January 7, 2009 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S161 

Many months ago, I offered the first 

amendment in the Intelligence Committee that would apply the Army 

Field Manual to interrogation techniques used by our intelligence agencies, and Senator FEINSTEIN was kind 

enough to cosponsor that amendment. 

We worked together in conference to 

get that amendment passed into legislation that was subsequently vetoed. I 

submitted the International Committee of the Red Cross access provision last year. 

I cannot find words strong enough to 

explain the strength of my view about 

the things we sacrifice for whatever 

small, short-term, tactical intelligence 

advantage we may achieve from torture and secret cells, assuming there 

even are any. Most intelligence professionals believe that what you get from 

torture is people who will say anything 

to get away from the pain. But let’s assume there is some value to it for the 

sake of argument. I cannot find words 

strong enough to explain how overwhelmed that small tactical value is by 

the loss of our reputation and our 

standing and the confidence and trust 

of our friends and allies when we engage in behaviors that have been associated with despots and tyrants and the 

worst of history’s regimes. 

Let’s put this behind us. Let’s support this bill. As we go through this 

time of transition in American Government, let’s also go through a time of 

transition in America’s reputation in 

the world. 

I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. 

PRYOR). The clerk will call the roll. 

The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll. 

Mr. HARKIN. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call 

be rescinded. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. 

CANTWELL). Without objection, it is so 

ordered. 

f 

TRIBUTE TO SENATOR ROBERT 

BYRD 

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, I 

want to join my colleagues today in 

honoring the extraordinary service and 

accomplishments of the senior Senator 

from West Virginia, the Honorable 

ROBERT C. BYRD. It was exactly 50 

years ago today, on January 7, 1958, 

that he was first sworn into the Senate. Senator BYRD is the longest serving Senator in U.S. history, and he 

truly is a living legend in this institution that he loves so dearly and defends 

so fiercely. 

The Almanac of American Politics 

says: ROBERT BYRD ‘‘may come closer 

to the kind of Senator the Founding 

Fathers had in mind than any other.’’ 

I couldn’t agree more. He is a person 

of wise and mature judgment, a patriot 

with a deep love of his country. He is 

passionately loyal to the Constitution 

and a fierce defender of the role and 

prerogatives of Congress and the Senate in particular. 

Senator BYRD was once asked how 

many Presidents he had served under. 

He answered that he had not served 

under any President, that he had 

served with 10 Presidents as a proud 

member of a separate and coequal 

branch of Government. During his five 

decades in this body, Senator BYRD has 

witnessed many changes our country 

has gone through. Think about it. Our 

population since 1958 has grown by 125 

million people. There have been new 

technologies. 

I was thinking about this. In 1958, I 

graduated from high school in Des 

Moines, IA. The year before the Russians had launched Sputnik, and we 

were trying to catch up. We had not established ourselves in space. I was out 

of high school that summer, getting 

ready to go to college. I found a job 

working on this new construction 

project called the interstate highway 

system which was just beginning at 

that time. Jet air travel was just starting. I remember my first flight. The 

airplane was propeller driven. We 

didn’t have jet aircraft. There were 

some in the military, but it hadn’t 

started for commercial air travel at 

that time. We had no computers, no 

cell phones, and nine out of ten TV sets 

were black and white. That was 1958, 

the year ROBERT BYRD came to the 

Senate. There have been many changes 

that have happened over the last 50 

years. 

Across this half century of rapid 

change, there has been one constant— 

Senator BYRD’s tireless service to this 

country, his passion for helping bring 

new opportunities to the people of West 

Virginia, and his dedication to this institution, the Senate of the United 

States. 

Senator BYRD is a person of many accomplishments and a rich legacy. But 

above all, I will mention his commitment to improving public education 

and expanding access to higher education, especially for kids from poorer 

families. As many of my colleagues 

know, ROBERT C. BYRD was raised in 

the hardscrabble coalfields of southern 

West Virginia. That is one thing he and 

I have always talked about. My father 

was a coal miner also in the State of 

Iowa. His family was poor but rich in 

values and faith. His parents nurtured 

in ROBERT BYRD a lifelong passion for 

education and learning. He was valedictorian of his high school class but too 

poor to go to college right away. Those 

were the days before Pell grants and 

Byrd scholarships. So he worked as a 

welder in a shipyard, later as a butcher 

in a coal company town. It took him 12 

years to save enough money to start 

college. He was a U.S. Senator when he 

earned his law degree. 

No other Member of Congress before 

or since has started and completed law 

school while serving in the Congress. 

But degrees don’t begin to tell the 

story of the education of ROBERT C. 

BYRD. He is the ultimate lifetime 

learner. It is as though for the last 50 

years he has been enrolled in the Robert C. Byrd school of continuing education. You won’t get a better, more 

thorough education at any school, Harvard, Yale, or anywhere else. 

Senator BYRD’s erudition has borne 

fruit in no less than nine books he has 

written and published over the last two 

decades. He literally wrote the book on 

the Senate, a masterful four-volume 

history of the institution that has become a classic. What my colleagues 

may not know is that he also authored 

a highly respected history of the 

Roman Senate. For those of us who 

have been here—in my case 24 years— 

we have listened, either here on the 

floor or later when we got television, 

on closed circuit in our offices, to the 

many speeches ROBERT BYRD gave 

about the Roman Senate, wonderful descriptions of the Roman Senate and 

how it operated. We could hear how he 

weaved in the operations of our own 

Senate. There are some who think ROBERT C. BYRD actually served in the 

Roman Senate. But that part of the 

BYRD legend I can absolutely say is not 

true. 

I have talked at length about Senator BYRD’s education because it explains why he is so passionate about 

ensuring that every American has access to quality public education, both 

K–12 and higher. The one thing Senator 

BYRD and I have in common is our fathers were coal miners with very little 

formal education. Coming from a poor 

background, Senator BYRD believes, as 

do I, that a cardinal responsibility of 

Government is to provide a ladder of 

opportunity so that everyone, no matter how humble their background, has 

a shot at the American dream. I said 

ladder of opportunity; I didn’t say an 

escalator. On an escalator, you get a 

free ride. You get on and you get a free 

ride. But with a ladder of opportunity, 

you still have to exert energy and effort and responsibility to get to the 

top. But with that ladder there have to 

be rungs so you can actually climb. 

The most important rungs on that 

ladder of opportunity involve education, early childhood education, 

Head Start programs, quality K–12 public schools, access to college and other 

forms of higher education. During my 

24 years in the Senate, no one has 

fought harder for public education than 

Senator ROBERT BYRD. As chairman of 

the Appropriations Committee, he has 

been the champion of education at 

every turn, fighting to reduce class 

size, improving teacher training, bringing new technologies into the classroom, boosting access to higher education. 

In 1985, my first year in the Senate, 

he created the only national merit 

based college scholarship program 

funded through the U.S. Department of 

Education. Congress later named them 

in his honor. Originally, the Byrd 

scholarships consisted of a 1-year $1,500 

award to outstanding students. Today, 

Byrd scholarships provide grants of up 

to $6,000 over 4 years. How many kids 


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S162 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE January 7, 2009 

of meager means, coming from low-income families but very bright, very capable, have received these Byrd scholarships which got them through college. 

Senator BYRD has also been outspoken in challenging the current administration for failing to keep its 

commitments under the No Child Left 

Behind Act. To the last fiscal year, No 

Child Left Behind has been underfunded since 2002, when it first came 

into existence. It has been underfunded 

by over $70 billion. 

Think what that would mean for our 

local school systems in America had we 

kept our commitment to funding No 

Child Left Behind. But I will tell you 

this: It would have been a lot worse if 

Senator BYRD had not been here on our 

Appropriations Committee, either as 

chairman or ranking member, sponsoring the key amendments to boost 

the funding above what the Bush administration had proposed. 

Senator BYRD is a great student of 

literature, and I am sure he knows 

‘‘The Canterbury Tales’’—probably a 

lot of it by heart, as he knows a lot of 

things by heart, by memory. Describing the Clerk of Oxford, Chaucer might 

just as well have been describing ROBERT C. BYRD. Here is what Chaucer said 

about the Clerk of Oxford: 

Filled with moral virtue was his speech; 

And gladly would he learn and gladly teach. 

Madam President, Senator BYRD is a 

great Senator, a great American, a 

great friend. He has both written our 

Nation’s history and left his mark on 

it. 

It has been an honor to serve both in 

the Senate and on his Committee of 

Appropriations with Senator BYRD for 

the last 24 years. The good people of 

Iowa have now reelected me, so I will 

be here for another term. I look forward to serving with Senator BYRD in 

this body and on the Appropriations 

Committee for many years to come. 

So today on this historic anniversary, we honor his service, we express 

our respect and our love for this very 

remarkable Senator, ROBERT C. BYRD, 

from the great State of West Virginia. 

Madam President, I yield the floor 

and suggest the absence of a quorum. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The 

clerk will call the roll. 

The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll. 

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the 

quorum call be rescinded. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. 

WHITEHOUSE). Without objection, it is 

so ordered. 

f 

OMNIBUS PUBLIC LAND MANAGEMENT ACT OF 2009 RULE XLIV 

COMPLIANCE 

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, pursuant to rule XLIV of the Standing 

Rules of the Senate, I hereby certify 

that, to the best of my knowledge and 

belief, the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009 does not contain 

any limited tax benefits, limited tariff 

benefits, or congressionally directed 

spending items, as those terms are defined in rule XLIV. 

Rule XLIV broadly defines the term 

‘‘congressionally directed spending 

item’’ to include ‘‘ a provision . . . included primarily at the request of a 

Senator . . . authorizing . . . a specific 

amount of discretionary budget authority . . . for . . . expenditure with 

or to an entity, or targeted to a specific State, locality or Congressional 

district, other than through a statutory or administrative formula-driven 

or competitive award process.’’ 

The Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009 is a collection of over 

150 public land bills that were reported 

from the Committee on Energy and 

Natural Resources during the 110th 

Congress, for which we have not been 

able to get unanimous consent to take 

up and pass during the 110th Congress. 

I have included them in the Omnibus 

Public Land Management Act of 2009 to 

facilitate their early consideration in 

the new Congress, and not ‘‘primarily 

at the request of a Senator.’’ 

Nevertheless, even though no Senator has specifically requested me to 

include a congressionally directed 

spending item in the Omnibus Public 

Land Management Act of 2009, in the 

interest of furthering the transparency 

and accountability of the legislative 

process, I have posted on the Web site 

of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources a complete list of all 

provisions in the Omnibus Public Land 

Management Act of 2009 that authorize 

a specific amount of spending authority that is targeted to a specific State 

or locality, other than through a statutory or administrative formula-driven 

or competitive award process. The list 

includes the name of the principal 

sponsors of the Senate bills in the 110th 

Congress that have been incorporated 

in the Omnibus Public Land Management Act. 

In addition, I have added several 

other non-public-land measures from 

the 110th Congress at the request of the 

majority leader. Most of these provisions were included in the Advancing 

America’s Priorities Act—S. 3297—in 

the 110th Congress. They include: the 

Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis 

Act, subtitle B of title I of S. 3297; four 

parts of subtitle B, relating to oceans, 

of title V of S. 3297; and title VII of S. 

3297, relating to the authorization of a 

greenhouse facility for the Smithsonian Institution. These provisions were 

determined not to constitute ‘‘congressionally directed spending items’’ in 

the Advancing Amercia’s Priorities 

Act. See 153 Cong. Rec. S7509–7510, July 

26, 2008. 

In addition, I have added the Coastal 

and Estuarine Land Conservation Program Act, H.R. 1907 in the 110th Congress, and the Smithsonian Institution 

Facilities Authorization Act of 2008, 

H.R. 6627 in the 110th Congress, at the 

request of the majority leader. The 

grant program established under Coastal and Estuarine Land Conservation 

Program Act, section 12507 in the Omnibus Public Land Management Act, 

does not constitute a congressionally 

directed spending item because the 

funds are to be allocated through a 

competitive grant process. The authorizations in the Smithsonian Institution 

Facilities Authorization Act, sections 

15101 and 15102 of the Omnibus Public 

Land Management Act, do not appear 

to constitute congressionally directed 

spending items because they were requested by the Board of Regents of the 

Smithsonian Institution, and because 

they originated in the House of Representatives, where the committees of 

jurisdiction determined they did not 

constitute congressional earmarks. See 

H. Rept. 110–842, part 1, at 5, 2008, Committee on House Administration, and 

H. Rept. 110–282, part 2, at 4, 2008, Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. 

Finally, I have added the ShoshonePaiute Tribes of the Duck Valley Reservation Water Rights Settlement Act, 

H.R. 5293 in the 110th Congress, at the 

request of the majority leader. This act 

ratifies a water rights settlement 

among the Shoshone-Paiute Tribes of 

the Duck Valley Reservation, individual water users, and the State of 

Nevada. Section 8 of H.R. 5293, section 

10807 of the Omnibus Public Land Management Act, creates two trust funds 

to settle the legal claims of the Shoshone-Paiute Tribes against the United 

States for compromising tribal water 

rights and failing to maintain the 

Duck Valley Indian Irrigation Project. 

They do not appear to constitute congressionally directed spending items 

because they were included to settle 

pending legal claims rather than ‘‘primarily at the request of a Senator,’’ 

and because they originated in the 

House of Representatives, where the 

committee of jurisdiction determined 

that they did not constitute congressional earmarks. See H. Rept. 110–815 

at 11, 2008, Committee on Natural Resources. 

I ask unanimous consent that the list 

be printed in the RECORD. 

There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the 

RECORD, as follows: 

THE OMNIBUS PUBLIC LAND MANAGEMENT ACT

OF 2009—S. 22 

Provisions in the Omnibus Public Land 

Management Act of 2009 authorizing appropriations in a specific amount for expenditure with or to an entity or targeted to a 

specific State, locality, or congressional district, other than through a statutory or administrative formula-driven or competitive 

award process: 


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