Carl Levin

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Melanie Roberts, a fellow in Senator Bingaman's office, be granted the privileges of the floor for the pendency of S. 5 and S. 30.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I am happy to join with my colleague from Michigan, Senator Debbie Stabenow, in supporting this resolution, which recognizes the Spartans hard work, grit and determination in winning Michigan State University's third NCAA Men's Hockey championship. The Spartans secured the 2007 National Title in dramatic fashion by overcoming a 1 to 0 deficit to defeat Boston College 3 to 1 in the NCAA Men's Championship Final. This victory is a great source of pride for all those affiliated with Michigan State University and for the entire state of Michigan. Championships are won by doing all the little things right, by not giving up, and by trusting one another regardless of the obstacles. All of these traits were on display Saturday night when, in the waning moments of the championship game, the Spartans mounted a final charge to capture the 2007 NCAA Title. The Spartans scored 3 goals in the final 10 minutes of play. The game was tied until the last minute of regulation, when Justin Abdelkader scored the go-ahead goal with 18.9 seconds remaining. The Spartans solidified this hard-fought victory by scoring an empty netter set up by an Eagle team that desperately fought to tie the game. The Spartans upset victory before a record setting crowd of 19,432 at the Scottrade Center in St. Louis completed a highly entertaining and rewarding season. MSU Hockey's third NCAA title is being celebrated today in East Lansing, Michigan. The members of the championship team are being honored with a parade followed by a rally at Munn Ice Arena. This is a victory for the Spartan team and MSU community, as well as for the many fans, friends, and family whose strong and unwavering support was exhibited throughout the Spartans' memorable championship season. Each member of the MSU team made important contributions to the Spartans' success, including players Justin Abdelkader, Tim Crowder, Jeff Dunne, Tyler Howells, Brandon Gentile, Ethan Graham, Bobby Jarosz, Justin Johnston, Tim Kennedy, Kurt Kivisto, Chris Lawrence, Bryan Lerg, Jeff Lerg, Zak McClellan, Jim McKenzie, Steve Mnich, Chris Mueller, Michael Ratchuk, Matt Schepke, Chris Snavely, Jay Sprague, Daniel Sturges, Nick Sucharski, Ryan Turek, Daniel Vukovic, Brandon Warner, Head Coach Rick Comley, Assistant Coaches Tom Newton and Brian Renfrew, and Athletic Trainer Dave Carrier. MSU Spartans' Head Coach Rick Comley, who was named a 2007 National Coach of the Year finalist, became the third coach in college hockey history to win national titles at two institutions, the first with Northern Michigan University. Coach Comley recorded his 714th career victory on Saturday. He currently holds the distinction of being the third winningest coach amongst active hockey coaches and fifth winningest in NCAA Hockey history. He has continued the successful Spartan Hockey tradition established by Ron Mason, the Spartans' former head coach, current athletic director, and the all-time winningest NCAA Hockey coach. Throughout the 2007 championship season, the MSU men's hockey team has demonstrated a commitment to unselfish play, always placing team success ahead of individual accomplishments. However, I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the outstanding individual effort displayed by sophomore goal tender Jeff Lerg, whose instrumental play throughout the season helped to secure the title and earned him both NCAA Midwest Regional MVP honors and a place on the Frozen Four All Tournament team. I know my colleagues in the Senate join me in congratulating Coach Comley and the 2007 Michigan State University Spartans on their NCAA Men's Hockey National Championship.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, the increase in gun violence that affects towns, cities, and rural areas across this Nation takes a particularly heavy toll on our most precious resource, our children and grandchildren. Since 1979, over 101,000 children and teenagers have been killed by firearms. This staggering figure clearly illustrates the inadequacy of Congress's efforts to address the issue of gun violence. On March 7, 2007, in the small city of Midland, MI, a 17-year-old male shot a 17-year-old female student before turning the gun on himself, committing suicide in the young girl's high school parking lot. Reports indicate the male drove to the school to talk with the female student. After arranging to meet her in the school parking lot, he shot her four times, while her mother watched in horror. He then turned the gun on himself. The very same day, in Greenville, TX, a city of only 26,000 people, a 16-year-old student fatally shot himself inside his high school's hallway. These are just two examples of the misery gun violence inflicts. According to data collected by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, every day, on average, nearly eight children or teens are killed by gun violence in America. In 2004, 58 preschoolers were killed by firearms. Furthermore, for every child or teen death caused by a gun, there are nearly five nonfatal injuries. According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, the average cost per gunshot victim, excluding rehabilitation and long-term care, is $45,000. A single year's worth of gunshot injuries adds up to approximately $2.3 billion in lifetime medical costs, half of which is paid for by taxpayers. The Children's Defense Fund, in their 2007 report on gun violence, makes a number of recommendations to protect children from gun violence. Among other things, the CDF recommends parents remove guns from their homes, schools provide nonviolent conflict resolution courses for all students, and communities create positive activities for children and teenagers to reduce the influence of gangs and drugs. Congress must also take an active role. We should pass commonsense gun safety legislation, support law enforcement and community programs, and help focus media and public attention on causes and consequences of gun violence. I am hopeful the 110th Congress will work to break the cycle of gun violence that plagues so many of our communities and our children and grandchildren.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, the Grand River Bands of Ottawa Indians, commonly referred to as the Grand River Bands, has been in some form indigenous to the State of Michigan for over 200 years. The Grand River Bands consists of the 19 bands of Indians who occupied the territory along the Grand River in what is now southwest Michigan, including the cities of Grand Rapids and Muskegon. The members of the Grand River Bands are the descendants and political successors to signatories of the 1821 Treaty of Chicago and the 1836 Treaty of Washington. They are also one of six tribes which is an original signatory of the 1855 Treaty of Detroit. However, the Grand River Bands is the only one of those tribes which is not recognized by the Federal Government. In the 109th Congress, I introduced a bill, with my colleague, Senator Stabenow, which would direct the Bureau of Indian Affairs at the Department of the Interior to make a recognition determination, for the Grand River Bands, in a timely manner. I am pleased to re-introduce that bill now. I would also like to affirm that this bill does not federally recognize the tribe nor does it address the issue of gaming. Furthermore, I would like to stress the timely manner in which this determination must be made. If federally recognized, the Grand River Bands is eligible for funds set aside for them from a Federal consent judgment. These funds are expected to be distributed this year. In order for the Grand River Bands to receive their portion of this fund, they must be federally recognized before this money is distributed. They have completed all of the necessary items for a determination to be made by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, but the Bureau has failed to act on the petition for the past ten years. I hope that this legislation will help to provide a timely remedy so that the Grand River Bands can receive funds that are currently set aside for them, and enjoy the full benefits and status of Federal recognition.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, the Grand River Bands of Ottawa Indians, commonly referred to as the Grand River Bands, has been in some form indigenous to the State of Michigan for over 200 years. The Grand River Bands consists of the 19 bands of Indians who occupied the territory along the Grand River in what is now southwest Michigan, including the cities of Grand Rapids and Muskegon. The members of the Grand River Bands are the descendants and political successors to signatories of the 1821 Treaty of Chicago and the 1836 Treaty of Washington. They are also one of six tribes which is an original signatory of the 1855 Treaty of Detroit. However, the Grand River Bands is the only one of those tribes which is not recognized by the Federal Government. In the 109th Congress, I introduced a bill, with my colleague, Senator Stabenow, which would direct the Bureau of Indian Affairs at the Department of the Interior to make a recognition determination, for the Grand River Bands, in a timely manner. I am pleased to re-introduce that bill now. I would also like to affirm that this bill does not federally recognize the tribe nor does it address the issue of gaming. Furthermore, I would like to stress the timely manner in which this determination must be made. If federally recognized, the Grand River Bands is eligible for funds set aside for them from a Federal consent judgment. These funds are expected to be distributed this year. In order for the Grand River Bands to receive their portion of this fund, they must be federally recognized before this money is distributed. They have completed all of the necessary items for a determination to be made by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, but the Bureau has failed to act on the petition for the past ten years. I hope that this legislation will help to provide a timely remedy so that the Grand River Bands can receive funds that are currently set aside for them, and enjoy the full benefits and status of Federal recognition.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Will the Senator from Nebraska yield for a unanimous consent request?

Mr. LEVIN. I ask unanimous consent that I be listed as a cosponsor of the amendment, the Hagel-Webb amendment, or the Webb-Hagel. The amendment speaks with real power about what we need to do. They have worked very hard on it. I wish we could adopt it. I know they are going to speak on it now. I just want to indicate my support for their tremendous effort. I ask to be a cosponsor of their amendment. I think all of us would join in Senator Reid's comments. They were eloquent and powerful, and we thank him for them.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, for the Committee on Armed Services I report favorably the following nomination lists which were printed in the Record on the dates indicated, and ask unanimous consent, to save the expense of reprinting on the Executive Calendar that these nominations lie at the Secretary's desk for the information of Senators.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Washington for her leadership and floor management. The Cochran amendment would strike the heart of the provision relating to Iraq from this supplemental appropriations bill. The main point of our provision is a requirement that the President commence a reduction of U.S. forces from Iraq not later than 120 days after enactment. Not included in the reduction would be those forces that are essential for force protection, training and equipping Iraqi forces, and conducting targeted counterterrorism operations. This language is essential because nothing else has been successful in convincing the Iraqis that they have to take responsibility for their own country and that they must make the political compromises that are necessary to end the sectarian violence and defeat the insurgency in Iraq. Only when the Iraqis realize the mission of U.S. forces is going to change and that we are going to reduce the number of U.S. forces in Iraq will they realize we cannot save them from themselves, and that they need to act to meet the commitments they made to themselves and to us. Commitments are only words unless they are fulfilled. Last month, during our debate on Iraq, I put in the Record Secretary Rice's letter to me of January 2007 which had an enclosure of the listing of the political commitments and the timelines the Iraqis themselves had established. Virtually none of those commitments has been met, despite the fact most of them were to have been fulfilled last year, and all but one were to have been accomplished prior to this month. They committed themselves to approve a provincial elections law and they set a date for a provincial elections law by October of 2006. They set a date to approve militias and other armed formations by December 2006. They set a date for the constitutional review committee to complete its work by January 2007. They made a commitment to conduct a referendum on constitutional amendments which was to have been accomplished by this month. They violated every single one of those commitments. We need to retain this language. We need to retain the language that we begin to reduce the number of American forces in Iraq beginning in 4 months because that reduction is the action-forcing mechanism--the sign to the Iraqi leaders we cannot save them from themselves, and their future is in their hands, not our hands. The most graphic demonstration of the importance of our provision is the fact that even our senior leaders in this administration, while opposing our position, have used the growing support for our position to try to impress upon the Iraqi leaders they have to move promptly to settle their differences and to meet their commitments. Last month while in Baghdad, Secretary Rice used the restiveness in Washington to emphasize to the Iraqi leaders the growth of American frustration with the absence of a political settlement in Iraq. She said she had ``made clear that some of the debate in Washington is indicative of the concerns that the American people have about the prospects for success'' if Iraq's leaders do not quickly take the steps needed to ensure longer-term stability. Ambassador Khalilzad, in a television interview on March 9, said the debate in Congress: Sends a message to the Iraqis that the patience of the American people is running out. And-- He said, Ambassador Khalilzad said-- that is helpful to my diplomacy. The Iraqi Study Group said: The open-ended commitment of American forces does not provide the Iraqi government with the incentive that it needs to take political actions that give Iraq the best chance of quelling sectarian violence. In the absence of such an incentive-- The Iraq Study Group said-- in the absence of ending the open-ended commitment that has been made to Iraq, the Iraqi government might continue to delay taking those difficult actions. I think perhaps General Casey said it best: The longer U.S. forces continue to bear the main burden of Iraq's security, it lengthens the time that the government of Iraq has to take the hard decisions about reconciliation in dealing with the militias. General Casey had it right. Let us not sustain the Cochran amendment. Let's keep this critically important action-forcing mechanism in the bill where it will do some good to force those Iraqi leaders to finally recognize their future is in their hands, not ours.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I am pleased to vote for this budget resolution today. I believe this blueprint for the government's spending and revenues will help put us back on a fiscally responsible path. Before I turn to the merits of this resolution, I want to address the fact that my amendment to establish a deficit neutral reserve fund to promote American manufacturing has been included in this resolution. I thank Senators Conrad and Gregg for accepting this amendment, and I look forward to working with them and other Members to carry out its intent. I believe that we must take strong and dramatic actions in this Congress to revitalize and support our domestic manufacturing sector. We need to enhance our research and development programs, provide tax incentives to encourage and sustain domestic manufacturing, and level the playing field for our domestic manufacturers in the global marketplace. My amendment will be helpful as we fight in this Congress to take these important steps. We need to stop the hemorrhaging of manufacturing jobs from the United States. Our economy and well-being are directly linked to the health of our manufacturing sector, yet we continue to lose manufacturing jobs in this country. Since 2001, we have lost 3 million manufacturing jobs nationwide--including more than 200,000 in my home State of Michigan. Millions more manufacturing jobs hang in the balance. Our companies face enormous pressure in competing in the global marketplace without sufficient support from the U.S. government. Our companies are not competing against other companies overseas--they are competing against other governments that strongly support their manufacturing sectors. We need to provide significant federal support for technology initiatives and advances that will help keep our companies on the cutting edge of technology development and competitive in the global marketplace. All of this requires a bold and comprehensive effort across many segments of our federal government. It will involve many committees and many federal agencies, but I believe it is critical to stem the tide of the domestic manufacturing crisis occurring in this country. My amendment points us in the direction we need to take. It will support legislation that would revitalize our domestic manufacturing sector in four critical ways--by increasing Federal research and development; by expanding the scope and effectiveness of manufacturing programs across the Federal Government; basing support for development of alternative fuels and leap-ahead automotive and energy technologies; and by establishing tax incentives to encourage the continued production in the U.S. of advanced technologies and the infrastructure to support them. There are many other parts of this resolution to be pleased with as well. For too long now we have been digging deeper and deeper into a ditch of debt. President Bush's budget submitted to Congress in February would continue that trend by increasing the gross Federal debt by nearly $3 trillion to $11.5 trillion by 2012. That's $38,000 per person. The budget resolution we are considering today should start to reverse that trend. First, this resolution reestablishes a strong pay-go rule, which would require any new spending or tax cuts to be paid for elsewhere in the budget or receive a supermajority of at least 60 votes in the Senate. This concept is common sense for most families, who work to live within their means by balancing what goes out with what comes in. I heartily welcome its return. This budget also takes the positive steps of establishing a new budget point of order against long-term deficit increases and allowing the Senate's unique budget reconciliation process, which was abused in recent years by the Republican majority, to be used for deficit reduction only, not to increase the deficit with measures which otherwise could not pass the Senate. This budget also sets a blueprint for going after our country's massive $350 billion tax gap, which is the difference between the amount of taxes owed by taxpayers and the amount collected. One of the primary tax gap areas I hope Congress will focus on this year is the offshore tax haven and tax shelter abuses that are undermining the integrity of our tax system. There are many ways Congress can go about tackling these problems, and I commend Chairman Conrad and the Budget Committee for their willingness to take on and push Congress to address these complicated areas. Cracking down on these abuses which shift the tax burden onto ordinary taxpayers is a critical step toward achieving fairness in our tax system. Additionally, I am pleased that this budget assumes an extension of alternative minimum tax, AMT, relief for 2 years. This is relief we know is needed to avoid imposing this unintended tax increase on millions of middle income families. This time frame gives the Finance Committee time to work out a fix that is appropriate and, I hope, paid for. The two AMT amendments offered to this resolution which we considered today were not paid for. The amendment offered by Senator Lott would add $231 billion to the debt over the next 5 years, and Senator Grassley's amendment would have cost $533 billion over that same time. We must not only fix AMT, we must fix it responsibly. Furthermore, I am pleased that this budget resolution supports our men and women in uniform by providing all the funding requested by the President for national defense, for both the underlying national defense program and the additional costs of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. I believe our policy in Iraq must change, but I do not support attempts to cut off funds for our troops in the field. This resolution fully funds our forces at home and overseas, at the levels I and Senator McCain, the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, requested in our letter to the Budget Committee. I also believe funding for these ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan should be accounted for in our budget, and that it was past time the President and Congress stop treating these costs as if they were unanticipated ``emergency'' expenditures. I am pleased that this resolution supports the request Senator McCain and I made to build these costs into the budget. This has two beneficial effects. First, it makes this budget more honest about the cost of this war and the impact it has on our federal deficit. Second, putting this spending into the regular budget process helps ensure that funding requested for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan will receive greater congressional oversight. I commend Senator Conrad for his continuing leadership on fiscal responsibility and accountability. On the issue of funding for our Nation's veterans, I am pleased that this resolution includes the resources needed to ensure that our veterans get the health care they deserve. In total, the resolution provides more than $43 billion for the Veterans Affairs healthcare system--$3.5 billion more than President Bush's budget. Again, this year, the Senate has rejected President Bush's proposal to raise copayments and to impose new fees and higher copayments on certain veterans. I am also pleased that this budget affirms the Senate's commitment to authorize at an appropriate level the Children's Health Insurance Program, SCHIP, before it expires in September 2007. Making sure children have adequate health care should be one of our nation's top priorities. However, President Bush's budget would lead to the loss of critical coverage in many states. It is imperative that we reject that inadequate proposal, and this budget resolution does that. This budget also represents a significant improvement over the President's budget for education. There are more funds for Pell grants, IDEA, and No Child Left Behind Act than the President requested. It would be shameful to fail in our responsibility to our children to adopt a spending blueprint that does not provide our schools the resources they need. I am also pleased that this budget rejects the broad array of cuts to environmental protection programs that were included in the President's budget. This budget resolution fully funds the Environmental Protection Agency's programs to support clean and safe drinking water, and increases funding for the Superfund program by $211 million over the level in the President's budget. The budget also provides about $900 million more for the EPA than the President's budget. This bill also protects Federal lands by rejecting President Bush's proposal to assume revenues from proposals to sell Federal lands. I am also heartened that the budget rejects the President's proposal to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, ANWR. Further, I also support the Senate's adoption of an amendment to fund the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, LIHEAP, at $3.2 billion, which will ensure that more households can be served by this very important program. Unfortunately, this program has been woefully underfunded by President Bush's budget, as well as in past years. I also want to talk a bit about a couple more of the amendments we voted on today. I support extending tax cuts for low- and middle-income taxpayers. However, I opposed Senator Graham's amendment because it would have extended the excessive tax cuts for those in the highest income bracket which I have opposed from the first time we voted on it in 2001, and which we simply can't afford. I also opposed an estate tax amendment offered by Senator Ben Nelson. I would support legislation to prevent a return to the 2001 exemption level, which is too low and no longer appropriate. The current law estate tax exemption level for 2009 of $3.5 million, $7 million for couples, is appropriate and results in only one-third of one percent of estates owing any estate tax. I also had concerns about the Nelson amendment because it proposed a reduction of the rate to 35 percent, which would be a huge loss to the treasury and the amendment does not specify how the revenue needed to keep these changes from increasing the deficit would be raised. It is a welcome change to be voting for a budget resolution that I believe can change the failed fiscal policies and irresponsible tax cuts pushed by this administration. This resolution paves the way for important investments in America's future to put our country back on track and to begin the long process of climbing out of the ditch of debt. Mr. President, during this budget debate there have been different views expressed regarding the amount of revenue that would result if Congress will go after the offshore tax haven and tax shelter abuses that are undermining the integrity of our tax system. There are many ways Congress can go about tackling these problems, and I commend Chairman Conrad and the Budget Committee for their willingness to take on and push Congress to address these complicated areas. Cracking down on these abuses is a critical step toward achieving fairness in our tax system. If Congress addresses these inequities, it would also bring in billions of dollars needed to pay for many important national priorities. These priorities are recognized in this budget resolution itself, such as education, children's health care, veterans medical care, community development block grants, and law enforcement. We can go a long way toward paying for these critical programs by stopping these tax dodges that rob the Treasury of up to $100 billion a year, and shift the tax burden from high-income persons and companies who are principal users of offshore tax havens onto the backs of middle-income families who pay their taxes. For many years, the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, of which I am chairman, has been looking at the problem of offshore corporate, bank, and tax secrecy laws and practices that help taxpayers dodge their U.S. tax obligations by preventing U.S. tax authorities from gaining access to key financial and beneficial ownership information. The subcommittee has also spent years looking at abusive tax shelters, which are complicated transactions promoted to provide tax benefits unintended by the Tax Code. They are very different from legitimate tax shelters, such as deducting the interest paid on home mortgages or congressionally approved tax deductions for building affordable housing. Some abusive tax shelters involve complicated domestic transactions; others make use of offshore shenanigans. All abusive tax shelters are marked by one characteristic: no real economic or business rationale other than tax avoidance. I would like to talk briefly about what we found during those investigations. I think the specifics help make clear that if we have the political will, these are areas ripe with abuses that we can put an end to. Offshore Investigation. During its year long investigation into offshore tax haven abuses, the subcommittee issued more than 70 subpoenas, conducted more than 80 interviews, and reviewed more than 2 million pages of documents. In the resulting hearing held in August 2006, the subcommittee showed through case studies that offshore tax haven countries have, in effect, declared economic war on honest U.S. taxpayers by giving tax dodgers a way to avoid their U.S. tax bills and leave them for others to pay. Offshore tax havens attract these tax dodgers by shrouding their financial transactions in a ``black box'' of secrecy that is extremely difficult to penetrate. They sell secrecy to attract customers and reward them with low or no taxes. This legal black box allows tax dodgers to hide assets, mask who controls them, and obscure how their assets are used. An army of ``offshore service providers'' lawyers, bankers, brokers, and others then joins forces to exploit the impenetrable curtain of secrecy and help clients skirt U.S. tax, securities, and antimoney laundering laws. Many of the firms concocting or facilitating these schemes are respected names here in the United States. These schemes require the secrecy of tax havens because they can't stand the light of day. Our investigation laid out six case studies that illustrated the scope and seriousness of the problem. In one case, two U.S. citizens moved about $190 million in untaxed stock option compensation offshore to a complex array of 58 offshore trusts and corporations and utilized a wide range of offshore mechanisms to exercise direction over these assets and hundreds of millions of dollars in investment gains. These untaxed earnings were then used to finance business ventures, acquire real estate, provide loans, and buy art, furnishings and jewelry for the personal use of the family members. Much of this elaborate scheme involved an offshore bank and an administrative services firm for offshore entities, both housed in a building in the Cayman Islands that we have shown a few times on the Senate floor during this budget debate, the Ugland House. Believe it or not, the building is the official address of 12,748 companies. Just having a post office box in the building enables these shell companies to shift profits that otherwise should be reported as taxable income in the country where it is actually earned. In another case study, two offshore shell corporations engaged in fake stock transactions, seeming to trade stock back and forth as if it were fantasy baseball to create the illusion of economic activity. The shell corporations pretended to run up hundreds of millions of dollars in fake stock losses and then used these phantom losses to offset about $2 billion in real capital gains of the promoters' U.S. clients. The result was $300 million in lost tax revenues to the Treasury. This offshore scheme would be comical because of its complexity but for the sobering fact that these tax haven abuses are eating away at the fabric of the U.S. tax system and undermining U.S. laws intended to safeguard our capital markets and financial systems from financial crime. Our investigation shone a needed spotlight into the black box of offshore tax havens. It revealed a system that is corrupt and corrupting. Honest Americans are footing the bill for tax haven abuses, and it is long past time for Congress to shut those abuses down. Abusive Tax Shelters. In addition to offshore shenanigans, there are plenty of homegrown tax shelters being used to dodge taxes. For 5 years, our subcommittee has also been conducting investigations into the design, sale, and implementation of these complex transactions that have no economic or business rationale other than to avoid tax. Our first hearing on this topic in recent years was held in January 2002, when the subcommittee examined an abusive tax shelter purchased by Enron. In November 2003, the subcommittee held 2 days of hearings and released a staff report that pulled back the curtain on how even some respected accounting firms, banks, investment advisors, and law firms had become engines pushing the design and sale of abusive tax shelters to corporations and individuals across this country. In February 2005, the subcommittee issued a bipartisan report that provided further details on the role these professional firms played in the proliferation of these abusive shelters. Our subcommittee report was endorsed by the full Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs in April 2005. Most recently, a 2006 subcommittee staff report entitled, ``Tax Haven Abuses: The Enablers, the Tools, and Secrecy,'' disclosed how financial and legal professionals designed and sold yet another abusive tax shelter known as the POINT Strategy, which depended on secrecy laws and practices in the Isle of Man to conceal the phantom nature of securities trades that lay at the center of that tax shelter transaction. The subcommittee investigations have found that many abusive tax shelters are not dreamed up by the taxpayers who use them. Instead, most are devised by tax professionals, such as accountants, bankers, investment advisors, and lawyers, who then sell the tax shelter to clients for a fee. In fact, as our 2003 investigation widened, we found a large number of tax advisors cooking up one complex scheme after another, packaging them up as generic ``tax products'' with boiler- plate legal and tax opinion letters, and then undertaking elaborate marketing schemes to peddle these products to literally thousands of persons across the country. In return, these tax shelter promoters were getting hundreds of millions of dollars in fees, while diverting billions of dollars in tax revenues from the U.S. Treasury each year. For example, one shelter investigated by the subcommittee and featured in the 2003 hearings has since become part of an IRS effort to settle cases involving a set of abusive tax shelters known as ``Son of Boss.'' Following our hearing, more than 1,200 taxpayers have admitted wrongdoing and agreed to pay back taxes, interest, and penalties totaling more than $3.7 billion. That is billions of dollars the IRS has collected on just one type of tax shelter, demonstrating both the depth of the problem and the potential for progress. The POINT shelter featured in our 2006 hearing involved another $300 million in taxes lost to the Treasury on transactions conducted by just six taxpayers. Tax Levies on Federal Contractors Who Don't Pay Their Taxes. That is not all. For the last 4 years, our subcommittee has been focusing attention on another sector of the tax gap involving Federal contractors who don't pay their taxes. These contractors are stuffing their pockets with taxpayer dollars, while stiffing Uncle Sam by not paying their taxes. Past subcommittee hearings have exposed the fact that there are about 27,000 defense contractors with $3 billion in unpaid taxes; 33,000 contractors with other Federal agencies who owe $3.3 billion in unpaid tax debt; and 3,800 GSA contractors with $1.4 billion in unpaid tax debt. Earlier this week, another subcommittee hearing put the spotlight on 21,000 Medicare physicians and related medical suppliers with $1.3 billion in unpaid tax debt. These mind-boggling numbers represent tens of thousands of companies putting their hand in the taxpayers' wallet, while dodging billions of dollars in tax obligations. A key program designed to stop this type of abuse is the Federal Payment Levy Program. This program was enacted about 10 years ago to enable the Federal Government to identify Federal payments being made to tax deadbeats, and to withhold a portion of those taxpayer dollars to pay off a portion of the person's tax debt. For the last 4 years, our subcommittee has conducted an intensive effort to strengthen the tax levy program for Federal contractors who don't pay their taxes. As a result, over the past 3 years, tax levy collections as a whole have more than doubled, increasing from about $136 million in 2004 to nearly $340 million in 2006. Of these totals, tax levy collections from Federal contractors in particular have also more than doubled, increasing from about $28 million to $62 million. But $62 million is only a fraction of the billions of uncollected taxes owed by Federal contractors getting paid hundreds of billions in taxpayer dollars. Much more can and should be done to reduce the Federal tax gap by increasing tax levy collections. The first step would be to require the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services to move as quickly as possible to make all $450 billion Medicare and Medicaid payments each year subject to the tax levy program, so that all of these taxpayer dollars are screened for repayment of tax debt. The next step would be to strengthen the tax levy program as a whole. In 2006, for example, the Federal Government identified a total of about $122 billion in assessed tax debt that could be collected, in part, through the tax levy program. At the same time, it determined that only about 45 percent of that uncollected tax debt was actually matched against the Federal payments being made that year. In other words, in 2006, some $67 billion in tax debt was never ``turned on'' for actual collection under the tax levy program. Simple reforms could ensure that a lot more of that $67 billion is set up for collection under the tax levy program. One key barrier right now, for example, is an elaborate series of tax levy notices, mandated by law, that currently have to be issued by the IRS before tax debt can be collected through the tax levy program. While the tax levy notices make sense if the Federal Government is targeting payments being provided by a third party, such as an employer, they make a lot less sense when the levy is targeting taxpayer dollars going to the very people who owe the tax debt. For that reason, Senator Coleman and I plan to introduce legislation to reform the tax levy notice process for Federal payments. We also plan to strengthen other aspects of the tax levy program to start narrowing that multibillion-dollar tax gap. IRS Enforcement Efforts to Reduce the Tax Gap. In our efforts to reducing the tax gap, it will be critical that we give the IRS the funds it needs to go after tax dodgers. For every dollar invested in the IRS's budget, the service yields more than $4 in enforcement revenue. Beyond the additional revenues collected, increased IRS enforcement deters those who might otherwise have dodged their tax obligations and reassures honest taxpayers that compliance with the law is broadly achieved. I am pleased that this budget resolution fully funds the President's budget request for the IRS, and includes an additional $399 million available for IRS enforcement activities. I can't think of many better investments to recover revenues wrongfully lost to the U.S. Treasury and to build respect for the law and respect for the honest Americans who play by the rules and meet their tax obligations. Scope of Problem. The abusive tax shelters and offshore case studies that the subcommittee has delved into are merely a handful of examples that can be used to better understand the details behind these widespread problems. Because secrecy is such a key component of offshore abuses, it is incredibly difficult to estimate just how much income is sheltered offshore. Recent estimates from tax experts, Joe Guttentag and Reuven Avi-Yonah, estimate that offshore tax haven abuses by individuals cost the U.S. Treasury between $40 billion and $70 billion a year in taxes that are owed but not collected. Corporations are also using tax havens to avoid payment of U.S. taxes. Preliminary results from a study to be released soon by Kimberly Clausing of Wellesley College show that $50 billion in U.S. revenue was lost in 2002 from profit-shifting by corporations to low-tax countries. A GAO report Senator Dorgan and I released in 2004 found that nearly two-thirds of the top 100 companies doing business with the U.S. Government had one or more subsidiaries in a tax haven. One company, Tyco International, had 115. Enron, in its heyday, had over 400 Cayman subsidiaries. Data released by the Commerce Department further demonstrates the extent of U.S. corporate use of tax havens, indicating that, as of 2001, almost half of all foreign profits of U.S. corporations were in tax havens. A study released by the journal, ``Tax Notes'' in September 2004 found that American companies were able to shift $149 billion of profits to 18 tax haven countries in 2002, up 68 percent from $88 billion in 1999. A 2004 study by Professor John Zdanowicz found that transfer pricing abuses by corporations cost the U.S. Treasury $53 billion a year. Last year the IRS settled a transfer pricing dispute with one company alone, drug giant Glaxo SmithKline, for $3.4 billion. The size of this settlement with just one company indicates that it is worth looking to see if there are ways to improve the relevant portions of the Tax Code. Treasury has proposed regulations in this area, and I urge the administration to finalize those rules in as strong a form as possible. I also urge the Finance Committee and others to make it a priority to stop these transfer pricing abuses that are hurting average taxpayers as well as disadvantaging U.S. companies that play by the rules. How to Address the Problem. One of the big questions that surrounds all of this is how to start addressing these problems. I have a bill that would be a huge step in the right direction. We can't let the offshore tax havens hide $100 billion in U.S. tax revenues which are needed to protect our troops, fund health care and education, and meet the other needs of American families. We cannot tolerate high-priced accountants, lawyers, and banks concocting ways for tax cheats to offload their unpaid taxes onto the backs of honest taxpayers. That is why earlier this year I introduced the Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act, along with Senators Coleman and Obama. This bill provides a powerful set of new tools to clamp down on offshore tax and tax shelter abuses. Among other measures, our bill would: Establish Presumptions to Combat Offshore Secrecy by allowing U.S. tax and securities law enforcement to presume that nonpublicly traded, offshore corporations and trusts are controlled by the U.S. taxpayers who formed them or sent them assets, and to presume that money moving between U.S. taxpayers and offshore entities is taxable income, unless the taxpayer proves otherwise; Impose Tougher Requirements on U.S. Taxpayers Using Offshore Secrecy Jurisdictions by listing 34 jurisdictions which have already been named in IRS court filings as probable locations for U.S. tax evasion; Authorize Special Measures to Stop Offshore Tax Abuses by giving Treasury authority to take special measures against foreign jurisdictions and financial institutions that impede U.S. tax enforcement; Strengthen Detection of Offshore Activities by requiring U.S. financial institutions that open accounts for foreign entities controlled by U.S. clients, open accounts in offshore secrecy jurisdictions for U.S. clients, or establish entities in offshore secrecy jurisdictions for U.S. clients, to report such actions to the IRS; Close Offshore Trust Loopholes by taxing offshore trust income used to buy real estate, artwork and jewelry for U.S. persons, and treating as trust beneficiaries those persons who actually receive offshore trust assets; Strengthen Penalties on tax shelter promoters by increasing the maximum fine to 150 percent of their ill-gotten gains, and on corporate insiders who hide offshore stock holdings by increasing the maximum fine on them to $1 million per violation of U.S. securities laws; Stop Tax Shelter Patents by prohibiting the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office from issuing patents for ``inventions designed to minimize, avoid, defer, or otherwise affect liability for Federal, State, local, or foreign tax''. This is only a partial list of a host of innovative measures we have included in our bill to strengthen the ability of Federal regulators to combat offshore tax haven and tax shelter abuses. We believe these new tools merit congressional attention and enactment this year if we are going to begin to make a serious dent in the $100 billion in annual lost tax revenue from offshore tax abuses that forces honest taxpayers to shoulder a greater tax burden than they would otherwise have to bear. Tax cheats make it harder to maintain our highways, protect our borders, advance medical research, and inspect our food. They make it difficult to give needed tax relief to small businesses and middle-income victims of the alternative minimum tax. They also deepen the deficit ditch that threatens the economic well-being of our children and grandchildren. The assumptions made in this budget resolution that we can raise ample revenues by shutting them down are not only reasonable, they are crucial to maintaining the integrity of our tax system. I applaud Chairman Conrad and the Budget Committee, as well as the Finance Committee and Chairman Baucus, for their hard fought efforts on this front, and I look forward to working with them and other allies on this issue as we address these problems later this year.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, Canada's commercial seal hunt is the largest slaughter of marine mammals in the world. According to the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), over one million seals have been killed for their fur in the past three years. In 2006 alone, more than 350,000 seals were slaughtered, most of them between 12 days and 12 weeks old. Canada officially opened another seal hunt on November 15, 2006, paving the way for hundreds of thousands of baby seals to be killed for their fur during the spring of 2007. Today, I am joined by Senator Collins and Senator Biden in submitting a resolution that urges the Government of Canada to end this senseless and inhumane slaughter. A study by an independent team of veterinarians in 2001, found that the seal hunt failed to comply with basic animal welfare standards and that Canadian regulations with regard to humane killing were not being enforced. The study concluded that up to 42 percent of the seals studied were likely skinned while alive and conscious. The United States has long banned the import of seal products because of widespread outrage over the magnitude and cruelty of the hunt. It makes little sense to continue this inhumane industry that employs only a few hundred people on a seasonal, part-time basis and only operates for a few weeks a year, in which the concentrated killings takes place. In Newfoundland, where over 90 percent of the hunters live, the economic contribution of the seal hunt is marginal. In fact, exports of seal products from Newfoundland account for less than one- tenth of one percent of the province's total exports. Canada is fortunate to have vast and diverse wildlife populations, but these animals deserve protection, not senseless slaughter. Americans have a long history of defending marine mammals, best evidenced by the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972. Polls show that close to 80 percent of Americans and the vast majority of Europeans oppose Canada's seal hunt. In fact, close to 70 percent of Canadians surveyed oppose the hunt completely, with even higher numbers opposing specific aspects of the hunt, such as killing baby seals. The U.S. Government has opposed this senseless slaughter, as noted in the attached, January 19, 2005, letter from the U.S. Department of State, in response to a letter Senator Collins and I wrote to President Bush, urging him to raise this issue during his November 30, 2004, visit with Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin. The clubbing of baby seals can not be defended or justified. Canada should end it, just as we ended the Alaska seal hunt more than 20 years ago. I ask unanimous consent that the January 19, 2005, letter from the U.S. State Department and the text of the resolution be printed in the Record.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, time and time again we have seen this administration's inability to divorce politics from policy in areas that politics should have no place. The recent firing of eight U.S. attorneys lends yet another example to that failure. It is clear that some of these firings were politically motivated. I support S. 214 and have cosponsored this legislation because it will restore the 120-day limit for interim appointments made by the Attorney General and restore the district court's role in making any subsequent interim appointments to deter the kind of Department of Justice actions we have seen recently. Until 1986, interim U.S. attorneys were appointed by their respective district courts and were allowed to serve until the vacancy was filled by a U.S. attorney nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. In 1986, the law was changed to allow the Attorney General to make an interim appointment for 120 days, provided the appointee was not a person for whom the Senate had refused to give advice and consent. If a successor was not named at the end of the 120-day period, then the district court would appoint a U.S. attorney to serve until the vacancy was filled. This process remained unchanged for 20 years, until last year. During the PATRIOT Act Reauthorization last year, the process was altered to eliminate appointments by the district court and to allow the Attorney General to appoint an interim U.S. attorney indefinitely, or until the vacancy is filled by a U.S. attorney nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. The legislation before us today is simple: it would repeal those changes, which were made without debate, and would require an interim appointment made by the Attorney General to expire after 120 days or when a successor is nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate, whichever comes first. If at the end of the 120-day period no successor has been confirmed, the relevant district court would be authorized to appoint an interim U.S. attorney to serve until the vacancy is filled. The legislation would also terminate existing interim appointments 120 days from enactment or upon confirmation of a successor, whichever comes first. We all know that U.S. attorneys serve at the pleasure of the President. However, U.S. attorneys are supposed to be loyal to the Constitution, not the President and Attorney General. When they are sworn in, U.S. attorneys swear to ``support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.'' There is no requirement that U.S. attorneys ``exhibit loyalty to the President and Attorney General,'' as was said to be a goal in an e-mail from Kyle Sampson, former chief of staff to Attorney General Gonzales, recommending the retention of those attorneys. One of the U.S. attorneys who was asked to resign was Margaret Chiara, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Michigan. In an e- mail dated March 2, 2005, Kyle Sampson wrote to then White House Counsel Harriet Miers, designating Ms. Chiara as one of the U.S. attorneys who was recommended for removal because she was one of the ``weak U.S. attorneys who have been ineffectual managers and prosecutors, chafed against Administration initiatives, etc.'' That assessment ran contrary to the Department of Justice's evaluation of Ms. Chiara, which found her to be well regarded, hard working and a capable leader who had the respect and confidence of the judiciary, agencies, and U.S. Attorney's Office personnel. Further, during Ms. Chiara's tenure as the U.S. attorney from the Western District of Michigan, she achieved an overall increase of more than 15 percent in felony prosecutions and convictions (the Northern Division alone experienced an increase of 84 percent in the number of criminal cases prosecuted during the 2-year period of 2003-2005). The Department of Justice invited Ms. Chiara to serve on several key subcommittees of the Attorney General's Advisory Committee. Ms. Chiara developed an attorney training and mentoring program for the Western District of Michigan that now serves as a national model that was acknowledged as a ``best practice'' by the Department of Justice. Ms. Chiara was awarded the ``Building Bridges Award'' by the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee, and ``Lifetime Achievement Recognition'' by the Women's Historical Center and Michigan Women's Hall of Fame. On December 7, 2006, Mr. Sampson e-mailed William Mercer, then acting Associate Attorney General, stating that ``All Senators have been notified and are fine/no objections.'' Apparently Republican Senators were contacted, but Democrats were not contacted. This Senator was not notified. In fact, the ``Plan for Replacing Certain United States Attorneys'' drafted by Mr. Sampson, states that, on December 7, ``where there is no Republican home-state Senator, the home-state `Bush political lead[s]' are contacted.'' Obviously, it was more important to contact the ``political lead'' than the home-state Senators of these U.S. attorneys, which is further evidence that these firings had political motivations. I am pleased that we will pass this important legislation today, to restore integrity and political confidence to the process of filling the vacancies of U.S. attorneys. I am also pleased that the Judiciary Committee will continue their investigation into this matter by issuing subpoenas, if necessary.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, the National Rifle Association leadership has stated repeatedly that a ban on assault weapons is ineffective and unnecessary. They assert that guns labeled as assault weapons are rarely used in violent crimes and that most people use them for hunting. However, despite these repeated assertions, the list of people speaking out against assault weapons continues to grow. Jim Zumbo, an outdoors entrepreneur who lives in a log cabin near Yellowstone National Park, has spent much of his life writing for prominent outdoor magazines, delivering lectures across the country and who starred in a highly rated TV show about big-game hunting. Jim has been an NRA member for 40 years, and, according to his Web site, has appeared with NRA officials in 70 cities across the country. This relationship changed drastically when Jim expressed his commonsense opinion on assault weapons. Last month, after learning that some hunters were using assault weapons to hunt prairie dogs, Jim expressed his thoughts in his personal blog on the Outdoor Life magazine website. He wrote: Maybe I'm a traditionalist, but I see no place for these weapons among our hunting fraternity. I'll go so far as to call them ``terrorist rifles.'' He continued by stating that in his: . . . humble opinion, these things have no place in hunting. We don't need to be lumped into the group of people who terrorize the world with them, which is an obvious concern. I've always been comfortable with the statement that hunters don't use assault rifles. We've always been proud of our ``sporting firearms.'' The reaction from NRA officials was swift and callous. They immediately severed all ties with Mr. Zumbo. His TV program on the Outdoor Channel was canceled, and his longtime career with Outdoor Life magazine ended. In addition, many of his corporate ties to the biggest names in gun making, such as Remington Arms Co., were terminated. Jim Zumbo has worked for years to improve the image of outdoorsmen. As he put it: As hunters, we don't need the image of walking around the woods carrying one of these weapons. To most of the public, an assault rifle is a terrifying thing. Let's divorce ourselves from them. I say game departments should ban them from the prairies and woods. We all owe Jim Zumbo a debt of gratitude for his forthrightness, his honesty and his courage. We must put the safety of our communities first by taking up and passing sensible gun legislation that includes renewing the assault weapons ban.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Madam President, in November, the American people sent a clear message to Washington. They said: Change the course in Iraq. A few weeks later, the Iraq Study Group issued its bipartisan report calling for a change of course in Iraq. Even the President's new Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, during his confirmation hearing, acknowledged that the current course in Iraq was not working. But instead of developing a new strategy, the President has stayed on his failed course, plunging American troops deeper and deeper into a civil war on the streets of Baghdad and relying on the promises of Iraqi politicians who have not delivered on previous promises. The question for us today is whether we will accept that failing strategy or whether we will change it. The President's deepening military involvement will not lead to a stable Iraq because it has a fundamental flaw. It tries to impose a military solution on a political crisis. Listen to the assessment of Iraq Prime Minister Maliki of the situation in his country. This is what he said: The crisis is political, and the ones who can stop the cycle of bloodletting of innocents are the Iraqi politicians. Outside the White House is a consensus that a political solution among the Iraqis is required, but President Bush persists on a military deepening involvement. The President claims that Iraqis will meet the political benchmarks that they have put forward, but the track record of Iraqi politicians indicates otherwise. On issue after issue, the Iraqi politicians have failed to keep their word, and Iraq is worse off because of those failures. The President's course of action--deeper and deeper military involvement--sends a signal that the Iraqi leaders can continue to bicker without consequence. If the Iraqis fail to meet their own benchmarks, the President will presumably continue to bail them out by sending American troops to police an Iraqi civil war. Unless failure to meet benchmarks has consequences, those benchmarks have little meaning. We must change the course if there is going to be any hope of success in Iraq. The best leverage we have is the presence and mission of American forces. As long as our presence is open-ended, the dynamic in Iraq will remain the same: Insurgents will target our troops, militias will cause mayhem, and the Iraqi politicians will sit in relative safety in the Green Zone, unwilling to make the compromises so essential to reaching a political settlement that can save their country. But if we send a clear message that we are ending the open-ended commitment, that will shift responsibility to the Iraqis, both politically and militarily, for their own future. By requiring the President to change the mission of American forces to the three missions specified in the Reid resolution, by beginning a phased redeployment of American forces in 4 months, the resolution before us would force the Iraqi leaders to face reality and to understand that their future as a nation is in their own hands, not ours. The Iraqis will finally be forced to decide if they want a civil war or they want a nation. They will then understand we cannot save them from themselves. The President and his supporters ask for patience. But asking for patience now, after all these years of asking for patience without success, is a little like Lucy asking Charlie Brown to try to kick the football one more time. We ought to be wise enough by now to know that increased military involvement won't achieve the political settlement that is needed. General Peter Chiarelli, Commanding General of the Multi-National Corps in Iraq, said the following: We need a commitment by all Iraqis of all the ethno- sectarian groups to commit first to nonviolence and to resolving their differences through the political process. I happen to believe that we have done everything militarily we possibly can. General Casey made a similar point in early January when he said: The longer we in the U.S. forces continue to bear the main burden of Iraq's security, it lengthens the time that the government of Iraq has to take the hard decisions about reconciliation and dealing with the militias. The real battle for Baghdad is a political battle. Maximizing success in Iraq requires us to change course and to shift responsibility to the Iraqi political leaders for the future of Iraq. To paraphrase British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the next chapter of Iraq's history needs to be written by the Iraqis. Our vote today will decide whether we will begin changing course to maximize chances of success in Iraq or whether we will remain mired in the status quo of sending more and more American troops into the middle of an Iraqi civil war.

Mr. LEVIN. Madam President, I believe one Senator is on his way right now, and the Senator's notice should produce some other Senators as well. I thank the Senator from Oklahoma.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, is this dividing the hour of debate on the motion to proceed?

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, next Tuesday will mark the start of the fifth year of the war in Iraq. Our Nation has spent almost $400 billion now in Iraq and is spending an average of almost $9 billion in U.S. taxpayers' funds per month. More importantly, we have lost almost 3,200 American service men and women and have suffered almost 24,000 wounded. The resolution before us is aimed at turning the responsibility for the future of Iraq over to the Iraqis themselves. Last year, we adopted a resolution which said that calendar year 2006 was going to be a period of significant transition to full Iraqi sovereignty with Iraqi security forces taking the lead for the security of a free and sovereign Iraq, thereby creating the conditions for a phased redeployment of U.S. forces from Iraq. That was over a year ago. We were supposed to be through a year of significant transition by now. It has not happened. The only way it is going to happen is if this Congress makes it happen. Many of us have long maintained it was necessary that pressure be placed on the Iraqis to come together politically because only a political settlement could bring about the end of sectarian violence in Iraq and the defeat of the insurgents. I have recounted how Ambassador Khalilzad and even President Bush have told me a number of statements that many of us have made--that we should begin to reduce our presence in Iraq--were, indeed, useful statements, useful in an effort to prod the Iraqis to reach a political settlement. Those words--the words of President Bush, Ambassador Khalilzad, and recently Secretary Rice--words prodding the Iraqis to take responsibility, telling the Iraqis the open-ended commitment is over, telling the Iraqis we must begin to reduce our presence in 4 to 6 months are useful words for the Iraqis to hear. The problem is it is not the President who is speaking those words. The problem is the administration has not adopted those words as a matter of policy. Now it is time for Congress to explain to the Iraqis: It is your country. We cannot save you from yourselves. It is time for us, the Congress, to tell the Iraqis as a reminder that it is their own Prime Minister, Mr. Maliki, who acknowledged the following when he said a few months ago: The crisis is political, and the ones who can stop the cycle of aggravation and bloodletting are the [Iraqi] politicians. A few weeks ago, Ambassador Khalilzad said in an interview on television that the congressional debate is ``useful in one way. It does send a message to the Iraqis that the patience of the American people is running out, and that is helpful to my diplomacy.'' I wish to repeat this because there are a number of Members of this body and there are a number of members of the administration who have attacked this debate as somehow or another undermining our troops. It is quite the opposite. We support our troops when we give them our best thinking as to how to succeed in Iraq. It is good for our troops to have a debate in this democracy about whether a course is failing or succeeding and, if it is not succeeding, to offer our best thoughts as to how to make it succeed. Our troops deserve everything we can give them. They haven't gotten it. They deserve the best equipment. They didn't get it. They deserve treatment when they come to our hospitals. They didn't get it. They deserve our best thinking, our honest thoughts as to how we can succeed in Iraq, how can we change course from a failing course to one which succeeds. We know there is no military solution in Iraq, there is only a political solution, and that must be achieved by the Iraqis themselves. We cannot save the Iraqis from themselves. It is their country. After 4 years of shedding American blood and American treasure, it is long overdue that the Iraqi leaders be told, not just by this Congress, although we alone apparently will do it, but by the administration that they and they alone have the responsibility, the capability, and the power to make Iraq a country instead of a place of civil strife. This resolution we are about to embark upon will end the open-ended commitment of American military forces that is not working. We must change this course. Only the Iraqis can save their country, and we will be helping to force them to do that. It shouldn't be necessary, but it is. We will be helping to force the Iraqi leaders to save their country if we step up finally and say: We have been there longer than we were in World War II. We have been in Iraq longer than we fought the Korean war. Iraqis leaders, only you, and you alone, can decide: Do you want a civil war or do you want a nation? We hope you choose a nation. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, after 4 years of fighting and the loss of almost 3,200 American lives, 24,000 wounded, $350 billion spent on this war, it is long past time for a new approach in Iraq. Everybody who participates in this debate wants to maximize our chances of success in Iraq. Even those of us who voted against going to war and those of us who have disagreed with how this war has been conducted want to see a stable Iraq which enhances our own national security. But continuing the current course and surging along the current course does not do that. The President's current course of action, of putting more U.S. military personnel in the middle of a growing civil war in Iraq, does not enhance our security and it does not maximize the chances of success. The President's plan has a fundamental flaw because what is needed in Iraq is a political solution among the Iraqi leaders, not a military solution. Our troops perform bravely and brilliantly, but American military firepower will not end the civil war in Iraq. It has been apparent for a long time that there is no military solution in Iraq, that an Iraqi political solution is necessary to end the violence. GEN Peter Chiarelli, commanding general of the multinational force in Iraq, said the following in December: We need a commitment by all Iraqis, of all of the ethno- sectarian groups to commit first to nonviolence and to resolving their differences through the political process . . . And he continued: I happen to believe that we have done everything militarily that we possibly can. At his confirmation hearing in December, I asked our new Secretary of Defense, Bob Gates: Do you believe that the end to violence in Iraq requires a political settlement, and that we need to communicate a sense of urgency to the Iraqis to pressure them to reach a settlement that only their politicians can reach? Dr. Gates replied: Yes, I do. The Iraq Study Group stated that: The violence in Iraq cannot be stopped or even contained if there is no underlying political agreement among Iraqis about the future of their country. Perhaps most telling was Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki's acknowledgment recently on this essential point. This is what Iraq's own Prime Minister said: The crisis is political. And the ones who can stop the cycle of aggravation and blood-letting of innocents are the Iraqi politicians. The real battle for Baghdad is not a military battle, it is a political one, and that battle can be resolved only by Iraqi politicians and not by our military. So how do we pressure the Iraqi leaders to reach the political settlement that is essential? We can start by ending our open-ended commitment to Iraq. The President has changed his rhetoric about ending our open-ended commitment, but he has not changed his policy. In fact, he sent the opposite message when he sent more troops to Baghdad. Our objective in Iraq, and the objective of this resolution, must be to shift responsibility to the Iraqis, both politically and militarily, for their future. For that to happen, we must end the open-ended commitment that has been made by this administration to Iraq of the presence--without decision by us, leaving it up to the Iraqis for how long and how many--of American troops. We must make clear to the Iraqis that their future is in their hands, not ours. We must make it clear to the Iraqis they must reach a political settlement among themselves and, if they do not, we cannot save them from themselves. As General Abizaid said in November: It's easy for the Iraqis to rely upon us to do this work. I believe that more American forces prevent the Iraqis from doing more, from taking more responsibility for their own future. General Casey made the same point in early January when he said: The longer we in the U.S. forces continue to bear the main burden of Iraq's security, it lengthens the time that the government of Iraq has to take the hard decisions about reconciliation and dealing with the militias. And the other thing is that they can continue to blame us for all of Iraq's problems, which are at base their problems. The Iraq Study Group specifically drew the connection between the importance of ending the open-ended commitment of American troops and persuading the Iraqis to make political compromises. There is a connection between the two, the Iraq Study Group said, between ending the open-ended commitment and getting the Iraqis to resolve their political differences. Here is the way they put it in the Iraq Study Group's report: An open-ended commitment of American forces would not provide the Iraqi government the incentive it needs to take the political actions that give Iraq the best chance of quelling sectarian violence. In the absence of such an incentive, the Iraqi government might continue to delay taking those difficult actions. That is the Iraq Study Group. Columnist Tom Friedman put it succinctly recently in the New York Times: Right now everyone in Iraq is having their cake and eating it--at our expense. We have to change that. But instead of putting pressure on the Iraqis, the President is putting his faith in the Iraqis to meet certain benchmarks they have set for themselves. But look at the track record of the Iraqi Government in meeting some of the benchmarks and promises it has set for itself and it has made. Iraqi President Talibani said in August of 2006 that Iraqi forces would ``take over security in all Iraqi provinces by the end of 2006.'' That pledge surely has not been kept. Prime Minister Maliki said last June he would disband the militias and illegal armed groups as part of his national reconciliation plan, and in October he set the timetable for disbanding the militias as the end of 2006. That commitment has not been kept. The Iraqi Constitutional Review Commission was to present its recommendations for changes in the constitution to the Council of Representatives within 4 months of the formation of the Iraqi Government last May. Well, the commission has yet to formulate any recommendations. Prime Minister Maliki put forward a series of reconciliation milestones to be completed by the end of 2006 or early 2007, including approval of the provincial election law, approval of a new de- baathification law, and approval of a new militia law. Not one of those laws has been enacted. On January 30, Secretary Rice wrote to me about these benchmarks. She said the Iraqi Government had adopted a lot of benchmarks, and she attached those benchmarks to her letter called ``Notional Political Timeline.'' Here is what she said about the benchmarks attached to her letter: . . . Iraq's Policy Committee on National Security agreed upon a set of political, security, and economic benchmarks and an associated timeline in September 2006. Then she said: These were reaffirmed by the Presidency Council on October 16, 2006, and referenced by the Iraq Study Group; the relevant document (enclosed) was posted at that time on the President of Iraq's website. The posted document shows one benchmark after another, starting in September 2006, going through March of 2007, and I am going to read them off. By September 2006: Form a Constitutional Review Committee; Approve the law and procedures to form regions; Agree on political timetable; Approve the law for Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC); Approve the Investment Law. By October 2006: Approve provincial elections law and set date for provincial elections; Approve a hydrocarbon law. By November 2006: Approve a de-Ba'athification law; Approve provincial council authorities law; Approve a flag, emblem and national anthem law. By December 2006: Approve Coalition Provisional Authority . . . concerning armed forces and militias; Council of Representatives to address amnesty, militias and other armed formations; Approve amnesty, militias and other armed formations law. By January 2007--this was the timeline-- Constitutional Review Committee completes its work. By February 2007: Form independent commissions in accordance with the Constitution. By March: Constitutional amendments referendum (if required). Now, there may have been one or two of those guidelines met. If so, I am not sure what they are, but I want to at least allow the possibility that a flag, emblem, and national anthem law was adopted. But of those perhaps 15 milestones--and a timeline for them--to be adopted by the Iraqi Presidency, not more than one--but maybe two--of the 15 have been adopted. And none of the important ones have been adopted. We are told by Secretary Rice, that was on the Web site of the President of Iraq. Then suddenly and mysteriously it disappeared from that Web site a few months ago. When I asked Secretary Rice--I wrote her a letter asking: You said, Madam Secretary, this was on the Web site, but it disappeared from the Web site. Can you find out why? We have not heard back from the Secretary of State about that problem. So much for the promises and commitments and milestones of the Iraqi leadership. They post them on a Web site month by month what these promises and commitments and milestones and benchmarks are, and then-- poof--they disappear from the Web site, just as though they were not made. That is the problem with milestones, benchmarks which have no consequences when they are not met. The President talks about benchmarks, and yet he has not outlined any consequences for the Iraqis if they fail to meet these new benchmarks. I have little hope they will meet benchmarks they lay out unless they see no alternative. It is time to go beyond the toothless benchmarks and to make clear to the Iraqi leaders their dawdling must end and that their nation is in their hands, and we cannot decide for them how to build a nation, whether to build a nation, or whether they prefer to have a civil war. The administration says our debate on this bill would embolden the enemy. But what that shows is a serious lack of understanding of the situation we face. Congressional debate over Iraq policy does not embolden the enemy. The enemy is already emboldened. The enemy is emboldened by an open-ended presence of western troops in a Muslim country's capital, which serves as a magnet for extremists and gives a propaganda club to our enemies. The enemy is emboldened by an invasion of Iraq without the support of the international community, and with no plan for a violent aftermath. The enemy is emboldened by a million and a half Iraqi refugees, with thousands more being added each day. The enemy is emboldened by a surge of American troops into a civil war that postpones the day when Iraqi leaders will take responsibility for their own future. And now our responsibility as a Congress. What is our responsibility? What this resolution does is implement our responsibility by working to make the day when Iraqi leaders take responsibility for their own nation come sooner rather than later. The most recent intelligence estimate says ``the current security and political trends in Iraq are moving in a negative direction.'' Our resolution is the best way to stop the Iraqi leaders from continuing to fiddle while Baghdad burns. It would seek to pressure the Iraqi leaders to achieve a political solution by requiring our President to promptly transition the mission of American forces in Iraq to protecting United States and coalition personnel and infrastructure, to training and equipping Iraqi forces, and to conducting targeted counterterrorism operations. Our resolution would require the President to begin the phased redeployment of United States forces from Iraq not later than 120 days after enactment, with the goal--I emphasize ``goal''--of redeploying all United States combat forces by March 31, 2008, except for--except for--those that are needed to carry out the three missions which are described in the resolution, and which I have just outlined. That goal and the three limited missions are the same as the goal and the limited missions recommended by the Iraq Study Group. Passing this resolution would deliver a cold dose of reality to the Iraqi leaders and would tell them we are not going to be their security blanket without end. When they finally understand our military presence in Iraq is neither permanent nor unconditional, then--and only then-- are they likely to take the political steps necessary to deal with sectarian violence and to defeat the insurgency. By shifting responsibility to the Iraqis for their own future and their own country, this resolution does what is needed the most--it puts pressure on the Iraqis to reach a political settlement. As we consider the future of our involvement in Iraq, we must always be mindful of the price our military and their families are paying as a result of multiple deployments of units and people to Iraq. We must be mindful that the lack of attention to Afghanistan and Pakistan has allowed al-Qaida and the Taliban to regroup and strengthen. We must also be mindful that our nondeployed forces lack the equipment and other resources needed to maintain an acceptable level of readiness, and, as a result, the risk our Nation faces has substantially increased. We must be tragically mindful, always, that the pledge to take care of those courageous soldiers and marines, who have sustained serious physical and mental injuries in combat, has been broken by this administration. In recent days, there have been statements suggesting a debate in Congress on the war in Iraq is undermining the troops. Just last Monday, Vice President Cheney said, among other things, that: When Members of Congress pursue an antiwar strategy . . . they are not supporting the troops, they are undermining them. Contrast the Vice President's statement with statements Secretary of Defense Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Pace made recently on February 7 before the House Armed Services Committee. Here is what Secretary Gates said: I would tell you that I think that our troops do understand that everybody involved in this debate is looking to do the right thing for our country and for our troops, and that everybody is looking for the best way to avoid an outcome that leaves Iraq in chaos. And I think our troops are sophisticated enough to understand that that's what the debate's really about. It's about the path forward in Iraq. Here is what General Pace said, and contrast this to what Vice President Cheney said--how worthy Secretary Gates' statement is--and listen to how worthy General Pace's statement is compared to the stale and unworthy comments of the Vice President of the United States about what this debate signifies. General Pace: There is no doubt in my mind that the dialogue here in Washington strengthens our democracy. Period. And then he added: From the standpoint of the troops, I believe that they understand how our legislature works and they understand that there is going to be this kind of debate. When I listened to the Vice President and his unworthy remarks, it reminded me of not only how worthy our troops are and how they are professional enough to understand what their duty is, but also that they are loyal Americans to know and understand that it is our duty to debate this war. For those of us who think it is leading in the wrong direction and going nowhere, it is on a road to failure, it is our duty to try to change that course. Contrast our troops and their honor and their loyalty to the principles upon which this Nation was founded, reflected, interestingly enough, in a poll taken of our military by the Military Times. This poll was printed in the Army Times a few months ago. The question that was asked of our troops was whether they approve of the President's handling of the war in Iraq. Forty-two percent of our troops disapproved of the President's handling of the war in Iraq. Thirty-five percent of our troops approved of the handling of the war by their Commander in Chief. They are divided as Americans are divided. We should not only respect their bravery, we should respect their intelligence and their commitment to this debate in the Congress. That is what they are fighting for: that we can debate a mission and we can debate how to best secure this country so that we can debate how to best succeed in Iraq. That is what our troops believe in. That is what they are fighting for. It is insulting to them. It is insulting to them to say, as the Vice President of the United States said, that a debate in the United States Congress as to how best to succeed in Iraq, how best to change the course in Iraq, somehow or other undermines the troops. So we have before us an opportunity, an opportunity which can only be achieved if this debate can advance beyond the motion to proceed. We will be voting on that motion later on today or tomorrow. I hope that Senators, regardless of our views on this war, will allow this Senate to once again debate the direction in Iraq. The last real vote we had was one that denied us this opportunity to proceed. I hope there will be enough of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle who will recognize the importance of this debate to this future--the future of this country, to the future of this world, perhaps; to the lives of so many of our gallant, brave troops and their families, and perhaps, indeed, to the future well-being of this institution because this institution surely should be about debating issues as transcendently important as our future in Iraq. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that some correspondence between myself and Secretary Rice, and Senator McCain and myself with Secretary Rice be printed in the Record.

Mr. LEVIN. I yield the floor.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I wonder if the Senator from Rhode Island would yield.

Mr. LEVIN. There is no order that has been established, No. 1. I would like very much to establish an order for the convenience of all Senators, but I would have to know more about the other side in terms of what their wishes are. I know Senator Schumer wanted to begin at about 1:45, and then I know Senator Dorgan was in the queue--it is an informal queue. I believe, if my memory is correct, although I don't have the sheet of paper in front of me, Senator Dorgan wanted to come out between 3:00 and 4:00. We will do everything we can to accommodate Senators, and if Senators could let me know, for those who want to speak in favor of the motion to proceed, when they would like to be here and about how long they need, I would be most appreciative, and I will try to put together an order. Can we put in an order now that Senator Reed has the floor, and we would be happy to alternate if a Republican shows up. Let me ask Senator Dorgan. I did tell Senator Schumer that we would try to fit him in at 1:45. Can we put Senator Specter in immediately after Senator Schumer? Could we put the Senator from Pennsylvania in immediately after Senator Schumer because I have not specified with him the amount of time he needs. But I would prevail upon him to see if he could end close to 1:55. Let me raise that with Senator Schumer. Could I ask the Senator from Rhode Island about how much time he needs?

Mr. LEVIN. As always, he is most accommodating. The Presiding Officer apparently also wishes to have time. Could we put the Senator from New Jersey in after the Senator from Pennsylvania? Why don't we set up the next three Senators on this side to be Senator Reed, Senator Schumer, and then Senator Specter, and then Senator Menendez.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Bill Nelson be recognized next and Senator Graham be recognized after Senator Nelson, and then we return to Senator Dorgan.