Frank Lautenberg

Mr. LAUTENBERG

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Privatizing the air traffic control system is a bad idea for many reasons. We should heed the lessons of other countries that tried this already: Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom. All of these attempts resulted in failures. We should heed the lessons of the blackouts we experienced in the Northeast this summer that shut down six major airports. Our air traffic control system guided stranded flights safely to the ground. I do not think it can be any clearer that air traffic control is a vital Government safety and security function. I sense my colleague from West Virginia would like to use his 10 minutes now.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. I yield the time with unanimous consent that I regain it and turn it over to my friend from West Virginia.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I am sorry, but there was a unanimous consent that was agreed to that the time would be turned back, and I just want to make sure we divide it up properly. So I would like to be able to recover the time and then just make a decision to hear our chairman of the subcommittee. How much time is remaining on our side?

Mr. LAUTENBERG. I yield up to 10 minutes to the Senator from West Virginia.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. If the Senator from Mississippi would read that infamous letter we are talking about, it says no actual privatization will take place.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Unfortunately, certain Senate conferees to the FAA bill decided to remove all barriers to privatizing our national air traffic control system. But both the Senate and the House voted to put these barriers in the bill as a response to President Bush's actions, including the issuance of an Executive order, to move towards privatizing air traffic control. And the President feels so strongly about privatizing that he has forced conference leaders not to take any actions in the bill. And this is not agreeable to those of us concerned about the safety impacts of the President's plan. To my dismay, this ideological crusade by the White House has held up passage of the legislation for over 3 months, and I am disappointed that some of my colleagues are willing to sacrifice safety for this zeal to privatize.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Between 1994 and 2000, the FAA did contract out 130 small FAA towers. These were ``level I towers''--generally with less than 25 operations per hour and operating under ``visual flight rules''--that is, without radar equipment. I also note that the current list of 219 towers constitutes a small fraction of overall air traffic in the United States. While exploring ways to modernize air traffic control equipment for the entire national system, the Clinton administration proposed a Federal corporation to take over air traffic operations. While I initially was willing to consider this proposal, it was rapidly determined to be a poor idea, and the President eventually made the determination that air traffic control is an inherently governmental function. So during reauthorization of the FAA bill in 1996 and 2000, we agreed to FAA management reforms, to give FAA the flexibility it needs to act as a better manager, not privatization. In the end, the President and the Congress agreed that air traffic control is an inherently governmental function, and recognized that it was not wise to pursue privatization. Unfortunately, the Bush administration reversed the Clinton administration's executive order last year, reclassifying air traffic control functions so that privatization could proceed. And this was after September 11. In summary, the Clinton administration did not support privatization, while the Bush administration does support privatization.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. I say to Senator Reid, this may be hard to believe, but the Bush administration issued their Executive order after September 11. I find that especially troubling in light of the incredible and even heroic performance by the Federal employees of our Nation's air traffic control system on September 11. The security of the Nation's airlines became so important that we felt the need to federalize baggage screening. But somehow, this administration still wants to privatize the air traffic control system.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. How much time is left on our side, Mr. President?

Mr. LAUTENBERG. On the majority side?

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I have listened, and if I were not experienced I would be shocked at what is being said. Get over Alaska. What do you care about Alaska? I care about my family. I even care about the other guy's family. Why was FAA started in the first place? June 30, 1956: TWA Flight 2 collided with United Flight 17 killing 128 people. The record shows that one probable cause of the accident was insufficiency of the en route traffic control advisory. They can trivialize it on the other side all they want--smile and smirk. But the fact is that Don Young was the smartest of them all. And why didn't we hear from the Republican side when the vote was taking place in June? We had 11 Republicans vote with us. I did not hear the cry that: We are not going to be able to fund this. We are going to be able to fund it. Senator Rockefeller and I proposed a compromise in S. 1618, which was an FAA temporary extension act. Let us get it all out there. But no, the other side persists in getting this thing through by one hook or another. The fact is that by any sense of one's decency, don't throw FAA into the same pot out of which we dug the baggage screeners. It is ridiculous to have this kind of a debate. Sure, we can prove Air Force One can land anyplace. We know the President lands it all over in fundraising, for goodness' sake. We see that airplane going out there. But that is a different situation than the one we are talking about when we have pilots who can occasionally make mistakes even when aided by the guidance of the FAA controllers. They know exactly what to do with the weather, they know what wind sheer looks like, and they know all of the conditions. And I am not the pilot. Senator McCain is the pilot in this room. The fact is it is safety; that is what I am concerned about. I am not interested in protecting anybody's turf except the families who fly every day across this country and the people who want to know they are going to get there in a timely and safe fashion. With the scares we suddenly see coming out, and shoulder-fired missiles, and here--oh, no; we don't have to talk about safety; let us talk about process.

Mr. LAUTENBERG

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I rise to offer this amendment on behalf of myself and Senator Mikulski. We are pleased to have as cosponsors Senators Jeffords, Kerry, Lieberman, Boxer, Schumer, Leahy, Corzine, Durbin, Cantwell, Kennedy, and Edwards. This appropriations bill cuts the number of enforcement officers in EPA's Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance by 54 positions. The amendment I am offering would restore those 54 positions so that EPA would have the same number of enforcement officers in fiscal year 2004 that the agency had in 2003. Maintaining the current level of enforcement capacity is the least we ought to do in view of the reductions in enforcement staffing we have seen made in recent years. An EPA report that was released earlier this year on the Nation's enforcement of the Clean Water Act paints a disheartening picture. It shows additional officers are critically needed. Without this amendment, the total staffing reductions made since fiscal year 2001 will equal 100 enforcement positions. That is equivalent to eliminating all of EPA's enforcement personnel for both the Northeast and Southeast regions. The cost of the 54 positions my amendment would retain would be approximately $5.4 million. This cost, as the Senator from Missouri noted, will be offset by a tiny reduction of .003, or three one- thousandths of a percent, in EPA's $22.2 billion environmental programs and management account. Again, these positions are only going to keep the level of enforcement staffing where it presently is. Our colleagues in the House have already approved a similar amendment. In July, they voted to add 54 enforcement positions back into the bill at the same cost using the same offset as the amendment before us. The cuts in enforcement are taking a heavy toll, and the facts are these: Between 1999 and 2001, 76 percent of the country's major facilities with significant environmental violations received no formal enforcement action whatsoever. Inspections are down. There has been a 45-percent decrease in enforcement actions, and the penalties that are levied averaged a paltry $6,000. We have practically hung out a sign that tells polluters it is all right to flaunt the law, and the fines are hardly a deterrent to businesses generally. The damage they do, however, is not free, and society will pay the price for the mounting violations, additional fish advisories, higher asthma rates, more trips to the hospital, and worse. An internal EPA survey that was leaked to the press in January painted a dismal and frightening picture of what is happening at some of the largest facilities across the country. Fifty percent of major facilities are exceeding their permitted toxic release limits by 100 percent, 21 percent of the facilities are exceeding their toxic release limits by 500 percent, and 13 are exceeding toxic limits by an alarming 1,000 percent. These are alarming statistics, and they portray a terrible picture. I am pleased my colleagues will be considering what it means to these families who live downriver or downwind from these plants. None of us in this Chamber would ever knowingly subject our families to concentrations of mercury, dioxins, or other deadly toxins in our lakes and rivers that are 10 times the safe level. But we are doing that. If we don't stop companies from violating our environmental laws, we will continue to do that. To my colleagues, I say we are not powerless; we can stop these dangerous violations, or at least keep them contained to a no larger level, which is an important first step this amendment takes care of. I submit this amendment for consideration by the ranking member, the distinguished Senator from Maryland, and the chairman, the distinguished Senator from Missouri. I understand there has been a review of my amendment.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. I move to reconsider the vote.

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

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. I appreciate the manager's interest in permitting me to offer this amendment. I will try to do it as quickly as I can. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside.

Mr. LAUTENBERG

Mr. LAUTENBERG. I thank my friend from Wisconsin, Mr. President, and I was very interested in what he had to say. I thought it was right on the mark. The fact is, this is a clear example of misplaced priorities, those of the Republican leadership and the White House. It is hard to understand why there is such outrage on the other side of the aisle about these four people being denied a spot on the Federal bench. If they are worried--and I heard it requested here: Give these people a break. Be fair with them. They are worried about these four people being denied their opportunity, but there is an expense to putting them on the bench that is going to be felt by Americans across this country. What about the 3 million people who are denied jobs? What about the millions of jobless being denied unemployment benefits? What about the White House's attempt to deny millions of workers their overtime pay? What about lower income, working Americans being denied an increase in the minimum wage? What about the millions of women being denied their right to reproductive freedom by nine men surrounding the President when he signed the new anti-choice law? They took away a woman's right to make a decision, in concert with their doctor, about their health because these nine men--the male oligarchy--decided that it was appropriate that they take away a woman's rights. There was not one woman on the floor to defend that decision. Not one woman spoke about it. Not one woman in this picture or even in the other picture that was shown in the top newspapers across the country. Not one woman, but they are making decisions about women. I said the other day on the Senate floor, and I repeat it, I have three daughters, and I respect their judgment about how they ought to conduct their pregnancies and how they ought to live their lives to make sure they are healthy to take care of the nine grandchildren I have been blessed with, and not run any risk--my middle daughter is on her fourth pregnancy right now--not to run any risk that anything was amiss with her health that she couldn't take care of her three children. What about the administration's attempts to deny our troops their imminent danger pay? I just came from Walter Reed Hospital with other Senators, and I met a couple of people there. One was a young double amputee from Rockland, MA. He was in Iraq 3 weeks. He has no hands. Part of one arm is still in place. Most of the other arm is missing. It is a tragedy. My guess is he was somewhere in his early twenties. He had been a member of the National Guard a few months and was called up from Rockland, MA. By the way, two of our Senators--one former and one present, amputees themselves; one with three limbs missing--went to Walter Reed to console this young man and encourage his spirit and his belief that life can be functional. Senator Cleland, now out of office, and Senator Inouye with an arm missing that he lost in southern Italy, went to cheer up this young man. What about them? We are using time here to talk about these choices when they are not choices. They are not qualified by the judgment of many. But why carry on this battle? Why this stick in the eye to the public at large when there are so many other issues about which to talk? I had a chance to be on TV this morning with one of our Republican colleagues. We talked about what was going on. He said: We are not losing any time. My duty was at 5 o'clock in the morning. What time did we lose? It occurred to me, what a foolish response. If it is important enough to be here at 5 o'clock in the morning, then why isn't it important enough for us to be taking care of what we have to in Iraq and getting those kids home and making sure we get as many allies as we can to pick up this burden we have and share it. Why can't we talk about that at 2 o'clock in the morning or 3 o'clock in the morning or 4 o'clock in the morning? I don't get it. Why can't we talk about 3 million jobs lost and talk about a way to adjust that situation--jobs lost. What about the administration denying photographers the right to honor our fallen heroes coming back in flag-draped coffins? When do we say the public doesn't have a right to honor them and remember that these people gave their lives on behalf of our country? Why is that not permitted? Why is it so obscure? We can't see them. They don't show the people what has really happened in the war. Maybe they won't think it is such a bad idea that we don't have the kind of partnership we ought to have over there fighting the battle. On Monday, I went to a funeral in Newark, NJ, of a young man named Joel Perez. He was a sergeant. He was on the Chinook helicopter, as was the man we visited this morning. There are bones broken all over his body, but he is glad to be alive. He is very happy to be alive. He knows what happened to the 16 others. They lost their lives. Since May 1, the President has found time for 36 fundraisers. How many families did he visit to console, to tell them he is sorry and acknowledge their bravery in serving? No, the debate is on four judge nominees. What do the American people think about that? Look at the majority leader's own Web site. He said he did a poll. The poll said: Should the President's nominees to the Federal bench be allowed an up-or-down vote on confirmation as specified in the Constitution? First error, ``as specified in the Constitution.'' I will talk about that in a minute. The poll answers came in: 60 percent said no, the President's nominees to the Federal bench ought not be allowed an up- or-down vote if the opposition doesn't want to give it to them--60 percent. But they quickly changed this Web site because they didn't like the answer they got. So they changed it to a more mealy-mouth kind of thing: Should we do it or shouldn't we do it? The Constitution says ``advise and consent.'' It doesn't say consent and then advise, which is what they would like to see us do here. They would like to see us go ahead and say: Mr. President, that is what you asked for; that is what we are giving you. No, our responsibility in the minority and in the majority is to stand up for what we believe and what the people who sent us here want us to say, and if they don't want us to say it, then they will reject it at the appropriate time. This Senate spending 30 hours to talk about four judicious--judicial; they are not judicious at all--judicial nominees? Meanwhile, 3 million have lost their jobs since this President took office. I ask my colleagues to listen closely to this fact. In the private sector, two Americans have lost their jobs every minute that George W. Bush has been President. Two families without an income; two families where there may be some humiliation about an inability to go to work. I remember my late father who finally, in the desperate days of the Depression, had to take a job with the WPA. He was embarrassed about doing it because it looked like welfare. It was a job. The Government had created jobs. He was humiliated having to take that job, but he did it because he wanted to provide for me, my mother, and my little sister. He had to do it. What about those 3 million people? What are we doing to help them go to work? The latest survey shows there are a total of 8.8 million Americans currently unemployed; 3 million have lost their jobs since this administration took office; and the reality is this administration doesn't have a jobs plan. Not surprising. It has a bad record on jobs. Let's look at this chart of the last 80 years. It shows jobs gained or lost during administrations, in the millions. We have two administrations identified in red. By the way, those in green were Harding, Coolidge, Roosevelt, Truman--a variety. None of them, except President Herbert Hoover and George W. Bush, have lost jobs during their administrations. It is a sad commentary. The chart shows actual jobs gained or lost in the millions, and here we see there are 3 million lost. The two blobs on this chart are the administrations of Herbert Hoover and the current administration. When we look at this chart, there are only two administrations in the last 80 years that have resulted in a net job loss: this administration and Herbert Hoover's administration. I don't remember thinking about it during Hoover's time, but I was there at the time. I knew it was a disaster in my house. I would think the Bush administration doesn't enjoy sharing this kind of company, but the inaction of this administration on this issue makes me wonder if they understand the damage they are causing to the economy and families across the country. But we are taking 30 hours of time. The 30 hours don't belong to us. They belong to the people of the country. It belongs to our constituents. Taking 30 hours of the time of the Senate not to pass a jobs creation bill, not to pass incentives for companies to continue manufacturing in the United States, not to extend the unemployment benefits for people victimized by this economy--none of that. We are here to discuss a couple of extremist judicial nominees the President wants to force down our throats. President George W. Bush presented himself in the beginning days of his campaign and in the early days of his administration as being a uniter, not a divider, except that is far from the truth. I have never seen a more ideologically partisan White House, and I served with Ronald Reagan when he was President. I served with George Bush, Sr., when he was President. I served with President Bill Clinton. I have never seen a more ideologically partisan White House. This administration and my colleagues across the aisle are driven ideologically to the point that I think there is kind of an impaired vision to the simple, clear, and irrefutable facts. The Senator from Wisconsin said it. As of today, the Senate has confirmed 168 judicial nominees recommended by President Bush and blocked 4 in 3 years. President George W. Bush has gained more confirmations than President Reagan did in his first full term. Mr. President, 168 confirmed judicial nominees is particularly impressive because 100 nominees were confirmed when Democrats still controlled the Senate in the last Congress. We did our share, and we will continue to do our share, but we will not let the judicial system and the citizens of this country be taken advantage of, not if we can help it. This is a 98-percent rate of confirmation for President Bush's judicial nominees. That is an impressive rate. As I said before, the Constitution says that the Senate must advise and consent, not consent and then advise, which is what we would like to see happen here. It is the Senate's job to put a check on the President's appointments. If it were not, then the Founding Fathers would not have written the consent requirement into the Constitution. I think it is instructive to look back at the treatment of President Clinton's judges by the Senate. During the Clinton administration, 248 Clinton judicial nominees were confirmed, and 63 were blocked from getting votes. That is 20 percent of all President Clinton's nominees, and now there are complaints from the other side because President Bush is not getting just 2 percent of his choices. During the Clinton administration, Republicans placed secret holds on judicial and executive nominees preventing many fine Americans from even having a hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee. The Senator from Wisconsin is on the Judiciary Committee. He knows and everybody in this room knows that you don't have to have a talkathon to kill nominees. All you have to do is just not bring it before the committee, or if they go before the committee, not bring them before the Senate. That is the control of the majority. We did it differently when we were in charge. We processed most of the administration's recommendations. In total, 63 Clinton judicial nominees and more than 2,200 Clinton executive nominees were defeated by delay or no votes. These numbers are unchallengeable. We see it here: Clinton nominees from 1995 to 2000, number confirmed, 248; nominees blocked, 63, 20 percent of the total. Of the Bush nominees, we processed 168; nominees blocked, 4; total, 2 percent. That is what is happening. And now to have this circus taking place with the crocodile tears about how we treated these nominees, and not one word about how we are treating the public. No, no.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. No, I would like to finish, Mr. President. I am sorry. At such time as the floor shifts hands, I will be happy to answer any questions. The fact is, Democrats have used the filibuster only to block nominees with records of extremism. Americans deserve an independent judiciary with fair judges who will enforce their rights and uphold the law. Republicans want Democrats to blindly confirm result-oriented, agenda-driven judges whose rules of judicial interpretation change to meet their ideological agenda. It is pretty obvious, I guess, to the American people, we are not consenting. That is the choice and the right that the Founding Fathers gave us as Senators. I am not about to give up that right. I ask the Chair, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. LAUTENBERG. I will.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. I say to my friend from Nevada, I hear two principal concerns from the people in New Jersey: One, jobs; having to get to work because not only is it the deprivation of funds and the shortage of being able to afford, many times, the necessities, but it is the humiliation of not being able to provide for your family. That is what they talk about. Do you know what else they talk about in New Jersey? They talk about health care. They talk about prescription drugs. People in the senior community--and I happen to fit, thankfully, in that community--are concerned about the prescription drugs they can't get to sustain themselves. We saw things in the paper today--I read these with great interest-- about the successful effects of a drug that is called Lipitor. I am not advertising any medication, but look in the paper and you will see that it has reduced the possibility of heart attack. People want those drugs. We have got to live this long because, A, we were lucky and, B, maybe because we had the right doctors and the right prescription drugs to keep us going. So that is what they think about. I have yet to have a call, that I am aware of, that said: Senator, for crying out loud, pass those four judges and, by the way, I am jobless, in case you should think about it; or: Pass those four judges and do not worry about the environment because we can stand some more toxic waste in our skies or on our ground. No, do not worry about those things. Senator, you just take care of getting those four people the job that the President and the Republican Party want them to have. To answer the question the Senator from Nevada asked--and I am reminded about this constantly--3\1/2\ million people, since January 2001, have lost their jobs in manufacturing. It also breaks the economic structure that we desperately need. We need manufacturing jobs because those are decent-paying jobs. One does not have to have a college education there, or a master's degree, or anything like that for most of those jobs. It is for the people who want to go to work who have not had the advantage of getting the extended education. That is what they want us to talk about. They want us to talk about what is happening: Where are these jobs going that are leaving our shores? What should we do about it? Well, we do not have time for that debate. I have to remember to tell them that when they call up. Sorry, we cannot discuss jobs or prescription drugs, or your kid's schooling. We do not have time for it. We are busy, very busy, and we are under the gun, and that is to get our appropriations bills done and things of that nature. We have to get it done so that we can end this session and we can get back to our communities and talk to our people and do what we have to, to stay in touch. No, we do not have time for that.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I reluctantly yield.

Mr. LAUTENBERG

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Minnesota. It is obvious he is outraged at the triviality that is being thrown out here about how we are violating our oath and violating our standards. Think about this. We are now in the 32nd hour of this talkathon on judicial nominations, brought to you by the Republican Party. I guess the first 30 hours were so successful they decided to extend the hours. But instead of helping anyone promoting a good cause, Republicans are using this staged event to push for job applicants who are unfit to take the job. They are unfit, they are unqualified, they have shown they are likely to abuse their authority as circuit court judges who advance an extreme rightwing agenda and not in the best interests of America. The Republicans so desperately wanted this talkathon to be a made- for-television movie they attempted to coordinate their efforts with FOX News, the providers of fair and balanced Republican television. It comes from the distinguished majority leader's office, one of his staff people. It says: ``It is important to double your efforts to get your boss to S. 230 on time. FOX News channel is really excited about this marathon. Brit Hume at 6 would love to open with all of our 51 Senators walking onto the floor. The producer wants to know we will walk in exactly at 6:02 when the show starts so they can get it live to open Brit Hume's show. If not, can we give them an exact time for the walk in start?'' That hardly sounds like a sincere effort to me to get something done. I hear the outrage about how we are playing politics on this side. What is this? If that is not raw production, I have never seen it. Line up. I wonder if the suit colors and ties were described at the same time. It is good to see a bunch of penguins walking down here 51 deep. FOX News presents--it says 30 hours. They made a mistake. They didn't know how enjoyable this was, that we were going to go on with this. The passions are so high there are things said that are just not accurate. I point to this hallowed document, Senate Manual, which talks about the Constitution of the United States. It is part of the book. It talks about the powers of the President. He ``shall have power by and with the advice and consent of the Senate to make treaties et cetera and with the advice and consent of the Senate shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court and all other officers of United States.'' Advise and consent--it doesn't say consent and advise. It doesn't say just approve them and we will talk about it later. We are maintaining our responsibility to the Constitution to a ``t''. It is our friends who want to ride roughshod over it and perhaps maybe find another way to curtail the appropriate dissent of the minority as has been evidenced so many times in the past. I think about what is going on here after a visit I made yesterday along with others to Walter Reed Hospital, and I met a young man there. I knew he was in a ward in an area--a single room but in an area where the amputees are cared for. I didn't want to really inspect him with my eyes. I reached out my hand to shake his hand, and I wound up feeling a cloth and nothing in the cloth. His hand was missing. On the other side his arm was missing. He is about 23 years old, full of life. My guess is 23. I know he is young. He was positive and said, I am going to get on with this. We had the good fortune to have former Senator Max Cleland from Georgia who lost three limbs in Vietnam and was made out to be unpatriotic in the last election. Figure that one out. But he had the good judgment to ride in there in his wheelchair and look at this young fellow who had been, by the way, 3 weeks in Iraq, and about 4 months in the Reserve; no hand on either side, and no arm on one side. He told this young man, Have courage. There is life for you. And then he gets visited by Danny Inouye, Congressional Medal of Honor winner, missing an arm. He comes in to say to this young fellow, There is life out there. You can accomplish something. And here we stand on this nonsense. Why aren't we talking about what the problems are in Iraq and how we solve them? Let me read to my friends on the Republican side what a very distinguished Republican Senator said, John McCain. Few had his experience in military matters in a war. He said: The Pentagon's proposed withdrawal of U.S. troops in Iraq would be an irrational move. ``If anything,'' said McCain, a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and an outspoken critic of the administration's postwar policies in Iraq, ``the United States needs to increase its troop presence in Iraq, specifically special forces and Arabic- speaking intelligence officers. The attacks are up. The wounded Americans are up. Killed Americans are up, and the Pentagon announced a withdrawal or decrease in the number of American troops. It is not reasonable or rationale,'' says John McCain. I agree with him. Why aren't we discussing that? Why aren't we having a marathon, 30-hour marathon, and talking about the war, talking about what is going on and talking about what we do to make it easier on those to make them safer, and send the 10,000 or 20,000 additional troops John McCain says are necessary and I believe are necessary? I am no military expert. I spent 3 years in the Army. I was a corporal during World War II. But I know we need more there. We have to help our troops. Do not talk about whether we are violating the Constitution. Where is your oath? Is it in your heart? It is the process we are talking about. Go to the Supreme Court and have a great trip. We will escort you there. Take and read the Constitution--just like you can, just like I can. Forgive me--just like the Senator from South Carolina can. That is what we ought to be talking about and not talking in front of the American people about the process and about how fair we have to be with judges we think are unfit and we are going to talk about it. Just as we were threatened by the debate that went on, we are not going to go away, as I heard the Senator from South Carolina say. We are going to stay here. We are going to do this, and I am going to the Supreme Court. Have a good visit. The fact of the matter is it is very clear what our responsibilities are. I talked about my trip yesterday to Walter Reed. On Monday, I made a trip to the Sacred Heart Cathedral in Newark and watched a young man who was on a Chinook helicopter. By the way, the fellow I saw in Walter Reed was not the American amputee. The other fellow, burned, broken bones all over his body, he was in the Chinook helicopter also. It wasn't many days ago this fate befell them, and they were already in the hospital here. But Sergeant Joe Parez--25 years old, wife, little baby girl, mother, father, brothers--was buried at the Cathedral in Newark. He was one of the 16 who perished when the Chinook helicopter went down. We had a brief moment of conversation. I said we would try to be of help to the widow and the family. She is a very young woman totally overcome by the loss of her husband. This was a week for me that brought home reality. I saw it when I served in Europe during World War II, and I saw it here, and I saw it when I went to the hospital that took care of Vietnam veterans. There is a price, a terrible price people are being asked to pay. They are there. They are worried about their families. They are worried about their jobs. They are worried about this country. They are worried about how they are going to adjust back into society after being away too long. We are stretching this rubberband so tight. We have reservists who signed up for duty that included weekends and a couple of weeks a year out in field exercises. Their job primarily was to be there in the case of emergency, floods, natural disasters, riots, those kinds of things that happen. But we do not talk about those. As a matter of fact, what has happened here I find quite shocking is there is a deliberate attempt by this administration to conceal the fact that these dead guys are coming home in caskets, and they deserve the honor of being acknowledged and not hidden off in some obscure air terminal and shipped quietly in trucks to get them out of the way. Stand up, Mr. President, and stand up, my friends on the Republican side, and demand we have an inquiry about this instead of fooling around with 30 hours here to prove nothing. The Constitution tells you how it goes. Read it. Read it and tell the truth to the American public. Stop talking about politics because that is exactly what you are doing. You think the TV perhaps is going to get your brave message out to the rest of the country. Yes. Our heroes stood up and they stood up for a process. The rate, I think, is something like $80,000 an hour it costs to put on this not very good circus, I would say. I say to the critics on the other side, stand up, talk about things that affect people, tell us how we are going to get out of Iraq without losing more of our young people. We are over 400,000. There are far more casualties than we had in gulf war 1. I managed to be the first legislator to be there in 1990. We had 540,000 people on the ground and we lost far fewer than we have lost in Iraq II. Why? Maybe we were better prepared. Why? Maybe we had enough people to make sure they couldn't maraud our troops and our units there and decimate them, and not only break their lives but break the hearts of the Americans across the country because they do not understand what is happening. This is a colossal waste of time. Face up to it. The minority disagrees with the selection. You have seen the statistics--168 to 4. I think the number is a very small percentage of those who have been challenged. More judges have been confirmed in this Senate than we saw in the entire years of the Clinton administration. We have done our job, and we have done it well. Tempers fly high. I think they ought to. I don't like losing my temper. But I dislike losing my mind. That is what is happening here. This is a loss of purpose. This is raw politics. To call it anything else is unfair and false. The Constitution says advise and consent. It doesn't say consent and advise. It says nothing in the Constitution, no matter how many attributions, that we have to lay down and simply accept what the President sends down. There are checks and balances, just as a reminder, in case one doesn't understand that. This is a perfect example of what it is about. No, we will not accept people who we think are unfit. This has not been an unreasonable Senate. We have done what we have to. We have watched appropriations bills language all over the place. We have seen there is hardly a serious long day of work to get the job done. But this falsely heroic effort to make a difference in the way our society functions is I think see-through politics. I think it is obvious what we are watching--someone called it theater. I call it a circus. It is not fair to the people we serve. I hope we will be able to get on with the business of the people soon. We have our votes tomorrow morning. I would like to see us turn to the war in Iraq and have a serious debate about it and hear from the high-posted officials, the Secretary of Defense, the National Security Adviser. I was at a briefing today. I don't know whether any of the other Senators here were in the room. It was a relatively junior staff presentation. The news didn't particularly have much insight attached to it. But we went to try to find out. We ought to make a pledge right now that we will do another 30 hours, maybe start tomorrow night and talk about the Iraq war, talk about our people, talk about how we are going to get them home and talk about how we are going to end it; talk about how we are going to justify to the American people why we are spending $20 billion for the reconstruction of Iraq but we can't rebuild schoolhouses filled with asbestos or otherwise.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. I yield the floor.

Mr. LAUTENBERG

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I would like to take this opportunity to recognize Dr. Carole Gavin, my constituent who was recently named the New Jersey Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. This award is given to professors who demonstrate a high level of dedication to teaching and a commitment to students, and who use innovative instructional methods. Dr. Gavin's dedication to teaching non-English speakers and academic accomplishments make her an outstanding recipient of this award. As a professor of French and English as a Second Language at Burlington County College in New Jersey, Dr. Gavin has spent the past 22 years devoted to her students. I think she describes her teaching philosophy best: ``my primary objective as a professor here at Burlington County College since 1971 has been to help students understand that language, whether it be a foreign language or English, plays a critical role in their success as human beings and professionals.'' Dr. Gavin's professional accomplishments include expanding the college's English as a Second Language program into a multi-level, nine-course program that serves over one hundred students from many different countries. Last year, Dr. Gavin received the Association of Community College Teachers', ACCT, Northeast Regional Award. The ACCT describes her as ``a stellar member of the Burlington County College faculty,'' and calls her commitment to her students ``exemplary.'' In addition to her role as teacher, Dr. Gavin recently underwent one of the most difficult personal challenges an individual can face. Emerging victorious from a battle with breast cancer, Dr. Gavin used her struggle to help others by working with the Phi Theta Kappa honor society to launch the Carole Gavin Scholarship initiative. This scholarship provides active Phi Theta Kappa members, who have been touched by cancer, with financial resources to help defray educational expenses for the Academic Year 2003--2004 while enrolled in either two or four-year institutions. It has become something of a cliche to describe someone as an inspiration. Nevertheless, the work that Carole Gavin has done both professionally and personally is truly inspirational, and I offer her my deepest congratulations.

Mr. LAUTENBERG

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Texas for making the inquiry. The fact is I need about 10 minutes and the Senator from North Dakota needs 5 minutes. If that could be accommodated on an equal exchange basis, I suggest we ask unanimous consent to do so.