Bill Nelson

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 43 which was submitted earlier today.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

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

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.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. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Banking Committee be discharged from further consideration of H.R. 188, and that the Senate then proceed to its consideration.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, today I am introducing legislation authorizing two important Everglades projects: the Indian River Lagoon, IRL, and the Picayune Strand Restoration, PSR. Senator Mel Martinez has joined me as an original cosponsor. These two projects constitute the first phase of the overall restoration of the Everglades. IRL at the northern tip of the Everglades ecosystem and PSR in the southwest section of the Everglades--are essential to getting the water right. IRL will restore natural sheet flow to the Everglades ecosystem by re-directing water to the Everglades instead of out to the ocean, provide reservoirs for storage of water in the wet season and release in the dry season, build stormwater treatment facilities to improve the water quality of the water flowing through the Everglades ecosystem and remove millions of cubic yards of muck from the St. Lucie Estuary. I toured the St. Lucie River when it turned phosphorescent green during an algae bloom and what was more amazing to me was that I saw absolutely no wildlife, it was a dead river. PSR will re-establish the natural sheet flow to the Ten Thousand Islands, restore 72,320 acres of habitat, and restore ecological connectivity of the Florida Panthers National Wildlife Refuge, the Belle Meade State Conservation and Recreation Lands Project Area and the Fakahatchee Strand State Preserve. For these reasons, the Indian River Lagoon and Picayune Strand projects must be authorized and completed. Last year we came close to meeting that goal, as the projects were included in the Senate passed WRDA 2006. Today I am renewing this effort and will work to ensure these projects are included in WRDA 2007. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, today I am introducing legislation authorizing two important Everglades projects: the Indian River Lagoon, IRL, and the Picayune Strand Restoration, PSR. Senator Mel Martinez has joined me as an original cosponsor. These two projects constitute the first phase of the overall restoration of the Everglades. IRL at the northern tip of the Everglades ecosystem and PSR in the southwest section of the Everglades--are essential to getting the water right. IRL will restore natural sheet flow to the Everglades ecosystem by re-directing water to the Everglades instead of out to the ocean, provide reservoirs for storage of water in the wet season and release in the dry season, build stormwater treatment facilities to improve the water quality of the water flowing through the Everglades ecosystem and remove millions of cubic yards of muck from the St. Lucie Estuary. I toured the St. Lucie River when it turned phosphorescent green during an algae bloom and what was more amazing to me was that I saw absolutely no wildlife, it was a dead river. PSR will re-establish the natural sheet flow to the Ten Thousand Islands, restore 72,320 acres of habitat, and restore ecological connectivity of the Florida Panthers National Wildlife Refuge, the Belle Meade State Conservation and Recreation Lands Project Area and the Fakahatchee Strand State Preserve. For these reasons, the Indian River Lagoon and Picayune Strand projects must be authorized and completed. Last year we came close to meeting that goal, as the projects were included in the Senate passed WRDA 2006. Today I am renewing this effort and will work to ensure these projects are included in WRDA 2007. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

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. Cloture Motion

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

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. Mr. President, I just returned from a trip to Haiti and to the Bahamas. I met with the governments of each of those nations on a variety of topics, not the least of which was the interdiction of the drugs. We increasingly see drugs coming out of Colombia, going into Venezuela and being transported by air out of Venezuela--including from remote parts of southern Venezuela as well as northern Venezuela. They then fly to destinations where the cocaine is dropped and repackaged into smaller packages to be shipped, destined for Europe and the United States. The increase in the number of flights from 2003 to 2006 is incredible. A map showing lines that indicate the number of flights-- they are solid going from Venezuela to the Dominican Republic and to Haiti. The flights have increased enormously, while at the same time the number of drugs transported by sea has diminished. Our Coast Guard is out there. I was with the Coast Guard. They have been fairly successful in interdicting at sea. So as a result, the drug smugglers are using small airplanes flying from Venezuela to the island of Hispaniola, Haiti and the Dominican Republic, where they are sending the drugs to be shipped on to additional destinations. I spoke at length with President Preval, the President of Haiti, about this problem. President Preval made reference to a 1998 agreement in which the Government of Haiti and the United States pledged to cooperate and, indeed, that cooperation has occurred. And it has occurred on those shipments coming by sea. But the Government of the United States cannot interdict an airplane unless we shoot them down, and we are not going to do that. So when these flights come into Haiti or the Dominican Republic they either land or drop their cargo of cocaine. That is where the local government, the local authorities, have to be able and willing to make the arrest. Of course this is difficult, in a country such as Haiti that can hardly keep its head above water, as it is trying to with a new government. I must say, that certainly has my support and I believe that President Preval is doing a good job, and is making some progress. In addition, I spoke at length with the Prime Minister and with the director general of the Haitian National Police. I am very impressed with Director General Andresol. He is an impressive fellow. He has set out a plan to vet all 7,000 members of the Haitian National Police, and he started the vetting process with the top person--himself. He has started the vetting of the police, and he is going to continue to try to get out the graft and corruption. If he is successful, then I believe you will see that the Haitian National Police have the ability to make the arrest when drugs are dropped or transshipped through Haiti. I hope the same thing is going to be done in the Dominican Republic. Now, in the midst of all this, further to the north, as you get into the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos, we have been enormously successful since the late 1980s in the interdiction of the drugs. The DEA, working with other law enforcement agencies, working with the Coast Guard, working with the Defense Department, and working with the governments of the countries--and the one that I particularly concentrated on this time after Haiti was the Bahamas--they have been very successful. They have helicopters stationed in the area, the Coast Guard at Andros Island in the Bahamas. The Army stationed helicopters at Greater Exuma Island, next to the town of Georgetown in the middle of the Bahamas, and at the southern end of the Bahamas where a the Coast Guard has another station with helicopters. Well, the Army, being strapped for helicopters, announced the plan that it was going to remove the helicopters. So we went to work. Our Ambassador to the Bahamas, John Rood, brought it to my attention. Several other Members of Congress got involved, and as a result of this an interagency meeting occurred in which it was agreed that although the Army would pull the helicopters out probably by this October, they would still pay for the station for the next 5 years. And we worked it out to get new helicopters that would be transferred to DEA--the Drug Enforcement Administration. Therefore all of that area of the Bahamas in the middle, between Andros to the north and to the west, the island of Exuma in the middle, and further south the to the Coast Guard helicopters--all of that area in the middle would not be blind. On Sunday I went out there and flew with both the Army and the Coast Guard to see their operation and to be briefed on the details. I was briefed on a live chase that occurred at the time, as well as visiting some of our troops. And I will just tell you what patriotic Americans these are. They are down there for 4 months without their families. They had just gotten home after a year's deployment in Iraq. They are going to be able to go back home in another month and be at home for 2, 3 months, and then they are going back to Iraq. This is the kind of dedication that we have in our Armed Forces. Well, fortunately, it looks as if we are going to be able to retain new helicopters for this operation so that we will not be blind. But it is going to mean the continued cooperation between the Government of the Bahamas and the United States, building on a history of considerable cooperation. It also means that we need continued, increased progress with President Preval of Haiti and President Fernandez of the Dominican Republic. Haiti has so many needs. Haiti has desperate needs in health care, desperate needs in infrastructure, desperate needs in education. One little thing we did in a step in the right direction--and many Senators here cosponsored the bill--I along with them--is called the HOPE legislation. It will allow textiles from outside to be brought into Haiti, where then value is added by making them into garments. It is estimated that 30,000 jobs will be provided. That is out of hundreds of thousands of people who do not have jobs. But it is a step in the right direction. I want to give credit to former Senator Mike DeWine of Ohio, who was the sponsor of a bill called HERO and also the sponsor of the legislation that passed called HOPE. He has a heart for Haiti and has been there many times. So the fruits of his long labors and the fruits of the labors of others of us in this Chamber have finally come to fruition to give them another ray of hope. I am impressed with President Preval. I do believe that he is honest and on the right course. I am also a realist and recognize that there is corruption all around him in his Government. That is one of the main chores that he has in rooting out corruption, so that he can get that Government on the right path, so that they can start restoring some of the services to a people in desperate need. The Haitian people are remarkable. They are so ingenious and industrious and entrepreneurial, with a positive, optimistic outlook. They have just been shackled under years of exceptional poverty. So, finally, the United States stepped forward with the HOPE legislation. Finally, the United States is getting increased cooperation from the now Government of Haiti, and it is exceptionally important in the future that cooperation continues. It is so important not only because of Haiti, but it is important because it is our children who are on the receiving end of all of the drugs coming out of South America.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I am pleased to be joined by my colleagues and cosponsors Senators Mary Landrieu, Trent Lott, David Vitter, and Thad Cochran as we introduce the Commission on Catastrophic Disaster Risk and Insurance Act of 2007. As we know all too well, the last few years have brought a devastating cycle of natural catastrophes in the United States. In 2004 and 2005, we witnessed a series of powerful hurricanes that caused unthinkable human tragedy and property loss. In my own home State of Florida, eight catastrophic storms in 15 months caused more than $31 billion in insured damages. Now Florida is witnessing skyrocketing insurance rates, insurance companies are canceling hundreds of thousands of policies, and the State's catastrophe fund is depleted. The inability of the private insurance markets to fully handle the fallout from these natural disasters has made our Nation's property and casualty insurance marketplace unstable. This instability has forced the Federal Government to absorb billions of dollars in uninsured losses, at a huge cost to all American taxpayers. Let me be clear--these issues will not just affect Florida or the coastal States. Natural catastrophes can strike anywhere in our country. In the few decades, major disasters have been declared in almost every State. Congress has struggled with these issues time and time again, but nothing much has gotten accomplished. It's time for a comprehensive approach to solving our Nation's property and casualty insurance issues. This bill would create a Federal commission--made up of a group of the best experts in the Nation--to quickly recommend to Congress the best approach to addressing catastrophic risk insurance. In the 1990s, when I was Insurance Commissioner for the State of Florida, I created a similar commission, and within months, the commission acted, and many of its key recommendations became State law. We need a comprehensive approach that will make sure the United States is truly prepared for the financial fallout from natural disasters. I know this complicated process won't be easy for us--but let's roll up our shirtsleeves and get it done. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I am pleased to be joined by my colleagues and cosponsors Senators Mary Landrieu, Trent Lott, David Vitter, and Thad Cochran as we introduce the Commission on Catastrophic Disaster Risk and Insurance Act of 2007. As we know all too well, the last few years have brought a devastating cycle of natural catastrophes in the United States. In 2004 and 2005, we witnessed a series of powerful hurricanes that caused unthinkable human tragedy and property loss. In my own home State of Florida, eight catastrophic storms in 15 months caused more than $31 billion in insured damages. Now Florida is witnessing skyrocketing insurance rates, insurance companies are canceling hundreds of thousands of policies, and the State's catastrophe fund is depleted. The inability of the private insurance markets to fully handle the fallout from these natural disasters has made our Nation's property and casualty insurance marketplace unstable. This instability has forced the Federal Government to absorb billions of dollars in uninsured losses, at a huge cost to all American taxpayers. Let me be clear--these issues will not just affect Florida or the coastal States. Natural catastrophes can strike anywhere in our country. In the few decades, major disasters have been declared in almost every State. Congress has struggled with these issues time and time again, but nothing much has gotten accomplished. It's time for a comprehensive approach to solving our Nation's property and casualty insurance issues. This bill would create a Federal commission--made up of a group of the best experts in the Nation--to quickly recommend to Congress the best approach to addressing catastrophic risk insurance. In the 1990s, when I was Insurance Commissioner for the State of Florida, I created a similar commission, and within months, the commission acted, and many of its key recommendations became State law. We need a comprehensive approach that will make sure the United States is truly prepared for the financial fallout from natural disasters. I know this complicated process won't be easy for us--but let's roll up our shirtsleeves and get it done. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Will the Senator yield for an observation?

Mr. NELSON of Florida. I wish to say this to my colleague in response to his excellent comments about the tendency of some folks to pontificate around here. It called to mind for this Senator the old adage that ``I would rather see a sermon than hear one any day.'' That might be a lesson for all of us in public office to remember.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I am not going to take that amount of time. I do want to go back to the basic underlying problem that finally is bringing us to the point that we are going to get a bill passed here and one in the House of Representatives, and we are going to get a compromise hammered out in a conference committee and get a product which we will send to the President for his signature. It basically has boiled down to the fact that we have had vote buying and earmark buying. That is inimical to the interests of this country and the way that we operate in a system of justice. It is inimical to the interest of a democracy, in representing the people, and when the people see this, they say: Enough; we want a change. We tried to do this in the last Congress. There was a bill passed here and there was a bill passed on the other side of the Capitol, but for all the various personal reasons and special interests, we could not get anything moving and get a final agreement. Now, what does this come out of? It comes out of a basic human failing called pride. Pride, by the way, in the Good Book, is mentioned as one of the greatest sins. Pride can be described in many other ways. It can be arrogance, obstinance or it can be an ``it is my way or the highway'' attitude. It can be quite destructive. As this observer of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration would clearly note, it was arrogance in the NASA management that brought down two space shuttles--one in 1986 because the NASA management wasn't listening to what the engineers on the line were saying. The communication--in other words, due to arrogance and pride--was going one way, from the top to the bottom, not from the bottom up. That caused the destruction in January of 1986 of the space shuttle Challenger. And 18 years later, the very same thing happened again to NASA. The space shuttle Columbia was destroyed for a different technical reason than 18 years previously, but the same reason occurred, which was the arrogance of power and pride that had set in. The same thing happened. Communication was from the top down, but they weren't listening to the engineers on the line who were telling them that that thermal protection foam on the external tank was shedding in the launch of each of those space shuttles. So we say that same thing--pride, arrogance, the abuse of power. Remember the British politician who said, ``Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.'' Indeed, that is what we see. It is not applicable to one side of the aisle or the other. This has happened throughout the history of this great democracy, over two centuries. So what happens is that, ultimately, the people will say: Enough, and we want change. Then we will try to respond to the change. We remember the reaction that occurred in this country in 1974 in the election as a result of the arrogance of power that had been in the White House that we know as the Watergate scandal. And then we know about in the decade of the 1980s, where the Democrats had been in power for decades, and then there was one thing after another that was happening. In the election of 1994, people were tired of the arrogance that was being displayed. Now we are on a shorter cycle--here, in a 12-year period, from 1994 to 2006, and people were saying: I don't like this vote buying, this earmark buying, where somebody gets a special appropriation because they happen to be getting special gifts of lodging and trips and gifts and antiques and meals, and so forth and so on. And, of course, that is the celebrated case of MGM and Mitchell Wade and all of that fallout, and you hear the revelations coming out of another lobbyist, Jack Abramoff, and the resignation of another major figure in the House of Representatives. It all goes back to this arrogance of power. Since we all have ``feet of clay,'' what is the best way we can try to avoid that temptation of arrogance of power? The temptation is going to be there. First of all, it has to be right there in your heart. Check your own self as a public servant. But the next thing we can do is something that we are attempting to do in this legislation. You get everything out into the open, so that you know that there is always the fourth estate, the press, looking over your shoulder. That makes it easier for them to find out what the facts are. Thus, the earmarks have to be completely transparent if, indeed, there are going to be any earmarks, which is another question we will address on down the line. Get it out into the sunshine. We have a tradition of that in Florida from way back in the 1960s, enacting the sunshine law. State Senator J. Emory Cross, from Gainesville, FL, a place in celebration right now as a result of the national championship--Senator Cross, who was an old country lawyer and a State senator, said there has to be a different way. That was in the 1960s. They passed Florida's sunshine law which said that a government body meeting to discuss public business had to be in the public. All of that doesn't occur here all of the time--a lot of it by necessity because of national security, and so forth. But the most we can do is get things out into the open, in the full glare of the spotlight, so that people can evaluate that what we are and what we are not doing is to strengthen this democracy. That is what we have to do. I think this legislation is a step in the right direction. It is going to try to get at these lobbyist-financed meals, gifts, and travel. It is clearly going to require more transparency. Our democratic Government is viewed as a model in countries throughout the world. I just spent 2 weeks in the Middle East and Central Asia. They do business a lot differently. Payoffs, and so forth, are a standard practice in a lot of those parts of the world. We do it differently here. Perhaps that is another reason why this constitutional democracy has survived and, indeed, thrived for well over two centuries. The Founding Fathers established a government that was designed to put a check on power and represent the interests of all Americans, regardless of their station in life. So as we grapple with this issue of trying to put an influence on those who articulate a special interest, a narrowly defined interest, instead of an interest for what is referred to as the common wheel, the common good, then that is very much vital to restoring the balance of power in the functioning of our Government. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I am here with a big smile on my face, with an orange and blue tie, to recognize the signal accomplishment of the University of Florida Fighting Gators, and not only now with the national championship in football, but in the same season, the 2006 season, to have the unusual achievement of having the national champions in basketball as well as football. Throughout the season, this team was challenged time after time and was underrated in the press; yet, they had the heart to win and keep fighting. The score of 41 to 14 last night clearly shows who are the national champions. On behalf of our State of Florida, later today, I will be introducing a resolution commending the University of Florida for being the national champions and urge our colleagues to join in this Senate resolution. I will only additionally call to the Senate's attention that with my colleague, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, we engaged in a friendly wager. This is not like the normal wager that years ago, when a Florida team was playing a California team and the junior Senator from California, Senator Boxer, and I entered into a friendly wager of a crate of oranges versus a barrel of California almonds--and our office enjoyed those almonds for several months. No, this was a different kind. This was a wager with Senator Brown of Ohio that the losing team's Senator would do the number of military pushups equivalent to the score of the game in public in front of the cameras. So with a score of 41 to 14, that is 55 pushups. I will even extend the olive branch to Senator Brown that if he doesn't want to do all of them, I will do part of them with him. But it is a great day for college football, and it is certainly a great day for the State of Florida and for the University of Florida.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, it is my understanding we are in morning business.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that S. 21 be star printed with the changes that are at the desk.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, it is my understanding we have a 10-minute limit in morning business. I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed an extension of an additional 5 minutes, for a total of 15 minutes.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, on the basis of the very kind comments of the Senator from Illinois and others, very reasoned comments, many of these comments having been stimulated by the Iraq Study Group, which Mr. Baker and Mr. Hamilton both made their first presentation to the Congress, to our Senate Armed Services Committee, back in early December, there is a lot of wisdom in this. The members of this study commission are some of the finest public servants to have been produced in this country and who obviously have the interest of this country at heart and who are struggling through this thicket of unclear occurrences in the Middle East and Central Asia. The goal is to figure a way in which there might be a chance at stabilizing Iraq politically and economically so that country has a chance to continue to exist with a democratically elected government. Yet, at this point, it is certainly not clear that stability is going to materialize. We certainly hope it does because of the consequences for America and for the rest of the free world if Iraq crumbles into chaos. Looming over that entire region is an ascendant Iran, an Iran that is penetrating its influence, not only through the Shiites in Iraq but through its efforts in other parts of the Middle East, through Syria, through Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in the Palestinian Territories and as a result, we see the increasing influence of Iran and their brand of Shiite Islam. This is much to the consternation of a majority of the Arab world, in particular the Sunni Arab world as well as Israel. In the 2 weeks preceding Christmas, I went on a visit to nine nations within a 12-day period, coming back just in time for Christmas. I was struck by the words I would hear from leaders in Israel where I first visited and the words I would hear by other Arab leaders, in some cases heads of state in Sunni Arab nations. Those words were almost identical in describing the real present and future threat posed by Iran. Of course, a lot of that concern was not only related to Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon but the immediate concern of Iraq spiraling into chaos, with no stability whatsoever, with the continued penetration by the Iranian Shiite influence. I first went to Israel, and then continued on, visiting with the heads of state and the governments, in Palestine, and then on to Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, on to Qatar, Saudi Arabia, which, by the way, General Hayden, the head of the CIA, requested I go and spend time with the Saudi King, to urge the Saudis to exert their influence with the Sunni tribes in Iraq working towards reconciliation. I went from Saudi Arabia to Bahrain and then into Iraq. I have come away with a number of conclusions. After visiting with the marines in western Iraq in Al Anbar Province, indeed a U.S. troop increase may well help us be better able to stabilize that part of Iraq. It is almost entirely Sunni, and the major threat there is al-Qaida, and of course the big military threat to us there is the IEDs, the improvised explosive devices. I, along with Senator Coleman of Minnesota, as we were in Iraq together--and he can certainly speak for himself, but I think we were persuaded by talking to the Marine commanders that an increase of some number of troops there would help them in what they are doing on a daily basis, which is trying to get the local Arab leaders to take over their own security. There is some degree of success in western Iraq but not in Baghdad. In Baghdad there is the sectarian violence that everyone has heard about. What we were shocked to hear was from prominent Sunni members of the Government in Iraq, in Baghdad. One prominent, high-level Iraqi Government official, a shia, said to us: Sectarian violence is not the problem. Those were almost his exact words. In his opinion, the problem was the Sunni extremists, the Baathists who want to retain power, just like they had it in the old days under Saddam Hussein, and the foreign fighters from al-Qaida. For that high-level official to sit there and look two U.S. Senators in the eyes and say that sectarian violence was not the problem is either a complete misreading of the circumstances, the reality on the ground, or else his mind is so enveloped in sectarian violence and the old hatreds of the Shiites against the Sunnis and vice versa, those hatreds that are so ingrained that he can't see beyond that sectarianism. So in a few days, we are going to receive the President's new plan. I look forward to seeing and hearing the details of it, but it is not a new plan because there is no plan now. We need some honest realism in the policy, not hardheaded ideology. This so-called new policy ought to be driven by realism. It is the situation on the ground in Baghdad that no surge is going to solve the problem. I think those who are leaking this report in advance of it coming out have it backwards. A surge to solve the sectarian violence is not going to work. We ought to have the sectarian violence subside because Iraqi Sunnis and Shiites decide that it is more in their interests to reconcile than it is to fight the old hatred fights. At the same time, it would be my recommendation, as the Iraq Study Group report has recommended, that we start moving more to a training mission from a combat mission. Only if the sectors decide they are going to reconcile, then we, the United States, can help them be better prepared in a training mission instead of a combat mission. It is my hope that the Saudis would utilize their extensive tribal Sunni contacts in order to urge those Sunnis in Iraq that the only way you are going to see a better end of the day is to have some reconciliation. And the Saudis told me that they are now starting to see this opportunity. There have been things that have come out in the last couple of weeks that I don't think bode too well for us. The one general who, time after time, came before our Senate Armed Services Committee and in whom I had a degree of trust in what he was saying was General Abizaid. Now General Abizaid is going to retire. He not only speaks the language, he has been involved in that region of the world for years, yet his advice is no longer going to be sought. That, to me, is a mistake. What is at stake is the entire region with the Iranian ascendancy. What is at stake is the more than 140,000 American troops who are there now and all of those who will be rotated there in the future. What is at stake in the Middle East and central Asia is a part of the world of enormous importance to the United States. It is hard to talk about this very difficult condition the United States is facing without also saying there is another policy we clearly ought to look at in order to make some changes to lessen our dependence on that part of the world in the future, and that is energy independence. If we did not have to import 60 percent of our daily consumption of oil from places such as the Persian Gulf region or Nigeria or Venezuela, wouldn't the defense outlook for the United States and the way we would approach our foreign policy in different parts of the world be considerably different and a lot easier for the United States? As we eagerly anticipate the President's comments and his report on his new policy, let's understand there is not a new policy. There has not been a policy in the past. The idea that this surge of troops is a new policy is not new. We tried that before a couple of years ago and it did not work. It did not work because of the longstanding violence and hatred between those two groups of Islam which goes back to the 1600s, when the two brands of Islam started separating, and what ultimately came to be the Shiites separated from the Sunnis after the death of Mohammed. A separation, with the two sides wanting revenge is how this has played out over the years. It is still going on. We have enormous stakes. We hope we can get it right. It is with a great deal of anticipation that I look forward to the Senate receiving the President's comments. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about a bill that we have been trying to pass for several years now--the Water Resources Development Act. Yet, again, we were not able to pass this bill that is not only important for the State of Florida, but also for the country. It includes two particularly key projects for Everglades Restoration: Indian River Lagoon and Picayune Strand. Both of these projects are critical to ``getting the water right'' and restoring the natural environment of America's Everglades. As incoming Chair of the Senate Environment Committee, will it be a priority of the new Chair, Senator Boxer of California, to pass the WRDA as soon as possible in the 110th Congress?

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I am mindful that the majority leader will be coming here in approximately 6 minutes to speak, and I am looking forward to his comments. Mr. President, I want to say that one of the great delights of being a part of the Senate is to sit at the knee of such great leaders, such as the senior Senator from Virginia, and to learn from him and to hear the stories that so often he can weave into any circumstance that is facing us, that has some application of a story he had encountered in the past. I thank him for his leadership. I thank him for his contribution. And I thank him for being a mentor to so many of us in this Senate.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. I thank my colleagues for allowing me the time. As we are awaiting the majority leader to arrive, I might say that since many Senators are here, I want them to know what a great privilege it has been for this Senator to serve with each of you and to serve in a bipartisan way. One of the messages of this election I have just come through is that people do not want this partisan bickering they have seen. They want us to come together, to build consensus, to perform, and to do it in a bipartisan way. This Senator is dedicated to doing that from now on. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, in the remaining moments here, I want to say one of the things this Senator will address in the next Congress is the fact that we did not pass a Water Resources Development Act, which has so many important projects for this Nation. We have not had a Water Resources Development Act bill since 2000, and we are suffering for it. As to this great ecological restoration project down in my State, the Florida Everglades Restoration Project, there are two critical projects in this WRDA bill--the Indian River Lagoon and the Picayune Strand. The Indian River Lagoon is a 156-mile-long estuary that I grew up on as a boy. It runs from basically just north of Cape Canaveral all the way south to Palm Beach County. It has been altered by unnaturally large and poorly timed freshwater discharges arising out of the St. Lucie Canal. They have altered the water quality and depleted the water supplies in the Everglades ecosystem. So that is one project that is going to be necessarily addressed in the new Congress. There are many components to that project. The Everglades restoration is an $8 billion project over 20 years, shared by the Federal and the State governments. The other major project--I will close with this--is the Picayune Strand restoration project. It is going to remove roads and canals and other infrastructure to increase freshwater flows. It encompasses 94 square miles in Collier County, FL, and it includes such things as the Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge, the 10,000 Islands National Wildlife Refuge, and many others. These ecosystem protections and alterations are absolutely necessary for the future of keeping this beautiful planet Earth and protecting this very fragile ecosystem.