Ted Kennedy

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, it is a privilege to draw the attention of my colleagues to the inauguration earlier this month of Dr. Drew Gilpin Faust as the 28th president of Harvard University. Unfortunately, because of my recent surgery, I was not able to attend the ceremony, but I read with great interest the eloquent and inspring address of Dr. Faust at that ceremony. Dr. Faust, an historian of the Civil War and former dean of the Radcliffe Institute, made history herself by becoming the first woman to serve as president of this outstanding university. Others who spoke on this occasion included our Massachusetts Governor, Deval Patrick, historian John Hope Franklin, University of Pennsylvania president Amy Gutmann, where Dr. Faust spent much of her brilliant career, and author Tony Morrison. Present also were three of Dr. Faust's distinguished predecessors, Derek Bok, Neil Rudenstine, and Lawrence Summers, as well as distinguished representatives of other major colleges and universities in the United States and throughout the world. Last month, Senator Dole, Congressman Petri, Congressman Frank, Congressman Capuano, and I had the privilege of hosting a reception in the Senate's Mansfield Room to honor and welcome Dr. Faust. A number of our colleagues attended as well, and we all look forward to working with Dr. Faust, especially on higher education issues, in the years ahead. Dr. Faust is obviously an excellent choice by Harvard. She grew up in the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia, and attended Concord Academy in Massachusetts. After earning her BA from Bryn Mawr College, she continued her education at the University of Pennsylvania, where she earned her M.A. and Ph.D. in American civilization and served on the faculty there for 26 years, earning wide renown as a leading historian of the Civil War and the American South. In 2001 she became the first dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, and was appointed as Harvard's Abraham Lincoln Professor of History. Her scholarship has been focused on the past, but almost from the beginning she has been committed as well to solving the problems of the present and making the world a better place for the future. As a child in Virginia, she was appalled by the racism in her own community. At the age of nine, she wrote a letter to President Eisenhower opposing segregation. In high school, she went to Eastern Europe one summer and spent weekends volunteering in a program to help the poor. She was elected senior class president and was so widely respected that the school's new headmaster sought her advice about the school. In her freshman year at Bryn Mawr College, she was outraged when peaceful protesters against segregation in Selma were brutally clubbed and gassed by the police--so she skipped her midterm exams to go there and join the protest. At the University of Pennsylvania, she dedicated much of her time and energy to the cause of women in academic life. She chaired the university's Women's Studies Program, and worked skillfully to see that women candidates for the faculty were considered fully and fairly. Through it all, Dr. Faust won well-deserved renown for her scholarship. She became one of the Nation's preeminent historians of the South, bringing new light to topics such as plantation agriculture and the life of southern intellectuals. Her landmark 1996 book, ``Mothers of Invention,'' made her the first to demonstrate that women had a significant impact on the outcome of the Civil War. For that pioneering study, she received the Francis Parkman Prize for the year's best work of history. For the past 7 years, Dr. Faust has been the ``mother of invention'' at the Radcliffe Institute, skillfully guiding Radcliffe's transformation into one of the Nation's foremost research centers for established and emerging scholars in all disciplines, and still maintaining its special and long-standing role in the study of women, gender and society. As Dr. Faust has said, our shared enterprise now, as people connected to Harvard, is to make the future of this extraordinary university even more remarkable than its past. And with the distinguished leadership of Dr. Faust, there is no doubt it will be. I still remember the old inscription on the Dexter Gate in Harvard Yard: ``Enter to grow in wisdom. Depart to serve better thy country and all mankind.'' I am sure President Faust will give new power to these words in our day and generation. I wish President Faust well as she assumes this extraordinary responsibility, and I believe all of us in Congress will be interested in her eloquent and inspiring address on the historic occasion of her inauguration. It is an auspicious new beginning for Harvard, and I ask unanimous consent that her address be printed in the Record.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the bill be read three times, passed, the motion to reconsider be laid on the table, and any statements be printed in the Record.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to consideration of S. 2258, introduced earlier today.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I strongly support the Passenger Rail Improvement and Investment Act. I commend the bill's managers, Senators Lautenberg and Lott, for their leadership on this issue, and I am proud to be an original sponsor of this important legislation. Effective passenger rail service is more essential than ever at this time when gas prices, the Nation's economy, and our environment are on everyone's mind. For decades, Amtrak has given the Nation a safe, reliable and energy efficient alternative. Now, we must make the necessary investments in passenger rail service to preserve this important transportation option. The pending bill gives Amtrak the funds it needs to continue operating and make necessary repairs. It couldn't be timelier, because more and more Americans are choosing passenger rail. Recently Amtrak reported its highest ridership ever-- nearly 26 million passengers in 2007. It is particularly gratifying that the bill gives special priority to the overburdened Northeast Corridor, allowing it to return to a state of good repair by 2012. Rail transit has long been an important part of Massachusetts' public transportation system. Boston's Green Line--110 years old--is the oldest subway system in North America. The Northeast Corridor is the backbone of Amtrak today, serving 10 million passengers. An excellent example of why this bill is so important is the Downeaster, which operates between Boston and Portland, ME. The Downeaster launched its service at the end of 2001, and it has already carried over 1.5 million passengers. The line is so popular that it recently added a fifth daily round trip to meet the demand. We need to continue to expand these options for the good of our economy and the environment. Public transportation creates thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in revenue. The number of light rail systems has tripled in the past 35 years, and heavy rail service has nearly doubled. We need to do much more, however, to make public transportation a viable option if we are going to end the Nation's addiction to oil and reduce the harm being done to our environment from greenhouse gas emissions. Of the 20 million barrels of oil America consumes daily, more than 60 percent is consumed by the transportation sector. Public transportation today saves us 1.4 billion gallons of gasoline each year, which translates into 108 million fewer cars filling up. Equally important, these investments relieve the growing congestion on our roads. The Texas Transportation Institute's latest Urban Mobility Report found that congestion is costing the Nation $78 billion a year and forcing the average driver to waste 38 hours in traffic, while burning 26 gallons of gasoline. In the greater Boston area, travelers face even longer traffic delays in a year--spending 46 hours stuck in traffic and wasting over 30 gallons of gasoline. These delays help explain why more and more people are choosing Amtrak. Earlier this year, Amtrak reported that its Acela line--which operates between Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Washington--had an on-time performance record of nearly 90 percent, and nearly a 25 percent increase in ridership. Those are strong results. The pending bill will make the system even stronger, and I urge my colleagues to support it. Mr. President, as I make these comments about the Amtrak legislation, I remember very well a former colleague of ours who is not here. He has his own particular health challenges. He is a beloved figure--Senator Claiborne Pell of Rhode Island, author of the Pell grants, author of the National Endowment for the Arts, author of the National Endowment for the Humanities, author of the Seabed Treaty that did so much in terms of arms control and the placement of weapons on the seabeds-- there is a whole legacy there. But President Kennedy said, during his Presidency, that as a student of history it was extremely rare that any individual Member of the Senate could come up with a new idea and then see a real downpayment on that particular program. This is the case with regard to Amtrak. Claiborne Pell was the first voice in terms of rapid transportation between Boston and Washington. He struggled for that program, and during the early 1960s he was actually able to get some resources--not very great amounts--but for the study of it, for the feasibility of it, and for building a sense of inevitability about it. He saw, long before others did, the importance of transportation, this rapid transportation for our Nation as an energy saver, for the movement of people. He anticipated our congestion and so many issues that have been talked about by two of our colleagues and friends, Senator Lautenberg and Senator Lott, who deserve great commendation for their efforts and for their leadership. We are reminded--with the explosion of the costs of gasoline, congestion, environmental issues--about the importance of this legislation. Many times over the last 40-odd years, this legislation was at risk. But now it is well established, not only for the corridors which are highly populated, but we are seeing, as has been pointed out at other times during the debate, other examples of this kind of rapid movement of individuals between various population centers and the difference it has made and contribution it has made in terms of not only passenger service but also for our economy and the environment and the use of energy.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, it is good to be back in the Senate after a brief absence due to some health issues. I am enormously appreciative to the people of Massachusetts, for all of their thoughts and good wishes and prayers that were extended to me. I am very thankful to so many of our colleagues, on this side of the aisle and on the other side as well, who wished me well. As a matter of fact, there were a number of those on the other side of the aisle who urged me to take even additional time, that the Senate could function very well without my attendance. I appreciate their good thoughts, but we are back in business and ready to deal with the important issues at hand. One of the very important issues at hand is reminding the country of the extraordinary achievement and accomplishment by a magnificent sports team from my home city of Boston, MA. The country knows about it, but I know Senator Kerry joins with me in taking a moment to say how much we are cheering them on, on this magnificent, beautiful day in Boston. Our greatest regret is missing what they call the ``rolling rally'' that will celebrate the World Series victory of our beloved Red Sox. It is going to be an absolutely spectacular day in Boston. Both of us, Senator Kerry and I, are very grateful to the Senate for last night passing this wonderful resolution that expressed all of our feelings about the Boston Red Sox and their success this year. It is an extraordinary record. For the millions of members of the Red Sox nation, this year has been a dream come true. We are proud of the team and what they have accomplished, especially the way they came back after trailing the Cleveland Indians by some three games to one in the American League Championship Series and went on to win seven straight games. It was an exciting season full of brilliant performances, but none of them were as touching as the extraordinary--and it was extraordinary-- performance by Jon Lester, the great pitcher for the Boston Red Sox, who pitched 5\2/3\ shutout innings in game four on Sunday night, less than 1 year after being treated with lymphoma. For thousands of families struggling with cancer, his example is truly an inspiration. I congratulate the Colorado Rockies as well. They showed us what can be achieved when everyone pulls together, winning an incredible 21 out of 22 games to reach the World Series and making history in the process. I have no doubt their team will have a brilliant future. So, congratulations, Red Sox, for a job brilliantly done in 2007. It is a wonderful year for baseball in Boston. We are enormously grateful to the whole team for an inspiring and exciting season and we look forward to another great year in 2008.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I want to comment on an issue about which I have spoken frequently over the last 10 years, but one which I feel immensely strongly about, that will be before the Senate and on the national agenda in these next several hours. I will draw attention to its importance to the future of our Nation and particularly to the children of this Nation. I know there has been a good debate and a good discussion. I have spoken frequently about it, but I welcome the chance to once more, as Americans are beginning once again to refocus on this issue. It takes time. There are so many different issues that are before the Senate, and it does take time. We have to repeat and come back to these issues. It does not surprise me. We have seen it other times. I was here in 1964 when we failed to pass the Medicare Program. I can remember the whole stream of our colleagues going down to the radio and television gallery issuing their press releases about their opposition to Medicare. And then, about 8 months later--I think it was about 8 months later--the Senate revisited the Medicare Program, and it passed overwhelmingly. The one great difference, in that period of time, was the election of 1964, when American people gave focus and attention to the issue of Medicare and made the judgment and decision we ought to go and move ahead. I have heard all those arguments, ``socialized medicine,'' ``Government-controlled program.'' We heard that when this program was initially introduced. Senator Hatch, myself, and others, we have heard those echoes time in and time out. But it was under the leadership of Senator Hatch, the judgment and decision, in terms of providing the help and assistance to these children would not be replication of the Medicaid Program but would be a program that would be basically run by the States, with an outline by the Congress about what would be included in terms of services. It was a program that was built upon the private companies in these various States. It was a program also that did not quite match the range of different services that were in the Medicaid Program but, nonetheless, has been invaluable in terms of these children. I come to the Senate floor today to speak about the health insurance, not the health insurance available to Senators or Members of the House or the President and his Cabinet. As I was reminded again during my recent experience, we have access to excellent insurance to pay the cost of whatever care we need. Our health coverage is never in question. I speak of those who do not work in marbled halls or beneath vaulted ceilings but of those who work at the local bakery or the repair shop or make their living stocking shelves or cleaning offices. This debate is about our commitment to millions of American men and women who work hard every day, pay taxes, care for their children but who stay awake at night worrying because they cannot afford the costs of sudden illness. It used to be when we debated this issue, 10, 15, 20 years ago, we would talk about the cost of an emergency room visit being $250 and wondering whether a child was $250 sick. That is the cost of going to an emergency room. And we used to debate about how do you measure the pain, the anxiety, the anguish that parent has, wondering whether their child is $250 sick; whether they will get better tomorrow, whether that earache will expand or be an indicator of a more serious illness or that throat ailment may be the same or whether that child would get better. Now it is a $475 average across this country. That is what this children's health insurance debate is all about: Healthy lives for children, peace of mind for parents, Congress acting for the common good. CHIP is not a Republican idea or a Democratic idea, it is not a State program or a Federal initiative, it is not public sector or private sector, it is all of those things and more. CHIP is an American success story. Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. KENNEDY. Over the past decade, since it was first enacted, we have seen what it can do to transform young lives. Since then the percentage of uninsured children has dropped from almost 23 percent in 1997 to 14 percent in 2005. This is a clear indication of what this program is about, from just below 25 percent uninsured for children-- this is 1997--look where it is now, 13 percent. What we see in other charts, if you talk about what has been the growth to uninsured adults, it would be the opposite. It would be going the other way. This is a success story. There is an old saying familiar to every first-year law student: If the law is against you, you pound the facts. If the facts are against you, pound the law. If the law and the facts are against you, you pound the table. The President and his supporters in Congress have been pounding the table hard and often on this issue in recent months. It is time to set the record straight. They have pounded the table about all the families making $83,000 a year who are supposedly eligible for CHIP. Let me tell you how many families making $83,000 a year are enrolled in CHIP: None. None in Massachusetts, none in New York, none in New Jersey, none in California, nowhere, zero, not a single child in a family making $83,000 is eligible for CHIP. The new bill approved by the House last Thursday goes even further than current law. It makes it illegal to cover anyone in families making over $62,000 a year, or 300 percent of the poverty level. There it is, in big black letters, on page 75 of the bill: Denial of Payments for Children with Effective Family Income that Exceeds 300 Percent of the Poverty Line. Now, according to the Congressional Research Service, 91 percent of the children covered by CHIP are in families with incomes below 200 percent of the poverty level, or $41,000 a year for a family of four. Almost all of the 9 percent of families above this level pay premiums to defray the cost of coverage for their children. That was a key part of the CHIP program. States will have a right to make judgments and decisions, to be able to vary the premiums, the deductibles, and the copays. We let the States do that for those who would benefit from the program at this particular level. The need for genuine outreach to more of the low-income children is a serious problem. But it is a foolish solution to address it by denying CHIP to children who also need it. Facts are stubborn things, and all the table pounding in the world cannot change them. The basic fact of CHIP is it began as a principled, bipartisan compromise, and it remains so even now. Nevertheless, the White House has called upon the supporters of CHIP to compromise and compromise and compromise. We have. But this much is clear: We will not compromise the future of a generation of American children because they come from the working poor. Surely, they are more important than multimillion-dollar tax breaks for the wealthiest individuals or the largest corporations. They are more important than the subsidies for the big oil companies. They are more important than preserving the obscene tax breaks for so-called carried interest. These are America's deserving children and Democrats in Congress will stand up for them every time and courageous Republicans will too. We have been more than willing to work with Republicans in Congress on reasonable and realistic compromises that still meet our obligations to these children. Many of us initially called for a much larger bill to properly serve the needs of the Nation's children, but we accepted a less costly bill in order to obtain broad bipartisan support. Year after year, the administration has granted waivers to cover adults under CHIP. As of February of this year, the administration had granted waivers to 14 States to cover adults through CHIP. In August of 2002, they said yes to covering 40,000 adults in New Mexico. In October 2002, they said yes to over 334,000 in Oregon. In January of 2003, they said yes to 12,000 more adults in New Jersey. In May of this year, amid statements from the President that CHIP should put kids first, his administration said yes to 39,000 adults in Wisconsin. But now they want to say no. The White House is now shocked, shocked to discover adults are covered under CHIP. It actually cites the consequences of their own decisions as a failing of our proposal. The legislation the Senate approved last month reversed this policy by moving adults out of the program over the next 2 years. The bill now before us goes one step further. It removes childless adults from the program by the end of next year. But that is still not enough. Still not enough. The requirement that children produce onerous documentation, listen to this, to prove their citizenship has been shown to be a barrier to care for American children because they often had great difficulty meeting the burdensome requirements of the policy. These high barriers were imposed because of a fallacy, the myth that they prevented children in America illegally from using these services. Now, a recent letter from the Congressional Budget Office, not the Democratic one, not the Republican office but the Congressional Budget Office, refutes that claim saying: Available evidence, based on State reports and other information provided by State officials, suggests that virtually all of those who have been unable to provide the required documentation are U.S. citizens. That statement could not be clearer. It was American children, eligible for CHIP or Medicaid, who were denied services by these requirements, not the undocumented. The cost of this witch hunt has been high. According to a recent report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the six States that have examined this issue in detail spent $17 million to administer the requirement, have denied health insurance to tens of thousands of needy children and parents as a result, and have identified a grand total of eight--eight--undocumented aliens, individuals. The number of low-income children insured through Medicaid has dropped 11,000 in Virginia and 14,000 in Kansas due to the new requirements. Each State identified one applicant, one applicant who incorrectly claimed to be a citizen. Even now, we accepted a compromise by requiring the Social Security Administration to verify the citizenship of any child seeking coverage under CHIP. The time has come to stand up and be counted, to see who is for children's health insurance and who is against it. It's obvious to everyone that our bipartisan majority for an effective CHIP program has made compromise after compromise. The time has come to stand up and be counted to see who is for children's health insurance and who is against it. We need to know who is for families like the Vega family in Greenfield, MA. CHIP helps Flor Vega, a working mother, buy an extra inhaler for her 5-year-old daughter, so she could have one at school and the other at home. CHIP also helped her afford a nebulizer, the small, portable device that pumps the asthma medicine into the lungs when an inhaler isn't effective. That means her daughter doesn't face sudden dangerous attacks of asthma that require her to go to the emergency room. We need to know who is for families like the Lewis family in Springfield, MA. I met Dedra Lewis and her daughter Alexsiana when they came here to talk to me about the difference that CHIP has made in their lives. Alexsiana has a rare eye disease that requires expensive drops every hour of every day. To take care of her daughter, her mother had to cut back her hours at work, and she lost her insurance. Without CHIP, they would be choosing between paying the mortgage for their home or paying for medicine that Alexsiana needs to keep her vision. Family after family from coast to coast could tell similar stories. That's why families across America are calling on Congress to renew the promise of CHIP. The task has not been easy, but we will not be deterred or deflected. When Medicare was first proposed in the 1960s to allow the nation's senior citizens to live their retirement years in dignity, its supporters were attacked with much the same harsh rhetoric as we hear now about CHIP--it's ``Socialized medicine.'' It's a ``Government takeover.'' But Congress rejected that absurd rhetoric, and hundreds of millions of senior citizens have benefited immensely ever since. American families face real challenges--higher mortgages, soaring gas prices, the ever-increasing cost of health care, and many other burdens. They deserve real solutions, not empty slogans. Our opponents failed to stop Medicare, and they won't stop CHIP now. Medicare didn't pass on the first attempt, but its supporters came back again and again and again with the force of the American people behind them to ask--to demand--that Congress act. And the 1964 election made it happen. And that's just what we'll do with CHIP, even if it takes the 2008 election to do it. We'll keep at it until the children of America get the health care that they deserve and that the American people are demanding. We know what the President's priorities are. He is calling yet again for more money, on top of more money, on top of yet more money to pay for the war in Iraq. The President has made his judgment. He has decided to pour even more of our national treasure into the sands of Iraq and to burden our economy with the immense costs of the war for years to come. Every day the war goes on, we spend what's needed to cover a quarter million children. We have a military surge to help the people of Iraq. I say we need a health care surge to help the children of America. This administration is quick to highlight their achievements on health care for the children of Iraq, but won't show the same commitment to the health of our own children. In Iraq, American money has renovated 52 primary care clinics and re- equipped 600 others. But in America, children are denied essential medical services in the name of fiscal discipline. In Iraq, our citizens have paid for 30 million doses of children's vaccine. But in America, we are told we can't afford basic preventive care for 10 million children. The Web site of the U.S. Agency for International Development proudly notes a remarkable accomplishment, and I commend them for it. They have successfully vaccinated 98 percent of all Iraqi children against measles, mumps and rubella. If only we could do as well for our own children. According to the CDC, only 91 percent of American children had received the same vaccine by the recommended age. The administration should be as concerned that children growing up in Boston or Birmingham get their recommended vaccines as they are about the children of Baghdad and Basra. That same Web site proudly notes that USAID has ``improved the health of vulnerable populations in Iraq by increasing access to high quality, community-based primary healthcare.'' That is just what we are trying to do for vulnerable populations in America. In Iraq, it is an accomplishment. In America, it is a veto. A bipartisan majority in Congress has made a judgment, too. Our judgment is that we must make room for decent health care for America's children. We must stand up to the empty rhetoric and hollow slogans of the White House, and give all children in America the healthy start in life they deserve.

Mr. KENNEDY

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

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I welcome this opportunity to commend Women's Lunch Place in Boston, MA for 25 years of dedicated service to women in need in the Boston area. The persistence of homelessness in our State has long been a focus of concern and attention for many of us in Boston and throughout our Commonwealth. Homeless persons each have their own story of their unique circumstances, but they teach us the same lesson--that we must deal more effectively with the causes of homelessness, such as drug abuse, poverty, domestic violence, mental illness, and the lack of basic skills and adequate education. All the members of Women's Lunch Place and its supporters take well- deserved pride in the outstanding work they have done over the past 25 years in providing needed assistance for the countless numbers of women who have walked through its doors. They have made a remarkable difference in the lives of those they have touched so deeply, and all of us in Massachusetts are proud of their achievement. The strong commitment of Women's Lunch Place has enabled these women to embark on a new life and equipped them with the support of a community and a newfound optimism for their future. As it continues its mission and its ever-expanding possibilities in the years ahead, I commend Women's Lunch Place for all it does so well.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, the charitable sector has long been an important partner with government in meeting the needs of the disabled. For more than 85 years, Easter Seals has partnered with individuals, families, businesses, communities, and government to help children and adults with disabilities live, learn, work, and participate in their communities. Each year, Easter Seals assists more than 1 million people through its nationwide network of community-based organizations. These affiliates provide top-quality, family-focused, and innovative services to meet the specific needs of the particular community it serves. Last year, more than 72,000 children received early intervention and childhood development services through Easter Seals. Over 54,000 adults with disabilities learned the skills and gained the confidence needed to seek meaningful employment because of Easter Seals' job training programs. Almost 35,000 children and adults with disabilities participated in confidence-building activities at Easter Seals' camping and recreation programs. Tens of thousands of children and adults with disabilities received life-changing medical rehabilitation therapies and case management services from Easter Seals. Easter Seals has long been an effective advocate and important resource on policy issues affecting people with disabilities and their families. Its founder, Edgar ``Daddy'' Allen, lobbied the Ohio Legislature to fund services for children with disabilities in the 1920s. Today, thousands of Easter Seals volunteers and staff from across the country will continue in ``Daddy'' Allen's footsteps, meeting with their legislators to discuss the importance of low-income working families being able to obtain health insurance for their children. Earlier this month, Easter Seals held its national convention in Washington, DC, and its supporters met with Members of the House and Senate to discuss its worthy mission. It is one of America's most respected and effective charitable organizations, and I join my colleagues in congratulating them on a very successful convention.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I admire our two floor managers and their diligence and perseverance in moving the legislation forward. I have a few small items I think are of some importance, but I don't want to interrupt the process or the consideration of the amendments. So I will proceed, but if the managers find there is an amendment that needs addressing, I will be glad to withhold. I don't intend to take very long, but I would like to be able to make these comments.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I rise in response to the shocking news reported on the front page of the New York Times that the Department of Justice gave legal advice authorizing the use of extreme interrogation techniques not only in 2002 and 2003 but also at least two more times in 2005. This revelation shows that the Justice Department has fallen even lower than we had realized and that it is up to Congress to take a firm stand against torture because this Executive cannot be trusted to do so. We have been here before. Before this morning, we already knew about an earlier opinion by the Office of Legal Counsel that authorized the use of torture. When this ``torture memo'' came to light, the Bybee memorandum, it inspired worldwide outrage and condemnation. America lost its moral high ground in the fight against terrorism, possibly for years to come. This memo and others like it violated the values we hold dear, undermined our intelligence gathering, and encouraged our enemies to respond in kind. But the opinion was not only morally wrong, it was also legally wrong. After the public outrage over the opinions broke, the Office of Legal Counsel took the extraordinary step of withdrawing it, and as far as we know, this is the first time an OLC opinion had ever been overturned within a single administration. Today's New York Times story tells us that this disgraceful episode did not end when the torture memorandum was withdrawn. At the same time the Justice Department was publicly claiming it had put things right, the Office of Legal Counsel was secretly issuing two new opinions. The first opinion authorized harsh interrogation techniques together, in combination, to create a more extreme overall effect. In other words, interrogators could withhold food at the same time they subjected detainees to freezing temperatures. The second opinion declared none of the CIA's interrogation methods violated the ban on cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment that Congress was getting ready to pass. This was at a time when the CIA was using waterboarding and other foreign techniques copied from the Soviets and other brutal regimes. So how did the Justice Department go from secretly authorizing brutal interrogation techniques in 2002 and 2003 to withdrawing some of that authorization in 2004 to once again secretly reauthorizing such techniques in 2005? The answer, we now know, is that the White House overruled all those pesky officials who told them what they didn't want to hear--who told them that torture is wrong and illegal. James Comey told his colleagues at the Justice Department that they would all be ashamed when the world eventually learned of these opinions. He was sidelined by the White House. Jack Goldsmith met the same fate. These were conservative Republicans and loyal patriots who were simply trying to uphold the law. It is clear why President Bush wanted Alberto Gonzales to run the Justice Department--he wanted to install his personal lawyer, not a guardian of the rule of law. Mr. Gonzales approved these two memos and everything else the President needed for legal cover. It would be bad enough if this administration had disgraced itself and this country by engaging in cruel and degrading treatment of detainees. It is worse still that it enlisted the Justice Department in an attempt to justify and cover up its activities. Today's revelations give new urgency to the need for congressional action. I am the sponsor of a bill that responds to this need--the Torture Prevention and Effective Interrogation Act. The bill makes one basic reform: to apply the standards of the Army Field Manual to all U.S. Government interrogations, not just the Department of Defense interrogations. When Congress passed the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, we recognized that the Army Field Manual represents our best effort to develop an effective interrogation policy. The Senate voted 90 to 9 to apply its standards to all Department of Defense personnel. By enacting the Detainee Treatment Act, Congress tried to ensure that our Government honors its commitment to the basic rights enshrined in the Geneva Conventions, which protect both the values we cherish as a free society and the lives of our service men and women overseas. We now know, however, that the 2005 Act falls short of our goals. We left open a loophole that undermines the basic safeguards against torture and cruel and degrading treatment. We applied the reform to the Department of Defense, but not to the CIA. And as today's New York Times story shows, it is the CIA that we need to be most worried about. Last year, in the Military Commissions Act, Congress left it to the President to define by Executive Order the interrogation practices that would bind all government interrogators, including the CIA. The President's Executive order took maximum advantage of this loophole. It is vague and fails to prohibit many of the most flagrant interrogation practices. Combined with these new OLC opinions that have just come to light, this Executive order makes clear that the President believes these interrogation practices to be perfectly acceptable. The Torture Prevention and Effective Interrogation Act closes the loophole left open by the Detainee Treatment Act. It follows the warning of General Petraeus that brutal interrogation methods are both illegal and immoral, and that ``history shows that they also are frequently neither useful nor necessary.'' This bill is an opportunity to restate our commitment to the security and ideals of our country. It is an opportunity to repair some of the damage done to our international reputation by the Abu Ghraib scandal and the abuses at Guantanamo. It is an opportunity to restore our nation's role as a beacon for human rights, fair treatment, and the rule of law. And it is an opportunity to protect our brave servicemen and women from similar tactics. It is a simple measure that is long overdue. Once again, this morning, Americans and people all over the world are revolted by what they have learned about this administration's refusal to reject cruel and degrading treatment. It will be up to the next Attorney General to restore the Justice Department to integrity. It is up to Congress to restore the rest of the government to the principles of law and justice that make this country great. Mr. President, I will make a brief comment on an item that I think needs addressing. Chip Veto Yesterday the President vetoed the CHIP program. I mentioned at that time that it was the most intolerable, inexplicable, and incomprehensible veto I have seen in the Senate. I think today the American people are beginning to understand why. This is President Bush's quote, when he was Governor of Texas. This is from President Bush's Web site when he was Governor. Governor Bush and the Texas legislature worked together to implement the CHIP program for more than 423,000 children. . . . Taking credit for the CHIP program in Texas when he was Governor. This is what he went on to say in 2004. America's children must also have a healthy start in life. In a new term we will lead an aggressive effort to enroll millions of poor children who are eligible but not signed up for the Government's health insurance program. We will not allow a lack of attention or information to stand between these children and the health care they need. We read that the President only yesterday had vetoed this program because, as he pointed out, he believed it was a government health insurance program, and his allies have called it socialized medicine. I was here in the Senate when we passed Medicare, and that was called socialized medicine. Those who called it socialized medicine were successful the first time, and then 9 months later we were successful in passing that program. It was in 1964, and it was passed in 1965. The intervening event was a Presidential election. They said Medicaid was socialized medicine. They said the prescription drug program was a socialized program, and it was passed. They said the veterans health programs are socialized medicine programs. We have found the President stated that Social Security, he believes, ought to be privatized--and that has been resisted by Democrats and Republicans--and that Medicare ought to be privatized. Let's make no mistake about it across this country: The President has now selected the CHIP program for the beginning of the privatization of these health programs and Americans ought to be very much aware--children today, seniors tomorrow, veterans the next day. Let's understand that. Americans want practical solutions to these issues. The practical solution was the CHIP program. Even the CBO says if you are interested in ensuring uninsured children, the CHIP program is the way to go. The administration's own agency has stated that. Americans want the practical, not the ideological, which the President resorted to yesterday. Finally, Americans want investment in America and American priorities. The No. 1 priority for Americans is American children, rather than the sands in Iraq--pouring billions and billions of dollars into the sands of Iraq. Americans want to invest in the children. That is what this debate is about. That is what this discussion is about, Republicans and Democrats coming together for practical resolution and decision on this issue of the CHIP program. When we recess briefly now and return to our States, hopefully the American people are going to speak to their representatives and say: On this issue, do what is right for the children. Put children first. Put American children first and vote to override the veto. I yield the floor.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, it is with sadness that I speak about my friend, the senior Senator from New Mexico, Pete Domenici, who will announce later today he will not seek a seventh term and will return, instead, to his beloved New Mexico at the end of this Congress. Pete was born to Alda and Cherubino Domenici, and he has never forgotten where he came from and what he was sent here to do by the people of his State. He grew up learning about the value of hard work as an employee each afternoon in his father's wholesale grocery business while attending school in Albuquerque during the day. At the University of New Mexico, Pete found an early calling for public service and earned a degree in education. He was a remarkable athlete as well and became a pitcher, briefly, for the Albuquerque Dukes, the farm team of the Brooklyn Dodgers, and then taught math at junior high school while he earned his law degree. In 1966, Pete was elected to the Albuquerque City Commission, where he served until he was elected to the Senate in 1972. He is now the longest serving Senator in New Mexico history. For some 35 years, he has been an outstanding colleague, admired and respected by all of us on both sides of the aisle. Pete will be remembered by all Americans as a brilliant and tireless champion for the rights of those with mental illness. His tenacity and commitment led, in 1996, to the passage of the first legislation to end discrimination against people with mental illness. More than anyone, Pete understood that such discrimination prevented vast numbers of people with mental illness from receiving the care and treatment and, frequently, the cure they deserved. Over the past 5 years, I have had the privilege of working closely with Pete to improve that original legislation. His passion and perseverance to achieve full equality in the covering of mental and physical illness has never wavered. The recent Senate passage of the Mental Health Parity Act is a tribute to Pete and the result of his extraordinary dedication and ability. I am sure Pete and Nancy thought long and hard about the decision to retire from the Senate and that it wasn't an easy choice to make. But I know they will have much more time to spend with their eight children and the wonderful people and breathtaking mountains of New Mexico. We are fortunate that we will have at least another year to work together on the issues we care so deeply about. As we prepare to say farewell to our great friend, I am reminded of the lines of the New Mexico State song: O, Fair New Mexico, We love, we love you so, Our hearts with pride o'reflow, No matter where we go. O, Fair New Mexico. No matter where Pete goes, we will always love and respect him, miss his leadership, his statesmanship and, most of all, his friendship. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Rhode Island for drawing our attention to this barrier in the advancement of electronic prescribing. The use of electronic prescribing technologies offers an opportunity to improve health care outcomes by reducing medication errors and improving patient compliance with physician orders and screening for dangerous drug-drug interactions. Physicians and pharmacies in Massachusetts have begun to adopt e-prescribing and patients are benefiting. Massachusetts was recently recognized as the State with the highest volume of electronic prescriptions per capita. Electronic prescribing systems offer security advantages beyond those available through a paper-based system by requiring user authentication and generating an audit trail of prescriptions submitted to pharmacies. Creating a method by which controlled substances can be safely and securely prescribed electronically will encourage physicians' adoption of the technology. I support the Senator from Rhode Island's proposal for a joint report by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services to evaluate how electronic prescribing of controlled substances can be safely achieved. I also urge the Drug Enforcement Agency to adopt rules allowing controlled substances to be electronically prescribed and in the absence of such rules look forward to working with my colleagues to address the issue legislatively.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I am pleased to be a cosponsor of the Feingold-Reid amendment. I strongly support our troops, but I strongly oppose the war. Our military has served nobly in Iraq and done everything we have asked them to do. But they are now caught in a quagmire. They are policing a civil war and implementing a policy that is not worthy of their enormous sacrifice. The best way to protect our troops and our national security is to put the Iraqis on notice that they need to take responsibility for their future, so that we can bring our troops back home to America. As long as our military presence in Iraq is open-ended, Iraq's leaders are unlikely to make the essential compromises for a political solution. The administration's misguided policy has put our troops in an untenable and unwinnable situation. They are being held hostage to Iraqi politics, in which sectarian leaders are unable or unwilling to make the difficult judgments needed to lift Iraq out of its downward spiral. We are spending hundreds of billions of dollars on a failed policy that is making America more vulnerable and is putting our troops at greater risk. Our policy in Iraq continues to exact a devastating toll. Nearly 4,000 American troops have died, and 30,000 have been injured. The toll on Iraqis is immense. Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed or injured, and more than 4 million Iraqis have been forced to flee their homes. Nearly a half trillion dollars has been spent fighting this war. Now the President wants to use the supplemental spending bill to pour hundreds of billions of dollars more into the black hole that our policy in Iraq has become. It is wrong for Congress to continue to write a blank check to the President for the war. It is obvious that President Bush intends to drag this process out month after month, year after year, so that he can hand his Iraqi policy off to the next President. It is time to put the brakes on this madness. We have to change our policy now. Until we do, our troops will continue shedding their blood in the streets of Baghdad other parts of Iraq, and our national security will remain at risk. This amendment makes the change we so urgently need. It sets a clear timeline for the safe and orderly withdrawal of our troops, and it requires most of them to come home in 9 months. It is up to us to halt the open-ended commitment of our troops that President Bush has been making year after year. The Iraqis need to take responsibility for their own future, resolve their political differences, and enable our troops to come home. We need to tell the Iraqis now that we intend to leave and leave soon. Only by doing so, can we add the urgency that is so clearly necessary for them to end their differences. We can't allow the President to drag this process out any longer. This war is his responsibility, and it is his responsibility to do all he can to end it. It is wrong for him to pass the buck to his successor, when he knows that thousands more of the courageous members of our Armed Forces will be wounded or die because of it and when every day this misguided war goes on, our service men and women and their families continue to shoulder the burden and pay the price. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, a few minutes ago the President of the United States vetoed the children's health insurance legislation that has reflected the bipartisan support of the Members of the House of Representatives and the Senate and which has the support of children, families, and Americans all over. How could the President of the United States possibly veto this legislation? How could the President be so misinformed about the needs of these children? I think this is probably the most inexplicable veto in the history of the country. It is incomprehensible, it is intolerable, and it is unacceptable. Democrats pleaded with Members of the Republican Party to give us their help and their support so we could pass this legislation. Now we have that opportunity. The ball is in our court. We can do something about it. This is a defining issue, not only about children but also about the values of this country. So I hope Democrats and Republicans alike will come together and say children ought to come first in the United States. This is a value issue, it is a family issue, and it is something that demands action, and I hope we will override this veto.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I would like to engage in a brief colloquy with my good friend from Hawaii, Senator Inouye, on Patriot missiles. It is my understanding that the Patriot missile is the Army's only fielded air and missile defense capability. With only 13 total deployable battalions in the force, the Army operational and personnel capacity to respond to the needs of the combatant commanders is severely stressed.

Mr. KENNEDY. Your support is well known and very much appreciated. This year is a very active year for Patriot--the Patriot pure fleet effort will upgrade three tactical battalions from the PAC-2 to the PAC-3 configuration and the Patriot ``Grow the Army'' effort to upgrade two nontactical battalions of Patriot equipment from the PAC-2 to the PAC-3 configuration, and purchase the remaining new equipment for stand-up of these battalions. It is my understanding that the funding for this effort is a little complicated. The Army requested $208 for the Patriot pure fleet effort and $294 million in the amended fiscal year 2008 President's budget request to fund the activation and equipping of the first additional battalion fiscal year 2008 with the second in fiscal year 2010. This fiscal year 2008 funding is critical to this schedule to procure long lead materials to prevent slip into fiscal year 2012 and beyond. I understand that providing these funds in fiscal year 2008 avoids almost $100 million in costs. And if that funding is provided, the plan for Patriot pure fleet and the ``Grow the Army'' initiative is executable and not ahead of the need to establish the two additional battalions. I believe that fully funding the Army's amended request in fiscal year 2008 is in the best interests of the taxpayer and will avoid almost $100 million in costs if the Army can award all this work under one contract. I strongly support conforming the Senate bill to the House mark, which included the $294 million for the ``Grow the Army'' effort.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, hate crimes violate everything our country stands for. They send a loud and clear message to some of our fellow citizens that they are not welcome in our society. The Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act, passed last week by the Senate as an amendment to the Defense authorization bill, makes clear that we will not stand by and allow our fellow citizens to be brutalized. Enactment of such legislation is vitally important to the Arab- American community, that has suffered a surge in hate crimes against them in recent years because of 9/11. After the terrorist attacks that day, the FBI documented a ninefold increase in hate crimes against persons believed to be Arab or Muslim and a 130-percent increase in incidents directed on individuals because of their ethnic background or national origin. When the terrorists attacked our Nation, they also delivered a second attack against Americans who shared their ethnic background and religion but not their hate or violence. In their recent publication, ``Report on Hate Crimes & Discrimination Against Arab Americans: The Post-September 11 Backlash (2003),'' the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee identified a number of confirmed and suspected hate crime murders of Arab Americans and those perceived to be Arab or Muslim. In Mesa, AZ, Balbir Singh Sodhi, an Indian Sikh, was shot while he was planting flowers outside his Chevron station. His murderer, Frank Roque, had spent the day drinking and raving about how he wanted to kill the ``rag heads'' responsible for the terrorist attacks four days earlier. After being kicked out of a bar, Roque went on a shooting rampage. He first shot and killed Sodhi, and afterwards fired on the home of an Afghan family. He then fired several times at a Lebanese-American clerk, who, fortunately, escaped injury. During his arrest he yelled, ``I am a patriot!'' and ``I stand for America all the way!'' In Dallas, Waqar Hasan, a Pakistani Muslim, was shot in the face while cooking hamburgers in his grocery store. Mark Anthony Stroman confessed on a Dallas radio program to the murder, saying he killed Hasan and another man and shot a third person in revenge for the terrorist attacks. During an interview, Stroman confessed that he wanted to ``retaliate on local Arab Americans or whatever you want to call them.'' He also added that he ``did what every American wanted to do but didn't. They didn't have the nerve.'' Stroman was convicted and sentenced to death. In Lincoln Park, MI, Ali Almansoop, a U.S. citizen originally from Yemen, was shot to death while fleeing his attacker. The victim was asleep with his girlfriend when her ex-boyfriend broke into her apartment and dragged him out of bed. According to his own police confession and the woman's statements, he threatened, ``I'm going to kill you for what happened in NY and DC.'' The victim fled outside and was shot in the back trying to escape. Several other incidents have also occurred that are suspected to be hate crime killings, including the murder of an Egyptian-American grocery store owner, who was killed at work. He was confronted by two men who shot him and rode off in a Honda driven by a third man, leaving the money in the cash register intact. In Reedley, CA, Abdo Ali Ahmed, a 50-year-old Arab-American store employee, was shot several times and killed at work late one afternoon. Witnesses told detectives that they saw four males leave the site in a white four-door sedan. No money or merchandise was stolen. The employee had received threats since mid- September. In Minneapolis, a Somali man waiting at a bus stop was beaten unconscious and later died in the hospital. His son believes the assault was the result of an article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, which reported that local Somalis might have inadvertently donated to an organization now linked to Osama bin Laden. In Los Angeles, Syrian- born liquor storeowner, Ramez Younan, was shot to death behind his cash register. Police said they had no suspects and no clear motive for the shooting and no money was stolen from the store. The Los Angeles Police Department found Younan's body but no witnesses. These examples emphasize the need for effective legislation and the importance of providing adequate resources to state and local law enforcement to investigate and prosecute hate crimes. Violent hate crimes can't be tolerated. We can reverse the tide of hatred and bigotry, by sending a loud, clear message that hate crimes will be punished to the full extent of the law, and will not be tolerated against any member of society. The Matthew Shepard Act is supported by a broad coalition of 210 law enforcement, civic, disability, religious and civil rights groups, including the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the Anti- Defamation League, the Interfaith Alliance, the National Sheriff's Association, the Human Rights Campaign, the National District Attorneys Association and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. All of these diverse groups have come together to say now is the time for us to take action to protect our fellow citizens from the brutality of hate- motivated violence. The Senate did just that last week, and we must do all we can to see that this urgently needed federal legislation is enacted into law as soon as possible. Mr. President, I commend the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee for calling the Nation's attention to this serious problem, and I ask unanimous consent that an excerpt from their recent report be printed in the Record.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I submitted amendment No. 3128 along with Senator Kohl to allow the Navy to provide up to $2 million to DRS in Milwaukee, WI for DDG51 Class Modernization--Hybrid Propulsion Permanent Magnet Drive System. This would give the Navy the flexibility to develop a hybrid drive system to increase fuel economy. Today the DDG5l uses gas turbines to power the propulsion system. Installing a hybrid system would allow an electric motor to drive the ship at low speed when the main turbine would be very inefficient. The project is expected to pay for itself in saved fuel costs in 3 years. This upgrade would be performed as the DDG51s underwent their 15-year midlife upgrade. While the work envisioned in this amendment would be done in Milwaukee, part of the work would also be done in Massachusetts and Connecticut. amendment no. 3129

Mr. KENNEDY. I introduced amendment No. 3135 to allow the Navy to provide up to $5 million for the high temperature superconductor AC synchronous propulsion motor. These funds will be used to test and transition the high temperature superconductor AC synchronous propulsion motor to Navy ship class. This will serve in the effort to increase power while reducing vessel weight. amendment No. 3134 I introduced amendment No. 3134 to allow the Navy to provide up to $3 million for the MK 50, NULKA, Decoy System. These funds can be used for the purpose of continuing efforts to defend the Navy from the continually evolving threat of antiship missiles and associated seeker systems.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, on September 20, 2007, the Senate passed H.R. 3580, the Food and Drug Administration Amendments Act of 2007. Title II of this bill includes the reauthorization of the FDA's medical device user fee program. Performance goals, existing outside of the statute, accompany the authorization of medical device user fees. These goals represent a realistic projection of what the Food and Drug Administration's Center for Devices and Radiological Health and Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research can accomplish with industry cooperation. The Secretary of Health and Human Services forwarded these goals to the chairmen of the Committee on Energy and Commerce of the House of Representatives and the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions of the Senate, in a document entitled ``MDUFA PERFORMANCE GOALS AND PROCEDURES.'' According to Section 201(c) of H.R. 3580, ``the fees authorized under the amendments made by this title will be dedicated toward expediting the process for the review of device applications and for assuring the safety and effectiveness of devices, as set forth in the goals . . . in the letters from the Secretary of Health and Human Services to the Chairman of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions of the Senate and the Chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce of the House of Representatives, as set forth in the Congressional Record.'' Today I am submitting for the Record this document, which was forwarded to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions on September 27, 2007, as well as the letter from Secretary Leavitt that accompanied the transmittal of this document. I ask unanimous consent this material be printed in the Record.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I, too, join in thanking our chairman and ranking member, Senator Levin and Senator Warner, for all of their cooperation during the consideration of a number of amendments we have offered these past days. It is typical of their service and their thoughtfulness. They are serious legislators. We are fortunate to have them dealing with these issues of such importance and consequence for our national security. I am grateful to them both. I wish to take a few moments.

Mr. KENNEDY. Yes.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator.