Jeff Sessions

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. The Senator from Iowa looks at me. The majority leader won't allow you to speak. I was trying to give you 5 minutes.

Mr. SESSIONS. No, I object, Madam President. If the Senator is going to be speaking on his amendment, it is not mine. I don't like his amendment. I am going to give him 5 minutes out of courtesy. I am disappointed that the Senator from Arizona would not be able to respond.

Mr. SESSIONS. Reserving the right to object, under the circumstances and the nature of the amendment, I am prepared to yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Iowa from the balance of my time.

Mr. SESSIONS. I understand this would be time allotted to me. The Senator does still have his entitlement to speak on his amendment when that appropriate time comes.

Mr. SESSIONS. So we have a number of questions that cause us concern. I talked about wages. Let me mention the rule of law. Our Nation is founded on law. Edmund Burke, when he talked about reconciliation between the Colonies and the King, asked that there not be a war against the Colonies. He said: They follow us in law. He even said: I understand the Colonies have more copies of Blackstone's Commentaries on the law than they have in England. We have always been a nation of laws. It is our strength. We should not create a system that will not restore that law, even at our borders; otherwise, we are going to have a difficult situation. Under this bill, we carefully looked at the number. I don't think anyone will dispute it. The level of legal immigration will double-- double the amount of legal immigration. That is a number I don't think most Americans understand. I think they are worried about the current level, which is at about the highest this Nation has ever had--highest by far in real numbers we have ever had--and it is going to double, without any reduction in illegal immigration. So this is a bargain, a grand bargain we should not take. If we do, I think we will regret it because the American people are not going to be happy with us. By the way, the polls continue to show that our constituents overwhelmingly oppose this legislation. A decent respect for our own constituents, even if we might think them wrong, on an issue of this importance where they are so decidedly hostile to this legislation suggests we ought to slow down and listen to them and talk with them about what their concerns are and make sure when we go back home and campaign and seek reelection, we can look them in the eye and say: I heard your concern, and I fixed that concern, or I believe the legislation answers your concern. But here we have a completely new bill that has been plopped down on the Senate floor, first with over 700 pages, and then I guess last night there was a 370-page amendment, and that had so many errors in it that even the sponsors themselves have plopped down another amendment of 403 pages. They want to vote that through right away. I don't think that is what we owe our constituents. They say: Well, we have had 2 years of debate, and all that. We had a bill last year that was quite different from this one. It had some things in it better than this one. I thought this year's bill was going to be better, and said it was better several times, but it actually--as I have studied it, I am not sure it is any better. It is weaker in a number of different areas. For sure, it is weaker in a number of different areas. So that is a matter we should consider as we go forward with this legislation. I think we ought to give careful attention to what we are doing. I want to address one more very important matter that very fine Senators have raised. They have suggested one of the best things that is going to be happening with this legislation is everybody will be given an identification, and the Nation will be safer for that. Therefore, even if the bill is not perfect and has lots of problems, let's vote for it anyway because it has that in it. Let me share some thoughts with my colleagues on that issue. Michael Cutler, who is a retired INS--Immigration and Naturalization Service--senior agent, participated in a press conference last Thursday at the National Press Club. It focused on the grave threat to national security the immigration bill represents. He also authored an op-ed in the Washington Times last Friday entitled ``Immigration Bill a No Go.'' This is an experienced INS agent. He focused on the security question in the bill: Does it make us safer? This is what he said. I doubt our good friends who met in secret and wrote this bill asked his opinion, but this is what he says after reading it: If a person-- Let me quote: If a person lies about his or her identity and has never been fingerprinted in our country, what will enable the bureaucrats at the USCIS-- That is who will be checking his 24-hour background---- the bureaucrats at USCIS to know that person's true identity? If the adjudicators simply make a fictitious identity through a computerized database, they will simply find the name has no known connection to any criminal or terrorist watch list. What is the value of that? Remember, we are talking about a false name. There is absolutely no way this program would have even a shred of integrity and the identity documents that would be given these millions of illegal aliens would enable every one of them to receive a driver's license, Social Security card, and other such official identity documents in a false name. Undoubtedly, terrorists would be among those applying to participate in this ill-conceived program. They would then be able to open bank accounts and obtain credit cards in that false name. Finally, these cards would enable these aliens to board airlines and trains even if their true names appear on all of the various terrorist watch lists and no-fly lists. That is why I have come to refer to this legislation as the ``Terrorist Assistance and Facilitation Act of 2007.'' Do you get it? Unless you already happen to be fingerprinted and you come here and you are a known terrorist and you give a false name with some false electric bill, they will give you this temporary visa and you get an ID then. Before, if you are illegal, you would have a hard time getting a bank account or a Social Security card or a driver's license. Now, you are given one. You can travel all over the country with no problems. That is what he is saying. So in many ways, it is going to facilitate a dangerous situation. How about this gentleman, Mr. Kris Kobach, a former Department of Justice attorney under Attorney General Ashcroft, who specialized in the Department of Justice in terrorism and immigration issues and who has spoken out often and is a college professor now. He agrees with Mr. Cutler. He posted an article on the Heritage Foundation Web site titled ``The Senate Immigration Bill: A National Security Nightmare.'' He says: The bill will make it easier for alien terrorists who operate in the United States by allowing them to create fraudulent identities with ease. Supporters of the Senate's comprehensive immigration reform bill have revived it under the guise of national security. However, the new public relations campaign is a farce. The bill offers alien terrorists new pathways to obtain legal status, which will make it easier for them to carry out deadly attacks against American citizens. The top priority in this bill is extending amnesty as quickly and as easily as possible to as many illegal aliens as possible. The cost of doing so is to jeopardize national security. That is Mr. Kris Kobach who has testified before Congress a number of times, former Assistant Attorney General specializing in immigration and national security issues. So I urge my colleagues to look at this bill because we don't need to pass a piece of legislation that we can't defend to our constituents, that we cannot tell our constituents with confidence it will make them safer. It will reduce illegality dramatically at the border 13 percent; 80, 90, 95 percent is the goal we should have to reduce illegality, and that should be the beginning point. We can get there. We don't need to pass a piece of legislation that is going to double the legal flow, not reduce the illegal flow, and end up having the wages of Americans further diminished by this incredibly large flow of low-skilled, low- wage workers. We don't need to further erode the morale of our Border Patrol officers and erode American confidence in the rule of law. Those are my thoughts. I hope we will give this serious consideration as we make our judgment tomorrow about whether we should proceed. If we don't proceed tomorrow, that is not the end. Of course, we are going to consider this bill and this issue--continue to consider it. Polling data suggests the American people, what they want us to do, is to take incremental steps focusing on enforcement. Why don't we just do that? We might could get that done. That would be what I suggest. Also, one more time, I urge my colleagues to give the most serious consideration to the procedure by which we are moving forward with this legislation. People have said it is unfair. I think it is unfair, but it is more than unfair. It is a historic departure from the traditions of the Senate. The leader of this Senate is arrogating to himself the ability to approve every single amendment that is voted on. No amendment can be voted on the leader does not approve. That is the way this clay pigeon has been set up. That has never been done before. Any Senators willing to come down here and battle and hold out and not give up can get his amendments up and voted on. I think it is a matter that most of us haven't fully comprehended yet. I think Senators who are proud of the great ability of individual Senators, when they feel strongly about an issue--it doesn't happen often--but they can stand up and make sure their amendments get voted on, and they have an opportunity to speak. Madam President, I reserve the remainder of my time and note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the Chair. I yield the floor and urge that we vote against cloture on this legislation.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Wyoming, a fine Senator and a great manager of legislation. I have to tell you we pretty well know this card check bill is going down like a lead balloon. We have an issue that has galvanized the attention of the American public--and we will be voting on that at the same time--and that is the immigration bill that we are about to go to. I think it is odd that the allocators of time allocated a rather small amount of time to Senator Enzi to allocate to those who oppose this legislation. Let me--since I only have 5 minutes and maybe now 4--see if I can succinctly say to my colleagues why the legislation before us today is a bad piece of legislation. Yes, we need to reform immigration; yes, we need to reform immigration in much the way those who are promoting this legislation say it should be reformed. But the bill we are going to vote on will not do that--very much like 1986, when the promoters of that bill said: Let's give amnesty to 3 million people and we will create a legal system in the future that will work. Why would I say that, that this bill does not work? Our own Congressional Budget Office, on June 4--this month--did an analysis of the legislation. They concluded that if this bill were to become law, illegal immigration would only be reduced 13 percent. What an astounding number. Only 13 percent? We have been hearing we must pass this immigration bill, and if you don't like amnesty, you must vote for it because that is the only way we are going to create a legal system of immigration in America. My analysis, before CBO came out with theirs, was that the bill would not be effective; it had loophole after loophole. They concluded the same. They say a 25-percent reduction in the border security and an increase in visa overstays nets a 13-percent reduction. That is in the CBO report, which is available to every Senator. We should look at that. How can we vote for legislation that we know is not going to work as it is promised to work? Second, I don't know that the American people or Members of this body realize it will double the legal immigration flow into America over the next 20 years, giving twice as many green card statuses, legal permanent resident statuses, as the current law provides. We are not going to get any substantial reduction in illegality. We are going to double illegality. It will cost, according to CBO, the Treasury of the United States $30 billion--not expenses of enforcement, none of that, but for additional welfare and other benefits that would be paid to those who come into the country illegally. Senator Biden talked about the middle class. This is not a little issue. I don't know that his numbers were exactly correct. But for some time I have been troubled by the fact that middle and lower skilled workers have not seen their income levels rise at the rate that corporate executives are seeing their income levels rise. Friday, when I left this body, right on the street there was a gentleman out there who had gray hair and a gray beard and he had a sign about jobs. I spoke to him. He said he opposed this immigration bill. He was a master carpenter from Melbourne, FL. He told me that he, in the 1990s, was making $75,000 a year. Now he is making a fraction of that. He is going to have to get out of the business. He attributed that solely to illegal immigration, this incredible flow of almost unlimited numbers of workers into his neighborhood, which had made his skill far less valuable. If we are concerned about the middle class, we have to ask how many workers this country can accept without seeing a marked drop in their income. The American people do not like this bill. Our phones are ringing off the hook. A decent respect for our constituents, I urge my colleagues, would be to say you have rejected this bill.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I want to share some thoughts about immigration and the situation in which we currently find ourselves and offer a bit perspective, I think fairly, on where we are. We are the world's most free nation and are having one of the strongest periods of economic growth--maybe our strongest ever. Billions of people all over the world, however, are in poverty and live in countries that are corrupt and backward. One expert has said that all would live a better life if they came to the United States. I think that is a true fact. We are indeed a nation of immigrants, and that heritage has caused us to continue one of the most generous legal immigration systems of any nation in the world. I submit, however, that immigration policy is an issue of national sovereignty, as Canada, Mexico, Spain, Japan, England--all nations understand and respect. This is an acknowledged fact. I chaired the Mexican-American Senate Interparliamentary Group for 2 years. We talked about those things. Everybody understands setting immigration policy is your nation's prerogative. It is amazing to me that our majority leader--in this case, our Democratic leader--will use the power of first recognition to call up an immigration bill again, just two weeks after the American people have basically rejected it. In fact, the polling numbers show that support for the Senate bill is dropping further and further. He then will use, I understand, an unprecedented, never-before-used procedure that would block amendments. This is the so-called clay pigeon procedure others have described. He will file a first degree amendment, and then file a second degree to it to fill the tree, so no other second-degree or unapproved amendments will be allowed votes. He will divide his own second degree into 20 or so amendments and then work every procedural trick in the book to ensure that the underlying bill and its 20 hand picked amendments move the legislation through this Senate as fast as possible. The mandarins who are managing this piece of legislation want it out of here. They don't want any more calls from their constituents. They don't want any more talk show people explaining some of the things that are in it. They want it off their plate. Good policy? Well, they say, that is for another day. We just want the bill out of here. Well, the opposition to this bill is gaining momentum. Thoughtful Senators who wanted to vote for something are analyzing the fine print of the bill and realizing that the ``vision'' bill supporters describe is not supported by the text. Senators are announcing that they will be voting no. Senators who participated in the debates and wanted to vote for something and hoped to be able to vote for this bill after examining it in more detail are indicating that they are going to vote against it. It is quite clear that the same special interest forces who produced the 1986 bill are the ones who worked behind the scenes to produce this one. It was produced in secret meetings of politicians without any public hearings. It did not go through a single committee markup. But you can be sure the activist open border immigration forces, and the business interests, were having their voices heard in these meetings. Does anybody doubt that? What about the American public? Were they in the room? Were their opinions sought after? What about experts in law enforcement, were their opinions sought after? I suggest not. The mandarins, in their faux wisdom, treated this as a political problem that could be solved by compromise. We have to pass something, they said. That was the mantra. So in the end it seems that passing something means passing anything, regardless of whether, in the end, it will work to end illegality or establish good policies that will serve our long-term national interest. This Senator will never support a bill that will fail as spectacularly as the 1986 legislation failed. I have to tell my colleagues, my best judgment, and we looked at this hard, is that this one will fail. Even the Congressional Budget Office, our investigative analysis arm, in its June 4--just a few weeks ago--cost estimate, says that illegality after the passage of this bill would be reduced a mere 13 percent. Mr. President, 8.7 million illegal aliens would be expected over the 20-year period instead of 10 million under current law. That is what their estimate is. So our masters--and I say that affectionately; I call them masters of the universe. These are good friends and good Senators. They have tried to do something. They got it in their head that if they just all met and they just put out the realpolitik and they worked out the political deals and split the babies and all this, they could do a bill that served America's interests. I watched with interest. I thought some of the things they said they wanted to accomplish were good improvements over last year's bill. But I have to tell you, I don't believe it worked. I don't believe they got there. They don't want to pay attention to those of us who question what they have done, you see. They believe they are wonderful and bright and thoughtful and love America and are compassionate. The rest of us, they say you see, we are nativists. They say we just oppose immigration-- despite the fact that we don't oppose immigration. They say we don't like immigrants. They say we don't have courage. How many times have I heard that? You have to have courage to vote for this turkey, I guess. That is supposed to be something that would be good. But sometimes I think hanging in here and opposing the machinery of this process takes a little gumption on the part of those of us who oppose it. They say we do not believe in immigration or we lack compassion. I want to reject those charges flatout. They are false. I believe in immigration. I believe in a guest worker program. But I want a guest worker program that will work, will not be an avenue of expanded illegality, as the CBO said this one will. In fact, because of the guest worker program, the Congressional Budget Office has said visa overstays, those people who come in legally but do not go home when they are supposed to, will increase under this bill, not decrease. I thought we were supposed to be fixing illegality not enhancing illegality. So I wish to say to my colleagues, first, it is indisputable that the passage of this bill will not create a lawful system of immigration. This bill does not live up to their promises. Our good friends the masters came out of their secret meeting, and they announced they had fixed immigration; they announced that they had a comprehensive plan that is going to fix immigration, and that we are finally going to end this illegality. But their own Congressional Budget Office that responds to them, that responds to the Democratic leaders, Senator Reid or Speaker Pelosi, it is pretty much a nonpartisan group, but they are under the control of the Congress. This group under the control of the Congress says it will not work, says visa overstays will increase and the net impact on illegal immigration only be to reduce illegal immigration by 13 percent. Now, I consider that one event so significant, so earth shaking, that I cannot see how the Majority Leader could still take up this legislation and jam it down the throat of this Senate through an unprecedented procedure to pass it, especially when the American people do not like it either. So it will not create a lawful system. We can be sure of that. We felt that when we analyzed it. My chief counsel, Cindy Hayden, and others looked at it, we found loophole after loophole. I made a speech of about 20 loopholes that were in the legislation. There were many more than the specific 20 I talked about. But we knew it was not going to be an effective law enforcement bill. It was not going to secure the border. So what does the CBO say? They agreed with our analysis. Secondly, what else is fundamentally in here? The legislation fails to move to a merit-based system and, in fact, triples low-skilled and chain migration over the next 8 years. The promise was made that the bill would move us to a system more like Canada has, which makes so much sense; a system that Canada is very proud of. They believe it serves the Canadian interest. They still have the same number of refugees and humanitarian immigrants that they always did, but they have--with regard to the rest of their immigration policy--reached a point where 60 percent of the people who enter into Canada have to come through a point system. If you are admitted and come in, you can bring your wife and children, but to do that, you basically have to first demonstrate that you can contribute to Canada. One of the things they gave you points for, in an objective evaluation, is education. We know that if an immigrant has had any college courses, they do much better economically. They ask if you speak English or French. You get extra points if you do that. You even get extra points if you are younger. You get extra points if you have skills Canada needs. They even give you points if you move to areas of Canada that are underpopulated and have a particular job shortage. That is the way the deal works. They promised we would have that in this legislation. That was part of the announcement. But when you read the fine print, you see that was eroded away in the political compromise. The bill's merit based system will not have any substantial effect until 8 years after this date. So I don't know what will happen in 8 years. You never know. But we would like to see this kind of thing in the bill. I congratulate the people who produced it, that they began to discuss it because last year it was not even discussed. I talked about it on the floor repeatedly. I asked how we could debate comprehensive immigration reform and nobody even ask what they are doing in Canada. So they put the Canadian system in here. But it is so weak that it is a great disappointment. Well, I indicated that illegal immigration would only drop 13 percent. What about the proposal for legal immigration on the legislation? Well, it is going to go up 100 percent. Legal immigration will double in the next 20 years. Now we have looked at the numbers. I think this is indisputable. We will have twice as many people getting legal permanent residence over the next 20 years as we would under current law. I am not sure when the average citizen listened to our colleagues and they announced on that big day, the grand bargain, that we were talking about a proposal that would hardly limit legal immigration at all and would double legal immigration, I don't think that is what they had in mind when comprehensive reform was discussed. What about cost? The Congressional Budget Office dealt with that issue. They have to score legislation. Well, what does the cost factor say? Under the CBO analysis, the cost to the taxpayers of the United States--now I wanted to make this clear, this is not for border enforcement, Border Patrol acts, barriers or anything such as that-- this is costs that will be incurred by the recipients of amnesty, who will be given amnesty under this bill, because all of a sudden they will be entitled to welfare, Medicare, and other types of tax credits and other types of benefits. They concluded this legislation will add to the taxpayers of America an additional $25 billion in cost over the next 10 years. They have admitted, without any hesitation, those costs will greatly increase in the outyears, because the way this thing is staggered, people's benefits do not come immediately. But as the years go by, they are entitled to more welfare and social benefits. So they have admitted we are going to have an increase significantly in the future because, in fact, the persons who are here illegally, for the most part, have little education. Approximately half, maybe even more, do not have a high school diploma at all, and their skill levels are low. We have statics and scientific data on that. I am not disparaging anyone. I respect anyone who works hard and wants to come to America and work hard. I respect that. But I can say with certainty these are basically low-wage workers that are going to be legalized. My fifth point is, that the way the bill is written, it will reduce the wages of working Americans. We bring in more cotton in this country, the price of cotton goes down. You bring in more iron ore, the price of iron ore goes down. If you reduce the amount of oil coming into the country, the price of oil goes up. You bring in more laborers, the price of labor goes down. I would submit that if one of the charges I have made out of these five is true, this legislation should be pulled from the floor; it should not become law. But I am going to take a few moments now to demonstrate, I believe with hard evidence, all of these charges are true. The legislation, in effect, will not end the unlawfulness of our current system and will shift the balance against American workers and create another amnesty that will encourage even more illegals in the future. The effect will be to continue the erosion of confidence by the American people in Congress, and in the Government overall, which is at an all time low, virtually. I am not sure since I have been in the Senate, we have such a large number of people who believe this country is on the wrong track. I have to believe, and experts have told me, that their distrust and dissatisfaction over immigration is a big part of the way, the cause of this cynicism. Let me take some points here, one by one. Will this grand bargain we are presented with create an honest, legal, fair system for the future? The answer is no. That was our conclusion after we studied the bill. But let's look at what others might say. I mentioned the CBO study. They said specifically that the bill would limit the amount of illegal flow across our border by 25 percent but would increase illegal visa overstays significantly. The net result was only a 13-percent reduction in illegals, from 10 million illegals projected to come into our country under current law over the next 10 years, to 8.7 illegals coming in over the next 10 years. That is a 13-percent reduction only. That is not good enough. We should be at the 80, 90 percent of increased lawfulness. Aren't we trying to create a system of law? I was a Federal prosecutor for 15 years, 12 years as U.S. attorney. This is not acceptable. People come to America because they believe we are a Nation of laws; their rights will be protected. I happened to be at a birthday party reception for a friend of mine. A lady from England there came up to me and she said: I hope you stand up for this. She had a distinct British accent. She said: I thought you ought to play right by the law and people shouldn't come in illegally. I tried to do the right thing. Well, what about others? What do they say? What experts are out there who know something about immigration? What do they think of this bill? What about Border Patrol officers, people who carry out their daily responsibilities to enforce the border, who have lived with this illegality for so long? They are real experts. I assure you they were not in the meeting with the masters of the universe when they crafted this legislation. They know what is happening. A group of them, a prominent group of retired Border Patrol officers held a press conference at the National Press Club on June 4. Their purpose was to express their opinion about the legislation. I have to tell you, their opinions are not a pretty sight. I am going to quote from them and show you what they said; not what this Senator said but what they said. Hugh Brien, the former Chief of the Border Patrol from 1986 to 1989, after the 1986 failed bill became law--He was appointed by former President George H.W. Bush. He is himself an immigrant to America. He came here as a young man. This is what he had to say about the bill. It is, he said: A complete betrayal of the Nation. Is that harsh? It was his job. That is what he said about it. He went on to say: It is a slap in the face. To the millions who came here legally, such as the lady I met today, such as a lady from India who was written up in the Montgomery Advertiser, I believe, yesterday, who talked about having to hire a lawyer and filing all of the paperwork and taking several years, but she was proud to be here legally, and she did not appreciate people coming illegally, or such as the lady I met at a funeral not long ago who had come into this country after a number of years who said: I hope you make the law enforced for everybody equally; I did it right. Now don't tell me that when you ignore law there are no consequences. In a real sense, as my experience as a prosecutor says, when you don't enforce the law, you make chumps of the guys who do it right, and when you provide benefits to those who cheat, it is not a good thing for a Nation who respects its legal system. What else did Mr. Hugh Brien, former head of the Border Patrol say? He said: It is a sell-out. He went on to note that in 1986, when this same debate was occurring and he was about to take office as the head of the immigration system, and these are the words he used--it is not funny, he said: Our masters, our mandarins, promised us their bill would work. These are tough words, but these are people who are entitled to express them. They are not my words. Powerful politicians who are unaware of the reality of what it takes to actually create a legal enforcement system without experience in these matters have arrogantly cut a political deal and they have cut one, unfortunately, that doesn't work. I guess that is not too far from the definition of a mandarin. Mr. Hugh Brien added these final important words: Based on my experience, it's a disaster. He has the experience to say so. He was charged with enforcing the 1986 immigration law which proved to be a disaster and he did, as chief of the Border Patrol from 1986 to 1989. What about the national chairman of the Association of Former Border Patrol Agents, Kent Lundgren. This is what he had to say. He had some harsh words, too. With regard to the promise that the system will do 24-hour background checks, he said, after studying the bill, there are ``no meaningful criminal or terrorist checks'' in the bill. That is a bad thing. We have been told this bill will make us safer. He says there are no meaningful criminal or terrorist checks in the bill. He knows how the system works and how this 24-hour check will occur. He is scoring the screening procedure set forth in the bill saying ``the screening will not happen, period.'' He added: ``There's no way records can be done in 24 hours.'' As to the promise that this bill will work, he concluded--these are not my words; he is presently the associational head of the former Border Patrol Officers, the national president: ``Congress is lying about it.'' On a separate issue, the provision that allows gang members, even members of the very violent international MS-13 gang, to become lawful permanent residents if they check a box to renounce their gang membership, he said, ``What planet are they from,'' talking about us. Why would our colleagues write a bill that allowed for this? These are real views, harsh views of a man who led the border patrol association and had a press conference a few weeks ago to express deep concern. Another one at the press conference was Jim Dorsey, a former Border Patrol agent, who served 30 years. He served as inspector general with the Department of Justice. He was promoted up from the Border Patrol, which is a part of the Department of Justice, to the Department of Justice, and was given responsibility to investigate serious allegations of corruption. That is quite a responsible position to be chosen for that as investigator. He had these things to say: ``The 24- hour check is a recipe for disaster.'' As to the overall legislation, Mr. Dorsey said at the National Press Club: ``I call it the al-Qaida dream bill.'' Roger Brandemuehl, chief of the Border Patrol from 1980 to 1986 under President Reagan--this is another chief of the Border Patrol for 6 years under President Reagan--he said: ``We have fallen into a quagmire.'' He added: ``The so-called comprehensive reform is neither comprehensive nor reform. It's flawed.'' What about the current Border Patrol Association, the Border Patrol union? It is not just the retired patrol officers who oppose the bill; the current ones do as well. In May, the National Border Patrol Council, affiliated with the AFL-CIO, sent out a press release titled ``Senate Immigration Reform Compromise is a Raw Deal for America.'' These are the people who are out doing it every day. The press release stated: Every person who has ever risked their life securing our boarders is extremely disheartened to see some of our elected representatives once again waving the white flag on issues of illegal immigration and border security. Rewarding criminal behavior has never induced anyone to abide by the law, and there's no reason to believe that the outcome will be any different in this case. I spent the better part of my professional career as a prosecutor. If you make it clear that you are not going to enforce laws, people assume the laws won't be enforced. In fact, when law enforcement officers don't enforce the law, they de facto wipe out legislative actions and eviscerate policy. You have to enforce the laws. He goes on to say: Passage of time has proven the 1986 amnesty to be a mistake of colossal proportions. Instead of wiping the slate clean, it spurred a dramatic increase in illegal immigration. He goes on: Rather than the meaningless triggers of the additional personnel and barriers outlined in the compromise, Americans must insist that border security be measured in absolute terms. That is a strong, crystal-clear condemnation of this act by the officers whose lives are on the line this very moment on our border trying to enforce our laws. Are we going to listen to them? Or are we going to listen to our mandarins, our masters meeting in secret, who plopped a bill down here, 700 pages long, that they say will make the system work? I wish it would. I even had hopes this spring, and I said so publicly. I was hoping they might make real progress. But I am afraid we haven't. Talk to the experts. Talk to CBO. This is a another very significant, but discrete issue that I believe we should think about, and it is a weakness I had not fully comprehended until I read a piece in the Washington Times by Michael Cutler on June 21. He also participated in a press conference, a different one than the Border Patrol one, at the National Press Club on June 19. The event focused on the grave threat to national security the immigration bill represents. Mr. Cutler authored an op-ed in the Washington Times last Friday entitled ``Immigration Bill Is a No Go'' that focused on security issues raised by the bill. People are going to be invited to come in who are here illegally, give their name and so forth, and within 24 hours they will be receiving a legal status in the country, a probationary visa. It will soon be converted into this Z visa that people will have, but immediately within 24 hours, they will be provided that, unless something shows up of a serious nature in their background. But as these experts have told us, it is not possible to do a very effective check in 24 hours, as you can imagine. Even though you can do a computer run, it still has great weaknesses in it. So he focuses on this whole issue and says this: If a person lies about his or her identity and has never been fingerprinted anywhere in our country, what will enable the bureaucrats at the USCIS-- that is the agency that will be handing out the immigration benefits-- to know the person's true identity? If the adjudicators simply run a fictitious identity through a computerized database, they will simply find the name has no connection to any criminal or terrorist watch lists. I am quoting him now. What is the true value? Remember, we are talking about a false name. Let me continue quoting: There is absolutely no way this program would have even a shred of integrity and the identity documents that would be given these millions of illegal aliens would enable every one of them to receive a driver's license, Social Security card, and other such official identity documents in a false name. Undoubtedly, terrorists would be among those applying to participate in this ill-conceived program. They would then be able to open bank accounts and obtain credit cards in that same false name. Finally, these cards would enable these aliens to board airliners and trains even if their true names appear on all of the various terrorist watch lists and ``no fly'' lists. That is why I have come to refer to this legislation as the ``Terrorist Assistance and Facilitation Act of 2007.'' There has been a lot of talk in this Senate about Mexico's consulates throughout the United States issuing matricula cards and that these matricula cards are given based on documents that nobody knows for sure how good they are. Therefore, the cards they have are not really guaranteed to be a valid identity, but they are being utilized around the country as legitimate identification. What Mr. Cutler says is the identification documents we will be giving out under this bill will not be any better than matricula cards. It is going to prove nothing more than what the person said to get the card. He may come here, be one of those people who planned to hijack our airplanes and crash them on 9/ 11. Several of them were apprehended by state and local police. But, under this act, unless we had their fingerprints on record--and I am sure none of those fingerprints were on record--they would be given an official ID from the United States government, giving them complete freedom to go anywhere in the country. That is why he calls it ``the Terrorist Assistance and Facilitation Act of 2007.'' That is a very serious professional criticism of a core part of this legislation. How about this? Mr. Kris Kobach, a former Department of Justice attorney under Attorney General Ashcroft and a specialist on terrorism and immigration, agrees with Mr. Cutler. He posted an article on the Heritage Foundation Web site titled ``The Senate Immigration Bill, a National Security Nightmare.'' The article states: The bill will make it easier for alien terrorists to operate in the United States by allowing them to create fraudulent identities with ease. Wow, is that a charge? Should we be hell bent to go forward tomorrow and move on to a bill that the American people reject and that could be called a terrorist dream bill that would actually allow and make it easier for terrorists to obtain fraudulent identity in this country? Mr. Kobach, a fine lawyer, now professor, goes on to write: Supporters of the Senate's comprehensive immigration reform bill have revived it under the guise of national security. However, the new public relations campaign is a farce. The bill offers alien terrorists a new pathway to obtain legal status which will make it easier for them to carry out deadly attacks against American citizens. The top priority in this bill is extending amnesty as quickly and easily as possible to as many illegal aliens as possible. The cost of doing so is to jeopardize national security. That is a statement from a former Assistant Attorney General of the United States of America charged with these kinds of issues, now a professor. Well, we know this: We know the sheriffs along the border have absolutely been in an uproar over our failure to back them up in their efforts to create a lawful border. Is anybody listening to them? The truth is, the Senate bill is not going to stop illegal immigration or even substantially reduce it. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the new Senate bill will only reduce net annual illegal immigration by 13 percent. There will be additional visa overstays: 550,000 by 2017 and up to 1 million 10 years later, according to the CBO. Now, I mentioned that it promised, at the beginning, a move to a more merit-based point system for evaluating those applying for citizenship instead of the much-criticized chain migration policy we now have. The Canadians have adopted such a policy, after a very careful study over a period of years, and they are very happy with it. I talked to the head of the Canadian immigration system--Monte Goldburg--about it. He said they are very happy with it. They would like to take it even further toward a merit-based system than the current law by which they now admit 60 percent of the immigrants in their country based on a competitive skills-based system. But, unfortunately, the bill fails to meet this goal. For the next 8 years--almost a decade--instead of moving to a merit-based system and ending the chain-based system, chain migration will increase. After that, merit admissions will reach just more than one-third of all immigrants entering our country. So we will continue this system that, in effect, favors lack of education and low-skill workers, and denies entry to those who have higher skills, education, speak English, and have college degrees. How does that chain migration work? You see, if you are here, you got amnesty last time, or if you came here legally, you are then allowed to bring your wife and children. I think we should always have that. So I am not opposing wives and children. But under current law, you are allowed to also immigrate your parents, and your brothers and your sisters. You can bring a brother, and the brother can bring his wife and their children; and your sister, likewise. These would come based on their family connection only and not based on any skills they might offer to our country. So I am worried about that. I do not think we have accomplished a large enough move in the direction the drafters indicated they would. I thank them for at least dealing with the issue this year, which was not dealt with last year. This is very important--very, very important. I will just say, you see, it is a zero-sum game. We cannot admit everybody who would like to be an American citizen. That is a fundamental principle. That is a fundamental principle. In the year 2000, 11 million people applied for the 50,000 lottery slots. There are 50,000 slots in America where they draw your name out of a hat. You send your name in, they put it in there, and they draw the names. Mr. President, 11 million applied. That gives an indication of how many people would like to come to America. So if you have an overall cap on how many people can come legally and you are allowing parents and brothers and sisters--without any reference to whether they have any skills or not--then you are denying slots to people. Let's say two people apply from Honduras. One was valedictorian of his high school class. He wants to come to America and learn English. He has 2 years of college and technical training. That person applies. Another one is a brother of somebody who is in the United States. That brother maybe does not have a high school diploma, maybe is basically illiterate even in the language of which he was raised. Who is going to get in? The brother gets in and denies, therefore, a slot, an entry right to somebody who has a better chance, statistically speaking, of flourishing in the great American experience. So I do not think it is a harsh thing for America to say: If you leave your community and you come to America and we agree to allow you to be an American citizen, what obligation do we, then, have to you to say you get to bring your parents and your brothers and sisters, whether or not they will provide and be able to be successful in America? I just do not get it. I think the country has a right to say: Let's have people compete for those slots, and the best persons--the ones who are likely to prosper the most and be most successful--ought to be the ones who get the benefits. My fine staff people, Cindy Hayden and Jenny Lee, have examined the details of this legislation. They have consulted others and concluded that over the next 20 years the law will provide twice as many persons with legal permanent status in our country as we would under current law. I do not believe the American people understand this. I do not believe they think that is what reform is about. Of course, as I noted, illegal immigration is not going to go down but 13 percent. So I would pose this question to my colleagues: How can you call this a ``grand bargain''? It is more like a Faustian one, to me. Just like in 1986, there is a grant of amnesty to virtually everyone here--no illegal alien left behind, and a lack of enforcement. In fact, this amnesty will be another incentive for illegals to believe they will be given amnesty in the future once again. Indeed, no one has promised to not give amnesty again. I thought a most interesting speech--I happened to catch it--was by Chuck Grassley, the Senator from Iowa, who was here in 1986. He said he is not supporting this bill. He said: I was here in 1986, and everybody said this is a one-time amnesty. It will not happen again. We are going to fix this system. Trust us. Of course, we did not fix the system, and they gave 3 million people amnesty then. Now we are looking at 12 million. But the key thing in Senator Grassley's speech that I thought went to the core of what we are about and why we ought to have a pause here is, he said: Nobody has come on this floor and said we won't give amnesty again in the future. He said: You will not hear them say it. Why? Because we moved into a pattern of ignoring the law and not enforcing it. What about costs? You have heard the talk: If given amnesty, our illegal population will pay taxes. They are hard working. This will help America. It will help increase our population. The Medicare and Social Security systems are in long-term jeopardy. These new workers will help us save Medicare and Social Security. You have heard those arguments. I have to tell you, I wish that were true. I even myself thought it might be several years ago. But the fact is, nothing could be further from the truth. Out of 12 million people who would be given amnesty--I call it amnesty. Different people have different words. It is not a loaded question to me. I have said repeatedly that persons who are here unlawfully now, who came here wrongly, who have been here a number of years, who have worked hard, who have obeyed the law, have children, perhaps, deep roots in our society--I do not think we can ask all those people to leave. I am not asking for that to be a part of my proposal to fix immigration. But when you give people an absolute status, I guess I think amnesty is a fair word for it. My personal view is we should never, ever, after 1986, give people who come to our country illegally all the benefits we give to people who come to our country legally. That is my view of it. We will make a mistake if we do it again this time. But some sort of lawful process where people can stay and be legal and not have these burdens--for those who have earned it and done well--I am willing to accept it. But of the 12 million who are here, half do not have a high school diploma. Most have lower skills. They overwhelmingly are lower income workers. They will immediately be treated like green card holders--legal permanent residents--and be entitled to all the benefits that low- income American workers get, which are paid for by the U.S. taxpayers. As low-income workers, they will pay little, if any, income taxes--we know that--while gaining the child tax credit for their children, food stamps, subsidized housing, education, and health care at our emergency rooms. So in one part of the analyses, the Congressional Budget Office adds up all these numbers, and they conclude that the cost over the next 10 years to the taxpayers of this country--not including enforcement, fences, border patrol, all that stuff; just the cost from legalizing those who are here illegally--will be over $30 billion. Now, with my amendment I offered to delay the earned-income tax credit payments to illegal immigrants who are here, and to delay it until at least they became a legal permanent resident, we would reduce that to maybe $25 billion. That passed by a narrow margin, which I was pleased to have passed, but all the rest of the benefits are there, so we are looking at perhaps a $25 billion net drain on the U.S. Treasury, according to the Congressional Budget Office. They admit it will be much greater in the future. In the outyears, the costs will increase because the way the bill is written, certain benefits are not made available initially to those who are given legal status, but their benefits will increase in the years to come. How much will those increases be? When asked if it would be a substantial increase in the future, the Congressional Budget Office-- which did not score beyond the 10 years--said certainly, absolutely, it would be a substantial increase. One institution has looked at this figure: the Heritage Foundation. The Heritage Foundation's senior fellow, Robert Rector, has spent months on this very issue. He used the best available statistics in calculating the costs to the American Government--State, Federal, and local treasuries--of amnesty. It is a picture that I think, as responsible legislators, as representatives of our own constituents, we have to think about, we have to acknowledge. The number he came up with is so large that many people have just tried to dismiss it without any thought. But Robert Rector is one of the foremost experts in this country on welfare and social programs. He was the architect of the welfare reform President Clinton vetoed two or three times and finally signed and took credit for for the rest of his tenure. How wonderful it was. It did work exceedingly well. Mr. Rector's analysis cannot be lightly dismissed. He concludes that the cost to Federal, State, and local governments from just retirement of the 12 million to their death would be $2.6 trillion. It is clear any short-term benefit--whatever the exact number is out there, whatever the exact number is--any short-term benefit provided to American businesses who would enjoy these low-skilled workers would be more than offset by the lifetime costs of tax credits, welfare, food stamps, Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare that will be picked up by the American public--the taxpayers. Mr. Rector said: ``This is a fiscal disaster.'' Finally, I believe this legislation, because it will not reduce illegal immigration and will double--only a 13-percent reduction--and will double legal immigration, will put even more stress than we currently have on working middle-class Americans. It will have a tendency to pull down wages of American workers. That is their asset: their labor. But workers are more than a mere asset; they are human beings. They are created with inalienable rights, according to our Declaration, and they are citizens who are the ultimate shareholders of America. Citizenship carries responsibilities for them and for us. We pay taxes. We serve in the military to the point of giving our lives for our country. I have talked to a lot of mamas and fathers in the last several years who have had their sons--middle-class Americans who are serving our country in Iraq and Afghanistan who have lost their lives in service to our country. We have an obligation to obey the law. We accept court rulings even if they are silly and absurd. That is what we do. We grumble, but we follow what the court says. We obey laws passed by this Congress, whether we like them or not, whether they make sense or not. That is the responsibility of citizenship in this Nation we have inherited. Those of us now in Congress I submit have an obligation to those dutiful citizens who serve every day doing the right thing. We owe them something. One thing we owe them is consistent and fair application and enforcement of the law. Another is to make sure those who do the right thing are rewarded or allowed to prosper and those who do not are disadvantaged. This is the definition of a morally ordered society. We are a community of people, voluntarily bound together in many ways. It is the uniqueness of America. It is our strength. But do not ever doubt that that moral order, that proper balance, can be eroded if we are irresponsible in this body. It can even be lost. Labor is more than barrels of oil, tons of iron ore, bales of cotton, or kilowatts of electricity. Our workers are our citizens, created beings of infinite worth. They have every right to expect, to demand, that their elected representatives protect their interests, their country's legitimate national interests, not just what might be seen as an immediate benefit to that abstraction we might refer to as ``the economy.'' So I believe in immigration. I support immigration. I do not want to end it. I support an effective temporary worker program. But let's tell the truth about immigration and wages in this country. The elites are doing very well in this boom period, corporations are making record profits, but what about our citizens of this Republic who are less skilled? What have their wages done? We have had a series of witnesses, including Dr. Chiswick from the University of Illinois. We had Professor Borjas of the Kennedy School at Harvard. We had Alan Tonnel at a Senate hearing. We had a hearing and all of them testified and all of them agreed that large numbers of immigrants are, in fact, reducing wages of American citizens. I left this Senate Chamber Friday after talking about this issue, and I mentioned wages. I went out, and right on the corner there was a gentleman with a homemade cardboard sign. He had white hair and gray in his beard. I said: Well, what brings you here? He said: Well, I wanted to come up and have my say about this immigration bill. He told me he was a master carpenter and that he was from Melbourne, FL, and that in the 1990s he made $75,000 a year. He said he can hardly stay in business today because of the large flow of immigrant workers that has pulled down his ability to have the kind of income he would like. Now, some may think that is too much money for a carpenter. I don't, not if he works hard and not if he is good. Don't think there are not millions of Americans who have given their lives to developing a skill and a craft and that, in the blink of an eye, can be made less valuable by an unwise, ineffective, inappropriate immigration policy. So there is a lot we need to think about as we debate this bill. I am absolutely convinced it will not do what it promises, and what it will do may be adverse to our country. I am very worried about it. There is no reason whatsoever in the face of overwhelming public opposition that we should be bringing it up, and there is no reason whatsoever that the majority leader should be utilizing this clay pigeon procedure which, apparently, he will execute tomorrow, that will allow us to vote only on the amendments he chooses and to craft this procedure for handling this bill to minimize to the nth degree the amount of time we have available to debate it. I think that is a mistake. I object to that and urge my colleagues to vote tomorrow not to proceed to the legislation. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I thank my able colleague from Missouri. He is one of our most valuable and able members in the Senate. I value his thoughts on that and share his thoughts, actually. I want to move off of that and some of the comments that Senator Dorgan had about working Americans and what they are facing today. I remember addressing this point last year in the debate on immigration. I think it was at night when not many people were on the floor. Senator Kennedy was here. I raised the question of what was happening to wages of working Americans as a result of large-scale immigration, and quoted professors and experts who had demonstrated that where those areas--where immigration reached its highest levels, wages had gone down for workers; they hadn't gone up. Now we are told that businesses cannot get workers, and we are told we are at full employment, but apparently something is awry if wages are not going up in many areas. I want to mention to you what we have with regard to the immigration bill that is coming before us. We will have cloture vote on it in the morning. This is what I want to say to my colleagues. The legislation promises that it will bring legality to the system. They say we have an illegal system and we have got a comprehensive plan to fix it. What does our own Congressional Budget Office say? They just did an analysis of it. The Congressional Budget Office looked at the legislation that is proposed. They made an opinion about how much it would cost the U.S. Treasury. It was about $30 billion over the next 10 years; not for the cost of enforcement, just the cost of additional social and welfare benefits provided to those who are here illegally, who will be made legal. They made that analysis, and they also made one more analysis that is so stunning and so remarkable that I remain baffled that my colleagues have not picked up on it. What the Congressional Budget Office, our own budget office--a budget office that answers to the House, answers to the Senate, answers to the majority leader, Harry Reid, answers to the Speaker, Nancy Pelosi--the Congressional Budget Office concluded that net illegal immigration, after the passage of this bill, would only be reduced 13 percent. Now what kind of reform is that, I ask my colleagues? I submit to you this is not a reform. A fix that is supposed to bring legality to a system that only reduces illegality by 13 percent. Last year we arrested 1 million people entering our country illegally. These are huge numbers. I would have thought we would want to see an 80 or 90 percent reduction of illegality at our border. This is a bill that by our own evaluation does not bode well. There is another factor that many of my colleagues probably do not know, have never understood. My staff has worked very hard to account for the actual flow of legal immigration into the country. In the next 20 years, this country, if this bill is passed, will see a doubling of the legal permanent residents in America. That is the number of people who are given a green card. That is the next step to citizenship. Anybody with legal permanent residence can move on to citizenship. It will double the number of legal permanent residents, which is what we call green card holders. So we are not going to have any reduction in illegality, and we are going to have a major increase--a doubling of legal immigration. I am worried about that. We have been talking here about this debate about card check and unions. What it is about is wages and fairness for American workers, is it not? Mr. Tonelson testified at one of our hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee. This was a hearing I requested and asked for. We were able to get him, and he testified about areas in construction, in meat packing, in restaurant work, where there was high level of immigration from 2000 to 2005. Wages went down. You bring into this country more wheat, the price of wheat will go down. You bring into our country more cotton, the price will go down. Bring in more iron ore, the price of iron ore will go down. You bring in more labor, the price of American labor will go down. That is a fact. I support a legitimate guest worker program. I believe we do have certain needs in certain industries and situations such as Hurricane Katrina where the need was so dramatic on the gulf coast. I know there are needs for some guest workers, temporary workers. I am prepared to help write legislation which would meet that need. I believe in immigration into America in general. I am not asking that we slash the amount of legal immigration into the country. But I doubt most Americans, when they hear about the great group I affectionately call the ``masters of the universe'' who met in secret and wrote this bill, had any understanding that their promise of comprehensive reform of the illegal immigration system we have today--and that is a fair way to describe it--they had no idea this bill would only reduce illegal immigration by 13 percent. I don't believe they had any idea it would double the numbers who were coming in legally. That brings me to my point. The longer this legislation has been out for review, the less the public has liked it. I can see why. If you remember, Senator Reid first called the bill up. He actually called up the old bill that the House wouldn't even look at last year. He let it sit for about a week and then plopped down, on a Tuesday, an entirely new bill, over 700 legislative pages, and wanted us to vote on it by Friday of that week. Why? That is what they attempted to do. We pushed back and said: No, this is a big issue; we can't vote on Friday; we are not going to vote this week. We fought that, and they backed off. We had a week's break and came back. We got back on the bill and proceeded with it and had some amendment votes and were moving along, and then Senator Reid pulled the bill off the floor on a Thursday night. So we thought maybe that was the end of it. But after working on it, they decided to bring it back up. It is going to be brought back tomorrow. The bill is filed. Cloture was filed. We now find ourselves prepared to vote tomorrow on whether to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed, go to this bill, and actually discuss it on the floor. We know there are probably 51 Senators who have committed to vote for final passage of the bill. I think they have made a mistake. Some probably didn't understand it fully. I am sure some are uneasy about that commitment. But more than 50, I am confident, are committed to voting for the legislation. Some really think anything is better than the current system. Maybe this is better, they say. They are prepared to vote for it. So by going to the bill, we are setting ourselves on a pathway that leads to final passage of legislation I believe is not worthy of the U.S. Senate. More than that, I urge my colleagues to think about this. We have been told--and if I am mistaken, I ask the majority leader to tell me I am wrong--that an unprecedented procedure will be utilized to eliminate as much time of debate as possible and to completely control the amendment process to this legislation in a way that has never been done before in the history of the Senate. It has never been done this way. The majority leader is going to fill the tree. He is going to file a second-degree amendment. That amendment will be divisible into a number of different amendments so he can say which amendments will be voted on and which will not, and other amendments will not be allowed to be voted on. It is complete control of the process. They will say: We adopted some of your amendments, you complainers. We have some of your amendments in that group. This process has been prepared with the care and precision of the Normandy invasion. This has been prepared meticulously for weeks, how they are going to move this bill through and how they are going to control the amendments. The amendments that will be allowed, I am confident, will be amendments they are confident they have the votes to defeat or amendments they don't care if passed. But they will not allow amendments to go to the core of this agreement by those masters of the universe who put it together, anything that would actually threaten this legislation's agreement they put together. Some have been told: Don't worry, Senator, vote for cloture tomorrow, and we will let your amendment be voted on. If your amendment is selected, it is likely that they have the votes to vote it down or the crowd that put this bill together doesn't object if it passes. But anything that really goes at this mechanism, this special agreement they have put together in secret without committee hearings of any kind, will not be allowed to be voted on. That is a big mistake. I say to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, I have been in the Senate 10 years, most of which Republicans had the majority. This procedure was never used against the Democrats when Republicans were in the majority. This is the first time it has been used in the Senate. What if it is used against Senators in the future on both sides of the aisle? The great free debate this Senate is so proud of would be eroded. So for two reasons I urge my colleagues tomorrow to vote against cloture. First, we need to have this bill pulled down. We need to go back and review what it is that has caused the American people to reject it so overwhelmingly. We need to find out why the Congressional Budget Office has concluded that it will reduce illegal immigration by only 13 percent. My goodness. We need to ask ourselves, do we really want to double on top of that the legal immigration into America? What are we afraid of? Why is there this obsession to move this flawed piece of legislation through, utilizing the unprecedented procedural gambit to do so? I ask why? Three weeks before we had the final vote and Senator Reid pulled it down, after the debate continued a couple of weeks ago, a Rasmussen poll showed support for the bill in the high 20s. Then fell to 23 percent, and the last poll showed only 20 percent of Americans supported this bill. Only 20 percent of the American people said we should pass this bill. A decent respect for the opinions of the people who elect us, I suggest--if nothing else, maybe for our own self- interest--would call on us to say: What is it that people are worried about? Why don't we pull this bill and see if we can't make a decent piece of legislation that we could be proud of and move it forward? What possible reason is there to be obsessed with just ramming it through this Senate? I am amazed. It takes my breath away. There is every kind of reason to suggest that we should pull the bill down and work on it. I will conclude with these thoughts. Let's don't go forward tomorrow. Let Members of the Senate say to those who are promoting the legislation--one former law officer called them mandarins; I jokingly called them the masters of the universe--this legislation will not work. They are good people. They think they were doing good. But the product they produced won't work, and the American people don't like it. I say vote against cloture tomorrow because a vote for cloture is a vote ultimately to move this bill passage. No. 2, I say vote against cloture tomorrow because unless the majority leader declares otherwise, we will have to assume that what we have been hearing is correct, and he will use an unprecedented procedure--a procedure dubbed ``the clay pigeon''--to completely control the amendment process and to bring this bill up for final vote with amendments only he has approved in a minimal amount of time that can be expended on such legislation. Any legislation this big deserves time. Any legislation this big or with this many flaws deserves a lot of work. I urge my colleagues, in light of these factors and others they may personally care about--and there are many more problems--to reject cloture tomorrow. It would be a clear message to the leadership that is trying to move this legislation that we are not going to have it. We want better legislation, if you want us to pass it. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I wish to share some general comments on where we are with regard to immigration and, really, American workers. I am pleased to see my colleague, Senator Kennedy, here. I know he believes strongly in the minimum wage and in union contracts and strikes and that kind of thing to get wages up. I will just say to my colleague that the real thing which drives wages, which helps working Americans be able to get higher wages and better benefits, is when their product or their labor becomes more valuable. In this debate last year, I raised that question. I see my former chairman of the HELP Committee--the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee--Senator Enzi. Senator Kennedy now chairs that committee. When Senator Enzi chaired it, we had a hearing in September of 2006 with economists and experts to discuss the impact on working Americans, middle-class workers, the wages they receive as impacted by immigration. I don't think there was a single dissent in that committee--everyone agreed that large influxes of low skilled immigrant labor bring down the wages of the American workers that compete with them. And the Judiciary Committee last year also had one hearing on the matter in April of 2006. Witnesses at that hearing also agreed unanimously that the wages of working class Americans are adversely impacted by large flows of immigrants into our country. How could it be otherwise? That is a basic economic principle--when supply goes up, the price goes down. When demand goes up and supply remains the same, the price goes up. When I raised this point on the floor, Senator Kennedy, during the immigration reform debate last year, responded to me. His solution was that we should raise the minimum wage. I responded that it is not my goal to have American citizens making $7 an hour; my goal is to create a free market economy where their labor is worth $12, $15, $18, or $25 an hour. These wage levels are being seen by workers in nonunion businesses in Alabama right now. We absolutely don't need to go back to a system that allows self-interested union organizers to force people into unions when they are already making higher wages then they have ever made before, as they are in Alabama. I absolutely don't believe that unions are the way to see us make progress on wages. But I am concerned that the net effect of large flows of immigration is that wages are being brought down. It is not responsible to have immigration policies that depress the wages of American workers. Some of the immigrants are legal, but most are not legal. Together, they are pulling down wages of the Americans that compete with them in the labor market. We have had expert testimony to that effect. I cite to my colleagues a professor at the Kennedy School at Government at Harvard University, himself a Cuban refugee, George Borjas. He says that working wages for Americans have been pulled down by as much as 8 percent in the areas where immigration is highest. That is a significant amount. Instead of going up in a booming economy, wages have gone down. Alan Tonelson, a research fellow from the U.S. Business and Industry Council Educational Foundation testified that from 2000 to 2005, in job categories where competition from illegal immigrants is the highest, real wages--those adjusted for inflation--went down, even though demand for labor was going up. How could it be otherwise? Don't we believe in a free market? Does any farmer doubt that if more cotton and corn were brought into this country, the price of their product would go down? Certainly we know that. We deal with that issue every day in the Senate, and we understand it. Why that base economic free market principle would be denied and overlooked when it comes to how immigration effects the labor market is beyond my understanding. So, sure, immigration is important. We are not trying to stop immigration. Immigrants are overwhelmingly good people, they are hard workers, and they want to make a better life for themselves and their families. But, we have to ask ourselves, what levels and types of immigration serve our national interest? How can we make sure our middle-class workers are not having their incomes substantially reduced in a time when the growth and prosperity of our nation should be putting part of the high profits being made into their pockets? We can make sure that lower and middle class Americans are benefitting from out surging economy if we do this immigration bill right. This bill doesn't do that, and that is why I oppose it. I had a wonderful day yesterday with President Bush. We disagree on this issue. He made the comment in my hometown of Mobile that a Texan friend of his once said if we agree 100 percent on every issue, then one of us would not be needed. Well, we don't agree on this issue, but he has a good vision for America. He believes we need to do something about immigration and he has high ideals about it. He wants to fix our immigration system and he wants to fix it comprehensively. I have said repeatedly, in the last 2 years of debate, that we do need a comprehensive fix, we need a guest worker program that actually will work and be effective, one that is responsive to the needs of the market without depressing the wages of the American worker. I have said that we need to replace the lawless system of immigration we now have with a lawful one, one that serves our national interests, and by that I mean the interests of the American worker and the long-term national interests of our country. Sadly, I do not believe that the bill before the Senate comes close to creating a lawful system that serves our national interests. The Senate bill is a 750-page document that was plopped down here after only 48 hours of notice, without any committee hearings this year. It lacks cohesive policy goals. It is a political baby-splitting document crafted by politicians who were focused on the need to write something that could pass, rather than a document produced by professionals and experts and economists and law enforcement officials focused on how to create a system that will be honest and will work. That is what the debate is all about. Will the Senate bill actually work. So my disagreement with the legislation is not what it aspires to do, if I believed that it would do what it aspires to do--to secure the border and restore the rule of law then I'd be supportive of the bill. You will hear my colleagues come to the floor and talk about their mama and grandma and that they emigrated from country X and we are all blessed because overwhelmingly, except for Native Americans--even their ancestors at one time came here--we are all descendants of immigrants. I want to be clear. Those of us opposed to the Senate bill are not against immigration. Instead, we want to do it right so that it serves the immigrants who come to America and serves America by selecting those who can be most benefited by the American experience and who will most benefit America. We are indeed, I am afraid, moving to legislation that would repeat the error of 1986 in which amnesty was given and enforcement never occurred. Three million people were given amnesty then. Now we have 12 million people asking for amnesty again. What is the problem with the legislation? Let me share some thoughts. First, under this legislation, the number of legal immigrants to be allowed into our country and to be given permanent legal status within the next 20 years will double. The legal number will double. Do you think most Americans understand that? I don't. Let me briefly mention the history of immigration in our country. From 1820 to 1879, we had what was called the great continental expansion, where people moved out toward the west. One hundred and sixty thousand came a year. Then it dropped off significantly. From 1880 to 1924, they called it the great wave of immigration. Immigration averaged 580,000 people a year, a big movement of people into our country, and we continued to expand westward in our Nation. Then immigration again began to drop off, particularly during the Depression, and people's wages were down. The period of 1925 through 1965 is sometimes referred to as the stop- and-settle period. During that time, immigration was at 180,000 a year, and the large great wave of immigrants that came in the decades before were assimilated into America. They became productive, mastered the language, and became part of a settlement and an assimilation that was important for our country. In 1965, we developed the new system of immigration now known as chain migration, which resulted in about 500,000 immigrants a year up until 1990. Since 1990, however, the number doubled, and it has been about 1 million a year. Since 2000, I suggest, counting the illegal flow, it has been at least 1.5 million a year, which is the highest rate of immigration in the history of our country. This bill would basically double legal immigration and do very little to stop the illegal flow. This gives us no time for a stop-and-settle period but perpetuates the record high rates of immigration for an indefinite period. That is where we are historically, and we ought to understand that. I don't think anybody would dispute, basically, what I just summarized for you. Let me explain how the Senate bill will double legal immigration. Under current law, 23.4 million immigrants, including 19.6 million green cards and 3.8 million workers, would be admitted and here in year 2027. But under the Senate bill, the numbers would be 47 million immigrants, composed of 38.1 million green cards, twice the 19.6 million green cards that would be issued under current law, and 8 million, almost 9 million temporary workers on top of that. That number of temporary workers would be here on an annual basis. Some would have to leave every year and return every year but that is the potential number. I am certain most Americans do not believe that doubling of the immigration levels in America is what was being discussed when people were promised comprehensive immigration reform. Doubling the legal rate, I believe, is contrary to the impression given by the bill's sponsors. People are not being told that reform means this kind of increase. In fact, I would think most people are expecting that immigration reform means we will reduce the rate of immigration which already is at the highest this Nation has ever had. So this kind of knowledge, when it gets out to people, fuels cynicism about what Congress is doing, it fuels anger at the voters. I repeat, I don't think their anger is focussed at immigrants. I think it is focused at those of us in Congress who promised we were going to create a lawful system that would bring some control to our borders, and it ends up doubling the number of immigrants that come lawfully. That is part of the problem. Some people get mad at the talk shows. All the talk shows are doing is telling the truth, that people did not state clearly when they promoted this bill for passage. People ought to be cynical and they ought to be upset about that, in my view. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak in morning business for an additional 10 minutes.

Mr. SESSIONS. That is what this is all about. I was under the impression that when the bill promoters came forward from their secret meetings, they thought they had produced a bill that was going to give us a a lawful system of immigration. Didn't you hear that? Isn't that what you expected to be part of the product we would pass, that amnesty would be given but we would have a lawful system in the future, right? This is important. Isn't that what we were basically told by the people who produced this document, the 750-page bill they plopped down here without hearings a few weeks ago? The sad fact is that the bill language does not keep the promises of its drafters. According to the Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan group that works for the Congress that helps us analyze legislation, Cost Estimate released on June 4: Implementing the bill's enforcement and verification requirements will only ``reduce the net annual flow of illegal immigrants by one-quarter.'' So that is a 25-percent reduction, approximately 2 million over 20 years. Twenty-five percent, do you think that is enough of a result for comprehensive reform? But wait, there is more. CBO also estimates that the bill's temporary worker provision will add approximately 1 million illegal visa overstays over the same 20 years. The bill will add an additional number of illegal overstays, more illegal overstays than under current law. That is because we already have a lot of temporary worker visa programs, and when you create new ones that will bring in more temporary workers, then more people are going to stay illegally. CBO goes on to say this in their careful analysis: Other aspects of the legislation are likely to increase the number of illegal immigrants, in particular through people overstaying their visas from the guest worker and H-1B programs. CBO estimates-- This is their report-- that another 1.1 million people would be added by 2017 as a result of the guest worker program, about half of them authorized workers and dependents, the remainder the result of unauthorized overstays. That figure would grow to 2 million by 2027. Twenty years from now. The net result is that according to CBO, a mere 1.3 million less illegal immigrants will enter this country and live in this country in 2027 than would be expected under current law, where we expect 10 million under current law to come illegally. They go on to say: CBO expects that the enforcement measure and the higher number of overstayers would on net diminish the number of unauthorized immigrants by about 500,000 in 2017 and about 1.3 million in 2027. What that means is when you take the 25-percent reduction of illegality at the border and an increase in visa overstays illegality, it comes out, according to their numbers, to only a net 13-percent reduction in illegality. So we are going to double the legal number, see, and as a result we are only going to get a 13-percent reduction in illegality. I say to the Members of the Senate, that is not what we are getting paid to do, that is not what we promised to do, that is not what we should do. That is not acceptable. I wish it were not so. I wish we had legislation before the Senate that would do better job at reducing illegal immigration, that would comprehensively fix our illegal immigration, but we don't. I have been warning my colleagues about this and pointing out the flaws in the bill, and other Senators have pointed out flaw after flaw. We have this official report that indicates we have only a 13-percent reduction in illegality, and it is not right. We cannot pass such a bill and then go to our constituents and say we did something good for you, we fixed a broken system. We just cannot do that. I urge my colleagues, no matter how much they want to see our immigration system reformed, no matter how much they have hoped that this legislation would be the vehicle to do it to consider my comments before you vote. A careful reading of this bill indicates it will not create the system they are envisioning, and we should not pass it. Once again, didn't the promoters of the legislation promise more than this, that it would actually secure our border, that it would end lawlessness? Isn't that what they promised? Isn't creating a lawful immigration system for America a national imperative? Isn't it something we must do? No wonder the American people are cynical and angry. Another promise we were given when the bill was introduced, and probably while it was being prepared, was that we would move to a merit-based system; that we would do a better job of identifying those people who apply to our country who have the greatest potential to flourish in America and do well. Canada does this. Sixty percent of the people who come to Canada come based on a merit-based competition. If you speak English or French, if you have some education, if you have special skills Canada can utilize, you get more points and you compete with others who apply. So they attempt in this fashion to serve the national interest. A move toward more skill based immigration is what Canada has done, and they are very happy with it. Australia does it. New Zealand does it. Other countries operate their immigration system in this fashion. They still provide immigration slots for refugees, as they always have, and if the United States moved to this system, we would still have humanitarian based immigration as well. We would not end those programs. We were told that moving the United States to a Canadian or Australian immigration system might happen in this new bill. I was very interested in it because I urged my colleagues last year to have a point system or a merit based system in the bill. Nothing was even discussed about it last year and there was no hint of it in the bill that was offered then. So when I was told it was being considered this year, that presented some hope. Unfortunately, the merit-based system that actually made it into the bill does not commence in any effective way at the passage of the bill, instead it will not increase the percentage of immigrants who come to America based on skills until 9 years after passage of the bill. In 2006, employment-based or skill-based immigration made up 22 percent of our immigrant flow. In 2006, we only had 12 percent. So, recently, skill based immigration has made up 12 percent to 22 percent of annual immigration. As I stated before, Canada has 60 percent and Australia has 62 percent skill based immigration. Under the Senate bill, skill-based or merit-based immigration will make up about 18 percent of the total immigration levels for the first 5 years. That is not even as high as we had in 2005. Then, for the years 6 through 8 after the bill passes, merit immigration will drop to 11 percent of the total annual immigration level, lower than the 12 percent we had in 2006. Even when the percentage finally increases after the ninth or tenth year, it only rises to as high as 36 percent based on skilled immigration, which is a little more than half of what the Canadian system now has. I don't think that is a strong enough move, and it is a strong disappointment to me that this is the case. Mr. President, I see my colleague from Wyoming, the ranking member of the HELP Committee, is here. I will not go on at greater length. I could do so because what I am pointing out to my colleagues today is fundamental flaws in this legislation. It is those fundamental flaws that one or two amendments are not going to fix. The difficulty we have with amendments is the bill's sponsors, the group that was in the grand bargain coalition, have agreed that anyone who submits an amendment that changes any substantial part of the agreement they reached in secret somewhere without hearings, without input from the American people, will have their amendment voted down. They basically have said that publically and have told that to me personally. They say: Jeff, I like your amendment, I think it addresses a valid criticism. But, we met and we reached this compromise, and I am going to have to vote against it because we made a pact and we are going to stick together to make sure we move this bill through the Senate without any real changes. That is what they have said on the floor of the Senate. They said: This violates our compromise. I am sorry, Senator, we can't vote for it. They ask their colleagues to vote the amendment down because it is a killer amendment, one that will harm their deal. They claim that if the amendment passes, the compromise will fail, and the whole bill will fall apart. Jeff, we have told you what we are going to do. Take it or leave it. Vote for it or vote against it. That is fundamentally what has been said, and that is not right. That is not what this Senate is about. If they had a bill that would actually work, I may be irritable with the way it was produced and brought to the floor procedurally, but maybe I would be able to support it. Instead, I can only judge how valuable the bill is based on what it says and whether or not it will work. CBO says it will not work. I believe it will not work. I believe we are going to have another 1986 situation where we provide amnesty without enforcement. I believe we are again going to send a message around the world that all you have to do is get into our country illegally and one day you will be made a citizen. There is another concern that I have not talked about much so far, but it is critical. I can show you why the Z visa and the legal status that is given to illegal alien applicants 24 hours after they file an application for amnesty will provide a safe haven and a secure identity for people in our country who are here unlawfully and who are actually members of terrorist groups. The bill provides them, without any serious background check, lawful identity documents that they can then utilize to get bank accounts, to travel, and do potentially fulfill their dastardly goals. In fact, Michael Cutler, a former investigator with the immigration enforcement agency wrote an article in the Washington Times today titled ``Immigration bill a No Go'' discussing that very point. In careful detail, he explains the utter failure of this bill to protect us from terrorism. In addition to stating that the bill would not reduce illegality, CBO also found out it is going to cost the taxpayers. You are used to hearing that the bill will make money for us, help us and make the Treasury do better, all claims that I have strongly disputed. But the way CBO scored the bill this year, it is going to be over $20 billion in costs in the next 10 years and may be closer to 30, and those costs to the Treasury will increase in the out years. That is because under this system, we are going to legalize millions of illegal immigrants who are uneducated, many illiterate even in their own countries, and statics tell us that they will draw more from the Treasury than they will ever pay in. I just tell you, that is what they say. And the numbers get worse in the outyears, dramatically worse. In fact, the Heritage Foundation has said, based on the amnesty alone--and I don't know if these numbers are correct but they were done by Robert Rector and he has been known to be very correct on many occasions--based on the amnesty alone, based on the educational levels and the income levels of the people who would be given amnesty, the cost to our country would amount to $2.6 trillion during the retirement periods of the people who came here illegally and would be given amnesty under the bill. So that is a stunning number. I can't say with absolute certainty it is correct, but that is what we have been told, and we should be talking about it and studying it. We also know this: The net deficit caused by the bill according to the CBO score will grow each year after the first 10 years. They have said so themselves at last August's Budget Committee Hearing chaired by Senator Allard. Mr. President, I thank the Chair. I hope my colleagues will study this bill carefully. I hope the Senate will reject it, not approve it. I hope we will do a better job in the future.

Mr. SESSIONS

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

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I am glad our country continues to focus on what we can do better to produce energy for electricity, fuel for our automobiles, and the like, in a way that is friendly to our environment and promotes our national security because in many situations, we are far too dependent on nations that are not friendly and are hostile, actually. Huge amounts of our wealth each year, particularly for the fuel that goes into our automobiles, is transferred to nations, such as Venezuela. It has made them very rich in the short term, and as a result, as Tom Friedman, a writer, said: The richer they get, the worse they behave. So we need to reduce the amount of America's wealth being transferred abroad. With regard to electric power, almost all of that power is generated domestically with our own energy sources and by our own American people. It is not as significant for us in the economic and national security area as is automobile gasoline, 60 percent of which is imported. That is why I think when it comes to choices, we need to emphasize automobile fuels and what we can do to reduce our dependence and improve efficiencies. I have been pleased to serve with Chairman Bingaman on the Energy Committee. I just joined that committee. He is a man of intelligence and decency and commitment to doing right. We have had quite a number of hearings. We have not gone into this issue lightly. I am, however, reluctantly compelled to oppose his renewable portfolio standard amendment and would like to share a few thoughts about it. First, the overall estimate is that in areas of the country that do not have the natural conditions that allow us to expand renewable energy sources there will be huge costs that will be borne. It seems that some like to suggest those costs will fall on the utilities. Nobody likes utilities because they send us a bill every month. We tend to forget they send us electricity every month also. But they send us a bill every month, and if we don't pay it, they will shut off our electricity. It is not a very pleasant thing to hear from your utility. But utilities throughout America are regulated utilities. What they charge has to be approved by public service commissions or commissions of a like nature. We have a public service commission in Alabama. Those public service commissions monitor their profits and monitor their charges for electricity and disapprove many times requests for rate increases. There is a principle that each and every one of our Senators need not forget; and that is, if areas that don't have the capacity to generate electricity with renewables have to pay the penalties and have to pay for other ways to get electricity, that cost, which some have estimated to be $100 billion to $200 billion annually, is the equivalent of this Congress taxing the people in those areas of the country $100 billion to $200 billion and directing it to be spent in this fashion whether or not it is the best way to protect our environment. In an economic sense and in a true sense, we are saying we are not going to tax the people in the country to fund these programs. We are just going to pass a mandate, and we are going to mandate it on these businesses. And if they cannot meet it, then we are going to require them to pay a penalty. We didn't tax them, we are not taxing anybody, and we are going on about our business and we are going to move us to a more renewable portfolio--a good goal, you see. But if you step back and look at this, it is the equivalent of taxing the people hundreds of billions of dollars, and that tax will be passed on to consumers of electricity. Already their gasoline prices have gone up dramatically, and now we are seeing some rise in electricity rates, and this is going to be passed on. There is no free lunch. It will be passed on, and the people to whom it is going to be passed on to the most are the people in my State because our wind resources will not work. Wind in some areas of this country will work. It really will. It can be virtually competitive with other sources of electricity, and that is nice; although in areas that are fairly congested with people, people don't like all these wind turbines. But out West, in some areas, I assume there is still potential to expand wind, and I am for that. I just don't like to see us require wind turbines where it is not going to work, or solar panels where it won't work. In my home State of Alabama, one would think we have a good bit of sunshine, but in truth, we have a lot of clouds, and solar is not effective in our area. It is not effective anywhere really. It is much more expensive than any other form of generating electricity and least effective in the Northeast. Even in the Southeast, because of our thunderstorms and our long periods in which we have cloudy weather, it is an unpredictable source of electricity, and it is very expensive anyway. It will be a great expense. I share with my colleagues a letter from the Southeastern Association of Regulatory Utility Commissions. These are the people who, for the most part, are elected by their constituents. They represent the States of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. They are very much opposed to this amendment, not because they are not for renewables, not because they want to defend some utility, but because they know if this amendment is adopted, rates are going to go up on their constituents and with nothing to show for it. This is their May 31 letter, just a few weeks ago, to the leadership in this body and the House. They say: . . . to express our concerns about the nationwide, mandatory federal renewable portfolio standard being discussed/introduced by Senator Bingaman. As state regulators, we are responsible for ensuring that retail electricity consumers receive affordable, reliable electric service. We are concerned that a uniform, federal RPS mandate fails to recognize adequately that there are significant differences among the states in terms of available and cost- effective renewable energy resources and that having such a standard in energy legislation will ultimately increase consumers' electricity bills. Then they go on to note, quote: The reality is that not all States are fortunate enough to have abundant traditional renewable energy resources, such as wind, or have them located close enough to the load to render them cost effective. This is especially true in the southeast and large parts of the Midwest. They go on to say, quote: Our retail electricity customers will end up paying higher electricity prices, with nothing to show for it. With nothing to show for it. So the letter goes on, and they say, quote: While State public service commissions and energy service providers should certainly consider available and cost- effective renewable energy resource options as they make long-term decisions for incremental energy needs, the imposition of a strict Federal RPS mandate, as contrasted with a State-driven cost-effectiveness determination, will only result in higher electric prices for our consumers. So that is the fundamental concern. The goal of how we can go about this is complicated. I think we can make progress toward more renewable energy sources, but I don't see how we can omit nuclear power as a major player in this as the source of tremendous amounts of electricity with no adverse emissions into the atmosphere. How we could be ignoring that is difficult for me to understand, I would say to my colleagues. My goal is pretty simple, in how I analyze legislation. First, I believe we ought to consider our national security. How does it help us remain independent? Does it impact our economy adversely? A healthy, growing economy is good for this country. I certainly think we should not and must not have a goal of raising energy costs, whether it is gasoline at the pump or electricity on the monthly bill. Raising those prices cannot be our goal. It can only make us less competitive in this competitive global marketplace. Our goal cannot be to raise prices, but I will tell you that it is a secret, unstated goal of many of the people who are driving some of this legislation. They think if they can drive up the price of gasoline, if they can drive up the price of electricity, the average person won't use so much of it because they do not have enough money to pay for it. Well, that is not good. Our goal as a nation should be to have safe, clean, reliable energy available at a cost as low as possible as part of living a healthy, productive life. Electricity in nations that have it readily available compared to countries where it is not available have twice the lifespan. You have twice the lifespan if electricity is readily available in your country as you do if you don't. It is a tragedy to see countries struggle so badly. So it is a blessing for us. Energy is not something bad. It is a fabulous blessing to our Nation to have it as readily available as we do, and we need to keep that cost down. The proposal requires all distribution utilities that sell more than 4 million megawatt hours a year to meet targeted levels beginning in 2010. The RPS standard in this amendment requires each such utility to have 15 percent of its load in renewables, and renewables are only solar, wind, geothermal--there is no geothermal out East, either; there is no ocean capability in our area of the country--biomass--some small possibility but nothing like this area-- landfill gas--which is only incremental--and the like. It does not include nuclear or hydro, which is so important. The Domenici substitute would require 20 percent by 2020, but it would allow for new nuclear and incremental nuclear, new hydropower, and certain efficiency measures to qualify. Even then, I am afraid we cannot reach that number. According to the Energy Information Administration, current nonhydroelectric renewables only account for 2.3 percent of total generation in the United States. To get to 15 percent of all electricity from this source would require us to increase that production over six times. That is a lot--over six times the current rate. So under these standards, as they are written today, according to the Tennessee Valley Authority, according to the Southern Company and other companies that are in our area of the country, they say there is only one way, one thing they can do, and that is to pay the Department of Energy the two-cents-per-kilowatt-hour penalty to meet these targets. Let me tell you, two cents per kilowatt-hour is a big deal. Huntsville Utilities in Huntsville, AL, a progressive utility run by the city, a board appointed through the city, states that the Bingaman RPS and even the Domenici CPS would cost them $4.2 million in 2010. This is just the city of Huntsville--$4.2 million; $8.8 million in 2013; $14.1 million in 2017; and $19.8 million in just 1 year--2020. That is a lot of money on a city--$19 million a year, $4 million a year. They are trying to manage their budgets carefully. The Tennessee Valley Authority, the governmental entity Franklin Roosevelt started back many years ago, the conservative TVA--this is a quasi-government agency--estimates that systemwide it would cost an additional $70 million to comply with the 3.75-percent RPS requirement in 2011 and $410 million to meet the full 15 percent requirement in 2020. That is $400 million for the TVA system per year. That is a lot of money. I think Senator Alexander had raised some points: Well, what if you used all that money--the $100 billion, $200 billion--how could you use it if you just applied it in some rational way to include renewables and reduce our dependence on foreign oil and keep the cost of energy at a good level and encourage research and development? Man, you could put scrubbers on every coal plant in the country. You could build nuclear plants in large numbers. We could do lots of things. So this is a cost we are imposing, but the movement it will accrue in the direction we want to go is not great. The Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners said, quote, ``There will be nothing to show for it.'' That is the problem I have. I want to move in this direction. I would like to see us use more biofuels, and I believe there is a potential for that. That is the only thing that seems to be viable in my area of the country, is expanded use of biofuels. But this is really such a huge step that I don't think there is any way it can be met except by paying penalties or a tax. Also, the way this thing works is the money may very well end up just going to the Government in the form of compliance payments or a penalty or a tax, maybe as much as $100 billion. I really am excited about the leadership Senator Bingaman and Senator Domenici have given to the Energy Committee. We have had lots of hearings with some of the world's best experts on energy. We all share a view that if we develop a good energy policy, we can improve our environment, we can strengthen our national security, we can improve our economy, and the like. Any change that can actually reduce our consumption of energy and actually pay for itself over a period of time is a step we clearly should take. But when you are taking steps that are likely to cost far more than the benefit you receive, you have to be very cautious. Remember, we are not spending Federal taxpayers' money and, therefore, creating a cost. We are passing a law which mandates that the citizens around the country, particularly in areas that don't have readily renewable power, will have to pay more for their electricity to meet this standard. And they are going to have to pay a lot more. The cost is going to be very significant, and the question is, Would that cost have been better spent in other areas? I suggest that it would. Some people have already made some suggestions about how we could spend that money better. I thank my colleagues for giving me a few moments to talk about this amendment. I am sorry I could not be in agreement with it. The goal is worthy. My analysis of it is the burden will fall disproportionately on constituents in my area of the country, particularly in my State, and therefore I must oppose it. I think we can do better in how to achieve this goal. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS. I won't persist. I thank the Senator for comments that are very valid for my part of the country.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, as a former U.S. Attorney for 12 years and as an assistant U.S. attorney for over 2 years, I am well aware that U.S. attorneys serve at the pleasure of the President and that they are appointed through a political process that involves home State senators conferring with the President of the United States before the nomination is made, and which involves confirmation by the U.S. Senate. As I have observed previously, the matter involving Attorney General Gonzales concerning the appointment and removal of certain U.S. attorneys arose because at some point there was interest in a substantial change in the persons holding the offices of U.S. attorneys throughout the country. Apparently, some wanted a large number of changes and others did not. To them, it may have seemed like an easy thing to do. The President would simply just remove them and appoint others. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales had no previous experience in the Department of Justice at any time in his career and seemed to have very little interest in who were serving as U.S. attorneys. This was an error on his part. Attorney General Gonzales simply did not understand that the removal of a U.S. attorney is always a delicate and difficult process. First, U.S. attorneys have Senatorial support. Their appointment was initially cleared by the U.S. Senator for that State and often the Congressman from that district. Secondly, they have local support among their friends and constituents and they often have built up strong support among local, State, and Federal law enforcement agencies. Those bonds are often strong and the removal of a U.S. attorney often causes concern among those law enforcement agencies and groups. They have also often gained support in the local community with childrens' advocacy groups, crime prevention groups, and victims' rights groups. Finally, almost every U.S. attorney will have one, sometimes more, sensitive cases that are ongoing at any given time. Anyone familiar with the process will know that removing a U.S. attorney who is in the process of handling some high profile criminal case will often result in quite a bit of political pushback, even if the U.S. attorney has very little hands-on involvement with the case. One of the problems that the Attorney General had was that he did not fully understand these dangers in removing U.S. attorneys because he had never been involved in it as a member of the Department of Justice. He simply did not comprehend the seriousness of the issue with which he was dealing. If he had, he would have spent a great deal more time on it than he did. He would not have delegated it to his assistants--many of them young and also not experienced--in the reality of this process either. As a result, there occurred an unseemly series of events that reflected poorly on Attorney General Gonzales and other members of the Department of Justice, and which has damaged the reputation of the Department of Justice. This was not a small matter but a very important matter. I think now he realizes the importance of this process and is sincerely apologetic for allowing it to develop the way it did. He is also apologetic for the way that he responded to the inquiries made about the proposed U.S. attorney changes. Let me insert, parenthetically, that much of the criticism leveled against the Attorney General, the President and his aides has been exaggerated and sometimes quite inaccurate. But, if it comes from a member of Congress or a Senator, that means you never have to say you are sorry. However, if the Attorney General, in responding to attacks, makes explanations that are in any way less than fully accurate one can expect that he will be attacked vociferously as attempting to mislead or worse. Unfortunately, there is a double standard and it often results in unfairness and this is one of those cases. Many of the complaints against Attorney General Gonzales have been very unfair and unfortunate. After this spasm developed, I was worried about the Attorney General's capacity to lead the Department of Justice effectively and expressed concern as to whether or not he would be able to assemble an able staff to complete his term and whether or not it would be, in sum, better for the Department of Justice that he step aside. I publicly suggested that he and the President meet together and discuss this issue with frankness. I quoted the Attorney General himself as saying that the matter was not about the Attorney General, but was really about what was best for the Department of Justice. It now appears that the Attorney General and the President have concluded that the Attorney General committed no offense, committed no crime for which he should be impeached, and has not made any error sufficient that he should no longer remain as Attorney General. The Attorney General's lack of experience in certain aspects of the Department of Justice were well known before he was confirmed by the Senate. In my personal view, there is no Cabinet member that requires more personal experience and detailed knowledge of the agency they will lead than the Attorney General. It is a very, very tough job and the Attorney General must be able to personally handle a large portfolio of issues and at the same time have a comprehensive grasp of complex legal issues and legal precedents involving the Department of Justice. For example, Attorney General Janet Reno was constantly struggling in the office. Before becoming the Attorney General, she had simply been a county district attorney and had never been involved in the kinds of issues she faced as Attorney General. In the future, I expect to be far more assertive in the confirmation process as I will insist that any Attorney General nominee have significant relevant experience. In conclusion, I conclude that there is not cause for any censure of Attorney General Gonzales and I conclude that there is no basis whatsoever for him to be impeached. It has been 120 years since a no-confidence vote has been had on any Cabinet member. That is something they do in Europe. It is not something we do in the United States. This no-confidence resolution is not necessary, it is harmful to our system, and should not be a precedent in the future. Frankly, it is driven by politics and not by what is best for the Department of Justice because this process will greatly magnify any errors that he has made and create a false impression. Attorney General Gonzales is a good man who sincerely wants to meet the highest standards of the Department of Justice. The process in our government is that the President nominates for the position of Attorney General, and the Senate votes to confirm them or not. After that confirmation, unless he is subject to impeachment, it is not good policy for the Senate to rush in and express formal opinions about the Cabinet officer and his or her performance. Therefore, I have, after considerable thought, concluded this resolution is bad policy and precedent, and is unfairly damaging to the Department of Justice. It is a political overreach and should not be passed. Therefore, I oppose the resolution.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. I think about 45 minutes per amendment. Some of these amendments are very significant. We have not heard opposition to the amendments. Maybe some have spoken in favor of them, but I don't agree with some of the amendments. The amendment of Senator Dodd--I think there are some important reasons that one is not satisfactory.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I understand Senator Coburn will be here shortly and has some time set aside. He indicated he will yield some time to me. I will take a couple of minutes. First, there are not any of my colleagues on the floor, but I assume the objection that was received last night to my request to dispense with the current business and make pending my amendment No. 1323 will still be in effect. I renew it, and if any change has been made with regard to it, I hope they will permit it, but I assume, based on what I know, that there is still an objection to bringing up that amendment. I have quite a number of amendments, 10 or more amendments, that have been filed but cannot be made pending because it requires unanimous consent to move those amendments to pending status, and that means if cloture is granted later this morning, those amendments will not be on the list and cannot be given a vote. I am not trying to run around and move something through to which I understand there is an objection, but I want to make the point that a number of Senators have a number of important amendments that are filed but cannot be made pending, and they will fall and not get a vote if we move forward with this premature cloture vote. So I strongly object to cloture. I believe it denies us the right to amend this bill which is seriously flawed. I note that the particular amendment I want to bring up is named for Charlie Norwood, a Congressman from Georgia, who died recently. He was a tremendous patriot who shared my concern. We worked together in drafting his amendment that was introduced in the House which was designed to clarify that local law enforcement officers have an opportunity to participate in enforcement of Federal immigration laws simply as they go about their normal course of duties. If they arrest someone for speeding or some offense of that kind, then they could check their records, and if they are here illegally, they could detain them for Federal officials. Actually, in many instances, that is still doable today, but in a couple of areas it is vague. The lawyers for the departments have objected to their police officers participating because they think there might be a problem. This is a critically important amendment. If it is not adopted, it indicates to me that the persons pushing this legislation do not want it to work because there are 600,000 to 800,000 State and local law enforcement officers and only about 1,200 ICE agents and only a fraction of them not on the border, 2,000, something of that nature of ICE agents. They cannot cover this country. They have to rely on State and local officers, who, by the way, caught individuals during their crime sprees or plans to attack us on 9/11. They were apprehended in traffic stops. John Malvo was apprehended. Other terrorists have been apprehended for speeding but let go because the local officers were not participating effectively in the system. One of the weaknesses of this bill is that the professionals who understand how this system works were not invited and were not in the room with the people who wrote this political bill. A bunch of politicians wrote it. They did not understand sufficiently the details that are critical to a successful report. I note that Kent Lundgren, former chairman of the National Association of Former Border Patrol Agents, has said this is a bill which will not work. ``Based on my experience,'' one individual said, ``it is a disaster.'' Another said that the system will not work as proposed today, that it represents, according to Mr. Hugh Brien, former Chief of Border Patrol for the United States from 1986 to 1989--this is what he said just a couple of days ago: It is a ``sell out.'' It is ``a complete betrayal of the Nation.'' He said it is ``a slap in the face'' to the millions of Americans who come here legally. He came here as an immigrant legally. He was former Chief of the Border Patrol, and he made these strong statements about this bill. I see my friend, Dr. Coburn, is here. I know he has an amendment. I am glad to have made my comments beforehand and I, once again, express concern that amendments are not being accepted, and we should not invoke cloture.

Mr. SESSIONS. We do have a problem, Mr. President. I say to my esteemed colleague, one of the most able Members of this Senate, I have in my mind a framework that I believe would work for immigration reform. A number of the things I thought were critical I was told might be in this new bill this year. But the fine print convinced me it was not there. I believe we have a problem with the American people. They want to make sure this is done in the open light of day. I am not prepared to say at this point in time that I could meet and reach an accord on the overall difficulties with this bill in a matter of hours, or even days. I think we need to start over with an open process and maybe something else can be accomplished. My inclination is to say let's get it out there and let the American people be involved. They understand the difficult choices that have to be made. They are also principled people and want to be sure we do it right. I thank Senator Specter for his efforts. My time has expired.

Mr. SESSIONS. Well, when the Senator from Pennsylvania chaired the Judiciary Committee, the immigration bill did have hearings--a few hearings--and did have a markup, as the Senator knows. But I will tell you that last year's hearings and markup were quite insufficient, in my view, considering the intensity and enormity of the subject. I will tell you what I believe needs to be done. It is much closer to what you did, as I mentioned before the Senator came to the floor, with asbestos. When you led the effort to reform and fix the very big problem with asbestos--and I was pleased to support you--you traveled all over the country and had hearings with judges, lawyers, and interest groups. We had hearing after hearing. We had markup days, and recess, and more markup days. It went on for months. It was brought up on the floor and knocked down--and then brought up on the floor again and it went on for months. We didn't quite get it done, but I supported the Senator's view of it. That is what we need. Even though asbestos was exceedingly complex, this is even more complex and even more significant for the average citizen. So I think that is where we messed up. I know this was a real attempt to get something done. People said we needed to do something. But do what?

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

Mr. SESSIONS. Yes.

Mr. SESSIONS. I think I probably reserved my independence as a Senator to maintain my ability to make an independent evaluation of the legislation that was produced.

Mr. SESSIONS. I wish to finish my remarks and then I will look at the agreement, if that would be all right.