Jon Kyl

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Nebraska (Mr. Hagel), the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain), and the Senator from Virginia (Mr. Warner).

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, might I inquire how much time is remaining on this side?

Mr. KYL. Thank you, Mr. President. I appreciate the comments of my colleague from Texas and would note, as he did, my colleague from Arizona, John McCain, is making an important statement today respecting the need to confirm good judges for our court of appeals and Federal district courts--something which he will be committed to when he is President of the United States. Our friends around the country might be wondering: What exactly is going on around here? Why are we talking about the need to confirm judges? It is a good question. The answer is this: It is interesting that in most of the Presidencies--in fact, in the last four Presidencies--in the last 2 years of the Presidency, the other party is in charge of the Senate. You had that situation with Ronald Reagan; with George Bush, the 41st President; with Bill Clinton; and with the current President Bush. In each case, the other party was in charge of the Senate the last 2 years of their Presidency. Now, on the average, between 15 and 17 circuit court judges have been confirmed in the last 2 years, even though it is the other party in charge of the Senate. That is because we have a responsibility under the Constitution to act on the nominees the President, regardless of party, has made. That is his job, and this is our job. Both of us have to do our jobs. It would not be appropriate for the Senate to simply sit on our hands and not act on the nominees of the President, even though he may be of the other party. So between 15 and 17 nominees of the President have been confirmed each of the last 2 years for these last Presidencies. But, unfortunately, that is not the case with the current President. We are not on track to get that number confirmed. In fact, we have only had six confirmed. That is why our leader, Senator McConnell, sought to have an agreement with the majority leader to try to get more circuit judges confirmed. An agreement was reached that at least three judges would be confirmed by the end of this month. Now, what is interesting is that up to now, there has been sort of a sense that: Well, it is not possible to get very many judges confirmed. It takes a long time, and there is a lot of process involved. But what this latest agreement demonstrates, as Senator Specter, who spoke earlier, pointed out, is that when the majority party wants to, it can act very quickly to confirm judges. In fact, it can move very quickly. That is what Senator Leahy, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is now doing because, unfortunately, he does not want to take the judges who are in the queue and get those judges considered by the committee on the floor of the Senate and voted on by the Senate. He has judges that he would rather get considered, but they were way behind in the process. So he is speeding them up, getting them through the process very quickly, in breach of what had been the policy in the past. Nevertheless, he is moving them along very quickly with an intention, I gather, to try to comply with this agreement and get them confirmed by the end of the month. That is a good thing in the sense that we will get three more circuit court nominees. I suspect it does illustrate that the Judiciary Committee and the Senate can act quickly when we want to get these confirmations accomplished. But that will leave us several more judges who have been pending a long time. That will leave us the months of June, July, and September, at least, when we can confirm additional nominees. The question will be, what will happen then? Will we act with similar alacrity? We have one judge nominee, Peter Keisler, who has been pending for almost 2 years now. His hearing has been held. All he has to do is come before the committee. That will take 1 or 2 weeks at the most, and he could be on the floor of the Senate. We have other nominees from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, four nominees pending in the Judiciary Committee. Judge Robert Conrad and Steve Matthews are ready for hearings. Mr. Rod Rosenstein of Maryland could be ready but is being blocked by the two Senators from his State. Judge Steven Agee had a hearing last week. So there are judges in the queue who could be dealt with. There is no reason to hold them back except a possible desire not to get them confirmed or politics. I don't know what is behind it. There is no reason not to move forward with these nominees. The Washington Post, no big supporter of the President, said recently, after we confirmed one court of appeals nominee: That should be only the beginning. . . .In the past two years, the Senate has confirmed seven nominees to the Court of Appeals; 16 such nominees were confirmed during President Bill Clinton's final two years in office. It appears unlikely that Democratic Senators will match that number, but they should at least give every current nominee an up-or-down vote and expeditiously process the nominees to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, where five of the court's 15 seats are vacant. That was an editorial entitled, ``Judges, and Justice, Delayed: The Senate Needs To Move Faster On Court Nominations,'' of April 15, 2008. That is obviously very true. There is no reason these other judges cannot be considered as well. When we ask the question, what is really going on, it is that the chairman of the committee apparently is desirous of picking and choosing which nominees move forward. It is not a matter that the nominees cannot move forward. In one case, or in two or three cases, they are ready to have the hearings. In one case, the hearing has already been held. So it is literally only a matter of a week or two before those nominees could be brought to the Senate floor. As illustrated by the current process, to get these other judges confirmed by Memorial Day, it is clear that when we want to we can accelerate the process and get the job done. I will close by noting that regarding the nominee who has been pending now for almost 2 years, Peter Keisler, the Washington Post had this to say: Peter Keisler was nominated in 2006 to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit; his confirmation hearing was in August of that year. It is a travesty that he has yet to get a vote from the Senate Judiciary Committee. Here, I will interpose, what is the holdup? Going back to the editorial: Mr. Keisler, who was chief of the Justice Department's Civil Division before joining a private law firm, earns plaudits from the right and left for stellar intellect and his judicial demeanor. Democrats have held up Mr. Keisler's nomination over a squabble about whether the DC Circuit needs 12 full-time judges. That dispute is over: Congress eliminated the 12th seat this year. Mr. Keisler should be confirmed forthwith. So, clearly, we have nominees who should be confirmed. They are in the queue waiting. They could be easily taken up this week or next week. Their hearings need to be held. They need to be brought to the Senate floor and I urge my colleagues to work with us to move this process forward so these important nominees can be considered by the full Senate.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Burr), the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Craig), the Senator from Nebraska (Mr. Hagel), the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Inhofe), and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain).

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I wish to compliment my colleague for his cogent analysis and remarks just now. He is absolutely right about the way we need to deal with our energy crisis today. I wish to talk very briefly about another subject, frankly the challenge and a refrain that we have often heard from the other side; that is, that the so-called rich are an endless well that can be tapped to fund limitless spending priorities. My colleagues across the aisle frequently argue that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts were a giveaway to the so-called rich and that that should be allowed to expire, in effect, raising the tax rates to their pre-2001 level. The marginal rate cuts enacted in 2001 and accelerated in 2003 reduced the tax burden for all Americans. In fact, the effective tax rate for the middle fifth quintile of taxpayers dropped more than 2 percentage points, from 16.6 to 14.2 percent as a result of these cuts. Let's assume that the other side would not only let the tax cuts expire but actually repeal them this year. How much would taxing the so-called rich raise? The 2005 Internal Revenue Service Statistics of Income report notes that those earning over $349,700, putting them in this top marginal tax rate of 35 percent, earned a total of $1.1 trillion. Of that amount, $565.4 billion was taxed at the top rate. These 950,000 taxpayers, or the top .9 percent, paid a total of $315.4 billion in taxes, $198 billion at the top marginal rate. So if the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts were repealed today, taxes on those filers would increase $26 billion, an increase of $27,300 per top marginal taxpayer, not an insignificant sum for those taxpayers, but clearly not enough to offset the cost of the Democratic spending plans. What about broadening the definition of the ``rich'' by including those taxpayers in the upper middle class, or those in the second highest tax bracket of 33 percent? Would that bring in enough money? Well, these 1.5 million taxpayers, or 1.4 percent of filers, paid $92.4 billion in taxes; $26.1 billion was paid at the marginal rate. If you increased their tax rate from 33 percent to the pre-2001 level of 36 percent, it would raise $2.4 billion in additional taxes. Reinstating the 39.6-percent and 36-percent tax rates for the taxpayers in those two top brackets raises $28.4 billion more than under current rates, still just a fraction of what my colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to spend. What if one reaches down a little deeper and includes the middle class by increasing taxes on people in the 25- and 28-percent tax brackets?

Mr. KYL. I ask unanimous consent for 1 additional minute.

Mr. KYL. A back-of-the-envelope calculation using the same data shows that raising the top four marginal rates would increase taxes for 28 million Americans, increasing revenue on a static basis $37 billion this year and $111 billion over the next 5 years, not even enough to offset the cost of the additional discretionary spending assumed in the Democratic budget resolution. When someone claims to want to increase taxes only on the rich, taxpayers should view such a proposal with a healthy dose of skepticism. Our experience with the AMT should convince us of that. Taxing the so-called rich never raises as much revenue as the other side claims and usually manages to hit a lot more taxpayers than just the rich. Invariably, when one talks about raising taxes to pay for new spending, a lot of people who would otherwise not consider themselves to be wealthy end up paying more in taxes.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from North Carolina (Mrs. Dole), the Senator from New Hampshire (Mr. Gregg), the Senator from Nebraska (Mr. Hagel), the Senator from Florida (Mr. Martinez), and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from North Carolina (Mrs. Dole) would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. DeMint), the Senator from New Hampshire (Mr. Gregg), and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain).

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. DeMint) and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. DeMint) would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. DeMint) and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain).

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Nebraska (Mr. Hagel) and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain).

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I rise today to comment on the competing Coburn and Boxer amendments that were offered last Thursday to the highway technical corrections bill. I voted in favor of the Coburn amendment. That amendment would establish a bipartisan, bicameral committee of Congress to investigate the circumstances surrounding the changes that were made to the provisions of the 2005 highway bill relating to the Coconut Road project between the time that the bill passed the House and Senate and the time that it was enrolled. However, I voted against the Boxer amendment, which purports to command the Justice Department to commence a criminal investigation of this same matter. Whether to initiate a criminal investigation is a decision that our Constitution vests exclusively in the executive branch. It is not a decision that the Constitution allows to be made through legislative enactments. Although the Boxer amendment's mandate to the executive was modified to state that the criminal investigation shall only commence ``under applicable standards and procedures,'' this change does not cure the amendment's constitutional infirmity. There are no ``applicable standards and procedures'' for a legislative mandate to the executive to initiate a criminal investigation. Whether to initiate such an investigation is a matter of prosecutorial discretion and is a decision entrusted firmly and solely to the executive branch. To the extent that the Boxer amendment purports to commandeer this function, it is a dead letter and will surely be ignored as unconstitutional legislative interference in an executive function. I would finally note that by insisting on replacing Senator Coburn's amendment with a me-too amendment of their own, the Democratic majority has undercut the likelihood that there will be any investigation of the Coconut Road matter. Senator Coburn's proposal to create a committee of Congress to investigate this matter was perfectly constitutional and would have gotten to the bottom of this issue. The Boxer amendment is an unconstitutional nullity. And even if that amendment weren't unconstitutional, or if the Justice Department undertook an investigation of this affair on its own initiative, such an investigation would only answer whether a Federal crime has been committed. Congress and the people deserve to know the circumstances and potential ethical violations raised by this matter regardless of whether a criminal offense occurred. I regret that the Coburn amendment was not adopted and was replaced by the Boxer amendment. By taking these actions, the Senate has crossed a constitutional line and has reduced the likelihood that the underlying matter will be adequately investigated.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I rise today to say a few words about S. 2324, the Inspector General Reform Act, which is expected to pass the Senate today with an amendment of mine. The amendment makes several reforms and clarifying changes to the bill. Section 3 of the bill requires the President to give Congress 30 days' notice before removing or transferring an inspector general from his position. My amendment clarifies that the President may still take other actions against an inspector general without providing 30 days' notice, such as suspending him or otherwise preventing him from taking official actions. While section 3 appears to be designed to allow Congress to respond to a situation where an inspector general is fired in order to impede his discovery of wrongdoing or for other improper reasons, my amendment is intended to address another kind of scenario, one where an inspector general is fired for very good reasons. We should not assume that inspectors general will be immune to human failings. If an inspector general is fired because he has been indicted or is under investigation for corruption or has otherwise abused the powers of his office, it should be clear that the President can prevent the inspector general from launching new investigations in retaliation or taking other official actions, and that he can be denied access to his office space. My amendment ensures that this is so. Section 6 of the bill authorizes inspectors general to obtain legal advice from the attorneys working for them. While this provision strengthens the independence of inspectors general, it creates a potential ambiguity as to who has ultimate authority to resolve legal questions within an agency. Agency employees should not face a division of authority if an inspector general were to reach a different conclusion on a legal matter previously resolved by the agency counsel. My amendment clarifies that the agency or department's chief legal officer remains the ultimate legal authority within the agency. While an inspector general may obtain his own legal advice, his review does not constitute an appeal or review of the general counsel's decisions and judgments. The chief legal officer's views are what is final within the agency, and they are subject to review within the executive branch only by the head of the agency and the Justice Department. Section 8 of the bill as reported by the committee allowed inspectors general to include their own budget comments with respect to their offices in the President's budget proposal to Congress. I would first note that the generous growth of inspectors generals' budgets during this administration leaves little reason to fear that these offices are being starved of resources. More fundamentally, as a general matter, all agencies and departments should be subject to the Office of Management and Budget's budgeting process, to ensure that the President's budget proposal reflects and balances competing priorities. Rules such as that in section 8 should generally be disfavored. An exception is tolerable here only because of the unique status and role of the inspectors general. And even in their case, we should not assume that every disagreement between the Office of Management and Budget and an inspector general about the size of his budget reflects some effort to suppress an investigation. All bureaucrats love to see their budgets grow and to build their little empires. We should not assume that inspectors general are immune from this tendency. To mitigate its effects, my amendment would require that an inspector general assert that he would be inhibited in the performance of his duties before he may submit a separate budget request. The amendment serves two purposes. First, it should rein in requests for ever-expanding budgets, and ensure that inspectors general generally remain subject to budget discipline. And secondly, it ensures that if an administration is retaliating against an inspector general or otherwise reducing his budget in order to prevent him from doing his job, then Congress will be alerted to the fact. If separate budget requests were routine, the submission of such requests would provide little notice to congressional overseers. And if an inspector general believes that an administration is starving him of resources with the intent to undermine his ability to do his job, Congress not only should have before it his separate budget request, it should also be made aware that the inspector general believes that he is being treated that way. Finally, section 14 of the committee-reported bill would have given the Justice Department's inspector general the authority to conduct legal ethics reviews. I found this provision strongly objectionable. An attorney's decision to investigate, litigate, or provide legal advice is a sensitive one and should be reviewed with great deference. There can be a wide range of legitimate disagreement as to how such issues should be decided. Justice Department reviews of such decisions are equivalent to the attorney discipline proceedings conducted by state bar associations. They are currently conducted within the Justice Department by the Office of Professional Responsibility, and there is no evidence that this Office's reviews are anything less than adequate. Indeed, recently the Office of Professional Responsibility has taken upon itself the role of reviewing the merits of the Office of Legal Counsel's legal analyses. The Office of Legal Counsel's lawyers are recognized to be among the very best in the executive branch. They are assigned to resolve the most difficult legal questions that confront an administration. I find it dubious that an OPR lawyer would be in any position to assess whether an Office of Legal Counsel opinion is legally correct or not. Absent at least some evidence that such an opinion was the product of bribery or other improper external influences, I question the basis on which OPR even assumes for itself the authority to initiate such a review. I fear that OPR's actions are influenced more by the toxic style of opposition attacks on the Justice Department in recent years, in which legitimate policy and legal disputes are recast as ethical lapses, rather than by a sound concern for the integrity of the Department. While some of the Office of Professional Responsibilities' recent actions are debatable, the notion of extending that Office's authority to the inspector general is totally unacceptable. Inspectors general investigate waste, fraud, and abuse. They are suited neither by temperament nor experience to second guess whether a Justice Department lawyer should have investigated a matter, prosecuted a case, or offered a legal opinion. It is at my insistence that the original section 14 has been removed from this bill. I commend Senators Lieberman and Collins for their devotion to overseeing and improving the operations of the inspectors general and, with the changes made by my amendment, I will raise no objection to the passage of this bill.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Domenici), the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain), and the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter).

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I appreciate my colleague from Texas putting a personal face on this war. Our young men and women are making tremendous sacrifices. We here in the Congress should be willing to do our part to ensure they succeed in their mission. Hearing a story like Justin's simply confirms that we should redouble our efforts to fund what they need to carry out their mission. The majority leader talked a little bit earlier about delays with the legislation that is currently pending before the Senate. It is going to take us 2 or 3 days, presumably, to complete this legislation that is currently pending--2 or 3 days. That is not a big delay in the Senate. But 14 months is a big delay, and that is the time since the President first asked for the supplemental appropriations to help fund our troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan--14 months ago. That is a real delay. It is because I believe the majority party believed they could delay and delay and thereby apply pressure to accomplish one of two objectives--either put pressure on the administration to back off of the war effort or, knowing we are now really up against a funding crunch, put pressure on the President to accept a lot of unrelated spending, spending that has to do with our pet projects here at home. That is on the theory that the President would have to sign a bill because our troops are so desperate for the funding they need, even if that bill includes a lot of unrelated spending Members of Congress want for their folks back home. We should not submit to what I would refer to as legislative blackmail, to hold our troops hostage, in effect, for this domestic spending. Nothing else explains this 14-month delay. We have already been told by the Secretary of Defense that it is critical that this supplemental funding be provided to the troops to prevent a slowdown in daily efforts in training and equipping, the halting of military operations and enabling us to replace lost or damaged equipment for ongoing operations. All of these are implicated by this delay. General Petraeus, when he was back here, added another reason. He stressed the importance of this supplemental appropriations to further progress in Iraq. Here is what he said: The Commander's Emergency Response Program, the State Department's Quick Response Fund, and the USAID programs enable us to help Iraq deal with its challenges. To that end, I respectfully ask that you provide us by June the additional CERP funds requested in the supplemental. These funds have an enormous impact. In other words, it is not just the funds to buy the equipment and support our troops for their mission there but also to enable our military to provide what is necessary to enable the Iraqi people and the Iraqi Government there to succeed. All of these are reasons for acting with speed. Yet for 14 months Congress has delayed the supplemental funding. The Director of the Office of Management and Budget, Jim Nussle, stated during his testimony last week to the Senate Appropriations Committee that if the supplemental request is not provided to the DOD by Memorial Day, then the Army and Marine Corps will be forced to take funding from other areas of their operations budget and will even have to start laying off civilians and contractor personnel. It will certainly force the Pentagon to use short-term expedients which are very costly. In other words, instead of having the ability to spread out their contracts over time, which is a much more economical way of acquiring services and equipment, the Pentagon is forced to pay a premium for short-term contracting, and it is forced to move funds from general accounts to support priority expenditures specifically related to the conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is already adversely impacting the Department of Defense. Clearly, military planners are leery of engaging in a new operation when they do not even know that the material assets they are going to need for that operation are going to be available or that what they have available today is not going to be replaced in the future because this supplemental funding has not been provided. We have no more important obligation as Members of the Senate than funding our troops when they are in the middle of a battle. That is precisely the situation right now. In fact, let me just quote something that was said just a couple of days ago by Ayman al-Zawahiri, currently the leader of al-Qaida. Here is what he said in a long audio message, among other things: Iraq today is now the most important arena in which our Muslim nation is waging the battle against the forces of the Crusader-Zionist campaign. Therefore, backing the Mujahidin in Iraq, led by the Islamic State of Iraq, is the most important task of the Islamic nation today. We are in a war, and what Zawahiri said in one sense is right. This is the most important arena in which this conflict is currently playing itself out. We have a choice: to leave in defeat or to continue to assure victory. We have sent our troops in harm's way to achieve their mission. They are accomplishing it. The surge General Petraeus has implemented is working. It is up to us to do our part in this effort. All we have to do is have a brief debate and a vote, and the vote is to send money the troops need to sustain their operation. We have known this now for 14 months, yet Congress continues to dither. Now we have run out of time. There has been a suggestion that in this effort to fund our troops, we should combine all of the spending into one massive appropriations bill. It would be well over $100 billion. If all it does is fund the troops, then that is fine. But if it is used, as I said before, as a way for the majority to sneak through either unrequested defense spending or our favorite other domestic pet projects, that would be a grave injustice to our troops. I note the distinguished chairman of one of the subcommittees in the House of Representatives on the Appropriations Committee has revealed that he is ready to move the particular bill here because he is going to use it as a way to add other items to the Pentagon, including additional Navy warships and the procurement of new C-17s and F-22 fighter planes beyond what the Defense Department has budgeted. Maybe those are good defense expenditures, maybe not, but the reality is that they should stand on their own two feet as part of a general authorization and appropriations process and not be put on the backs of this supplemental appropriations bill which is what is needed to fund our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Others have been looking at the supplemental as an opportunity to increase funding for their favorite nondefense programs. It has been suggested by members of the Senate Appropriations Committee last week that some $24 billion in nondefense spending might be added for that purpose. As I said, Congress should not be extorted into supplying nonwar spending on this supplemental appropriations bill, the emergency bill to fund our war effort. Any effort to do that I suggest should be rejected--among other things, because we know the President has said he will veto a war supplemental funding bill that contains nonwar-related items or strings attached such as some kind of a timetable for troop withdrawal from Iraq. Knowing that is going to be vetoed, it would be irresponsible for the Congress to go ahead and send him a bill and take additional time to get the bill back and redo it in a way that will be not vetoed. The bottom line is that we have to take care of our troops. We have to support them in the mission we have sent them to achieve. It is time that we get about that, and I urge my colleagues, when the war supplemental comes to this body--hopefully next week--to act with alacrity, we will pass it and not hold it hostage to our other spending priorities that do not relate to our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. The Joint Forces Command report sheds light on the relationship between Saddam Hussein and Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's second in command. I quote: Saddam supported groups either associated directly with al Qaeda (such as the Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ), led at one time by bin Laden's deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri) or that generally shared al Qaeda's stated goals and objectives. Mr. Hayes notes in his article that Zawahiri's organization was being financed by Saddam Hussein at the very time Zawahiri was working almost exclusively with bin Laden. In fact, Zawahiri had been working with al- Qaida from its inception in late 1989. By 1993, Zawahiri, as the leader of the EIJ, sought to merge the organization with al-Qaida and, in fact, the two terrorist organizations eventually merged in 1998. The Standard further reported that: Captured documents revealed that the regime was willing to co-opt support organizations it knew to be part of al Qaeda as long as that organization's near-term goals supported Saddam's long-term vision. The more than 600,000 documents likely revealed only a fraction of what we will ultimately know of the true relationship between bin Laden, the global jihad, and Saddam Hussein. Given this information, it is a surprise that many in the mainstream media have concluded only that there was no smoking gun linking al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein, thus failing to report the key findings in the report to the American people. I am not one who supports relitigating why it was necessary for the United States to remove Saddam Hussein from power. But for those who find themselves stuck in the past, the Iraqi Perspective Project provides yet another substantial body of evidence, adding to that which was before the Congress when we authorized the Iraq mission. I want to refer to one item in that body of evidence, a letter, dated October 7, 2002, from CIA Director George Tenet to the Honorable Bob Graham, then chairman of the Select Committee on intelligence. Among the things he writes in this letter, these are the items that were available to us before we authorized the invasion of Iraq. He refers to a question by Senator Bayh about Iraqi links to al-Qaida. He says Senators could draw the following points from unclassified documents. There was, of course, much more that was classified. I will quote this brief portion of his letter: Our understanding of relationship between Iraq and al- Qa'ida is evolving and is based on sources of varying reliability. Some of the information we have received comes from detainees, including some of high rank. We have solid reporting of senior level contacts between Iraq and al-Qa'ida going back a decade. Credible information indicates that Iraq and al-Qa'ida have discussed safe haven and reciprocal non-aggression. Since Operation Enduring Freedom, we have solid evidence of the presence in Iraq of al-Qa'ida members, including some that have been in Baghdad. We have credible reporting that al-Qa'ida leaders sought contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire WMD capabilities. The reporting also stated that Iraq has provided training to al-Qa'ida members in the areas of poisons and gases and making conventional bombs. Iraq's increasing support to extremist Palestinians, coupled with growing indications of a relationship with al- Qa'ida, suggest that Baghdad's links to terrorists will increase, even absent US military action. I commend the Joint Forces Command for its ongoing, exhaustive review of this record of intelligence collected in Iraq. I urge all colleagues to take the time to educate themselves on its findings. I urge the administration to undertake a serious effort to correct the misimpressions formed in recent years about this important issue. There can be no doubt. Saddam Hussein was a threat. He actively supported terrorists both in and outside of Iraq, and the world is a safer place for him having been removed from power.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, it has been commonplace for critics of the war in Iraq to minimize, if not actually dismiss entirely, the links between Saddam Hussein and terrorists generally and al-Qaida specifically. This is part of a systematic effort by some, especially now that there are irrefutable signs of progress from the military surge in Iraq, to change the narrative on the war. Instead of debating the way forward, they prefer instead to relitigate the past. In fact, earlier this month the distinguished majority leader stated: Prior to the invasion of Iraq, there was not a terrorist in Iraq. And now, of course, there are lots of them. It is true that there are a lot of terrorists in Iraq which, of course, is the reason why we are still there fighting them and need to stay there until they are defeated. But it is not true that there were no terrorists in Iraq prior to our invasion. In fact, Saddam's ties to terrorists are well known and were confirmed yet again in a recent report commissioned by the Pentagon's Joint Forces Command. This report found that Saddam Hussein actively supported and financed terrorist activities during the years he controlled Iraq. The report, entitled ``Iraqi Perspectives Project: Saddam and Terrorism: Emerging Insights from Captured Iraqi Documents,'' was released on March 13. It was the product of the analysis of over 600,000 documents captured in Iraq since 2003. It concluded that Saddam's security forces and Osama bin Laden's terrorist network ``operated with similar aims (at least in the short term).'' According to the report: Though the execution of Iraqi terror plots was not always successful, evidence shows that Saddam's use of terrorist tactics and his support for terrorist groups remained strong up until the collapse of his regime. The report found that Saddam Hussein worked with several different terrorist groups, including groups with direct ties to al-Qaida. Many were engaged in a jihad against the United States and its allies. It wasn't necessary to read with excruciating detail the entire 1,600-page report to find proof of these links; all of the above was available for all to see in the brief abstract that accompanied the report. Stephen Hayes offers extensive analysis of the entire report by the Joint Forces Command in the Weekly Standard magazine on March 24, 2008. I ask unanimous consent to have his article printed in the Record.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, on behalf of Senator Coburn, there is objection.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, on behalf of Senator Coburn, there is an objection.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, about almost 24 hours ago I had asked the chairman of the committee about offering an amendment to this legislation. It is clear that as a result of the agreement that has been worked out and the filing of cloture and so on that it is not going to be possible to get a vote on the amendment I was speaking about. But I would like to talk briefly about that amendment and indicate that it would be offered on behalf of Senator McCain, my colleague from Arizona, as well as other Senators, some of whom may want to also speak to it briefly. We all know gasoline prices have risen dramatically. And the amendment Senator McCain and I and others would offer would provide a temporary tax holiday from Memorial Day to Labor Day, preventing the Federal Government from collecting the 18.4-percent tax, the gasoline tax, that otherwise motorists would pay. I assure my colleagues that the highway trust fund, which that tax goes into, would be kept whole with Federal revenues from the General Treasury. So the money we use to build highways and bridges and so on would not be affected by this amendment. Briefly, I think we all feel the pinch when we fill up our cars and trucks. But listen to these statistics. According to economy.com, gasoline prices at the pump have increased from $2.22 to $3.33 a gallon, up 50 percent since the start of 2006. I checked in my home State of Arizona yesterday. It was $3.38. There is very little that Congress can do in the near term to reduce gas prices other than this gas tax holiday. In the long term, we know we have to add more production and refining capacity in our country and that we have to encourage supplies to increase. But for right now, the one thing that Congress can do, and do virtually immediately, is to provide this short-term relief from the Federal gas tax. At $3.33 a gallon, prices are the highest on record. Nearly 50 cents of the cost of each gallon of gas is due to taxes. According to the Bureau of Labor Statics 2005 Consumer Expenditure Survey, families with two cars spent, on average, $2,013 on gasoline. Since that study was released prices have increased dramatically. Gasoline price increases imply families are now paying at least $3,065 on gasoline in a year. A big chunk of that is Federal, State, and local taxes. In fact, the average family pays nearly $170 in Federal gas taxes. With the growing financial strains placed on so many Americans' rising food prices and falling home prices, the additional hit of rising fuel prices is becoming a breaking point. That is why my colleague, Senator John McCain, talked about the need to do something, and do something quickly, and proposed this gas tax holiday in comments he made to the Nation a couple of days ago, and why he has asked this amendment be introduced on his behalf, as well as Senators Warner, Burr, Martinez, Lieberman, and Graham. In an effort to ease some of the hardship caused by the higher fuel prices that I have indicated, the amendment would merely suspend the 18.4-percent-per-gallon tax on gas and the 24.4-percent tax on diesel fuel from Memorial Day to Labor Day. As I said, the amendment would not deplete the highway trust fund balance. The amendment would offset any revenue loss from the suspension of this tax with Treasury revenues. So the highway trust found will remain whole. We all agree that our roads and highways must be maintained to ensure the safety of the road-traveling public, and this amendment would in no way impact highway construction. It is interesting, last Memorial Day alone, approximately 32 million Americans traveled by car 50 miles or more from home. So suspending the Federal excise tax during the summer when fuel prices have historically been at their highest level would allow millions of Americans to keep a few more of their hard-earned dollars and help them better make ends meet. Two final comments: There is an argument that this loss should be offset somehow by programs raising taxes somewhere else. Of course, I have never understood why, if you are going to provide tax relief to Americans, you would want to provide the tax relief and then tax them in some other way. The Congressional Budget Office, former Council of Economic Advisers, Chairman Martin Feldstein, and Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin are three of the entities or individuals who have said it is unnecessary to offset temporary tax cuts when an economy is slowing. The $150 billion stimulus bill that passed the Senate by a vote of 81 to 16 in early February was not offset. The $15 billion-plus housing bill that passed the Senate 84 to 12 last week was not offset. Most of the revenue losses associated with the housing bill benefited companies and other businesses, not consumers. If offsets were not needed to offset the benefit to private firms, I ask why our amendment would need to be offset since it aids struggling American families. Finally, I heard rumors that Senators would like to propose an alternative to what we have produced, a Democratic alternative that was developed yesterday afternoon, that would effectively raise corporate income taxes on oil and gas companies. Now, I suppose everyone likes to pick on oil and gas companies, though we sure want to have some gasoline in the pumps when we decide we need to fill up our cars and trucks, but this proposal eliminates or curtails the so-called section 199 domestic production deduction for oil and gas companies. What that means in regular English is effectively raising the corporate income tax rate by 3 percentage points. That is exactly the wrong medicine at a time when our economy is not doing well. Let me repeat that. The elimination of this tax incentive is designed to encourage oil and gas companies to produce oil and gas in the United States so we do not have to go abroad and buy it from somewhere else. I don't agree with this approach. Rather than raising taxes on oil companies, we should be encouraging them to explore for oil and to produce oil and gas in the United States, to improve our energy security and, importantly, to reduce prices for American consumers. Why on Earth would anyone actually want to limit domestic production? Reducing domestic production would only make the United States more dependent on foreign oil imports and would likely cause consumers to pay even more at the pump. Besides, a tax increase of the type being proposed would have the effect of raising prices at the pump, as costs obviously would be passed on to consumers. That would obviously have a reverse impact, the exact opposite of what we are trying to do with a reduction of the gas tax on consumers of gasoline products. Finally, there is a significant problem with the proposal to repeal section 199 for U.S. oil companies. A proposal to do this passed the House of Representatives earlier this year. But this very same provision that passed the House would have the effect of keeping the 199 tax incentive for CITGO, the oil company owned by the Venezuelan Government; obviously, not a good idea while we are repealing it for American companies, to leave that tax incentive for a competitor of our oil companies owned by the Venezuelan Government. I don't know whether that was unintentional, but that is the effect of the amendment. Clearly that is not something we would want to do. I don't think we want to hold consumer relief hostage to a tax increase. Amendment No. 4540, Withdrawn

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander), the Senator from Nebraska (Mr. Hagel), the Senator from Indiana (Mr. Lugar), and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander) would have voted ``aye.''

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander), the Senator from Nebraska (Mr. Hagel), the Senator from Indiana (Mr. Lugar), and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander), would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander), the Senator from Nebraska (Mr. Hagel), the Senator from Indiana (Mr. Lugar), and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander) would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Sentor from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander), the Senator from Nebraska (Mr. Hagel), the Senator from Indiana (Mr. Lugar), and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander) would have voted ``yea.''