Craig Thomas

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Really, if you have a question, I will take that. Otherwise I think it is my turn to have the floor.

Mr. THOMAS. Absolutely. There is no question. But this is the size of the bill. There are thousands of things in there. I am sorry. I agree with you. I was on the conference committee. We went through this process. But it is the House and the Senate both. When you go through a conference committee you come out with some things added and some things subtracted. I agree with the Senator and supported what she is talking about. But that is not the whole issue in this bill. This is a huge bill. The other thing that seldom is mentioned is that this is revenue neutral over 10 years. There are offsets to these expenditures which I feel very strongly about because I probably feel more strongly about the deficit than the Senator from North Dakota. But this is revenue neutral. They took enough things out, and that is one of the reasons some of the things are not in there that people would like in there, because they had to limit it to the amount of offsets they could find to make it work this way. But what happened then is they took off this 3-percent addition that went to manufacturers because the WTO opposed it and turned it around and gave that to all manufacturers, including people, for instance, who produce oil and who produce coal. It broadened the definition of manufacturers to where nearly every business in this country, then, receives it. We are talking about jobs numbers, which have grown pretty significantly. We are talking here about strengthening business to create jobs. Somehow we seem to forget that is where jobs come from, is by encouraging and giving incentives to businesses so they will invest and provide an opportunity to create jobs. That is what it is for. I don't quite understand where the Senator thinks jobs come from unless it has to do with businesses that invest and create those jobs. There are a great many things in there. Everyone could find something they don't like. I thought it was perhaps a little overdone, frankly, in terms of some of the things that were there. I tried very hard to get the tax element of the Energy bill into the bill. We were not able to put that all in there. We did get some energy incentives here, however, which will help some. We all had some things. There are some things that are particularly useful, just little things that are kind of typical of the many issues that are in there.

Mr. THOMAS. When you have medical providers who go to underserved areas, they are given financial incentives to go, and in the past those incentives which caused them to go there were taxable. We were able to take that taxable business out, so we will have more people willing and able to go to underserved areas--nurses, physicians, clinicians, and so forth. I will certainly yield.

Mr. THOMAS. I did not hear that. I continue to hear a lot of complaint and criticism when talking about spending when indeed it is revenue neutral, and the Senator didn't brother to mention that. Obviously in a bill this size there are a great many things you can talk about. Obviously no one is going to agree with all of the hundreds of issues that are there. There are some really good things, some things I thought were particularly good. For instance, ranchers who, because of the drought, had to sell their herd and cattle, they don't have to pay on capital gains now for 4 years. It gives them a chance to get back without having to pay for that. One of the fairness issues that is there is the idea that States that do not have State income tax, which is deductible from the Federal taxes, but indeed finance through sales taxes, can now deduct the sales taxes, which makes it fair. States can choose to either have income tax, they can have sales tax, they can have both, and then they can have one of the two of them deductible. In the past, sometimes, my State did not have a State income tax, but we had a sales tax and it was not deductible. It will be now. That is a real incentive for people to be able to save some of the money they have. We also had a provision in there that was put in that had to do with enlarging the loans that are available to small businesses from the Government. The limit was put in there in the 1970s. Of course, that has changed a great deal. Here again, the purpose is to encourage businesses to build up so they can, in fact, hire people, and we do something for jobs. There are a number of things here that are very good. As I said, we need incentives for the small production oil wells. If you have an oil well that does not produce a lot of oil, the fact is there is an incentive in here for marginal wells--to have a production tax credit for electricity produced by renewable sources--geothermal, solar energy, those kinds of things which we have been looking forward to in the energy package. Obviously, I think anyone in effect can find some things in here that wouldn't be their choice. On the other hand, this is a jobs bill. It is designed to encourage the economy and create jobs. That is what it is all about. I get a little concerned when we seem to direct more attention toward the election which is coming up. I will be happy when that is over so we can talk a little bit more about the merits of the issues. That is what we are here for. It would be a good idea if in fact that is what we do. I yield the floor.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I rise today to recognize a key member of my team who I have worked alongside for almost 10 years now and most importantly, to mark a milestone of dedicated service to this body, the U.S. Senate. On September 24, 2004, Pam Buline marked her 25th anniversary of working for the U.S. Senate. Twenty-five years all spent as a valuable aide to two Senators from the great State of Wyoming. Pam began her career in the Senate back in 1979, working for former Senator Malcolm Wallop. In those days, Pam worked out of a little office in a town called Lander, WY. Upon my election to the U.S. Senate, Pam agreed to join my staff and continue her efforts to serve constituents in our State. I was extremely pleased to have a person with her degree of knowledge on so many important issues--she is invaluable. Pam remains a crucial person on my staff. Her domain in Wyoming covers a wide array of issues, from land swaps, to American Indian issues, to snowmachines in Yellowstone and Grand Teton. I can always turn to Pam for good advice and a very thorough explanation of the issue at hand or as she says, ``the long and the short of it.'' Pam loves her job and the people she works with and I am extremely grateful that she is on my staff. We are part of a team, my staff and I. Along with my wife, Susan, we all feel strongly bound to service for the people of Wyoming. Pam continues to be an invaluable member of that team. Her loyalty, while not rare in this great body, is special nonetheless. As U.S. Senators, we all know how important it is to have staff around us that are trustworthy, and will do whatever it takes to make things work. I have been particularly fortunate to know Pam and work with her for the past 9 years. Wyoming and the U.S. Senate have been blessed by her service for the past 25 years. I know my colleagues, and her husband Jim, and son Robert, join me in saluting Pam. I look forward to working with her for many years to come.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I appreciate the comments made by my friend from Kentucky. Certainly those are the discussions going on today. I take a minute or two to talk about the war on terrorism. We are in a war on terrorism. We need to conduct that war and take it to the terrorists, not here at home. We do have a plan. In war, obviously, the plan does not always turn out the way one hopes and we have to change from time to time. We need to be together on the goals. Our goal is to win. We must do whatever is necessary to win. We should not have all of our conversations about this war based on politics. Hopefully that will be over soon. We ought to talk about the challenges before the country. We need to support our troops and goal--and that is to win. We are not alone in our effort, although that is talked about sometimes. Some 80 nations are working together with us to ensure the world is a safer and a more secure place. The coalition is removing the threat of terrorism and building a foundation to enhance national and international security. The war being fought in Afghanistan and Iraq is bringing about a fundamental change to the environment that has given rise and power to the extremists who export terrorism. Contrary to what those who focus only on the negative would have you believe, we have some good things to talk about that move us toward this goal of winning over there. Coalition forces have not lost an engagement at the platoon level or above in 3 years of war. This terrorist enemy knows we cannot be defeated by him, but he is focused on winning the battle of perception by attacking civilians to spread fear among local populations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The terrorists' goal is to win the perception battle and to force us to lose our will to win. Unfortunately, by trying to exploit the negative aspects of the war, some in our country have fallen into the trap and are unwittingly advancing this cause. This is unfortunate and, quite frankly, very counterproductive to our goal of winning. We have been successful in Iraq and Afghanistan in many ways. Of course, the situation is still violent. It is still volatile. It is not the way we would like it to be, and much more remains to be done. But, again, we will succeed by focusing on success and by moving toward our goals. Today, in Afghanistan, coalition and Afghan forces are setting the conditions for a stable and safe environment for a successful presidential election in October, followed by parliamentary elections in the spring. The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan reports that over 10 million voters are registered as of August 29 for the October 9 presidential election. More than 41 percent of registered voters are women. This is an unusual kind of change for Afghanistan. Today, more than 18,000 coalition forces, together with the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police, are increasing their security operations in towns and villages. These are tremendous accomplishments by any standard. Although several months ago, when I had the privilege of attending there, you could tell--you could tell from the kids in school, you could tell from the people on the street--this movement was taking place. Unfortunately, of course, it is being slowed down by the terrorist attacks in Iraq. Despite the negativity coming from the President's opponents, the United States remains fully committed to assisting the Iraqis in restoring security and rebuilding their nation. The Iraqi National Conference met and has selected the Interim National Council. This Interim Council for the Iraqi Government is now planning for elections, of course, in January. Some say: Well, can that happen? It will not be smooth. Of course it will not be smooth. To make a transition of this kind is not a smooth operation. But the fact is, violence will continue to exist and these things will continue to happen. But this movement toward a change in government to self-government will persist. The enemy obviously is unscrupulous and will do anything, including, of course, the killing of innocent children, to stop this movement toward freedom from taking seed. Overwhelmingly, however, the people of Iraq want to rebuild their country and to defend it from fringe groups that wish to tear it apart. The largest single contributor to Iraq's security is that effort of Iraqi people who continue to step forward to join the various Iraqi security forces. More than 230,000 Iraqis serve as part of their country's security force, with another 20,000 in training. Again, I had the opportunity to visit some of these training facilities, and they were new at that time, they were still becoming efficient at that time. You could sense this was happening, and there was a commitment on the part of Iraqis to do some things that were much different than they had been accustomed to. They have been trained and are on duty in areas including police service, national guard, border enforcement, the Iraq Army, and the Iraqi intervention force. Now, there are those who may say: I know, but they are not doing very well on the borders. Of course not. It takes time to do these things. This an extreme change from what they were doing in the past. We also know in our own country how difficult it is for border protections. So while performance varies in regions, Iraqi security forces continue to improve. And they are recruiting additional persons to strengthen their efforts to be very successful. I think it is clear that the Iraqi people have much at stake in defeating the terrorist insurgency, and they are indeed taking on this burden which, of course, is exactly what has to be done in order to transfer the governance and the security of Iraq to the Iraqi people-- our goal. They need our unequivocal support, not talk of cutting and running, because the mission is difficult. All of us knew it was going to be difficult. Again, we have to go back to the basis of terrorism; we have to go back to 11 September; we have to go back to the previous gulf war where the agreements made by Saddam Hussein were never put in place. So all those things go in to where we are. Where we are now, you can argue about, but that is where we are. We need to win. We need to be positive. We need to be supportive of our troops and of our commitment. Our goals are lofty, and the road, of course, has not been easy and will not be easy in the future. There will be tough times before we are through. But we must remain resolute and be sure the job is completed and that we win. Because only by fostering freedom and democracy and hope in these oppressed regions of the world can we truly root out and defeat the terrorist threat we have faced and continue to face today. Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. THOMAS

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

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I believe it is appropriate, as we move toward the end of our session, to take a look at those issues that are before us that are most important. Certainly, we have had a difficult 4 years. Unusual and difficult events have happened which have been very hard to deal with, and they have made this a challenging and difficult time for all of us. We had an economic downturn starting before the beginning of this 4 years. So we have taken steps to develop and strengthen the economy, which is still a job before us. However, we are making good progress, I believe, with respect to that issue. We had September 11, which is a tragedy we will all always remember. And then, as a part of and following that tragedy, we have had the war on terrorism. Certainly one has to understand that we have had a tough time. I think we have done rather well moving through this kind of a background and dealing with this situation that is very unusual. We continue to face tough decisions and the followup on those decisions. We have made an excellent start in the economy. We have made an excellent start in the war on terrorism and, indeed, are moving forward in that regard. We are faced with responsibilities and issues that have an impact on the movement we are seeking. It is up to us to deal with those issues. In the short term, we are dealing with the budget, appropriations-- those items having to do with spending. One of the impacts of what has happened is a spending deficit. All of us, I think, would agree that under the circumstances, it was a reasonable and necessary thing to do. Most of us understand it is time we begin to do away with that deficit and get back to a balanced budget, about which I certainly feel strongly. We are going to be faced as well with the reorganization of our intelligence-gathering situation. Today, we will be faced with a new Director of the CIA, which is a place to begin. Obviously, there need to be some changes there. Along with that, during the next several weeks, we will be involved in the reorganization of the entire intelligence operation which, again, is very important. Of course, the most important aspect of our future is winning the war on terror and support for what we are doing in Iraq and Afghanistan. We will take up the reform of our intelligence services. All of us recognize the hard work the Commission has done in putting together a plan, 41 suggestions and recommendations. We will look at those recommendations. They have done it under tough circumstances. We need to do our best to put into place the best program we can. This is not a political issue. This is an issue we ought to take a look at and say: How do we best avoid the kinds of problems we had in the past in collecting and putting to good use information and intelligence? I do not think we should rush to complete this job. Obviously, it is something we need to do, and there is interest in getting it done as quickly as possible. I hope our target is to do it in the best way we know how as opposed to the fastest way we know how. Perhaps we need to do both. We all agree there are weaknesses. Our Government institutions have not adapted to the growing threat of terrorism over more than a decade. We need to understand again, in terms of war, that the situation has changed so much. Not long ago, we fought a war with 17 divisions, landing boats on shores. That is not the case anymore. That is not the case at all. That is not the challenge. The challenge is not often knowing who the enemy is or where the enemy is. We have a totally different circumstance surrounding the need for intelligence. We have to deal with the fact that terrorists are there to exploit the weaknesses in our defenses and in our knowledge of what needs to be done. Fortunately, this election year has focused some on that point. We have seen fingerpointing attempts to lay blame partly to political advantage, but that is not what it is about. As we move forward with the debate in the Senate, I am hopeful we will never forget that the blame for the attacks on 9/11 rests solely on the al-Qaida terrorists and Osama bin Laden and the people involved in the Middle East for a long time working at these kinds of things. We need to understand also that the threat is not over, and we need to continue to deal with it. So our focus is trying to figure out ways to improve the situation and correct the problem so the events of September 11 will not happen again. So this obviously involves increasing both the quality and quantity of human intelligence, and we need to take a look at our overall situation, intelligence as well as military, because things, indeed, have to change. We need to have coordination certainly among all the intelligence agencies throughout the country, in different agencies than they have been in the past. Whether they put them all into one is one of the questions before us, but whether we do or not there has to be coordination and conversation and information exchange among them. There has to be sharing. We have to define the goals we are seeking so we understand what it is we are putting forth and that each of these various units within our intelligence agencies know what their responsibilities are and their goals are and we can put them together to equal what our totals are. We need, obviously, to invest more in the technical intelligence capabilities. Those things change constantly. So more importantly, I suppose most importantly, we need to ensure the coordinated use of these resources and the personnel and improve communications. It sounds like an easy thing, but apparently it is not. In the end, this type of reform and reform of our intelligence gathering process is necessary. I look forward to the debate we will have soon and I suppose some starting today, as a matter of fact, with the recommendation before us for Director of the CIA. Again, I hope that we can aim toward fixing the problems, aim toward moving to solutions rather than again finding ourselves in the 40-some days from elections where nearly everything is talked about having to do with the elections. Of course, overall, the most important challenge we have before us now is to win the war on terrorism in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan. The problems and the failures in prewar intelligence gathering are troubling, and I am pleased we are doing something about it so our leaders will have the best accurate information on which to make decisions. And we acknowledge errors in the past. However, the coming debate should not draw from the central fact that operations in Iraq are and always have been a critical part of the war on terrorism. The war being fought in Afghanistan and Iraq is one that is designed fundamentally to change the environment that has given rise and power to Islamic extremism. The introduction of a stable democracy in that oppressed region of the world will create an environment in which freedom and liberty and peace have the potential to grow and to thrive. I am persuaded that is really the goal of most of Iraqis. When I visited there some months ago, I was very much impressed with the feeling of most people. You would go out to schools, to powerplants, into the streets of Baghdad, and generally there were all kinds of cars and activity, kids standing on the street waving as we went by in military cars. I understand how difficult it is with the relatively small group of protesters and persons who do not care about the future and are willing to blow you up with a car bomb. But the fact is most people see the merit of having the kind of government, the kind of country where they can enjoy freedom and the prosperity of freedom. So if we can continue to provide an opportunity for these folks to take care of themselves, form their own government, which is our plan, of course, that is our goal. Now, it is difficult and I understand politically advantageous to complain about the speed at which or the slowness at which it is taking place. The fact is it is going to be slow. It is going to be difficult. It is a difficult thing to accomplish. We hear complaints about not having a plan. We do have a plan. Is everything perfect? Of course not. But there is a plan. We know what we are doing. I was out to the training facility for the Iraqi police and army, and they are making an effort. It is slower than we thought, of course, but that is the case. We are going to have the fanatics and the insurgents and they are going to be fighting us and the Iraqis and they will be acting out of desperation, and that is difficult. This is not the kind of war where somebody puts up a white flag and suddenly it is all over. This is not that kind of arrangement. This is much different. People will do it. This will, of course, eventually deny the terrorists and extremists the havens they need. So it is a very important issue. It is a victory that will be long and difficult. I believe we have to acknowledge that. Again I understand the politics of saying it is too long, we need to get out, and we do and everyone agrees with that. But there is a sequence in completing our task. There is the first sequence. It will take a long time and there will be casualties and it will be difficult. But there are happy things to talk about. There are more than 400,000 security forces conducting stability operations there. The Government is in close consultation, training commanders; 99,000 Iraqis have been trained in various security forces. There is a lot going on there. Have we accomplished what we want yet? Of course not. Or else we would be saying that we have accomplished everything. But it is so important that we focus not only on that but on those things that now are important to us. We are focused on our budget. We are focused on holding down spending in the nonessential areas so we can make up this deficit. We need to focus on creating jobs so that we can continue to get strength in the economy. We need to focus on having the kind of intelligence that can avoid these things happening in the future. We need to focus on completing the task we have undertaken. So we will have an opportunity in the next couple of weeks to do some things, and then certainly we will come back later. I guess my only hope is that we can continue to see the tasks clearly before us, seek to complete the task successfully as opposed to trying to make a political issue out of wherever the controversies lie. That is the challenge for us and a challenge I believe we can accomplish. Mr. President, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I would like to announce for the information of the Senate and the public that the following hearing has been scheduled before the Subcommittee on National Parks of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. The hearing will be held on Tuesday, September 21, 2004, at 2:30 p.m., in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, DC. The purpose of the hearing is to receive testimony on the following bills: S. 784 and H.R. 1630, to revise the boundary of Petrified Forest National Park in the State of Arizona, and for other purposes; S. 2656, to establish a National Commission on the Quincentennial of the discovery of Florida by Ponce de Leon; S. 2499, to modify the boundary of the Harry S Truman National Historic Site in the State of Missouri, and for other purposes; S. 1311, to establish the Hudson-Fulton- Champlain 400th Commemoration Commission, and for other purposes; and H.R. 2055, to amend P.L. 899-366 to allow for an adjustment in the number of free roaming horses permitted in Cape Lookout National Seashore. Because of the limited time available for the hearings, witnesses may testify by invitation only. However, those wishing to submit written testimony for the hearing record should send two copies of their testimony to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, U.S. Senate, SD-364. Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, DC 20510- 6150. For further information, please contact Tom Lillie at (202) 224-5161 or Sarah Creachbaum at (202) 224-6293.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I certainly appreciate the comments of my friend from Oklahoma. There are some positive things that have resulted after a number of very difficult years. I certainly appreciate the leadership which he has given on the budget. I wanted to talk a moment about Senate business. Of course, I suppose we all have ideas about what we could do. We will be here for another month. Obviously, we can't do everything that is out there before us. Clearly, there were a lot of items we couldn't complete partly as a result of the fact that, frankly, we have not done as much over the last year as we should have and could have done. Some of that, of course, has been because of the Presidential election which is still looming before us. That has caused arguments on a lot of things which are more political than need to be. It is not unusual for the Congress to be political, of course. But I think to the extent it has been, it is more than usual. I hope we can move forward. I was encouraged about what our leadership said yesterday as we try to move forward and try to actually cooperate on some things. Unfortunately, before the day is over I think we are back into the same old routine of trying to put the blame on everyone, and so on. The fact is we have work to do. We have an opportunity to do it. As I said, we will not all agree on what they ought to be, but it seems to me the real challenge before us is to set some priorities. We have a certain amount of time. We can do a certain number of things. Admittedly, we will have different ideas about what those priorities ought to be. I wanted to share that. It seems to me it is important to do the things in a timely manner which have an impact on the economy--things Senator Nickles also talked about. One is appropriations. Appropriations were intended to be done in July and August at the end of the fiscal year--at the end of September. We are a little late on those. The Appropriations Committee has been dealing with them for a long time. It seems to me that we ought to be prepared to move forward within the budget. It is one of the most important things. I happen to believe energy is one of the most important things we have to deal with, to have an energy policy which gives us some idea as to the direction we are going to take when we deal with the obvious difficulties of energy. The cost of energy, the import percentages we have to expect from overseas, with all of the unrest in the Middle East where some of it comes from--those are the kinds of things we need to deal with. We have talked about it now for about 3 years. We have a policy. A policy has been on the floor. Unfortunately, as it moved to the floor the last time it was filibustered and we lacked the votes to get it passed. We need to pass it. In my view, that would have a great impact on the highway bill. Again, we have had a highway bill for some time. We had a 6-year bill. It expired a year ago. Now we are proceeding monthly. We need to get a longer term highway bill in place. As I traveled around my State of Wyoming last month, I probably heard as much about that as anything, how important the transportation system is to all of us. Coupled with that, of course, is the number of jobs developed by having the opportunity to move forward. I commend the chairman and his staff for working during the recess. We had differences on what the spending level ought to be, which should not have been that difficult because this spending is the result of transportation. That is what those taxes are for; to expend those on highway and related transportation is what it is all for. I understand we are reaching some agreements on what that ought to be. We have had differences with the Senate and the House and the White House. But we need to move forward. Certainly, our State of Wyoming is particularly dependent on transportation because the miles per capita are very large. We have lots of miles--not only used in Wyoming but used by others with a relatively small population. It is very important to us. The economic impact, of course, is very important. For every $1 billion spent, 47,000 jobs are created--and created quickly. One of the problems, of course, is much of the highway construction is done by contracting. If the highway departments within the States do not know what their funds are going to be, it is impossible for them to go ahead and do contracting in the future. It is also very seasonable. Most of the work in the West and the mountain States has to be done in the good weather periods. We need to do something with that. The Energy bill, as I mentioned, is a total bill. It is not just one or two little things. It has to do with research and the alternative resources of energy in the future. Whether it is wind or conversion of coal to diesel or to hydrogen, it deals with alternative energy as well as renewable. It deals with efficiency and conservation and the use of energy. We can make great strides in that area. It also has to do with the encouragement--giving incentives to domestic production, which, of course, is very important. We need to make some changes. We need to utilize coal more, for example, because it is our largest resource of fossil fuel. It can be converted into other fuels--diesel, hydrogen, or whatever. We need to use coal to generate electricity rather than gas because gas is so flexible and it can be used for other things. Coal can be used economically in a clean way as well. There is nothing more important than to have an idea. This was one of the first things that was done at the White House, and we have done it here. I have been on that committee. Yet we have not been able to get it done. Now it is at the desk. All we need to do is bring it up and move forward. There are a lot of other things that are very important. We will have to decide whether we want to get things done or whether we want to continue to argue. There is nothing wrong with having different ideas, voting on them, and reaching a conclusion. We have great challenges ahead and only a short time in which to complete them. I certainly urge Members to put their energies into those priorities and complete them. I yield the floor.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. I send an amendment to the desk.

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

Mr. THOMAS. Madam President, I offer this as a second degree to the pending amendment of the Senator from Vermont. The amendment specifically restricts the Department's ability to conduct competitions under President Bush's competitive sourcing initiative, which is an integral part of his management agenda. As a strong supporter of the competitive sourcing process and consistent advocate for a smaller and more efficient government, I offer this second degree to ensure that any attempts to restrict the Department of Homeland Security in implementing its competitive sourcing efforts are limited. The positions in question, immigration information officers, have been identified by the Department as noninherently governmental functions. They have been identified by the Department in that category. They are commercial activities and can be performed in the private sector without endangering our homeland security efforts. The Department of Homeland Security is simply complying with the FAIR Act by subjecting these positions to public/private competition in order to determine if they could best be performed by the private sector or remain in house. This competition was initiated by the Department of Justice prior to the transfer to DHS. It is critical to significantly improving first line services associated with processing immigration applications and benefits. DHS is in the process of completing its competition in these very positions, and the amendment of the Senator would prohibit DHS from completing this competition. Numerous studies have confirmed that competitions create opportunities for innovative, improved data management, economic, and performance improvements. They are confident that competition has already provided a powerful incentive for both the public and the private sector sources to identify new and better ways of meeting the requirements. This information has to do with these positions. The IIOs are GS-5s, 7s, and 8s, with supervisors at the GS-9 level, who perform only first line procedural processing for a range of immigrant applications/ benefits. They are not performing inherently governmental work, are not policymakers or regulators, do not bind the Government to a course of action. Adjudicators, who have authority to investigate, correct, overrule and make final decisions regarding immigration status, are a separate function within the Citizenship and Immigration Service, but are not covered by this proposed, or any other, DHS competition. The DHS has opened its commercial activity currently performed by Government employees to competition from the private sector in order to improve services, improve the opportunity for innovation, improve levels of security, and create the possibility of cost savings. The Government and private sector will compete for the work based on quality and cost. The agency has written that on a governmentwide basis, competitions completed in fiscal year 2003 are estimated to generate savings and cost avoidances of over $1 billion over the next 3 to 5 years. The House version of the bill contains a provision that would block DHS from using competition to choose the best public or private sector sources to handle tasks associated with the processing of immigration applications. We understand an amendment may be offered on the Senate floor that would preclude public-private competition and turn back DHS efforts to significantly improve customer service for immigrants. If the final version of the bill were to contain such a prohibition, the President's senior advisor would recommend he veto the bill. We have been through this a number of times. It always is presented as if these are replacing Government jobs with private sector jobs which, first of all, I don't think is a bad idea but nevertheless that is not the case. This is competition. This is an opportunity for both those in the Government service and in the private sector to have an opportunity to deal with these administrative first level jobs--these are people who do not make the decisions, they simply go through the details of this--and to allow this agency to continue to seek to make their work more effective and more efficient. Somehow, every time this comes up we have this opposition to this program that has been in place, is in place, and the fact is it has already been proven to save considerable amount of money. It is already proven in most cases, as a matter of fact, because of the improvement on the part of the Federal employees; they remain there through the competition. It just seems to me it is a mistake for us to get into this program and say you can't do that anymore. Clearly these people are not the people who are decisionmakers. They are the folks who are doing the administrative work that brings it to the decisionmakers. Additionally, my amendment would not result in the closure of any immigration service centers or district offices currently in operation, which appears to be the concern of some of the sponsors. I hope we can take a long look at this and that we can try to allow this program of efficiency, of cost saving, to be continued by this department. Let them make the decision as to who can best do this task. I yield the floor.

Mr. THOMAS. Madam President, are we going to vote? Fine. I would like to be able to make a closing statement pretty much as my friend from Vermont did. I want you to remember that this is an effort that is being made throughout the Government to try to find a way to be more efficient. It is not outsourcing; it is competition; and whoever does the best job ends up doing this activity. I further remind you that these are not people who make decisions with regard to terrorism. These are the people who do the detail work and report to folks who make the decisions. I also remind you that this Department is in the process of doing this now, is willing to come to the Senate as we proceed and report where they are. This is part of the program that has been ongoing. It has been proven to work. We ought to continue to do it here. I yield the floor.

Mr. THOMAS. We just voted on this same issue. We have voted on it a dozen times. What we have here is an effort by this Government to try to be more efficient, more cost saving, by having competition. That is what is involved. Let me say that these immigration information officers are GS-5s, 7s, and 8s, with supervisors at the GS-9 level, who perform only first-line procedural processing. They are not performing any ``inherently governmental'' work. They are not policymakers or regulators. They do not bind the Government to a course of action. This is already underway in this administration. They have looked at doing this. Who knows who is going to do it more efficiently? We are saying to the Government that you cannot do that. You have to leave things the way they are, and we don't want to have any opportunity to do things better than we have been doing them. That is what it is all about. I urge a ``no'' vote.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. How much time do we have remaining?

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, of course we all have spent a good deal of time concerned about the direction we are taking here, the number of things we are accomplishing, the fact that many of the things we would like to do have not been accomplished. I think that is a legitimate concern. We ought to try to deal with some of those issues. On the other hand, there have been a number of things done, of course. I think we have had the most obstruction in the movement here that we have seen in many years. Many important issues have been stopped, have been obstructed, frankly, because our friends on the other side of the aisle did not want to go forward with these issues, or wanted to hold them up where they could add all kinds of unrelated amendments to them. The Class Action Fairness Act, of course, was blocked. The fairness in asbestos injury resolution was blocked. The Patients First Act, the energy policy--probably one of the most important issues we could have dealt with this entire year is still there. Charity aid, recovery, and empowerment legislation, which gave strength to do things in the private sector, we were unable to do that; Personal Responsibility, Work, and Family Promotion Act; workforce investment; five judges were held up simply for the purpose of holding them up. It is too bad. It is something we need to change. We ought to be concerned here with issues, not politics, not Kerry, not Bush, but talk about what the issues are here and the things we ought to be doing. Politics, of course, is part of our lives, but so is accomplishing something in the legislature. We have done some things. The Omnibus appropriations bill for this fiscal year was passed this year. It was delayed but nevertheless passed. The Pension Stability Act had to do with changing the requirements for putting money into pensions. That made that better. The accountability, flexibility and efficiency--the transportation bill--again, one of the most important bills we could possibly pass, we passed it in the Senate but, unfortunately, it is still hung up in conference. The Internet bill which allows for the moratorium of taxation on the Internet, a good thing, was passed by the Senate. The Jumpstart Our Business Strength Act, of course, is one that is pending and ready to go, I hope, to the conference committee. This is the one that the WTO had the penalties on exports from the United States and we had a 3-percent reduction for those that exported goods and that gave us a penalty. Now we are changing that. There is also a great deal in that bill with regard to encouraging the economy to grow. So we have done a number of things. We have done some things to reduce the redtape and the consumer initiative, taxpayer protection, and IRS accountability that strengthens the protection the taxpayers have in terms of what information is made public on their taxes. Strengthening and improving health care; we did the project bioshield. These things have passed the Senate but have not been completed yet largely because we have not been able to go to conference on many of them. Here again we find obstacles in our way this year that we have never seen before. I guess it means we need to take a little look at our system. Keeping Americans safe at home--of course, we passed the unborn victims of violence bill that amends the Federal law regarding women who are assaulted, and an unborn child is killed, to allow the assailant to be charged. Flood insurance reform is very important. It amends the Flood Act to encourage damage mitigation. Homeland security has been something, of course, we have passed. Regarding crime, we have done a lot of things, even though we could do a great deal more, I am sure. Educational initiatives--the NASA Workforce Flexibility Act offers scholarships, incentives, for highly qualified students to move forward. IDEA reauthorization, the Individuals with Disabilities Act, is one that is very important to be reauthorized and moved through. It was passed by the Senate.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to continue for 5 more minutes.

Mr. THOMAS. The point is, we have a problem with the process here. Obstruction is available. I don't think that is what is intended. At the same time, we have accomplished a good many things that certainly are important and that we need to recognize. I want to mention something that I believe is important, and that is taking a little look and having a way to have some measurement of the kinds of things that are brought up that are legitimately congressional--Federal kinds of issues. I understand everyone has issues they would like to bring up. Frankly, some of them are inappropriate to be here on the Federal level. We continue to have more spending; we have more government; we have more involvement in people's lives. One of the reasons is we have not set up some criteria to say this is a good idea, but is it the thing that ought to be done in the Federal Government as opposed to State government or city government or county government? Tom Feeney, from Florida, one of the House Members, put out an interesting idea. He has a little card like a credit card. It measures these things against issues. No. 1 is less government: Does the bill tend to reduce government regulations, the size of government, eliminate entitlements or unnecessary programs? That is one of the tests he has against the issue. No. 2 is lower taxes: Does the bill promote individual responsibility in spending or reducing taxes? It is a good idea to take a look at that. No. 3 is personal responsibility: Does the bill encourage responsible behavior among individuals and families, and encourage them to take care of their own issues to an extent? Remember, we don't want the government in our lives, yet things have to be done. It is a choice: do we do them ourselves? No. 4 is individual freedom: Does the bill offer opportunities for individuals to do those kinds of things? No. 5 is stronger families: Is it something that contributes to the family function, the family structure in our country, which is obviously one of the most important things we have? Finally, No. 6, does it add to domestic tranquility and national defense? I think those are interesting concepts, interesting measurements that one might take--in their own mind, of course. Each person would have a different view of how to deal with it but to see if what is before us meets some of these measurements and does these things. First, I think we are going to have to do something about the kind of obstructionism we have seen that moves to keep us from doing what we need to do. Second, we need to recognize we have done a number of things and passed them in the Senate. Unfortunately, they are not fully done. Maybe a little unrelated, but important to me, we ought to have some kind of standard we measure in our minds as to whether this is a legitimate thing, necessary thing, appropriate thing to be done at the Federal level or indeed should be done other places. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 21, 2004, at 9:30 a.m., in open session to consider the following nominations: 1. Vice Admiral Timothy J. Keating, USN, for appointment to the grade of Admiral and to be Commander, United States Northern Command/ Commander, North American Aerospace Defense Command; 2. Lieutenant General Bantz J. Craddock, USA, for appointment to the grade of General and to be Commander, United States Southern Command; 3. Peter Cyril Wyche Flory to be Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy; and 4. Valerie Lynn Baldwin to be Assistant Secretary of the Army for Financial Management and Comptroller.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, July 21, 2004, at 10 a.m., to conduct an oversight hearing on ``Regulation N.M.S. and Developments in Market Structure.''

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session on Wednesday, July 21, 2004, at 10 a.m., to hear testimony on ``Bridging the Tax Gap.''

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, July 21, 2004 at 9:30 a.m. to hold a hearing on ``The Multilateral Development Banks.''

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet on Wednesday, July 21, 2004, at 10 a.m., to hold a business meeting to consider pending committee business. Agenda Legislation 1. S. 1230, a bill to provide for additional responsibilities for the Chief Information Officer of the Department of Homeland Security relating to geospatial information. 2. S. 2347, a bill to amend the District of Columbia Access Act of 1999 to permanently authorize the public school and private school tuition assistance programs established under the Act. 3. S. 2409, a bill to provide for continued health benefits coverage for certain federal employees. 4. S. 2628, a bill to amend chapter 23 of title 5, United States Code, to clarify the disclosures of information protected from prohibited personnel practices, require a statement in nondisclosure policies, forms, and agreements that such policies, forms, and agreements conform with certain disclosure protections, provide certain authority for the Special Counsel, and for other purposes. 5. S. 2536, the Homeland Security Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Protection Act of 2004. 6. S. 2635, a bill to establish an intergovernmental grant program to identify and develop homeland security information, equipment, capabilities, technologies, and services to further the homeland security needs of Federal, State, and local governments. 7. S. 2657, a bill to amend part III of title 5, United States Code, to provide for the establishment of programs under which supplemental dental and vision benefits are made available to Federal employees, retirees, and their dependents, to expand the contracting authority of the Office of Personnel Management, and for other purposes. 8. S. 2639, a bill to reauthorize the Congressional Award Act. 9. S. 2275, the High Risk Nonprofit Security Enhancement Act of 2004. 10. S. 593, Reservists Pay Security Act of 2003. 11. H.R. 3797, the 2004 District of Columbia Omnibus Authorization Act. Post Office Naming Bills 1. S. 2501/H.R. 4427, a bill to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 73 South Euclid Avenue in Montauk, New York, as the ``Perry B. Duryea, Jr. Post Office''. 2. S. 2640, a bill to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 1050 North Hills Boulevard in Reno, Nevada, as the ``Guardians of Freedom Memorial Post Office Building'' and to authorize the installation of a plaque at such site, and for other purposes. 3. H.R. 3340, an act to redesignate the facilities of the United States Postal Service located at 7715 and 7748 S. Cottage Grove Avenue in Chicago, Illinois, as the ``James E. Worsham Post Office'' and the ``James E. Worsham Carrier Annex Building'', respectively, and for other purposes. 4. H.R. 4222, an act to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 550 Nebraska Avenue in Kansas City, Kansas, as the ``Newell George Post Office Building''. 5. H.R. 4327, an act to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 7450 Natural Bridge Road in St. Louis, Missouri, as the ``Vitilas `Veto' Reid Post Office Building''. 6. H.R. 4380, an act to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 4737 Mile Stretch Drive in Holiday, Florida, as the ``Sergeant First Class Paul Ray Smith Post Office Building''. Nominations 1. Neil McPhine to be Chairman, Merit Systems Protection Board. 2. Barbara J. Sapin to be a Member, Merit Systems Protection Board.