great god and father your anger last only for a moment but your favor last a lifetime open  to the work you're doing in our world healing the sick and liberating the oppressed lord you have watched over our nation from generation to generation in prosperity and adversity in peace and war in every generation you continue to provide leaders who are equal to our challenges and to strive to do your will today accept the gratitude of our senators for your generous blessing through arise over false love prevail over hate and peace by with us all we pray in your strong name republicans control the first half majority control the second half following the morning business senate will resume consideration on the motion to proceed to h r three nine six three the children's health insurance legislation cloture was invoked on that motion proceed yesterday they indicated after cloture vote if we have to stay here to run the thirty hours post cloture that time would expire at twelve fifty a m this morning or come our morning i've had several conversations with my counterpart th mcconnell with reference to this legislation how we can move forward concluding action and manner that would not cause a senator remain in session over the weekend but there's no guarantee that we can do that and the arm the debate will continue on the motion day and if and when agreements reach with respect to moving forward members will be alerted the schedule i would say mr president that there are some senators working to try to come up with another compromise and i hope they can do that if they can and i will be the first to temp some way to have that matter if actuated but at this stage that has not been done and i had a number of meetings yesterday with the interested senators and  internal revenue service sent a letter to congress warning about the consequences of not addressing the a m t tax right away she said if we don't do something about this middle class tax hike by december as many as fifty million americans more than a third of all u s taxpayers will either get hit by a tax that was never meant for them or forced to wait months for a refund that many of them count on for their family budgets misread i'd like to submit the letter from the acting commissioner linda still for the record now when most people get a letter from the i r s they get scared but the our colleagues on the other side apparently didn't even blink they don't seem all that concerned about forcing fifty million americans to write an interest free loan to the government in the form of unpaid tax returns worth about seventy five billion dollars seventy five billion dollars that's more than the gross domestic product of a hundred different countries just sitting in the treasury instead of the bank accounts and pockets of americans who aren't it now this were the only thing the majority were procrastinating over americans would have reason enough to be angry but it's  not just the latest in a string of court duties they promised they'd address before election day but put back on the shelf after all the votes were counted instead of fulfilling campaign promises to launch into a series of legislative misson vent misadventures that have put us five weeks into the new fiscal year with the same number of appropriation bills we started with which is zero a justice department with more empty offices in the dirksen building in august and no indication from anyone on the other side that any of this will change regarding appropriations the president has already said he'd veto spending bills that exceed the budget request yet our colleagues on the other side will now knowingly pass a labor h h s bill that exceeds the president budget by billions of dollars and attach it to the milk on veterans appropriations bill we already know the result these bills are coming right back to the senate for a do over this is a waste of time and just more of the same from our colleagues on the other side that have been all intent all year on using the calendars of stage for political theater other than a workshop to actually get things accomplished over at the justice department the democrats have been clamoring for new leadership all year senior senator from new york was the loudest of them all more than five months ago he told us quote the nation needs a new attorney general and it can't afford to wait in quote present responded in good faith by nominating the very man the saner center  recommended for the job yet america has now waited longer for a vote on my commute k z than on any other attorney general nominee in decades they waited more than forty days now compare that to janet reno this confirmation came less than two weeks after she was named democrats have found plenty of time for votes it didn't matter now it's time to turn to votes that do found time for midnight votes on political iraq resolutions now americans are wondering whether we'll have a midnight vote error in the tax code promises to leave more than one third of them high and dry come april found time for a vote on how we felt about the last attorney general now people want to know when we'll have the midnight vote on restoring leadership at the justice department had time to vote again and again to cut off funds for our troops in the field voted on the feingold amendment to cut off funds three times now americans want to know when they'll have a midnight vote to send the rest of the money to the troops or on any of the one of twelve appropriation bill oldmeadow form we have some reason to expect to present all sides and a fixation on political gamesmanship as comet is serious because what we're seeing here goes far beyond mismanagement  american people have caught all the sake of the taxpayers for the sake of the justice system for the sake of the men and women who wear the uniform it's time to put politics aside and do the work of today no more g we have a lot to do there is no question about that but i said to one of my friends on the republican side several days ago when he was lamenting the fact that the present standing was low and ours was low that is congress and i said to him what do you hope to accomplish by denigrating the place you work as you work here what good does it do to do that and he had knowledge he said that's right i won't do it anymore nice present i say to my friend from kentucky it's easy to find fault with what anyone does any place in life including the senate the united states and we've worked very hard these last ten months to try to do things on a bipartisan basis to accomplish things for the country and we've done a pretty good job we have passed minimum wage  first time in ten years we passed a budget is pay as you go budget no more red ink we're paying for everything that's totally different in the last seven years under the republican controlled congress we  passed a law mandating how u s attorneys should be appointed as a result of the scandal in u s attorney's office here in attorney general's office we mandated through legislation equipment for the guard reserve that they simply didn't have one of the ones that pushed the president to focus on having better equipment for our troops including m raps that is these vehicles that were more mine resistan that we passed that test in the form of the law we because the scandal at walter reed and other places we have done things to protect veterans hurricane recovery katrina this president our president made twenty two trips down there but there was no money until we forced money in the supplemental appropriation bill yes chip we have passed a law extending health care for children from five and a half million children to ten million children the president vetoed that that's now the matter before the senate today we're going to send that back to him i hope and hopefully you won't veto it we made some changes because members on the other side  those changes made disaster relief for ranchers and farmers we passed that is four years overdue but we did it wildlife wildfire relief mr president we have had these fires sweeping the and we put six hundred million dollars in the supplemental so that we could make up for some of the back problems that we had so far as a rap mispresent we've had over one hundred hearings on iraq that's one hundred more than was held during the first five years of this war and the hearings have been good it's true we have tried very hard to change course in the war in iraq and we have changed course and directly as a result of the votes that we've taken not change it enough that we've changed course in the war in iraq and they're all the other opportunities for us to do that in the near future we have to do that the president is he doesn't mind asking for another two hundred billion dollars of totally red in that in borrowed money for the war in iraq but he's not willing to spend a few non red dollars for children's health paid for now maybe the president's trying to protect the tobacco industry but i think they've had enough protection over the years small increase in the tax on tobacco made for children certainly seems reasonable stem cell research we've course passed that mr president the ethics and lobbying reform most significant ethics and lobbying reform in history the country that's now on this country nine eleven commission recommendations mr president there was a lot of talk about those recommendations but they weren't put into line till we did it we did it this year and we did it because it was right thing to do we we authorized the f d a we passed word up which is years and years past due by a huge bipartisan vote everything that i've talked about here has been bipartisan even the votes on iraq we couldn't get to sixty but we had bipartisan support for what we're trying to do in iraq so much president we all acknowledge we can do better certainly we can do better but i don't think we should limit the fact that we haven't been able to do everything that everyone wants done now with the attorney general nominee judge me casey the problem is arisen with nomination and it seems so like we're in the twilight zone we're here in the center of the united states talking about whether waterboarding is torture whether waterboarding is torture and this man can't acknowledge whether  waterboarding is torture i read in this morning's press the reason he can't do that he's afraid of he says that waterboarding is torture that it may create criminal i'm sorry may create criminal or civil responsibility for some of the people that did the torture people  waterboarding were in the united states of america and work and cern about talking albany about torture i read a book a couple years goes called the name of the book fourteen one two it talked about how our world changed in fourteen ninety two one of the reasons that change mr president is  fourteen ninety two same time columbus discovered this nation this world forty one today also discovered waterboarding how to torture people mostly jews but not all jews some christians who weren't christian enough were water boarded so you know maybe we'll work our way through the new casey but no one should be concerned about the fact that we have an obligation and a right to talk about torture the  a lot we only don't have a lot of time left in this legislative session we have at the most about six weeks but i hope during that period of time that we can continue to work for the american people together that's what the american people want misread let me just briefly add it it's not too late for this session of congress to achieve a better record we need to begin to get appropriations bills not just sent to the president signed by the president we need to get the a m t so we don't know convenient seventy five could the tune of seventy five billion dollars millions of american taxpayers and we need to provide the bridge funding for our troops that we all know is needed and we need to confirm an attorney general o colleagues on the other side of been saying we need a new car in general all year long and now it's time to do it so the record of this first second of this congress is not yet made it's not too late but it's getting very late and hopefully we'll accomplish a lot in the next slow doing that is that's how we're going to pay for it and i would say well i would say being an appropriator for my years in congress i certainly want to do that when we have had a struggle over the last several  years doing appropriation bills the republican leader and i believe appropriation bills should be done and we've got to do them this year and i'm going to devote a lot of my energy i mean i had just before coming in here was dealing with appropriation bills i had a good conversation with the republican leader yesterday about appropriation bill generally so he's absolutely right we can do better i will serve my attempt to do my share to do a better job under the previous order the senate will proceed to a period of mourning business for sixty minutes with senators permitted to speak for up to ten minutes each with the first thirty minutes under the control of the republicans in the final thirty minutes under the control of the majority mr president senator from north carolina mr president i ask for all of my colleagues to join me in support of senate approval of the national guard and reservists an angel relief that this is a by partisan effort to extend a critical benefit to our national guard and reservists many of whom are serving in iraq and afghanistan section eight two seven of the pension protection act of two thousand and six allows national guardsmen and reservists called to active duty for at least six months to make penalty free early withdrawals from their ira four hundred one k or four hundred three b retirement accounts this provision expires in less than two months and the bill would make this benefit carman it for our servicemembers and their families our national guardsmen and reservists always stand ready to put their lives on hold and answer the call of duty they can face l deployments that can cause major financial strains for their families which only adds to the emotional stress these families face during extended separation from a loved one in fact according to a g a o report nearly forty of reservists are affected by pay discrepancy between their military and civilian salaries national guard and reservists account for approximately half of all u s military personnel since september eleventh two thousand and one more than four hundred forty three thousand guard and reservists have been deployed in support of the global war on terror including nearly ninety three thousand currently deployed mainly to iraq and afghanistan congress should take decisive action to ensure that this benefit does not expire for these young men and women should they find themselves in a deployment related financial crunch the reserve officers association strongly supports the continuation of this tax relief measure our so thank my colleague senator lincoln for co sponsoring this legislation and i would add that the similar provision included in the pension protection act receive broad bipartisan support shortly congress will adjourn for two weeks for the saying giving recess this means that there is limited opportunity to act to extend this assistance to those who have answered the call to service i ask every member who i know cares about our guard members reservists and their families to support my legislation that this important benefit continues thank you mr president i yield the floor president senator from tennessee thank you mr president mr president i'd like to say a word about tax fairness last week i joined senator hutchison who's been a leader on this issue senator cornin and senator corker from my home state of ten introducing s two to three three our goal with that legislation is to make the state and local sales tax deduction permanent as a former governor i know that states and cities have many different ways to raise revenues to support the services they provide states provide services for usually half the funding for elementary and secondary education are the principal funder of community colleges and universities they pay for  a good part of the roads all the prisons so most states have pretty big bills to pay and they have a variety of taxes to raise the money for that some states levy an income tax some  sales tax some use a combination of the two some use some other taxes in tennessee we've had a pretty good debate about this so we've decided that we don't want to payroll tax and income tax i looked at the options myself when i was governor in the mid one nine hundred eighty s and considered an income tax for tennessee but decided it would be the wrong thing to do to put a tax on work so we've done pretty well with low taxes and without an income tax now americans who the state and local income taxes are able to claim a deduction for those amounts on their federal income tax and before nine hundred eighty six taxpayers also had the ability to claim deduction on their state and local sales taxes but this deduction was repealed in one thousand nine hundred six the one for state and local sales taxes congress temporarily reinstituted that state and local sales tax deduction for two thousand and four and five and then extended it again for two thousand and six and seven i was a part of the effort in this chamber to do that it was a bipartisan effort so taxpayers today who itemize on their federal income tax returns can deduct both state and local sales taxes and state income taxes yet unless congress takes further action this deduction the one for sales taxes will expire at the end of december of this year this is not about cutting taxes this is about tax fairness it's not fair for states without income taxes to subsidize tax deduction for states with income taxes why is our business in washington d c to prefer an income tax in the various states nine states like tennessee do not impose a state income tax they are alaska florida new hampshire nevada south dakota tennessee texas washington wyoming states from across the country some big states some middle sized states some of our smallest states these states shouldn't be treated differently if congress doesn't act they will be by the end of december two thousand and seven so mr president i'm here today to urge this body to make permanent the deduction for state and local sales tax at the very least we need to temporarily extended auction as we have done in the last two congresses before it expires on december thirty first so that taxpayers in those nine states aren't forced to pay an unfair share of taxes this present we're talking about large amounts of money nearly six hundred thousand tennesseans itemize their taxes including the state and local sales tax deduction last year this benefit put an average of four hundred dollars in the pockets of hardworking tennis scenes therefore losing this deduction would cost tennesseeans nearly a quarter of a billion dollars right out of their pockets each year extending the state local sales tax deduction is the fair thing to do is the right thing to do in our urge my colleagues to join senator hutchison senator cornyn senator corker in me in acting two two three three before the end of the year thank you mr president  honored to follow him today talking about the same topic that he just finished talking about one of the great things about our country mr president is that we are set up in a manner that we allow state that choose  they govern their individual states all things relating to the the way they tax their citizens and as mr alexander senator out vandar just stated in the state of tennessee we have decided after tremendous amounts of debate over decades that federal income taxes and again in order to continue to support the fairness of the way we treat certainly those that choose those that choose to to use the sales tax to raise revenues for roads and schools and and really want to leave it in the hands of their citizens really to decide how much they pay in income tax those that are in taxes those they ought to be allowed to deduct those from their federal income taxes this is an issue of fairness this absolutely is an issue of fairness and i hope that today we've been reduced a bill that senator alexander has stated i hope today to convince other senators that this is an issue of fairness in the base should support this bill which would permanently permanently allow the states that today use a sales taxes or a as a way of raising revenues for their state to be able to deduct those  as was mentioned eleven point two million americans across our country took a sales tax deduction last year six hundred thousand tennesseans took that deduction and essays tennis fans about four hundred dollars a year since much is already been said i will close my comments again urging senators on both sides of the aisle to support this bill which indicates fairness for all americans thank  you mr president from oklahoma mr president the leadership is had targeted november sixteenth for adjournment of this session of congress although i think we all believe that's a little with my colleagues to discuss the need to address many beneficial taxes tender provisions but to highlight two particularly of interest to me two tax provisions that congress has annually extended one on percentage depletion allowance for marginal oil and gas production and accelerated depreciation for assets in indian country the united states has approximately four hundred fifty seven thousand marginal wells now that's a huge number and the marginal well is one that produces fifteen barrels or less a day in my state of oklahoma we lot of these are located there these collectively produce about one point two million barrels per day of annual production these wells account for nearly twenty percent of the total production in the united states about the route that we are importing from saudi arabia people don't understand the significance of margin well as it costs a lot more to produce margin a well these are shallow wells they're not profitable like the deep wells in some parts of the country but when you add them all up means that this production equals as much as we are currently importing from saudi arabia so it's very very significant in my state of oklahoma of the it's a small independent basically the mom and pop operators the producing the majority of oil and natural gas was eighty five percent of oklahoma soil coming from marginal wells again that's fifteen barrels or less a day because marginal wells supply such a significant amount of our are oil and gas it's vital to keep them in operations however well you can't unplug the well once you plug it it's gone that's when we lose marginal production we become more dependent upon foreign sources of energy more dependent at a time when i think almost all of us in here agree that u policy should encourage reliance upon domestic sources furthermore we lose domestic jobs to foreign nations if the current suspension of the net income limitation on percentage depletion allowance expires united states production from our marginal well as would be severely hampered percentage depletion is a form of cost recovery for mineral and leasehold acquisition costs the percentage depletion rate for oil and gas is fifteen percent of the taxpayer's gross income from producing property you know it used to be closer to thirty percent it should be higher than fifteen percent but that's where it is today only independent producers and rural to owners are able to utilize percentage depletion under the net income limitation percentage depletion is limited to one hundred percent of the net income from an individual producing property in the case of marginal wells where totally deductions and expenses often exceed gross income this limitation encourages discourages producers from investing in the continued production for marginal wells with high operating costs in the production yields without the full utilization of that percentage depletion allowance the net income limitation actually encourages producers to plug in abandon production of marginal wells and of course you've as i said before you've lost and forever congress has on a temporary basis suspended the net income limitations since one thousand nine hundred seven the current suspension expires at the end of this year the extension of the suspension the net income limitation will allow independence the necessary capital to continue to produce from these existing marginal wells which is critical to the nation's overall energy security now additionally congress made a special economic incentive available to benefit indian country under the budget reconciliation act of one thousand nine hundred three it provides for special acceleration accelerated depreciation for new and used assets acquired after december of  eighty three on indian reservations and former indian reservations in oklahoma and elsewhere this depreciation incentive provides an approximately forty percent shorter recovery period for most commercial property the accelerated depreciation schedule has been very successful in encouraging capital intensive business is to locate and expand in indian country in oklahoma and throughout the nation both of these important provisions expire at the end of this year and it's crucial that the congress act this year to extend each one and i would ask unanimous consent mr president that the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of s twenty one eighty four a bill to allow penalty free withdraws from retirement plans for individuals called to active duty and that the bill be read third time and passed further asked that the bill then be held at the desk until the house consider ration of s twenty two thirty three a bill to provide a permanent deduction for to stay in loco general sales taxes and that the bill be read at a third time and passed for the rest of the bill then be held at the and mr president as you know is considered mccomb that the senate proceed to the meeting consideration of s twenty two sixteen a bill to extend the indian employment credit in depreciation rules for property within indian reservation  seventeen a bill to extend the taxable income limit on percentage depletion allowance for oil and natural gas produced from marginal property and that the bill be read third time and passed after they're asked that the bil then be held at the desk until the house companion arising that all after the necking cause be stricken the text of the senate bill passed and be inserted in the house bill as amended the read for a third time  heard mr president local as soon as consent the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of this twenty two forty seven a bill to make permanent the depreciation of motor sports entertainment complexes in that the bill be read a third time and passed it for the rest that the bill then be held at the desk until the house companion arrives and that after all after the enacting clause be stricken the text of the senate bill passed passed bill be inserted in the house bill as mr president sort of oklahoma i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the meeting consideration of this twenty two thirty four bill to extend the deduction for qualified to ition and related expenses and that the bill be read a third time and passed for the of the bill then be held at the desk until the house companion arise and that all after the enacting clause be stricken the text of the senate passed bill be inserted in the house bill as amended be read for a third time and past pre sixty four bill to extend the tax free distribution for linda bit individual retirement plans for charitable purposes and that the bill be read a third time and passed a further asked that the bill then be held at the desk until the house companion arrives action on them including the college tuition adoption sales tax deduction was mentioned by two senators also we must move on provisions to prevent the alternative minimum tax from any more tax payers and then the senate here in a period of mourning business general speeches for the next few minutes or so and then they will proceed to debating whether to continue with the children's health insurance bill this new version will face a presidential veto threat as well and  vote to begin debate on the children's health insurance bill expected this evening on the senate floor meanwhile the the hill is reporting today that chuck grassley who has taken an active role in the in the debate negotiation over the children's health insurance bill has quote raised some hackles among senate and house republicans for going against the grain on one of the most contentious domestic policy issues before congress this year in the article continues a lawmaker making the sales pitch for the bill he coauthored doesn't qualify as unusual but grassley didn't share documents with the house republican leadership before delivering to them to rank and file g o p members this was during last week's vote on the children's health insurance bill on the house floor again and also today in the house they are working on a mining bill bill dealing with mining on public lands there into the rule debate and our general debate still to come and a number of amendments and you can follow that on c span and the nomination of her general of judge me casey as attorney general maybe in a bit of trouble according to several articles in cuba including one from c q today a growing number of democrats are on easy about the nomination of michael attorney general but all he needs is a single democratic supporter to advance out of the judiciary committee when it votes november six reports sept stern of c q by the way that meeting of the judiciary committee next week as they president i ask unanimous consent to speak for up to ten minutes as if in morning business without this present or stand that the chairman of the finance committee objected this morning to a unanimous consent request offered by senator inhofe regarding legislation that would ensure that american taxpayers would not pay higher taxes next year the chairman of the finance committee indicated they're working on these provisions and he doesn't want them taken up now he wants to bring them up later but i think it's important mr president to talk about two important tax payer friendly provisions in the i r s code that will disappear within the next sixty days unless we do something about it first is a provision that gives taxpayers the option of deducting their state law will sales tax my state of texas like a handful of other states doesn't believe that we need a state income tax we don't have one we're not going to get one but what we do want is a level playing field when it comes to the federal income tax code allowing the deduction of the state sales tax just like it allows currently deduction of the state income tax from one federal tax return state local governments have a number of options for raising revenue to pay for essential services they provide to their citizens some states raise revenues through an income tax some states as i mentioned like texas use a sales tax and others use a combination of the two in an effort to help protect the people from overly burdensome taxation the i r s code has in the past as i mentioned allowed tax payers in states where they local sales tax unfortunately this was unfairly eliminated and for eighteen years texans and other states with out of state income tax did not have the same up level playing field that other states ha i view this is a matter of gross discrimination against all those states that do not have a state income tax and i think it's just simply unfair and it needs to end on a permanent basis that's why three years ago i worked with several of my other colleagues to reinstate the state and local sales tax deduction as part of the american jobs creation act of two thousand and four but without quick senate action the citizens of texas will once again be treated unfairly by the internal revenue code by disallowing the deduction of state and local taxes our state local governments have to have the flexibility to collect taxes that fund essential services in a way they find most appropriate without putting our citizens at a disadvantage and again mr president make no doubt about it texans don't want to state income tax we're a low tax pro growth state and that's why we've seen three million people move to texas since the year two thousand because it provides incentives for job creation by small businesses and big businesses alike so we're not asking for the federal government to somehow bless texas adopting a state income tax we don't want to but what we do want is fundamental fairness if the senate allows this provision to expire it will be punishing the citizens of my state based on geographical location and preference for a  a different tax system extending the sales tax deduction effectively gives texans one billion dollars in tax relief every year and this money not only helps hardworking middle class families save money perhaps to invest in a small business or pay for college tuition for their children it helps spur economic growth and job growth as well mr president last week i also introduced legislation along with senator pat roberts of kansas on another important tax deduction this one extends another expiring to duction for two years it's a four thousand dollars above the line to duction for taxpayers to pay for college tuition we frequently talk in this chamber about the importance of education on the john younger generation from elementary school through college and beyond and we talk about the importance of continuing education literally lifetime learning  order for us to maintain and and actually to extend our global competitiveness aside from simply encouraging people to provide pursue a college education we ought to do our best to make college more affordable and more accessible and less of a burden on working parents who want to send their kids to college originally part of the economic growth and tax relief reconciliation act of two thousand and one this deduction allows taxpayers to deduct up to four thousand dollars off of their federal income tax return regardless of whether or not they itemize deductions this deduction goes a long way to help families struggling to put kids through college and benefits millions of taxpayer annually according to the college board this deduction along with grants and other education incentives has helped lower the cost for the average student who goes to a public university by three thousand six hundred dollars and nine thousand three hundred dollars for those who attend a private college mr president both of these deductions keep money in the pockets of taxpayers and in my state of texas allows them to pay for things like health care clothing and food things that they need and that they ought to be able to use their own her hard earned money to pay rather than writing a bigger check to uncle sam it's appropriate to use the tax code not only provide for fundamental fairness when it comes to allowing the deduction of sales tax from the federal income tax return it's also appropriate to use the tax code to provide for further educational opportunity and that's what these two amendments would do right now taxpayers have to work total of one hundred twenty days one hundred twenty days about a third of the year to pay their tax burden whether it's federal state or local taxes the last thing we should do is force taxpayers to work more hours longer days for uncle sam and not for their family rather than waiting for some future bill to hopefully address this need the senate should extend these tax payer friendly provisions today and i hope we will have another opportunity to come back to the floor and urge the pass just this point morning business is closed under the previous order the senate will resume consideration of the motion to proceed to h r thirty nine sixty three which the clerk will report a motion to proceed to counter number four fifty h r thirty nine sixty three an actual mental twenty one of the social security act extend and improve the children's health insurance program and for other purposes join with my colleague from florida senator martinez to come to the floor to express an outrage at the continued injustice carried out by the castro regime inside of cuba and to once again to highlight that we are at a critical time in democracy for democracy inside of cuba just this past monday as many of us were sipping coffee and driving to work seventy young cuban dissidents were arrested detained and harass ten have been released but the others they were walking down a street and have atta and while they were peacefully walking down that street together they had on their arms this  simple white crisp and that has one word written on it gumby which in spanish means change change this one simple gesture was strong enough to have them thrown in prison this one simple justice was strong enough to have them detained and harass but i also hope this one gesture should be strong enough to inspire us here and to inspire those who love freedom and democracy and have respect for human rights around the globe this it was an isolated these youth knew the consequences that their actions might very well bring them this simple statement of wearing a white respond that says change decades of repression has led to decades of fear but these young people didn't show fear they showed courage and they showed us where they want cuba to go they wanted to change and their courage must not fall on deaf ears were listening and watching here right here on the senate floor to the white house were inspired by what these young people have shown us they've shown us that cuba can and will change and this change will come from within side of cuba from the cuban people itself from its very young but they need our help and we must continue to fight here to do what we can to empower them acknowledge them when they empower themselves we also have to build on this momentum just like last week president bush said quote the operative word in our future dealings with cuba's nots ability the operative word is freedom next week one of cuba's most well known at least inside of cuban fortune the rest of the world remains largely silent again it's interesting to me how american news stations go to cuba spend a lot of time with members of the regime but don't spend a lot of time focusing about those people inside of cuba who are trying to create movements for freedom and democracy as others did in other parts of the world at different times in our history like lech walesa did in poland like bach la pablo then in the former czechoslovakia like aleksandr solzhenitsyn did in russia and so many others like nelson mandela did in his own country there was international spotlight on these people as they were given the chance by the world's acknowledgement to try to create movements for freedom and democracy in peaceful ways within their own society yet in cuba somehow because there are those who live with the romanticism of the castro regime and don't understand that it is nothing less than an oppressive dictatorship they somehow seem to look the other way i want to talk just briefly yield the floor to my distinguished colleague from florida about one of those dissidents who gives inspiration to these young people who were arrested simply for wearing the simple plastic white rice at that says change change doctor or scholarly if the set who in his absence because he is in jail languishing and castro's jail will be receiving the presidential medal of freedom next week percent may not be a household name here in america but he is probably the best known political prisoner inside of cuba who during the black spring of two thousand and three was sentenced to declared himself an opponent of the dictatorship barely a month before he was arrested the set had completed a three year prison sentence for among other quote unquote crimes displaying the cuban flag upside down as a form of protests before he was imprisoned the set opposed the regime on several fronts in one nine hundred eighty six a year after he graduated from medical school he protested the long hours cuba doctors had to work without pay in one nine hundred ninety seven he started the lawton foundation for human rights and conducted a secret ten month study of cuban abortion techniques that found among other things that many babies were killed  after they were born alive in february of one nine hundred ninety eight dr the set was kicked out of the cuban national health system making it impossible for him to work as a physician because of the principled positions that he took during pope john paul the seconds visit to cuba in january of one nine hundred ninety eight activists with a lot and foundation publicly demonstrated for the release of cuban political prisoners they went on a forty day liquid fast to nine he was arrested and eventually sentenced to three years in prison for the so called crimes of this honoring national symbols that is displaying the cuban flag upside down public disorder and inciting delinquent behavior he finished his sentence in late two thousand and two but only thirty six days after finishing that sentence he was rearrested again while preparing to me with a group of human rights activists after several months in jail he was formally charged with being a threat to state security and sentenced to twenty five years in prison where he languishes today his crime seeking peaceful change in his country his crime talking about the death of young born children his crime fighting against or a press moral compass for those who have concluded that we must appease the oppressor to them i ask is it acceptable to the memory of the thousands of young cubans best sons who were executed by firing squads for the simple crime of defending our right to full liberty to now accept complacency do those tens of thousands of compatriots who spent decades in prison and who are still in prisons systems whose cars we can only imagine deserve only partial liberty to those countless families who were separated from their loved ones and destroyed in the process all those who have perished at sea or who have dials and exile dreaming of returning to their country deserve that we now accept the crumbs that we are being offered shall we accept defeat after nearly half a century of patriotic terrorism in search of liberty and democracy or shall we show the world that the most brutal most brutal and longest lasting dictatorship in our time could not extinguish the m breakable spirit of the liberty of the cubans that stopped at the set from jail those young people who marched on the street with a very simple message with a very simple plastic bracelet gambian change they are inspired by the dr the sets of cuba and others finally mr president it's amazing to me that when the island of cuba is involved by a hurricane instead of mecca making preparations for the people of cuba to be say state security is making arrests of young people who peacefully walk down a street in havana because of a simple bracelet but a powerful message of change must speak volumes about what that machine is all about hope our colleagues use this tragic another tragic set of circumstances inside of cuba to sink about what our policy should be so this regime i'm reminded standing up here with my colleague from florida of our successful fight to increase funds to our cuba to our democracy assistance programs inside of cuba to help people try to be able to create peaceful change in their own country or at a critical time for democracy in cuba and the cuban people are the fuel it is the cuban people who have faced fear and repression for decades yet they continue to fight to change it starts and it will finish with them this is why my heart and support goes out to them but what they do is more meaningful and powerful than most can imagine and that is why we gr for those arrested and harassed and incarcerated and languishing in castro's gayle's we also encourage we know they grow stronger and we come to the floor of the senate to make sure that they understand they are not al the senator from florida is recognized friends i want to thank you senator from new jersey my distinguished colleague for his very very passionate then correct and appropriate remarks i think that there is no higher moment for this body that we stand with those that are oppressed as this country has and as this senate has over the history of our nation standing with those that are oppressed is our highest moment in our best calling and i  do find it ironic that something as simple as this simple little white van with the word change on it could be so threatening to this illegitimate regime as to have to  imprison seventy young people and now today we hear that another forty have been arrested it is unconscionable it is unthinkable that a regime would be so weak as to be so threatened by something as simple as these wristbands that we're wearing but it is also a sign of the continuing spirit of freedom that continues to be alive and well in that imprisoned island there is no question about that and that's why i think it's so appropriate that we came together to increase the funding for the dissident movement inside cuba so they can have a simple resources like pen some paper so they can communicate with one another and they can add to their message of freedom and their message of hope i don't have any question that these young people whether arrested for a few days or for a harsher sentence we don't know because there is no rule of law there is no guy pose that we can follow we're simply at the mercy of this of time if you care to comment on this situation and hear from you mr president the senator from texas recognized briefly i want to do a commend my distinguished friends and colleagues from the new jersey in florida for this statement of solidarity with the cuban people i couldn't agree more that it's it's important certainly now as much as much as ever that we stand arm in arm shoulder to shoulder opposed to oppressive and regimes that really governed by fear i have to say just briefly my my my friend from florida senator martinez i know his personal history of being a refugee from from cuba when he was sixteen years old part of the pedro upon effort to bring young cubans to america so they could have a better life he also shared with me recently a a movie which was a work of fiction i think gave me a very emotional sense of what people in cuba in a van in particular must existence that the these these people who are seeking nothing more than the most basic of human rights have under such a heartless regime and a dictator like they don't castro so i just want to express a few words of both the banks and the words of solidarity for mark my colleagues from from new jersey and florida and to reiterate that all of us all of the american people stand in solidarity with those in cuba who seek change who seek what we perhaps too often take for granted and that is our freedom to speak to live to worship as we see fit and we ought do everything we can possible to support the senator from florida is recognized mr president i want to join my colleagues our two distinguished members of the senate who are of cuban origin and who proudly bear that moniker cuban american one of the most distinguish groups in our society in america today and i just want to say that at the time that adel castro was beginning his takeover on the island of cuba as a young boy i had the opportunity of representing youth of america and going to the iron curtain at the german czechoslovakia and border and speaking over radio free europe into the young people behind the iron curtain and of course at age seventeen what i saw that day has made a lasting impression for standing there at the german chucker slovakian border in the little a little village of tilly shantz seeing the machine gun asked the guard towers the concrete dragon's teeth to prevent anyone from breaking through the fence the mine fields the ground rate very clean so that any footprints could be seen seeing the dogs patrolling back and forth that of course made a a significant impression upon a young mind that had some appreciation for the in slave moment of people now what happened to the iron curtain is happening to cuba that iron curtain around cuba is starting to fall and it is for exactly the same things that are happening now seventy young people walking around with flight risk bands that say gumby will change that the dying communist repressive totalitarian regime is continuing to lash out and arrest them and it is the inevitable march of history that ultimately freedom is going to win just as it did in eastern europe with the fall of the iron curtain that i saw all at age seventeen it's taken it a lot longer in cuba because of its island barrier because of its extraordinary repressive regime so whenever we get a chance to speak out for change cambio we in this united states senate need to do it and i am delighted to join my colleagues senator martinez and senator menendez in unifying eloquent in his description of the situation today i want to echo his comments regarding the presidential medal of freedom that most kindly s b set will be receiving a monday it is a wonderful acknowledgment of this afro cuban doctor in his quest for freedom has chosen to follow martin luther king junior the dalai lama and gandhi this is a man of peace this is not a man of armed conflict not a man of violence a man of peace he is imprisoned av's that was mentioned by senator from new jersey but i want us to understand that being imprisoned in cuba isn't as simple as just being denied the opportunity to walk and move as you will but it has to be in the most repressive gulag that the world has ever seen president bush last week when speaking eloquently about the situation in cuba he said the day this regime mans those who have supported it will be embarrassed by the things that will be revealed just like those who supported the eastern european gulag or the nazis over th of the past were embarrassed at a time when the full measure of their cruelty was seen and recognized as we approach the agricultural fair and have ana i remember as a young boy what my father was a veterinarian and one of the biggest thrills for me go from my small city to go to havana and go to the fair this was a time when all the cattle exposition was there and my father of course being involved in this industry was there doing business and i remember seeing my first rodeo there it was a wonderful memory but this pair still goes on every year and i know there will be many from this country who will believe that the most appropriate thing to do is to make a buck and go there and sell goods and participate in this thing i hope that when they're there they might take the courage to themselves where one of these little wristbands be happy to supply and i have a few and it would be wonderful if they would show up at the fair wearing these wristbands as  cambio just a simple message solidarity with those that are oppressed we are a people of freedom we enjoy our liberty and we want it for others and we understand that the time for the cuban people is coming our at the hour of the cuban people is approaching it is coming and so i want to thank my colleagues for their solidarity center the corner from texas as well as my colleague from florida senator menendez all joining together in a unified voice seeking c and standing together with these young people for their courage and their bravery and also celebrating this wonderful award that dr a scholarly as we set will be receiving on monday which is a good recognition of his long work in the area of human rights and also hoping that he might be an opportunity for the cuban regime to perhaps consider whether it is the time to granting his freedom thank you mr president  debate continues today on whether to proceed to the new revised the revised children's health insurance bill this new version is also facing a presidential veto threat and watching live senate coverage on c span two number of articles written about the debate that's going on off the floor about this a children's health insurance legislation one of which you'll find a cap new capital news or our political news web site this one from the hill that says what works in the senate doesn't necessarily work in the house a truism that senator chuck grassley of iowa has been reminded of during the debate over children's health insurance story continues to grassley has taken a notably activist stance in moving a thirty five billion dollar bill through the house that would reauthorize and expand the and participate in a poll that a lot of other video there as well over on the house side today they're working on on one bill a bill that deals with royalties from mining on public lands a raft of general debate about a seven seven amendments to get through and that's on c span we're also covering a couple of pentagon events for you today beginning at three o'clock we'll hear from defense secretary gates and also from admiral michael mullen the chairman of the joint chiefs that's a three followed by the secretary of the army pete garrett he'll be talking about army contracting issues both of those briefings live on c span three yet there are too many parents whom i've talked to in the last couple of weeks that have some fear that have been scared about some of the toys that have come into our country that they see made in china that they have seen news reports and seen heard about products tested that have lead content in them a professor at the university of ashland ohio about fifteen miles from where i grew up in mansfield ohio is has been a leader on with his students with his chemistry students at ashley university in testing for lead for lead in toys and i asked him if he would test somehow a way hello in products if you will so halloween toys and and various paraphernalia and he found out of twenty two products he tested three of them had high levels of lead in them in fact the consumer products safety commission has said that anything over six hundred parts per million is dangerous for adults and any lead at all is dangerous for children he found in a frankenstein mug that he bought locally a national and a store as they're sold all over the country i'm sure if on a frankenstein mug that had thirty nine thousand parts per million thirty nine thousand when the lead when the levels of safety for adults is six hundred in the levels for children are zero he found a halloween cup that was thirty nine thousand part really and we've read all about the consumer product safety commission and how they failed the american people and how the chairwoman is lobbying against this legislation from senator pryor to make the consumer products safety commission work better how she is support of the bush administration as an appointee of them in cutting funding for inspections cutting funding for enforcing consumer product safety but this really shouldn't surprise us mr president when when we buy when we buy two hundred eighty eight billion dollars worth of products from china last year and not to mention hundreds of billions of dollars of products in other countries and tens of billions of those products those products are our consumer items certainly tens of billions of dollars worth tires vitamins toys all kinds of things in those products are made in a country where they they have weak worker safety standards they have almost nonexistent consumer skin super protection laws and rules they have very weak food safety standards very weak environmental safe drinking water clean air standards so we should be surprise we buy products from a country that's producing country where these products are produced doesn't have any kind of protections themselves for their own workers in their own consuming public that's compound by the fact that american companies like mattel toys companies and other companies when they go to china they hire chinese subcontractors and they push these chinese subcontractors to cut costs you've got to cut costs you've got to cut corners you've got to make these products cheaper so what logically will the chinese sub contractors do use lead based paint because it's cheaper it's easier to apply it dries faster and it shiny or they will put contaminants in vitamins because it's less expensive than then using the pure real ingredients that should be in them they will as the new york times point out yesterday in a front page story they will sell vitamins they will sell on pharmaceuticals out of china that are contaminated in an unsafe for consumers in china and all over the world so you have a you have a situation here where we open our borders as we should to trade i want trade i want more of it i want plenty of it but i want to under a different set of rules most importantly to protect the american public protect our families protect our children but we're we open up our borders to two hundred eighty eight billion dollars of chinese products they make these products they don't make them safe for their own people let alone for the united states they cut costs to export those products here in then when these importers bring them in mattel or anybody else they're not held accountable if mattel's going to bring toys in then they're responsible for those toys being safe anything important that brings products in whether it's apple juice whether it's vitamins whether it's to space whether it's dog food whether it's toys whether it's tires every one of those has had a has had a major problem every one of those products i just mentioned imported from china and from southeast asia now at the same time then we have a complicit compliant and not sure which bush administration it's we can consumer protection laws that's we can food safety laws it's we can clean air laws that's we can to safe drinking water laws in this we can drug safety laws we have a bush administration this week and those laws and then under fines and cuts back on the number of inspections so the products are made in a country where they're likely not going to be safe they're brought in by an american contractor pushed those companies those sub contractors to do it more cheaply they're then brought in with no personal or corporate sponsibility by the importer in then we have a government that doesn't protect us for fifty years mr president in some cases more than fifty some slightly fewer than fifty we have had an f d a food drug administration need p a a consumer product safety commission and those printed environmental protections that we've had these agencies that have protected the air in the water in the food in the medicine in the toys that our consumers buy and now when what's happened the last five years when they weaken the standards and cut back the number of inspectors even though twenty years ago when the consumer protection agency was much larger in did much many more inspections we're now importing all kinds of toys in food products that we weren't importing back then so we have set ourselves up because of the bush administration's closeness to that to the to the toy companies and other corporations the bush administration has sided with the drug companies over consumer over the consuming medicine taking public the bush admin is ministration has sided with the polluters in when we can the e p a they sided with the big toy companies in weaken the consumer products safety commission so it's no surprise that our children are not as safe in our finance food supply is not as pure as it should be and there is it's doesn't matter to point fingers but the fact is we have set the system up in part because of trade policy that's written by the largest corporations in the country to serve their shareholders in to serve their executives at the expense of workers overseas at the expense of workers in our country and at the expense of the consuming public our children in their toys in their bedroom and our families in the in the food they buy for their kitchen tables and yet yet the other side on in yet yet congress the house and senate perhaps are about to pass another trade agreement we've seen these trade agreements with china with mexico with central and central american free trade agreement nafta captive p n t r with china we've seen these trade agreements that weaken our weaken our our safety regulatory structure these trade agreements in part are responsible for weaker environmental standards for weaker food safety standards for weaker consumer protection laws for weaker food and drug administration  food drug drug safety rules yet congress is about to pass looks like the peru the trade agreement with fruit some of the same problems it's a better trade agreement it has some labor and environmental standards but it doesn't have the kinds of protections for food safety the kind of protections for drug safety the kind of protections for consumer products as it should and mr president as instead of passing another trade agreement congress should simply stop we should reexamine our consumer protection laws  food safety laws are safe drinking water and clean air laws are our drug safety laws we should stop examine them we should stop not pass any more trade agreements until we've really reexamined what nafta is meant by taft is meant what p n t r with china has meant in the whole host of other trade agreements then we can move forward and right trade agreements that just just don't serve the interests of the largest companies in the world as they have in the past but trade agreements that work for workers trade agreements that protect the public protect our jobs protect our food supply protect our children from dangerous toys and if these trade agreements are done right they will lift up standards not just in mexico and central america and china but lift up standards in this country so that that we know we will have your food in safe drinking water we know from these trade agreements we will have safe toys with no lead in them and we know it will be better for our communities from galleon to gallop police from ash to beulah to middletown in my great state of the senator from maryland but he s consent that the quorum call be dispensed with but objection thank you mr president the president quite frankly i don't understand the president of the united states objections to the children's health insurance program that we are considering here today i hope we all understand the importance of this program hell important is for children in america to have health insurance we know and we have a lot of studies that show that children who have health insurance are four more likely to be immunized against diseases is far more likely to have the benefits of preventive health care or for more likely to get the type of health care intervention that will lead to healthier lives and mr president quite frankly will save us money because they're going to be healthier and need less health care during our lifetime we also know that children who have health insurance or are former are likely to have better attendance records at schools in the list goes on and on and on so it makes sense for children to have health insurance legislation we're considering is aimed at working families mr president working families who cannot afford the cost of health insurance these are families that are playing according to rules doing everything right mother explained that having children's health insurance having the maryland program that mother no longer has to wake up in the morning decide what the child is sick enough to see a doctor not to worry that if the child playing on a playground gets hurt i will be able to afford that bill our children are innocent casualties of the failure of our country to have universal health coverage universal health insurance for the innocent casualties and the bill that we have before us tries to do something about it and this is a bill that's not a democratic bill or a republican bill it's a bill that's been compromised in the best sense of the legislative process democrats and republicans working together to come out with a bill that could be supported not just in one year but supported out for decades it's a bill that builds upon private insurance that was important to get the consensus among democrats and republicans it's a bill that's a minister virus states not a minister tomorrow is a program that our states administer i'm proud of the way the state of maryland has the chip program the maryland children's health insurance program it's designed to meet the needs of our children with the federal government being a partner in helping to pay for the program so this is a bill that's been worked in the best sense of the legislative process by democrats and republicans mr president it's an affordable program heard the president as they talk about the affordability this program is affordable first as i mentioned earlier it saves health care dollars children that have access to preventive health care are going to save us save us money in the long term as far as health care expenditures are concerned secondly this bill is paid for and that's not always the case the legislation that we pay us but this bill will not add a penny to the deficit in fact mr president i would argue that this bill will actually help us  balancing the federal budget is fully paid for by an increase in the cigarette tax but economists tell us as a result of the increase in the cigarette tax there could be millions of people who will either stop smoking or will never start smoking particularly young people who won't start smoking now because the extra cost of buying a pack of cigarettes and two and i know how much that will save in our health care system for someone who doesn't smoke and that's not figured into the cost estimates here the savings that we will have to our health care system because of the number of children who never start smoking in our country in maryland this bill will mean that maryland will not only be able to continue the hundred thousand children that are currently in the program because we don't pass this bill we can't continue our current commitment but will add forty thousand more children to the maryland children's health care program that's good we need to do that but let me remind you that in maryland we had eight hundred thousand people without health insurance such as children that's the whole network whole communities that have no health insurance so obviously we want to reduce that number is this bill makes a small step in dealing with the gap we have in america with people who have no health insurance but it's an important step was it deals with children we certainly can do that but to take the time if i might to talk about one part of this program that quite frankly hasn't gotten a lot of attention and some very important part in that is this bill is the reason why we need a reauthorization bill because  can expand the program to deal with the needs in our community and for the first time this covers required dental services so that all the children in the children's health insurance program will receive dentistry said dental decay is the most chronic childhood disease among children in the united states five times more likely than the vulnerability of our children those between the ages of six or eight fifty percent of children between six and eight have to think if you're poor to live in poverty you're two times more likely to have a problem with your teeth you happen to be a minority african american children thirty nine percent have untreated thirty nine percent have untreated tooth decay you live in a rural part of our state president i know your state in my state have rural communities only eleven percent of our population ever visited the dentist rural america we have a problem in this country with dental care twenty five million americans live today in areas that inadequate dental care services so we can do better in this bill moves us in the right direction there's a direct relationship between health your general health and your your oral health we know that to give you one example plaque it's been has been directly related to problems with heart disease so do we know there are relationship there's a lot to be learned but i want to try to put a faithful in this issue because we talk about the millions what it means to have twenty five millions and don't have access to two dental services in their community let me just tell you about one child i've mentioned this person before the monte driver have lived a state that the prince george's county that's about six miles from where we are right now twelve year old twelve year old who had problems with the what many parents do with children who don't have health insurance took the child to the emergency room you know one of the reasons why we want to see the chip bill pay us is to get children less expensive preventive health care so they don't use our emergency rooms had no insurance they performed an operation tried to alleviate his pain and save his life they performed a second operation spent a quarter of a million dollars which we paid workers it was on compensated care we tried to save montes life he died he died because in two thousand and seven we have no program in this country to provide that child a dollar to fix traction and for children to be able to see dentis mr president one of the really good things about this bill that's before us a reauthorization bill we have a chance to do something about that we have a chance to do something about the democracy drivers of our community and make sure that  innocent children get the type of attention they so much deserve so what does this bill do for dental care well to guarantee dental benefits coverage of dental services necessary to prevent diseases promote oral he restore oral structures to health and function and treat emergency conditions that's what's covered in this legislation that we're going to be voting on in just a few hours how do you meet that it's interesting the states are given benchmarks as to how to make dental care you can do that if you have a benefit that's similar to the federal employees health benefit plan of land that all of us are entitled to enroll in dental benefits are included so we're saying the state can meet the requirements by just providing the same benefits that we all get federal employees they can take the dental benefits that's in their state employees plan and use that as the model for dental benefits in their state or they can take the most popular commercial plan in their state that for enrollment for non medicaid and bullies and use that as their benchmark so we're using mercial insurance as the benchmark for what children should be able to have insurance for to deal with their dental needs to be that's the way we should be going that's what's in this bill but it's even more important things the bill provides for dental education for parents newborns so why did the children of the babies are born they don't teeth one al of every five children between the ages of two and four had to pick a line out of five children between the ages of two and four have to take a in their baby teeth so this bill provides for education so parents know about the risks of oral health and know how to deal with oral health as their babies grow up it also makes it easier to locate or participating provider i may go back to the monte driver again the twelve year old from prince george's county lost his life and you go back to him he sought the help of the parents sought the help of a social worker social worker lori norris tried to find a dentist who would treat the monte driver mr president the social worker made over twenty phone calls discouraged in trying to get help for their children well this legislation that we have before us the day they're going have a chance to vote on in a couple hours does something about that if it requires that the web page that on the children's health care program this the coverage of they'll be by state for dental benefits under the chip program the list of providers that will provide that care so if this bill becomes law with one phone call or one click of the mouse a parent will be able to know exactly what the benefits are  know exactly which denis that parent can contact in order to get his or her child the type of care that they need so it's a present i've heard my colleagues on the floor talk a lot about this children's health insurance program how important it is to the to the health of people in our community and how important as a maryland i'm proud of the way that maryland children's health care program is administered at the state level with the cooperation and help of the federal government as a true partner the way it should be done bipartisan bill developed by democrats or republicans a bill that's fully paid for a bill that makes sense from the point of view of proper allocation of money in our health care system will save us money all those things at the end of the day it does speak about priorities what's important what were our priorities what do we want to be known for and who we stood up for this bill spends thirty five billion dollars over a five year period and is fully paid for and we all can make our own comparison i think about the cost in iraq over a three month period costing more than this bill not paid for but we seem to be able always had the money and we come up with excuses to oppose this legislation i want to thank the leaders who were responsible for bringing forward this legislation urge my colleagues to support it i hope that we can get the type of support that we can pass this not withstanding the objections of the president and mr president i always hoped to hold out i hope that president bush will sign a bill will sign a bill that will the people of maryland people throughout this country to have adequate care so that we don't have to again see a story such as the monte driver child died because we couldn't find a it's president senator from new jersey mr president this is i rise to speak once again about the costs of the war in iraq here at home and this is the third speech that i have stood up to given a series that i intend to continue to give about what the iraq war is costing us here at home beyond a measurable cost of lives over three thousand five hundred eight hundred thirty nine american lives lost those are priceless and twenty eight thousand three hundred twenty seven americans who have been seriously injured in the service of their country since i started giving these speeches two weeks ago mr president five billion dollars more is gone from the treasury and has been spent in iraq it brings the total amount taken from the american people's pockets to four hundred fifty five billion dollars next month another ten billion dollars will be sent off to iraq and it will be gone forever americans trust that the government with that money when the numbers are that outrageously high we all have to constantly be asking ourselves as a simple question what's going to make a bigger difference in our lives using the money to fix the major problems we have facing the nation every day fighting a war that has achieved nothing for any of us could america have achieved more out of that money spending it on hospitals lifesaving cancer research schools and universities food for the needy roads train tracks bridges in airports or the catastrophe that is the war in iraq you know mr president the president bush likes to parrot the line that we are fighting them over there so that we don't have to fight them here but i think americans have figured out what he really means is we are spending all our money over there and therefore we have none to spend here as president i've already spoken out about the massive holes in our homeland security that the war funding in iraq could have closed being used here at home are spoken about the difference the funding could have made for millions of americans who have to play russian roulette with their lives because simply don't have health insurance including millions of children who would be covered under the bill that is currently before the senate a bill that the president threatens once again to veto while asking for two hundred billion dollars more in war funds this year alone funds which by the way he doesn't even pay for wants to make his fiscal bones on the back of children  no health care coverage the most important asset we have in our nation but also the most fragile asset we have in our nation and says well this bill is clee not acceptable yet he can at the same time send us  request for two hundred billion dollars which he doesn't pay for not only does he not give children their health insurance he adds a mountain of debt on their backs for the future totally irresponsible so i've  talked many times about the children's health insurance i just want to know too that as we move to this vote i don't know why there are some who still advocate knocking parents saw children's health insurance children and parents together successfully brought in more children into the program and why is it that there are those members of congress who want to push more americans born americans into the vast number of the uninsured in this country is that's what they're advocating for the end of the day but today i'd like to talk about what america would look like if we spent the money george bush is spending on failing to rebuild iraq to repair our own battered infrastructure here at home and i said yes we're spending a lot of money billions of dollars in iraq in which we fail even to rebuild iraq but not only are we failing to rebuild in iraq we certainly not having the resources here at home since the iraq war we're better transportation in our country there's no way to put a price tag on the immense frustration we feel with our systems of transportation if you've ever had slam your hands on the steering wheel because of traffic some bearable so you're going to miss your meeting or be late to pick up your child at school if you ever had your train delayed or been jammed inside a subway car that was not built to carry the number of people who are stuffed in there if you've ever been stuck waiting in an airport terminal or trapped on a plane sitting on the tarmac waiting to take off hour after hour and you know our transportation systems are stretched to the limit and sometimes they just break thirteen people paid the ultimate price and a hundred more were injured after the terrible tragic collapse of the bridge  minnesota a few months ago it's scary how easily that could happen again here's a truly shocking statistic the number of bridges that are either structurally deficient or functionally obsolete in this country is enormous it's about a hundred and sixty thousand bridges twenty five percent of all the bridges in the country that means if you've driven over four bridges the ards are that one of them is not in particularly great shape and that's incredibly scary so what does it cost to stop another tragedy like the one in minneapolis from happening the american society of civil engineers estimates that the cost of maintaining and replacing obsolete obsolete or deteriorating bridges is about seven point four billion dollars a year and that's just the cost of staying in even not allowing the overall quality of our bridges to further deteriorate if we spent on transportation what we spend on the iraq war we could pay off that entire cost the entire cost of what the society of civil engineers estimates would be the cost of maintaining and replacing all those obsolete or deteriorating bridges in twenty two days take care of every bridge in america make everybody safe in twenty two days the cost of the war in iraq twenty two days that's another example of what the war costs bridges you can feel confident driving over confident that you'll get home safe to your family versus less than a mom in iraq today construction is beginning on the minneapolis bridge that will replace the one the collapse costs two hundred thirty four million dollars we spend that money in iraq in less than one day in less than one day americans are also feeling the hassle of commuting by car or plane especially for long distances oil prices are hitting record highs many feel that petroleum production is reaching a p burning oil thickens our air with smog and stokes the fires of the global climate crisis threatening to drown buildings on our coastlines on the water and create mou massive droughts inland if we don't create five all transportation options that will end our dependence on oil america is going to be in big big trouble with all this in mind yesterday the senate passed a bill to boost funding to amtrak we passed that bill so that the great american relationship with the railroad could be restored and brought to new peaks of excellence funding for the anthrax bill would be nineteen point two billion dollars over six years that money would make passenger transportation easier it would improve rail security it would make our air cleaner and it would be a boost to the economy but just like every appropriations bill that h come or is on its way to the president's desk under the democratic congress the administration has argued that we just don't have money for good public transportation systems well while president bush mouth is moving his hand is signing checks for other things what the end track bill would spend in six years the president spends in iraq in two months we are trying to have a national rail transportation system that gets people sales forces from small and midsize companies to work to enter city travel to sell their products or services to get people to great institutions of research and also great institutions of healing and hospitals to get people maybe to the nation's capital or to other major cities along the northeast corridor to have the opportunity after a post september eleventh world to understand that multiple modes of transportation are critical in order for that if we have an incident a terrorist incident one part of the country we can move people along as on that fateful day what was open for interested travel when every airplane was grounded was answered yet president says oh no going to veto that bill what we are going to spend in six years to make and track a world class rail system the president spends in iraq in under two months that's what the war costs vastly improved american rare roads vs two mugs of bloody chaos in iraq the cost of this war in my mind are unimaginable the congressional budget office put out a report projecting that the iraq war will cost of the rate that we're going one point nine trillion trillion dollars nearly two trillion dollars to incredibly hard to put that number into perspective but just so we can get an idea of how vast that sum is paving the entire interstate highway system over the course of three and a half decades only cost four hundred twenty five billion dollars and some estimates say the interstate highway system returns six die always for every dollar we spend  economic opportunity and growth the iraq war has returns zero dollars for every billion dollar spent so we can get an idea of how fast that sum is with the money spent in iraq we could pay a four lane american highway from chicago so milwaukee with an entire inch of solid goes mr president we could pave a four  american highway from chicago to milwaukee with an entire inch of solid gold and if you made the thickness lead then an inch of saw the goal you could easily guild the highway from sea to shining sea that's what the war costs it costs so much the amount of money starts to exceed what it would cost to pay even for our most ludicrous dreams we have to use our imaginations as to where that money could go because for a lot of it we really don't know where it's going billions of dollars have just gone missing in iraq and according to a report released by the special inspector general for iraq earlier this week the rest has largely failed to rebuild iraq's infrastructure meanwhile infrastructure in america still needs serious help so we don't have money accounted for in iraq that we are sending to rebuild iraq's infrastructure the rest of that we do account for the inspector general says it's fairly largely failing to rebuild iraq's infrastructure and we don't have the resources to meet our challenges here at home mr president it's time for us to make a choice will we put this country on the track to recovery or watch it barrel down the rails to deteriorat well we pave the highway to success for our people or leave that road to rust and rot but we watch our economy take off the aspirations and dreams of our people saw to new heights all will be ground our living thousands to face the congestion that gridlocks so many forms of transportation and so many places these thousands waiting in the terminals of frustration waiting for something to change for something finally to change thinking about our transportation needs is another way to think about what we want the united states of america to look like as a nation as someone who travels quite a bit across the landscape of the country all these frustrations with all of this different modes of transportation and transportation mr president is about more than getting from one place to another it is about economic opportunity and commerce it is about getting products to market it is about getting people to service it is about getting people to important institutions so that they can be healed it is about creating economic opportunity it is about uniting families from coast to coast it is about the quality of air and the environment we collectively enjoy by getting more people out of cars it is by the same token the opportunity to have multiple modes of security it has so many dimensions to it but all those dimensions go on responded to because we are spending hundreds of billions of dollars the war in iraq those needs are yet another reason it is time to end this war because when it comes to the failed war in iraq american families are being taken for a ride as the president's time to soar again time to reinforce with a stronger siren and steal the bridges in success time to clear off the barricades on the road to opportunity time to put america on the highest speed track we can and to make sure we are always first in flight high above the clouds those goals are not imaginary are unattainable they are very much within our reach but of that of that mr president we have to change the course in iraq and invest back here in america at home i'll continue to come to the floor mr president to speak about different dimensions the cost of this war in iraq it is a cost the american people can no longer suffer as a president that  believe that i was the first member of the senate to suggest very strongly that michael mukasey should not become the next attorney general and i'm very pleased that in the last week more and more of my colleagues are coming to that same conclusion mr president the attorney general of the united states must be a defender of our constitutional rights because president bush thinks he can do whatever he wants we need an attorney general who can explain to the president what the constitution of this country is all about we need an attorney general who does not believe that the president has unlimited power we need an attorney general who will tell president bush that he is not a ball the wall we need an attorney general who clearly understands the separation of powers inherent in our constitution regretfully i have concluded that michael mckay's a would not be that kind of attorney general i am gratified that more and more of my colleagues are coming to that same conclusion let me be very clear it goes without saying that the united states government must do everything that it can to protect the american people from the very very dangerous threats of international terrorism but we can do that in ways that are effective and that iraq consistent with the constitution of our country and the civil liberties that it guarantees we do not have to give up our basic freedoms in the name of fighting terrorism the bush administration and the lawyers who have enabled it for the past seven years cannot be bought that it appears with such technical legal niceties as the bill of rights this administrator and thinks that he can eavesdrop on telephone conversations without warrants suspend to process what people classified as quote unquote energy enemy combatants and thumb its nose when congress exercises its oversight responsibility that is why i called gonzales to resign i had hoped that the confirmation process for a new attorney general would give the president and the senate and important opportunity to refocus on the core american principles warrants and using quote unquote enhanced interrogation techniques with terrorism suspects might be constitutional even if they exceeded what the law technically allowed was the mackays he said the congress might not have the power to stop the president from conducting some surveillance without warrants even incredibly claimed to be unfamiliar with a technique known as wat this the president if judge lucchese cannot say plainly that the president must be a valid structure he ought not to be the nation's next attorney general wrote jed rubenfel professor of constitutional law at yale law school would be peered before a judge from casey as a prosecutor and he has got that right it has become an american aphorism that ours is a government of laws not men we need an attorney general who understands that so unfortunately but he can explain it to a president who does not see the president i would like  permission to enter into the record on another subject and on a call that appeared in the l a times today without objection the president what that oughta call talks about is the fact that every capable of dealing with the violence to persist in the south britains the fence secretary said wednesday that his government intended to handle the security for the area by mid december and later on in the article it says quote british  in other words was the president it is the united states of america moral left alone that is continuing this war in iraq we have some one hundred and forty thousand soldiers in iraq there are tens and tens of thousands of private contractors in iraq and it seems to me the time is long overdue for us to learn from our allies of the united kingdom that we have got to begin bringing home our troops as they are as soon as we possibly can senator menendez made the case like what very impressively about what this war is costing us in terms of human life what it is costing us in terms of the tens of thousands of soldiers who are going to return back home here with traumatic brain injury with post traumatic stress disorder without on and without legs this war has cost the iraqi people almost beyond comprehension no one knows exactly how many hundreds of thousands of iraqi men women and children are dead but there are estimates that go way up too close to one million there are two million iraqis who have been forced to fle their own country and there are two million who have been displaced internally have had to leave their homes because of ethnic cleansing and because of the violence that exists that in their neighborhood this war has resulted tragically in the standing of the united states of america being diminished all over the world some of us can remember years back when a president of the united states would go to europe would go abroad and hundreds of thousands of people if not millions of people would be lining the streets with american land looking up to americans saying america you all the kind of country that we want to be but now when this president goes abroad there are thousands and thousands of people who are coming out but invariably they are demonstrating against the united states and what poll after poll shows that our great loss a capability in fighting international terrorism that we have lost the moral high ground that i was standing throughout the world is significantly diminished and certainly one of the challenges that we face as  senator is the response was a confidence that the entire world used to have in the united states and restore that once again to the what our kids go visiting europe with somebody says to them what country do you come from they don't have to say they come from canada they could say proudly they come from the united states of america a country that once again we hope will be respected throughout the entire world so mr president i would hope very much that we will follow the lead of our friends in the united kingdom who are now down to twenty five hundred troops i suspect that in the not too distant future those troops will probably be withdrawn we should be bringing ou troops home as soon as we possibly can and the last point that i want to make mr president is we think fairly soon as i understand it the agricultural bill will come to the floor of the senate and in that bill i think on the senate the hawkins leadership they have been some very positive changes being made but i think because of lack of funding that bill does not go anywhere near as far as it should in addressing some of the very serious problems we face in our country in terms of nutrition and in terms of punggol mr president the united states of america at the same time as we are spending ten billion dollars a month on the war in iraq has the dubious distinction of having by thought the highest rate of trial good poverty in the industrialized world with almost bubbles one out of five kids in this country living in poverty compare that to scandinavia where it's maybe three percent four percent and the rate of poverty in america is growing last year  president as you may recall united states department of agriculture in the midst of this increase in poverty in our country reported that twelve percent of americans thirty five million people could not put food on their table at least part of the year thirty five million about fellow americans but not put food on the table for at least part of the year mr president that is not what should be happening in our country and when the senate deals with the agricultural bill i will be offering an amendment which will ask for a commitment from the united states senate that says that are time when the wealthiest people are becoming wealthy when the poorest of becoming poorer when hunger in america increasing that this senate this congress make a moral commitment to abolish hunger in this country in the next by year that is really not asking when billionaires want tax breaks we have money for them we have money for war but when children go hungry i guess there's just no money available so all i look forward to working with my colleagues to change the priority use of the senate so look we thought of paying attention to the vast majority of our people rather than just a few and the wealthy who have so much power thank you very much senator from wyoming mr president in a little over two hours we're going to be having two votes on this floor under rules of the senate technically the time i think is reserved for the debate on that so i thought i ought to come to the floor in assure people that that vote really isn't going to be on the attorney general and it's really not going to be on the farm bill it's going to be about health and i thought somebody probably ought to come and talk a little bit about health so i'm going to do that because yesterday we voted to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed on h thirty nine sixty three which is the state children's health insurance program or what folks on capitol hill are calling s chip now i spoke on the floor last night about how this so called new bill isn't new at all it's about the same old flawed plan only with new rhetoric now i had a lot of hope for what was going to happen because both sides were talking they were looking at some of the proposals i and others had made and even thought that the house was going to have those included in their bill now when it went to the floor turned out to be kind of the same old thing again with new soundbites and political posturing that isn't what it's supposed to be about we are supposed to be making decisions for this country for the children of this country hopefully for every american on their on health which is to make political points which just holds up the system and doesn't get the job done with those new sound bites and political posturing we aren't ensuring that low income children have the health care they need we owe it to these children to work with the president to reauthorize the critical program in a way that gets every single low income child who needs insurance insured as body hasn't been able to do that and we've been working on this bill for many months mr president i know that if it weren't for politics this bill would have been done weeks ago actually it would have been done months ago the longer we work on this issue the more political it becomes to the point where we don't even debated anymore we just wait for the votes to roll around and we talk about attorney general and farm bills and war and avoid the issue that we ought to be talking about which is how to come together to take care children's helps help but i worry that some members of this chamber of lost sight of the goal and that goal was making sure that all low income children in this country have health care the press has been reporting and some members of this body have claimed that all concerns were addressed in the last version of the bill the house voted on last week the one that's before us now but mr president that's not correct the concerns word addressed we have to put low income kids first and this bill just doesn't do that i detailed in my speech last night the concerns i have with this bill i also mention that i'm a co sponsor of the kids first act s twenty one fifty two the bill that would provide federal funding for children need and require that the money actually be spent on children from families with lower incomes is build a good step in the direction of compromise and i hope the majority will see that and start working with the minority to pass something that the president can sign rather than continuing to play politics and  i'd suggest that the politics haven't worked i noticed that when it went to the floor on the house side that there were more people opposed to this version than there were to the previous version and i noticed on the cloture vote here there were more people opposed to this version than there was the last version that doesn't sound like progress to me that sounds like more of the same words allows people to run political ads one way or the other against people that's not what we're supposed to be about mr president as important as the s chip issue is and i want to be crystal clear about my position i support the s chip program one thousand percent that's the s chip program that we can have not the one that one side or the other is trying to force down the throat saying we're doing it for kids but more important than that it's important that this body be thinking bigger we need to think bigger about fixing the n tire health care system and helping all americans mr president i do have a bill that does just that now it isn't my bill it's our bill i spent months collecting ideas from both sides of the aisle i've looked at every health care provision that anybody has to see if there isn't some common ground and there is there is i don't have everything in this because i've found that legislation works best if it's evolutionary not revolutionary you've got to take steps to get from here to there but if you take steps and you get started with the step you can actually wind up at the destination you're trying to get to and so i've put together a bill on behalf of everybody that can do just that one part of it or all of it doesn't matter and for the next few minutes i'd like to explain my plan to this body when our constituents look off into the distance they do see dark clouds of an explosion of health care costs and they see it rapidly drifting across the country i know this from the town meetings that i've been having i mentioned that again in response to many of our constituents constituents they're going to job every day that they don't like because they're afraid if they change the change in employment will mean that their loved ones will lose their health insurance and they'll face a future without the protection of good policy affords they can't change from one job to another because a family member would have preexisting conditions that would not be covered at the next one that's not fair how do i know these things are happening i know because i go home almost every weekend travel around wyoming it's a very big state a whole ball of you'll take a look at that very small population but i get to talk to almost all of my constituents do that partly at town meetings and partly at individual meetings or read their letters i listen to my back home at all kinds of events and i know if they're telling me these things i can also tell that they're telling me the same things why are we listening why are we taking so much time to finally do something about it when we are home one thing we all like to do is visit our local video store they have a lot of different movies to choose from that we can watch in the quiet and comfort of our own homes there are different sections for each category and we can help ourselves to the latest in action or drama or  comedy if health care was a new release and we wanted to check out their local video store you certainly wouldn't find it under action because there hasn't been any you wouldn't find it under comedy either because there's more of a tragedy than there is comedy to this whole thing most likely you would find it under horror science fiction or fantasy unfortunately i'm not talking about movies in the land of make believe i'm talking about real life and the need for real action to solve real problems take the fact that health care is one of the biggest concerns of every american combine that with the fact that those who were elected and now in charge are refused to put forth for debate a substantial proposal that has a real shot at working there's already talk among top democrats that next year will be the healthcare year funny how it always seems to be that when congress is faced with a heavy lift it starts talking about next year like that's the present tense what do you have you have the answer to why congress approval ratings are so low the solution is clear the best way to solve sagging poll numbers is to actually do something stop playing around on the fringe of the issue and get right to the heart of the matter our friends on the other side of the aisle know what they should do but what are they waiting for we need to do what the american people say they want us most to do and this is the real rub they want us to work together and avoid the partisan fear that we might have to share the credit i've always believed that you can get anything done if you don't who kate don't care who gets the credit and that's the path that we ought to be taking we have a real opportunity to do something now to get legislation passed that will mean real solutions for constituents i've collected this plan over the next few months i'll share each step with my colleagues as i have been doing and would remind you that the longest journey in the world begins with a single step and i'm willing to take the first ones if anyone has about a better idea i'm more than willing to put our ideas together until we have something we can all accept and i know from other pieces of legislation that i've worked on that that's the only way to get something done here we can agree on a lot of things we can agree about on about eighty percent of all of the issues health care is one of those issues we can agree on and i found that on any particular issue you can usually agree on eighty percent of the issues eighty percent would be a lot more than what we've got now it is that pesky twenty percent that always proved to be a problem sometimes you get things done but what you leave out when i mention ten steps that would get us to this goal the only do  lot of health care for people to do all ten of them it is a solution if we concentrate on the eighty percent we can get something done right away to make our healthcare system better safer more efficient and less expensive and we owe it to our mothers or fathers sisters children everywhere to take those steps and one by one we can get where we need to be i think we've all had enough of the russian wine bottle of legislating the ones who rush out to a meeting to hold a press conference so they can whine about a problem that approach generates a lot of noise but it has never resulted in action we need to work together the majority and the minority to build a legacy our children and our grandchildren will benefit from a fair and effective health care system that will ensure more americans have access to the health care they need to lead full and productive lives and those that have it won't lose it forget that there's an election coming up for just a few seconds i mean that's technically next november not this november that should give us a little bit of time to work on something but i do know that that election for some of us is a barrier to progress let's not let it be that way there's plenty of room for agreement we don't need a massive bill just a genuine effort to work together we don't need a new big government bureaucracy we don't need to bankrupt the country three it isn't rocket science we can do it a single step at a time and i am discouraged that those in charge of not put a single step into play but i'm hopeful that this call to arms and actually it's a call to work together as comrades in arms will remind us all that we need to do something about this issue now election year politicking should not stand in the way of real reform for health care there are things we can do today that will give people the confidence they need to have in their ability to face the challenges of tomorrow what we do right now can help people improve their health coverage for themselves and their families all i ask is that you walk with me as we take the steps that are needed to solve this problem i call it the ten step approach and it would bring clarity to our health insurance maze and put the focus where it belongs on patients and acting one of the ten steps would keep our health insurance system strong and our life support off for a while the first step give small businesses greater purchasing power to reduce the cost of insurance plans those of you know me will recognize how central this would have to be to any health care reform proposal of mine the chair and i have worked together to bring together an idea that had failed for twelve years because people wouldn't compromise and we worked with all of the stakeholders which are the providers and the patients and the insurance companies in the ad surance commissioners and anybody else with an interest insurance and we put together a plan that would effectively allow small businesses to work across state lines to combine to get a big enough pool that they could effectively negotiate with the insurance companies that still needs to be done it's still a key to getting more people insured in this country and seeing that people who have insurance get to keep their insurance in administrative costs alone it could drive the price down by about twenty three percent that's a huge savings for small businesses it would bring many small businesses back into the market we need to do that now the second step focuses our investment on health information technology to cut costs and to save lives one hundred thousand americans die every year because of medical errors that result from messy handwriting and mix up w drugs and treatment the senate needs real leadership to bring the health industry into the twenty first century electronic access to health records could save billions of dollars and save thousands of lives people's health records should travel with them so they can share them with their doctors informed decisions are better decisions and patient access to their records can help their doctors do a better job of making sure the parent gets the patient the care they need without duplicate testing how many people have been to the doctor's office when you get there what they do then you clipboard and they say write down everything you can remember about your he used to be able to remember a lot more about my health than i can now because i have had more of it but it would really be helpful just have a little card that i can hand and say here swipe this through your computer and i'll put in the code that will release some of the information and when i get a test done at a hospital and then go to the doctor the doctor won't say well it hasn't gotten here yet so we're going to run the test again some of those tests are five thousand ten thousand dollars duplicative but it be a little card say oh no you've got it right there you've got the information you can use it now the rand corporation estimates that those duplicative tests are costing us one hundred forty billion dollars a year that's real money in my book so an electronic record would go a long way toward eliminating the problems caused by a prescription that can't be read or a drug interaction that could be dangerous or duplicative tests the next step would be to correct a flawed tax code to make it easier for working americans to buy health insurance jobs don't need health insurance people will need health insurance american families who aren't insured through their employers should have the same access to care they should have the same access to the tax code we want health care fairness even if you don't work for a big company we could do that other steps will fix the medical justice system system to cut down on the junk lawsuits that are driving up health care costs the medical liability system in this country doesn't work the way it should the ten steps would include a mechanism to promote real medical justice reform that will focus on helping both patients and doctors not trial lawyers we want medical justice so that people who are injured get paid quickly and fairly so we aren't spending more and preventing lawsuits than we are on preventing says i've got to say senator baucus has been working with me on that bill and we've introduced a bill that can do exactly that and be bipartisan it can be more bipartisan we need more people to help out now americans shouldn't have to live in fear that if they change jobs they'll lose health insurance and this ten step bill will give them security in their health insurance when you change jobs you'd be able to take your health care with you you won't have to worry about the insurance companies saying that that already existed before you bought or insurance so  that's going to be a surprise discovery that it was a previous ailment and we're not going to cover it we don't want that to happen the system to have today isn't about patients and making them healthy we need to put the focus back on health care not sick care we also need to set our sights on prevention brant ben franklin said it best an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure so those are a few of the things that we can do now and i hope you'll check out my website where i have a lot more detail on this plan that i've collected from everybody everybody that's interested in it so check out that website and  join me in getting something done in health care for every american it's not a big concept but it can be a big improvement i want to bring courage others to bring their ideas out for discussion and i never consider anything that i've collected or work done to be the final answer the way that we get led just the way that i get legislation done around here is to listen to all of the different proposals see what works together and of that usually spring some surprise inventions new ways of doing it that reach the goal we're looking at that's where we're trying to go our constituents are asking for more politicking they they consider health to be a real problem and they want to real answer so we can bring the focus back to health care and not sick care we all know what we should be doing in our own lives to help prevent chronic illnesses so that we can stay strong and healthy when it comes to health care it's clear there are a lot of things that should be happening but aren't we need to replace those should with the simple word will we need to replace the call to do something from next year to now those changes should happen and we can make them happen it's a simple thing we just need the will to do it and we need to take the politics out of it i know this is a political body but we have done things in the past that have not been based on politics it's been based on solutions for america and that's the only way that the people of this country are going to have confidence in congress again we can do it we can do it one step at a time but only if we work together work together we've done it on some things we did on a mine safety bill a little over a year ago using takes about six years to get a bill through here we  did six weeks because people listened and found out what the problem was and put down solutions oh no it didn't solve every problem but at least it's eighty percent better than it was eighty percent is better than nothing we can we can reach solutions but only if we listen to each other find the eighty percent and be willing to throw out the other twenty percent i thought we were at that point on s chip i was disappointed to find that we went pretty much back to the same old story again because it evidently makes good ads but as i mentioned before the number of people in the house were fewer that voted for it and the number of people in the senate were fewer that voted for it so we're not the senate has been continuing debate on the revised s chip bill the children's health insurance program the next vote expected at about four forty five p m eastern time today that will be a cloture vote and we expect that to be followed immediately by a vote on final passage on chip children's health insurance bill the legislation provides coverage for an estimated four million children from families who earn too much to qualify for medicaid but can't afford private insurance measures thirty five billion dollars price tag would be covered by a rise in tobacco taxes including a sixty one cent increase on a package of cigarettes that information from the associated press the a p report goes on to say that president bush rejected an earlier version of the bill this fall and the house failed to override his veto in response democrats wrote a replacement measure adding in language they said was designed to meet republican objections the president has already told house republicans he would veto any measure raising tobacco taxes also from congress now this afternoon senate finance chairman max baucus telling congress now this afternoon that the decision to hold a vote on reauthorizing s chip today a move aggressively urged by senate minority leader mitch mcconnell over the objections of senate majority leader harry reid effectively shuts down a push by bipartisan negotiators to reach a new compromise intended to win the legislations approval in both chambers by a veto proof majority over in the house today members passed a bill on hard rock mining and reclamation and that wraps up their legislative work for the week you can follow the house of course on c span and on c span three television right now a pentagon briefing with defense secretary robert gates and joint chiefs chairman michael mullen that'll be followed at about three forty five eastern time with another defense department briefing on army contractors in iraq afghanistan and kuwait live coverage of those events over on c span three the senate now on a quorum call waiting for a member to come to the floor and speak on the children's health insurance bill live coverage of the senate here on c span to support of the s chip bill but i also to say i think that we shouldn't be voting on this bill right now i think this is a time and this is an issue on which bipartisan bipartisan congress with a bipartisan consensus can sit down with the president of the united states and his staff and come to a conclusion that will continue a program that has been very effective however that is not what we are faced with today today we're faced with voting on the exact same bill not exact same bill almost the exact same bill that we voted on and the president vetoed just two weeks ago now i voted for the first bill i think it was a good bill it has many good features but i expected when the president's veto it was sustained in the house that the house leadership would take a step back meet with the president's staff work something out and go forward with something new a new try that is not what we have in this bill before us that's why i voted against the motion to proceed i believe we needed more time to craft a bill that would be more acceptable to the president and could have the buy party and consensus to pass and go to the president for signature that is not what happened instead the house turned around and very shortly passed almost the same bill eighteen republicans voted for virtually this bill we also signed a letter saying to our senate and house leadership please work with the president to come up with a compromise the president has said that he would like a compromise he has said he would like to move forward i think there is a very very strong middle ground because the bill that is before us is a vast step beyond the program as it has been in place and i think we could still do a lot more coverage we could cover more children we could cover more family with a bill that isn't quite as far reaching as the one that is before us today and even though i support the one that is before us today and i will continue to do so i do want a good faith effort to come to a compromise that everyone can support the bill does create continue the program that we have started it provides today insurance for over three hundred thousand children in texas it also includes an important provision that protects tex's ability to cover more children with health insurance during the s chip debate i worked with members of the senate finance committee to ensure that the legislative changes did not harm texas ability to fund the program and we were successful that language was in the original bill and it is in the bill that is before us today however i do think it is important that we we move forward in a way that will achieve success i want to make sure that a fast growing state like texas does not lose the money that it doesn't use in any one year in the next year and the following year that was my concern because many of the fast growing states don't use their money this year but they will need it next year or the year after because there is a stronger effort to sign up the children who are eligible that was accomplished in this bill that is one of the key reasons that i support it because i do think that it is efficient use of our taxpayer dollars to cover children so that they are not going to be more seriously ill because they haven't had the preventive medicine that coverage and medicaid or s chip which is the next step above medicaid can provide that is a worthy goal for our congress madam president i'm going to vote for the bill today but i do hope that this signal is heard and that is that we would ask the the leadership in the house the leadership in the senate to sit down with the president's staff to work out an agreement where we can all support this bill that we'll continue the very important mission of as job to give a safety net for children who are a bug the medicaid level but  still two hundred percent or three hundred percent at most above poverty and give them an opportunity i think some of the things that have been talked about as compromises are quite good quite sound quite creative such  as you go to two hundred fifty percent above the poverty level but between two hundred fifty percent and three hundred fifty percent you give tax credits for families to cover themselves with private insurance you help them you subsidize their ability to stay in the private market we don't want a big government program we do want to cover in s chip and medicaid through government auspices  but we want to not supplant the private insurance that many people in the two hundred fifty to three hundred fifty percent above poverty level do already have access to but if those people who do have access to health care because they work in a company that provides this opportunity and they choose not to take it because they're going to get a free government program that doesn't do anyone any good it's not going to increase the number of children that are covered by insurance because they would have given up health insurance in order to go on a government program that's not what we're after we're after increasing the number of children covered and we're after also keeping the bases of our private health insurance healthy in our country so i thank you for for allowing this debate to go forward i thought we  should've negotiated a little longer but we aren't so we are now going to have cloture on the veil itself i will support that cloture and i'll support the bill that madam president i don't want the same bill to come back a third time i expect sincerity on the part of congress and the president to come forward with something new that would be closer to a bipartisan agreement where we can all declare success and the beneficiaries of this success will be the poorer children of our country thank you madam president and i yield the floor thank you mr annan from texas is a president ask unanimous consent to speak up to fifteen minutes without objection so ordered i think the i thank the chair and a president i was looking at the most recent public opinion polls on the united states congress and let me report what what they what they say it says that just sixteen percent of likely voters think that congress is doing an excellent job or a good job while thirty six percent are willing to call the legislature's performance fair a plurality of forty seven percent of cops say congress is doing a poor job now i don't know about you madam president but of my kids brought home a report card that said that only sixteen percent of their work was either excellent or good thirty six fair and forty seven percent poor that there be little trouble at home until we got things straightened out and got their priorities straightened out madam president this congress this senate has lost a sense of its priorities our priorities should be working together across the aisle to try to solve our nation's challenges that's the reason i came to the united states senate and i honestly believe that regardless of whether we call ourselves republicans or democrats or independents that's what motivated virtually every member of congress to come here to try to do something for our constituents for our state for our nation and for our future but unfortunately i don't know whether it's the water we drink in washington d c or somehow just the environment that we encounter here once people come to washington they seem to get locked into these partisan battles and lose sight of that objective which is to do something good for the american people to help them solve some of their problems to have deliver results and i know that many of our colleagues whether they're republicans or democrats are frustrated by our inability to do that as the occupant of the chair knows so we have the weekly meetings bipartis meetings trying to figure out it's almost like group therapy sessions after we get out of the rut we're in and how could we solve some of the problems that confront us but here we are again and my colleague the senior senator from texas talked about her concerns that the s chip debate the state children's health insurance program debate had become not a problem to be solved but rather a political football and i'm afraid i have to agree with her that we've been through this debate over the last few weeks and nothing not even the rhetoric has changed it seems like the all we've had is people dusting off their old speeches that they delivered a few days or a few weeks ago and i listening to one another not actually rolling up our sleeves and getting to work to try to resolve the differences the truth is as we've said over and over again what's wrong with this bill is that we simply don't seem to have a consensus that we ought to enact a solution the fact of the matter is that we we know that there is bipartisan agreement that the state children's health insurance program designed to help low income kids that whose families make too much money to qualify for medicare makes better kade but not enough to pop by private health insurance if they need a little bit of help in order to get access to good quality health care and there is broad bipartisan perhaps unanimous agreement that we ought to get that done but unfortunately what we've seen is a program proposed that that little resembles the the original program which was designed to help low income kids we see a bill that's grown by a hundred and forty percent a thirty five billion dollar tax increase in order to to cover new low income kids well no in fourteen states we know it's used to cover adults we know that it's  proposals had initially been made that would allow the waivers to be used to cover families making up to eighty thousand dollars and more bearing little resemblance to its ultimate or to its original goal now we see a new bill that's before the senate that represents the old bill except for if this is possible it's even worse it's amazing to me that the authors of this new bill would come back with  called compromise spending five hundred million more dollars than the last bill yet covering four hundred thousand fewer children you heard me you heard me correctly spending almost a half a billion dollars more and covering four hundred thousand less children and still despite my pleas and the pleas of many of our colleagues to the contrary this does not put the health and welfare of the lowest income children first i've said it time and time again but let me say it one more time right now in my home state of texas there are roughly seven hundred thousand uninsured low income children who qualify for medicaid who qualify for the s chip program but we've not made the effort to reach out to them to get them to sign up for a benefit for which they are already legally qualified and for which there are funds already available to pay for their health care the seven hundred thousand children in texas who qualif for the s chip or medicaid program don't know about the programs or don't know how to apply i have to tell you madam president i was in houston texas at a place called the  neighborhood program run by the texas children's hospital which recently where i saw a copy of the application form for medicaid in s chip and it reminded me of a financial statement that a that a businessman or woman would have to fill out in order to apply for a line of credit or even maybe a financial application you'd have to fill out to buy a home it was enormously complicated and i'm sure intimidating to many low income parents who would like to sign up their children but we have to refocus our efforts not on growing the size of the program beyond recognition to cover the middle class and to cover adults we need to return our focus to low income kids and figure out how can we get those families who are the intended beneficiaries of this program signed up on the program so we can get more kids out of the emergency rooms and onto on to some form of health insurance which will allow them to get preventative care and to keep them healthy and productive as young young americans but here we go again here we go again we're going to have another meaningless vote in the sense that while it no doubt will pass the president said he's going to veto it and we're going to be right back into the soup again second veto roughly the same bill except for the fact this bill spends more money covers fewer kids and we're not solving the problems that the american people sent us here to solve i think it's regrettable it's not why i came here and i doubt it's the reason why the vast majority of our colleagues come here but here we are stuck in a rut again playing the same sort of political games more concerned about scoring points on some imaginary scoreboard according to arbitrary rules that nobody knows other than it seems like these poor low income kids are the ones who are losing in the end when a president i also want to come to the floor to talk about another another disappointment that i have with regard to the confirmation proceedings of the new nominee for attorney general of the united states judge michael knew casey i serve as a member of the committee and i'm grateful to chairman leahy that on tuesday we will finally have this nomination on the judiciary committee markup so we can vote up or down in the judiciary committee on this nominee but it seems the judgment casey just when we thought here is somebody a respected federal district judge who has served with great distinction in that capacity who's been the presiding judge of both  d a case you remember that that was one of the an individual accused of terrorism and where there were many extensive legal challenges to to his detention judgment case he handled that case at least in part he also tried and presided over the ten individuals who were convicted for their involvement in the one nine hundred ninety three bombing of the world trade center one of the first incidents of terrorism on our soil back in one thousand nine hundred three before we realized that al qaeda a declared war against the united states and we finally woke up on september the eleventh and acknowledged that the throughout his career as a judge judgment casey has proven to be an independent voice of reason justice and a strong advocate for the united states constitution in the rule of law for eighteen years he served on the united states district court for the southern district of new york one of this country's most important and prestigious federal courts for six of those years he served also as the chief judge the united states court of appeals the second circuit wrote of judgment cases work presiding over the one nine hundred ninety three world trade center bombing saying quote he presided with extraordinary skill in patients assuring fairness to the prosecution and the each defendant and helpfulness to the jury he was in his was an outstanding achievement in the face of challenges far beyond those normally endure by a trial judge in short men of president's judgment cases qualifications as a lawyer as a judge as a dedicated advocate for the rule of law or unimpeachable and undeniable well it looked like things were going pretty well there were two days of hearings for judgment casey in the senate judiciary committee judgment case he was really doing well when he said you know what i'm not afraid to tell the president the united states when he steps over the line and violates the law if that were to happen he said it's my job as attorney general to tell him the are the parameters for your actions mr president and you just like the lowest of the low the highest the higher subject of the law in the united states under the constitution believing as he does and  the concept of equal justice under the law judgment cases showed no fear and no favor in terms of the way he would interpret and apply the law were he confirmed as attorney general but now madam president we see that some of my colleagues on the judiciary committee has sent judgment casey a letter asking the him about his legal conclusion an opinion about an interrogation technique that is allegedly used against some of the worst enemies of the united states terrorists in order to get information from them consistent with our laws and the constitution and our treaty obligations but information from them that will allow us to save american lives and prevent future terrorist attacks and madam president they complain about judgment cases answer not because he doesn't acknowledge what the law is an international treaty banning torture or domestic laws that ban torture but because he says i have not been briefed on this particular and chair a geisha technique that you're asking me about and because it's a classified procedure i don't know the facts and so let me tell you what the law is let me reassure you i will steadfastly enforce the law i don't care whether it's the president the united states i have to tell no or anybody else but you know what being a responsible lawyer being a responsible former federal district judge let me say that while i can tell you what the law is i can't give you a conclusion that you're asking for as to whether this particular technique is legal or not because i haven't been briefed out of i don't know what the facts are that matter president that is a responsible answer not a fact that is the only responsible answer for a careful lawyer and judge like judgment casey and frankly if he had answered the question without knowing what the facts are  some conclusive way i would doubt his qualifications that his temperament i would wonder maybe this person wants to be attorney general too bad that he's willing to make rash decisions without knowing what the facts are in order to get confirmed but instead judgment casey said you know i need to know what the facts are and i can answer your question conclusively even though i reassure you that i am well if steadfastly enforce the law i oppose torture important to our values personally repugnant to me and i would tell the president ited states if i concluded that some particular interrogation techniques stepped across that legal threshold of madame president once again we find that the facts apparently don't matter that this is this responsible answer which judgment casey has given has been offered as a pretext to oppose his nomination and i think it's a shame as a new york times today reported its judgment casey who perhaps i'm confident will ultimately be confirmed as  conclusive opinion on the legality of certain interrogation techniques what he she has not been briefed upon it would potentially prejudice and put in jeopardy intelligence officials who  who may have engaged in interrogation techniques that now without knowing the facts this nominee would conclude had stepped across a legal threshold that would not be the responsible thing to do and  judgment casey has done the only responsible thing that a careful person and a person who understands that hit the ramifications of his decision may extend far beyond a confirmation hearing potentially put in jeopardy americans patriots who are trying to protect and save the lives of other americans and other people around the world so madam president i of i hope that we would try to do better i would hope that we would do what we all came here to do as united states senators representing our states and try to solve real problems not to create artificial barriers and indulgence i thank my colleagues for their patience and would hope that we would get on to the business of passing the state children's health insurance bill and have a speedy confirmation for judgment casey is the next attorney general of the united madam president while i know that on the floor of the senate this afternoon s chip or the stake child health insurance program is the topic of the moment something else is near conclusion across america at this time that i thought it would be proper appropriate for me to speak to and i'm speaking of the two thousand and seven fire season of course we you and i have been riveted to our television sets over the last several weeks as were literally watched the los angeles basin burn well while the smoke is starting to clear in california and the losses are being assessed i thought it would be time to come and speak to one of the worst fire seasons that america has experienced in decades but first in doing so i must say and we've all watched it i must say thank you for the literally thousands courageous firefighters men and women out on the line every day facing almost impossible odds we saw it in california we saw it in my state of idaho we saw it across america this year during that whil fire season period where flames were as high as building and men and women were sky hurrying to stop them and to protect both habitat and watershed and homes and they were putting themselves at risk so i say to all of those marvelous firefighters who stood in harm's way throughout the early summer summer and fall and now into the late fall in california thank you thank you for the phenomenal work you do the selflessness that you put yourselves in to in behalf of america in behalf of people's property in behalf of our natural resources in california as we speak fourteen people lost their lives twenty one hundred homes were destroyed as that week long blaze roared across the greater los angeles basin over eight hundred and nine square mile of land was charred and now about the time the fires are to die down we hear rumors that the santa ana winds are expected to pick up again and we could possibly find ourselves back in flames in california the two thousand and seven fire season seventy seven thousand fires stop and think about that seventy seven thousand fires nine point two million acres of land and as i've just said california may continue to burn in my home state of idaho we went through really one of the worst fire seasons we have ever experienced of that seventy seven thousand fires i talked about one thousand seven hundred seventy five of them were in the state of idaho of the ninety two million acres of land charred that i talk about over two point two million acres of that nearly twenty five percent of the whole burn occurred in my state of idaho thankfully in idaho no great structures were laws because it happened to be out in the back country or on our foothill grazing land and finally as the snow began to fall in the high country of my great state a few weeks ago the fires were put out because some of those fires were simply impossible to corral and to put out by a man's efforts so here's an interesting statistic this chart shows us the phenomenal escalation in the cost of firefighting at the federal level and what has transpired in two thousand five nearly one point six million acres one point six billion dollars was spent let me show you what happened this year let me show you what happened this year here's what happened this year so we go from one point six billion dollars let's go to one point eight seven billion dollars those are the figures we're talking about now and that doesn't even include california so we'll probably hit well over the two billion dollar price tag in fighting america's fires this year and that in itself is phenomenal a phenomenal cause so let's remember seventy seven million a thousand fires one nine point two million acres burned and now we're bumping up over two billion dollars worth of tax dollars spent in protecting america's marvelous wild lands and in protecting properties and all of that let me give you an example of what happened in idaho where twenty five percent of that acreage burned on one fire alone in size as big as the percent burned out seventeen others were partially burned now that the fire is over now that the fall is come and we've had a few rain storms and things has settled down this is federal land what do we do here's what we're doing because the cost is not over the figure i've given you here of nearly two billion dollars that's just to put out the fires now what are you going to do with the land now you start rehabilitating the land you start trying to stop it from eroding and doing all of that we're going to spend ten million dollars in two thousand and seven twenty two million dollars are already requested for the next three years that's just for one fire in idaho estimated one hundred  twenty eight thousand acres to be rehabbed currently sixty six thousand have been rehabbed i flew over that fire it's very hard to understand what six hundred square miles of fire looks like i was in a military helicopter i flew for thirty five minutes and never saw an burned land that's the expanse of the size of fires and that fire was just a little smaller than the collective size of the los angeles or the greater california fires so it is phenomenally important that we put these fires into context and understand what they're all about some of you watched on national television as the great ski resort sun valley near ketchum idaho nearly burned this year we spent well over one hundred fifty million dollars saving the community of ketchum saving the gr sun valley ski resort from what was known as the castle rock fire i was up there two different days on that fire as the community came around and helped and tried to protect themselves and as our government poured the and resources in a class one fire there was a great lady up there who was the fire boss they brought her out of california she was fearless in her effort to stop that fire and she did so very successfully well there are a lot of other stories to be told the salmon river the great river of no return in idaho one of the number one white water rafting rivers in the world shut down twenty seven days this summer because of the smoke and the risk of fire millions of dollars lost in my state the recreation from fire or the risk of fire oh yes there were millions lost in resources but when you live off the economy of tourism and recreation fire becomes a very real problem i don't think we've drawn a bottom line yet to determine the losses in idaho but i will tell you they literally are in the millions of dollars sun valley itself had to cancel a great event it has every labor day called weigand days cancel it all together tell people not to come tens of thousands of people did not come and did not spend their money and that community lost millions as a result of it so when you see a fire being fought and you know there are billions of dollars being spent to put it out that's just one phase of the great cost of fires in america as you know in california with twenty one hundred homes burned many of those homes will be rebuilt many of those communities will be rebuilt to the tune of well over a billion dollars and someone's going to pay for that state money insurance money private money tremendous expense in many of the areas of the state of idaho in that two point two million acres that burned campgrounds won't be able to be used for several years trailheads the opportunity to recreate in that area will be canceled because it's charred it's gone  wildlife habitat the watershed and all that is a result of the great effective management of public lands has been wiped out the reason i'm telling you all of this is because there is a very important message that has to be brought into context as we look at america burning an america burns last year nearly ten million acres this year nine some odd million acres we are burning unprecedented acres of land across our nation and somebody ought to ask why why is it greater today than it's been in decades there are reasons i believe and in the next few minutes all try to explain those to you because not only is our attitude about different our attitude about how we manage our public lands and reduce the overall fuel loads that feed these fires is out there and the chairman who is currently chairing at the moment just concluded the drafting and the markup of a climate change bill our climate has changed and we are in some areas getting hotter and some areas getting drier but the management of the lands in response to the change of the climate isn't there or we're not giving our management agencies the resources to change their management practices to realize the kinds of changes that are going on in our public lands so for idaho not only was the last real this summer  millions of acres of beautiful wild lands but it's now wildlife habitat that's gone it's watershed that in the wet season could come tumbling down and bring sediment to our streams and damage our fisheries and much of the recreation that was there is gone potentially for years to come and as i mentioned a few moments ago the seeding the stabilization all of the things that have to go on in the earth when watersheds to protect them to bring water quality back all of that's going to be the additional expenses the forest service and the b l m and many of our management agencies that have the responsibility over those land the fire fighters are gone from idaho the smoke is gone and the skies are clear once again at the same time the damage is real and the damage will be there for years to come the skies will clear in california one of these days but in california the wet season will come and as we watched one one two thousand one hundred homes burn now we will watch the land grow wet and begin to slide because there's no vegetation on it to hold it and to protect it and to save it from the kind of slippage that that area and that region of the country is very prone to the reason i mentioned senator lieberman because he's on the floor today leading the charge on climate change here's another aspect of what we've done this year but nobody registers it and few account for it over on average six tons of c o two are released for every acre of burn in the united states this year up to one hundred tons of c o two per acre can be released now last year alone we haven't calculated this year yet last year along with ten million acres of forest land burned by conservative estimate that means that sixty million tons of c o two carbon spewed into the atmosphere not to mention the greenhouse gases and the air pollutants was the product of our fires can we do something about it should we do something about it well we're proposing changing our whole energy structure to try to affect climate change and reduce our greenhouse gases but few are focused on our public lands and our policies of managing those lands and what results from them when they burn here is an interesting fact when i talk about the sixty million tons of c o two spewed into the atmosphere that's roughly equivalent understand this figure that's roughly equivalent to taking twelve million vehicles off the roads for one year in other words turning off their motors stopping their pollution twelve million vehicles for one year that's equivalent to about half the automobile fleet in the state of california that's a pretty significant picture one of the things our forests do so very well when they are young and when they are youthful and when the matrix of our forests are old and new and different in their changes is they do something that only a green growing thing can do they sequester carbon they take it from the atmosphere when you burn it it's releasing carbon back into the atmosphere our management practices ought to be to keep our forests as young and vibrant and alive as they possibly can be so that they become a tool they become an asset in climate change to pull the carbon out of the atmosphere that man produces and store it in trees the great think that lots of people who don't understand our forest do not understand is that they are the greatest capture and store of carbon in a forest and when they burn and when you see the smoke on the horizon it is just that the release of carbon into the atmosphere let me conclude i think my time is nearly up to say what i believe is critically important for our future active management of our forest recognizing not only their contribution to our great nation as it relates to all  that they bring in water quality and wildlife habitat and the producing the fiber to build homes is what keeps a forest healthy to simply lock them up and watch them and watch mother nature move in with her bugs and kill them and burn them and do what's happened this year is in itself a statement of mismanagement and this year and last year we saw a record examples of mismanagement ten million acres last year nine point two million acres this year billions of dollars of tax money is spent hundreds now thousands of homes lost are our public resource agencies spend more time protecting homes now days than they do the resource itself and we nearly sat idly by or with the courts are suing to keep us out of our forests so that we can't manage them to clean them up to reduce their fuel loads to adhere to the laws we pass called healthy forest and others i'll be back to talk on this and talk more about it in detail in the coming months because we are now off the chart we are now literally in spending off the chart and this is only phase one this is fighting fire this is trying to put the fire out this is trying to protect habitat or to protect home this has nothing to do with the rehabilitation and the seating and the management that may come afterwards or all of the dollars that have been lost in california because business could not be conducted or all of the dollars lost in idaho and other states because people could not come there to enjoy it and to recreate there are a lot of there are consequences to fire let alone the phenomenal loading of the atmosphere of carbon and greenhouse gases that comes from a wildfire season america burning this year the two thousand and seven fire season was one of the worst we've had in decades and this is part of the story of what it was all about and there is more to be told and it must be told and congress should act in concert with climate change and everything else to make sure that part of what we do sequesters our carbon keeps our forest healthy and young and vibrant as a part of the total picture of a great nation that manages a great resource instead of simply watching it burn i yield the floor madam president the senator from connecticut  mind that comes from knowing that healthcare is there for their children that's all this is bad and presence about health care for kids these are kids working families not kids and wealthy families not kids and middle income families families kids and working families these are kids through no fault of their own were born into families who have heart had a hard time buying medical insurance in america were trying to help these kids a large number of senators in both sides of the aisle have worked together to try to reach a consensus both sides  within reach i believe that given a little more time congress could pass a bill that could achieve the support of more than two thirds of both houses of congress unfortunately today some objected to giving us that time and i don't think that i'll be telling tales out of school to say that the majority leader visited our meeting and he said if we get a deal the senate will take it up i think we're close to getting a deal on a couple issues are outstanding and we'll work through those i regret that the opponents of the childes health insurance program let's be clear there truly are not just the bill but the children's health insurance program that those opponents have chip and made it impossible for us to offer the memmott to the bill for us today get this done they have succeeded in stopping us today i'm disappointed i'm not discouraged i'm disappointed but we'll keep working even the president once again those health care for kids will work to get it done and s  focuses more on low income families is a good bill so madam president there is no reason why anyone who supported the first bill on september twenty seventh would not do so again today improved and there's every reason why those who objected to the first bill would support this bill today urge my colleagues to join in voting for cloture and then voting for the bill urge them to do so because this is still about health care for kids that's what this is all about is for to urge my colleagues on the judiciary committee to favorably consider this nomination because i fear that we are in danger of treating this judge very unjustly of doing something  that is not fair to him personally i want to state at the outset that i didn't just meet judge me casey since he was nominated for attorney general by the president i actually met him forty three years ago this fall when we both entered law school a law school together we were in the same small group and contracts the occupant of the chair will appreciate the intimacy and how well you get to know somebody when you're in a small group with a demanding contracts professor together that mike me casey had met forty three years ago was honorable he was bright he was not  he had a great sense of humor and he had a strong sense of values of what i would call honor to him i've kept in touch with mike over the years i can't say we've seen each other a lot but we i've watched his career grow with with great pride private practitioner a distinguished and successful assistant united states attorney a judge who has been extremely well regard it'd by all who have come before him as was testified before the judiciary committee on his nomination handled some very difficult cases ruled in cases regarding alleged terrorists did so to his  own personal risk had a security detail with him for some period of time because of threats he received after one of these cases i'm i'm honored to say that the judge me casey asked me to introduce him to the judiciary committee alongside his senator senator schumer of new york and i said then with what i will say here the man that i met forty three years ago is today that essentially the same man honorable intelligent real sense of values and a commitment to public service a man of the law not a man of politics exactly the kind of person america always  needs as attorney general but particularly needs at this moment and i thought he handled his nomination hearing extremely well now there is rising opposition to this torture judge me casey has referred to give the easy i might say politically correct answer and he's argued with us he's educated us i would add to understand that his answer is not about whether we're for or against waterboarding he says to him himself that the techniques described this is i'm reading from a letter of october thirtieth from this year from judge  casey two members of the judiciary committee who had written to him i was asked at the hearing and in your letter questions about the hypothetical use of certain coercive interrogation techniques as described in your letter these techniques seem over the line and on a personal basis repugnant to me so this is not to say that judge mukasey is for waterboarding that's not what's at issue here and we should not allow it to become so he  responding as a man of the law as a judge and as a man who would be if we allow him exactly the kind of attorney general we need he says hypotheticals are different from real life and in any legal opinion the actual facts and circumstances are critical as a judge you case he continues i tried to be objective in my decision making and to put aside even strongly held personal beliefs when assessing a legal question because legal questions must be answered based solely on the actual facts circumstances and legal standards presented a legal opinion based on hypothetical facts and circumstances may be of some that it is torture under the law because i don't know exactly what waterboarding it is and how it's used and i have not seen the prevailing legal memos that has govern because they're classified th governed interrogations by employees of our government he says i in the letter of october third i have not been briefed on techniques used in any classified interrogation program conducted by any government agency so how he is saying can you expect me to essentially issue a legal opinion when i don't know the facts and i can't know the facts until and unless you allow me to be attorney general and then he says something i think very important in his letter he writes to the judiciary committee members i do know however that ward or boarding cannot be used by the united states military because it's used by the military would be a clear violation of the detainees treatment act that is because waterboarding and certain other coercive interrogation techniques are expressively prohibited by the army field manual on intelligence interrogation in congress and congress specifically legislated in the detainees treatment act of two thousand and five that no person in the custody or control of the department of defense or held in a d facility may be subject to any interrogation techniques not authorized and listed in the manual so there there is a law and he has made clear that because there is a law he definitely believes water boarding cannot be used by department defense personnel effect is that the detainees treatment act of two thousand and five did not explicitly banned waterboarding as or other specific techniques of interrogation as used by other employees of the federal blow government including presumably and particularly employees of our intelligence agencies the detaining treatment act band and i quote cruel inhuman and degrading treatment judgment casey says in this letter in the absence of legislation expressively banning certain interrogation techniques in all circumstances much one must consider whether a particular technique complies with the relevant legal standards and he said really cannot do this in the absence of a clear legislative expression by congress that waterboarding constitutes torture without seeing the documents without understanding the definition of waterboarding as applied in particular cases he is a man of the law he is he is saying as he said in his testimony and in this letter no one including the president is above the law it would be very easy to remove any doubts in opposition about his confirmation if he just said in this letter  he responds to a higher authority it is the law in a nation that claims to be governed by the rule of law in his testimony before the judiciary committee he was repeatedly questioned in regard to his independence and following any general gonzales close relationship with the white house the members of the committee were clearly interested in whether judge me casey would be independent of the white house of the president he said that he would do what the law required him to do no one is above the law including the president in refusing to tell questioning members of the judiciary committee colleagues of ours what they want to hear in this case he is also showing his independence he's saying he will not be pressured by members of the united states senate including those whose confirmation who will determine whether he is confirmed or not he will not simply tell them what they want to hear if he thinks it is not the legally responsible thing to do that is exactly the kind of man i want and i believe we all should want as attorney general of the united states so he is putting his confirmation as attorney general at risk because he believes it would not be justified as a matter of law for him to conclude without benefit of of documents that he cannot see now that waterboarding is torture and for this will we reward this good man this public servant this distinguished judge this man of the law by rejecting his nomination here is the kind of independence the kind of allegiance to the public interest and the rule of law that the american people want to see more of in washington and not less so that's why i repeat what i said at the beginning to reject the nomination of judge michael mukasey because he refuses to say what some members want him to say on this question and he refuses as a matter of sincerely held legal belief what his legal responsibility is would be grossly unfair and unjust act to this judge may i suggest an alternative course to my friends on the judiciary committee and members of the senate who hopefully will get to consider this nomination confirmed judge of your case based on his overall record of service his obvious intelligence and honor and integrity the extent to which he will raise the morale of the employees of the department of justice look at his entire record don't turn him down and deprive the nation of his service as our chief law enforcer because of one legal opinion he has reached that is different from yours confirm him and then as attorney general he will have access to the documents about waterboarding he will have access to the people who may or may not have been involved in and he will have access to the prevailing legal memos and then demand that he or she will equal opinion and respond to your question but don't reject a man of the law exactly the kind of man america needs today as our attorney general i thank the chair and  don't go back to this issue objected to one i was called by my friends on the other side of the aisle yesterday and said can we have a little more time i said sure i came today and said let's finish this matter chairman rangle i went down at twenty after two today and met with a number of republican house members relaying of them and i have no doubt that they would of knowledge this that we have really tried to work with them and coming up with something i explain to them the senate rules if i wanted to not have this cloture vote i couldn't stop it it would take unanimous consent to move them are doing this i explained that them but i did tell them this and i will say to you and those within the sound of my voice what i told those freshman i believe that the negotiations that have taken place in this matter been in good faith there's been no bad faith by the participants the burden has been borne by the chairman of the finance committee senator baucus and the ranking member senator grassley senator hatch who was the original sponsor of this bill senator kennedy has been involved from the very beginning and her hatch was at the meeting where i met with house republicans senator baucus was there and i repeat what i told them if we can't do something now and we sent a bill to the president and he vetoes it i don't think we should rush forward and try to override his veto i think we should just let things simmer a while i told them if they can come up with something that we can work  spoke to the speaker this morning i said i'm not sure we can move much further she says you should see the changes though they want to make there very little there isn't much that they want which was comforting to me and that's what the house members told me today when i met with the mishap you know so i would hope that people understand the good faith negotiations that have been taken place on a bipartisan by camel basis on this most important piece of legislation i'm not happy with the president on this issue i think he's making a big mistake i think he's hurting some of his house members who could be in a very precarious position as a result of voting no to override his veto but that's decision that they've made and i'm willing to try to get them out of the hole that i think some of them ran and on the president yesterday came from left field i mean talk about a sucker punch he suddenly said i don't like the way this paid for we're paying for it it's not deficit spending we're taking here this was a relatively small tax on cigarettes and cigars and that what that surprised everybody surprised everybody at the present now when when he learned that it wasn't when he learned that we had changed things get adults off the program would change things that limit waivers with tighten down the immigration issue we did everything he asked to do and now he changes the program again i miss present we're in a point now where the president really does not become relevant to this issue because in the bipartisan by camel work that we've done between the house and the senate we want to do this ourselves so that when we come to a decision on what we can do i think we're within days of being able to do that will bring this bill back up the speaker said she would do it i said i do it and i i want to express my appreciation to the courtesies extended to me by senators grassley and hatch on the republican side and extreme patience of senator baucus for allowing the many different diversions we've had in getting the point where we are today with the understanding and the hope that we can move forward on this bill and even though the percent of these programs are going to change drastically by the march is there's going be as many as eleven states now run out of money hopefully in the next few weeks we can change this legislation and still ensure our ten million children and i have maintained a program that is one reasonable for the states and certainly the children who are trying to protect so i can express my appreciation to the participants of many a negotiator and and i want to also reach my hand of friendship to the speaker there isn't a democrat or republican including summers grassley and hatch who would not say publicly how willing she has been to try to work to come to some reasonable conclusion of this legislation she's been great and has china wrangle and then go deal this far and present as is there anyone on the floor that wants to take the remaining time to my friend stay recenter from florida senator from florida thank you well i want to command our leadership for working out the fact that we can start to bring some closure on the children's health insurance we have had experience in florida of doing a health insurance program before the federal program ever started ten years ago and it was slee successful and popular in getting two families that were just over the income level of medicaid but who were still too limited in their income to provide health insurance for their children and as a result thousands of children in florida before chip ever came along were provide but then the federal program came along and made it available to so many more and yet even today with florida's program in the federal program there are still seven hundred thousand children in the state of florida that do not have health insurance and what we're hoping is that with the expansion of the chip program we'll be able to include four hundred thousand of those seven hundred thousand that do not have health insurance madam president i am going to ask unanimous consent to insert in the record because the hour is fast approaching on the  remarks that i will make as to a bill that i'm introducing today with senator whitehouse which is the voter confidence and increased assess ability act of two thousand and seven and it is basically that states won't have to go through what florida has gone through in the uncertainty of voters knowing that their ballots counted and knowing that their ballots counted as intended because of malfunctioning of the elected election apparatus or malfunctioning of machines and it moves us this legislation moves us to a position of going back to where you would have a paper record in this case optical scan of quitman for the two thousand and twelve presidential election so bottom present i ask consent that by remarks be entered in the record in full and realizing that i will yield the floor because we are at the hour of the vote without objection so order under the previous order the clerk will report the motion to invoke cloture we the undersigned centers in accordance with revisions of roll twenty two of the standing rules of the senate to hear i'm bring move to bring to a close a debate on calendar number four fifty h r thirty nine sixty three and children's health insurance program reauthorization act two thousand and seven signed by seventeen senators by unanimous consent the mandatory corm call is waived the question is is it the sense of the senate that debate on h r thirty nine sixty three and act to amend the title twenty one of the social security act to extend and improve the children's health insurance of rhode island to read of nevada to robert this camp well i mr cole i mr lieberman i i i have not are there any senators wishing to vote or wishing to change their vote if not and if the a's are sixty five the knaves are thirty three fifths of the senators duly chosen and swarm having voted in the affirmative the motion is agreed to that of present majority leader order majority leader we're going to have them a vote just a few minutes i know people have things to do this will be the last vote this week but i learned all members were tried had a number of meetings majority minority has to take a look at the amendment that is the bill that's come out of the committee and it was all ready to go and the finance committee needed to make some changes on it that should be back from legislative council in just a matter of minutes  we'll have to we'll have to we have to do that otherwise we will go to the farm bill tuesday about two o'clock in the afternoon so the managers can give their opening statements anyone wants speak on this bill and there's going to be a lot of opening statements on the farm bill so i would hope that people would come early and get those out of the way there is a number of people have expressed have warned me that there's going to be  and so we have to make sure that we don't get into issues that we need not get into but will be as fair as we possibly can be on the farm bill bill we have to complete also during the next two weeks madam president we have to get  first appropriation bill to the president i had a very i think constructive conversation with john today regarding what will happen when we get that bill to him we also have a number of other important things to do like make sure the government's funded after november sixth so we have a very busy week we have the president's indicated that probably tomorrow he's going to veto word of and we'll have to we'll have to take a look at that  cloture vote will be on the bill monday for opening statements as i indicated and i hope that we have a productive farm bill i want to express my appreciation to everyone for the work on the children's health bill i will repeat what i said before the vote there has been camera bipartisan work on the bill by cameral bipartisan work at two twenty today i went and met with a number of house republicans trying to move forward on the children's health initiative it is my recommendation man present this bill be sent to the president if he vetoes the bill unusual public and house colleagues but they've indicated they thought that would be the best step forward we are very close to being able to do a bipartisan children's health bill i think we we can really do that i've spoken to the speaker she believes that's the case also if we can do that at the earliest opportunity we will bring that back to this consideration of the senators express my appreciation to senator baucus senator rockefeller senator grass senator hatch and many others this is been a very very difficult but yes for me it indicates to me that there is the ability of this congress to work on a bipartisan by camel basis and until we accept that as a truth we're gonna have trouble moving the many bills that we have bouncing around here to completion from the senate republican the let me just say with regard to the schedule for monday the farm bill has not been prodded yet but as the majority leader indicated we expected momentarily i am optimistic that we will not end up having to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed monday and that we will as the majority leader suggested not have to be back until tuesday morning i can't announce that right now but i'm optimistic that we'll be able to get that cleared up in the very near future under the previous order the clerk will read the bill for th telling number four fifty eight or thirty nine sixty three an act to amend title twenty one of the so security act to extend and improve the children's health insurance program and for other purposes to get a previous order the question is on the passage of h r three nine six three days and days have been ordered there's sufficient second there is sufficient second the clerk will caldwell mr akaka mr alexander mr allard mr  mr brownback mr brownback now mr rockefeller mr rockefeller