Claire McCaskill

Mrs. McCASKILL

Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, ``We intend to see that no man or corporate group shall profit inordinately on the blood of the boys in the foxhole.'' That is what Senator Harry Truman said as the Truman committee began its work. I think Harry Truman would be very proud of the Senate tonight. I, too, thank the senior Senator from Virginia for his willingness to sit down and work this out, along with Senator Levin for all of his support. I think this commission can do important work in a bipartisan way to fix some problems, to make sure we get contracting under control whenever our men and women are in danger. I yield the floor.

Mrs. McCASKILL

Mrs. McCASKILL. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mrs. McCASKILL

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 President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mrs. McCASKILL. I send a series of amendments to the desk which have been cleared by Chairman Levin and the ranking member. Therefore, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate consider those amendments en bloc, the amendments be agreed to and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table. Finally, I ask that any statements relating to these individual amendments be printed in the Record.

Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the motion and all pending amendments be set aside.

Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, on behalf of Senator Webb and myself, I call up amendment No. 2999 and ask that the amendment be modified with the changes at the desk.

Mrs. McCASKILL. Nine.

Mrs. McCASKILL. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from Virginia. I don't want to overemphasize his support, but there are few people around here who can get us past partisanship. I have noticed in my short time in the Senate he is one of the chosen ones. He can get us past that partisanship sometimes. I am very hopeful and remain optimistic that I can convince the Senator from Virginia this is a measured and appropriate way to provide some accountability to all those men and women to whom he referred who are trying to do the right thing. We have not figured this out yet, and I think we have to try something different to see if we can figure it out. I yield the floor.

Mrs. McCASKILL. I believe that what happened was in an unprecedented fashion, we engaged in contracting--I know the Senator is a student of history, and if he looks back at the history of the Seabees and where the Seabees came from in terms of the idea that you are going to put people in the middle of a conflict who are not military personnel, in terms of doing ancillary activities apart from the direct military mission, it is unprecedented what we have done in this conflict in terms of the contracting. I don't think the active military was prepared for this kind of scope in terms of the types of contracts that were entered into, many of them not definitized, many of them not with the kind of oversight that one would expect for contracts that run into $15 billion, $20 billion per contract, in some instances. I think this was a matter of we need it now, we don't have the end strength to get everything done we need to get done; if we contract it, it is going to be cheaper in terms of legacy costs to get a worker to peel potatoes than to recruit a soldier to peel potatoes or to cook. I understand that was done long term because it had the potential for efficiencies, it had a potential to preserve our ground strength for the military mission and to allow us to not incur the legacy costs of another member of the active military. In reality, because they were not prepared in terms of their systems for this level of contracting and oversight, bad things happened--very bad things happened. If we are going to continue to contract at this level, why not at this fork in the road embark upon a limited 2-year exercise in a nonpartisan way to get concrete suggestions with expertise and not creating a new bureaucracy, because they can access those 20,000 people, they can access the Army auditor, they can access the contracting agency within the Army, they can access all the inspectors general, they can access all the acquisition and procurement specialists. They can access that information, bring it together for the State Department and for DOD and say: If moving forward we are going to continue to contract at this level--and let's be honest, I think we are--then these are things we need to be doing. If the military could do this on its own, we wouldn't have the ``lessons learned'' book in Bosnia not even getting to the people in Iraq until after they entered into most of these contracts. We remember the testimony from David Walker. He talked about the fact that even though they had drawn up the book and said these are all the mistakes we made in Bosnia, guess what. They forgot to look at the book before they began down the very same road in the Iraq conflict. That is what I want to prevent in the future. This is about looking forward and not about looking back. This is about figuring out a way forward that we can responsibly contract in a way that protects our military and the strength of our military, and, boy, would I like the help of the Senator from Virginia.

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

Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, today we have an important opportunity to do some good-government. It is so hard in the context of the conflict in Iraq to get beyond some of the political posturing that has, frankly, been inevitable. As campaigns have occurred, and we have campaigns looming next year, there has been a tendency for this body to separate at the middle and not find common ground. We have an opportunity this afternoon to find common ground, and my job over the next few minutes is to try to convince my colleagues that this attempt to create a War Contracting Commission is not about politics, it is about reform. It would be hard not to notice the scandals that have occurred in relationship to war contracting. I come to this as a student of history and a huge fan of Harry Truman. I am honored to stand at his desk as I speak today. I am honored to follow in his tradition when he said: War profiteering is unacceptable, especially when you realize it is skimming away and denying the men and women who are fighting resources. In a very modest fashion, at a time that he, frankly, was not supporting his President, who was of his party, he was saying to the President: We need to do some reform here, even though the President was a Democrat, just as he was, and he began looking at war profiteering. Frankly, that is where Harry Truman first made his mark in the history books of this country. It was because he realized this was so much bigger than being a Democrat or Republican; it was about how we behave when we place men and women in danger on behalf of our Nation. In that vein, this amendment is going to try to take the politics out of the issue of war contracting and try to make things better. Let me first summarize what the amendment is going to do. It will establish an independent and bipartisan eight-member Commission--bipartisan eight-member Commission, four Republicans and four Democrats. They will study and investigate Federal agency contracting for reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan, Federal funding and contracting for the logistical support of coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, Federal contracting for the performance of security and intelligence functions in Iraq and Afghanistan, and will expand the special inspector general's role to include the responsibility of logistical support and security and intelligence functions. Currently, the special inspector general, Stuart Bowen, only has jurisdiction over reconstruction funds in Iraq. Clearly, frankly, as I met with contracting officials on my trip to Iraq and Kuwait, where I spent most of my time talking to the people who have taken responsibility for issuing these contracts and monitoring these contracts, as I talked to all of them, I mean at every meeting I kind of just went: Oh, my gosh, this is so bad--except when I met with the SIGIR. When I met with the people who worked for the special inspector general, I was so comforted as an auditor. These were professional auditors, and they were on top of it. They were identifying the problem, they saw the shortcomings, whether they were in the way contracts were distributed or let or, frankly, not competed or whether they were in the monitoring of those contracts, the definitization of those contracts, the oversight of those contracts, or the way we actually pay bonuses on some of those contracts. All of those issues have been looked at by the SIGIR. They have been limited because their jurisdiction was limited. This will expand their jurisdiction and, most importantly, efficiently, it partners them with the Commission. So we do not have to hire a huge staff for this Commission; they can utilize the work of SIGIR, the work of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, to come to conclusions about how we can do better. Honestly and sincerely--I know Senator Webb and I have talked about this at great length--this is not about ``gotcha,'' this is about turning the corner, because, let's be honest, will there ever be a time where we are not contracting at this kind of level? Will we ever go back to a time when we have Active military peeling potatoes and cleaning latrines? Will we ever go back to a time where we have Active military driving all of the supply trucks? Will we ever go back to a time where we have Active military providing all of the security needs? I am not sure we will because our struggle is to maintain a Volunteer military but provide them all the support they need in terms of logistics. Frankly, there are some efficiencies that could be gained if we were contracting in a way that took care of the taxpayer dollars. I do not argue that contracting might be necessary--in fact, better in some instances--but not the way we are doing it now. Now, you say: Well, there are a lot of people looking at this. That may be true. There have been a lot of journalists who have looked at it. We have certainly had various parts of the Department of Defense and the military, various inspectors general, and we certainly have SIGIR. But let me just point out one thing. As one of the generals said to me when I was in Iraq, sheepishly: You know, everything you are seeing in terms of mistakes that have been made, most of them were made in Bosnia. And by the way, there was a lesson learned after Bosnia, except there was one problem: They forgot to learn the lesson. So if we are going to elevate this problem to where we really acknowledge that it is systemic, it is overarching, and it is interagency, what do we have if we do a congressional hearing? Well, first of all, we are going to have a committee that has more Democrats than Republicans on it, so we have at the very outset the allegation that it is political. We also have battling turf. Is it Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs? Is it Armed Services? Is it Foreign Relations? Because all of the problems swirl around all of those committees. How do we get above the interagency issue if we do not have this kind of commission? The makeup of the Commission would be as follows: eight people--two people appointed by the majority leader in the Senate, two people appointed by the Speaker in the House, one person appointed by the minority leader in the Senate, one person appointed by the minority leader in the House--that gets you to six--and then one person appointed by the President of the United States and one person appointed by Secretary Gates at the Department of Defense. Now, are we going to have a long bureaucratic commission that just does a lot of testimony and we do not get to the end? No. They must finish their work within 2 years. And they must, as I mentioned before, partner with the SIGIR, partner with the Special Inspector General of Iraq Reconstruction, in a way that they can efficiently take the work that has been done by a number of different agencies and a number of different oversight entities, a number of different auditors and bring it together and identify how do we, in a contingency, contract in a way that takes care of taxpayers' money? Now, we have an election coming up. I have to tell you, I have talked to a couple of my friends across the aisle, and I am concerned about the vote on this amendment because there is a knee-jerk reaction. If we are talking about war contracting, this is political. This is a political witch hunt. It is the D's versus the R's. Let me say that I do not think they have taken time to look at how bipartisan this is because if they did, I think it would assure them that this is not an attempt to do this. We have to fix this, and we have to fix it as quickly as possible. It has to do the work within 2 years. We have modified the amendment to reassure my friends across the aisle that, first of all, if one of the President's appointments or if one of the other appointments who would represent the Republican Party on this Commission were to quit or for some reason not be able to continue to serve, someone of the same party must be appointed. So we are never going to get to a situation if we have a new President that the new President could say: I am going to appoint two. If the new President were a Democrat, you would end up with six to two. The other thing that is important to remember is we have modified the amendment so the report of this Commission will come out after next year's election, January of 2009. What a great way to start a new Congress and a new Presidential term. The new President and the new Congress can look at these recommendations--very similar to the 9/11 Commission, very similar to the Baker-Hamilton Commission--and realize there are systemic institutional problems with the way we have been contacting and get it fixed. I have met with the special inspector general for Iraq, Mr. Bowen, and he has indicated his support for this approach. This is not about in any way diminishing the role of the special inspector general for Iraq--just the opposite. It is going to give the special inspector general a voice that is above the political din in order to issue recommendations. They are going to have their capping report ready next March. That will be a great starting point for this Commission, to look at SIGIR's capping report of all of their work on Iraq reconstruction. Let me give you a list of some of the groups that have supported this amendment, and we have had many, many groups that have come to the support of this. First, the Project on Government Oversight is very strongly in favor of it. POGO particularly supports the independent and bipartisan nature of this Commission and the recommended collaboration and consultation with the special inspector general and the expansion of the role of the special inspector general. OMB Watch, a Government transparency, fiscal policy, and regulatory watchdog nonprofit, wants to applaud the Commission on War Contracting Establishment Act; that is, in fact, this amendment. The Government Accountability Project also has indicated their support. The Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America have indicated their support. The Taxpayers for Common Sense has weighed in with their strong support of this amendment. The Federation of State PIRGs, public interest research groups, has weighed in with their support also, and Common Cause has indicated this is a good government, bipartisan way to fix a serious problem. I may return later to talk about some of the scandals. There have been many, many scandals. Some of them are heartbreaking. Some of them make you want to tear your hair out; whether it is the way some of the whistleblowers have been treated, whether it is contracts that have ballooned out of control, whether it is paying bonuses to companies that haven't done their work, $200 million in bonuses to companies that have not done their work. We obviously have issues with the security company Blackwater and who has authority over them and to whom are they accountable when they take action in the war zone. It is heartbreaking that some in our active military--unfortunately, more than a few--have been charged and pled guilty to actually taking bribes, tens of millions of dollars in their pocket. The Department of State IG, there are problems with whether the investigations have been conducted. Whether you agree that the investigations have occurred in the State Department or they have not, why not do a bipartisan commission that will look at this fairly under the light of transparency and good government, without the cloud of politics and accusations by one political party or another? I am especially proud of the fact that this is an amendment that was cosponsored by the nine freshmen Democrats who arrived here in January. We, frankly, probably are not as well versed or schooled in some of the turf fights that occur between committees. It will be a long time before any of us need to worry about whether our committee, as chairman or ranking member, has the ability to have a hearing. We look at it with the eyes of the general public. We come here fresh from speaking with thousands and thousands of people we represent. We hear their frustration that billions of dollars have been lost, tens upon millions of dollars have been stolen, and an incredible amount of money wasted in the name of contracting. We also have 20 cosponsors on this amendment which we believe is very important. I welcome the support. I do emphasize that we can behave today like people probably expect. We can have a 50-50 vote, and the American public is going to sit back, if we have a 50-50 vote, and they are going to say: What in the name is going on? How do you get a 50-50 vote on an effort, with four Republicans and four Democrats, to get a handle on war contracting? How does that happen? We all sit around and talk--I know the Republicans talk about it; we talk about it--about our approval ratings and why our approval ratings are not higher. This is our chance. This is our chance to say to the American public: We are spending your money wisely, making sure the men and women who fight get the armor they need and the MRAPs they need on their humvees, instead of billions being wasted on war profiteering. This is our chance to show them we can come together and overcome the politics of this place for the good of our national security and the strength of our military. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of quorum.

Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, if I may address the question of the Senator from Virginia briefly, I think it is important to keep this in context. First, the Senator from Virginia worries that the Armed Services Committee was giving up jurisdiction in order to form this Commission. I think it is important to remember that this mess is not just the jurisdiction of the Armed Services Committee. This mess is also the jurisdiction of the Foreign Relations Committee. It is also the jurisdiction of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. In fact, an argument can be made that this is the modern-day Truman Committee, and the chairman of that committee is none other than Senator Levin, who chairs the Special Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. One could make the argument that the State Department should be answering to Foreign Relations for the messes in contracting in terms of reconstruction. One could argue that the active military should be answering to Armed Services. Government Affairs should be looking at the whole mess. The bottom line is that this Commission does two important things: First, it gets above all of the agencies to bring all of the problems to one place, so we don't have the turf fights over which committee has jurisdiction over this particular problem that we have encountered like never before. As the Senator from Michigan, chairman of the committee, said, we have never had this kind of problem before in terms of an armed conflict. The other thing to remember is that, unlike those committees, this is bipartisan. This Commission is four Democrats and four Republicans. It is not a commission where one party is going to take precedence over the other party. We have a representative of the President and the Secretary of Defense on this Commission. So the bipartisan nature allows us to get above this knee-jerk reaction we have around here that if they are for it, we are against it; and if they are against it, we are for it. This is way too important to engage in that. Finally, in terms of time period, this has a set time; it is only 2 years. The first report is due after the Presidential election in January 2009--the first interim report. Next year, when the capping report is presented to us, they can give it to this Commission, and they can look it over. Stuart Bowen is onboard with this. We discussed it at length, and he thinks this is a great way to move forward and get this above each individual committee and above some of the partisanship. Frankly, we have engaged in it. We are not without sin here. My party has engaged in partisanship over this. I understand that it may feel that this is an effort to engage in partisanship. That is why we went out of our way to say it is going to be bipartisan in nature, limited in time, getting above the various committees that have jurisdiction here because of the State Department's involvement, DOD's involvement, and the involvement of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee--three different committees, including the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. The first interim report is due January 2009. The final report must be presented by January 2010. This is a 2-year period of time to work and collaborate. By the way, I tried to count up--and I am sure the Senator from Virginia is aware of this--how many people we have working in the Department of Defense in auditing and auditing-related activities. There are 20,000 people. Now, if you think about that in the context of what has gone on, you realize we need some help. How do we have 20,000 people in contracting and auditing and related investigative activities in the DOD and have the kind of runaway abuse that we have had. By the way, in talking to the generals in Iraq who are involved, they were focused on their mission. I have no ill will toward these commanders who were trying to get a job done in terms of a military context. That is why we need this Commission, to give the military clear guidance, along with the State Department, of how we fix this systemically. What kind of training do we need to do? These detailees within these various areas given the contract oversight responsibility, the CORs, are not trained right now. They don't have the core competency in terms of contract monitoring that we must have under these conditions where we are contracting at an unprecedented level. If you look at the modifications we have made, where we have actually said we are not ever going to allow this Commission, in terms of members leaving, to get to anything other than a four-four, we are never going to have a situation where it is not completely bipartisan and where they are not going to focus with expertise on ways they can guide our committee and guide the committee I serve on, Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and guide the Foreign Relations Committee in making sure we help the State Department and Department of Defense and any other Government agencies involved, including inspector general agencies and other auditing agencies. Frankly, GAO does a lot of this work for Congress, and we take their reports. I think that in light of what has occurred and the scope of this beyond the jurisdiction of any one committee, 2 years is a reasonable finite time to come with concrete, meaningful suggestions that get us above this partisan rancor over the conflict in Iraq and using it as a political football that we have a tendency to throw around here with some frequency. The Senator's leadership on this particular issue is so key to us having success with this amendment. I ask the Senator to take some time to look at it. I will be happy to visit with him about the conversation I had with Stewart Bowen about the valid approach we are making that I think will bring about some of the same positive results that were brought about in the past, whether it was the 9/11 Commission, the Baker-Hamilton Commission or the other commissions the Senator from Michigan referenced that the Senator has been involved with and party to in terms of wanting outside eyes at some point to help us get beyond some of the stuff that goes on that we cannot help. I think it is tremendously important, and I implore the Senator from Virginia to take a look at it again and see if we haven't done the things that will reassure him this will be an augmentation of the Armed Services Committee's work instead of an abdication of their responsibility.

Mrs. McCASKILL

Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, I appreciate the Senator yielding me some time. This is a unique bill in many ways. It is unique because there is a different set of rules when it comes to the water projects bill and the water resources development in this country for the Army Corps of Engineers. I believe as a former auditor we should be allowing the Army Corps of Engineers to direct funding based on a cost-benefit analysis. A cost-benefit analysis would allow the prioritization of projects based on the best value for our dollar. The law requires, unlike any other place in our Government--it was explained to me when I got here the law requires that Congress direct this spending. I am uncomfortable with that. This is the only place this year that my name is listed on a specific funding request for Missouri, and I am not comfortable with that. I understand it is a reality this law requires, that if Congress is not directing this funding, there is no funding. I believe very much we should reform the way we fund the Army Corps of Engineers projects. I believe it should be driven by a cost-benefit analysis. It is hard to understand why in this area, unlike any other area, not only are we in a position to decide level of funding, we are going to decide every single project. Now, since this is so unique, it is even more important that we have complete transparency. Even though I was uncomfortable with requesting specific funding, I understood the unique nature of this particular bill, but I was comforted by the fact that I believed all the projects were going to have a public airing, that they were going to be included in either the House bill or the Senate bill, and that there were not going to be any projects that were put into the authorization bill through the conference process. Unfortunately, that happened. That would bring me to the point of having to vote no on this bill because I believe very strongly in the principle that whatever we include must be included in either the deliberations of the House or the Senate. This isn't about the projects and the merit of the projects. I am sure they are all very meritorious. In fact, painfully for me, one of them is in Missouri. This isn't about the projects; this is about the process. This isn't about Democrats and this isn't about Republicans. This is about a bad habit. This is about getting into the habit of directing authorization or spending in a conference report instead of under the bright lights of the Senate floor, the House Floor or committee work. We need to stop putting projects in conference reports that were not in the bill. Some people will say it doesn't matter; we have a backlog of all these projects. Well, if it doesn't matter, why do we need to do it? If it does matter, it ought to be important enough to be in one bill or the other. I believe we need to reform not only the way we fund the Corps of Engineers, to give more deference to their discretion based on cost- benefit analysis, and I believe we need to stop the bad habit of always putting projects in a conference report without the full affirmation and public airing that the House and Senate deliberations provide. I yield the floor.

Mrs. McCASKILL

Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, earlier today I voted on a motion to table an amendment offered by the Senator from Oklahoma to remove three earmarks from the Transportation Housing and Urban Development appropriations bill. Those projects totaled $1.35 million and were for economic development efforts in North Dakota, Montana, and Louisiana. This was a difficult decision for me. I believe that the earmarking process in the past decade has ballooned out of control at a cost of billions of dollars to taxpayers. I don't believe that all earmarks, per se, are bad, but that as a general policy, we need more transparency in this process, and I believe that competitive and formula grants are a better way to assure that taxpayer dollars are spent appropriately. However, I am uncomfortable with cherry-picking which earmarks are worthy and which ones are wasteful. There were dozens and dozens of earmarks totaling tens of millions of dollars in this bill. Why pick on just three? I, however, did support an amendment to take money designated for all of the earmarked transportation projects in this bill and transfer it to fund national urgent priorities such as emergency bridge repairs. This will be a long process to cut down, and even eliminate, many congressional earmarks and other kinds of Government waste. Frankly, earmarks are just the easiest and most obvious target. Billions of dollars are spent every year by the Federal Government on no-bid contracts, for example. And we are nowhere near preventing this wasteful pattern of spending. But progress is being made on the earmark front. Congress passed a comprehensive ethics bill that provides more transparency in the earmark process. Due to pressure from the American public demanding change, we have seen fewer earmarks in this year's appropriations bill. According to the administration's Office of Management and Budget, this very Transportation-HUD bill contains half the amount of earmarks compared to its last version from 2006. However, there is still much work to be done, and as a fiscal conservative and former auditor, I will continue my efforts to fight to change the way the Federal Government does business with taxpayers' dollars--whether it is Congress or the administration.

Mrs. McCASKILL

Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, I ask the Senate to join me today in congratulating Wanda A. Brown of Harrisonville, MO. Wanda has devoted her life to community journalism and community service. The Missouri Associated Press will induct Wanda into the Missouri Press Hall of Fame on September 7, 2007. Wanda began her career in journalism in 1946 as copublisher of the Willow Springs News with her late husband J.W. Brown, Jr. With their purchase of the Harrisonville Democrat-Missourian in 1955, they were able to form the Cass County Publishing Company. Under Wanda's guidance as business manager, Cass County Publishing Company operated many of western Missouri's important publications including the Cass County Democrat-Missourian, Lee's Summit Journal, Belton Star Herald, Bates County Democrat and the Lawrence County Record. Wanda retired from publishing in 1985 after working in community journalism for 30 years. The State of Missouri has benefited not only from Wanda's prolific career in journalism but also from her dedication to public service and philanthropy. Two generations of Cass County residents have known Wanda as the author of ``Wanda's Favorite Recipes'' which is a weekly column in the Democrat-Missourian. Wanda then turned these columns into two cookbooks. Proceeds from the first cookbook were donated to a local theater group, the Way Off Broadway Players, and from the second book to the Cass Medical Center Foundation. The town of Harrisonville and the State of Missouri have been lucky to have Wanda as one of its prominent citizens, awarding her with honors such as the Harrisonville Area Chamber of Commerce President's Award and the Missouri Merit Mother of the Year Award. Mr. President, I ask that the Senate join me in honoring Wanda A. Brown for her decades of dedicated service to the citizens of Missouri. We congratulate Wanda on her induction into the Missouri Press Hall of Fame.

Mrs. McCASKILL

Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, I rise today to say I am proud, very proud. I came to Washington hoping that we could make a difference in terms of the way business is done here. And I will be honest, I had some moments of doubt over the last 6 months. There were times that I wandered around the floor of the Senate, and even among my own party and the other party, and I heard kind of a murmuring of discontent over the ethics reform that we passed back in January. I got nervous that we weren't serious about it, that we really weren't going to push the kind of cleansing of things that we have done in the legislation before us on which we are about to vote. This isn't hard, what we are doing. We are trying to live like everybody else in America. Most Americans don't have a corporation they can call for a ride on a jet plane. Most Americans don't have somebody who wants to pay for a fancy trip. Most Americans really don't have the ability to decide that one group in their State gets money when others don't. But we did here. That was wrong. That is why I am so proud of this legislation. Is it perfect? No. I will wait--probably in vain--for that piece of legislation that we pass that is perfect. But because of our process, because of the glorious nature of a democracy, it is always a matter of give and take, always a matter of finding compromise to find that piece of legislation that can get enough votes so that we can send it to the President's desk. That is what this process was. Now, I have some friends--and, frankly, some people I agree with--on the other side of the aisle who are unhappy with some of the provisions in this bill. They are willing to look at the bundling provisions, the ban on travel and gifts, and the ban on corporate jets. They are willing to overlook the revolving door reforms--reforms in terms of sneaking provisions into conference bills without them ever being in either piece of legislation in the House and Senate, and focus in on just the inadequacies of the earmark reform. Well, would I have liked it to be a 67-vote point of order rather than a 60-vote point of order? Yes, I would have. Would I have wished for a system maybe that was even more transparent? Yes. But this is major reform. I will tell you that there are a few Senators who do not participate in the earmarking process, and I am not here to pat them or myself on the back for the fact that we do not do that. I will say I think it is interesting that the phrase ``the fox in the henhouse'' was used as to the provisions in this bill. You know, there is a saying, ``all hat and no cattle.'' Well, I think that maybe this is the time to use the phrase ``all foxes and no hens,'' because if you step back from this issue of earmark reform, it is not complicated. It is pretty easy. As one of the cartoons said, ``We have met the enemy and it is us.'' All we have to do to achieve the transparency that we need is for every Senator to put every earmark request that they are making on their Web site. I will say it again. All we have to do is have every Senator put every earmark request they are making on their own Web site. And then it won't be hard to make sure that the chairman of the committee or the majority floor leader have, in fact, certified all of the earmarks. I am a little offended that there is some assumption that these chairmen and the majority leader would go out of their way to not tell the public there is a congressionally directed expenditure in the bill and will try to hide it. They are going to be caught if they do that. It is going to become public. Then you will have the kind of accountability that really works around here. So I was disappointed when I heard that one of the Members of the other Chamber said he thought he could put earmarks in this conference report because we needed to vet it. It is not our job to vet them. It is not the Parliamentarian's job. They don't have the staff to do this. That is the job of the people of the United States because, guess what. It is their money. This is a strong ethics bill. Even though I was a cosponsor along with the Senators who spoke against this on the earmark reform, I want to say this goes a long way in the right direction. It is a great effort. I am proud of Senator Reid, Senator Feinstein, Senator Feingold, Senator Obama, and all of the other Senators who worked on this bill, and many on the Republican side have as well. I think we are going to pass it by a big number today. It is a moment we should all be proud of, an accomplishment we should herald, and we should remember that if we are worried about foxes, we ought to check in our own closet for that fox outfit before we start pointing the finger at anybody. I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mrs. McCASKILL

Mrs. McCASKILL. I also was in the Homeland Security markup where we were informed that the vote would be held open so we could finish the markup. Had I been in the Chamber, I would have voted no.

Mrs. McCASKILL

Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, I don't know that anybody could argue that the Children's Health Insurance Program hasn't been a success. Of course it has been a success. Frankly, successes have not come easily in the area of health care availability in this country over the last decade. So we have to protect it, we have to make sure it continues, and we need to make sure we expand it to as many children as possible. I think this strong piece of bipartisanship we are debating today, in fact, does those things. The interesting thing is, I think back to a debate in this Chamber that occurred in November of 2003. In November of 2003, there was a piece of legislation concerning prescription drugs. Now, children's health insurance and prescription drugs are both noble and good causes to the Senate--to try to lower the cost of prescription drugs, to try to provide more insurance for children. What are the differences between the two debates? It is really interesting to look, because that is when that ugly head of politics begins to rear and people begin to see that sometimes, unfortunately, in this building it is about politics instead of public policy. Both goals of public policy, prescription drugs with lower costs and children's health insurance--everybody has to be for those goals. But how you get there and what complaints you have on the way is where politics come in. Medicare Part D was a $400 billion program. Interestingly enough, it was passed in November of 2003 as we were approaching a Presidential election and a cycle of election. Interestingly enough, the President was running for reelection. Not a whisper of a veto threat was heard even though it was $400 billion that had no way to be paid for. There was no cigarette tax in Medicare Part D. It was guaranteeing a profit to the pharmaceutical industry. In fact, it went so far as to make sure you could not negotiate for lower prices--a bold thing, for a country where the free market is supposed to be something we relish. Negotiating for lower prices? That is pretty all-American. But, oh, no, we made sure there was no negotiation for lower prices on the part of the Government in Medicare Part D. There was no mechanism to pay for it. Yet I hear Senators today speaking against this bill with righteous indignation, saying: Well, the tobacco tax in here is not going to be enough. The vast majority of the Republican party voted for Medicare Part D. I will note that the Senator who will follow me on the floor was one of the brave souls who voted no, and I am willing to bet it was because he was trying to be responsible relating to the budget. Most of his colleagues didn't agree with him, and certainly the President of the United States didn't agree. Not only did he sign the bill, he signed it with relish and he campaigned on it, even though the way the program is going to be implemented was not going to hit home for seniors for years in advance. I think we can all be proud that there are some savings with Medicare Part D. We have to be honest that the Government is paying a price for it, just like we are going to pay a price for enhancing and protecting the Children's Health Insurance Program in this country. Other than Medicare Part D, we have not lifted a pinky finger in the area of health care during this administration. Most Americans are now scared. They are scared about getting care for their children, getting care for their parents, and they are scared about whether they are going to be able to afford health care, knowing that any minute their employer may drop their coverage. The expansion of this program has more to do with the unavailability of health care from an employer than it has to do with some effort on the part of the Government to insure every person. This is a public-private effort that has been a success. It is a block grant, not an entitlement. It allows the States flexibility. It is everything a Government program should be. It is getting to a very important need. There are so many reasons to be for this bill. I will not take the time tonight to go into them all because my colleagues will and they have today. I listened for a couple of hours when I was sitting in the chair. I am sure this will go on tomorrow with many people talking about important things. I want to mention one part of the bill that I think is very important, which has not been talked about--mental health parity. We have spent a lot of time talking about our children being at risk for drugs and alcohol. We have talked a lot about how we have to teach them the dangers of drugs and alcohol. Truth be known, one of the biggest failures in our health care system in this country is the complete unavailability of mental health services for children. Right now, in America, if you have health insurance and you know people and you are educated, it is difficult to find a mental health professional that specializes in children. If you are a poor working family and your child has gotten involved with drugs or alcohol and you want to get them mental health assistance, a treatment program, forget about it. It is literally almost impossible to access programs that can help adolescents and teens get off drugs and alcohol if they turn down that path at a young age. This will allow those programs to get the parity they need in the States. Speaking from experience, in terms of watching the expensive price tag on what happens to these young people if they get addicted to drugs or alcohol at a young age, the costs to the Government are huge because of what it means down the line in terms of wasted productivity, criminal conduct, the prison systems, and other health care costs down the line. There are very few kids who are addicted to drugs and alcohol who can get help when they are young, and a vast majority of them who do not end up charging us a heftier pricetag down the line, in terms of Government programs and assistance. This is a very wise investment of the public dollar, to get not only the physical health care but the mental health care to the children of this country who desperately need it. We have talked about dental care and emergency rooms and broken arms, but I think it is time we realized we are abandoning our children when it comes to important mental health care services. This bill will go a long way toward fixing it. I hope my friends on the other side of the aisle will not be situationally worried about the budget. When this was a program that was passed in 2003, $400 billion with no offsets, no way to pay for it, they lined up to vote for it, and the President signed it gleefully. It will be a bitter pill for America's children to swallow if, in a responsible way, we move forward to protect this program and this President decides to veto it. But if he does, he should know there are many of us here who will stand and fight with all the might we can muster on behalf of the kids of this country who deserve a chance at health care, deserve a chance for peace of mind for their parents.

Mrs. McCASKILL

Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, while I am not offering any amendments now on Homeland Security appropriations, I do wish to speak about a couple of amendments I will be offering. First, we all understand that the inspector generals are the eyes and ears for not only the public and the executive branch but also for Congress within Federal agencies. As part of a piece of broader legislation I have previously filed, I wanted to include in this bill the provisions that would relate to the Department of Homeland Security. Keep in mind, the Department of Homeland Security has been on the high-risk list as long as it has been in existence. The high-risk list is put out, in terms of management issues, by the Government Accountability Office. There are so many areas I could go into of mismanagement and problems within FEMA and other parts of Homeland Security, but suffice it to say that my amendment is going to help the public get access to the inspector general's information. It would require that the Department of Homeland Security put on the home page of their Web site a direct link to the inspector general's report and, furthermore, provide information on the home page of how people can, in fact, turn in the Department of Homeland Security for issues of fraud, waste, and abuse. We need to enlist the public's help. In order for them to do that, they have to know what is going on. It is my goal eventually to make sure the IG Web site is on the home page of every Federal agency, and this is a good start in the Department of Homeland Security. The other amendment I have is troubling. In fact, it is scary. After the hurricanes in 2005, there were a number of trailers that were distributed to the victims of Katrina and Rita. Less than a year later, there was a complaint regarding the condition of these trailers, and it related to the health of the people in the trailers. There was testing done, one test, by FEMA. It found dangerously toxic levels of formaldehyde. What happened after those test results, and test results also done by independent organizations? Nothing. Toxic levels of formaldehyde in trailers the Government provided to victims of a hurricane. Here is the scary part. The scary part is the General Counsel's Office within FEMA was advising the department: Let's keep this quiet. We don't want to own this issue. I am quoting now from things written by the lawyers in FEMA. A man actually died in a trailer. There was a conference call. As a result of the call, the General Counsel's Office put out a directive: We are in litigation on this issue. We must be on every conference call. Nothing should be done on this without going through us. We don't want to own this issue. All of these kinds of messages were sent throughout FEMA. Now we have a problem; we have a safety issue for American citizens living in trailers that we have given them. FEMA finally goes out and does some testing. They open all the windows and turn on the exhaust fans and then say: We don't think the problem is that serious. We better notify people. We want to notify people, but don't put our phone number on it. Tell them there might be a problem. In other words, let's see if we can't avoid being held responsible by giving out information. But for gosh sakes don't let them ask a question about what they do to get out of the trailer, how they get a new trailer, how they can find out how the problem is being addressed. We can take two attitudes in Government. We can take the attitude that we want to try to ``CYA'' and look good or we can take the attitude we are here to serve the public. Those people in FEMA were using Federal tax dollars, and their goal was to help people in times of need and make sure they stayed safe. This Congress has a solemn obligation to make sure we get to the bottom of this. My amendment will require the inspector general to do an immediate and thorough report as to everything that happened in this incident and, within 15 days of enactment of this law, FEMA must report to Congress what action they have taken in response to this issue. When, finally, this all came to light in a very well run House hearing in July of 2007, they promised swift action. We need to know what is ``swift action.'' We have to have the indoor quality testing and the root cause determination. We must make available alternative safe housing, and we obviously have to make sure the Office of General Counsel is held accountable for an attitude that is all about covering our risk instead of protecting American citizens. Senator Obama and Senator Pryor are working with me on this amendment. I anticipate it will have bipartisan support and many other Senators will join us. There is a lot of talk around right now about whether Congress is doing its job, whether we are asserting ourselves in terms of a branch of Government that is supposed to provide oversight and accountability. I am confused as to why this did not reach the public's attention prior to January of this year. I am proud that it has now. I am proud that these kinds of hearings are going on and that we are providing the kind of oversight and accountability of the executive branch that protects the American people. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment so we can make sure our job is to protect the people we serve and not to protect Government officials. I yield the floor.

Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mrs. McCASKILL

Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, there has been a lot of talk about what has gone on in the Chamber in the last 24 hours and of name calling. I am proud to have worked extra hard the last 24 hours. It seems to me the symbolism of working extra hard and losing some sleep is an important symbolism. Yes, yes, we all know we didn't have the votes to overturn the stubborn denial of this President as to the failure of his policy, but we showed the American people we are willing to work harder and try harder and stand up to the face of power for the right strategy to secure our Nation from terrorists and to support our military. I am following to this microphone decades of experience in the Senate. I sat this morning and listened--and this afternoon--to Senator Byrd, Senator Specter, and Senator Biden. I was reflecting on the years of experience they represent in the Senate. I don't have those years of experience. I have mere months. But I am confused with the insistence of 60 votes on anything of substance we are facing in the Senate. I am confused at attempts to block ethics reform; to block taking Federal tax dollars away from big oil. I am confused at the effort to block reimportation of prescription drugs and to block negotiation for lower drug prices in Medicare Part D. I am confused about delays and stalling tactics to embrace the 9/11 recommendations on homeland security. The majority should rule, and I am hopeful what we did over the last 24 hours will have an impact on the way we work together to move forward on the problems that face America. I also wish to briefly say that over the last 24 hours I have felt history, as I have reflected on other all-night filibusters throughout the history of this great body. I pinch myself when I open my drawer and I see the name of Harry Truman. When I sit at my desk and glance down and I see his name scrawled in the drawer of my desk on the Senate floor, it is amazing to me that I have the opportunity to sit in his Senate seat and to advocate for accountability in this war effort. Senator Webb and I had worked on an amendment we were going to offer to the Defense authorization bill that I think Senator Truman would be proud of, because he got in his vehicle and drove miles and miles across this country during World War II, in a Democratic administration--as a Democratic freshman Senator under a Democratic President in a time of war--and he said we have to do better about how we are spending taxpayer money. We cannot allow war profiteers to tarnish the image of the men and women who are fighting for us in World War II. That was his view, and so the Truman Committee was born. Out of that committee, billions of dollars were saved, and America felt better about our ability to clean up our act, to oversee the efforts of our military in a way that is fiscally responsible and honors the service of our military. Senator Webb and I, along with the other seven freshmen Democrats in the Senate, have fashioned a new, independent commission on war contracting, and we will now introduce this amendment as a stand-alone bill. I implore my colleagues on the Republican side of the aisle to not play partisan games with this effort. This is an independent commission, fashioned in many ways not only after the Truman Committee but after the 9/11 Commission. It will look at war contracting in a thorough way. Let us be honest. We are not going to turn back from contracting in a time of war. We will continue to contract. People need to understand now that we have more contractors on the ground in Iraq than we have military, with 180,000 contractors. I have had the opportunity over the last 6 months to see firsthand how we have failed in the stewardship of public money, with billions of dollars wasted, billions of dollars in unfair profits to private companies because we have not written the contracts well, we have not overseen the contracts, and we have not held them accountable. This commission will allow us to take a thorough look at war contracting, and it will also expand the authority of the Special Inspector General on Gulf Reconstruction so we can look at not only reconstruction contracts but those support contracts for our troops. It is important we get this done because we can't go back, but we must go forward and make sure that in the spirit of Harry Truman, we never allow war profiteering to affect our ability to stand strong, as the strongest and most powerful Nation on the planet. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, I yield myself 5 minutes.

Mrs. McCASKILL

Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, I thank Chairman Levin and Senator McCain for making this amendment a priority. I also thank Chairman Akaka, Senator Murray, and many others who worked on this issue for a long time. I was honored to have the opportunity to be one of the first in the Senate to file a bill on the subject of wounded warriors after the Walter Reed scandal broke. It was an interesting process for me because I spent time at Walter Reed and, of course, I got the official tour. Then I sat down and talked to the soldiers there. It was in those conversations that I learned about some of the problems we are trying to address in this important amendment. Many of the things Senator Obama and I included in our legislation have, in fact, been included in this amendment. Overall, it is going to make a real difference in these warriors' lives and their families' lives--how they are treated within our health care system as they return from battle, as they return from their service, while they are still in the Active military. I won't go into the details of the amendment. Many others have spoken about it. Suffice it to say that, overall, it is going to make a huge improvement in the physical disability system and being able to maneuver through the system in a way that is not punitive, making that transition from the Active military to the veterans system much smoother and easier to navigate. It is going to support the families of these men and women. That was what struck me. Some of these family members who are going to Walter Reed to care for these men and women who have given so much for us--they were not being treated with consistency, not getting some of the benefits they deserved because, frankly, they were doing us a favor by being there and caring for their loved ones. We also address that. Certainly, we have more assistance and advocacy for outpatients. That was the meat of the problem at Walter Reed. It wasn't the quality of the medical care they were receiving; it was the way the outpatients were being treated, the facilities they were in, the priority they were being given, and were their needs being met, particularly in the area of substance abuse, and were they being met in the area of mental health care. I think this amendment will go a long way toward correcting the underlying problems in the system that allowed the scandal at Walter Reed to become the focus of the American public for so many weeks early in the year. I also, with some regret, repeat some words I have said before. The reason I regret having to repeat these words is because when I gave this speech 14 months ago, I believed at the time I gave this speech that there would be change after the election. I believed in my heart that the people in Washington would listen like they had not listened before. But because they have not, I think it is important to repeat part of the speech I gave on Harry Truman's birthday, in May of last year, as I talked about the war in Iraq and the reasons I thought it was important to make a change in the Senate. I grew up in rural Missouri, in the heart of a Nation that I was raised to love and revere. I grew up surrounded by strong men and women who had won a great world war, a war fought against tyranny. My father was a decorated veteran of that war whom I rarely recall ever hearing speak about combat. As I grew older, his silence spoke volumes to me, not only about the modesty of his generation but about what Dwight Eisenhower later called the ``agony of the battlefield.'' I grew up in a family of Missouri Democrats, Roosevelt people, Truman people, but one of the first political speeches my father asked me to read was President Eisenhower's farewell address that he gave in 1961. Reading his speech again later in my life, I found myself deeply moved by his words. I respect his eloquence as he spoke of this country's fundamental decency and greatness. He called upon America to live up to its ideals by always using our greatest strength wisely in the service of peace and liberty. He warned us to be aware of arrogance, yet maintain our readiness to sacrifice. I was raised to believe that sacrifice in the defense of our freedom is an American ideal and that from our earliest days, Americans have willingly given of themselves in our defense and in the defense of others. I have always known and felt and believed that, through generation after generation, that willingness has made us safe. So as I grew up in Missouri, our country seemed on the verge of its greatest period, a time of joy and growth and undeniable strength; a time when all would finally share in our Nation's great bounty, when our military would be used wisely to benefit ourselves and the world; a time, too, when long-closed doors would finally open and we would live up to the ideal of America that lit all the continents with hope and promise and made us admired and respected across so much of the globe. I did not think then that an American leader would ever squander the trust of our people or the admiration of the world that had been won with such courage and at such a cost. But that is what has happened. In the days after 9/11, this Nation was united, as it was after Pearl Harbor. The world bled for us and stood at our side. Our historic allies offered all possible aid. New allies in Asia and the Middle East emerged, all agreeing to support us in a war on terror. But that has changed. America was misled into a different war, not against al-Qaida. Instead, we went to war with Iraq. Fearful of weapons of mass destruction, we believed they were a threat to the world. We had a plan to destroy the terrorists. We were strong. But there were no weapons of mass destruction. We did not have a plan to destroy the terrorists. We did not even have a plan to take care of Iraq. Now our strength has been compromised. The President and his administration have led us into a quagmire, alienated our allies, diminished our national morale, cost us billions of dollars, thousands of precious lives, and maimed many thousands more. Even our Nation's top military authorities have cited enormous mistakes, while this administration refuses to listen to them. Those were words of a speech I gave 14 months ago, and this administration still refuses to listen. I have listened. I have listened to Missourians. I have listened to General Petraeus. I have listened to the President. I have listened to the experts who have come in front of our Committee on Armed Services, including former generals, generals who have served in Iraq, and maybe most importantly, I have listened to brave soldiers in Iraq. I sat across a breakfast table and looked at a young man and said: But are you worried if we begin pulling out of Iraq that it will be chaos? And this young man from Missouri, from a State that I love and he loves, and a country that we want to protect more than anything, looked at me and said: Ma'am, we are in chaos. We need to get out of here. I implore the Commander in Chief to listen to America, to listen to the people of this country who figured this out months ago. We are stuck in a situation that is squandering the lives of our bravest, and it is also squandering the future of our Nation because of the financial toll it is taking on our budget. It is time that we change course in Iraq. We have an opportunity to speak louder than any American voice can speak. We have an opportunity to say to the President of the United States: You must change course. It is time to bring our combat troops home from Iraq. We need to begin that process quickly, and we need to begin to refocus our efforts on fighting terrorism around the world, going after al-Qaida, making our military strong, restoring our prominence in the world with allies that matter, understanding that the strength of our Nation rests with a strong military that we must protect and not wear thin, and, finally, realize that America is speaking with a strong voice. This is a democracy. If we cannot listen to those who sent us here, we have failed our duty in this great Chamber. Mr. President, I yield the floor.