Bill Nelson

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I rise to support the Dorgan amendment of which I am a cosponsor. Senior citizens in Florida in the year 2007 should not be in a position, as some are, of having to make a choice between buying groceries or buying their medicine. Unfortunately, there are some seniors who have to make that choice. Ultimately, once we get the Medicare prescription drug law changed that will ultimately bring down the cost of those prescriptions, that will solve the problem. I might say that the private marketplace is starting to have an effect. It was some several months ago that Wal-Mart announced it was going to start selling, for $4 per prescription for a 30-day supply, generic drugs from a compendium of over some 200 drugs. That program has been successful. And, of course, others, such as Target, have picked up and started that program as well. So we are seeing that the marketplace is starting to have some say in this. But with regard to the delivery of these drugs, senior citizens are having difficulty, even under what is supplied by Medicare right now. Until we have, eventually, the ability of Medicare to use its bulk purchasing power in order to negotiate prices of drugs--something the Veterans' Administration has been doing for years--until that occurs, along with the effects of the marketplace, along with the entry of generic drugs--until all of that happens, we are not going to see the cost of these drugs brought down to where in America today we do not have a senior citizen making a choice between buying groceries or buying their prescription medicines. In the meantime, there is something we can do about it; that is, we can allow senior citizens to purchase drugs from Canada, where often the price is one-half of what they get those drugs retail here. This Senator has been involved in this because, naturally, my State has the highest percentage of the population that is 65 and older. Naturally, when their shipments of drugs coming from Canada are interdicted, as they have been by Customs over the last several years, guess who they are going to call. I get involved in this, and then I have to get ahold of the Customs Department to find out why they are doing this. I have to get ahold of the FDA, and I get conflicting messages. A couple years ago, I spoke to the acting head of the FDA. He said that, as a policy, we do not have any objection to a limited supply-- and he named that as 90 days or less--for personal use. Naturally, the FDA has to be concerned about the safety of large quantities of counterfeit drugs. That is what we want to protect. That is what we want Customs to be going after. He pointed out that all of the counterfeits we have to go after--it is not the individual senior citizen wanting a limited supply, 90 days or less, for personal use coming from a Canadian pharmacy; that is not a threat to the health of our people. Last year on the floor, Senator Vitter of Louisiana and I coauthored and offered an amendment, and it passed. It would have allowed what I just described. That bill went to the House in a conference committee and, because of the power of the pharmaceutical industry, they watered it down so that instead of the senior citizen being able to order by mail, by Internet, or by telephone, what became law was that they could bring it personally across the border. Well, that may do somebody good in Michigan or in North Dakota, but it is obviously not going to do senior citizens in other parts of the country, including Florida, any good. Thus, until we can get this equilibrium of the marketplace by bulk purchases, by additional generics--all the time--and there is an interest, I agree, of the pharmaceutical industry, protecting them with those patents so they can recoup research and development costs but not to keep extending that patent after the life of the patent so that the generic can never get to the marketplace--until we can get all of those things straightened out, we simply have to bring some relief to our people. Albeit this is just one small way of doing it, it is an important step to allow the purchase from Canadian pharmacies. It is the same drug, made in the same pharmaceutical facility, that we get here. Indeed, it is even the same packaging, except it is sold through a Canadian pharmacy at half the price. I am as reasonable as any Senator in trying to work out an accommodation with certain interests that want to protect their turf, but this has simply gone too far. As the Senator from Ohio has just given a number of examples his wife was observing at the counter of the pharmacy, so too have I witnessed this among seniors. A lot of the seniors today came out of the ``greatest generation.'' We have an obligation to them, and no senior citizen should not be able, either through a Government program such as Medicare or a Government-subsidized program, through Medicaid--if they don't get their pharmaceuticals from one of those, they simply should not be in a position where they have to cut those pills in half or take them every other day or not be able to take those pills at all. When Medicare was set up back in the mid sixties, we didn't have the miracles of modern-day drugs; there wasn't a Medicare prescription drug benefit back then. Now, thanks to--kudos ought to go to the pharmaceutical industry, and the money we vote here for the research that goes through a lot of our scientific and medical institutions, federally funded money that goes to that research, the commendations ought to be all the way around the block, including the pharmaceutical companies. But we have to take the view that we cannot keep looking out for our own selfish interests all the time. We have to look to the greater good. When there is a part of America that is hurting, we have to address it. It is for those reasons that I am a cosponsor of this amendment. I was quite heartened when, earlier today, we got the necessary 60 votes in order to break the filibuster and proceed with the amendment. I hope that once we pass it here in this Chamber, it will not be stripped off when it gets to the other Chamber. Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. The Congressional Budget Office is estimating that this legislation is going to save consumers in this country $50 billion over the next 10 years because so often the price they get it for at the retail outlet here is twice what they can get it for from a Canadian pharmacy. It has been a pleasure for me to work with the Senator. I look forward to working with Senator Dorgan on his amendment.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Certainly the Senator remembers when he and this Senator from Florida introduced an amendment a year ago to allow the importation of drugs from Canada for a limited supply, stated as 90 days or less, for personal use, and how we passed that here in the Senate. It was watered down once it got into conference in the House. It only allowed Americans going to and from Canada to carry drugs in that capacity--personal use, limited supply. Now we are going to be approaching this, and I ask the Senator, he is joining on the Dorgan amendment on the reimportation as one of the cosponsors of this amendment, is that correct?

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. NELSON of Florida. If the Senator will further yield, does he remember in the debate we had when we agreed to that amendment, that Customs had even gotten into the act and was seizing thousands and thousands of these pharmaceutical packages for individual use and limited supply? Of course, in my State of Florida that happened with great frequency since a number of our senior citizens, in fact, do that. Finally we got Customs to come out and say they were no longer going to do that, they were going to defer it to the Food and Drug Administration. The Acting Administrator of the FDA had actually said no, they didn't have an objection to a limited supply for personal use, whether it was ordered by phone or Internet or by the mail, or someone walking across the border. Isn't it interesting that after all of that--and we finally agreed to the amendment--we still come to the year 2007 and we are having to address this issue again?

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Madam President, I rise to speak to the Senate because there is another thing the executive branch of Government has done today; that is, the Secretary of the Interior has announced a vast new expansion of drilling off of the continental United States. The one area proposed for lease sale for oil and gas production and drilling that is acceptable is the area we negotiated in the legislation we passed last year, which is lease sale 181 in the central Gulf of Mexico and part of the eastern Gulf of Mexico. Members will recall that this has been a 6-year struggle, of which this Senator from Florida actually had to engage in a filibuster in 2005 to protect the interests of my State, as well as the interests of the U.S. military, and finally prevailed in that protection in 2006, when we agreed to an area that could be drilled, but it was kept far from the coast of Florida and away from the military testing and training area, which is the largest testing and training area in the world for our military. Why that? Because where we are testing sophisticated new weapons systems and where there is live ordnance involved covering a vast array of space, you simply cannot have oil rigs on the surface of the water below where all of this testing utilizing new ordnance is going on. So what the Secretary of the Interior has proposed is some exploration in those areas we approved last year, which was approved with this Senator's consent because we protected the financial, economic interests of Florida, keeping the oil drilling away from our precious, sugary, white-sand beaches, which spawn a $52 billion-a-year tourism industry, keeping it away from the bays and estuaries that are so necessary to the ongoing marine life, and at the same time protecting the U.S. military and its interests to have its weapons tested so they are ready to go in case they are needed. The proposal today also includes other areas off the continental United States; with the concurrence of Virginia, 50 miles off the shore of Virginia. I would think the States of South Carolina and North Carolina ought to have something to say about that. I would think the State of Delaware or the State of New Jersey ought to have something to say about that because the wind and wave action doesn't just keep a potential oil spill right off of Virginia, even if Virginia wanted that drilling 50 miles off of its coast. There is a major tourism industry built on the beauty of those beaches in North Carolina as well as the beaches of Delaware and New Jersey, not to even speak of the beaches of South Carolina. The other part the Secretary of the Interior is proposing is four different areas off the coast of Alaska. We certainly remember the concerns, which were valid concerns, as a result of the Exxon Valdez disaster decades ago. But my argument against this proposal by the Secretary of the Interior goes far beyond those valid concerns I have just mentioned. It goes to the heart of the matter of national security and protection of the national economy; that is, we have an economy and a defense posture that puts us in the position today of being reliant on foreign oil to the tune of 60 percent of our daily consumption of oil coming from foreign shores in places such as the Persian Gulf region, Nigeria, and Venezuela, three parts of the world that are not necessarily stable and of which Venezuela--you have seen the kind of difficulty we have had with the President of Venezuela, who continues to threaten that he is going to cut off the oil to us and, by the way, that is 12 percent of our daily consumption. Then someone would say: If that is true, why not drill for more oil? In the first place, as to this drilling off Alaska, the oil wouldn't be ready for another 10 years. The economic crisis is today. The national security crisis is today. The United States has 3 percent of the world's oil reserves, but the United States consumes 25 percent of the world's oil production. It doesn't take a mathematical genius to figure out that you can't drill your way out of the problem. That brings me to the crux of my argument. The present policy of the administration is to drill, drill, drill. We simply have to change that policy. We have to go to alternative fuels. We have to go to increased mileage standards on our vehicles; otherwise, we can never get out of this problem of dependence on foreign oil, all the time making ourselves easily seduced by arguments of drill, drill, drill, with oil companies having record profits and with, of course, the people, our folks, all of us, having to endure $3 a gallon gasoline. In an ideal world, you could say that you could do both--yes, in an ideal world. But this isn't an ideal world. This is a world in which the policy has always been drill, drill, drill. We have to break that policy. We have to start on things just like this proposal which is another part of the drill strategy of this administration. Only then are we going to protect our national security and only then are we going to protect our national economy by shifting to other fuels and to vehicles of which we easily have the technology now to get 40 miles per gallon on the fleet average instead of 27 miles per gallon on the fleet average. You can imagine, if we can do that, instead of relying on a plan to drill for more oil that is not going to become available for another 10 years--if we will change the policy right now, which will have an immediate effect, starting tomorrow, on our consumption of oil--then, only then, will America start to move on a path truly toward energy independence. Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Madam President, I commend my colleague from Illinois for the very cogent and heartfelt plea he has made that this Government function as it should between the three branches and that the appropriations process is one which is joined between the executive branch and the legislative branch. It was never intended to be all one way or not. Yet that is what publicly has been insisted by the White House on this Iraq funding bill. It is expected that the President is going to veto this legislation. Then the question is, Are we going to be able to have a meeting of the minds? Can we have a little bit less partisanship and a lot more, as the Good Book says, come let us reason together? It is my hope that we will see more of that.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, instead of this body appointing an accusatory finger across the partisan aisle, what this body ought to be doing is invoking the old principle that in the old days, at the water's edge, partisanship stops. We have seen on both sides of the aisle too much of that partisanship, particularly in matters of war and peace. There is a genuine disagreement not only over the conduct of the war but the very fact that we are in this war to begin with. We can't do anything about that now. We were given false information, massaged information, misinformation that caused us to enter this war and, after a quick and very decisive and very impressive victory, then set about the process of an occupation that was fraught with error and misinformation. But that was then, and now is now. What is in the interest of the United States? Clearly it is to stabilize Iraq, if that is possible. A distinguished group of Americans, five Republicans and five Democrats in the Iraq study commission, unanimously came together last winter and said what they thought would be the plan, the best way we could stabilize Iraq, led by an eminent and distinguished Republican, former Secretary of State and a former Chief of Staff in the White House to President Reagan, Jim Baker, and led by the longtime and distinguished and equally as respected former Congressman and former chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee in the House, Lee Hamilton. Now, this is not a question about losing or winning a war; this is a question about, What is the best chance we have for stabilizing Iraq? Because clearly a stabilized Iraq in that part of the world is going to certainly help the neighbors in the region, and it is certainly going to help us, and clearly it is going to help the Iraqis. So what did the Iraq study commission say? Well, they said it very clearly. I am reading from the Executive Summary: The primary mission of U.S. forces in Iraq should evolve to one of supporting the Iraqi army, which would take over primary responsibility for combat operations. By the first quarter of 2008-- By the way, that is a year from now, that is April, that is the end of March-- By the first quarter of 2008, subject to unexpected developments in the security situation on the ground, all combat brigades not necessary for force protection could be out of Iraq. It is true, they did not say ``should be out of Iraq.'' They said ``could be out of Iraq.'' But they are giving a blueprint. I continue with the quote: At that time, U.S. combat forces in Iraq could be deployed only in units embedded with Iraqi forces, in rapid-reaction and special operations teams, and in training, equipping, advising, force protection, and search and rescue. I conclude this particular paragraph: Intelligence and support efforts would continue. A vital mission of those rapid reaction and special operations forces would be to undertake strikes against al Qaeda in Iraq. That is the Iraq Study Group report. It said: Go after al-Qaida. It said: Continue to train the Iraqi forces. It specifically talked about, in that training, embedding with Iraqi forces. It said ``force protection,'' meaning force protection for our forces and for U.S. personnel. And it said ``search and rescue'' missions. That is exactly what we have in front of us today to vote on. Now, there is additional language put in here about the President would have to certify and waive on this and that progress by the Iraqi Government. Clearly, you want to give some indicators to the Iraqi Government of what we expect. Again, what we are voting on today is a goal of having redeployed--basically, with the waiver by the President, we are talking about October 1. This is April--May, June, July, August, September--6 months from now is the goal of starting the redeployment. It does not say ``withdrawal,'' it says ``redeployment'' because ``redeployment'' is a term that is then defined by all of those things we just talked about. That is in this legislation we are going to vote on today. Now, there are those in this body I certainly respect who would say they do not want any kind of conditions put on the President in order to conduct the war. I respect that. That is a difference of opinion that we have. But common sense would tell you that you cannot conduct a war if you do not have the support of the American people. The American people clearly want change. So it is time for us to start the process of the change. Now, this Senator, along with most every Senator in this Senate, was in the meeting yesterday with General Petraeus. There was clearly a message that General Petraeus had hope, but seasoned with a great deal of reality, realizing the additional complexity. There were no clear- cut answers yesterday in us meeting with the top general over there in Iraq, a general whom we all admire and respect. Yes, there is still hope. But there is also the need for change. This document starts the process of the change. Now, it is my hope that after we go through this exercise, it will pass today--narrowly, just like it passed a month ago narrowly--the legislation will go down to the President--and he has already said he is going to veto it--and then is the opportunity for cooler heads, as the Good Book says, to come let us reason together. That is my hope. So I will be voting for this supplemental funding request that funds the troops, that funds other necessary emergencies. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I, along with Senators Reid, Leahy, Specter, Obama, Clinton, Brownback, and Martinez, have proudly submitted a concurrent resolution honoring the Negro Baseball Leagues and their players by encouraging the recognition of Negro Leaguers Recognition Day May 20 of each year. My relationship with the Negro Leagues players began when I successfully worked to persuade Major League Baseball to give pension benefits to former players. In 2004, Major League Baseball agreed to put up $1 million for monthly payments to 27 former Negro Leaguers. Last year, I worked with the families of several of the most notable Negro Leaguers to pass a Senate resolution designating May 20, 2006--the date on which the Negro National League played its first game--as Negro Leaguers Recognition Day. I am submitting a resolution honoring the Negro Leaguers again this year--in cooperation with Representative Cohen in the House--to demonstrate the support in both Chambers for recognizing Negro Leaguers Recognition Day on May 20 of each year. I hope that this will be a day when Negro Leaguers and their families will return to the ballpark to be honored for their historic contributions to the game of baseball and to bridging racial divisions in our country. Since 1885, long before Major League Baseball was integrated in 1947, African-Americans organized their own professional leagues. These leagues did not succeed because of racial prejudice and lack of adequate financial backing. However, this changed dramatically with the inception of the first successful Negro league--the Negro National League. Its creation was the result of the efforts of an African- American player and manager named Andrew ``Rube'' Foster. Mr. Foster's success inspired the formation of other leagues. As a result, on October 3, 1924, the first Negro League World Series game was played between the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro National League and Hilldale of Philadelphia of the Eastern Colored League. This historic and exhaustive first series lasted 10 games, covered a span of almost 3 weeks, and was played in four different cities. In the end, Kansas City claimed the championship. Some of the names we know and some we don't. Among them are Jackie Robinson, the first African-American to break the baseball color barrier; Satchel Paige, who was considered one of the greatest pitchers of all time; Josh Gibson, who was a prolific home-run hitter; Larry Doby, the first African-American to play in the American League in July 1947; Buck O'Neil, who was the first African-American coach in the Major Leagues and who went on to head the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum; Cool Papa Bell, who was known as the fastest man in baseball; and Minnie Minoso; the ``Cuban Comet,'' who played on the New York Cubans when they won the Negro League World Series, and broke the color barrier on the Chicago White Sox when he joined the team in 1951. It is important that we remember and honor these players and their teammates in the Negro Leagues. In breaking down baseball's color barrier, these pioneers dealt a blow to hatred and prejudice across America. Today, we can honor them by recognizing May 20 each year as Negro Leaguers Recognition Day.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I say to my good personal friend and colleague from Florida, if we want to solve this and other problems, we have to have some genuine bipartisanship, and that bipartisanship has to start at the top. There has to be an atmosphere of mutual respect and willingness to work together, and it has to start in the White House. I have shared these comments publicly and privately. Whenever you face something as contentious as the matters we face--matters of war and peace, the making of Medicare financially solvent, the question of prescription drugs and their cost--you simply can't do it by taking a unilateral position over and over on either side of this aisle; it has to be that people have to come together and work it out. There also has to be a sense of mutual trust, of people telling the truth to each other, of doing what the standards were in the old days where a man's word was his bond. Until we get that, we are going to continue to have difficulty. We see the problems right now in a war that is certainly a difficult one. We all share the same goal: that the interests of America are furthered if we can stabilize Iraq. How do we get there? There has been so much mistrust and suspicion that has been bred because of all the inconsistencies and lack of information and misinformation and massaged information. But that is then; now is now. What do we do? Thus far, it looks as though the White House and the leadership in Congress can't come together. There is too much distrust. I have said before and I will say again, thank goodness the Secretary of State is out on a new diplomatic initiative. It is not catty to say it is about time, because there certainly have been those forces within the administration that have wanted this much more in the past, but I think the Secretary of State is making a very valiant effort now, because you are not going to solve the problem in Iraq unless you can get all the neighbors in the region involved to make a political solution stick. Is a political solution viable? This Senator cannot say at this point that it is a viable prospect because of the sectarian hatred we have seen play out over these last several months. But this hasn't just been going on for months; this has been going on for 1,327 years, ever since the Battle of Karbala. I say to my colleague, who is my friend, and the two of us work together very well all the time, that a lot less rhetoric coming from both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue would help this problem, but I don't see it changing right now. I think that is a sad commentary on the state of affairs.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I say to my colleague, work in your sphere of influence and this Senator will try to do the same. What we have is an approaching train wreck, because if the Congress passes this emergency funding bill for the war that has this language in it, if that passes this week, then the President is going to veto it next week and that is going to leave us right back where we are, with both sides making a lot of noise and a lot of rhetoric, but that doesn't get us any closer to where we are going. So I say to my colleague, look over the horizon beyond this week and see where we can come together. I thought the most promising prospect was when Jim Baker and Lee Hamilton came down with the Iraq Study Commission report. They showed, in a bipartisan way among very prominent people of both parties, how you should approach this Iraq situation, and yet, that was last November or December when it came out, and here we are 4 months later and still we have not come together in common ground. So I would encourage my colleague to keep working.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Certainly.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I want to talk about a sad situation we can do something about. A year ago this little girl, Veronica Rosenfeld, and her mom were walking in their Boca Raton neighborhood. This little girl, Veronica, was about 5 feet ahead of her mother on the sidewalk when a neighbor, not seeing little Veronica, backing out of the driveway, backed out over her and killed her. Her mother was right there, and there was nothing she could do about it. It is every parent's nightmare to certainly see their child die, but how much more horrible to lose them and be totally helpless in preventing a senseless accident--an accident that could be prevented. Let's talk about that, the prevention of the accident. Look what has happened in the last 6 years. There has been a 138-percent increase in the last 6 years in the number of children killed in these noncrash fatalities in which people back over a child because they can't see the child. Several children are killed every week in the United States, and sadly--and this is why I bring it up again; I have brought it up several times to the Senate--this past weekend in Florida, two more children died in their driveways. In Hollywood, FL, a 3-year-old died when her father accidentally backed over her with his cargo van, and in Fort Myers, a 5-year-old was killed by her 16-year-old brother when he was parking the family car. Mr. President, this month alone, April, there have been 11 children backed over and killed in this country. These injuries and deaths continue to occur, even though we have the technology to prevent many of them. But we need legislation to put this technology to use. In April alone--and we are not even to the end of April--they have happened in Indiana, New York, Georgia, three in Florida, two in Texas, two in California, and one in Hawaii thus far. And it is only April 24. This is why a bunch of us have gotten behind the Cameron Gulbransen Kids and Cars Safety Act. It is a bipartisan bill that would provide drivers with the means of detecting a child behind their vehicle. This bill would also ensure that power windows would automatically reverse direction to prevent a child from being trapped and mandate a car's service brake to engage to prevent rollaways. We have this technology in a lot of vehicles. We have been in the vehicles where there is a signal that goes beep, beep, beep, and it becomes more frequent when an object is detected behind the car. The technology is there, and it is already being used. The same thing for windows. A child's head is in a window and suddenly the window goes up. It hits resistance and it reverses, and a parking brake automatically engages to prevent a rollaway on an incline. Consumer groups have teamed with the parents of victims to suggest ways that are relatively simple and inexpensive in order to ensure that more parents won't have to endure the pain of losing a child. The technology is there. We all want to be safe behind the wheel of a car, especially when we back up. How many times, when we back out of our garage, do we have that nagging thought: Is there a child behind this vehicle I cannot see? Why go through this trauma anymore? Let's pass this Kids and Cars Safety Act, and then we can stop a lot of these needless deaths. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, if there is no further business, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand adjourned under the previous order.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. I ask unanimous consent that there now be a period of morning business with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I want to share another idea, and this has nothing to do with these weighty matters, but it certainly has to do with some weighty matters about whether the National Guard of this country has the proper equipment. There was a General Accounting Office report from last summer that showed that the National Guard is woefully inadequate in its equipment. It pointed out in that GAO study that my State of Florida had only 53 percent of the equipment that it ought to have. It said the State of New Mexico National Guard had only 33 percent. What is happening is what you would expect: As the National Guard units in America are activated to go over to Iraq and Afghanistan, they take their equipment with them, and so often it is worn out or it has to stay for others to use, and they come back and they do not have the equipment; or it is like the 11 helicopters of the National Guard in Florida--a year from now, they are planning to take those helicopters from the Florida Guard and send them over to the Middle East. Can you imagine if that occurs and the Florida National Guard is faced with a major hurricane and they do not have any helicopters? Hurricanes are indiscriminate in the way they come in and tear up everything over a large swath of property, so that in a big one you cannot traverse the roads because everything is suddenly on top of them. So often you have to have helicopters to get supplies and personnel in to people who are hurting. That is one example. That is a year from now if they take the helicopters from the Florida National Guard because they need them over in the Middle East. But let me tell you the condition of it today. The Florida National Guard--and I am quoting their own figures--is short 500 humvees. They are short 600 trucks, and this is either a 5-ton truck or a deuce and a half, 2\1/2\-ton truck--600 short. They are short 500 long-haul trailers, they are short 20 wreckers, and they are short 4,400 night-vision goggles. What do all of those shortages have to do with anything? It has to do--if the big one comes and the big one is a category 4 or 5 hurricane hitting a densely urbanized part of Florida direct from the water, the Florida Guard is going to need every bit of equipment it can get to respond to that emergency. Let me give you another example. The report 6 months ago was that Fidel Castro was going to be dead within 6 months. Looks like that may have changed, at least by the more recent reports. But what happens and what will be the political condition in Cuba when he does pass away? Is the then caretaker government going to be in sufficient control, or is chaos going to erupt and suddenly a mass outmigration of thousands and thousands of people trying to get to the United States? That is also when you need the National Guard. Now, I have talked with the Coast Guard and the Navy, and they have a plan whereby they have an entire sentry line of ships that they line up, which I have questions on and we will talking about on another occasion, about that plan, because they have only modeled it if 10,000 were to flee. What happens if 100,000 flee? They are not prepared for that, and everybody in authority with that plan will tell you they are not prepared for it. But whatever it is, if it occurs, which we hope and pray that it will not, the National Guard is going to be a major component of trying to restore order and keep order. Their equipment has been depleted. Now, if we end up having the typical category 1, 2, and 3 hurricanes, which are severe hurricanes, the Florida National Guard tells me they have adequate equipment, they certainly have the personnel, and they are the best trained in the country, they know how to handle hurricanes, and they are the best of the best. But if they do not have the equipment--they tell me they do for up to a category 3--but if the big one hits, then they are going to have to rely on getting equipment from other National Guards around the country. So what is the lag time on that? And when they reach out to another Guard--for example, the Pennsylvania National Guard with which they have a compact to share equipment--is the Pennsylvania Guard going to have sufficient equipment that they can lend to Florida in an emergency? These are serious questions which need to be answered before the hurricane season and before any kind of potential outmigration from the island of Cuba so that we have preparations, they are adequately equipped to go along with the experts and expertise of the trained personnel and all of the emergency responders who would respond to that kind of an event. I am going to continue to sound the alarm until we get some response. I do not believe the Florida Guard has the equipment for a category 5 hurricane coming right up Tampa Bay or hitting directly from the east coast from the Atlantic, in a high urbanized area such as the Dade- Broward line. So I am going to continue to ask this question, as uncomfortable as it will make some people, until somebody will respond. I think one potential solution is that there be an agreement which would be cut with the Active-Duty--correct that--with the Army Reserves located in Florida that have equipment that there will be an immediate lending of that equipment and/or personnel to the Florida National Guard in the case of a major, catastrophic hurricane hit. When a hurricane hits, it is a matter of life and death. As time goes on, as expert as our emergency responders are--and they are expert because they have been through a lot and they are quite experienced and well trained--the ability over time to get those supplies in, even supplies that have been prepositioned closer to where the hurricane is going to hit, the ability to get that transported in is critical in those first days because there is no power. You wonder, night-vision goggles--what does that have to do with it, that the Florida Guard is 4,400 pairs of night-vision goggles short? It is because, in the aftermath of a hurricane, there is no electricity. Everything is dark at night. As troops are moving through all of that debris, they have to be able to see. That is what those night-vision goggles are for. So this Senator will continue to sound the alarm. We will get the answers. And the good Lord willing, despite the warnings from La Nina in the Pacific that this is going to be a terribly active hurricane season in the Atlantic, the good Lord willing, we will not have that active hit on the mainland of the United States, but we better be prepared. Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. I am grateful to the leader. I believed it was necessary. Partisanship has gotten out of control around here. I was so encouraged, the day that we were sworn in when the two leaders, the Democratic leader and the Republican leader, convened us in a private meeting in the Old Senate Chamber. There was a wonderful spirit. It clearly was, in large part, as a message from the American people that they were tired of the partisan bickering. That was clearly one of the messages from the election. We started off in this mutual camaraderie of how we can make a body like this function that cannot pass anything unless we have 60 votes out of 100 Senators in order to shut off debate. That means we have to have coming together. As the Good Book says, ``Come, let us reason together.'' It is harder and harder to do that in a poisonous, partisan atmosphere. But it has to be set at the top. I cannot tell the White House what to do. I can sure recommend. But there is something that I can do; that is, I am responsible for myself and my actions and how I treat others, treat others in this Chamber. There is an age-old principle, and it has to be: Treat others as you want to be treated. I will put that in the old English, which might be a little bit more familiar: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. If we had a little bit more of that, we could sure get some things done around here. Typically, what happens in these 51-to-49 votes, there is not that much difference that we couldn't have 10 votes on that side of the aisle or 10 votes on this side of the aisle go one way or another in reaching a mutual consensus. Yet over and over it has been avoided. I felt compelled to say these things.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. I will certainly yield.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I wanted to say to my friend and my colleague and our leader that the President of the United States, when he was Governor of Texas, had a reputation as someone who reached out as a uniter, bringing together the two parties in a bipartisan way. Since the President has been elected President and has served in that capacity, he has chosen to change, for what reason I do not know because the country yearns for bipartisanship. That was clearly one of the messages that came out of last year's election, the 2006 election, that the people of this country are tired of the partisan bickering, and they want us to come together. Yet, as the majority leader was just recounting, there has been occasion after occasion where it seems, unnecessarily, that the White House has gone out of its way to attack someone simply because they were a member of the other party. I want to give the Senate an example. Because I had been twice before, over a 6-year period, to visit the President of Syria, immediately upon the Iraq study commission report that recommended that we open up to Syria, this Senator from Florida decided that I was going to go back, hoping that there might be some encounter in that conversation with the President of Syria that might crack the door a little bit. I did that in the week before Christmas. The White House chose to attack me for having made that trip-- however, very conveniently not attacking any Republican Senator who happened to follow, as did two Democratic Senators and one Republican Senator in a week or two after I made that trip. So, too, it is noteworthy that the White House chose to attack Speaker Nancy Pelosi in her visit with President Assad while being mute about the congressional delegation that had just visited President Assad 4 days earlier, which included my good personal friends, the Congressman from Virginia, Frank Wolf, and the Congressman from Pennsylvania, Joe Pitts. When we are facing an issue of war and peace, as we are now, we have to come together. The person at the top has to set the standard and the atmosphere. These kind of attacks that become personal, as they were against Speaker Pelosi, are not going to do anybody any good.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to executive session to consider the nominations placed on the Secretary's desk; that the nominations be confirmed, the motions to reconsider be laid on the table, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and the Senate then return to legislative session.