Arlen Specter

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Madam President, I have sought recognition to comment briefly on a letter which I am sending today to the executive officials, to Secretary Paulson and Chairman Bernanke, and to the legislators who are involved in the negotiations on the economic proposal, with the suggestion that extensive consideration be given to loans instead of purchasing the toxic securities. I think the model of AIG would be very appropriate to use as opposed to the purchase of those toxic securities. It will be very difficult to ascertain what is fair value for those securities when there is no market. But the AIG example was a good one, with the Government securing a preferred position, substantial interest rate, and excellent opportunities to get the money paid back. I also urge the negotiators to give consideration to the proposals by the House Republicans on the so-called insurance fund. I believe all the options ought to be weighed when we are dealing with a matter of this magnitude. When we deviate from the regular legislative course, we are in a very difficult area. As to the proposal of the $700 billion, I believe we have not yet had a sufficiently specific description on that figure. It is a gigantic figure, and the public response, understandably, is why and what are the causes for the problem. That is my view, too, as to why the figure has been advanced. There has been no specification as to why we need that figure. On the proposals to advance part of it initially, I think that is a good idea. I don't know that the figure has to be as much as $250 billion. There ought to be justification for why that figure is selected. And then the proposal for an additional $100 million, with the request of the President, I think is sound, to have a procedure for staged installments. But even as to the President's request, there ought to be some standards specified. Then, as to the balance of the $350 billion, or whatever sum that is, we have to be careful that we do not violate the holding of the U.S. Supreme Court in INS v. Chadha, where there was an effort to have legislative refusal of certain executive action by the Attorney General, the Supreme Court said where there is deviation, you have to follow the regular legislative process--passage by both Houses and approved by the President. So we are in a very complex legal area, which I urge the negotiators to study carefully before coming to any judgment. When regular order is not followed, we are on thin ice. The executive branch negotiators, Secretary Paulson and Chairman Bernanke, would not have any reason to know the intricacies of the legislative process, but they have served our country very well for more than 200 years. As we all know, it starts with a bill, a bill we can read. Well, we still don't have a bill, and we are talking about passage within the next couple days. After you get a bill, you have hearings. There have been some hearings, but not in the context of a specific bill. Then the proponents of the legislation are asked to testify, and there are people opposed to it or people with other ideas who testify before the relevant committee--which would be the Banking Committee in this situation. They are subject to examination and cross- examination and pushed as to exactly what they have in mind. Then, after the hearing, or hearings, are completed, there is committee action and what we call a markup, where the committee goes over the proposed legislation line by line and decides whether there should be changes and then votes on the changes. The committee then files a report. It is usually thick and complicated. It comes before the Senate and we debate it and we offer amendments. The same thing happens in the House. Finally, when each House has acted and there is passage of the bill proposed, it goes to conference, where it is further refined and then is presented to the President. The President takes an additional look at it to see if he thinks it ought to be approved or if it ought to be rejected. Well, that is a very lengthy process, and I think we ought to be very careful when we deviate from that process so we know what we are doing. Perhaps there is not time--well, there isn't time to go through the exhaustive process, which would take a considerable period of time--but when we deviate from that process, we ought to be careful that we know what we are doing and not set arbitrary time limits which are very brief. I have taken a look at the Dow for the intervening period between Friday, September 19, and Friday September 26--yesterday. When the proposals were made over the last weekend, there was an urging of Congress to act before the 26th, which was our scheduled date for adjournment. Then we thought: Well, maybe Saturday or Sunday or maybe Monday morning. Next week we have the Jewish holidays, and Yom Kippur in the week that follows. But on the Dow, which closed at 11,388 on Friday, September 19, it declined 2.15 percent over a week to close at 11,143 on September 26. By measuring from September 19, on September 22 it was down 3.27 percent; on the 23rd, it was down 1.47 percent; on the 24th, it was down .27 percent; on the 25th, it was up 1.82 percent; and on the 26th, it was up 1.1 percent. So the net figure was down 2.15 percent. We would rather see the Dow go up, but that is not a precipitant decline. It is my sense that the market--Wall Street, that entity which calibrates the market--would understand it takes some additional time. As long as they have seen that Congress is working as promptly as practicable, then I do believe there would be a sufficient opportunity without having a precipitous slide. Obviously, we can watch it on a day-by-day basis, and we ought to move as promptly as we can, but I do believe it is not a matter which has to be done yesterday or tomorrow. We have to do it promptly and show that we acknowledge the problem. There is a consensus, with very few dissenters, that something needs to be done and something very substantial. Our actions need to be very thoughtful and very careful. We also need to assure the American people that our actions are thoughtful. Senator Casey and I had an open forum on Pennsylvania Cable Network on Tuesday, where we had call-ins, and the temperature out there is 212 degrees Fahrenheit or higher. It is boiling. We have a responsibility in the Congress to make judgments and we listen to our constituents but, in a representative democracy, as Edmund Burke said several hundred years ago, it is our responsibility to exercise our best judgment. The intervening days have given us an opportunity to see the issue percolate in the country, where people consider it, where there are talk shows and radio and television and op-ed pieces, and we get to digest it and sleep on it for a few days, which is a very healthy thing. I heard a suggestion from the former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, that whatever the proposal is, it ought to be on the Internet for 24 hours. Maybe that is not quite long enough, but it is projected that in 24 hours you would have thousands of responses, or perhaps millions of responses the way the Internet is watched. That would put us on guard that something has not been slipped in. These bills turn out to be very voluminous. It started off as a 3-page memorandum; now it is more than 100 pages. America could provide us with some good ideas so that we are alerted to something being slipped in that we can't rectify after the fact, or alert us to some unintended consequences. In conclusion, it is my hope the Congress will act in a way which will be effective, after we have given the entire matter appropriate consideration and consider views beyond those expressed by Secretary Paulson and Chairman Bernanke. There has been some significant movement, movement toward oversight, not allowing the people who have gotten us into this mess to profit--the golden parachutes, et cetera. But we are on the road to acting. I think we have to do it in an appropriate timeframe. I ask unanimous consent that the letter I am sending to the executive branch, those involved in the negotiations, be printed in the Record; in addition, a letter which I sent to Secretary Paulson and Chairman Bernanke dated September 23 be included in the Record; and a letter I sent to Majority Leader Reid and Republican Leader McConnell, dated September 21, be printed in the Record.

Mr. SPECTER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 5 minutes.

Mr. SPECTER. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, at the outset, I wish to thank my distinguished colleague, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, for the committee's action in considering the judicial nominees and for moving ahead with their confirmations today. Senator Leahy is used to being generous and statesmanlike, but to confirm all these judges at this time, on September 26, considering the background of the controversies in the Senate, is an act of statesmanship. If they wrote a book ``Profiles in Statesmanship,'' as well as the book ``Profiles in Courage,'' Senator Leahy would be at the top of the list. There has been a lot of controversy during the last 2 years of the administration regarding judges. Both Republicans and Democrats have been at fault in the last 2 years of President Reagan's administration, the last 2 years of President George H. W. Bush, the last 2 years of President Clinton, and beyond President Clinton. As I have said on the floor on a number of occasions, I have crossed party lines to support President Clinton's judges because I thought they were inappropriately bottled up. There is controversy now and we have moved ahead. Senator Leahy has been the leader, the chairman of the committee, to get the job done. There are three Pennsylvanians in the group of judges that we are confirming today: C. Darnell Jones, II, president judge of the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas; Mitchell Goldberg, judge on the Bucks County Court of Common Pleas; and Joel Slomsky, a distinguished practitioner. Three very distinguished nominees. I see the Senator from Colorado is on the floor, and there are two Colorado judges, as well as other judges, that were confirmed. I thank the chairman for his action taken today.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, a few more concluding comments. I was glad to yield to my distinguished colleague, the chairman of the committee. I also wish to comment briefly about the intellectual property enforcement bill, which is the Leahy-Specter bill. I am glad to see that has cleared and that the holds have been taken off, and I thank Senator Coburn for taking the hold off, after very extensive discussions, which I know the chairman has had and I have had. This is a very important bill for the intellectual property community to provide enforcement and to provide teeth so intellectual property is respected, giving additional powers to the Department of Justice to see to it that the infringement of intellectual property is acted upon swiftly. I see a number of my colleagues waiting to speak, so I yield the floor.

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I have sought recognition to thank my colleague and fellow Senator from Pennsylvania, Bob Casey, for introducing a bill designating the Susquehanna Gateway National Heritage Area. I am pleased to be an original cosponsor of this legislation. National heritage areas are designated by Congress and recognized by the National Park Service for their natural, cultural, and historic significance. The proposed National Heritage Area is currently a State heritage area known as the Lancaster-York Heritage Region and meets the criteria for national designation. This region of southern Pennsylvania encompasses Lancaster and York counties and the portion of the Susquehanna River that connects the two counties. This area is home to numerous nature and wildlife preserves, State and local parks, trail systems and conservation areas, which celebrate and utilize the natural resources of the Susquehanna River and surrounding rural landscape. Both Lancaster and York counties have demonstrated a strong commitment to maintaining the open space and agricultural heritage for which this area of Pennsylvania is known throughout the State and country. This region is perhaps most renowned and culturally distinctive for the Amish and Mennonite communities that have made Lancaster County their home for hundreds of years. Pennsylvania has the largest Amish population in the world, and Lancaster County has one of the largest Old Order Amish communities. The Old Order Amish have retained a traditional way of life and have resisted the incorporation of modern technology into their society. Visitors to Amish Country have a unique opportunity to observe how the world looked and people behaved hundreds of years ago. This area is also rich in historical significance. Among the sites located in Lancaster and York counties that tell the story of our Nation's history is the home of James Buchanan, the only President from Pennsylvania, and the location where the Continental Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation. Scattered throughout the two counties are centuries-old churches, train stations, homes, and other structures, many of which played important roles in history including stops on the Underground Railroad and sites visited by President Lincoln on his way to Gettysburg to deliver the Gettysburg Address. This region is defined by the natural, cultural, and historical qualities that most certainly qualify it for National Heritage Area designation. I have been contacted by all six county commissioners, other local public officials, chambers of commerce, large corporations, small businesses, historical societies, preservation advocacy groups and others, urging congressional designation of the Susquehanna Gateway National Heritage Area. Additionally, I am informed that National Park Service Northeast Regional Director Dennis Reidenbach has stated that this region meets Park Service standards for recognition as a national heritage area. Accordingly, I again thank Senator Casey and urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I have sought recognition to thank my colleague and fellow Senator from Pennsylvania, Bob Casey, for introducing a bill designating the Susquehanna Gateway National Heritage Area. I am pleased to be an original cosponsor of this legislation. National heritage areas are designated by Congress and recognized by the National Park Service for their natural, cultural, and historic significance. The proposed National Heritage Area is currently a State heritage area known as the Lancaster-York Heritage Region and meets the criteria for national designation. This region of southern Pennsylvania encompasses Lancaster and York counties and the portion of the Susquehanna River that connects the two counties. This area is home to numerous nature and wildlife preserves, State and local parks, trail systems and conservation areas, which celebrate and utilize the natural resources of the Susquehanna River and surrounding rural landscape. Both Lancaster and York counties have demonstrated a strong commitment to maintaining the open space and agricultural heritage for which this area of Pennsylvania is known throughout the State and country. This region is perhaps most renowned and culturally distinctive for the Amish and Mennonite communities that have made Lancaster County their home for hundreds of years. Pennsylvania has the largest Amish population in the world, and Lancaster County has one of the largest Old Order Amish communities. The Old Order Amish have retained a traditional way of life and have resisted the incorporation of modern technology into their society. Visitors to Amish Country have a unique opportunity to observe how the world looked and people behaved hundreds of years ago. This area is also rich in historical significance. Among the sites located in Lancaster and York counties that tell the story of our Nation's history is the home of James Buchanan, the only President from Pennsylvania, and the location where the Continental Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation. Scattered throughout the two counties are centuries-old churches, train stations, homes, and other structures, many of which played important roles in history including stops on the Underground Railroad and sites visited by President Lincoln on his way to Gettysburg to deliver the Gettysburg Address. This region is defined by the natural, cultural, and historical qualities that most certainly qualify it for National Heritage Area designation. I have been contacted by all six county commissioners, other local public officials, chambers of commerce, large corporations, small businesses, historical societies, preservation advocacy groups and others, urging congressional designation of the Susquehanna Gateway National Heritage Area. Additionally, I am informed that National Park Service Northeast Regional Director Dennis Reidenbach has stated that this region meets Park Service standards for recognition as a national heritage area. Accordingly, I again thank Senator Casey and urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Mr. SPECTER

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

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I have sought recognition for the purpose of introducing or cosponsoring the Healthy Americans Act, S. 334, legislation which is directed to cover the some 47 million Americans who are not covered by health insurance. It is a bipartisan bill which has 16 cosponsors, half Republicans and half Democrats. It has been sponsored principally by Senator Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, and Senator Bennett, Republican of Utah. I believe it provides the basis for moving ahead on this very important subject. We have long struggled to cover all Americans with health insurance. In a detailed statement, which I am about to submit, I have recounted the efforts which this Senator has made over the course of my tenure in the Senate; beyond the bill's own coverage, the work which has been done on the Appropriations Labor, Health and Human Services Subcommittee; and legislation in which Senator Harkin and I, on a bipartisan basis, have taken the lead in increasing funding for the NIH from $12 to $30 billion. This proposal, S. 334, has a number of issues which I think need further analysis and further study and modification, as noted in the text of the statement. But I believe it is an excellent starting point and, having some 16 cosponsors, the most I have seen on a bipartisan piece of legislation to address this very important subject, I think it has an excellent opportunity in the next Congress to provide the basis for moving ahead for the appropriate coverage of all Americans. We are facing a grave situation in America where millions of Americans do not have health insurance coverage. As the cost of health care is increasingly prohibitive and access to insurance is reduced, the number of uninsured will continue to climb. It is estimated that nearly 47 million Americans are without health insurance. This includes the nearly 38 million individuals who have full or part time employment and still are without health care coverage. Of significant concern is the number of young adults lacking insurance: with an estimated 28 percent of those young people without insurance. Individuals without insurance suffer from both acute and far reaching consequences. It ultimately compromises a person's health because he or she is less likely to receive preventive care, more likely to be hospitalized for avoidable health problems, and more likely to be diagnosed in the late stages of diseases. Additionally, lack of insurance coverage leaves individuals and their families financially vulnerable to higher out-of-pocket costs for their medical bills. It is my belief that we can and should fix the problems felt by uninsured Americans with a system that does not resort to a single payer system and one that involves the private insurance industry. We must enact reforms that enhance our current market-based health care system. The legislation I want to discuss today is S. 334, The Healthy Americans Act, which would provide access to health insurance for all Americans. Senator Wyden introduced this legislation on January 18, 2007, and since then, it has gained support from an impressive group of bipartisan Senators, including Bennett, Alexander, Nelson from Florida, Gregg, Coleman, Grassley, Landrieu, Stabenow, Crapo, Lieberman, Carper, Inouye, Corker, Smith and Cantwell. Today I am pleased to add my name to the list of cosponsors of S.334. The Healthy Americans Act uses the private health insurance market to ensure that all Americans have access to a quality plan they can afford. This legislation has a number of components that will address the problems that plague our current health insurance system. To begin, S. 334 provides so-called ``portability,'' which allows individuals to retain their health insurance regardless of the job they hold. In today's changing society, many Americans no longer stay with the same employer for long periods of time. Moving from job to job may mean the loss of health insurance, a new insurance carrier, or a gap in health care. The Healthy Americans Act seeks to provide consistent insurance coverage in a fluid job market. Additionally, the Healthy Americans Act offers assistance for those who need it most by providing premium assistance for individuals and families with incomes below 400 percent of the poverty level--or $41,600 and $84,800 respectively. This provision aids those individuals that are employed but their income is insufficient to afford insurance. The assistance is based on a sliding scale with those with lower incomes receiving the greatest help. Individuals below 100 percent of the poverty level--$10,400 for an individual or $21,200 for a family-- receive full assistance with their insurance premiums. While I am cosponsoring this legislation, I have some concerns that need to be addressed as the debate on this important issue moves forward. For instance, the potential new tax obligations associated with the Healthy Americans Act on both individuals and on businesses warrant further consideration. Concerns have been raised that this bill is not tax-neutral, meaning that new tax obligations created by this legislation are not completely matched by new or increased tax benefits. This resulting imbalance, or lack of tax neutrality, is argued by some to be a tax increase. Specifically, individuals would be required to pay their insurance premiums through the Federal tax withholding system, as opposed to the current model where premiums are paid to insurers through their employer. Payments would pass through the IRS on the way to newly created regional purchasing organizations called health help agencies--HHAs--and ultimately to the private insurer. The payment system, or collection, is technically a tax because it is being collected by the IRS. However, it is important to note that the Government will not keep those dollars and will not have discretion over how they are spent. Nevertheless, this payment system deserves further analysis on the issue of tax-neutrality. S. 334 would require all businesses to pay an assessment of between 2 percent and 25 percent of average per worker premiums. The rate paid depends on the number of people it employs. I have concerns that this provision is structured as a tax. However, it is important to note that businesses would see some benefits as a result of the bill. They would be freed from the administrative burden of providing health care for employees because the individual would carry the responsibility of obtaining a private plan. Because employers would be required to pay increased wages--in lieu of providing a health plan, they would also be subject to additional payroll tax obligations--i.e. Social Security and Medicare. An employee's increased payroll tax obligation is offset by a tax deduction provided in the bill. There is no corresponding deduction for the employer to offset their additional payroll tax obligations, and one should also be considered, because the bill's purpose is not to increase payments to Social Security and Medicare. The sponsor's intention of maintaining a budget-neutral bill is also worth consideration. The mandate of paying increased wages only lasts for 2 years under the bill, after which time market forces would determine total compensation. Consideration should be given to retaining the employer payroll increase indefinitely to defray the cost of health insurance. Market forces may not sufficiently compensate employees when an employer decides to cut wages beyond the 2-year time frame. This would harm an employee's ability to purchase health insurance. I am also concerned with the elimination of specific tax benefits for corporations that do business abroad, though it is my understanding that the sponsors are not wedded to elimination of these specific items. The argument has been made by proponents that the Wyden bill makes U.S. firms more competitive internationally because it removes the burden on employers to administer health care plans for their employees. Often foreign firms do not have that burden. To that end, the sponsor has chosen to eliminate certain tax preferences to multinational corporations as a way to raise revenue. I believe that greater consideration should be given to whether the benefit to employers of not having to administer a health care plan outweighs the elimination of these provisions. First, the elimination of the section 199 manufacturing deduction raises concerns for our exporters. The section 199 deduction allows manufacturing firms of all kinds to take a tax deduction for their U.S.-based business activities. The deduction was 3 percent in tax years 2005 and 2006, 6 percent in tax year 2007, and is scheduled to be 9 percent by 2010. This tax benefit was enacted as part of the so-called FSC/ETI legislation in 2004 to replace an export tax incentive that was ruled to be in violation of our international trade commitments. At the same time, it sought to boost the ability of manufacturers to compete in the global marketplace. Second, the bill would eliminate deferral of income from foreign corporations that are owned by a U.S. parent company. Under current law, U.S. taxes do not apply to the foreign income of U.S.-owned corporations chartered abroad. As a result, a U.S. firm can indefinitely defer U.S. tax on its foreign income as long as the foreign subsidiary's income is reinvested overseas. U.S. taxes apply when the income is repatriated back to the U.S. Ending this deferral strategy could have the negative impact of encouraging the U.S. parent firm to relocate abroad or to limit the size of their operations in the U.S. S. 334 also requires all Americans to obtain health insurance. Eligible insurance plans include not only those purchased through this program, but health care coverage through Medicare, the Department of Defense, the Department of Veterans Affairs, Indian Health Service, or a retiree health plan. I am concerned that this mandate will put a burden on individuals and families that may not be able to afford the program despite assistance. This concern is shared by fellow cosponsor Senator Chuck Grassley who stated that: . . . the act would require all individuals to buy health insurance. I support accessibility to private insurance and differ with my colleagues on this point. This is an issue that must be more closely examined. This bill also holds the Blue Cross/Blue Shield Standard Plan provided under the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program as the standard for the program. While I believe that everyone should have access to this level of coverage, it does not allow for variety in the types of insurance plans that would be available under the program. The current market allows for different types of plans, which should be available under the Healthy Americans plan. When Senator Norm Coleman signed on as a cosponsor of S. 334, he similarly noted: While I certainly believe people should have access to this level of coverage, I don't think it should be the only option. My vision of health reform does not include this one- size-fits-all approach. Instead, I support giving people access to a variety of health insurance options and the ability to make informed choices. The vetting of this bill is already underway. Senators Wyden, Bennett, Grassley, and Stabenow have taken steps to provide flexibility in the program by allowing businesses and employees to choose the best health insurance program for employees. An amendment has been filed to allow businesses to continue to offer health insurance to employees under the current system, yet employees would still have the option to enter the Health Help Agency and obtain a health americans private insurance plan. While these concerns are important and should be addressed, this bipartisan effort makes an important step forward in the ongoing quest to provide health insurance to all Americans. I believe the Healthy Americans Act contains excellent ideas and should be the basis for future discussions on health insurance reform. This sentiment is shared by Senator Judd Gregg, who when he joined this bill, stated: that by joining forces with colleagues on both sides of the aisle on a private market approach, we can begin a bipartisan dialogue, work through our differences, and find workable solutions that will result in a better health care system for all. I look forward to working with my colleagues to provide a health insurance system that can provide quality healthcare to all Americans. I have advocated health care reform in one form or another throughout my 28 years in the Senate. My strong interest in health care dates back to my first term, when I sponsored S. 811, the Health Care for Displaced Workers Act of 1983, and S. 2051, the Health Care Cost Containment Act of 1983, which would have granted a limited antitrust exemption to health insurers, permitting them to engage in certain joint activities such as acquiring or processing information and collecting and distributing insurance claims for health care services aimed at curtailing then-escalating health care costs. In 1985, I introduced the Community-based Disease Prevention and Health Promotion Projects Act of 1985, S. 1873, directed at reducing the human tragedy of low birth weight babies and infant mortality. Since 1983, I have introduced and cosponsored numerous other bills concerning health care in our country. During the 102nd Congress, I pressed the Senate to take action on the health care market issue. On July 29, 1992, I offered an amendment to legislation then pending on the Senate floor, which included a change from 25 percent to 100 percent deductibility for health insurance purchased by self-employed individuals, and small business insurance market reforms to make health coverage more affordable for small businesses. Included in this amendment were provisions from a bill introduced by the late Senator John Chafee, legislation which I cosponsored and which was previously proposed by Senators Bentsen and Durenberger. When then-majority leader Mitchell argued that the health care amendment I was proposing did not belong on that bill, I offered to withdraw the amendment if he would set a date certain to take up health care, similar to an arrangement made on product liability legislation, which had been placed on the calendar for September 8, 1992. The majority leader rejected that suggestion, and the Senate did not consider comprehensive health care legislation during the balance of the 102nd Congress. My July 29, 1992, amendment was defeated on a procedural motion by a vote of 35 to 60, along party lines. The substance of that amendment, however, was adopted later by the Senate on September 23, 1992, when it was included in a Bentsen/ Durenberger amendment which I cosponsored to broaden tax legislation, H.R. 11. This amendment, which included essentially the same self- employed tax deductibility and small group reforms I had proposed on July 29 of that year, passed the Senate by voice vote. Unfortunately, these provisions were later dropped from H.R. 11 in the House-Senate conference. On August 12, 1992, I introduced legislation entitled the Health Care Affordability and Quality Improvement Act of 1992, S. 3176, that would have enhanced informed individual choice regarding health care services by providing certain information to health care recipients, would have lowered the cost of health care through use of the most appropriate provider, and would have improved the quality of health care. On January 21, 1993, the first day of the 103rd Congress, I introduced the Comprehensive Health Care Act of 1993, S. 18. This legislation consisted of reforms that our health care system could have adopted immediately. These initiatives would have both improved access and affordability of insurance coverage and would have implemented systemic changes to lower the escalating cost of care in this country. On March 23, 1993, I introduced the Comprehensive Access and Affordability Health Care Act of 1993, S. 631, which was a composite of health care legislation introduced by Senators Cohen, Kassebaum, Bond, and McCain, and included pieces of my bill, S. 18. I introduced this legislation in an attempt to move ahead on the consideration of health care legislation and provide a starting point for debate. As I noted earlier, I was precluded by Majority Leader Mitchell from obtaining Senate consideration of my legislation as a floor amendment on several occasions. Finally, on April 28, 1993, I offered the text of S. 631 as an amendment to the pending Department of the Environment Act, S. 171, in an attempt to urge the Senate to act on health care reform. My amendment was defeated 65 to 33 on a procedural motion, but the Senate had finally been forced to contemplate action on health care reform. On the first day of the 104th Congress, January 4, 1995, I introduced a slightly modified version of S. 18, the Health Care Assurance Act of 1995, which contained provisions similar to those ultimately enacted in the Kassebaum-Kennedy legislation, including insurance market reforms, an extension of the tax deductibility of health insurance for the self employed, and tax deductibility of long term care insurance. I continued these efforts in the 105th Congress, with the introduction of Health Care Assurance Act of 1997, S. 24, which included market reforms similar to my previous proposals with the addition of a new title I, an innovative program to provide vouchers to States to cover children who lack health insurance coverage. I also introduced title I of this legislation as a standalone bill, the Healthy Children's Pilot Program of 1997, S. 435, on March 13, 1997. This proposal targeted the approximately 4.2 million children of the working poor who lacked health insurance at that time. These are children whose parents earn too much to be eligible for Medicaid, but do not earn enough to afford private health care coverage for their families. This legislation would have established a $10 billion/5-year discretionary pilot program to cover these uninsured children by providing grants to States. Modeled after Pennsylvania's extraordinarily successful Caring and BlueCHIP programs, this legislation was the first Republican-sponsored children's health insurance bill during the 105th Congress. I was encouraged that the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, signed into law on August 5, 1997, included a combination of the best provisions from many of the children's health insurance proposals throughout that Congress. The new legislation allocated $24 billion over 5 years to establish State Child Health Insurance Program, funded in part by a slight increase in the cigarette tax. During the 106th, 107th, 108th Congresses, I again introduced the Health Care Assurance Act. These bills contained similar insurance market reforms, as well as new provisions to augment the new State Child Health Insurance Program, to assist individuals with disabilities in maintaining quality health care coverage, and to establish a national fund for health research to supplement the funding of the National Institutes of Health. All these new initiatives, as well as the market reforms that I supported previously, work toward the goals of covering more individuals and stemming the tide of rising health costs. My commitment to the issue of health care reform across all populations has been consistently evident during my tenure in the Senate, as I have come to the floor and offered health care reform bills and amendments on countless occasions. I will continue to stress the importance of the Federal Government's investment in and attention to the system's future. As my colleagues are aware, I can personally report on the miracles of modern medicine. In 1993, an MRI detected a benign tumor, meningioma, at the outer edge of my brain. It was removed by conventional surgery, with 5 days of hospitalization and 5 more weeks of recuperation. When a small regrowth was detected by a follow-up MRI in June 1996, it was treated with high powered radiation using a remarkable device called the ``Gamma Knife.'' I entered the hospital on the morning of October 11, 1996, and left the same afternoon, ready to resume my regular schedule. In July 1998, I was pleased to return to the Senate after a relatively brief period of convalescence following heart bypass surgery. This experience again led me to marvel at our health care system and made me more determined than ever to support Federal funding for biomedical research and to support legislation which will incrementally make health care available to all Americans. In February 2005, I received tests at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital for persistent fevers and enlarged lymph nodes under my left arm and above my left clavicle. The testing involved a biopsy of a lymph node and biopsy of bone marrow. The biopsy of the lymph node was positive for Hodgkin's disease; however the bone marrow biopsy showed no cancer. A follow up PET scan and MRI at the University of Pennsylvania Abramson Cancer Center established that I had stage IVB Hodgkin's disease. After successful chemotherapy treatment I received a ``clean bill of health.'' Three years later, I received the test results from a routine PET scan, which showed a mild recurrence of Hodgkin's disease. I was once again undertook a chemotherapy regimen, which I have recently successfully completed. My concern about health care has long predated my own personal benefits from diagnostic and curative procedures. As I have previously discussed, my concern about health care began many years ago and has been intensified by my service on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education--LHHS. My own experience as a patient has given me deeper insights into the American health care system beyond my perspective from the U.S. Senate. I have learned: No. 1 patients sometimes have to press their own cases beyond doctors' standard advice; No. 2 greater flexibility must be provided on testing and treatment; No. 3 our system has the resources to treat the 47 million Americans currently uninsured; and No. 4 all Americans deserve the access to health care from which I and others with coverage have benefited. I believe we have learned a great deal about our health care system and what the American people are willing to accept in terms of health care coverage provided by the Federal Government. The message we heard loudest was that Americans do not want the Government to have a single payer Government operated system. While I would have been willing to cooperate with the Clinton administration in addressing this Nation's health care problems, I found many areas where I differed with President Clinton's approach to solutions. I believe that the proposals would have been deleterious to my fellow Pennsylvanians, to the American people, and to our health care system as a whole. Most importantly, as the President proposed in 1993, I did not support creating an expansive new Government bureaucracy. On this latter issue, I first became concerned about the potential growth in bureaucracy in September 1993 after reading the President's 239-page preliminary health care reform proposal. I was surprised by the number of new boards, agencies, and commissions, so I asked my legislative assistant, Sharon Helfant, to make me a list of all of them. Instead, she decided to make a chart. The initial chart depicted 77 new entities and 54 existing entities with new or additional responsibilities. When the President's 1,342-page Health Security Act was transmitted to Congress on October 27, 1993, my staff reviewed it and found an increase to 105 new agencies, boards, and commissions and 47 existing departments, programs and agencies with new or expanded jobs. This chart received national attention after being used by Senator Bob Dole in his response to the President's State of the Union address on January 24, 1994. The response to the chart was tremendous, with more than 12,000 people from across the country contacting my office for a copy; I still receive requests for the chart. Groups and associations, such as United We Stand America, the American Small Business Association, the National Federation of Republican Women, and the Christian Coalition, reprinted the chart in their publications--amounting to hundreds of thousands more in distribution. Bob Woodward of the Washington Post later stated that he thought the chart was the single biggest factor contributing to the demise of the Clinton health care plan. And during the November 1996 election, my chart was used by Senator Dole in his presidential campaign to illustrate the need for incremental health care reform. The reforms we must enact need to encompass all areas of health. This must start with preventive health care and wellness programs. This starts at birth with prenatal care. We know that in most instances, prenatal care is effective in preventing low-birth-weight babies. Numerous studies have demonstrated that low birth weight does not have a genetic link but is instead most often associated with inadequate prenatal care or the lack of prenatal care. It is a human tragedy for a child to be born weighing 16 ounces with attendant problems which last a lifetime. I first saw one pound babies in 1984 and I was astounded to learn that Pittsburgh, PA, had the highest infant mortality rate of African-American babies of any city in the United States. I wondered how that could be true of Pittsburgh, which has such enormous medical resources. It was an amazing thing for me to see a 1-pound baby, about as big as my hand. However, I am pleased to report that as a result of successful prevention initiatives like the Federal Healthy Start program, Pittsburgh's infant mortality has decreased 24 percent. To improve pregnancy outcomes for women at risk of delivering babies of low birth weight and to reduce infant mortality and the incidence of low-birth-weight births, as well as improving the health and well-being of mothers and their families, I initiated action that led to the creation of the Healthy Start program in 1991. Working with the first Bush administration and Senator Harkin, as chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee, we allocated $25 million in 1991 for the development of 15 demonstration projects. This number grew to 75 in 1998, to 96 projects in 2008. For fiscal year 2008, we secured $99.7 million for this vital program. To help children and their families to truly get a healthy start requires that we continue to expand access to Head Start. This important program provides comprehensive services to low income children and families, including health, nutritional, and social services that children need to achieve the school readiness goal of Head Start. I have strongly supported expanding this program to cover more children and families. Since fiscal year 2000, funding for Head Start has increased from $5.3 billion to the 2008 level of $6.9 billion. Additional funding has extended the reach of this important program to over 1 million children. The LHHS Appropriations bill also has made great strides in increasing funding for a variety of public health programs, such as breast and cervical cancer prevention, childhood immunizations, family planning, and community health centers. These programs are designed to improve public health and prevent disease through primary and secondary prevention initiatives. It is essential that we invest more resources in these programs now if we are to make any substantial progress in reducing the costs of acute care in this country. As ranking member and chairman of the LHHS Appropriations Subcommittee, I have greatly encouraged the development of prevention programs which are essential to keeping people healthy and lowering the cost of health care in this country. In my view, no aspect of health care policy is more important. Accordingly, my prevention efforts have been widespread. I joined my colleagues in efforts to ensure that funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC, increased from $2.3 billion in 1997 to $6.375 billion in fiscal year 2008. We have also worked to increase funding for CDC's breast and cervical cancer early detection program to $200.8 million in fiscal year 2008. I have also supported programs at CDC which help children. CDC's childhood immunization program seeks to eliminate preventable diseases through immunization and to ensure that at least 90 percent of 2-year- olds are vaccinated. The CDC also continues to educate parents and caregivers on the importance of immunization for children under 2 years old. Along with my colleagues on the Appropriations Committee, I have helped ensure that funding for this important program together with the complementary Vaccines for Children Program has grown from $914 million in 1999 to $3.2 billion in fiscal year 2008. While vaccines are critical for prevention we must be prepared for an influenza pandemic. To ensure that America is properly prepared for such a pandemic the LHHS Appropriations bills have provided $6 billion since 2005. This funding provides development and purchase of vaccines, antivirals, necessary medical supplies, diagnostics, and other surveillance tools. We have also strengthened funding for Community Health Centers, which provide immunizations, health advice, and health professions training. These centers, administered by the Health Resources and Services Administration, provide a critical primary care safety net to rural and medically underserved communities, as well as uninsured individuals, migrant workers, the homeless, residents of public housing, and Medicaid recipients. Funding for Community Health Centers has increased from $1 billion in fiscal year 2000 to $3.2 billion in fiscal year 2008. Increases in research, education and treatment in women's health have been of particular importance to me. In 1998, I cosponsored the Women's Health Research and Prevention Amendments, which were signed into law later that year. This bill revised and extended certain programs with respect to women's health research and prevention activities at the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 1996, I also cosponsored an amendment to the fiscal year 1997 VA- HUD Appropriations bill, which required that health plans provide coverage for a minimum hospital stay for a mother and child following the birth of the child. This bill became law in 1996. In 2005, I introduced the Gynecologic Cancer Education and Awareness Act to increase education of gynecological cancer so that women would be able to recognize cancer warning signs and seek treatment. This legislation became law in 2007. I have also been a strong supporter of funding for AIDS research, education, and prevention programs. During the 101st and 104th Congresses, I cosponsored the Ryan White CARE Reauthorization Act, which provided Federal funds to metropolitan areas and States to assist in health care costs and support services for individuals and families affected by acquired immune deficiency syndrome, AIDS, or infection with the human immunodeficiency virus, HIV. Those bills became law in 1990 and 1996 respectively. Funding for Ryan White AIDS programs has increased from $757.4 million in 1996 to $2.14 billion for fiscal year 2008. That includes $794 million for the AIDS Drug Assistance Program, ADAP, to help low- income individuals afford life saving drugs. AIDS research at the NIH totaled $742.4 million in 1989 and has increased to an estimated $2.91 billion in fiscal year 2008. Veterans provide an incredible service in defending our country, and providing them with quality health care is critical. During the 102d Congress, I cosponsored an amendment to the Veterans' Medical Programs Amendments of 1992, which included improvements to health and mental health care and other services to veterans by the Department of Veterans Affairs. This bill became law in 1992. During the 106th Congress, I sponsored the Veterans Benefits and Health Care Improvement Act of 2000, which increased amounts of educational assistance for veterans under the Montgomery GI Bill and enhanced health programs. This bill became law in 2000. I also sponsored the Department of Veterans Affairs Long-Term Care and Personnel Authorities Enhancement Act, which improved and enhanced the provision of health for veterans. This bill became law in 2003. In the 108th Congress, I introduced the Veterans Health Care, Capital Asset and Business Improvement Act of 2003, which upon becoming law in December 2003 enhanced the provision of health care for veterans by improving authorities relating to the administration of personnel at the VA. In June 2004, I introduced the Department of Veterans Affairs Health Care Personnel Enhancement Act, which simplified pay provisions for physicians and dentists and authorized alternate work schedules and pay scales for nurses to improve recruitment and retention of top talent. The bill was signed into law in December 2004. To increase the portability of insurance, in 1996, I cosponsored the Health Coverage Availability and Affordability Act, which improved the portability and continuity of health insurance coverage in the group and individual markets, combated waste, fraud, and abuse in health insurance and health care delivery, promoted the use of medical savings accounts, improved access to long-term care services and coverage, and simplified the administration of health insurance. This bill became law in 1996. Statistics show that 27 percent of Medicare expenditures occur during a person's last year of life and beyond the last year of life, a tremendous percentage of medical costs occur in the last month, in the last few weeks, in the last week, or in the last few days. The issue of end of life treatment is such a sensitive subject and no one should decide for anybody else what that person should have by way of end-of-life medical care. What care ought to be available is a very personal decision. However, living wills give an individual an opportunity to make that judgment, to make a decision as to how much care he or she wanted near the end of his or her life and that is, to repeat, a matter highly personalized for the individual. Individuals should have access to information about advanced directives. As part of a public education program, I included an amendment to the Medicare Prescription Drug and Modernization Act of 2003 which directed the Secretary of Health and Human Services to include in its annual ``Medicare and You'' handbook, a section that specifies information on advance directives and details on living wills and durable powers of attorney regarding a person's health care decisions. As ranking member and chairman of the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations Subcommittee, I have worked to provide much-needed resources for hospitals, physicians, nurses, and other health care professionals. An adequate number of health professionals, including doctors, nurses, dentists, psychologists, laboratory technicians, and chiropractors is critical to the provision of health care in the United States. I have worked to provide much needed funding for health professional training and recruitment programs. In fiscal year 2008, these vital programs received $334 million. Nurse education and recruitment alone has been increased from $58 million in fiscal year 1996 to $149 million in fiscal year 2008. Differences in reimbursement rates between rural and urban areas have led to significant problems in health professional retention. During the debate on the Balanced Budget Refinement Act, which passed as part of the fiscal year 2001 consolidated appropriations bill, I attempted to reclassify some northeastern hospitals in Pennsylvania to a Metropolitan Statistical Area with higher reimbursement rates. Due to the large volume of requests from other states, we were not able to accomplish these reclassifications for Pennsylvania. However, as part of the fiscal year 2004 Omnibus appropriations bill, I secured $7 million for 20 northeastern Pennsylvania hospitals affected by area wage index shortfalls. As part of the Medicare Prescription Drug and Medicare Improvement Act of 2003, which passed the Senate on November 25, 2003, a $900 million program was established to provide a one-time appeal process for hospital wage index reclassification. Thirteen Pennsylvania hospitals were approved for funding through this program in Pennsylvania. This program has been extended on several occasions and has provided a total of $164.1 million for Pennsylvania hospitals. The National Institutes of Health--NIH--are the crown jewels of the Federal Government and have been responsible for enormous strides in combating the major ailments of our society including heart disease, cancer, and Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases. The NIH provides funding for biomedical research at our Nation's universities, hospitals, and research institutions. I led the effort to double funding for the NIH from 1998 through 2003. Since I became chairman in 1996, funding for the NIH has increased from $12 billion in fiscal year 1996 to $30.2 billion in the fiscal year 2009 Senate LHHS Appropriations bill. Regrettably, Federal funding for NIH has steadily declined from the $3.8 billion increase provided in 2003, when the 5-year doubling of NIH was completed, to only $328 million in fiscal year 2008. The shortfall in the President's fiscal year 2009 budget due to inflationary costs alone is $5.2 billion. To provide that $5.2 billion in funding, I recently introduced with Senator Harkin, the NIH Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act. This supplemental funding would improve the current research decline, which is disrupting progress, not just for today, but for years to come. In 1970, President Nixon declared war on cancer. Had that war been prosecuted with the same diligence as other wars, my former chief of staff, Carey Lackman, a beautiful young lady of 48, would not have died of breast cancer. One of my very best friends, a very distinguished Federal judge, Chief Judge Edward R. Becker, would not have died of prostate cancer. All of us know people who have been stricken by cancer, who have been incapacitated with Parkinson's or Alzheimer's, who have been victims of heart disease, or many other maladies. The future of medical research must include embryonic stem cell research. I first learned about embryonic stem cell research in November 1998 and held the first congressional hearing in December of that year. Since that time I have held 19 more hearings on this important subject. Embryonic stem cells have the greatest promise in research because they have the ability to become any type of cell in the human body. During the 109th Congress, the House companion bill to S. 471, the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act, was passed by Congress but vetoed by President Bush. The vote to override the veto in the House failed. The legislation would expand the number of stem cell lines that are eligible for federally funded research, thereby accelerating scientific progress toward cures and treatments for a wide range of diseases and debilitating health conditions. In the 110th Congress, S. 5, the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act, of which I am a lead cosponsor and is identical to the 109th Congress legislation, was passed by Congress, but a vote to override the veto in the House again failed. During the course of our stem cell hearings, we have learned that over 400,000 embryos are stored in fertility clinics around the country. If these frozen embryos were going to be used for in vitro fertilization, I would support that over research. In fact, I have provided $3.9 million in fiscal year 2008 to create an embryo adoption awareness campaign. Most of these embryos will be discarded and I believe that instead of just throwing these embryos away, they hold the key to curing and treating diseases that cause suffering for millions of people. The many research, training and education programs that are supported by the Federal Government all contribute to this Nation's efforts to provide the best prevention and treatment for all Americans. But without access to health care, these efforts will be lost. But with the plan outlined in the Health Americans Act, we can provide health care coverage for the 47 million uninsured Americans. This bipartisan bill is where the health insurance reform debate needs to begin--with a market based approach to reforming health insurance. The time has come for concerted action in this arena. I urge my colleagues to take action on this important issue.

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, as we near the end of the 110th Congress, it is my hope that when we return for the 111th Congress, that there will be more comity and more bipartisanship and more accomplishment than we have seen in this Congress and in prior Congresses. I have spoken at some length on the Senate floor about this subject. I am about to introduce a prepared written text, but the essence of my concern arises because of the practice of limiting the amendments which Senators may offer on the floor and the problems of confirming judges, especially in the last 2 years of a President's administration. The great value of the Senate on the American political scene, which has earned this august body the title ``the world's greatest legislative body,'' has been the right of any Senator at any time to offer virtually any amendment on any bill. That, plus unlimited debate, has made this Chamber a unique place among modern democracies, where great ideas can be stated, can be articulated, and can be debated, and where, with sufficient debate, sufficient analysis, and sufficient merit, they can attract great public attention. But that has been thwarted in recent years--the last 15 years specifically--by both Republican and Democratic majority leaders so that, as usual, when there is a problem with this institution, there is bipartisan blame. Senator Mitchell, Senator Lott, Senator Frist, and Senator Reid have all used this practice. The first three Senators used it on some nine occasions each, as detailed in the written floor statement which I am about to introduce for the record. Senator Reid has used it some 15 times. The practice has been that the majority leader, who is entitled as a matter of Senate practice to first recognition, takes the floor and offers amendments so that there is a process where no other Senator can offer an amendment. That is called filling the tree. That has resulted, then, in the followup on a cloture motion to cut off debate. Then it becomes a bipartisan wrangle, with one half of the aisle--Democrats--voting for cloture to cut off debate and Republicans, in a partisan context, voting against cloture. I have voted against cloture because as a matter of principle I do not think we ought to end the debate before we have had a debate or before Senators have had an opportunity to offer amendments. That has resulted, as I see it, in gridlock on the Senate floor, so the Senate has really become dysfunctional. I contrast the kinds of work weeks we have had, with very few votes, to the management of the comprehensive immigration bill during the 109th Congress where we had some 227 amendments filed and some 27 votes, which is the way I think the Senate ought to operate. Then, beyond the issue of filling the tree and stopping Senators from proceeding with the offering of amendments, we have had the problems of the filibuster. Again, there is bipartisan blame, blame on both sides of the equation. Mr. President, in the last 15 years, the ``World's Greatest Deliberative Body'' has degenerated into a ``do-nothing Senate'' due to abusive procedural actions taken by both Republican and Democratic majority leaders. The Senate has been gridlocked and has become dysfunctional. The uniqueness of the U.S. Senate has been that any Senator could offer any amendment on virtually any bill at any time. That opportunity, plus unlimited debate, made the Senate the place where great ideas could be presented to the American people and be debated extensively to provide the basis for legislative changes on public policy to govern the Nation. That changed in 1993 when majority leaders started using their powers of first-recognition to offer a series of amendments called ``filling the tree.'' This procedure precludes any other Senator from offering amendments to the legislation under consideration. Senator George Mitchell used this procedure nine times in the 103d Congress from 1993 to 1994, Senator Trent Lott used it nine times in the 106th Congress from 2000 to 2002, and Senator Bill Frist used it nine times in the 109th Congress from 2005 to 2006. Thus far in the 110th Congress during 2007-2008, Senator Harry Reid has used the tactic 16 times. The legislation on global warming illustrates the unproductive nature of this practice. On June 2, 2008, Senator Reid called up the Warner- Lieberman bill. On June 3, 2008, I filed and discussed on the Senate floor a series of proposed amendments based on competing the Bingaman- Specter climate change bill. On June 4, 2008, Senator Reid used his power as majority leader of getting first-recognition to offer eight amendments which filled the so-called tree thus precluding me or any other Senator from offering any amendments. Senator Reid then filed a motion for ``cloture'' to cut off debate on June 4 to set the stage to vote on the bill without any amendments. It then became a partisan issue with Republicans opposing cloture and Democrats favoring it. I opposed cloture to cut off debate since there had been no debate and no opportunity to amend the bill. On June 6,, cloture was not invoked. Reciprocal finger pointing then began, with Democrats blaming Republicans for stymieing the legislation by filibustering and Republicans responding that the Democrats were responsible for killing the bill. This practice has been used 16 times during the 110th Congress, stopping the Senate from acting on bills such as FAA Reauthorization--H.R. 2881--Lieberman-Warner Climate Security--S. 3036--and the Energy Speculation Bill--S. 3268. Sometimes, after the tree has been filled, there will be extensive negotiations among Senators to agree on a limited number of specified amendments that both sides are willing to vote on. In part, this is done to limit the time it will take to finish the bill. More often, it is done to eliminate the tough votes where Senators will have to take positions on controversial issues which could be used against them in future campaigns, including 30-second television spots. As a result of these practices, Senate floor time has been filled with quorum calls where negotiations are in process to limit the number of votes which will be taken or to find ways to resolve the most contentious issues without votes. On many weeks, the Senate has had little floor debate and votes. For example, the following occurred: one vote, April 28-May 2; 3 weeks with two votes, January 22-25, January 28-February 1, and September 15-19; 1 week with three votes September 8-12; 1 week with four votes, June 9-13; 5 weeks with five votes, April 21-25; May 19-23; June 3-6; June 16-20; July 21-26; 2 weeks with six votes, April 14-18; March 3-7. This inactivity is contrasted with Senate action on the comprehensive immigration reform bill which was debated from May 15 to May 25, 2006, with 227 amendments filed and 27 rollcall votes. A far better procedural practice is to allow Senators to offer amendments under time agreements. These are agreed to by unanimous consent and allow Senators to have their amendments considered in an expeditious manner. Thus, the Senate can work its will. The public then understands the issues involved and Senators are compelled to take positions by voting. That procedure is obviously totally undercut by the majority leader's filling the tree to abort traditional Senate practices. To stop the practice of filling the tree and revert to traditional Senate debate and votes, I proposed S. Res. 83 on February 15, 2007, which would have stopped the majority leader from filling the tree. Notwithstanding repeated efforts to get this proposed rule change acted upon, nothing has been done. Senate action has also been stymied by the use of the filibuster or other procedures to thwart the confirmation of Federal judges. These practices have been utilized by both Democrats and Republicans in the last 20 years. In the last 2 years of President Reagan's administration, 1987-1988, the Democrats failed to confirm 10 district court nominees and 7 circuit court nominees. In addition, the time required to confirm circuit court nominees increased from 195 days during President Carter's administration to 257 days during President Reagan's administration. Similarly in the last 2 years in the administration of President George H.W. Bush, 1991-1992, the Democrats failed to confirm 10 circuit court nominees and 43 district court nominees. Further, the time required to confirm a circuit court nominee increased from 257 to 319 days during President Bush's administration. The Republicans retaliated when Senator Lott was the majority leader by refusing to give hearings to President Clinton's nominees or by refusing to have the Senate vote on nominees after they reported out favorably by the Judiciary Committee. At the end of the 106th Congress, 1999-2000, the Senate returned 17 circuit court nominees and 24 district court nominees to the President, and the time required to confirm a circuit court nominee had increased from 319 to 439 days. In the final 2 years of President Clinton's administration, a Republican Senate confirmed 15 circuit court judges and 57 district court judges. To date, the Democratic Senate has confirmed 10 of President Bush's circuit court nominees and 48 district court nominees. An additional 10 district court nominees may yet be confirmed. President Bush has nominated an additional 9 circuit court judges who have not been confirmed and he has nominated an additional 20 district court nominees who it appears will not be confirmed, assuming that 10 of pending district court nominations will be confirmed. In the 110th Congress, the time required to confirm a circuit court nominee increased from the 439 to 906 days. The Senate was engaged in an especially bitter controversy from 2003- 2005 when the Democrats engaged in 23 filibusters to stop the confirmation of 10 circuit court nominees: Miguel A. Estrada, Richard Griffin, Carolyn B. Kuhl, David McKeague, Priscilla Richman Owen, Charles W. Pickering, Henry W. Saad, William H. Pryor, William G. Myers, and Janice Rogers Brown. At least four other nominees were blocked by the mere threat of filibuster: Terrence Boyle, William Haynes, Brett M. Kavanaugh, and Susan B. Neilson. Republicans then threatened retaliation with the so-called nuclear or constitutional option. That plan would have called upon Vice President Cheney to rule that 51 votes could invoke cloture. That ruling would then be appealed, and under Senate procedure, a majority of 51 votes would sustain the ruling of the chair. In that manner, it was contemplated that at least 51 votes could be obtained from the 55 Republican Senators. On May 23, 2005, the eve of a vote set for the following day to invoke the nuclear or constitutional option, the so-called ``Gang of 14''--7 Democrats and 7 Republicans--agreed to enter into a compromise to confirm Janice Rogers Brown, William Pryor, and Priscilla Owen, and to reject William Myers and Henry Saad, so there was never a determination as to whether Republicans had sufficient votes to invoke the nuclear/constitutional option. With the 7 Democrats and the 7 Republicans in the ``Gang of 14'' breaking party lines, there would have been insufficient votes to maintain the filibusters or to invoke the nuclear/constitutional option. With 7 Democrats from the ``Gang of 14'' voting for cloture, there would have been 62 potential votes--55 Republicans and 7 Democrats--to invoke cloture. With 7 Republicans voting against the nuclear/constitutional option, there would have been a maximum of only 48 votes, 55 minus 7. In order to break the filibuster impasse on the confirmation of Federal judges, I proposed S. Res. 327 on April 1, 2004 and S. Res. 469 on March 4, 2008. These resolutions provided for a 90-day timetable for fair consideration of all judicial nominees with the following benchmarks: within 30 days of the President submitting a judicial nomination, the Judiciary Committee would hold a hearing; within 30 days of the hearing, the committee would vote on the nomination; and within another 30 days, the Senate would hold an up-or-down vote on the nomination. I was willing to modify this timetable; but it would move the issue forward to some compromise timetable. This rule change would not affect the existing rules that require 60 Senators to cut off debate on legislative matters. It would apply only to judicial confirmations. The basis for the rule change was that public policy was better served by determining confirmation on professional qualification without engaging in the ``cultural wars'' to elevate ideology over professional judicial qualifications. As a practical political matter, filibusters have not been used to block Supreme Court nominations, where there is substantial public visibility even though many Senators would like to have done so. The conventional wisdom was that in a high visibility situation like Supreme Court confirmations, many Senators would not support a filibuster unless a good reason could be publicly articulated to do so. With less visible circuit court nominees, that reluctance was absent. For example, no filibuster was mounted against Justice Clarence Thomas even though there was substantial ideological opposition to his confirmation. Democrats did not have 60 votes to invoke cloture. Justice Thomas was ultimately confirmed 52-48. Similarly there was no effort to filibuster the nominations of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg or Justice Stephen Breyer even though there was substantial Republican ideological opposition. Justice Ginsburg was confirmed 96 to 3 and Justice Breyer was confirmed 87 to 9. During the confirmation hearing of Justice Samuel Alito, the Democrats sought to gain traction about a filibuster trying to associate Justice Alito with the Concerned Alumni of Princeton, an organization which reputedly discriminated against women and minorities. The Democrats' effort failed to secure a subpoena for the Concerned Alumni of Princeton records and informal inquiries found no connection between that organization and Justice Alito. Thus, the effort to muster a filibuster sputtered and was not pursued. During my travels through Pennsylvania during the August recess, I heard many complaints from my constituents at town meeting about partisanship in the U.S. Congress. The consistent comments were that people were sick and tired of partisan bickering. It is reflected in the public opinion polls which give the Congress very low ratings. My proposed rule changes would have a profound effect on allowing the Senate to take care of the people's business by eliminating the gridlock and providing for up and down votes in the judicial nominating process based on professional competence and not ideology.

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Madam President, I have sought recognition to report on a trip I made to Latin America during the August recess. Specifically, from August 17 to 23, I traveled to Mexico and Venezuela to investigate conditions relating to national security, immigration and counterdrug efforts. I also explored the current state of our diplomatic relations with these two important neighbors in the Western Hemisphere. I last visited both countries in 2005, and I was eager to assess firsthand the impact of recent changes in their domestic political landscapes. On Sunday, August 17, I flew to Mexico City, Mexico. There, I was greeted by Robyn Prinz, a Foreign Service officer from the economic section of our Embassy, who served as my guide in Mexico. That evening, I enjoyed a taste of Mexico's rich cultural heritage by attending the famous Ballet Folkloico, a performance of Mexican folk dances, at the Palacio de Bellas Artes. On Monday morning, August 18, I began the day by meeting with a large team from our Embassy. Ambassador Antonio Garza was traveling, so the Embassy team was led by Deputy Chief of Mission Leslie Bassett. In addition to Ms. Bassett, my meeting included representatives of the Department of Homeland Security, DHS, Customs and Border Protection, CBP, the Drug Enforcement Agency, DEA, the Defense Attache Office, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the Department of Justice. I explained to the group my interest in learning about current efforts to combat drug trafficking and the attendant violence in Mexico and the extent to which U.S. aid can be of assistance in tackling these problems. In particular, I inquired about the likely impact of the Merida Initiative, a multiyear proposal to provide funding to Latin American countries to support counternarcotics, counterterrorism, and border security efforts, as well as programs designed to build accountable public institutions and ensure the rule of law. Earlier this year Congress approved the initial sum of $400 million for Mexico and $65 million for Central America, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti. Finally, I asked our representatives in Mexico about Mexican efforts to stem the flow of illegal immigrants into the United States. According to Ms. Bassett, in the 18 months since he was elected, Mexican President Felipe Calderon of the center-right Partido Accion Nacional, PAN, has moved quickly to bolster law enforcement and counterdrug efforts. He has also launched economic reforms intended to make Mexico more attractive to Mexicans. Ms. Bassett further noted the importance of our bilateral trade with Mexico. She pointed out that Mexico is now the third largest trading partner of the United States. And, as transportation costs continue to rise, trade between Mexico and the Unites States will likely become even more important. David Gaddis, the regional director for DEA in Mexico, explained that President Calderon's efforts to combat drug traffickers have been costly for Mexico--not only in terms of enhanced resources but also in terms of lives lost. The press has taken note of this unfortunate reality. In June 2008, the New York Times wrote, ``[s]ince Mr. Calderon came to office in December 2006, he has sent thousands of federal police officers and troops to reclaim cities and states where [drug] traffickers controlled local officials through bribes and threats. The offensive has unleashed a war among different cartels that has killed more than 4,000 people, among them about 450 soldiers, police officers and public officials.'' Nevertheless, according to Agent Gaddis, Mexico has achieved significant successes against the traffickers, arresting key leaders and extraditing many of them to the United States to stand trial. The DEA has also seen large improvements in the level of information sharing and cooperation from Mexican officials. This interaction directly benefits the United States because the major cartels in Mexico can be tied directly to drug traffickers in the United States. To drive home this point, Agent Gaddis provided a map showing cases in every state with links to Mexican drug trafficking organizations. As the assembled agency representatives noted, of course, the drug problem is not a one-way street. High demand for illegal drugs within the United States fuels much of the drug trade. And, just as drugs are smuggled into the United States, weapons and money are increasingly being smuggled into Mexico from our country. By some estimates, more than 90 percent of the weapons being used by Mexican drug traffickers originate in the United States. Erik Moncayo, the CBP attache in Mexico, pointed out that the United States has been far more focused on contraband, hazardous materials, and persons entering the country than those leaving it for Mexico. As a result, bulk cash shipments totaling more than $12 billion are reportedly smuggled into Mexico annually. Among other things, these illegal proceeds are used to pay off corrupt police and public officials. Although the Mexican Government has begun to implement new legal reforms, including a shift away from a confession-driven judicial system to one that places a greater emphasis on other evidence, corruption is still a major problem in Mexico--especially among the ranks of the local police. This breeds mistrust of the very officials who should be relied upon by the public to keep them safe. This mistrust was illustrated in a tragic case that occurred shortly before my arrival in Mexico and which was mentioned in nearly every meeting I had there. In June 2008, the 14-year-old son of a wealthy family--the founders of a chain of sporting goods stores--was kidnapped and held for ransom. Rather than call the police, however, the family reportedly hired a private negotiator to deal directly with the kidnappers. Then, after they had paid millions of dollars in ransom money, their son's body was found in the trunk of a stolen car abandoned in Mexico City. This tragic case, and the deep mistrust of the police it reveals, underscores the serious challenge faced by President Calderon and his administration as they seek to reform Mexico's criminal justice system. On the illegal immigration front, Ms. Bassett noted that there had been a decrease in illegal immigration from Mexico, but she acknowledged that the causes could range from a weakened U.S. economy to enhanced border security to increased opportunities in Mexico, or some combination of these factors. Mr. Moncayo, the CBP representative, highlighted a successful joint operation with Mexican officials--dubbed the Oasis program--under which more than 800 cases involving alien smugglers have been prosecuted by Mexico during the last 3 years, using evidence collected in part by U.S. authorities, with a nearly 98 percent conviction rate. In response to my question about Mexico's willingness to accept criminal aliens being deported by the United States, Ms. Bassett said that Mexico actively cooperates with such repatriation efforts. I was pleased to hear this news because I have been particularly concerned about the refusal by some countries to accept their nationals back after they have served criminal sentences in the United States and been ordered deported. Later on August 18, I met with Mexico's Secretary of Public Security, Genero Garcia Luna. Secretary Luna is charged with the daunting task of reforming Mexico's federal police force and forging new, cooperative arrangements with the country's state and local police. A July 13, 2008 profile in the New York Times Magazine notes that ``Garcia Luna cultivates the image of a cop in a world of politicians, a doer in a world of talkers.'' The article also quotes a security analyst as saying that Secretary Luna has ``the hardest job in the country.'' I found the Secretary to be sincere and enthusiastic about his mission. He described ongoing efforts to improve police pay, regulate the requirements for new recruits, and require comprehensive ``trust'' centers--akin to community policing centers--for citizens to interact with police and prosecutors in the states and localities. He also focused on the need to stem the tide of illegal weapons entering Mexico from the United States. Secretary Luna represented that more than 95 percent of the firearms used by Mexican criminals come from the United States. He said that, in the first 2 years of the Calderon administration, approximately 20,000 high-caliber weapons have been seized by Mexican law enforcement. While acknowledging the value of assistance from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, ATF, in tracing the origins of such weapons, Secretary Luna urged a crackdown on retailers along the southwest border selling weapons for export to Mexico. With respect to the recent, high-profile kidnapping and murder of a 14-year-old boy, Secretary Luna noted that kidnapping is not a federal offense in Mexico; a fact that limits his ability to investigate such cases. I cited the 1932 kidnapping and murder of the young son of aviator Charles Lindbergh as the catalyst for making kidnapping a Federal offense in the United States and suggested that Mexico may have reached a similar moment in its legal evolution. The Secretary agreed and said that members of the administration planned to meet with legislators later in the week to consider such a change. Although somewhat outside his jurisdiction, I asked the Secretary for his views on the impact of the North American Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA, on security matters and the standard of living in Mexico. I also asked about his department's cooperation with other countries to combat drug trafficking, particularly Colombia, Venezuela, and Cuba. Secretary Luna said that he thought NAFTA had been very important for job creation in Mexico, with incidental benefits for security. With respect to international cooperation on drugs, he said that cooperation with Colombia was very good. He said that the cooperation with Venezuela and Cuba was more difficult but noted that they had worked collaboratively through third-party organizations. For example, he cited cooperation with Venezuela through Interpol. I further inquired about Mexico's cooperation with the United States on terrorism matters. Secretary Luna was very positive about the level of cooperation. He said, for example, there was an active effort to preempt potential terrorists from the Middle East from seeking entry into the United States via Mexico. Following my meeting with Secretary Luna, I met with Mexico's Attorney General, Eduardo Medina-Mora Icaza. I had met the Attorney General during my last visit to Mexico, when he was serving as the Director of the Center for National Security Investigations, Mexico's equivalent of the CIA. Once again, I found him to be articulate, intelligent and dedicated to public service--though he also has a strong background in the private sector and brings a business person's pragmatism to the work of government. The Attorney General described his department's current relationship with U.S. law enforcement and our Justice Department as the ``best ever'' in his considerable experience. He said that, through joint operations, we have succeeded in challenging and disrupting the key drug cartels, which are now more fragmented than ever. He conceded, however, that we have not yet succeeded in significantly reducing the total output of drugs. He then focused on some of the concerns that had been discussed in my earlier meetings, particularly the smuggling of guns and bulk cash shipments into Mexico. In addition to improved checkpoints for south-bound traffic, the Attorney General recommended some other avenues for exploration. For example, he noted that approximately half of the cash shipments smuggled into Mexico consisted of large-denominations, like $100 bills. This suggests that the smugglers may have some contact with U.S. financial institutions, which may provide another avenue for investigation and interdiction. Further, the Attorney General said that most of the weapons shipped into Mexico were purchased by ``straw'' buyers, who were paid a fee for essentially renting their identification to the true purchasers--a practice that might be subjected to limitations without infringing on the second amendment. On the issue of immigration, the Attorney General offered a thought- provoking demographic analysis of the subject. First, he acknowledged that the United States has the most vibrant economy in the world, supported by a host of desirable factors including the rule of law the ability to innovate and profit from innovation; labor flexibility and mobility; and the ability to shift assets from one sector of the economy to another through the financial markets. Nevertheless, he argued that the United States simply does not produce enough humans to keep up with its economic growth. And, although concerns about illegal immigration may currently be focused on Mexico, the Attorney General further argued that--within just 15 years--Mexico won't be able to supply much labor to the United States because Mexico's labor force peaked in 2006 and is now growing at a rate of less than 1.4 percent. Indeed, Attorney General Medina-Mora suggested that the whole world may face a labor shortage within a generation, due to falling population rates across much of the globe. In contrast to years past, the Attorney General also said that today's migrants are not uneducated peasants but workers with an average of 9 years of education and sought-after skills. I asked the Attorney General for his views on the value of dialog with other nations, even dialog with adversaries. He agreed that dialog is critical. With respect to my trip to Venezuela, Attorney General Medina-Mora said that isolating Venezuela would be the worst way to deal with the country. He said that Cuba ought to serve as an important lesson; namely, that isolation can actually help a disfavored regime to sustain itself. Of course, it would be naive to think that dialog is a silver bullet. In fact, at the time of our meeting, the Attorney General still appeared hopeful that dialog would ensure fair compensation for a Mexican-owned cement company that Venezuela was seeking to nationalize. As we later learned, however, efforts to engage the Venezuelan Government on this subject failed to prevent Venezuela's expropriation of the Mexican company by threat of force or at least under the supervision of national guard troops. Nevertheless, I believe that, over time, dialog often produces better results than heated rhetoric and posturing. On Tuesday, August 19, following a brief tour of the beautifully restored Chapultepec Castle overlooking Mexico City, I departed for Caracas, Venezuela. Upon arrival in Caracas, I was welcomed by our Ambassador there, Patrick Duddy, and the Control Officer for my visit, Evan Owen. Due to a traffic accident, our trip from the airport to the Ambassador's residence turned into a tour of relatively impoverished enclaves perched on the steep slopes of a twisting mountain road. By the time we reached our destination, it was nearly midnight. On Wednesday, August 20, I began my day with a briefing from Ambassador Duddy and key members of his Embassy team. They provided an overview of significant developments in Venezuela since my last visit in 2005. Perhaps most significantly, President Hugo Chavez lost a Constitutional Referendum in December 2007 that would have further consolidated his power, despite publicly characterizing the vote as a choice between himself and President George Bush. Now, as the New York Times reported on August 6, 2008, President Chavez is ``using his decree powers to enact a set of [26] socialist-inspired measures that seem based on a package of constitutional changes that voters rejected last year.'' Among other things, these decrees create new regional officers, appointed by the government, who could help President Chavez to retain influence in states and localities even if his party loses upcoming state and local elections. Similarly, the decrees elevate the status of a new militia force that reports directly to the President, making it co-equal with the traditional branches of the military services, which facilitated a short-lived coup against President Chavez in 2002. According to the August 6, 2008, Wall Street Journal, ``Mr. Chavez said that if anyone didn't approve of the laws, they could file for a challenge with the supreme court. But critics . . . said that would be futile because six of the seven justices are sympathetic to the president.'' In another troubling development, Venezuela's Controller General has reportedly disqualified nearly 300 individuals from holding appointed public office, or running for elected office, based on central government sanctions--but not convictions--for alleged administrative irregularities. A number of those who have been disqualified would have been strong potential opposition candidates for municipal and state elections scheduled for November 23, 2008. These elections pose the next major test for both the Chavez administration and the political opposition. At the same time, there has been some recent reason for optimism. On July 5, 2008, Venezuela's Independence Day, President Chavez publicly approached Ambassador Duddy and expressed a desire to renew antidrug cooperation with the United States. Among other things, President Chavez recalled how he had met several times with John Maisto, the U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela from 1997 to 2000. According to press accounts of the overture, President Chavez also mentioned the upcoming U.S. Presidential elections and commented, ``whoever wins, we should be able to sit down and converse. I did this with Clinton, we sat down to talk.'' I was particularly heartened by the prospect of renewed cooperation on drugs because I had pushed for such collaboration between our countries during my visit in 2005. I even took the somewhat extraordinary step of asking then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to consider ``a moratorium on adverse comments on Venezuela'' because I believed his harsh rhetoric about President Chavez at the time was counterproductive. With respect to the most recent overtures from President Chavez, however, it remains somewhat unclear whether he is prepared to match his positive words with meaningful actions. Following my meeting with the Ambassador and his team, I accompanied him to the U.S. Embassy for further briefings on drug trafficking and national security issues. With regard to the drug issues, I met with members of the U.S. Embassy's law enforcement team. By way of background, in September 2007, President Bush issued a determination that Venezuela, for the third year in a row, had failed demonstrably over the previous 12 months to adhere to its obligations under international counternarcotics agreements. In a September 17, 2007, report, State Department officials maintained that, although Venezuela indicated that it had developed some new programs to fight drug trafficking and were making seizures, its efforts continued to be limited. Given this backdrop, I asked the representatives of the law enforcement team in Caracas about recent reports suggesting that Venezuela had further increased its drug seizures and begun a campaign to bomb clandestine airstrips in the Venezuelan jungle being used by Colombian drug traffickers. Those present reported that the flow of drugs through Venezuela had increased dramatically, making the new seizures a smaller percentage of the whole. They also questioned the value of bombing dirt airstrips that could be quickly reconstituted. Moreover, the Government's claims with regard to such airstrips arguably served to confirm the importance of Venezuela as a transshipment point for drugs from Colombia being sent to the United States and the need for further cooperation. The group identified several modest steps that President Chavez could take to demonstrate his commitment to re-building cooperation on counter-drug efforts: No. 1, reiterate to his people what he said to Ambassador Duddy; No. 2, designate clear points-of-contact in Venezuela's counterdrug agencies for their U.S. counterparts; No. 3, approve seven pending applications for visas from the DEA; No. 4, give DHS access to the airport in Caracas to screen for contraband headed to the United States; No. 5, allow the United States to re-export an x-ray machine intended for scanning cargo at a port but currently sitting unused; and No. 6, permit effective cooperation between U.S. officials and the Intelligence Unit of the superintendent of Banks. To this list, I would add that the Chavez government should meet with the America's so-called drug czar, Director of National Drug Control Policy John Walters. As noted later in my remarks, Director Walters was denied a visa during my visit to Caracas, although the purpose of his requested visit was to follow up on the proposal President Chavez made to Ambassador Duddy to begin increasing counternarcotics cooperation between the United States and the Government of Venezuela. The following day, August 21, I started the morning by meeting with two members of the Venezuelan National Assembly: Saul Ortega, the first Vice-President of the National Assembly, and Francisco Torrealba, the leader of the U.S.-Venezuela Friendship Group in the National Assembly. We discussed the fact that, prior to the 2005 parliamentary elections, there used to be fairly regular dialog between the U.S. Congress and the Venezuelan National Assembly through the informal ``Boston Group.'' The parliamentarians commented favorably on their past contacts with former Representative Cass Ballenger of North Carolina and Representative William Delahunt of Massachusetts. Vice President Ortega also recalled fondly a meeting with Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts and mentioned a visit to Venezuela by Senator Kerry and his fellow Massachusetts Senator, Edward Kennedy, that had been discussed but not completed. Both members of the assembly said that such exchanges with the U.S. Congress would be welcome. During our meeting, which was also attended by Ambassador Duddy, I stressed the importance of the separation of powers under the U.S. Constitution. I noted that, as a Senator, I am free to criticize or dissent from the decisions of Presidents of my own party. I also cited the example of recent Supreme Court rulings on the rights of detainees being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to underscore the value of our independent judiciary, confirmed with the advice and consent of the Senate. I am hopeful that through future exchanges, legislator-to- legislator, we may demonstrate the merits of our system of checks and balances and find a way to address areas of common interest to both countries, even if our respective executive branches remain at loggerheads. Following the meeting with the parliamentarians, Ambassador Duddy and I traveled to the economically challenged Bucaral neighborhood in the affluent Chacao borough of Caracas. A grassroots nongovernmental organization called ``Friends of the Health of Bucaral'' is working to improve conditions for the neighborhood's residents. Among other things, this organization operates a computer room for young students. In addition, the group's center offers conflict resolution programs, drug prevention workshops, and cultural classes in dance, theater, storytelling and music. The U.S. Embassy, through the Narcotics Affairs Section, has helped to support the youth center's illicit drug demand reduction efforts. I had the pleasure of meeting the organization's founder, Maria Teresa Gonzalez, and several of the children who benefit from the group's programs. I also had the chance to visit a small police post to see firsthand the work they are doing--much like community police stations in American cities--to build trust in the community and prevent crime. After visiting the Bucaral neighborhood, I met with representatives of Venezuela's Jewish community at a meeting hosted by the Confederation of Israelite Associations of Venezuela, CAIV. CAIV is the leading Jewish organization in Venezuela. The Jewish community in Venezuela stands at some 13,000, down from over 20,000 10 years ago. I was especially interested to speak with representatives of the Jewish community because, the week before my visit to Venezuela, President Chavez met with Jewish leaders including Ronald Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress. As reported by the Miami Herald on August 14, 2008, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicols Maduro expressed hope following the meeting that ``this coming-together will be maintained.'' According to the Herald, Argentina's Ambassador in Washington, Hector Timerman, who also attended the meeting, said Chavez had ``expressed a desire to join forces with [Argentine President Cristina] Fernandez de Kirchner and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva `to achieve the eradication of anti-Semitism in Latin America.' '' The Herald also quoted another meeting participant as saying that the three leaders may sign a joint statement against anti- Semitism in September. At my meeting with Jewish leaders, I received generally positive reports on the meeting with President Chavez. The group expressed hope about the direction of relations between the Jewish community and the Government. I would note that, in addition to publicly condemning anti- Semitism, there are other concrete things the Chavez government could do to improve relations. As reported by the Associated Press on August 14, 2008, the Simon Wiesenthal Center has urged Venezuela to investigate two police raids on the Jewish community center in Caracas, including one ``on the eve of a contentious referendum vote in December.'' Especially given his public support of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has denied the Holocaust and said that Israel should be wiped off the map, I hope that President Chavez will take concrete and public actions to reassure the Jewish community in Venezuela that they are valued members of Venezuelan society. On Friday, August 22, I met with potential opposition candidates in November's state and local elections. The first of these was a mayoral candidate who, like more than 260 others, has been banned from seeking elective office through an administrative decision by Venezuela's Controller General. He denied any wrongdoing and stressed that he had not been given an opportunity to challenge the factual basis for the Controller General's decision. While he and others are challenging their disqualification, they are concerned that the courts lack sufficient independence to issue a fair ruling on the matter. Among those I met was Henrique Capriles Radonski. He is the current mayor of Baruta, a borough of Caracas where the U.S. Embassy is located. Prior to serving as mayor, Capriles was the President of the Venezuelan National Assembly 1999/ 2000, the youngest in its history. Capriles is currently the opposition candidate for the governorship of Miranda State, which surrounds much of Caracas. Mr. Capriles has received international notoriety due to an apparent political prosecution against him. His case was profiled in a Washington Post op-ed by Deputy Editor Jackson Diehl on April 10, 2006. As noted by the Post, the case against Capriles relates to an incident during the brief 2002 coup against Chavez, when Capriles sought to disperse a hostile crowd that besieged the Cuban Ambassador's residence. Despite his efforts at peacekeeping, Capriles was later jailed and charged with trespassing, intimidation, and ``violating international principles,'' among other crimes. Although the case was dismissed, the charges were later refiled and Capriles remains in legal jeopardy. The Post op-ed described Capriles as ``one of the brightest stars in a new generation of Venezuelan politicians untainted by the discredited political establishment Chavez replaced.'' I would concur. Despite obvious hurdles, he remains optimistic about the future of democracy in Venezuela--as well as his own prospects for being elected Governor of Miranda in November. I should note that, in addition to my meeting with opposition candidates, the U.S. Embassy also arranged for me to meet with several scholars, community leaders, business leaders, and representatives of the independent media during my visit. Although it is my normal practice to publicly document my meetings during foreign trips, the current political situation in Venezuela leads me to be somewhat circumspect about naming everyone with whom I met. Although the individuals expressed a range of viewpoints, those who were not aligned with President Chavez's party expressed concerns about the health of Venezuelan democracy, especially in light of the recent Presidential decrees, which appear to run contrary to the 2007 referendum. They also expressed anxiety about the disqualification of opposition candidates in advance of the November elections for state and local offices, and they shared concerns about the Government's increased push to nationalize key sectors of the economy. All agreed that the upcoming elections, much like the constitutional referendum last December, represent a critical moment in Venezuela's contemporary political development. On Friday, Ambassador Duddy and I also received two pieces of disappointing news: First, we learned that Venezuela had declined to schedule a meeting with Director John Walters, America's drug czar. Second, we learned that President Chavez had used his regular television program to hurl new slurs at President Bush. Specifically, President Chavez used a photograph of President Bush stumbling on some steps at the Olympics to criticize him as a ``drunk.'' As reported by the Associate Press, Chavez said Bush looked ``drunk and quipped to his listeners: ``Gold medal for alcoholism.''' Despite these setbacks, however, I agreed to a meeting with Venezuela's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nicolas Maduro, on Friday afternoon. Ambassador Duddy accompanied me to the meeting. Mr. Maduro has served as Foreign Minister, basically Venezuela's Secretary of State, since August 2006. Previously, he served as President of the National Assembly from 2005 to 2006. He is known as an ardent defender of President Chavez and his socialist program. I began the meeting by emphasizing my belief that Venezuela and the United States share many common interests, such as our mutual interest in drug interdiction, which can be advanced by greater dialogue. I expressed my hope that it may yet be possible to arrange a visit by Director Walters, and I added that both U.S. Presidential candidates understand the importance of dialog. Minister Maduro said he was open to the possibility of greater dialog, but he said the Venezuelan Government was pessimistic because they believed that positive gestures from the United States were too often followed by negative statements about Venezuela by U.S. spokespersons. He also noted that efforts to improve relations with the United States were not always received well by the Government's own grassroots supporters. Minister Maduro questioned aloud whether the time was ripe for better relations and said that after the U.S. elections might present a new opportunity. Mr. Maduro also mentioned his own involvement in the former ``Boston Group.'' I responded that it would be better to lower the negative rhetoric on both sides. I also discussed my positive meeting with members of the National Assembly and said that we should not wait until after the elections to begin to build bridges. I pointed out, for example, that Director Walters was not a politician but a professional who could help facilitate greater cooperation against drug traffickers. Minister Maduro said Venezuela was taking the proposal seriously and would have a final answer very soon. He then recited some of Venezuela's successes in domestic counterdrug efforts. I left the meeting encouraged that future dialog may be possible. But, in response to a reporter's question as I left, I also defended President Bush against the ridiculous claim that he had been intoxicated at the Olympics. In closing, I would like to add that Ambassador Duddy, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service who most recently served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, is doing a splendid job under difficult circumstances. He is a true expert on Latin America and exemplifies the best of the Foreign Service. He is aided by a very able staff, all of whom are seeking to improve diplomatic relations in a challenging environment. Also, on a personal note, the Ambassador and his wife were gracious and charming hosts throughout our stay in Venezuela, and I look forward to working with him in the future. Mr. President, I yield the floor. Almost a week to the day after I left Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez threatened our Ambassador, Patrick Duddy, with expulsion in apparent response to criticism by America's drug czar, John Walters. Mr. Walters, after being denied a visa to travel to Venezuela, warned that the flow of Colombian cocaine through Venezuela has quadrupled since 2004, reaching an estimated 282 tons last year. As the New York Times reported on September 1, 2008, ``Mr. Chavez's comments effectively ended what seemed to be the start of a thaw in July, when he chatted with Mr. Duddy at a military parade and invited him to lunch.'' On September 11, 2008, President Chavez followed through on his threat. He announced that he was expelling Ambassador Duddy and gave him 72 hours to leave the country. According to the New York Times, President Chavez claimed to have ``discovered an American-supported plot by military officers to topple him.'' Of course, the Times also noted that President Chavez has ``claimed at least 26 times in the last six years that there were plots to kill him, according to counts in the local media.'' Since this announcement, relations between our two countries have continued to deteriorate. On September 12, 2008, the United States announced it would expel the Venezuelan Ambassador and the U.S. Treasury Department accused three Venezuelan officials with close ties to President Chavez of aiding the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, which the United States has designated as a terrorist organization. To add even more fuel to the fire, as all of this was occurring, Russian bombers landed in Venezuela and several media outlets reported that President Chavez is discussing plans for military exercises with Russia's navy in the Caribbean. I am deeply disturbed by these developments. During my visit, there were already signs that President Chavez had decided not to follow through on his July overtures to Ambassador Duddy concerning renewed cooperation against drug traffickers, but I did not imagine that within weeks he would seek to expel the Ambassador. As I have noted in my trip report, Ambassador Duddy is an exemplary diplomat. His ouster is truly a tragedy.

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Madam President, I have sought recognition to insert into the Record an article by Michael Smerconish, Esquire, concerning efforts by the United States to capture Osama bin Laden and Ayman al- Zawahiri. Mr. Smerconish is a distinguished columnist who writes for the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News, has a morning talk show on the ``Big Talker,'' 1210 WPHT-AM, and appears on MSNBC. I have known Mr. Smerconish for more than 20 years and have a very high regard for his scholarship, among his other fine qualities. While I do not agree with all his comments, especially all his political evaluations, I believe this article should be made available to my colleagues and the public generally to the extent that the Congressional Record is read. Accordingly, I ask unanimous consent to have the article to which I refer printed in the Record. Pakisourced (Michael Smerconish, Sept. 11, 2008) Where the hell are Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri? And why does virtually no one ask anymore? What's changed since the days when any suburban soccer mom would have strangled either of them with her bare hands if given the chance? And what happened to President Bush's declaration to a joint session of Congress nine days after 9/11 that ``[A]ny nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.'' Doesn't that apply to Pakistan? These are things that I wonder as I watch from my perch in Philadelphia, where I'm a talk show host, columnist and MSNBC talking head. I have also spoken and written about them incessantly, so much so that I've exhausted my welcome with many conservative members of my own talk radio audience. My editors at The Philadelphia Daily News and The Philadelphia Inquirer have made it clear that I've published my last column on this issue because I have written seven to date. On the day after the Pennsylvania primary, I told Chris Matthews on Hardball that this was an issue that could help Barack Obama win support among white male voters, he recognized that it was ``[my] issue,'' before adding, ``And I agree with you completely.'' I can't help myself. So strong is my belief that we've failed in our responsibility to 3,000 dead Americans that I am contemplating voting for a Democratic presidential candidate for the first time in my life. It's the chronology I find so compelling. We're at the seven year anniversary of 9/11, lacking not only closure with regard to the two top al Qaeda leaders but also public discourse about any plan to bring them to justice. To me, that suggests a continuation of what I perceive to be the Bush Administration's outsourcing of this responsibility at great cost to a government with limited motivation to get the job done. Of course, I may be wrong; I have no inside information. And I'd love to be proven in error by breaking news of their capture or execution. But published accounts paint an intriguing and frustrating picture. To begin, bin Laden is presumed to have been in Afghanistan on 9/11 and to have fled that nation during the battle at Tora Bora in December of 2001. Gary Berntsen, who was the CIA officer in charge on the ground, told me that his request for Army Rangers to prevent bin Laden's escape into Pakistan was denied, and sure enough, that's where bin Laden went. Then came a period when the Bush Administration was supposed to be pressing the search through means it couldn't share publicly. But as time went by with no capture, the signs became more troubling. We now know that in late 2005, the CIA disbanded Alec Station, the FBI-CIA unit dedicated to finding bin Laden, something which was reported on July 4, 2006 by The New York Times. At the time, I hoped we'd closed the bin Laden unit because Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf was fully engaged in the hunt in his country's northwest territories, where the duo were supposedly hiding. In September 2006, however, Musharraf reached an accord with tribal leaders there, notorious for their refusal to hand over a guest. In doing so, he agreed to give them continued free reign. The following month, in October of 2006, I participated in a week-long, Pentagon-sponsored, military immersion program called the Joint Civilian Orientation Conference. This was a unique opportunity for 45 civilians who were invited to play military tourist and learn first-hand about the United States Central Command (CENTCOM). We traveled 15,000 miles and spent time in four nations. Our days began at 5 or 6 a.m. and didn't end until 10 or 11 p.m. Along the way, we boarded the USS Iwo Jima by helicopter in the Persian Gulf, fired the best of the Army's weaponry in the Kuwait desert (just 10 miles from Iraq), drove an 11-kilometer Humvee obstacle course (designed to teach about IEDs), boarded the Air Force's most sophisticated surveillance aircraft in Qatar, and even took a tour of a military humanitarian outpost in the Horn of Africa. In addition to Secretary Rumsfeld, we were briefed by the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the vice admiral of CENTCOM and other high-ranking war commanders. I came home with the utmost respect for the men and women throughout the ranks of all five branches of the service committed to eradicating the forces of radical Islam. But there was one thing noticeably absent: The search for bin Laden and al-Zawahiri. It was not part of our otherwise comprehensive agenda, and when I did ask specific questions, there was no information forthcoming except a generic assertion that, indeed, the hunt continued. When we were briefed at Andrews Air Force Base by Vice Admiral David Nichols, the No. 2 to Army Gen. John Abizaid, I asked him whether the hunt for bin Laden was, at that stage, completely dependent upon Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. He told me we respect national sovereignty, and described the search as ``difficult and nuanced.'' I took that as a confirmation of my concern about outsourcing. When in Bahrain, I put the same question to Marine Brig. Gen. Anthony Jackson. He told me that the search was the equivalent of finding one man in the Rockies, an analogy that I heard repeatedly from men I met overseas. He also said that ``no one is giving up,'' and that my question was better put to the guys in special ops. So, when we got to the special ops headquarters in Qatar, I raised the matter yet again, this time with Col. Patrick Pihana, the chief of staff to the Combined Forces Special Operations Component Command. He offered nothing substantive on the issue. No one told me the search was over, but I came home worried that the days of aggressively hunting bin Laden and al- Zawahiri had ended. Of course, I could fully appreciate that an aggressive pursuit was underway but that I, a blowhard from Philadelphia, was simply deemed unworthy of any information. That would have been fine. But there was another consideration. More than one individual with whom I spoke--and no one that I have named here--raised with me the question of what would happen to public support for the war against radical Islam if we were to find and kill bin Laden and al-Zawahiri. They wanted to know: Would the American people then expect the military to pack up and go home? No one ever told me that we're not hunting bin Laden because killing him would cause Americans to want to close up shop in Iraq and Afghanistan, but it was absolutely on the minds of our warriors as support for the war in Iraq dissipated. A few months before my return, there was news of our response to the accord reached between Musharraf and the tribal warlords. The agreement, which was effected on September 5, 2006, stipulated that the Pakistani army would pull back from the tribal areas. A report from the BBC detailed what the tribal leaders would grant the army for withdrawing: ``Local Taleban supporters, in turn, have pledged not to harbor foreign militants, launch cross-border raids or attack Pakistani government troops or facilities.'' Meanwhile, there was no demand for accountability by our government. The White House and the Pentagon consistently played down the significance of capturing bin Laden and al- Zawahiri, and President Bush offered only superficial responses to the few questions raised on the status of the search. On February 23, 2007, the Army's highest-ranking officer, Gen. Peter Schoomaker, said he didn't know whether we would find bin Laden, and ``I don't know that it's all that important, frankly.'' At a May 24, 2007 White House news conference, when asked why Osama was still at large, President Bush offered his usual refrain: ``Because we haven't got him yet . . . That's why. And he's hiding, and we're looking, and we will continue to look until we bring him to justice.'' For me, somewhere between two and four years removed from 9/11, it had all begun to wear thin--especially because it seemed bin Laden remained active. Unfortunately, the President's standard line has long been accepted by the media and American people. Then, On May 20, 2007, the Times reported that we were paying $80 million a month to Pakistan for its supposed counter-terrorism efforts, for a total of $5.6 billion. In July 2007, a National Security Estimate concluded that the failure of Musharraf's accord with warlords in Pakistan's tribal areas had allowed bin Laden's thugs to regroup there. On July 22, National Intelligence Director Adm. Mike McConnell said on Meet the Press that he believed bin Laden was in Pakistan in the very region Musharraf had ceded to the warlords. I hoped that the presidential campaign would move the issue to the front burner, but despite its 24/7 nature it failed to stir up a discussion about the failure to capture or kill those who pushed us down such a perilous path. In the first seven presidential debates--four for the D's, three for the R's--there was only one question in 15 hours of discourse that touched on the subject of finding bin Laden in Pakistan, and it came from the audience. Though I did not keep count thereafter, I know that the issue never gained resonance in any subsequent debate. Things changed somewhat on August 1, 2007, when Barack Obama delivered a speech at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars: ``If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets, and President Musharraf won't act, we will,'' he said. ``We can't send millions and millions of dollars to Pakistan for military aid, and be a constant ally to them, and yet not see more aggressive action in dealing with al Qaeda.'' Finally, I thought, a presidential candidate saying something about this foreign-policy failure. The reaction? Ridicule. Then presidential candidates Joe Biden and Chris Dodd responded derisively. Pakistani foreign ministers did likewise. Across the aisle, John McCain pounded Obama for a perceived lack of seasoning in the realm of foreign relations: ``The best idea is to not broadcast what you're going to do,'' McCain said in February. ``That's naive.'' (More recently, McCain has grown fond of saying that he'll ``follow bin Laden to the gates of hell.'') Not to be left out, Hillary Clinton said, ``You can think big, but, remember, you shouldn't always say everything you think when you're running for president because it could have consequences across the world, and we don't need that right now.'' Of course, that didn't stop Senator Clinton from including bin Laden's image--along with reminders of the attack on Pearl Harbor--in a television commercial that aired in the final days before the Pennsylvania primary election. After scolding her opponent for advocating a specific course of action in Pakistan, the world's most infamous terrorist became a bankable issue for the junior senator from New York when her back was against the wall. To his credit, Obama refused to back away from his insistence on reasserting American control over the hunt for bin Laden. I interviewed him on March 21, 2008, and he admitted that a resurgence of the Taliban had occurred in Pakistan. ``What's clear from . . . what I've learned from talking to troops on the ground is that unless we can really pin down some of these Taliban leaders who flee into the Pakistan territories, we're going to continue to have instability, and al Qaeda's going to continue to have a safe haven, and that's not acceptable.'' I was pleased by what he had to say about the issue, and asked about it again on April 18, 2008, when I interviewed him for a second time. He told me that Musharraf, despite being flush with billions in American aid, was not taking counter-terrorism seriously. ``That's part of the reason that I've been a critic from the start of the war in Iraq,'' Obama told me. ``It's not that I was opposed to war. It's that I felt we had a war that we had not finished.'' ``And al Qaeda is stronger now than at any time since 2001, and we've got to do something about that because those guys have a safe haven there and they are still planning to do Americans harm.'' He also pointed out that the Bush administration had actually shown signs of following his lead. Obama reminded me that a late-January airstrike killed a senior al Qaeda commander in Pakistan, calling it an example of the type of action he'd been recommending since August. The CIA, it was reported a few weeks after the strike, acted without the direct approval of Musharraf. Soon after I spoke with Senator Obama, the non-partisan Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of the United States Congress, issued a report dated April 17, 2008 with a title requiring no interpretation: ``Combating Terrorism: The United States Lacks Comprehensive Plan to Destroy the Terrorist Threat and Close the Safe Haven in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas.'' The report, undertaken at the bipartisan request of U.S House and Senate members, minced no words in issuing a conclusion that should have made Americans' blood boil: Six years after September 11, the United States had failed to destroy the terrorist havens in Pakistan's federally administered tribal areas (known in the report as FATA). The GAO confirmed prior reports that al Qaeda was revitalized and poised to launch an attack, and said that no comprehensive U.S. plan existed to combat terrorism on its most central front. In the days that followed its release, I spoke to Charles Johnson, under whose signature the GAO report was issued. He told me: ``With respect to establishing a comprehensive plan, we found that there were some individual plans that had been prepared by the various entities I mentioned earlier [the Department of Defense, Department of State, U.S. Agency for International Development, among others].'' ``But yet there was no comprehensive plan that integrated all of the key elements of national power that was called for by the 9/11 Commission, by the National Security Strategy for Combating Terrorism and the United States Congress. And those elements I'm referring to are: the use of military, economic and development assistance; law enforcement support; intelligence support; as well as political and diplomatic means by which we would want to address the root cause of terrorism in a particular region.'' From there the headlines continued to defy the GAO recommendations. ``Pakistan asserts it is near a deal with militants,'' read the front page of the April 25 edition of the New York Times. Pakistan's newly elected government was again on the verge of an accord with the militants running amok in the FATA--despite the new government's previously stated desires to move away from Musharraf's policies in those regions. Less than a week later, under the headline ``Pakistan's planned accord with militants alarms U.S.,'' The New York Times reported that the Bush administration expressed concern that the new agreement could contribute to ``further unraveling of security'' in the region. The arrangement was tailor made for bin Laden. It permitted the local Taliban group, Tehrik-e-Taliban, to assist in keeping law and order in the area known as Swat in the northwest frontier province--while not attacking the existing security forces--in return for an exchange of prisoners between the Pakistani Army and the Taliban. The Army also agreed to withdraw forces from parts of Swat. According to a report from the May 22 edition of The New York Times, the Bush Administration was concerned that the deal would ``give the Taliban and Al Qaeda the latitude to carry out attacks against American and NATO forces in Afghanistan.'' Some U.S. officials even went so far as to call it a ``victory'' for bin Laden, as reported by ABC News. What else are we to assume, except that the climate in Pakistan may grow even more hospitable to al Qaeda? In a refreshing opportunity free from the stock answers so often given by politicians, I was given the chance to interview Marcus Luttrell as part of my radio book club series in May 2008. He was the only survivor of Operation Red Wing, a mission that would result in the worst loss in Naval Seal history. He earned a Navy Cross for his valor and wrote about his harrowing story in The New York Times' best seller, Lone Survivor. Unlike most of the bureaucrats from Washington, who have only been able to offer me talking points from a failed policy, Luttrell gave a brutally honest account of the time he spent in the Hindu Kush, a mountainous area located just a few miles from the northwestern border of Pakistan. Luttrell described how his efforts were too often constricted by red tape. ``Yeah, we've got some problems with that border . . . because we'd be chasing the bad guys in there and they had a lot of security set up and we have to stop what we're doing while they just run across and if we don't, we'll get engaged by the Paki border guards and that's an international incident.'' Luttrell couldn't delve into the details of the prickly international problem that was created by the tension with the border guard, but when I asked him if the Pakistan issue was a problem in general, he wholeheartedly agreed. ``Hell yeah it's a problem. Heck, they're harboring the enemy. It's such a joke, it's so stupid. [T]hey come over and do their business, whatever is, and if it gets them in to trouble, all they have to do is sink back into Pakistan and stay there. They say, ``We're good here, we're good here' . . . It's frustrating.'' Americans may be uncertain about which talking point of the day to believe on this issue, but I'm taking the word of a guy who saw the conditions first-hand. Marcus Luttrell and thousands of other men and women in uniform serve their country valiantly. Don't we owe it to them to aggressively pursue and kill the enemies that seek to destroy them? Supporting the account of Marcus Luttrell is a chilling report released by the RAND Corporation, a think tank, on June 9, 2008. The report warned that the ``United States and its NATO allies will face crippling long-term consequences in their effort to stabilize and rebuild Afghanistan'' if it does not eliminate Taliban strongholds in Pakistan. All of this while the presidential contenders and the Americans headed to the polls were mostly silent in the face of a seven year timeline moving in the wrong direction. For his part, Ayman al-Zawahiri was apparently so comfortable that he spent time logging into jihad chat rooms and attracting thousands of questions from the peon terrorists prepared to do his dirty work. All of this drives me batshit, and it just might drive me into the Obama camp. That'd be quite a departure. I've been active in the Republican Party since I turned eighteen and registered to vote for Ronald Reagan in 1980. While a college undergraduate at Lehigh University, I did advance work for then Vice President George H.W. Bush. And soon after I graduated from law school at the University of Pennsylvania, Penn, he appointed me, at age 29, to run the Department of Housing and Urban Development in five states under the direction of Secretary Jack Kemp. I supported Bush 43 in both of his campaigns. Hell, in 2004, I MC'd his final Pennsylvania rally with 20,000 people in a suburban cornfield. My frustration is so apparent that a fellow journalist from The Philadelphia Daily News has labeled me ``fixated'' with 9/11. At least I'm consistent. In 2004, I donated all of my proceeds from my first book, Flying Blind: How Political Correctness Continues to Compromise Airline Safety Post 9/11, to a memorial in Bucks County, Pennsylvania called the Garden of Reflection for Ground Zero victims. Many of my radio listeners bought that book. Now some of them pound out hatriolic emails to my website because, on the strength of this issue, I said Barack Obama was the better of the two Democrats in the Pennsylvania primary. But frankly, I don't care. The Bush Administration's failure to orchestrate a successful counter-terrorism plan--one topped off with justice for Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri--has left me embarrassed of my party and angry. The oft-repeated explanations of the search being nuanced or covering difficult terrain should have worn thin long ago. Unfortunately, even after dangling my vote in front of Senator John McCain, the nominee from my own party, he only offered a continuation of the Bush Administration's policy. In a conversation I had with the Senator on June 13, 2008, he first attempted to say that our counterterrorism efforts were working and that remaining on good terms with Pakistan was imperative to our safety. ``There has been progress in those areas. Pakistan is a sovereign nation and we have to have the cooperation of Pakistan in order to have these operations succeed. I don't have any classified information, but I do know that there are activities taking place that are intended to counter some of these activities, so all I want to say to you is that if you alienate Pakistan and it turns into an anti-American government, then you will have much greater difficulties.'' Even when the Senator attempted to remind me of the fact that the United States also gives a great deal of money to Egypt, who, like Pakistan, could be more helpful in assisting the U.S. in the War on Terror, I pointed out to him that these guys aren't hiding in Cairo. The people responsible for the atrocities of 9/11 are concentrated in an area northwestern Pakistan, a fact which I repeated to the Senator. He then pointed out the historic difficulty with the region. ``I have promised that I will get Osama bin Laden when I am President of the United States, but . . . you can go on the internet, and look at that countryside, and there's a reason why it hasn't been governed since the days of Alexander the Great. They're ruled by about, it's my understanding, thirteen tribal entities, and nobody has ever governed them, not the Pakistani government, not the British--nobody, and so it's a very, very difficult part of the world.'' He added, ``I agree with you that we should've gotten Osama bin Laden, but I can't put all of it at the doorstep of the Pakastani government.'' I have a great deal of respect for the Senator, but I have a serious disagreement with him over this issue, something which I let him know would dramatically influence my vote in November. For the entirety of my interview, I tried to keep the Senator focused on Pakistan, and though he answered all of my questions, at the end of the interview, the Senator tried to insert his message of the day, which was about the Supreme Court ruling that granted habeas corpus rights to enemy combatants. When he did, I responded, ``I hear you, and all I think is that the guys who sent those guys over here are still on the lamb and we're writing a big check, and I'm unhappy about it.'' To my disappointment, the Senator said the following, ``Yes, sir, and I understand that, and if you let KSM, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, and others go, they'll join them over there. Thirty guys, who have been released, have gone back to the battlefield.'' It wasn't the fact that he once again dodged my clear dissatisfaction with the Pakistan issue that left me dismayed--I've become quite used to it at this point; it was the fact that I clearly heard an aide mutter the line to him before he delivered it before me and my captive audience. The campaign clearly had a stock answer for me, an answer that I've heard before and have clearly rejected. Put quite simply, the support for this failed policy is driving me to the edge of my long Republican career. And despite never pulling a lever for a Democratic presidential candidate, I believe the election this November will present the chance to relieve this country of the conventional wisdom that President Bush has offered for seven years and Senator McCain appears resigned to advance: That President Musharraf was a friend who did what he could to prevent Pakistan from defaulting towards further extremism; that the hunt for Osama bin Laden is nuanced and U.S. forces are doing everything they can to find him; and that the war in Iraq is a necessary one that hasn't distracted from the fight against those who perpetrated and planned 9/11. That wisdom has been proven unequivocally wrong. The kicker? We, the tax payers, are footing the bill for this negligence. According to a June 25, 2008 article in The Philadelphia Inquirer, a GAO report showed that nearly two billion given in aid to Pakistan was spent improperly. The article states: `` `For a large number of claims, Defense did not obtain sufficient documentation from Pakistan to verify that claimed costs were incremental, actually incurred or correctly calculated,' the report concluded. `It seems as though the Pakistani military went on a spending spree with American taxpayers' wallets and no one bothered to investigate the charges,' said Sen. Tom Harkin (D., Iowa), a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee. `How hard would it have been to confirm that a road we paid $15 million for was ever built?' '' The leaks about our Pakistani misadventures continued. It was reported in The New York Times on June 30, 2008 that the Bush Administration had created a secret plan in late 2007 to settle disagreements between counterterrorism agencies that were blocking the path of special ops forces into Pakistan. Months after the plan was developed, however, the special ops are still waiting, entangled in bureaucratic red tape. As these highly-trained soldiers, who should be on the prowl for Osama bin Laden, sit with their hands tied, al Qaeda's presence has grown. According to the Times: ``After the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush committed the nation to a `war on terrorism' and made the destruction of Mr. bin Laden's network the top priority of his presidency. But it is increasingly clear that the Bush administration will leave office with Al Qaeda having successfully relocated its base from Afghanistan to Pakistan's tribal areas, where it has rebuilt much of its ability to attack from the region and broadcast its messages to militants across the world.'' In light of increasingly negative press about Afghanistan, both the Obama and McCain campaigns addressed the issue in foreign policy speeches on July 15, 2008. Senator Obama was first up to bat. Here's some of what he said: ``In the 18 months since the surge began, the situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated. June was our highest casualty month of the war. The Taliban has been on the offensive, even launching a brazen attack on one of our bases. Al Qaeda has a growing sanctuary in Pakistan. That is a consequence of our current strategy.'' ``In fact--as should have been apparent to President Bush and Senator McCain--the central front in the war on terror is not Iraq, and it never was. That's why the second goal of my new strategy will be taking the fight to al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan. ``It is unacceptable that almost seven years after nearly 3,000 Americans were killed on our soil, the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 are still at large. Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahari are recording messages to their followers and plotting more terror. The Taliban controls parts of Afghanistan. Al Qaeda has an expanding base in Pakistan that is probably no farther from their old Afghan sanctuary than a train ride from Washington to Philadelphia. If another attack on our homeland comes, it will likely come from the same region where 9/11 was planned. And yet today, we have five times more troops in Iraq than Afghanistan.'' ``The greatest threat to that security lies in the tribal regions of Pakistan, where terrorists train and insurgents strike into Afghanistan. We cannot tolerate a terrorist sanctuary, and as President, I won't. We need a stronger and sustained partnership between Afghanistan, Pakistan and NATO to secure the border, to take out terrorist camps, and to crack down on cross-border insurgents. We need more troops, more helicopters, more satellites, more Predator drones in the Afghan border region. And we must make it clear that if Pakistan cannot or will not act, we will take out high-level terrorist targets like bin Laden if we have them in our sights.'' ``Make no mistake: we can't succeed in Afghanistan or secure our homeland unless we change our Pakistan policy. We must expect more of the Pakistani government, but we must offer more than a blank check to a General who has lost the confidence of his people. It's time to strengthen stability by standing up for the aspirations of the Pakistani people. That's why I'm cosponsoring a bill with Joe Biden and Richard Lugar to triple non-military aid to the Pakistani people and to sustain it for a decade, while ensuring that the military assistance we do provide is used to take the fight to the Taliban and al Qaeda. We must move beyond a purely military alliance built on convenience, or face mounting popular opposition in a nuclear-armed nation at the nexus of terror and radical Islam.'' ``Only a strong Pakistani democracy can help us move toward my third goal--securing all nuclear weapons and materials from terrorists and rogue states. One of the terrible ironies of the Iraq War is that President Bush used the threat of nuclear terrorism to invade a country that had no active nuclear program. But the fact that the President misled us into a misguided war doesn't diminish the threat of a terrorist with a weapon of mass destruction--in fact, it has only increased it.'' Senator McCain offered a different view: ``A special focus of our regional strategy must be Pakistan, where terrorists today enjoy sanctuary. This must end. We must strengthen local tribes in the border areas who are willing to fight the foreign terrorists there--the strategy used successfully in Anbar and elsewhere in Iraq. We must convince Pakistanis that this is their war as much as it is ours. And we must empower the new civilian government of Pakistan to defeat radicalism with greater support for development, health, and education. Senator Obama has spoken in public about taking unilateral military action in Pakistan. In trying to sound tough, he has made it harder for the people whose support we most need to provide it. I will not bluster, and I will not make idle threats. But understand this: when I am commander-in-chief, there will be nowhere the terrorists can run, and nowhere they can hide.'' My ranting and raving on this issue seems to have caught the attention of the national campaigns. In June 2008, the Obama campaign used my praise of the candidate to supplement their fact check section of the website on the Senator's quest to catch bin Laden. It became apparent that the Obama campaign wasn't the only one to take notice; the interview I had done with Senator McCain in June 2008, and general ire with the Republican establishment on this issue, had obviously raised some red flags over at the campaign. On July 24, 2008, former Mayor Rudy Giuliani appeared on the program at his own request. Though I was thrilled to have Rudy back to the show, as he was my first choice out of the Republican presidential candidates, it was clear that he was sent as a surrogate of the McCain camp. Realizing this, I told Rudy exactly what was keeping me from enthusiastically supporting McCain. Specifically, I referenced a story that had run in The New York Times that morning, describing the Bush Administration's plan to divert $230 billion dollars in aid to Pakistan, which was intended to be used for a variety of military purposes. According to the Times, the money would be used for everything, ``from counterterrorism programs to upgrading that country's aging F-16 attack planes, which Pakistan prizes more for their contribution to its military rivalry with India than for fighting insurgents along its Afghan border.'' In my opinion, it looked like we were continuing to fund a country that had already grossly mismanaged the effort to find bin Laden, and doing so while knowing that the funds would be used to embolden the Pakistani army with regard to the age-old conflict with India. When I asked the former Mayor how he, the leader most defined by the 9/11 attacks, could tolerate this sort of negligence, I ended my question by telling him that I thought we were getting ``rolled.'' He agreed with my analysis at story's face value, but qualified his comments, ``I don't know what the background of this one is. On the face of it, it makes no sense. Pakistan does not face an imminent threat from India. India is becoming a closer and closer ally. I think one of the good things the Bush Administration has done is really turned it to a very positive one, particularly with this deal regarding the use of fuel that can be used for nuclear reactors, but the only was this would make sense, is if it's part of an overall deal to get them to allow us the leeway [to get bin Laden] we were just talking about.'' I agreed with his analysis of this one instance, but after a long train of abuses involving Pakistan, it's difficult to keep an open mind. No campaign will ever be able to convince me that we haven't dropped the ball in Pakistan, and have disgraced the memories of the 9/11 victims in doing so. While candidates talk, the dismaying story continues. A recent report from The New York Times in July 2008 suggested that the C.I.A. might not even be receiving proper intelligence on the al Qaeda problem in Pakistan: ``The C.I.A. has depended heavily on the ISI for information about militants in Pakistan, despite longstanding concerns about divided loyalties within the Pakistani spy service, which had close relations with the Taliban in Afghanistan before the Sept. 11 attacks. That ISI officers have maintained important ties to anti-American militants has been the subject of previous reports in The New York Times. But the C.I.A. and the Bush administration have generally sought to avoid criticism of Pakistan, which they regard as a crucial ally in the fight against terrorism.'' It was reported two days later that officers from this same intelligence service played a role in the bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan on July 7, 2008, which left fifty-four people dead. Still not convinced that Pakistan is knowingly harboring the people working full-time to attack us? On August 12, 2008, Abu Saeed al-Masri, a senior al Qaeda commander was killed in an American air strike. Where? The border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, of course. When President Musharaff resigned in August 2008 due to political pressure from lingering doubts as to his legitimacy from the previous election, President Bush offered undue praise for the former President. A statement said, ``President Bush appreciates President Musharraf's efforts in the democratic transition of Pakistan as well as his commitment to fighting al Qaeda and extremist groups.'' Commitment? What a farce. I say that because the weeks following Musharraf's resignation have already brought incremental changes in policy and faint reasons for optimism. The Pakistani military spent most of August launching airstrikes against the Taliban militants attacking American forces from the fence straddling the Afghan-Pakistan border--an effort that resulted in more than 400 Taliban casualties and a shallow retreat by the terrorists. It's ``shallow'' because the Pakistani government followed up those airstrikes by declaring a ceasefire to coincide with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Legislators from the tribal areas promised political support for the top candidate in Pakistan's presidential election in exchange for the truce, which was announced in the days leading up to the country's vote. Less than a week later, though, American forces finally showed signs of taking the matter of the central front of the war on terror into their own hands. A New York Times report indicated that U.S. special ops forces attacked al-Qaeda militants gathered in a Pakistani village called Jalal Khel. U.S. officials said the move might represent the early stages of a more dedicated and aggressive American presence in Pakistan in the wake of General Musharraf's resignation. Don't get me wrong, a more sustained United States assault against the terrorists squatting in Pakistan is welcome news, and it signifies a more urgent effort to hunt down and snuff out the greatest threat to Americans' safety on our own shores. But it's about 2,555 days late and $11 billion short. Seven years after 9/11, the country is stoking what was supposed to be a complete and consuming ``war on terror'' with faint signs of a sustained operation in the country where the bad guys have been hiding for years. How appalling. I doubt the families of the 3,000 innocents murdered on 9/11--and the 4,000 that followed them in Iraq-- are content with it. After all, it's seven years, thousands of troops and billions of dollars later, and our country has failed to deliver on what we really owe them: Justice. Nor have we answered the most important question pertaining to our nation's future: Can we really win this war with Islamic extremism? Because if we don't have the fire in our belly to defend the American troops stonewalled by the Afghan-Pakistani border; to hunt down and destroy the Taliban and al-Qaeda militants camping out on the other side of that border; and do everything we possibly can to capture and kill Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, I fear we'll be left to deal with another fire--one raging in another building, burning a hole in another American city.

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I have sought recognition today to introduce the Medicare Hospice Protection Act, which will place a one- year moratorium on a final rule issued by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, CMS, reducing payments to hospice providers and ensure Medicare beneficiaries' access to hospice care. More than 1.3 million Americans depend on hospice for high quality and compassionate end-of-life care each year. Unfortunately, on August 1, 2008, CMS issued a final rule to reduce hospice reimbursement rates in Medicare. This reduction of the hospice wage index will take $2.3 billion out of hospice care over the next 5 years if this Congress allows it to be implemented as scheduled on October 1, 2008. The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, MedPAC, is currently examining the payment system for hospice care. We must allow the MedPAC to complete this important review of the hospice Medicare benefit and make payment recommendations, which is expected in 2009. The Hospice Protection Act, introduced by myself and Senators Harkin, Wyden, Roberts, Rockefeller and Smith, will provide that time with a one-year moratorium on implementation. Hospice is an efficient and cost-effective health care model. Hospice provides individuals at the end of their lives, as well as their families, with comfort and compassion when they are needed most. Hospice care enables a person to retain his or her dignity and maintain quality of life during the end of life. An independent Duke University study in 2007 showed that patients receiving hospice care cost the Medicare program about $2,300 less than those who did not, resulting in an annual savings of more than $2 billion. In April 28, 2008, just before the Notice of Proposed Rule Making was released, a bipartisan group of more than 40 Senators wrote to Secretary Leavitt and asked him to stop further action and wait for MedPAC recommendations on hospice payment issues. On July 28, 2008, before the final rule was released, Senators Harkin, Wyden, Roberts and I wrote to the White House, to urge them to stop the regulation from being finalized and to consider the burden that this regulation will put on the hospice community. Our repeated requests have been ignored, so we are introducing this legislation to keep CMS from implementing a short-sighted and irresponsible cut to end-of-life care. I ask my fellow Senators to join me in support of the Hospice Protection Act and to work toward its swift passage.

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I have sought recognition today to introduce the Medicare Hospice Protection Act, which will place a one- year moratorium on a final rule issued by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, CMS, reducing payments to hospice providers and ensure Medicare beneficiaries' access to hospice care. More than 1.3 million Americans depend on hospice for high quality and compassionate end-of-life care each year. Unfortunately, on August 1, 2008, CMS issued a final rule to reduce hospice reimbursement rates in Medicare. This reduction of the hospice wage index will take $2.3 billion out of hospice care over the next 5 years if this Congress allows it to be implemented as scheduled on October 1, 2008. The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, MedPAC, is currently examining the payment system for hospice care. We must allow the MedPAC to complete this important review of the hospice Medicare benefit and make payment recommendations, which is expected in 2009. The Hospice Protection Act, introduced by myself and Senators Harkin, Wyden, Roberts, Rockefeller and Smith, will provide that time with a one-year moratorium on implementation. Hospice is an efficient and cost-effective health care model. Hospice provides individuals at the end of their lives, as well as their families, with comfort and compassion when they are needed most. Hospice care enables a person to retain his or her dignity and maintain quality of life during the end of life. An independent Duke University study in 2007 showed that patients receiving hospice care cost the Medicare program about $2,300 less than those who did not, resulting in an annual savings of more than $2 billion. In April 28, 2008, just before the Notice of Proposed Rule Making was released, a bipartisan group of more than 40 Senators wrote to Secretary Leavitt and asked him to stop further action and wait for MedPAC recommendations on hospice payment issues. On July 28, 2008, before the final rule was released, Senators Harkin, Wyden, Roberts and I wrote to the White House, to urge them to stop the regulation from being finalized and to consider the burden that this regulation will put on the hospice community. Our repeated requests have been ignored, so we are introducing this legislation to keep CMS from implementing a short-sighted and irresponsible cut to end-of-life care. I ask my fellow Senators to join me in support of the Hospice Protection Act and to work toward its swift passage.

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I have sought recognition to discuss my vote on July 28 against cloture--to end debate--on the motion to proceed to S. 3297, the so-called Reid omnibus bill or ``Coburn package.'' As I stated on the Senate floor Monday, July 28, it is my inclination that the majority leader called for a vote on cloture on proceeding to this bill in order to dislodge the pending legislation on oil speculation. By using his position of power, he seeks to force the Senate to prematurely move away from the No. 1 issue facing the people from my State and the Nation namely energy legislation. I did not support cloture to move to the Reid omnibus bill not because I do not support many of its provisions, rather because I believe we should complete work on energy legislation before moving on to other matters. Further, I am seeking my right as a U.S. Senator to offer amendments to a bill in a fair and balanced legislative process. For instance, Senator Kohl and I had a bipartisan amendment prepared to offer to the speculation bill that would have brought OPEC nations under U.S. antitrust laws to prohibit them from meeting in a room, lowering production and supply, and thus raising prices. Unfortunately, this effort was denied by the majority leader's blocking of amendments by filling the so-called amendment tree, disallowing mine and a number of other amendments that ought to be considered. This procedure is nothing new for this majority leader who has filled the amendment tree on 15 occasions in the current 110th Congress, surpassing all other majority leaders in modern history. As a result of the majority leader's curtailing Senate procedure and amendments, I have been faced with voting against cloture on measures I would have ordinarily supported including this past Saturday's vote on LIHEAP. I have also opposed cloture in instances such as the Lieberman-Warner global warming bill which was considered the first week of June--2 to 6. In that case, the majority leader filled the amendment tree at the first opportunity and filed cloture on the bill without ever allowing consideration of amendments. The 5-day debate culminated in a fait accompli cloture vote that failed on June 6. Most recently, I voted against cloture to move to the Reid omnibus bill that was a conglomeration of legislation that has been described as non-controversial and may benefit a wide variety of interests. As I stated on the Senate floor on Monday, July 28, I am supportive of most, if not all of the substance in this bill. In fact, I am a cosponsor of six of the items. I support and have worked to pass a number of the Judiciary Committee-related bills in the proposed omnibus. For example, I am an original cosponsor of the Runaway and Homeless Youth Protection Act, S. 2982, which makes changes in the grant program for centers for runaway youths. I am also a cosponsor of the Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Reauthorization and Improvement Act of 2008, S. 2304, which would provide grants for the improved mental health treatment and services provided to offenders with mental illness. In addition, I am a cosponsor of the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act, S. 535, which authorizes funding to solve pre-1970 civil rights crimes. Moreover, in committee, I supported a Federal commission to commemorate the bicentennial of the writing of the Star-Spangled Banner and the War of 1812, S. 1079. Additionally, I voted in favor of the following child protection bills which were passed by the Judiciary Committee: The Combating Child Exploitation Act of 2008, S. 1738, which authorizes grants to combat child exploitation; and the Drug Endangered Children Act of 2007, S. 1210, which extends a grant program directed at drug-endangered children. I directed my staff to work to clear the child exploitation bills from the omnibus package in the same manner I worked to pass the Adam Walsh Act without extraneous add-ons during the 109th Congress. To that end, my staff worked with Senator Coburn's staff to draft a proposed compromise child exploitation bill that includes the key provisions of the child pornography and exploitation legislation in the proposed omnibus, as well as important legislation to strengthen the powers of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the SAFE Act, which was omitted from the omnibus bill. My support is also invested in efforts to maintain the natural beauty of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed while simultaneously preserving its resources for the communities it serves. S. 2707, The Chesapeake Bay Gateways and Water Trails Network Continuing Authorization Act, will permanently authorize appropriations for these vital programs. I cosponsored this legislation because I believe it is a critical organization whose mission to protect the bay is vital for the communities affected by this watershed. Another environmental act I have fervently supported and of which I am an original cosponsor, is S. 496, the Appalachian Regional Development Act Amendments of 2008. The bill renews the Appalachian Regional Commission for 5 years--2007-2011--and authorizes $510 million to be appropriated over that timeframe for the Commission's economic development activities in distressed rural counties. Numerous health care provisions I have worked hard for can also be found in this package, including S. 1382, which establishes a registry of those suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, ALS, better known as Lou Gehrig's disease. The registry will gather data about those who are diagnosed with the disease to better understand and research the illness. As Ranking Member of the Labor, Health and Human Services and Education--LHHS--Appropriations Subcommittee, I support research and an ALS registry. I worked to provide $39 million for NIH research of ALS in 2008 and $2.8 million to plan the ALS registry. I am also a cosponsor of S. 1183, the Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis Act, to expand paralysis research at the National Institutes of Health, NIH, and set up a network to allow patients and their families to quickly learn the result of clinical trials on paralysis rehabilitation drugs. The LHHS fiscal year 2008 appropriations bill provided $64 million for NIH spinal cord research. The package also included bills, H.R. 3112, S. 1810 intended to create a new Federal grant program to pay for information and support services regarding Down syndrome and other prenatally or postnatally diagnosed conditions. While awaiting these authorization bills, I have worked with Senator Harkin to get a jump start on these much-needed activities by including $1 million to establish the congenital disabilities program in the fiscal year 2009 Labor, HHS, and Education Appropriations bill. In addition, the Labor-HHS Subcommittee provided almost $1 million to the CDC in fiscal year 2009 for awareness activities related to Down syndrome. One of the bills, H.R. 477, would permit the issuing of grants to states for stroke care systems. As ranking member of the Labor-HHS Appropriations Subcommittee, I have worked to increase CDC funding for heart disease and stroke activities in the States to over $50 million and NIH funding for stroke research to over $340 million in fiscal year 2008. Another bill, S 1375, would establish a grant program for services to mothers suffering from postpartum depression. As ranking member of the Labor-HHS Appropriations Subcommittee, I have worked with Chairman Harkin to include $4.9 million for a first-time motherhood initiative within the maternal and child health block grant. I also support S. 675, the Training for Realtime Writers Act of 2007. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 requires 100 percent closed captioning for all new English broadcast programming by January 1, 2006. That deadline has come and gone. There are not enough real time writers and captioners to meet this unfunded mandate out in the workforce. Furthermore, the Telecommunications Act of 1996 requires 100 percent closed captioning for all new Spanish broadcast programming by January 1, 2010. America is very far from achieving this goal. S. 675 will assist with training the workforce to provide closed captioning for the 30 million Americans who are deaf or hard-of-hearing. I support H.R. 3320, the Support for the Museum of the History of Polish Jews Act of 2007, which requires assistance from the Department of State to support the development of a permanent collection at the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw, Poland. It is in the national interest of the United States to encourage the preservation and protection of artifacts associated with the heritage of U.S. citizens who trace their forbearers to other countries and to encourage the collection and dissemination of knowledge about that heritage. Most recently, I traveled to Poland on August 27, 2007, and observed fist hand the importance of museums that examine Poland in WW II, specifically the Polish uprising and the Home Army. The Museum of the History of Polish Jews will complement the current museum facilities in Warsaw by preserving and presenting the history of the Jewish people in Poland, which had the largest Jewish population in Europe at the beginning of World War II. Having outlined a number of priorities and areas of support I have with this omnibus bill, let the record show that I support the package as a whole. However, as evidenced by my vote against cloture on the motion to proceed to the bill, I believe the energy situation is too important to set aside until we have completed or frankly even started our work on it by allowing amendments to be considered. It has been said on this floor that explaining opposition to this omnibus bill to our constituents will be difficult. While this premonition may have some merit, I trust that the people of Pennsylvania and the Nation will support efforts to deal with high energy prices and encouraging the kind of open and fair debate that leads to better policies across the board. I reinitiate my suggestion that the Senate stay in session during the month of August, if the majority leader would hold a legitimate session that provides the kind of deliberation that has led many to call the U.S. Senate ``the greatest deliberative body in the world.'' Members of this body should be prepared to work as long and hard as necessary in order to reach a solution to the energy crisis not based upon political appeasement, but results. It is time we allow debate and compromise to reverberate through this chamber as we find areas of agreement in the best tradition of the Senate.

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I have sought recognition to pay tribute to my late colleague from North Carolina, Senator Jesse Helms. I look back upon his career in the U.S. Senate and remember a true champion of conservative values; a Senator who stood by his convictions with a tenacity for which he will long be remembered. Senator Helms was initially introduced to public service by his father, who served their North Carolina community as both the fire chief and the chief of police. After working in print, radio, and television journalism and serving on the Raleigh City Council, Jesse Helms decided to run for Senate in 1972 and proved his political mettle by defeating three opponents to win the seat. Senator Helms spent the next 30 years serving five terms in the Senate, leaving behind a legacy of uncompromising and unapologetic conservatism. He could boast of many accomplishments during his career, including being dubbed ``Senator No,'' a moniker he earned for standing strong against issues he felt threatened the conservative agenda. Senator No chaired the Agriculture Committee from 1981-1987 and the Foreign Relations Committee from 1995-2001, where he had a hand in cultivating many important pieces of legislation. His firm stance against tyranny led to successful negotiations and passage of a bill to assist Cuban citizens, organized efforts to bring more countries into the NATO alliance, and supported the development of a missile defense system to defend our allies abroad. Senator Helms also made his presence known on the national campaign trail where played a pivotal role in fostering the conservative agenda in Ronald Reagan's presidential campaign in 1976. His efforts were so effective he was asked to participate again in 1980. Clearly ``Senator No,'' a moniker he earned for standing strong against issues he felt threatened the conservative agenda, helped the future President shape his conservative message. Senator Helms and I may have differed on many issues, but I respected his wide array of knowledge and the vigor with which he defended them. I am glad to say I served in this chamber with Jesse Helms and will always honor his passion for life and dedication to service in the Senate.

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I have sought recognition to recognize the Air Force Office of Special Investigations on its 60th anniversary, August 1, 2008. The Office of Special Investigations was created in 1948 at the suggestion of the 80th Congress. The secretary of the Air Force, Stuart Symington, consolidated and centralized the investigative services of the U.S. Air Force to create an organization that would conduct independent and objective criminal investigations. Since 1948, the Office of Special Investigations has evolved to meet the changing needs of the Air Force. It has matured into a highly effective war-fighting unit while maintaining the standards of a greatly respected Federal law enforcement agency. The Office of Special Investigations has truly adapted to fulfill the needs of the U.S. Air Force in the 21st century. At present, 3,200 men and women serve in the Air Force Office of Special Investigations. In more than 220 offices around the globe, these men and women perform the investigative work of the U.S. Air Force wherever and whenever they are needed. I am proud to be counted among the alumni of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations. I served as a young lieutenant in the Office of Special Investigations from 1951 through 1953 and was assigned to the Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Delaware District. My experience allowed me to serve my country, hone my investigative skills, and prepare for a career in law and in Government. It gives me great pleasure, to recognize and salute the Air Force Office of Special Investigations on the occasion of its 60th anniversary. In a time of unprecedented change and challenges, the Air Force Office of Special Investigations has answered the call of the Air Force, the Department of Defense, and the Nation.

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, how much time remains?

Mr. SPECTER. How much time remains on this side of the aisle?

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I ask for 3 minutes.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I am using this time even though my position differs from what I believe will be the Republican caucus position, and I have asked for only 3 minutes. I will support cloture on this issue because I am a prime sponsor of the bill. I do not like displacing the pending legislation on the oil speculators bill, but I believe if we are to move forward on that measure, we will do so in any event regardless of what happens here. I have supported the Republican caucus position in opposing advancing legislation where we have been denied the opportunity to offer amendments, but that is not an issue on a motion to proceed. I believe this bill is of enormous importance, and if we do not act on it now, it will not be acted on for the balance of the Congress, and who knows what will happen next year. I spoke at length on the merits of this subject yesterday, and the essence of my position is that reporters have been intimidated--a chilling effect--by the subpoenas which have been issued. The record shows a tremendous number of subpoenas have been issued, and there have been incarcerations of reporters. I will put in the record the details of one of those involved, Judith Miller of the New York Times, who spent 85 days in jail and whom I personally visited. There is no doubt about the extremely high value in our society of a free press and an investigative press for the disclosure of corruption, malfeasance, and wrongdoing at all levels in public life and in private life. I think Jefferson expressed it best when he said if he had to choose between government without newspapers or newspapers without government, he would choose newspapers without government. So I believe this is a very important matter to go forward. I didn't want to use time on Senator McConnell's watch, if anybody objected to it, but there is no other Republican on the floor, and I have used only 3 minutes, leaving the remaining 4 minutes and some seconds to anybody else who chooses to speak. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I have sought recognition to speak on the Free Flow of Information Act, which is the reporters' privilege legislation. At the outset, I thank the cosponsors, Senators Schumer, Lugar, Dodd, and Graham. I especially thank Senator Lugar for his contribution to this legislation, because he was the first to take a stand for this issue some time ago. This legislation is very important to maintain the flow of information to the American people from the newspapers and radio and television stations. It is necessary because we have seen in recent times a flurry of subpoenas being issued to reporters to disclose their confidential sources. A reporter's source of information depends upon their being able to fulfill a commitment of confidentiality. It is unnecessary to recite the long history of the investigative reporting which has provided so much good to the American people or, for that matter, the people of the world. We have had reporters ferret out corruption in government, misfeasance, and wrongdoing. Senators turn the first part of every day to the newspapers to see what is occurring in the world. Frequently in the mix of the news, there are investigative reports which tell Senators more than even our staffs know. I believe Thomas Jefferson put it best in the founding days of the Republic, when he said that if he had to choose newspapers without government or government without newspapers, he would choose newspapers without government. This legislation passed the Senate Judiciary Committee by the decisive vote of 15 to 4. A version passed the House of Representatives by an overwhelming margin of 398 to 21. It is worth noting that both of the presumptive candidates for President are supportive of this legislation. Senator Obama is a cosponsor, and Senator McCain has publicly confirmed that he would vote for this legislation. A group of some 40 sitting State attorneys general, including both Democrats and Republicans, have written in support of this legislation. More than 100 newspapers from all parts of the country have endorsed this legislation, including the Washington Post, the Washington Times, the New York Times, and the Philadelphia Inquirer. I will make a part of the Record a full list of those newspapers and public media operations in support of this legislation. There have been some 72 subpoenas issued since 2006. The chilling effect has been overwhelming, in part because of the issuance of subpoenas and contempt citations. For example, the case of Judith Miller of the New York Times has received extensive publicity. She was jailed for around 85 days for failing to disclose the source of information she had in the case involving the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame. It has always been a mystery to me why Judith Miller was held in contempt, when it was known that Deputy Secretary of State Armitage was the source of the information. But a special prosecutor subpoenaed numerous witnesses and conducted a very high profile publicity investigation. Ultimately, Judith Miller spent 85 days in jail under very unpleasant circumstances. I can personally attest to the conditions because Michael O'Neal, my chief counsel when I chaired the Judiciary Committee, and I visited her in the Virginia prison where she was detained. The legislation which we are proposing is necessary to maintain the flow of information. I think it is vital to emphasize that this legislation benefits the American people, allowing them access to the news and information that results from investigative reporting. Investigative reporting has done so much for the public welfare in disclosing fraud, corruption, misfeasance, and wrongdoing at all levels of the Government, as well as at all levels of private, corporate, and public life. This issue and the vote which is imminent pose a problem for this Senator because of the practice which has evolved to preclude amendments from being offered. We are only facing tomorrow the motion for cloture on the motion to proceed. I do think we ought to proceed to this bill. It is my hope that the majority leader will not act to preclude other Senators from offering amendments. This is a subject I have addressed at considerable length on the global warming bill. I have talked about it on the FAA bill. I have discussed it with the oil speculators bill. It is a matter of great concern as to what has happened to the operation of the Senate. When I came to this world's greatest deliberative body some 28 years ago, the tradition of the Senate had been maintained that any Senator could offer virtually any amendment on any bill at any time. That was the great unique quality of the Senate and the ability of any Senator to offer an amendment to call public attention to an important issue, to have the floor of the Senate to publicize the issue and to move for the enactment of legislation. But what has happened, surprisingly only in the last 15 years--and it has happened by majority leaders of both parties--is that a procedure has been adopted on what is called filling the tree. That is an arcane expression, known only inside the Beltway. But let me explain it. When a bill is on the agenda, it is the prerogative of the majority leader to call for action of the Senate. Then the majority leader, under Senate practice and custom, has the right of first recognition. So that the rule that the first Senator to ask for recognition gets the recognition is true, unless the majority leader has sought recognition. On cases of a tie, it is the majority leader. As a matter of practice, nobody challenges the majority leader's right to first recognition. So after the bill is before the Senate, the majority leader then offers an amendment. Then he offers another amendment. Without going into all of the details, a procedure is adopted where no other Senator can offer an amendment. What has happened on global warming, for example, where I came to the floor and outlined four amendments which I intended to offer on a very important bill, I was precluded from offering them, because the Senate majority leader had taken action to put this procedure in effect on so- called filling the tree. The FAA bill came up, which had funding for a new satellite system for air safety. I had amendments to offer, very important for my State, on overflights from the Philadelphia International Airport and for scheduling issues, where the airport was overscheduled, leading to long delays; people, myself included, sitting on the tarmac waiting to take off. The tearing that I undertake is a result, for those who see me wiping my eyes, not for any sorrow about what I am doing but a consequence of having Hodgkin's. It makes a fellow pale and thin. Tough but tolerable, as I put it, and I have been able to stay on the job. But if anybody is watching on C-SPAN 2, which is highly doubtful, they may wonder why I am tearing. I am not crying. I am tearing because of the impact of all of the chemicals from the treatment of Hodgkin's. At any rate, I was commenting about the Philadelphia airport. This affects the State of New Jersey. The Presiding Officer is a Senator from the State of New Jersey. You sit on the tarmac at the Philadelphia airport for a long time because they are overbooked. It is like a restaurant that has 100 seats and they put in 150 patrons. Well, you can't get your table on a reservation. You have a flight leaving at 7 a.m. You wait until many other planes have left. Or when you land, the airport is overbooked, and it is not a very pleasant sensation to circle the city of Philadelphia for a long period of time in the fog and in the rain, wondering how good those air controllers are. They are pretty good, but it is something you wonder about in any event. We weren't able to offer amendments on the FAA bill. We haven't been able to offer amendments on the oil speculators bill. The headlines in the newspapers over the weekend were: Republicans block oil speculators bill. They recited the Senators from the Philadelphia region, and they noted that the distinguished Senator who is presiding now, Senator Menendez, voted in favor of advancing the bill, as did Senator Lautenberg, as did Senator Casey, as did Senator Carper, as did Senator Biden. Only Arlen Specter voted not to advance the bill. You don't get the picture in a short story. You don't get the picture in the recitation of the vote that I voted against cloture because neither I nor any other Senator had the opportunity to offer amendments. So that if we get to that point, I am conflicted as to what to do. But I don't think we will face that tomorrow with the motion to proceed. I am hopeful we will pass that by a very substantial majority. There have been opponents who have come to the floor to debate this bill. It is important to note that as a result of the hearings which were held when I was chairman, Senator Kyl stated there have been no hearings on this bill in the 110th Congress. Well, when I chaired the Judiciary Committee in the 109th Congress in 2005 and 2006, we had three hearings on the subject and went into the issue in some detail. Senator Kyl said the Government could not get information to investigate an act of terrorism. That is not so. The bill states specifically that it is reasonably likely to stop, prevent, or mitigate any, or identify the perpetrator of an act of international terrorism or domestic terrorism, there will be no shield. Those who have raised objections to the bill have been taken into account. The bill has been substantially improved. For example, the bill now explicitly states that sensitive governmental information will not be disclosed in open court. The provisions have always been subjected to the Classified Information Protection Act. It had always been available to prosecutors. But when the concern was raised, we put in the specific provision that a ``Federal court may receive and consider submissions from the parties in camera or under seal, and where the court determines appropriate, ex parte'' in order to protect sensitive information. The bill further provides that the definition of a covered person has been narrowed to ensure it protects only legitimate journalists. The definition of the Second Circuit has been adopted. That definition has worked very well. It requires that the individual have the intent to distribute the information to the public and that he or she had such intent at the time that he or she gathered the information. The provision also provides that even if terrorists pose as journalists, they do not qualify for the act's protections. The modifications create an expedited appeals process, ensuring that litigation regarding whether the privilege applies will be quickly resolved. This is motivated by the case involving USA Today reporter, Tony Loci, who was held in contempt of court and fined $5,000 a day. The judge entered an order that her employer or friends and relatives could not pay it. Fortunately for Tony Loci, that case was settled so the contempt citation did not stand. Numerous journalists across the country have seen what happened to Tony Loci and Judith Miller. It has had a very chilling effect on their activities. People who might give sensitive information under the promises of confidentiality are reluctant to share that information. Also, under the revisions, prosecutors will not have to prove they have exhausted all other options for finding the information or the information is essential to their investigation. So what we have, in essence, is very important legislation. It is very important to the functioning of the democracy that there be a free press to report to the American people what has happened, especially on investigative reporting. You cannot have a free press if a reporter cannot obtain information from a confidential source, promise confidentiality, and then deliver. And you cannot have a free press if people such as Tony Loci and Judith Miller are subjected to contempt citations--large fines with Tony Loci, actual imprisonment with Judith Miller of some 85 days. So this bill is long past due. I am glad to see it brought to the floor. I am hopeful the majority leader will not pursue a course of filling the tree to preclude amendments. I am hopeful we can return to the day when the Senate regains its luster as the world's greatest deliberative body, which means that any 1 of the other 99 Senators can offer amendments, and that it is not just the one Senator, the senior Senator from Nevada, who has the position of majority leader, who can, in effect, dictate what happens in the Senate. Yesterday, we had a heated exchange on the floor. When we finished voting on the cloture motion, the majority leader refused to allow a quorum call to be taken off. If anyone may be watching on C-SPAN, a quorum call is when there is the absence of a quorum. There are frequent quorum calls when no one seeks recognition. But it is a relatively infrequent occurrence that there is quorum. A quorum means 51 or more Senators. Right now, we are 50 Senators short of a quorum. Most of the time, you only have a few Senators on the floor who may be speaking--three or four. When there are votes, there are many Senators on the floor. But it is a relatively rare occurrence that a quorum is present. So if someone suggests there is an absence of a quorum, there is a quorum call. And a quorum call cannot be taken off except by unanimous consent or to have a live quorum or to have a motion for the attendance of absent Senators. But, invariably, when there is a quorum call and someone asks unanimous consent--or virtually invariably--it is granted unless somebody wants to hold up an action on something that is pending. But I have not seen, in my tenure in the Senate, a denial of an application to eliminate the quorum call so speeches can be made. I and other Senators were waiting for more than an hour. And in conjunction with what the majority leader has done on filling the tree in denying 99 other Senators--mostly minority Senators--the right to offer amendments and refusing to allow the quorum to be lifted, I used the word ``tyrannical,'' and I stand by that. This body is a great body and has earned great prestige worldwide and I think has earned the stature of the world's greatest deliberative body because of the ability of Senators to offer amendments and the ability of Senators to speak. To be on this floor in a quorum call and to be denied an opportunity to speak is not quite a denial of my first- amendment rights. I can go to the Radio and TV Gallery and call a news conference or walk out and talk to reporters or go on the steps. But having been elected to the Senate, and having a commission to serve here, when no one is on the floor speaking, and there is no reason why I ought to be denied an opportunity to speak except for the technicality of a quorum call, I take umbrage at it. It is just one indication of how we have to go back to the--well, you might call them the old days. Maybe they were good old days, where the Senate functioned with every Senator being able to offer amendments. A critical part of the functioning of our Government, I suggest, is the ability of the free press to function and reporters to get confidential information, to be able to promise confidentiality and to be able to deliver without being fearful of being held in contempt of court and being put in jail. Mr. President, before yielding the floor, I ask unanimous consent that the full text of a substitute be printed in the Record, which contains the modifications referred to in the course of my oral statement.

Mr. SPECTER. I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. I would like 10 to 15 minutes tops.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I thank the senior Senator from Illinois. I had sought recognition to try to speak about an hour ago, 5 past 6, but we were in a quorum call. If there is somebody watching on C-SPAN, they probably don't understand what is going on on the Senate floor. But a quorum call can't be taken off if one Senator objects. As I said earlier, the majority leader objected until he got to the floor and took off the quorum call. Then I made a number of comments in a discussion with the Senator from Oklahoma. For those who do not know the Senate procedures, I could only ask him a question, could not make any statements. Although the Senator from Alabama engaged in a considerable amount of comments without questions, the majority leader objected when I sought recognition. So I now want to address a few basic points in what is going on. The institutions of the Senate are very important to this country. That is because this body has been called the world's greatest deliberative body, because under the precedents, any Senator can offer any amendment to any bill at any time, virtually. There are some limitations, but that is the valid generalization. If you combine that with unlimited debate, this forum has been a place where ideas can be expressed, the public can hear them, the public can understand them, and momentous matters of public policy are decided by the Senate because of our ability to bring up these issues. Nobody can limit it. That has made America great. The Senate is a very important institution. Now, regrettably, in the past 15 years--and it has been the fault of both Democrats and Republicans; and I have not hesitated, as the record shows, to criticize the Republican caucus. I did so in some detail during the judicial battles during the Clinton administration, where I thought the Republican caucus was wrong in denying confirmation. I have voted in an independent way and have disagreed with Presidents of my own party and the majority of my own party. In noting what has happened on this procedure of filling the tree-- that is an arcane expression, but let me take a moment to explain it. When a bill is filed, called up by the majority leader, the majority leader then has what is called primacy of recognition. If two Senators seek recognition, and the majority leader is one of them, he has the right to recognition first. So he then offers an amendment to the pending bill. Then he offers another amendment in the second degree. I won't go on to detail the kinds of amendments, but the consequence is that no other Senator can offer any amendment. That is called filling the tree. Then, when the majority leader has done that, he moves for cloture. That is to cut off debate. Senator Reid did not invent this process. It had been used very sparingly until 1993, only 15 years ago. In one Congress, for example, the 101st Congress, 1989 to 1990, the Democratic majority leader, George Mitchell, did not use it at all. Then, in the session from 1993 to 1994, Senator Mitchell used it nine times. Then it got to be in vogue. Senator Lott used it nine times in the session from 1999 to 2000. Senator Frist then used it nine times in 2005 and 2006. Senator Reid has now used it 15 times, and it has had the consequence of precluding Senators from offering amendments. Let me be very specific. The global warming bill came to the floor on June 2 of this year. I had a whole series of amendments I wanted to offer, and came to the floor and talked about: No. 1, emission caps; No. 2, cost containment safety valve; No. 3, the energy-intensive manufacturing competitiveness amendment; and No. 4, the steel process gas emissions amendment. But what happened? Senator Reid filled the tree on June 4. I could not offer those amendments. Then, on June 6, he moved for cloture to cut off debate. Cloture was defeated 48 to 36. Then the bill was taken down. A similar thing happened on the FAA bill. It was called up on April 28--a very important bill because it was going to change air control practices using a satellite system to provide for greater safety. There were important amendments I wanted to offer on scheduling. We have overscheduling at the Philadelphia International Airport. People wait a long time for takeoffs and circle a long time on landings. I could not offer that amendment. There were also significant problems on flight patterns, and I could not offer that amendment. Now, regrettably, this has gone on on many bills for a very long time. Then, we have the oil speculators bill. It is important the Congress deal with the escalating prices of oil and gasoline at the pump-- heating oil. What has happened on the bill? There was a motion to proceed filed on July 17. On July 23, the tree was filled. Then the motion for cloture on the bill was defeated on July 25. So here we have no action. The only action is a lot of finger pointing. Senator Reid points at the Republicans, and the Republicans point back. Senator Reid says the Republicans killed the bill because they would not invoke cloture, and Republicans say that was caused by Senator Reid's filling the tree and not allowing us to offer amendments. Well, I am sorry Senator Reid is not on the floor at the moment. But he made a speech about explaining this to our constituents, and I do agree with him on that one point that it is going to be very hard to explain to our constituents why we have done what we have done. We had a vote on LIHEAP, low-income heat and energy assistance, last week. Senator Reid called that bill to the floor to put Senators such as Arlen Specter on the spot. I have been a proponent of funding for that second to none. As chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee having jurisdiction over that subject, enormous sums were added. But had that bill gone forward, the oil speculators bill would have been displaced. Now, it is very important in the long run that oil prices be dealt with for those people who need LIHEAP, who need heat in the winter in Pennsylvania and Maine and other States, or air-conditioning in the summer. It is going to be a job to explain it, there is no doubt about that. But I am willing to undertake that risk, that difficulty. I have town meetings all over Pennsylvania every year and will have a chance to talk to my constituents about it, and I am prepared to deal with it. Senator Reid said on the issue of suffering, if we are in in August, the Republicans will suffer more than the Democrats because there are more Republicans who are up for election. Well, I submit that the question of suffering by the American people is more important than whether there is more suffering by Democrats or Republicans in the Senate. I do believe it would be salutary and appropriate for the Congress to stay in session during the month of August providing we deal with real issues and providing we do not have weeks, as the Senate has had, where there are only one or two votes. We have plenty of time to deal with these issues if we allow Senators to offer amendments and if we then proceed to consider them, so that I call upon the majority leader to keep the Senate in session providing we take up the issues of oil prices and gasoline prices and providing we do not engage in the same circular, dilatory finger-pointing practices which have characterized the Senate for months now during the time when Senator Reid has offered 15 instances where the so-called tree has been filled and no other amendment can be offered by any Senator. When I quoted Senator Reid about his denouncing the filling of the tree, his comment was that I had supported Senator Frist, the majority leader, and it is not true. I did not support him on that. I think Senator Reid was exactly right when he objected to the procedure to foreclose amendments by saying that the filling of the tree ``is a very bad practice.'' These are Senator Reid's words: It runs against the basic nature of the Senate. The hallmark of the Senate is free speech and open debate. Senator Christopher Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, had this to say on the subject on May 11 of 2006: . . . to basically lock out any amendments that might be offered to this proposal runs contrary to the very essence of this body. . . . when the amendment tree has been entirely filled, then obviously we are dealing with a process that ought not to be. . . . the Senate ought to be a place where we can offer amendments, have healthy debate over a reasonable time, and then come to closure on the subject matter. This is not a new position I have taken. More than 18 months ago, on February 15, 2007, I introduced S. Res. 63 to change the standing rules of the Senate to bar the majority leader from filling the tree. So, in conclusion, I do believe the rules of the Senate and the way we have functioned to allow any Senator the opportunity, virtually, to offer any amendment at any time on any bill is a very precious procedure in our democracy and it is worth fighting for. It is worth fighting for even if it is going to be misunderstood on the litany of items which Senator Reid talks about. Illustratively, the people who have LIHEAP will be better served in the long run by a Senate where Senators can offer amendments and deal with the problems of the high price of oil in the long run by amendments such as the one Senator Kohl and I have offered to bring OPEC under the U.S. antitrust laws. When we talk about where the suffering exists, we ought to focus a little more on the American people who don't have the money to go on vacation in August with the high gasoline prices or with the high prices generally to take vacations at all. I am not anxious to come back in August, but I am prepared to do so, and I think it would be in the national and public interest to do so if we tackle the issue. The August session ought to be for oil and gas prices, and that would be worth our while. I thank the Senator from Illinois for agreeing to this time. I yield the floor.