the United States of America since Three Mile Island. Nuclear energy is a safe, reliable, carbon-free--carbon-free-- generation of energy. Every time we can expand our nuclear capability we are lessening the pressure on domestic and foreign oil to be burned. We know in the Haynesville shale and the Marcellus shale, which has been discovered in Pennsylvania and Louisiana and Texas, that we have gone from having a finite supply of natural gas to an infinite supply. Yet, because there is some contest over whether hydraulic fracturing is good or not good, we are not exploring that gasoline as we should or that natural gas as we should. We should be exploring it as much as possible, because it is a cleaner burning fuel than liquid petroleum and gasoline. We ought to be doing renewable energy wherever it makes sense. But we have seen renewable energy has its limits. We spent $6 billion a year subsidizing ethanol in hopes that it would have reduced foreign imports, but it has not. It has had its own problems with two- cycle engines. But ethanol has a place. It is scalable on the farm in some cases. That is a good source of energy. Solar is a good source of energy where it works. But it only works as a supplement. It is not a primary supply or source. And wind, great. But it is only great in the Midwest and down toward the Southwest. But we ought to be using and encouraging it. What we ought to be doing is encouraging all forms of exploration, all forms of generation, and all of them domestically in the United States of America. That will bring down gas prices. The distinguished majority whip was right: It will not bring it down today, because we have put off having an energy policy. But once we finally develop an energy policy, and we stick to it, and we explore all forms of renewable energy and all forms of fossil fuel and all forms of coal, and we enhance nuclear, then we will have a plethora of energy and we will have a lower price and less competition with foreign oil and foreign petroleum, which is where the United States of America needs to be. Right now, we all realize what is going on in the Middle East is the root cause of most of the increase in the cost of oil, because of speculation. Every time we can improve our position and be free of those influences is better for the United States of America and, most importantly, it is better for the average citizens we all represent. My message from the people I represent in Georgia, the ones I talked to all during the Presidents Day recess and that week is: Do everything you can to expand your supply of energy wherever you can find it. Take us out of a dependence on foreign imports and get us independent of foreign oil; that will bring down the price of oil. As a byproduct, that will be in the best national security interests of the people of the United States of America. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. I thank Senator Alexander for giving me a moment on the floor. It is ironic that when I received the call last week asking if I would participate in this colloquy, I was traveling my State doing townhall meetings. I was near Ooltewah, TN, on Thursday night, north of Dalton, GA, and Murray County. We had a townhall meeting, and this fellow in the back of the room raised his hand when it came time for questions. He said: Mr. Isakson, I have got a question for you. I said: What is that? He said: Last night, my wife and I amended our budget that we established in December for this year because some things have not gone so well, and we had to recast how we are spending our money so we wouldn't go any further in debt than we already are. Why can't you all do the same thing? ``You all,'' talking about us. A few days earlier in Dublin, GA, a great, prosperous town in south Georgia, a similar question was asked by a Chamber of Commerce director who couldn't understand why the Federal Government and the Congress of the United States could not wrap their arms around fiscal responsibility, have a budget, and have appropriations acts that come to the floor, are debated, are amended, and the spending of the United States of America's government is spent like the households of the United States of America have to spend their money. So I commend Senator Alexander and Senator Pryor for bringing this to the floor, and I want to commend our leaders for making affirmative statements about the desire to bring the 12 appropriations bills to the floor of the Senate, debate them, let us amend them, and let us bring them together. If you think about it, in the last 3 years we have had a situation where we either had continuing resolutions or omnibus appropriations. During a difficult period of time where we have had deficits of $1.3 trillion to $1.5 trillion, we haven't taken the time to debate how we are spending our money, where we are spending our money, and doing it in the context of what we call on the floor regular order. In fact, it is not hard to understand why only 11 percent of the American people view the Congress as favorable, because they can't understand our inability to do what they have to do themselves. The IRS doesn't take excuses on April 15 if you are not ready. You have got to be ready. If you are a business and you file as an LLC or a sub S corporation, on the 15th of January, the 15th of April, the 15th of June, and the 15th of September, you file a quarterly tax return; and if you don't, you are held accountable. We are now going into our fourth year, and it looks as though for the first time in the last 3 years we are going to have debate on the floor of how we spend the American people's money. I commend Senator Alexander and Senator Pryor, and I thank our leadership for making the statement of the desire to do so. I have already seen Senator Inouye and I have already seen Senator Cochran working diligently in the basic appropriations subcommittees to see to it that those bills come to the floor. I think it is time we do our business just as the American people do their business, and I commend Senator Alexander and Senator Pryor for calling for this colloquy tonight.

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I thank the Senator for the opportunity. I commend Senator Risch for his remarks. I want to make a little addition to those remarks in a second. But specifically, in answer to Senator Johanns' question, the only thing you can do with this budget is start over. Senator Risch has very importantly recognized the 10-year fiasco we look at every year by pushing savings out into years 8, 9, and 10, when this President will not be here and another Congress will be here. In talking about compromise, one of the things Senator Shaheen from New Hampshire and I have pushed for 2 years is a process 40 States operate under, including the Senator's, if I am not mistaken, I say to Mr. Johanns, and that is a biennial budget process. So instead of talking about 10 years, you are talking about 2 years. Instead of talking about appropriating every year, you appropriate in 1 year for 2 years, and in the second year--which happens to be the election year, or the even unnumbered year--your total obligation is to look for savings, efficiencies, and the fine functioning of the government. We do not ever do in this Congress what our families do and our children do every year at home. We do not ever sit around our kitchen table, reprioritize our expenditures based on our needs, and find out how to live within our means. The American people do not get the luxury of printing money. Japan does not come in and buy notes to fund their money. They have to figure out how they themselves can manage their budget in such a way as to live within the income they have and not go into big debt. The United States of America ought to do the same. One of the things Senator Risch hit on that I want to hammer on for a second--because there is a big part of our problem that is solvable; and it is solvable if good people would be willing to talk about it rather than politic about it--is known as entitlements. Entitlements are Social Security, welfare, Medicare, Medicaid, retirement disabilities, et cetera. But two of them are not entitlements. Two of them are obligations of the United States of America. That is not an entitlement. That is something somebody has paid for. America's people pay 6.2 percent of their payroll normally-- except for the recent holiday we have had--to go into a Social Security trust fund to pay them a benefit. They pay 1.35 percent of their income every month--from day one, since 1968--to pay for Medicare. Those are not entitlements they are entitled to. Those are obligations we have committed them to from moneys they have paid. This document we are looking at in this budget does not portend a single change in benefits or in obligations for Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security, which simply means the day they go broke comes that much faster. We are defaulting on the obligation we have to the American people. Whereas, if we sat down honestly, put those programs on the table, looked at the outyears, when my grandchildren and children may be beneficiaries, and modify the obligation, pushing out the eligibility, we can save the obligation we owe the American people for Social Security and Medicare. But if we do not do it, it will be gone. That is something they paid for that we took out of the trust fund and used for something else--not the least of which was the $500 billion the President took out of the trust fund for Medicare to help pay for the affordable health care bill, which has not even gone into effect yet. I think it is time we ask of ourselves what the American people have to ask of themselves: Sit around our kitchen table, decide what our priorities are, live within our means, and budget for the future. Do not budget for failure. This is budgeting for failure.

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, amendment No. 1574 modifying the Congressional authorization for the Savannah Harbor Expansion Project, SHEP, is clearly supported in the Constitution. Article I of the Constitution grants Congress the power to authorize and appropriate funds and Article I, Section 8, specifically grants Congress the power ``To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with Indian Tribes.'' The power of Congress to fund the Savannah Harbor Expansion Project is unquestionably granted by the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. The Supreme Court has also expressly stated that ``Commerce with foreign nations means commerce between citizens of the United States and citizens or subjects of foreign governments. It means trade, and it means intercourse. It means commercial intercourse between nations, and parts of nations, in all its branches. It includes navigation, as the principal means by which foreign intercourse is affected.'' The power to regulate, authorize, and appropriate funding for the ports comes from the authority to regulate navigation, arising from the Commerce Clause. The Savannah Harbor Expansion Project, and by extension all harbor deepening projects, involves the general welfare of the United States. The Port of Savannah is a turnstile for cargo that impacts the United States as a whole. Congress is permitted to contribute to the project because it would improve the ability of the United States to receive larger ships entering through the Panama Canal. The Project will make national trade more competitive, while greatly impacting the State and the region. Trades, and its relations (ports), are fundamental extensions of the congressional power to regulate commerce. The Savannah Harbor Expansion Project is a permissible exercise of Congress's authority to regulate commerce and contributes to the general welfare of the United States. The constitutional ability of Congress to provide funding for the program is unquestionable. The Port of Savannah is the second largest container port on the East Coast and the fourth largest in the country. The Georgia Department of Economic Development recently announced that Georgia exported more than $28.7 billion in goods last year, a 20.8 percent increase from 2009 and our imports experienced a 27 percent increase last year compared to 2009. That's well over the overall national increase of 22.6 percent. Exports accounted for more than 54 percent of the 2.8 million containers Georgia Ports moved last year. Savannah handles more than 17 percent of all container cargo on the East Coast and is an essential element for the creation of new jobs, and the preservation of existing jobs, in America. The Panama Canal Authority has undertaken a 7 year $5.25 billion project to widen the canal to double its capacity by allowing larger ships to transit it. After this expansion, the Panama Canal will be able to handle vessels of cargo capacity up to 13,000 twenty-foot equivalent units or TEUs, which is the measure of cargo capacity often used to describe the capacity of a container ship. As a result of the canal's expansion and widening, shipping vessels are modernizing their fleet and purchasing a much larger class of vessel. These ``Post Panamax'' and ``New Panamax'' fleets will be comprised of vessels much larger than anything on the ocean today. In order to accommodate these vessels, improvements must be made to our Nation's existing infrastructure. The Georgia Ports Authority and the State of Georgia are undertaking a project to deepen the port's channel from 42 feet to 48 feet in order to accommodate this larger class of vessels. Doing so will protect existing jobs at the port while also creating new jobs as these larger vessels call in the Port of Savannah. It is critically important that we expand not only Savannah Harbor but all harbors to ensure they continue to act as gateways for business to not only Georgia and the Southeast United States, but the entire Nation.

Mr. ISAKSON

Mr. ISAKSON. On behalf of the minority side, I yield back the remainder of our time.

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

Mr. ISAKSON. Busiest in the world.