Mary Landrieu

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. I have been impressed by recent efforts undertaken by the Navy to create an Internet capable database that would catalogue and inventory all spare parts necessary for repairs to Navy aircraft. It is a fact of life that the high stresses Navy pilots place on their aircrafts will cause significant wear and tear and require repairs. The Navy, at times, has been plagued by difficulties in locating the whereabouts of necessary parts. To remedy this problem, the Navy began to work on the Configuration Management Information System, or CMIS, to catalogue and inventory Navy aircraft parts and their whereabouts. With CMIS, Navy mechanics around the world, will be able to search through an Internet database to ascertain if the needed parts can be found on site. If not, they will be able to quickly learn where the nearest replacement part is located. With this knowledge, mechanics know where to turn for parts rather than conducting scatter-shot searches throughout the Navy to look for the part. The CMIS program was funded last year in the Senate Defense Appropriations bill at a level of $4,000,000. This year, the Senate authorized $13,500,000 for CMIS, and the House appropriated $4,000,000 for CMIS. I would hope, Senator Inouye, that you would agree on the need to create a centralized database to quickly identify the location of necessary parts to make repairs to Navy aircraft, and I would hope that you would agree that this program should be supported in Conference.

Ms. LANDRIEU. I would like to ask my friend, the Chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, Senator Daniel Inouye, to engage in a discussion of several defense programs that are of vital importance to my home state of Louisiana and our national security.

Ms. LANDRIEU. I thank the distinguished Chairman and Senior Senator from Hawaii for taking time to participate in this colloquy. His leadership and management of this bill have been excellent. The people of Louisiana, Hawaii, and the United States are grateful for his lifetime of service to our Nation. armed pilots

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I rise to pay a posthumous tribute to one of the most dedicated leaders of my State, the late Roger C. Clouatre. As a corporate executive of Vulcan Chemical Company, as well as a member of the Ascension Parish School Board, he demonstrated dedication, pride in his work, and a commitment to the well being of those he represented and served. Much has changed in our Nation since September Eleventh. There is a growing, yet genuine enthusiasm for the things that are truly important, our family, our friends and the welfare of our country. Long before these tragic events, however, the man I memorialize here today practiced these ideals. He leaves behind a proud family; a thankful community and a Nation better off, because he was an American citizen for 53 years. His friends say he ``completed 80 years of work in 53 years of life.'' It is a record of accomplishment that we can all learn from. Yet, even though he battled cancer for the last 12 years of his life, it did not diminish his devotion to his children, his compassion for his friends and his dedication to the work of the Ascension Parish School Board. His planning and execution were always based in reality, but he himself represented an idealist's view of a man serving God, family and friends. He made us all laugh and kept a positive attitude that always seemed to affect our daily outlook on life. His son Spencer, a graduate of West Point, said eloquently at his father's funeral that although Roger has the potential for national service, he instead invested every moment of his energy on the community he dearly cared about, and the family he loved so much. Roger and his wife Katherine were the proud parents of four children, Spencer, Stephanie, Styles and Stuart, each a blessing in their own right. Though many awards and accolades found him in life, his service and dedication to his community were largely responsible for the public support of a $30 million bond issue that is creating new schools and expanding educational facilities throughout the parish. Again, his son Spencer put it best when he said: ``We were all very lucky to have him at the local level, for his capabilities surely could have affected state and national events. He was a leader--a Chief Executive Officer, a General--someone that we all wanted to follow, a role model we all emulated in some way or another.'' His deflection of self at the height of the me-generation and the uncompromsing support of others that he demonstrated throughout his life, even at times of unspeakable pain, should provide all of us with the inspiration to go forward in our work. Unfortunately, all of my colleagues will not know Roger Clouatre. Looking back, I see how fortunate I happened to be to have had the occasion to seek the wonderful advice of this great American. Though he was seemingly lost in the deep fabric of this mighty Nation, he was in fact, a quiet hero. May Roger's star always reflect a wonderful luminance upon our Nation and provide all of us with a reminder of the thousand ways in which we may all work to make this a greater Nation still.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce two bills. One will give tax relief to a small group of men and women in our armed services stationed on the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, supporting the war on terrorism in Afghanistan. The second bill will exclude from gross income childcare benefits paid to members of our armed forces. These are small measures,but both will be of great benefit to the men and women serving our country. Diego Garcia is a British Territory lying seven degrees South Latitude off the coast of India, in the middle of the Indian Ocean. The island is 40 miles around and encompasses an area of 6,720 acres, most of it dominated by a large lagoon. The land mass is actually very small. It is home to a joint British-United States Naval Support Facility, and while there are only a small handful of British Royal Navy personnel on the island, there is a larger, tight-knit team of American Air Force, Navy, and Army personnel on the island. These men and women serving on Diego Garcia are supporting B-52 bombing missions and other operations over Afghanistan. Many of them are from the 2nd Bomb Wing and the 917th Wing. Both units call Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana their home. As a Nation, we provide members of our armed forces with a variety of benefits, all of them deserve. They receive hardship duty pay of $150 per monthly for serving in austere regions of the World. They get imminent danger pay of $150 per month as compensation for being in physical danger. One of the most generous benefits for those serving in the war on terrorism is the combat zone tax exclusion. Members of the armed services do not pay Federal tax on compensation they for any month of service inside a combat one. They only have to serve on day in the combat zone to get this benefit. The exclusion only applies to personnel who receive imminent danger pay. On Diego Garcia, the pilots and flight crews who fly the missions over Afghanistan are eligible for the income tax exclusion because they receive imminent danger pay. But the men and women who load the bombers, fuel them, and maintain them are not eligible because they do not enter the combat zone. My office was contacted by the officers who fly the bombing missions about this discrepancy. They asked me to help out their support crews, a gesture of selflessness that I want to honor. I recognize that the support crews may not receive imminent danger pay, but their situation is not too different from Naval personnel performing the same tasks on ships in the Arabian Sea. Naval support crews receive imminent danger pay and are eligible for the tax exclusion, but they do not enter Afghanistan. Diego Garcia is a beautiful place, but it is a long way from home. The least we could do is treat everyone who has served on the island the same. That is what my bill will do. My second bill will correct an omission in the Tax Reform Act of 1986. That Act contained a provision consolidating the laws regarding the tax treatment of certain military benefits. The Conference Report to that Act contains a long list of benefits to be excluded from gross income of military personnel. According to the report, this list was to be exhaustive. The problem is that child car benefits are not on that list. I do not know if this omission was intentional. Perhaps at that time, child care benefits were relatively unknown in the military. The Conference Report gives the Treasury Secretary the authority to expand the list of eligible benefits, but so far the Secretary has not provided any guidance to the Department of Defense as to how these benefits should be treated for tax purposes. While military families are not currently being taxed for child care benefits, the Department of Defense has indicated that it would like Congress to clarify that child care benefits are not subject to tax. My bill will give our military families and the Department of Defense a greater degree of certainty. Throughout our history, in time of war we have worked to make sure that our armed forces have everything they need and we have spared no expense in meeting that need. But the men and women on the ground often have families back at home. We should make sure that we support them as well. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce two bills. One will give tax relief to a small group of men and women in our armed services stationed on the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, supporting the war on terrorism in Afghanistan. The second bill will exclude from gross income childcare benefits paid to members of our armed forces. These are small measures,but both will be of great benefit to the men and women serving our country. Diego Garcia is a British Territory lying seven degrees South Latitude off the coast of India, in the middle of the Indian Ocean. The island is 40 miles around and encompasses an area of 6,720 acres, most of it dominated by a large lagoon. The land mass is actually very small. It is home to a joint British-United States Naval Support Facility, and while there are only a small handful of British Royal Navy personnel on the island, there is a larger, tight-knit team of American Air Force, Navy, and Army personnel on the island. These men and women serving on Diego Garcia are supporting B-52 bombing missions and other operations over Afghanistan. Many of them are from the 2nd Bomb Wing and the 917th Wing. Both units call Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana their home. As a Nation, we provide members of our armed forces with a variety of benefits, all of them deserve. They receive hardship duty pay of $150 per monthly for serving in austere regions of the World. They get imminent danger pay of $150 per month as compensation for being in physical danger. One of the most generous benefits for those serving in the war on terrorism is the combat zone tax exclusion. Members of the armed services do not pay Federal tax on compensation they for any month of service inside a combat one. They only have to serve on day in the combat zone to get this benefit. The exclusion only applies to personnel who receive imminent danger pay. On Diego Garcia, the pilots and flight crews who fly the missions over Afghanistan are eligible for the income tax exclusion because they receive imminent danger pay. But the men and women who load the bombers, fuel them, and maintain them are not eligible because they do not enter the combat zone. My office was contacted by the officers who fly the bombing missions about this discrepancy. They asked me to help out their support crews, a gesture of selflessness that I want to honor. I recognize that the support crews may not receive imminent danger pay, but their situation is not too different from Naval personnel performing the same tasks on ships in the Arabian Sea. Naval support crews receive imminent danger pay and are eligible for the tax exclusion, but they do not enter Afghanistan. Diego Garcia is a beautiful place, but it is a long way from home. The least we could do is treat everyone who has served on the island the same. That is what my bill will do. My second bill will correct an omission in the Tax Reform Act of 1986. That Act contained a provision consolidating the laws regarding the tax treatment of certain military benefits. The Conference Report to that Act contains a long list of benefits to be excluded from gross income of military personnel. According to the report, this list was to be exhaustive. The problem is that child car benefits are not on that list. I do not know if this omission was intentional. Perhaps at that time, child care benefits were relatively unknown in the military. The Conference Report gives the Treasury Secretary the authority to expand the list of eligible benefits, but so far the Secretary has not provided any guidance to the Department of Defense as to how these benefits should be treated for tax purposes. While military families are not currently being taxed for child care benefits, the Department of Defense has indicated that it would like Congress to clarify that child care benefits are not subject to tax. My bill will give our military families and the Department of Defense a greater degree of certainty. Throughout our history, in time of war we have worked to make sure that our armed forces have everything they need and we have spared no expense in meeting that need. But the men and women on the ground often have families back at home. We should make sure that we support them as well. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I rise today to express my admiration and gratitude to a woman who served the State of Louisiana and indeed the entire Nation with devotion and sense of unwavering dedication. Throughout her life, she answered every call to service made to her. Lindy came to Washington in 1940 with her husband, the late Hale Boggs and following his tragic death in 1972, she became the first woman to elected to the House of Representatives from the State of Louisiana. She continued her service to Congress until 1990, when she retired to New Orleans. In Congress she sat on the Appropriations Committee and the Select Committee on Children, Youth, and Families, spearheading legislation on issues ranging from civil rights to pay equity for women. She chaired the committees on the Bicentennials of the American Constitution in 1987 and the House of Representatives in 1989. In 1997, President Clinton asked her to assist her country once again, this time as the American ambassador to the Vatican. But the reasons to honor Lindy go far beyond a recitation of her resume, distinguished as it may be. Lindy Boggs continues to be a role model for those of us in Congress and thousands of young women across this country who aspire to public service. She used her Southern charm and keen political mind to become one of the most formidable forces in the U.S. House of Representatives. She served as a mentor and teacher to me as well as the Congresswomen that followed her. She not only taught them the rules and expectations of Members of Congress, she taught us how to be a strong, independent women. Lindy is the founder of the Congressional Women's Caucus, a legislative body that has done so much in its 25-year history. Twenty- five years ago, very few women had served in the Senate, and today we have 13. Thirteen women, and that number is sure to grow. As women, we champion the rights of women everywhere from Afghanistan to China and even here at home. We are a force to be reckoned with, and Lindy is our leader. What is most impressive about Lindy is the long list of firsts that accompany her biography. She was the first female Representative elected from Louisiana, the first women to chair the National Democratic Convention, the first women to sit on the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution and the first woman to serve as ambassador to the Holy See. She continues to be my mentor and even more, my friend. It is an honor to join the entire Louisiana delegation and I am sure women in public service everywhere to honor this very special Louisiana and American, Lindy Boggs.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I would like to voice my strong support for S. 2673, the Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act. This legislation will bring accountability to our corporate boardrooms and end the accounting abuses that threaten to undermine the free enterprise system. The hallmark of our economic system is free, fair, and open competition. The system rewards innovation, efficiently, and hard work. It allows individuals to take an idea, a dream, or an invention; build a business around it; and turn it into a livelihood. Some of our greatest corporations today started with just one idea. The recent revelations from Wall Street have thrown much of this in doubt. For the Enrons, and WorldComs of the world, success was based on hiding losses, misstating earnings, destroying documents, and getting cozy with their so-called ``independent'' auditors and the stock analysis who are supposed to give the stock buying public objective information. Instead of winning through open competition, these companies and others won through accounting sleight-of-hand. The price of this deception has been too high. While much has been made in the media about how far the Dow, the NASDAQ, and the S & P 500 have fallen on Wall Street, the real pain is being felt on Main Street--in retirement plans, pensions, and the investment portfolios of hard working people in our country. The pain is being felt by the very wealthy and people with modest means. Fortunately no Louisiana-based corporation has been caught up in this mess and hopefully that will remain the case, but many Louisiana investors were not so lucky. Many have said that all of these problems have been caused by a few bad apples. But when we hear about corporations hiding losses, creating off-book partnerships, insider trading, and inside loans to corporate officers, it means that something may be wrong with the whole tree: the tree is rotten because of loopholes in regulations and limited oversight. My State of Louisiana is home to a large number of small businesses-- 94,000 of the employer businesses in my state employ fewer than 500 people-- and they employ about 54 percent of the state's workforce. This does not include the estimated 135,000 self-employed people in my state. I find myself wondering what small business owners think of all of the news reports about these big, sophisticated corporations and their crooked accounting? Small business owners work hard to keep clean books. They do not have a team of creative accountants that turn losses into gains. The small business does not create sham, off-book partnerships to hide losses. I have never heard of a small business being forced to restate its earnings. Small business grow by playing by the rules. Many small business owners dream of taking the honest approach to turning their ideas and dreams into big businesses. How disheartening must it be for them to see that in the world of big corporate business the way to get ahead is by cheating. The bill before us today will help restore faith in the free market. It creates a strong oversight board that will set auditing standards for public companies backed up with the power to investigate abuses. It gets rid of the inherent conflict of interest faced by accounting firms that provide management consulting services to their auditing clients. Here on the floor we have added tough criminal penalties to this bill and given greater protections to whistles blowers. The whistle blower protections are an especially needed reform. We want the honest people in business to know that there is still a place for them. We must take this opportunity to restore confidence in the free market. I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of this legislation and I want to commend the chairman of the Committee, Mr. Sarbanes, for bringing this legislation to the floor. Vote Explanation

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that privilege of the floor be granted to Cathy Haverstock, a legislative fellow in my office, for the remainder of the debate on this bill.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. I ask unanimous consent that amendment No. 3975 be withdrawn until a further time.

Ms. LANDRIEU. Madam President, there have been many very good amendments brought to the floor that have been accepted, which have strengthened the underlying bill. I want to speak for a moment about this amendment in the hopes that, if we cannot adopt it today, at least we will begin a very serious discussion of this issue. It is an issue that the occupant of the chair has worked on very hard on in her career, and many Members on both sides of the aisle feel strongly about--that is, education and the quality of education in our country. This particular amendment is in relation to the quality of education afforded to the hundreds of thousands of dependents of our men and women in the military. I will begin by expressing an overall thought that we are becoming wiser and wiser in Congress on this issue of education, recognizing that it truly is an issue of economic development. It truly is an issue of strengthening our Nation. We cannot have an economically strong and militarily secure nation moving in a progressive way without an excellent school system. No matter where a child is born--rural or urban, on the east coast or west coast--if we do not do a better job as a nation of giving our children a quality education, the future of our Nation will not be as bright, and it could put us in jeopardy. I also make the argument that for our military, the same holds true. It is not just about providing our military with the most extraordinary weapons. It is not just about training our military men and women to the highest levels. It is not just providing them the basics in terms of fair compensation and health care. We have an obligation to make sure, when our men and women sign up to be in our military and they have made these sacrifices, that we provide them, between the Department of Defense and the Department of Education, a quality education for their children. When we send our soldiers into battle, we want them focused on the battle and mission at hand. We do not want them worried, as they naturally would be, about spouses and dependents at home, about their happiness, about their comfort, about their security. It makes our military stronger when we provide good, quality-of-life issues for their families at home. One of the ways we can do that is by improving the schools for military dependents. There are over 800,000 children who are military dependents out of an overall force strength of 1.4 million adults connected to the military. Many of them are school-age children. Because of the specific demands of our military, which are very unlike the civilian sector because of the way it is structured, many move every 2 years. Some military move from the east coast to the west coast, moving families with them. It is very difficult providing an excellent education generally, and yet the military has even more challenges. What is the solution? I offer this amendment--and hopefully we will begin discussing it--to strengthen our military schools in the United States in a creative way. This amendment will set up the possibility of a pilot program to help create military charter schools around the Nation in partnership with local public school systems to provide an opportunity not only for our military dependents, but this framework will also help communities that have a large military presence. The benefit overall is that the community gets a better school, a school that has the opportunity to provide an excellent education. The second benefit is that our military children have that opportunity, as well as the children whose families might not have any connection to the military. It gives them an introduction into what military life can be like. This is a partnership. It is a pilot program that will help establish charter schools, and that is basically what this amendment attempts to do. Also with this amendment, which is an important consideration for military children as they move from community to community, there is created for the first time what we call an academic passport. It helps to stabilize and standardize the curriculum without micromanaging, without dictating what the curriculum should be. It tries to set up a new approach or a new framework for our local elementary and secondary education districts for use throughout the country to set up a standardized curriculum so that if children have to move from community to community, they can keep up as one school might require 3 years of a foreign language or 2 years of algebra or 1 year of algebra, or a whole different curriculum. That is part of this amendment. It is something about which military families feel very strongly. I hope that with this new pilot program to help create charter schools with a new academic passport, we can begin to focus some of our resources--again, not all within the Department of Defense; some of this is within the jurisdiction of the Department of Education--to create something exciting and wonderful for these 800,000 children. Madam President, 600,000 of these children are in public schools today, at great stress sometimes to those public districts; 100,000 of these children are either in private schools or are home schooled; and only 32,000 of the 800,000 are in Department of Defense schools. As shown on this map, these schools are concentrated in a few States. There are only 32,000 children, as I said, of 800,000 dependents. Some of them are overseas; approximately 73,000 are overseas; 32,000 of our military children are in schools in New York, Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama. As my colleagues can see, dependent children of military personnel are in public schools throughout the country. Sometimes they are good public schools; sometimes they are not so good. We are working hard to make every public school excellent, but I think we have a special obligation to our military families to make sure that those children are getting an excellent education. I would like to tell you why with a chart that shows the percentage and status of degrees among the general population and our military population. If you look at the general population, nonofficers in our military, 91.5 percent have only a high school degree or GED--91 percent. In our general population, it is about 80 percent--20 percent have college degrees or above; 75 to 80 percent have only high school. This is a very upwardly mobile group of Americans. These are men and women with great discipline, great patriotism, great commitment to the Nation. Obviously, they are serving their country, but they are committed to their families and their communities. As one can see, the officers exceed the general population at large. Almost 40 percent have advanced degrees; 50 percent or more have bachelor degrees. This is a very upwardly mobile population. If we can provide excellent schools and opportunities for this 91 percent, I think we will be doing a very good job in helping to strengthen our military but also helping our country be a better place. It is truly something on which we should focus more. In conclusion, let me show a picture of a school of which I am very proud. It might be one of the first military charters, if not the first, in the Nation. This is a school we are building and will actually be cutting the ribbon for this week in Belle Chasse, LA. This is a state-of-the-art, brandnew public school in Plaquemines Parish. There is a very important naval reserve base there. It is 90,000 square feet, 37 classrooms, a gymnasium, cafeteria, a media center, a youth center, administrative offices, and although one cannot tell exactly from this picture, wonderful classrooms and a very high-tech communication and computer system. Six hundred of the children from this military base will be able to attend a state-of-the-art school that was built in a public-private partnership. I am very hopeful this model, based on this amendment--which, again, I am offering only for consideration and will ask to be withdrawn in a moment so we can consider it at a future time--will be something we can share with the rest of the Nation and help build opportunities for our military dependents to go to excellent schools and to help the local school districts to give nonmilitary children an opportunity to attend world- class, first-class centers of education. I think we can work all day long on pay raises, on building more ships, and on building a stronger Air Force, but truly I think focusing on educational opportunities, both for the adults in our military but particularly for their children, will help us build morale, help us improve retention, will help us strengthen our military in the intermediate and the long term, and it is something that, with a little creativity and a little bit of thinking outside of the box, I am convinced we could finance the construction of these schools by reordering some of the streams of revenue and end up coming out with some excellent facilities around this Nation to serve both our military and our nonmilitary families and do a great job for our Defense Department and a great job for our country. That is what this amendment does. Amendment No. 3975 Withdrawn

Ms. LANDRIEU. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. LANDRIEU. I thank the chairman. I wish to acknowledge the work of the Senator from Virginia as well, who, of course, led the Navy as Secretary of the Navy for many years and now serves in such a distinguished capacity. Truly, his voice has been one, over the last several decades, that has helped to keep our Navy strong. He was instrumental in helping us make some real progress in this area of the underlying bill. I thank the Senator from Virginia for his support of this amendment because without his support we would not have been able to adopt it. I thank him for the work he does on shipbuilding for our Nation.

Ms. LANDRIEU. Madam President, at this time I call up amendment No. 3975.

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I would like to call up amendment No. 2514, which I understand has already been recommended for inclusion in the managers' package and has been cleared on both sides.

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I will send that amendment up in just a moment. But I understand this amendment has been accepted on both sides and may be included in the managers' package. I want to take a minute to explain this amendment in a little more detail, if I may.

Ms. LANDRIEU. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that further reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Ms. LANDRIEU. Thank you, Mr. President. The underlying amendment we have been considering in regard to this particular subject has to do with our shipbuilding program and the importance of our Navy to the strength of our forces. Let me first, though, thank Senator Cleland and Senator McCain for their very excellent work in calling to our attention another shortage, if you will, which is our end strength, our shortage of personnel, of people we can actually send to the front lines, wherever those front lines might be. More and more, it is clear to us some of those front lines might be here on our own home soil, but also we need men and women to support our soldiers and sailors and airmen who have to be deployed miles and miles away from our homeland. So I thank them for their good work. I am proud to be able to support that amendment as well. But I bring to the Senate this particular amendment on shipbuilding because it points to yet another unfortunate shortfall of our overall defense structure. Now is a time when we really have to focus and make tough decisions about how we are going to allocate these resources, again trying to meet the President in his total budget request, which this Senate has done, this Congress has done, and is in the process of doing under the leadership of Senator Levin and Senator Warner. But within that total amount we are allocating for defense, there is some real debate about how that money should be allocated and spent, and that is what this broad debate is about. One of the issues I want to spend a few minutes speaking about is shipbuilding. I would like to begin by reading into the Record just a short clip from the American Shipbuilding Association entitled ``The Defense Shipbuilding Industrial Base--An Industry At Risk,'' which was written in May of 2001. This report says: In 1987, the United States had a naval fleet of 594 ships. Today, the fleet numbers 316 and is dropping. The annual numbers of naval ships procured is at the lowest level since 1932; the size of the Navy's fleet is the smallest since the year before we entered World War I; and while the fleet has been cut almost in half, the number of overseas deployments has increased 300 percent. As you can see from the chart, this is one of our mighty aircraft carriers and is one of the Navy's pride and joy. We just do not have enough aircraft carriers and other different elements of our fleet. This report goes on to say: Our Commanders-in-Chief are on record that they cannot meet the Nation's military and foreign policy strategy with a fleet of less than 360 ships, yet Navy budgets [we are considering today] are providing for a fleet of fewer than 200 ships. This is unacceptable. It cannot stand. We need to change these trend lines. Continuing: This disconnect between national requirements and budgets increases the risk of instability in many regions of the world, jeopardizes the lives of Americans, jeopardizes our economic prosperity, and threatens our peace and national security. The historically low rate of naval ship production over the past eight years has also severely weakened the very industry upon which the Navy depends today and tomorrow for its ships. If decisive action is not taken now to reverse the decline in naval ship production, the Nation [could potentially] lose the industrial capability to restore the fleet to the level the Nation requires to maintain global peace and stability. It is the role of our military leaders to define the forces they require to meet their military missions. Let me tell you why this is important as related to the Navy, let's say, and the production of airplanes for our Air Force. There is a difference, not that we don't need both; we need a robust Air Force as well as a robust Navy. But the way that we prepare and build and invest is different. Because of the magnitude of ships, because we don't order them by the thousands, we order them by tens and twenties, not thousands, the same sort of procedures cannot be effectively applied. We need to understand those differences. This report goes on to say: For example, a fighter pilot or commercial passenger is in an airplane for only a limited number of hours, whereas a ship is a self-sustained city at sea that serves as home to sailors for months on end. The production time of an airplane is measured months, the production time of a ship is measured in years. With respect to government orders, the airplanes of the same design are bought in quantities of hundreds whereas ships are procured in quantities of tens or even less, and each ship of a class is highly customized. The same holds true in commercial transactions, where only one or two ships of the same design will be bought by an individual customer and each customer demands customized designs. Airlines buy quantities of aircraft that are in production for commercial market in competition with other models being produced. Another major difference is that there are a limited number of countries with airplane manufacturers versus the number of countries with shipbuilders. Therefore, there are many more international competitors for ship orders than for planes. Given these differences, it is not surprising that a Department of Defense acquisition policy tailored for planes will not work for ships. Therefore, I have offered this amendment which will help to move us in a direction to increase our production level and turn around the disturbing trend line. The next chart I have illustrates the trend line. We have been on a shipbuilding program. We were well on our way in 1997 to 1998, 1999 and 2000, moving up. No one has worked harder than Senator Kennedy, who is the chair of this subcommittee and has added to the President's budget some significant shipbuilding, and the Presiding Officer, as chairman of the Armed Services Committee, has done an outstanding job trying to change this trend line. This amendment, which has been accepted, will make this trend line go in a more positive direction. As you know, there is a great need. There is an old quote about the military that says: When it comes to debating matters of war, it is the amateurs who talk about strategies and the experts who talk about logistics. This is because so much of the planning that goes into war is centered on two simple questions: How are we going to get the troops to the fight; and how are we going to supply them once they get there? The answer to both of these questions is a strong and robust Navy. The conflict in Afghanistan today clearly demonstrates this. Again, not to say that the Air Force and the Army don't have to meet spectacular and important missions, but we cannot be the strong and vital force we need to be to fight this war on terrorism, to support our allies around the world, and to project power around the world without a robust Navy. This amendment will help us to move in that direction. In an environment where we cannot afford basing rights for our troops, the ships of our Navy become floating sovereign bases a world away from American soil. Our campaign in Afghanistan proves this point. Currently, 30 percent of our Navy is deployed in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, and a majority of our fighter sorties, 85 percent flown over Afghanistan, were sea-based. So if we don't have the ships to serve, not only as supply lines but as places where our troops can be secured while they carry out the missions and the battle, we will be seriously crippled in our efforts. All of the Marines and many special operations troops that have served in Afghanistan were based on ships. There is no doubt if we did not have a sizable Navy, we would not be able to execute as well as we are in our Afghanistan campaign. Furthermore, there is no doubt that even with a 318-ship Navy, it has been stretched very thin. Even though we are in a time of war and even though we are about to approve the largest increase in defense spending in the last two decades, we are simply not procuring naval ships at a rate that will sustain a strong Navy in the future. If the size of our Navy fleet continues to decline, I fear we will not be able to carry out the missions before us. Essentially, this amendment states that it is a national policy of the United States to maintain a strong and robust Navy, with the appropriate number of ships to protect our interests both at home and abroad. Congress has done this before in asserting our policy regarding missile defense, which we have just successfully debated and on which we have come to consensus. This amendment would require the Secretary of Defense to lay out the budgetary plans necessary to maintain a strong Navy. The underlying amendment requires DOD to submit an annual ship construction plan as part of the DOD budget. Each year the Secretary of Defense must provide a plan for the construction of combatant and support ships that support the national security strategy or, if we have no such strategy, will support what is called for in the QDR, the Quadrennial Defense Review. If the national security strategy or the QDR, if it calls for 318 ships, or if it would call for 375 ships with 12 carrier groups and 12 amphibious ready groups, as Admiral Clark, Chief of Naval Operations, has testified to as recently as February, whatever number is decided on, the Secretary must provide in detail budget plans for the construction of these ships. Of course, it looks out over 30 consecutive years. It is not something we are trying to do next year. This amendment will require the details of such plan to be included. It is consistent with and strengthens the underlying bill, on which the Presiding Officer has worked so hard and effectively. The plan must describe the necessary ship force, how many carriers, submarines, destroyers, transport ships, et cetera. It also requires that the estimated levels of funding necessary to carry out the plan and a discussion of the procurement strategies on which the estimated funding levels are based. Finally, it requires a certification from the Secretary of Defense. The Secretary must certify that both the current budget and the future year's defense programs submitted to Congress provide for funding ship construction for the Navy at a level that is sufficient for the procurement of ships provided for in the plan. I am pleased this amendment was accepted. Shipbuilding is important to our overall defense plan. The industry itself is important to so many of our States, our industrial complex from California to Maine to Louisiana. As a Senator from Louisiana, I am particularly proud of what our companies and our businesses, both large and small, contribute to the shipbuilding strength and capability of America. From a defense perspective, as well as an industrial base perspective, as well as from economic strength, this amendment is very important as we structure a Department of Defense that can fight the new wars, that can take us to new places in ways that we can be confident we can fight and stand strong for American values and democracy for ourselves, for our interests, and to help our allies around the world. We fight every day to get good, solid land bases to operate. We are going to build or are in the process of building some of the finest airplanes ever created. Those are important to our Army and our Air Force. But our Navy cannot be shortchanged. If it is, it will be to our peril and to democracies everywhere. We are fighting battles where we have no land bases from which to launch and supplies cannot be moved across land. They have to be based on the sea. We cannot do that without a strong Navy. For Louisiana, this is important, but it is much bigger than our State. It is important to the Nation. So I thank the Senate for their acknowledgement of the importance of this amendment. I also thank the subcommittee, led by Senator Kennedy, who, through his hard work, has added three ships to the underlying budget. We added a submarine, a DDG-51, and a LPD-17. I also thank Senator Reed for his work on shipbuilding. He has done an outstanding job. Again, we have added to the President's request. I was proud to support that in the underlying bill. This amendment takes us a step even further to make sure our Navy is strong, robust, and can support the great work and great mission of our armed services and our defense. (Mrs. CLINTON assumed the chair.)

Ms. LANDRIEU. Yes.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

Ms. LANDRIEU. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I wish to add my voice to all of those who have risen in the last several hours to express my feelings and the feelings of people from Louisiana about this unfortunate ruling. It is clear to most of us at least that we believe God is infallible, but clearly these judges are not. This case and this decision are very disappointing to many of us, and I am sure around the Nation it has caused a great deal of anxiety, anguish, disappointment, and anger. We remember all too well the Dred Scott decision that relegated African Americans to a status as property, and the Plessy v. Ferguson decision that disgracefully upheld the Jim Crow laws of this Nation. In these cases the American judiciary unfortunately demonstrated its ability to be just plain wrong, and today is another one of those occasions. A wonderful aspect, however, about our democracy is that when we make mistakes, those mistakes can be corrected, and there are a variety of ways that can happen today. I thank Senator Daschle, our leader, and Senator Lott for so quickly assembling a resolution in which we all have joined as coauthors stating our position in the Senate that reflects, I believe, the overwhelming views of the American people. The force of that resolution will have a very positive impact. I also understand the entire Circuit Court will hear this case en banc, and I am almost certain, or at least very hopeful, that this decision will be reversed and this wrong righted. There have been many beautiful things read into the Record that remind us of our heritage, that remind us of why this country is so great, is so wonderful, is so unique, and so special; from the eloquent remarks of the Senator from West Virginia to the Senators who have recently spoken. I thought it might be appropriate at this time to read into the Record for this occasion a wonderful quote from Abraham Lincoln--one of our greatest Presidents, if not our greatest on what he had to say about our relationship to God and our Creator as a nation and as a collective people. It was on the occasion of the first Presidential resolution to set aside at least 1 day for a national day of prayer and fasting. This was established many years ago in 1863. In this statement, Abraham Lincoln calls for our Nation to come together in prayer and to acknowledge God and to acknowledge a Supreme Being and our Creator. He said: We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us. It behooves us then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness. This is just one of the many writings--hundreds, thousands--by Presidents, Senators, Congressmen, Governors, council members, mayors, elected officials, leaders of this great country that we call America acknowledging that we as a nation stand under God, acknowledging His presence, although we worship Him in different ways, we may call Him by different names, and we strongly support the rights of those in our society to not acknowledge His presence. But we collectively as a nation will in no way back down in acknowledging His presence and His divine creation. Madam President, I wanted to submit my thoughts on this issue for the Record and also say that I am introducing a proposed constitutional amendment to address this issue in the event that the court decisions do not unfold the way I suspect they will. I send to the desk a joint resolution.

Ms. LANDRIEU. Five minutes.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. I am aware of the value of time critical to strike the war fighter and look forward to working with my good friends from Connecticut on this important issue as we move to a conference with the House.

Ms. LANDRIEU. I am delighted to discuss this important technology area with my good friends from Connecticut.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. I thank the distinguished Senator from Maine for highlighting the critical nature of this research. I recognize her interest in this particular area and that this research clearly has potential for saving lives, both military and civilian. I look forward to working with her on this issue as the Fiscal Year 2003 National Defense Authorization bill moves forward.