the presiding officer: the senator from michigan. mr. levin: i send an amendment to the desk. the presiding officer: the senate is in a quorum call. mr. levin: i ask unanimous consent the call of the quorum be dispensed. .the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. levin: mr. president, i now on behalf of myself and senator mccain, send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: mr. levin for himself and mr. mccain proposals amendment numbered 1469. mr. levin: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that further reading of the amendment be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. levin: mr. president, this amendment is the f-22 amendment, which would delete the $1.75 billion from the bill that was added in a very close vote on the armed services committee, with strong opposition of the administration and i may say this is not the first administration that has

attempted to end the f-22 line that president bush also attempted to end this line at 183 planes. and i would ask, unless my good friend from arizona wants to speak, that we recess until 1:00, but i do have two unanimous consent requests regarding committee meetings that i would want to make after the senator has a comment. mr. president, i ask unanimous consent -- i have two unanimous consent requests for committees to meet during today's session of the senate. they have the approval of the majority and minority leaders. and i would ask unanimous consent these requests be agreed to and that these requests be printed in the record. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. levin: now i would ask unanimous consent that the senate stand in recess until 1:00. the presiding officer: without objection. the senate stands in recess until 1:00 p.m.

recess:

>> you prepare to argue before her. >> you prepare to argue before her as you would we have any judge. you have to know the case backwards and forwards. one of the interesting, differences between the american system and the english system for al appellate advocacy. as far as i understand it, i never argued in england or seen an appeal, i'm told the house of lords takes as long as they need to decide an appeal. and, hear arguments. that sometimes arguments there can go on for days. what's unusual here, both in the circuit court and in the supreme court, there are time limitations as to how long you are permitted to argue and, they are, usually strictly enforced. in the supreme court, i'm told, although i never had the opportunity to argue there, they are, routinely

enforced. circuit court, sometimes they will grant you more time. but know in advance that you have 10 minutes or 12 minutes. in a case that has taken years to get to the point of an appeal. so you have to figure out a way in preparation to get your argument down and so you get your points across to the judges. this is where her judge sotomayor as a reputation as pepperer of questions comes in. sometimes she could take the full 10 minutes asking questions. now, that was not my experience but i'm told that she takes, she will keep asking questions till she really understands the answers that are given. in those circumstances, the judges sometimes give you more time to finish, but i think that's a plus. because if, if you know what's bothering a judge and maybe

bothering the other judges on the panel, you have to focus in on the argument. and i think that's what's, that's what is so important about having a dialogue as opposed to just standing there and arguing for 10 minutes. so that i, i prepare by really just knowing everything and trying to anticipate obviously what the questions are going to be, and responding to them. >> so, now, with nine justices there, and she would be one of nine asking the questions in that short period of time, it is likely that there will be even more give-and-take versus less give-and-take than there would be now in the court? >> i mean, i don't know, i don't know whether justice souter was a pepperer of questions. i don't think he was. i think certainly from what i've heard and seen, justice scalia is, and my sense is, justice, if she gets confirmed sotomayor, will be

also. i don't know whether any one of them will dominate the entire proceeding but i think you can expect that she would ask a, you know, a serious number of questions. if she had some problem with the case, and problem with the issues. >> right now on c-span, c-span radio and our web site cspan.org you can watch the first day of nomination hearing for supreme court nominee judge sonia sotomayor. confirmation hearings underway right now. we'll have highlights in the evening here on c-span2. now as promised we'll take you to that special state department briefing here on c-span2.

[inaudible conversations] >> good afternoon, everyone and welcome to the state department. to lead off our briefing we have deputy secretary jack luo and head of policy planning anne-marie slaughter to caulk l talk about quadrennial development review. the qddr that secretary clinton announced this morning. who is going to start? >> thank you. thank you all for being here. i will speak very briefly at the outset because the secretary addressed this initiative in the town hall and i think y'all had the ability to either be there or listen in. but i want to start by saying how excited we are about this undertaking. we think it is very

important. we think in some ways pulls together a awful lot of things we've been thinking about and talking about from the very first days we've been here in terms how we take a strategic look everything we do in diplomacy and development to be able to order our resources, our people, and programs so they're in service of our highest priorities. i would say that we began the process as an outgrowth of reviewing foreign assistance programs. everyone knows we've been in the process looking hard at our foreign assistance programs. and it quickly became apparent to us one couldn't quickly look at development in absence of looking at development and diplomacy. that one has to inform the other and it has to go both directioning. that our development strategy has to tie into what our foreign policy objectives r frankly our foreign policy objectives have to reflect our development strategies. we're putting together an effort that will reach across the entirety of state

deemed and usaid and it will involve participation of senior leadership in both organizations. as the secretary mentioned this morning there will be a leadership group in addition to myself and anne-marie and acting administrator of usaid. he would be here today except doing what all good parents should do on college tour for his daughter. we'll be with usaid at town hall on monday. i speak with the leadership yesterday. we had the town hall on monday. and that is kind of plan how we announce it. let me talk a little bit about the, expectations and timetable. we are, we are very aware what we announced is a big undertaking. we don't have the luxury of undertaking it in an academic way where we have years to complete it. we're in a world where, as early as, middle of september we have to have our budget proposals in the,

at the white house for next year, for 2011. at the end of the year, beginning of next year it has to be locked up so our proposals for 2011 are set. so we're undertaking this process in parallel to the normal budget processes. so we've started our senior reviews on the budget process. they will be structured around strategic issues. they will inform the qddr and the qddr will inform them. frankly the qddr will have a longer time frame. i don't think we'll be done with an undertaking as expansive as the qddr by the middle of september but we will have some initial thoughts. those initial thoughts will inform the budget process. as we get towards the end of the year we will be almost six months into the qddr. before we finalize our budget we'll have the opportunity having that process of checking in take place again. the question of, that i'm sure many have, when with will there be a report, what will it look like? we're shooting to have our

first, our first round to look at the beginning of next year. since it is the beginning of a new process, i'm reluctant to set a date. we're reluctant to say we'll be on x-date. we're not look havinging this take multiple years. we do know after we done it we want to keep it going and have it be a quadrennial process so every four years it is updated and frankly a longer period of time to do it on an on going basis. i think if you look at the initiatives we've undertaken in the area of development and foreign assistance you can already see the seeds of some of the things that we're thinking about. you know, the food security initiative, the global health initiative, they have got a lot of things in common in terms of strategic direction. they're the result of asking questions about how do you have sustainable results. how do you tie what you're doing in so that your diplomatic and your development efforts support one another, and how do you reach out across not just

u.s. government agencies but other partners to have bigger results than we could have by ourselves. those are the kinds of questions we will be asking in the qddr in a much broader basis and i'm quite certain when we get through the process we will have a set of reorganized and reprioritized objectives because that's why you go through a process like this. it is to ask the fundamental questions, to make sure we've identified the right strategic objectives. to make sure our diplomatic effort is geared as best it can be to meet the needs we say today and in coming years and to ask the question about how the development in diplomatic efforts compliment one another. why don't i stop there in terms of opening. emory anne-marie and i are happy to answer question necessary that you have. >> i'm having a hard time getting my head around exactly what this is supposed to do. i mean hasn't the u.s. government and state department and aid since their inception been trying to streamline, make more

efficient development and diplomacy? and, if they haven't, i mean, i think that the taxpayers would kind of, you know, like to know why that is? i can't imagine this is the first time the state department under any administration has started to look at these questions. the second thing is, what exactly is the report going to say when it comes out and why is it going to be different than any of the myriad similar reports done by, in the private sector by think tanks which we're all aware of? there are floods of them. i mean, 10, 15 a year maybe, about how state and usaid can do a better job. what will be different about this. >> on the first question, even if we were doing everything well, it would still be our job to ask questions, how could we do it better. we've been very candid about the fact that we don't think we're doing everything as well as we should. that there are areas of, of

our program that we need to change, some in cases how we do business and in some cases how we define the objectives. the pentagon had a very serious program to defend the united states and have an armed forces before they had a qdr process. i think they learned by going through a disciplined systemtic process they could look down the road and envision what the future challenges would look like in a way that better informed the decisions that they make. there is no agency that freezes in place its plans for four years or five years at a time. so it is organic process that's ongoing. but there ought to be a longer view where you ask the question, what do we think our objective is? when you make changes along the way do it self-consciously so there is analytic, systemtic approach. i think that, you know, there have been a lot of efforts in the past. there are many reports out in that were put together by governmental and non-governmental organizations. there are a lot of ideas out there. the process of pulling those

ideas together, having informed by the experience of the professionals at state, usaid and other agencies that will be involved and framing it for strategic sources by the current leadership are what we're talking about. none of those other reports were prepared by leaders responsible for putting forward budgets that were budgets for the president to present to congress. none of those other reports were put together by people responsible for implementing our foreign policy or development program. >> in many cases they were put together by people who had been previously. >> sure. >> and given the revolving door nature of this town will be coming back into these positions. so i why is it, why is this thing not going to get put up on a shelf? the report will be put up on a shelf and forgotten about? why is that not going to happen? >> i would just underscore the way it's connected to the real business on a day-to-day basis. we will have a budget proposal that goes to omb in mid-september. that will be informed by the

quality of work done in this qddr up to that point. we will have a budget that the president sends to congress beginning of next year. it will be informed by the work we do in this process. you know, having been in government and out of government, it is very different to have ideas when you're giving suggestions than it is to make decisions when you're responsible for them. >> may i add something? i think the other big difference is this is the first time ever we've done something that brings development and diplomacy together. embassies of the future. those kinds of reports. there are lots of reports how you can do development assistance better. but secretary clinton has said one her primary goals, development and diplomacy will being equal pillars of foreign policy this is the process that will do that from the bottom up. that will not just talk about it but actually integrate it with aid and state and all the other agencies that do development and diplomacy working together for a combined plan. >> may i follow up.

two things. one, you know, dod is much more generously resourced place than state. >> we hadn't noticed [laughing] >> i'm glad you now know. so, do you have any concern that pulling people, you obviously presume you want smart people to work on this do you feel like you have the bandwidth to do this? or will it suck smarter people away from other more pressing needs? the other problem many of us in this room have associated with the budget process is, when we ask, as we did for example, recently about honduras, how much money does the u.s. government give honduras? it took 48 hours to get that question answered. and, you know, one of the reasons it is so hard to do that of course is that, money that goes to different countries gets split up as

you know better than anybody in the lots of different accounts of the government. i wonder if as part of this you guys are trying to get a better feel for not just how much money state and aid spend on country x but how much money the government as a whole does? so as you're thinking about diplomacy and development you have a sense, well the u.s. government invests x00 million dollars in country why. maybe we should adjust it following ways. every time like reinventing the wheel to figure out where the money goes and what it is used for. >> i must say i have advantage or disadvantage having from a different vantage point earlier in my career. we need it all to come together. now being in agency responsible for a big piece of it i can tell you the systems are far from perfect. it is not like we inherited a system where the numbers tie together easily. you push a button you get a report. there is lots of reasons for that.

some of it has to do with history of separateness of the programs. some of it has to do with the systems that support them. some of it has to do with the attitude whether or not we view what we're doing as a whole of government effort or not. i think this process will be imbued with a senses certainly all the agencies state has any responsibility for have to look at holisticly. to the extent we reach out across government that will certainly be a objective. i should note this is not something that will be confined strictly to the state department. there are other agencies of government that have significant roles in, in the international arena. we are very conscious of the fact that international financial institutions, trade policy, law enforcement policy, a host of areas, have enormous impact on what the total presence of the united states government is. our qddr will feed into a review process where the nsc will try to pull together

across government a view of this. it is a big undertaking. i don't think anyone should expect that in 12 months we will have it down perfect. that we'll be able to after decades of all of those things being separate have them seamlessly integrated so you consider the computer and get the answer to your honduras question in five minutes. i think we do a lot better than we're doing now and do it to inform strategic judgements in a real-time basis. as i talk to my colleagues, our colleagues in other agencies, i think administration is focused on doing it that way. there is not a lot of patience for jurisdictional answers what should be policy answers. >> sure. just for what it's worth, it is more than eight years since you were at omb and, if it, secretary rice talked about how she asked this question when she came in as secretary of state and was never able to get good or quick answers how much money do we spend on country x? i just fear eight years from now it will be same thing. if you can't actually figure

out, easily the money you're spending in a place, it is very hard to see how you can properly integrate your development and diplomatic efforts. >> i think in fairness, the systems are better developed today than they were eight years ago. there is more of an ability to look at the different, organizations that state has responsibility for. and, i think if, one asks the question, what are the biggest pieces that one has to get their hands around, as opposed to how do you get every single source coordinated, you can make significant progress more quickly. i don't want to go beyond the boundaries what is our process. our qddr is going to be aimed at institutions we'll be responsible for. but it will be in consultation with other agencies and hopefully pull together in a process where there's a shared objective to get closer to that point. >> it is all difficult to follow because it is abstract, but maybe you took the example of the middle

east how would you match development and diplomacy better? we already have examples of course where egypt has a big program and palestinians. how would it be really different from what it is today? >> rather than use the middle east as an example, i think the history of the, the different streams of support for the middle east are so unique that it's hard to generalize from it. let me use an example that covers many countries in many regions. the pepfar program, coordination with other programs. pepfar is enormously effective program. it has covered two million people for treatment for hiv/aids, malaria and tuberculosis. when i was omb director, if you told me that level of commitment would have been made, it was beyond imagination. but we know we have a challenge. the challenge is, how do you have a sustainable program where the country owns it, where you add treatment as well, prevention to the treatment, and where there's a system in place so that

fewer people get sick in the future? that's not something you can do through the boundaries of a pepfar program alone. it involves usaid because they're a health programs and economic development programs that are highly relevant. it involves the mcc because some of those pepfar-focused countries are also mcc-eligible. it involves diplomatic relations. in order for us to have a pepfar-focused country understand how important it is in terms of our support to have a sustainable government approach, it involves the ambassador and the leadership of the department, with the leadership of country at presidential and finance minister level. it is not something someone can accomplish no hat matter how good the head of pepfar is i think we have a outstanding head of ogag. it is not within the boundaries of pepfar to

achieve sustainability. it will literally take all of government effort but will have to be driven by development and diplomacy brought together. we're doing that review in parallel of this but as part of it. we have a report due in congress in september on a strategic review of pepfar. it is informed by the kinds of questions they're informing the whole qddr i use that as an example because i think it cuts across as many lines of the programs that are in our, that we're responsible for, as anything does. and i hope that we come up with answers that different because we're asking the question the way we are in the qddr. >> it is interesting that the two examples you just mentioned that are both bush administration initiatives. you're saying you're going to take these good programs that the former administration put into place and make them better? >> i actually mentioned quite a few programs. >> pepfar, pepfar and mcc. pepfar and mcc. >> no question there is big growth in foreign assistance in the areas of pepfar and

mcc. it will be the focus of a lot of review of how we coordinate our foreign assistance programs. and when we announced the global health initiative we went out of our way to compliment of the efforts of the past administration to say we want to build on it. our goal we don't think it is on a sustainable path. the question is, how do you pivot to get it to a place where it is sustainable? >> i just like to -- program in the past, are you going to figures it as far as programs are concerned. >> i'm sorry? >> accountability. >> accountability in terms of the way the fund are handled by the countries we make foreign assistance grants to. i think at the core of a lot of issues are capacity of governments that we provide assistance to. the capacity question comes in many forms. it comes in the form of the democratic institutions. it comes in the form of the transparency. it comes in the form of questions related to corruption. think that we have to be focused on capacity-building

and if one really hopes to get to sustainable results, that has to be one of the things that we're aiming for. it has been achallenge in the past. it will be a challenge in the future. i think we've learned lessons from the past. it is certainly one of the things we'll be looking at in this review. >> you've got a briefing upstairs. anne marie can stay. >> can i take one more? we'll switch off. >> budget related question. >> ask him. >> is all this being done under ordinary funding for your offices now? are you requesting more money to do this? >> you know, i mean the, it is within the boundaries of what the policy staffs here do to ask questions like this. so we're pulling people from different places. i frankly haven't looked to see whether in the aggregate it stresses any of our office budgets. we're not talking about hundreds of people. there are other agencies that do this with hundreds of people. we will be doing it with,

less than a dozen people. [laughter] so i hope that we can handle that. >> is this created or, is this ensconced in statute in any way? in other words, the next administration that isn't led by president obama will, will they be obligated to perform this. >> the secretary addressed that this morning in the town hall. we know that there have been proposals in congress to require a process like this. our few has been we wanted a little time to think it through and stricture it in a way we think it makes sense. we believe it does make sense ultimately to i cantae the process and regularize it. real value comes from repetition. i talked to my colleagues in the defense department. they know a lot more now than first time they did a qddr. they know about problems to avoid and how to get value out of it. once we established the process here we think it makes sense to carry it forward. >> and do you think this

exercise will have any impact on the approaches that we take toward those countries with whom we don't have any diplomatic relations? >> you know i'm not sure exactly how to answer that question because it's, as we think about the challenges of the future, and i think as the president and secretary have made clear, one of the things we have to think about is, how do we have relations with countries to move towards progress in areas where progress has been difficult to achieve and in part because we don't talk to each other? i suspect the questions like that will come up in the diplomacy part of this qddr. we're just at the beginning. i can't give you the answers. >> in other words, does this have the potential, this exercise, to basically become a policy making exercise as opposed to just a review of some kind? >> i think it is inherently a policy making process. i may have a bit of a bias but i think even the

resource allocations decision will be informed by it are policy where we put our people and where we put or program dollars is policy. the diplomatic piece of this, and anne-marie can address in more detail when i leave, will have a more bearing how we present the u.s. presence in countries where we are, and perhaps, in countries where we're not. it, we're going to be asking questions about what is the right way for the u.s. diplomatic presence to be managed. so, there's a lot of policy what we're doing. there is not a procedural exercise. there may be organizational decisions that come out of it, there may not be. we're not going in with the notion that at the other end of this is certain organizational chart for all of development and diplomacy. if at the end of this review that's what we think we need to do get results that is one of the recommendations will be. it is all about how we achieve results. that is all about policy i

apologize i have to run but anne-marie will stay. >> have a question over here. >> say one thing following up on that. you will hear the secretary next we can talking about broad strategic objectives and broad strategic approaches. this process takes that very broad view down to the more operational level and says how do we actually achieve those objectives that. is clearly establishing resource allocation but it is defining policy in specific areas. as we said from the beginning from the bottom up. it is not an outside report saying this is what the state department and aid should do. but people in the aid and the state department consulting what do we need to do so accomplish those objectives. yeah? >> traditionally humanitarian aid has been kind of walled off from the diplomatic objectives from the united states. should this be seen in some way as a blurring of that bright line? >> i don't think so. that's one of the questions we're constantly engaging

when we talk about diplomacy and development and how they work together and sometimes one is clearly a tool of another. when we have a peace settlement and we need to pour in development money to stablize it, there you've got development serving as a security objective but the secretary has made clear as far as she sees our objectives they include women's education, education broadly, health, reduction of poverty. those are foreign policy objectives. and i would include as one of that clearly providing humanitarian assistance in extreme crises. so, to the extent that is a foreign policy objective, it's not going to subordinate it to something else and it is certainly not going to interfere with our ability to supply it. i would say, it's more likely to leverage our humanitarian assistance dollars by thinking about how we connect to other governments and international and regional organizations. yeah? >> the secretary touched on this morning but maybe you could shed some more light

on when we could expect the naming of the usaid director? i imagine that would be somebody would have a lot to do with this report. can you explain why there hasn't been one named already? >> i can't explain. all i can say what the secretary said. we're very anxious to have the acting aid administrator on board. the acting aid administrator will work with us until the aid administrator is named and he or she will be a null part of the process. no one will be happier than we are to stand up and make that announcement. yeah? >> one of the things the secretary said this morning there has been a dearth of information for the american public as to where all the money goes and this qddr is part of a function of telling the american public, some of whom have lost jobs, many of whom are having economic problems, here's where your money is being spent and why. is it going to be like a corporate annual report where there is a lot of flag-waving, gee, aren't we great and we spent this money on this project? >> it will be quad dren y'all. not annual. i emphasize that.

we hope there will be a break between the end of this and beginning of the next so it is not a four-year process but absolutely the idea that part of what we're doing in reviewing how we're spending the money and are we spending the money as effectively as we can, in support of a defined set of objectives that is an internal narrative but it also has to be an external story we can defend on the hill. we can defend when the secretary gives speeches and press briefing. it is a large part of the way she thinks of our mission which is we're out in the world. we're engaging other countries but we're also spending taxpayer dollars and we need to account for that. yeah? >> i think the success of the approach to the strategic approach to the u.s. diplomacy doesn't depend only on the money, how much budget you all, you know, put forward, and give these countries but especially in the middle east, people, after they, a

great speech of president obama, after what that, secretary clinton has mentioned this morning about engaging the countries that don't agree with you, that the, success of this diplomacy will depend a lot on how much the u.s. administration is going to depend on the values of america and the principles of america and international legitimacy. so how much is that going to be part of the new strategic approach of the diplomacy of the united states when it comes to implementing these principles and values, and in the middle east and not, that dependence on only the alliances with israel that is bothering, and igniting the trend of violence in the middle east? >> well, i think the question of how we integrate

the values we embrace and we champion and what we do in concrete policies, both diplomaticly and in development policies is exactly what we hope to get at in this review. and it isn't all about money. part of the review is, well, if these are our objectives and these are our values, are these policies serving those objectives and those values? you can sometimes conclude no and don't have to spend anymore money but in other cases you want to integrate what we're doing better. let me give you an example. one of our values is to strengthen civil society across the middle east in many countries. one of the things that development policy can do better is to leverage the work of non-governmental organizations on the ground, also from abroad in ways that do strengthen civil society. so there is a diplomatic objective there. there is also a development set of objectives. there are ways to save money leveraging what people are already doing and simultaneously have our development objectives and

our diplomatic objectives work together. >> so are you trying to say that the new strategy of diplomatic approach of the united states is going to adopt totally the values and principles of the country, of america, and implementing its policies and not only the alliances that you know, has been taking more importance in the previous administration? when it deals with the arab, you know, grievances against what israel has been doing in their territories? >> i think president obama made very clear what values we want to stand on in his cairo speech, and i would definitely stand by that. >> thank you. >> is this part of the u.s. image around the globe, this new strategy coming up? >> i think the idea that we're reviewing our objectives in trying to align the way we spend our money with our values, with

our stated diplomatic objectives is part of what this administration wants to be doing. this is at the outset, goes back to the first question, why are we doing this now? we're at outset of a new administration. we want to be sure we set the objectives and resource them as effectively as possible. >> do you envision this being an elaborate interview process? or do you envision conducting a lot of this business by conference calls or travel? i mean how exactly do you physically see this review being conducted out with the various agency and department heads? >> there will be a lot of working groups within the government, but also, cables out to posts, asking for input. you heard the secretary this morning essentially say to all the employees of the state department, send us your ideas. we'll be doing that more systematically. i would imagine we'll try to use, resource savvy, we'll use electronic and video means rather than sending teams out. but it will really be an effort to canvas the people who are out there and to build on previous reviews to the extent those are

helpful. we don't want to reinvent things. >> but it will be done green? >> it will be done green. >> all right. >> so there won't be a 500-page paper, report at end of the process? >> there certainly will be a report. i can't say how long it will be and it will be electronically available i would imagine. >> can i ask you. >> sure. >> do you know if the administration talked this over with chairman berman, as you know proposed the language that has been passed by the house, and if you did discuss it with him, are you, it wasn't clear to me from secretary lew's comments whether you actually like to see his language become law? which would then make this mandatory and under, you know, particular terms. >> secretary clinton consulted closely with chairman berman and depsy secretary lew also and the secretary said we would like to see this made regular. the quad dren y'all review. the exact terms how that

ultimately put into legislation will be worked out. part of the we wanted to do one before we found ourselves under a mandate. >> thank you. >> you're welcome. >> the senate's in a short recess now. returning at 1:00 p.m. eastern to resume consideration of fiscal year 2010 defense programs and policy. but now, a conversation about issues connected to that legislation from today's "washington journal." we'll show you as much as we can of this 28-minute piece until the senate returns >> "washington journal" continues. host: we want to welcome winslow wheeler, project director for the center for defense and the mission and author of this book. guest: @ thank you taryn much. host: at the defense authorization bill, how much the pentagon will be spending and where. guest: it is a huge bill. reports to be $679 billion,

about $1 billion off the president's request. in truth, this is not the money bi this authorizes money but all that means is advice. the big stuff in this bill is policy, determinations, decision, by a narrow vote in the committee to continue with more f-22 production. buried in the bill is a, almost hopelessly cosmetic provision on financial management. s 750 pages. lf is 750 pages it is about 1 inch in half to 2 inches thick. >> the taxpayers for common sense estimating $9 billion and what they classified as pork, but what one may call pork, they may call jobs in a congressional district. >> that is one of the reasons why they put they think it creates jobs.

how our park spending generated for new mexico. the answer was pretty interesting. the numbers were tiny except for the military bases. in one case, the, money passed through the headquarters in albuquerque to be spent in texas. in other cases the production lines we're told employed hundreds, employed more like 20 people. so, you got to be careful with these claims that manufacturers throw around, that oh, the f-22 is built in 44 states. so you too, senator need to support us. >> host: let me read one part in your book. our military forces are high cost dinosaurs, inefficient and lethal against most of the enemies that they are to face. our forces broken free of constitutional controls to the point where they have essentially become a presidential military. >> guest: correct. that is a quote i believe

from the first chapter. written by retired marine corps lieutenant colonel. the authors of that anthology are retired military officers, former pentagon officials and a couple of people like myself who worked on capitol hill, for example. i'll put it this way. since world war ii. we're in at postworld war ii high in terms of spending, with all dollars adjust for inflation. our military forces are the smallest they have ever been in that period in terms of combat brigades. navy combat ships and submarines. air force tactical aircraft. major parts of our equipment inventory is on average older than it's ever been in that period, sometimes it has ever been in history. we are sending, troops into combat in iraq and afghanistan with, in some

cases significantly less training than we had, for example, in the hollow years of the 1970s when everybody beat up on jimmy carter for being allegedly weak on defense. we have a real problem on our hands. and so far we're doing abs shootly nothing about it. >> host: one of the recommendations from compilation of different former military officers, first and foremost we must abandon business as usual procurement process, hopefully centered on aircraft designed for or compromised for on strategic bombardment. that is one example what you say in this book but how do you go to business as usual? how do you get away from the business as usual process? >> guest: except for us being optimized for strategic bombardment the f-22 is classic example. the sticker price of the airplane is $350 million per airplane. >> host: built where? >> guest: lockheed says 44

states. the main assembly is in georgia, texas and washington. the engines are ohio, excuse me, is connecticut. there are bits and pieces all over the place. we really need a competent assessment from gao, for example, to get a real count of the significant production. i doubt there is significant production in 44 states. >> host: what surprised you researching and editing this book? >> guest: nothing's changed. we've been on this path for a long time. more money results in smaller, older, less ready forces. this is something that's independent of democrats and republicans. i suppose the thing that really surprised me the most is the failure of parties that could be doing

oversight over this, and alerting the public, not being particular aware of it. i mean it's been simple data on the size of the budget and the size of the forces but it was news to people about the shrinkage of forces at ever increasing cost. a couple years ago we started talking about it. that shouldn't be the case. people should be complaining about that on capitol hill all the time. and they're not. >> host: our conversation is with winslow wheeler and our phone lines are open. numbers are at the bottom of the screen. e-mail as journal.org. or send us a tweet at twitter.com. there are a lot much former military officers in this town. a lot of former members of congress who are making sure that these contracts are part of the congressional budget process. >> guest: absolutely. they're busy people. >> host: is that why nothing's changed? >> guest: that is part of it. when i worked on capitol

hill, the boeing representative was frequently in my office, keeping me up-to-date on things. they have good access all over capitol hill. there's, that's not the hub of it. the hub of it there's a culture on capitol hill these days where you don't want to do any serious oversight because that might get you into trouble. might get you into trouble if you give a military witness in a hearing a hard time. people will start labeling you optimistically as antidefense. if you don't make sure that every opportunity you get to do a press release how much you helped that minor plant in maine for the electronics on the f-22, you don't put out press release every time you voted their way, you're somehow hurting yourself politically. i worked for four different members of congress.

on three of them they decided to oppose pork in their states and they came to their political benefit. they got reputation for being thoughtful and independent, rather than somebody's toty. >> host: our phone lines are open. first call from james here in washington, d.c. good morning. >> caller:. good morning, gentlemen. i'm calling first of all to ask about, for you to comment more on the quote that was read earlier about congressional control of war powers. i believe it was george washington who said that the reason why congress has control over war powers is that it will prevent any war from being waged without long deliberation. it is of course a paraphrase. the other thing is, that, if you could talk more about bissetting defense policy. brigadier general smedly butler, wrote a book, called

war is a racket, talked about us sending saddles to europe in world war one that had been sold to congress and of course there were not nearly enough cavalry to call for those saddles. another one is, whether or not you think that the funding of foreign militaries represents a hidden expenditure in the defense budget? >> host: james. stop you a lot there to follow-up on with our guest, winslow wheeler. >> guest: war powers issue was with previous guest. i simply say when i worked with senator javits for years, primary author of war powers act and research assistant in my time with him i got exposed to a lot of constitutional arguments on the war powers act and it is pretty clear in the constitution who controls the authority to make war and it's the congress, it's not the president. the chief executive,

commander-in-chief powers, come into play, once congress has made that decision. that's not the conventional wisdom. people try to say that war powers act is unconstitutional because it deprives the president something that the constitution didn't give him. on some of the other issues, i've done a lot of work on what junk congress adds to defense bills. >> host: junk? >> guest: junk. it's junk because we don't know what it is. there's 450 or so earmarks, as taxpayer, taxpayers for common sense found in this senate defense bill. cost about $9 billion. the vast majority of those things are five $10 million items that have not been

researched. we don't even know what the real cost is. we get the advocates view of what the cost is. we don't have an independent assessment what the real cost is. we don't have an independent assessment of what exactly it is, what it can do, what it can't do, whether it's needed. we do have the advocate's assessment. no thanks. i don't want some congressman's view on what he thinks his earmark will do. i want competent oversight over it, and the armed services committees and appropriations committees refuse to do it. if we went through a process where each of these earmarks were properly assessed, there would be a lot of improvement in these bills because nothing, it's ridiculous to assume that everything the defense department puts in its budget is the final word on good ideas. >> host: let me put one

example you point to. what president bush released what was probably his final defense budget, you point out it was $515 billion. or $518 billion. the defense department said it was 515 billion. so difference of almost $3 billion in a budget released same day. >> guest: right, yep. the depends, the department of defense press release had the lower number. the office of management and budget press release had higher number. >> host: which is white house. >> guest: right. the difference is in that case, for example, that the defense budget includes both annual appropriations and what they call mandatory or entitlement appropriations. the defense budget, that year got about $3 billion extra, mostly for, personnel kinds of programs, of mandatory spending. defense department doesn't include that in their press release. this year it is about $6 billion.

it's just one of the ways that the press in this country gets the department of defense press release and goes with it. they don't double-check, see what the real numbers might be. it's real simple to download the omb materials. they're a little bit more complex. might take you 10, 15 minutes to wade through them but that is one of the problems we have, is not just the absence of oversight on capitol hill. they don't know how to do oversight these days. >> host: renee, on the phone from san antonio. republican line. good morning. >> caller: good morning. how are you guys today? >> guest: good. >> caller: i was wondering, i come from a military family, three generations. what i was wondering is, why do the governments send like for the national guard or the reserves, send them to camp bullis here in san antonio area instead of

sending these young men and women to the border, to help with the fight against illegal drugs, and of course illegal immigration? >> guest: i can't answer the question. i don't know the specifics. depends on what the unit's mission is. that's, one of the kinds of problems we have on capitol hill. they go over these things once lightly, and don't peel the onion. when i worked for senator javits, i got a hard lesson from him. he, after a hearing, lectured me saying, don't you ever have me again ask a question that you don't know the answer to. in other words, oversight is not an opportunity to sit there and give speeches and ask questions your staff write out and you read out from your memo.

oversight is a process that is essential to our constitutional system, where congress finds out what the heck is going on, and, what's wrong with the f-35 engine that the, marines model hasn't flown for a long time and what's holding up the tests? we don't hear anything about that. there is a hearing in the house oversight and government reform committee where they were doing a little bit of oversight and one of the out comes of that hearing about a month ago was there seemed to be 40 missing aircraft from the marine corps's v-22 osprey inventory. look at this senate armed services committee bill, not a word. nothing. it bounced off them like water off a duck's back. these are serious issues. and, it's, should be

oversight 101 to find out where is the complete marine corps inventory on the 140 or so v-22s taxpayers paid for. >> host: our guest he indicated a veteran of capitol hill in addition to his work for republican senator jacob javits in new york, he worked for senator pete domenici, republican of new mexico, democratic senator, david pryor of arkansas and republican senator, nancy cast enobama. richard is on the phone from pennsylvania. democrats line. >> caller: good morning, winslow. >> guest: good morning. >> caller: you hit a lot of nails on the head, i hope somebody is taking it down, like senator byrd of west virginia. like to make this very brief comment, please on the work edward done over the decades along with yourself.

>> guest: i'll be polite and say, i'd like to answer a different question. talking about senator byrd, when donald rumsfeld had his hearings to be secretary of defense back in january 2001, senator byrd horrified him with the fact that the defense department was unable to track how it spends its own money. it wasn't just that the pentagon would flung an audit. it's that the pentagon can't be audited. you flung and audit when you track the money and mon afind it was misspent. when you can't be audited you don't know what happened to the money. rumsfeld was horrified. literally trillions of dollars of transactions couldn't be tracked. he said he would solve it. he didn't. the clintons had the same problem. they didn't solve it either.

we have a new bill in this senate armed services committee national defense authorization act, section 1002. it's pathetic. this sets a goal of the year 2017 to have the defense department be able to comply with an audit. this was required to be immediately the case in the chief financial officer's act of 1990. the clinton administration got that waived. the provision in the bill this week is so pathetic that it has a second provision saying, defense department, if you don't think you can get to this goal, waive it. send us a report and tell us what you think the goal should be. >> host: our guest, winslow wheeler is the author of this book he had ted with former military officials.

"america's defense meltdown." this tweet from craig saying you commented. f-22 earlier should we kill it. what about the superhornet for the navy carriers? >> guest: there is two big chunks of pork in this bill. seven additional f-22s for $1.7 billion. they say it will cost $560 million. it will cost more than that. on the f-22s, secretary of defense gates has said that if there's a single f-22 added to this bill he will recommend a veto and obama should veto it. he is dead right about that. the f-22 is classic case of why our air force is smaller, older, less ready to fight, at ever increasing costs. it will be interesting to see if senator levin and

mccain, as they said they would, do fight this. they should be able to fight it and, but the outcome's very unclear to me. you saw in the vote on this in the committee it was 13-11 vote. including four democrats, for example. senator kennedy, who has a pork interest in the f-22, voted with the f-22. demonstrates that the ties of pork are far stronger even than partisan political ties. and so, if gates and obama want to win on this fight, they need to get to work. saxby chambliss, the senator from georgia where the f-22 has its final production, has elicited statements from some air force, and air national guard generals saying that we need more f-22s. and secretary gates really

hasn't responded to that it is doing him tremendous damage on capitol hill. he is losing votes probably by the day. we'll see how this fight spins out. >> host: another tweet from steel who says, what about our corporate contractors and their accountability? what do you think of corporations now having their own army, navy, et cetera? >> guest: a lot's been written about this. there are several books out there about this. we have a large, huge, contractor presence in iraq and afghanistan, both for logistics and for security. it's the new way that our executive branch and congress have decided to conduct military operations abroad. if you're concerned about it, that's just the kind of thing that people should be doing oversight on capitol hill but there is not much going on. >> host: our next qualify is

martha joining us from richmond texas. good morning. >> we leave the last few minutes of this recorded conversation now to take you live to the senate as members resume consideration of defense department programs for fiscal year 2010. live senate coverage now on want, that president bush did not want, that the prior chairman of the joint chiefs did not want, and they all say the same thing, that the expenditure of these funds jeopardize other programs which are important and they provide aircraft that we do not need. now, these are fairly powerful statements from the -- our leaders, both civilian and military leaders in this count country, and i would hope that the senate would heed them and reverse the action that was taken on a very close vote in the armed services committee. we've just received a few minutes ago a letter from the

secretary of defense and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and a letter is on its way also now from the president. when i get that letter i will, of course, read the president's letter. but for the time being, let me start with the letter that we've received from the chairman of the joint chiefs as well as the secretary of defense because it's succinct, it's to the poi point, it states the case for not adding additional f-22's as well as anything that i have seen. "dear senators levin and mccain: we are writing to express our strong objection to the provisions in the fiscal year 2010 national defense authorization act allocating $1.75 billion for seven additional f-22's. i believe it is critically important to complete the f-22 buy at 187.

the program of record since 2005 plus four additional aircraft. there is no doubt are," the letter goes on, "that the f 2450eu6 2 i-22is an important cr our nation's defense. to meet future scenarios, however, the department of defense has determined that 187 aircraft are sufficient, especially considering the future roles of unmanned aerial systems and the significant number of fifth-generation stealth f-35's coming on-line in our combat airport folio -- combat air portfolio. it is important to note that the f-35 is a half generation newer aircraft than the f-22 and comor capablmorecapable in a number os such as electronic warfare and combating enemy air defenses. to sustain u.s. overall air dominance, the department's plan

is to buy roughly 500 f-35's over the next five years and more than 2,400 over the life of the program. furthermore, under this plan," the letter goes on, "the u.s. by 2020 is projected to have some 2,500 manned fighter aircraft, almost 1,100 of them will be fifth-generation f-35's and f-22's. china, by contrast, is expected to have only slightly more than half as many manned fighter aircraft by 2020, none of them fifth generation. the f-22 program proposed in the president's budget reflects the judgment of two different presidents, two different secretaries of defense, three

chairmen of the joint chiefs of staff, and the current secretary and chief of staff of the air force. if the air force is forced to buy additional f-22's beyond what has been requested, it will come at the expense of other air force and department of defense priorities and require the -- require deferring capabilities in areas we believe are much more critical for our nation's defense." and the letter concludes with the following very pointed paragraph: "for all these reasons, we strongly believe that the time has come to close the f-22 production line. if the congress sends legislation to the president that requires the acquisition of additional f-22 aircraft beyond fiscal 2009, the secretary of

defense will strongly recommend he veto it." and that is signed by secretary of defense gates and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff mullen. and i would ask unanimous consent, madam president, that the letter be inserted in the record at this point. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. levin: madam president, the determination of the department of defense to end the production of the f-22 is not new. secretary rumsfeld, president bush, as well as the current president and secretary of defense, chairman of the joint chiefs are recommending the same thing. we have testimony on the record at the armed services committee from the chairman of the joint chiefs and the vice chairman of the joint chiefs both urging us strongly to end the production

of the f-22. let me read first secretary gates' testimony on may 14 of this year. the fact is that the f-22 is not going to be the only aircraft in the t.a.c. air arsenal and it does not include the fact that we are going to be building, ramping up to 48 reapers, unmanned aerial vehicles i, in this budget. the f-35," the secretary wrote, "is critically important to take into account and," he goes on, "the fact is that bas based on e information given to me before these hearings, the first training squadron for the f-35 at egeland air force base is on track for 2011.

the additional money for the f-35 in this budget is to provide for a more robust developmental and test program over the next few years to ensure that the program does stay on the anticipated budget. you can say," he said, "that irrespective of previous administrations, but the fact remains two presidents, two secretaries of defense and three chairmen of the joint chiefs of staff have supported the 183 build when you look at the entire t.a.c. air inventory of the united states. and when you look at potential threats, for example, in 2020 the united states will have 2,700 t.a.c. air. and the vice chairman of the joint chiefs just a few days ago

told the senate armed services committee the following. this was july 9. he said, "i was" -- this is general cartwright speaking. he said, "i was probably one of the more vocal and ardent supporters for the termination of the f-22 production, and the reason's twofold." first, he said, "there's a study in the joint staff that we just completed and partnered with the air force on that, that, number one, said that proliferating within the united states military fifth-generation fighters to all three services was going to be more significant than having them based solidly in just one service because of the way we deploy and because of the diversity of our deploymen deployments. point number two, in the production of the f-35 joint fight striker, the first aircraft variant, will support the aircraft replacement of the

f-16's and f-15's. it is a very capable aircraft. it is ten years newer" -- and he's refer here to the f-35 -- "it is ten years newer in advancement in avionics and capabilities in compar compariso the f-22. it is a better, more rounded, capable fighter and," he goes on relative to point number two, "the second variant is the variant that goes to the marine corps. the marine corps has made a conscious decision to forego buying the f-18 "e" and "f" in order to wait for the f-35. so the f-35 variant that has the v-stall capability which goes to the marine corps is number two coming off the line. and the third variant coming off the line is the navy variant, the carrier suitable variant. another thing that weighed

heavily," general cartwright goes on to say, "is certainly in his calculus was the input of the combatant commanders. and one of the highest issues of concern from the combatant commander is our ability to conduct electronic warfare. the electronic warfare is carried onboard the f-18, and so looking at the lines that we would have in hot production, number-one priority was to get fifth-generation fighters to all of the services; number two priority was to ensure that we had a hot production line in case there was a problem and; number three was to have that hot production line producing the f-18 "g's" which support the electronic warfare fight. so those issues, "general cartwright concluded, "stacked up to a solid position tha thatt

was time to terminate the f-22. it is a good airplane. it is a fifth-generation fighter. but we need to proliferation those fifth-generation fighters to all of the services and we needed to ensure that we were capable of continuing to produce aircraft for the electronic warfare capability. and that was the f-18. in the f-18, we can also produce frontline fighters that are more than capable of addressing any threat that we will face for the next five to ten yearsmen years. mr. levin: madam president, now, the letter that i referred to from president obama has now just been received. i know that senator mccain has

received a similar letter, but i will read the one that i have just received. "dear senator levin: i share with you a deep commitment to protecting our nation and the men and women who serve it in the armed forces. your leadership on national security is unrivaled. i value your counsel on these matters. it is with this in mind that i am writing to you about s. 1390, the senate armed services committee reported national defense authorization act for fiscal year 2010, and in particular to convey my strong support for terminating procurement of additional f-22 fighter aircraft when the current multiyear procurement contract ends. as secretary gates and the military leadership have determined, we do not need these planes. that is why i will veto any bill

that supports acquisition of f-22's beyond the 187 already funded by congress. in december 2004, the department of defense determined that 183 f-22's would be sufficient to meet its military needs. this determination was not made casually. the department conducted several analyses which support this position based on the length and type of wars that the department thinks it might have to fight in the future and an estimate of the future capabilities of likely adversaries. to continue to procure additional f-22's would be to waste valuable resources that should be more usefully employed to provide our troops with the

weapons that they actually do need. he he concludes, "i urge you to approve our request to end the production of f-22's." now, madam president, this is no longer a simple recommendation of the president's staff that they would make to the president should we add additional f-22's. this is now clear. it's crystal clear, and there's no way a president of the united states can say more directly than presint obama has said this afternoon that he will veto any bill that supports acquisition of f-22's beyond the 187 already funded by congress. that should clear the air on a very important issue, and that

is would the president veto this bill if it contained the extra f-22's that the military doesn't want or wouldn't he? that speculation is no longer out there. it's now resolved, and it ought to be resolved in our minds. we ought to realize then that those who support the added f-22's are supporting a provision which, if it's included, will result in the veto of a bill which is critically important to the men and women of our military and to their missions and operations in iraq and afghanistan. and i ask unanimous consent that the letter from the president dated today to me be inserted in the record at this time. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. levin: madam president, not only does the amendment which was adopted by the committee on a very close vote

add planes which our military leaders do not want and say they do not need, but the amendment also pays for these additional f-22's in the following ways: number one, it cuts operation and maintenance. number two, it cuts civilian pay funds that need to be available. three, it also reduces the balances that have to be kept available for military personnel. and four, it assumes that there are going to be near-term savings in fiscal year 2010 from the acquisition reform legislation that we recently adopted and the business process reengineering provision that's

in the bill that was adopted by the armed services committee. each of those places cannot afford those cuts. we're talking here about operations and maintenance. this is the readiness accounts of our armed forces. these are the pay accounts of our armed forces. and in the case of at least one of the four sources, the assumption is unwarranted that we are going to make savings this year from the acquisition reform legislation whose very tpoubgz was to make changes -- focus was to make changes in acquisition reform in the short term, which may actually cost us money, to save money, significant money in the long term. but there is no assessment that i know of that says that we are going to make savings in 2010 from our acquisition reform

legislation. as the presiding officer knows, because she was a strong supporter of this acquisition reform, as were all of us on the armed services committee, we believe very strongly that we had to make these changes in the way in which we acquire equipment and weapons. senator mccain has been fighting this battle for as long as i can remember to change these acquisition reform procedures. i've been involved for about as long as i can remember as well in these efforts. and the armed services committee put a lot of energy in the acquisition reform that we adopted unanimously, and it was ultimately passed and signed by the president. but to say that we can't make savings this year in no way knocks the importance of that acquisition reform, or minimizes the importance of that acquisition reform. but the fact is, as we said at

the time, that there's going to be major savings, we believe, from that reform, but they're not going to come in the short term. they're surely not coming in 2010. and yet, the amendment which added the f-22's took, made an assumption that there's going to be savings in 2010 from the acquisition reform legislation. now, let me spend a minute on some of the other sources of funds for the f-22. unobligateed balances for operations and maintenance, o&m. we already reduced by $100 million the funds in those accounts, and we did so consistent with the report and assessment of the general

accountability office. so we acted in a way that would not affect readiness, would not affect o&m. and we had the guidance there of the general accounting office. but what the amendment did that added the f-22's is reduced by $700 million more those accounts, those o&m accounts. the original bill that we adopted avoided cutting o&m funding from the army and from the marines because readiness rates across the board have continued to suffer after several years in combat. and yet, half of the reduction made by the amendment which added the f-22's were assessed against o&m army. it is a dangerous thing to do. it is an unwise thing to do.

it also -- we also now face an increase in the price of oil, an increase above what the accounts assumed would be the cost of energy. and so we have an additional challenge to these o&m accounts which would be made far more difficult, and those reductions far more problem atical for that fact as well. another source of funds which was used to add the f-22's was in the civilian pay accounts. civilian pay had already been reduced by almost $400 million in the air force, and we did that consistent with, again, the general accountability -- government accountability offices assessments. further, civilian pay reductions

of $150 million to help fund the f-22 can have a negative effect on readiness. and we simply cannot take that risk. also, that cut does not take into effect the likely additional civilian pay raise that we will have to absorb in these budgets if, as is likely using historical acts, congress increases the civilian pay raise to match the increased military pay raise. so deep cuts in funds available for civilian pay will have that effect, but also these cuts will undermine the secretary's efforts and our efforts to hire significant number of new employees for the acquisition workforce. it's going to setback our effort to implement acquisition reform

and it's going to cost us a lot more money in the long run. now, another source of the money for the additional f-22's came from the military personnel accounts. our bill already has taken $400 million in unobligated balances from the military personnel accounts in order to pay for additional personnel pay and benefits. and we did that, again, in line with the government accountability office's recommendation. the department's top line so-called for military personnel was intact until the committee adopted the f-22 increase amendment. and if we reduce military personnel accounts for nonpersonnel matters, it's going to result in a military personnel authorization that is

less than what was requested. and it's going to hinder the department's ability to execute its military personnel funding in the year 2010. and that's going to be particularly problematic this year because the army and marine corps have moved their increased end strikes to the base budget, and they did that because we urged them to do that. and so the cost of personnel continues to rise, and yet the source or one of the sources for the funding for the f-22 increase came from that very military personnel account. now, there's another impact of the amendment which was barely adopted in the armed services committee, and that is that it's going to cause the department of

defense to cut back in so-called nondirect pay areas such as bonuses or other personnel support measures that could have a very significant impact, a negative impact on the long-term management of the all-volunteer force. it's very likely that it will then -- that the department is going to have to seek either a reprogramming during the next fiscal year to cover personnel costs or they may even have to file a supplemental request. now, madam president, we have worked hard as a congress to get the administration, any administration -- we tried during the bush years. we try again during the obama years -- to make sure that its budget request is solid, that it will not require reprogramming and will not require a supplemental request. now, with this amendment that

was, again, adopted by just two votes in the armed services committee, we are jeopardizing that long-standing amendment on the part of the congress to make sure that the budget request of the administration in fact is a realistic request when it comes to the various accounts. and particularly this year as the army and marine corps is moved their increased end strengths to the base budget as we have pressed for, for many years. it is a mistake for us to be taking funds from that account. i've talked about the acquisition reform and the fact that the amendment which was adopted in committee, assume savings from acquisition reform, and i pointed out will not repeat that the acquisition reform whaoeupl strongly support -- while strongly supported by the committee and by congress is likely to result in major savings, cannot be

assumed to produce savings in the short term. madam president, i would hope that this body is going to adopt the levin-mccain amendment. two administrations now have made an effort to end the f-22 line. this is not a partisan issue. this is a republican and a democratic administration that have made this effort. our top civilian leaders and our top uniformed leaders are man must. the secretary of defense, chairman of the joint chiefs, vice chairman of the joint chiefs have joined in supporting the president's request, just as they did president bush's determination to end the f-22 line. we have to make some choices in this budget and in other budgets.

and this is a choice which our military is urging us to make. we all know the effect that this has on jobs in many of our states. it varies from state to state, but probably a majority of states will have some jobs impacted by an f-22 termination of their line. but we cannot continue to produce weapons systems forever. they have a purpose. they have a mission. and those missions and those purposes can be carried out by 187 f-22's. that's not me speaking as chairman of the armed services committee. that's not senator mccain speaking as the ranking republican on the armed services committee. that is both of us saying that we must make difficult choices. and we have to build the systems we need. the f-35 is a system which all

of the services need. it cuts across the services. it has greater capabilities in electronics than does the f-22. it half a generation advance on the f-22. this is not to minimize the importance of the f-22. we have and will have 187 in our inventory. while not minimizing the importance of the f-22, it points out how important it is to modernize. and in order to do that and that means the f-35, we have to at some point say that we have enough f-22's. we tried it last year. we could not succeed last year. but this year, not only does the president pose the increase, -- oppose the increase, as did president bush, but president obama has now said in writing today that he will veto a bill that contains the unneeded f-22's.

our men and women in the military deserve a defense authorization bill. this has a pay increase, even larger than that requested. it has benefits that are essential. it has bonuses and other programs to help recruitment an retention. it helps our families. it modernizes our weapons systems. at some point we have to acknowledge that a weapon system production, extremely valuable, has come to a logical end and that it is time to then pick up its continuity with a different plane, a different weapon system, which will benefit our military and support the men and women in uniform. madam president, i yield the floor. mr. mccain: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from a arizona. mr. mccain: i want to thank senator levin for his eloquent statements and his comments on this amendment and i thank him for his leadership on it.

it has -- i've been many years in the senate consideration of the defense authorization bill. this is probably one of the most interest, -- most interesting, i think my colleague will agree. because we're beginning with a measure that, if not passed, will result in a veto by the president of the united states of america. and i want to say that i appreciate this letter that the president of the united states sent to senator levin and to me and to the entire senate. i want to -- i want to say that i appreciate the president's courage. because right now the votes are not there. right now i think my friend from michigan would agree the votes are not there to pass this amendment. so what the president has said, not only do we need to stop the

production of the f-22, of which we have already instructed 187, but we need to do business differently. we need to have a change in the way we do business in order to save the taxpayers unneeded billions of dollars. and so this will be kind of an interesting moment in the history of a new presidency and a new administration and, frankly, an old secretary of defense. and i say old in the respect that he obviously covers both administrations and i don't know of a secretary of defense who has more appreciation and admiration from both sides of the aisle than secretary gates. and i appreciate very much secretary gates' letter, also, where he describes in some

detail, as does the chairman of the joint chiefs, why we need have this amendment passed to remove the additional f-22's. and i want to emphasize additional. but i want to pay special appreciation to president obama for taking a very courageous step here in making it very clear, as he says, as secretary gates and the military leadership have determined, we do not need these plans, that is why i will veto any bill that supports acquisition of f-22's beyond the 187 already funded by congress. the statement is very clear. and it's -- and i appreciate it and i hope that it has a -- a significant impact on my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. so, again, my appreciation to president obama. and my appreciation to the

chairman of the joint chief of staff and the secretary of defense who lay out in more detail why it is that we need to eliminate this unneede unneeded $1.75 billion for seven additional f-22's. now, again i want to em-- now, again, i want to emphasize to my colleagues that this fund -- these funds will go to the acquisition of the f-35, the joint stryke fighter, which, when produced, will provide a careful balance between the air superiority provided by the f-22 and the other capabilities of the joint stryke fighter, which is also badly needed. so i -- this argument is not about the capability of the f-22. although that will be brought to the floor and i intend to talk a little bit about many of the

difficulties that the f-22 has had. but i'd also like to point out that the f-22 has never flown in iraq or afghanistan. it's a remarkable statement. it's been in production since december 2005. we're in july of 2009. the f-22 has yet to fly in combat in the two wars that we're engaged in. and it's been plagued with some significant maintenance problems, not to mention dramatic cost overruns. so this is not an argument about whether the f-22 is an important capability for our nation's defense. it is. the question is: is when did we stop buying them? so it's important to note as the -- i quote from the secretary of defense and chairman of the joint chiefs of staff letter:

it's important to know that the f-35 is a half generation newer aircraft than the f-22, more capable in a number of areas, such as, electronic warfare and combating enemy air defenses. to sustain overall air dominance the department's plan is to buy roughly 85f-25's and over 2,000 over the life of the program. an argument that may be made on the floor here is that somehow we are curtailing or inhibiting the ability of the united states air force to carry out its responsibilities to defend this nation, i think, it contradicted at least by the views of the secretary of defense, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, the chief of staff for the air force, and literally every other individual or position that is involved in this debate. the secretary of defense goes on

to say: under this plan the -- the united states by 2020 is projected to have some 2,500 manfighter aircraft. almost 1,100 of them will be fifth generation f-35's and f-22. there will be a lot of debate and discussion about china and its emerging capabilities. the secretary of defense guess on to say: china, by contrast is expected to have only slight as man -- half as many manfighter aircraft by 2020, none of them fifth generation. i am concerned about the rising military capabilities of china. they are increasing their naval and maritime capabilities. they are increasing the efficiencies of their army and their entire overall inventories, and it is of great concern. but with the combination of the f-35 and the f-22, we will clearly have a significant

advantage over the chinese for some period of time. now, that is not to any way denigrate the long-term aspect of the chinese military buildup. but in the short term, this is the best way to make sure that we maintain complete superiority with the mixture of the f-35 and the f-22. the secretary goes on to say: the f-22 program proposed in the president's budget reflects the judgment of two different presidents, two different sects of defense, three chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, and the current secretary and chief of staff of the air force. now, my colleagues are going to come to the floor and say: the chief of the air national guard says we need additional f-22's. we don't disregard that opinion. but we do weigh that opinion as opposed to the opinion and

judgment of the individuals that i just cited. if the air force is forced -- he goes on to say in his letter -- if the air force is forced to buy additional f-22's beyond what is requested, it will come at the defense expense -- expense of other air force and department of defense priorities and require deferring capabilities in areas we believe are much more critical for our nation's defense. there is no free lunch. there is no free $1.75 billion. there is no free money. here we are with a -- projecte projected $1.8 trillion deficit, a decrease, overall, in some defense areas that is coming sooner or later. and we cannot afford a $1.75 billion procurement that is not absolutely necessary -- needed. and i -- again i want to state very clearly f-22 is a good

airplane. the fact that it hasn't flown in iraq or afghanistan is telling, and some of the issues that i'll mention later on is telling. but this is not an attack on the f-22. what it is is an assessment of the nation's national security needs and what we need in its inventory to maintain our superiority. -- superiority over all other nations and meet the various threats ranging from radical islamic extremism to the conventional capabilities of a rising power in the east. so, again, i want to say thanks to the great leadership of our secretary of defense and admiral mullin, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and the importance they place on this amendment. so i'd like to refer my

colleagues to an article that appeared on last -- last friday in "the washington post". it is entitled "premier u.s. fighter jet has major shortcomings." and, madam president, i ask unanimous consent that this article be included in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mccain: so -- and i quote in part from this -- from this article, which i think is worthy of my colleague's examination. it's by mr. r. jeffries smith, a person widely respected on defense issues. and he says: the united states top fighter jet the lockheed martin f-22 has recently required more than 30 hours of maintenance for every hour in the skies. pushing its hourly cost of flying per hour to more than $44,000. a far higher figure than for the

airplane -- warplane it replaces, confidential pentagon test results show. and it goes on to talk about some of the problems that it has experienced and it goes on to say while most aircraft fleets become easier and less costly repairs as they mature, key -- on average from october of last year to this may, just 55% of the deployed f-22 fleet has been available to fulfill missions guarding u.s. airspace that the defense department acknowledged this week. the f-22 has never been flown over iraq or afghanistan. now, i would point out that the cost per aircraft is aroun around $350 million depending on how you calculate it. now, we've got a $350 million airplane investment to the

taxpayers of america that has never been flown over iraq or afghanistan, the two conflicts in which we are engaged in we know for a fact that the much older aircraft, the a-10, f-18, many of the older aircraft, are flying routine missions and our newest technology in drone and predator aircraft. so sensitive information about -- the article goes on to say: sensitive information about the foremost air defense fighter is merging in a fight between the obama administration and the democrat-controlled congress over one of the program -- over whether the program should be halted next year at $18 -- 187 planes, far short of what the air force and the f-22's contractors around the country had anticipated. and there are divisions over in

the pentagon that says: votes by the house and senate armed services committee last month to spend $369 million to dz 1.57 billion, more to keep the f-22 production line open were propelled. including a quiet campaign for the plain cliewdz snazzy new lockheed videos for key lawmakers. i don't think that the chairman or i received the snazzy new lockheed video. where the f-22's components are made, the full house ratified the vote on june 25th and the senate is soon to begin consideration. after deciding to cancel the program, defense secretary robert gates called th the $365 billion fleet a niche solution to a major area war threat that remains distant.

he described it as a big problem and promised to urge president obama to veto the bill. the administration's position is supported by military reform groups and in the article it talks about pilots who have flown the aircraft who really talk about its impressive capability. i do not disagree with those assessments at all. its troubles have been detailed in dozens of government accountability office reports and pentagon audits. but a key designer in the 1970's and 1980's of the f-18 warplane said that from the beginning the air force designed it to be quote too big to be failed to be cancellation proof. lockheed farmed out more than 1,000 sub contracts to vendors in more than 40 states. i'd like to repeat that. lockheed farmed out more than 1,000 sub contracts to vendors

in more than 40 states. now a prominent critic of the plane said that by the time that skeptics should point out the failed tests and the exploding costs, most congressmen were defending the sub-contractors' revenues. john hammery, an individual known to all of us in a very -- and a very capable individual on the senate armed services committee staff once andve in previous administrations and the pentagon's comptroller from 1993 to 1997, said that the department approve the plan with a budget it knew it was too low because projecting the real cost wos have been politically unpallable on chill capitol hill. we knew it would cost more than the air force thought it would cost and bungtd the lower number and i was there.

in april -- quote -- "i'm not proud of it, hammery added in a recent violent. by the way i think it's a mark of the quality of the individual that he admits that he made a mistake as we all do from some time to another. so, mr. president, i -- i don't want to -- quote -- "spend too much time on -- i don't want to quote -- spend too much time on this article because it's a long one but it's an important item for our colleagues to consider when we consider the vote on this amendment. cancellation decision got public support from the air force's top two civilian and military leaders who said the f-22 was not a top priority in a constrained budget. but the leader's message was muddied in a june 9 letter from air combat commander john d.w. corley to chambliss -- that's senator chambliss, the senator from georgia, that said halting production would put execution

of our national military strategy at high risk in the midterm. the right size of the fleet, he said, is 381. so it's enough to say that given our overall joint capability to obtain air superiority, stopping the f-22 at 187 fighters is strietle achieving the correct balance -- vital to achieving the correct balance. now, i discussed already the importance of a fifth-generation aircraft. now -- and i discussed earlier the importance of us making these tough decisions. not irrelevant to this debate is the view of the vice chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, general cartwright. now, general cartwright is a marine general aviator and it's vice chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, and he serves as the chairman of the joint chief's most senior advisor on

joint operational requirements. in recent testimony before the armed services committee, general cartwright outlined why in his best military judgment the f-22 program should be terminated. he said -- quote -- "looking at the lines in hot productio prode number-one priority was to get fifth-generation frierts to all of thall -- fighters to all of e services. number two priority was to assure that we had a hot production line in case there was a problem. and number three was to have that hot production line producing f-18 "g's" which support the electronic warfare fight. in general cartwright's view, those issues stacked up to a solid position, that it was time to terminate the f-22. it's a good airplane. it's a fifth-generation fighter. but we needed to proliferate those fifth-generation fighters to all of the services and we needed to ensure that we were capable of continuing to produce aircraft before the electronic warfare -- for the electronic

warfare capability. in the f-18, we can also produce frontline fighters that are more capable of addressing any threat we'll face for the next five to ten years. interesting comment. he's saying in the f-18, we can also produce frontline fighters that are more capable of addressing any threat that we'll face for the next five to ten years. so in any case, let me clear up the record on the same discussion about the risk that the air force is taking on -- by ending the f-22 line at 187 aircraft. reference to some of this -- that discussion appeared to have been taken out of context. the air force's acceptance of risk by discontinuing the program needs to be understood in the context of the air force's overall combat air force restructure plan. a plan that's intended to bridge the air force's current fleet to the predominantly fifth-generation force of the

future. basically, that plan works by restructuring the air force's current fleet of fighters now and directing result in savings to fund modifying newer or more reliable fighters in the legacy fleet, weapons procurement and joint enablers. under the plan, those investments will help create a more capable fleet than can bridge the air force to a future fleet with a smaller, more capable force. as you can imagine, the effectiveness of the plan depends on a lot of moving par parts, perhaps most importantly stopping the f-22 program at 187 fighters now. while some short-term risk in the air force's fighter force may arise from stopping the program at 187 aircraft, the combat air force restructure plan is designed to accept that risk to ensure a more capable fleet in the long term. i believe that this strategy is sound and needs the support of this body. please do not be deluded by

references to risk associated with ending the f-22 program. given the strength of the reasons cited by the national command authority, the best professional military advice of the chairman and vice chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, considered recommendations of the service secretaries, i can find no good reason why i should replace their judgment on this critical national defense issue with my own and call for funding for the continuation of the f-22 program. i respectfully suggest that the members of this body do the same and support the amendment under consideration. now, mr. president, i understand where votes are. i understand that right now, probably this morning anyway, and maybe -- i hope that the very forceful letter by the secretary of defense and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and the very strong letter

from the president of the united states will move my colleagues in support of this amendment. but i have no illusions about the influence of the military industrial complex in this town. long ago, president eisenhower, when he left office, probably the most respected military leader or certainly one of the most respected military leaders ever to occupy the white house, warned america about the military industrial complex and the power and the increasing influence that he saw this military industrial complex having over the decision making made here in the congress and in the administration of the funding of different programs and the expenditure of the taxpayers' hard-earned dollars. now, we are really at a very interesting moment, if not a

seminole one, in the history of this administration. if we accept the president of the united states' threat to veto and overcome individual concerns, i think it will be a great step forward. tto providing the taxpayer with a far better usage of their hard-earned dollars. these are difficult and terrible economic times for america. we cannot afford business as usual. we cannot afford to continue to purchase weapons systems that are not absolutely vital to the national -- to this nation's security. i would point out again -- and maybe it's not appropriate to keep mentioning -- this plane has never been flown over iraq or afghanistan. it's never part of the two wars that we've been in. it's a good airplane and it will probably be important, the 187 of them that we are procuring,

to the security of this nation. but to continue production and procurement at some $350 million a copy when, in the judgment of the people we give the responsibility to make the judgment, in the strongest possible terms have told us we need to move on to another aircraft, we need the joint strike fighter and we do not need any more of the f-22 aircraft. so this is a very interesting time. i look forward to the debate and vote on this amendment as soon as possible. i respect the views of my colleagues who feel very strong that will we need to continue -- strongly that we need to continue the production of this aircraft, but i think it's wrong. and i hope that -- that we can have a enlightened and respectful debate on this issue. i understand the passion that some of my colleagues have about it and the importance it is to

jobs in their states and communities. i would point out again, defending this nation, an expenditure of the taxpayers' dollars for its defense, should not be based on jobs. it should be based on our national security needs. thethere are not unlimited amous of money. so i want to thank my colleague, the distinguished chairman, again, and i'm sure that both of those letters have been included in the record. so, madam president, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from michigan. mr. levin: first, let me thank senator mccain for his strong and very, very powerful statement about this amendment. i can't remember a president ever saying in advance that a specific provision in a defense bill is included that he will veto it. now, there may be such precedent, but this is -- this

is what the stakes are here now. this is whether or not we're going to be supporting a bill that has essential provisions in it for the men and women in the military, including a significant pay raise and other important benefits, including support for our wounded warriors and including support for weapons systems which they need. and i would hope that even those senators who have indicated that they would support the additional f-22's might reconsider their position in terms of what is involved in this bill for our men and women and given the president's statement that he will veto this bill. and, madam president, i would now ask unanimous consent that lieutenant commander ryan ferris, mr. yri vie pierce and mr. stratton curtain be granted the privilege of the floor for the remainder of the week on behalf of senator knel nelson. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. levin: i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.

quorum call: mr. mccain: mr. president, i suggest the absence of a quorum. i ask that further proceedings under the quorum call be suspended. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mccain: madam president, i ask unanimous consent to engage in a colloquy with my colleague, the distinguished chairman. the presiding officer: the senator from arizona. without objection. mr. mccain: could i ask the distinguished chairman what he thinks is going to be the situation as regarding the disposition of this amendment. mr. levin: i thank my friend from arizona. at this -- the answer will depend i guess on how many people wish to speak either in support of our amendment or in opposition to it and how long they want to speak, and i don't have yet a indication of that. mr. mccain: could i say to my friend, the distinguished chairman, from our past experience, there will be at

least a couple of hundred of pending other amendments and i do not mean to diminish the importance of this, but i would hope that we could spend whatever time, debate that anyone might to want talk about the amendment today and into tomorrow and -- and at least shoot for a target to have a final disposition on this amendment tomorrow since we will have many other amendments. would that -- would that be the desire of the chairman? mr. levin: i would be a little more optimistic, even though the question kpwhrao*euzs. i would -- implies. i would hope we will have a vote on the amendment by noon tomorrow. i would hope that prior to noon tomorrow we can have a vote on this, on our amendment. mr. mccain: so, therefore, we would encourage our colleagues to come on the floor so we can debate this very important

amendment. mr. levin: i would add i think there are really two things we would hope our colleagues would come to the floor -- three things. maybe one, as the senator from arizona mentioned, to speak on this amendment. secondly, to speak generally about the bill. we have a number of colleagues on the committee who have worked so hard on this bill that do want to speak on the bill. i would hope they would do that this afternoon. and, third, we can begin to receive amendments that we need to consider or might want to consider during this week. because i would hope we can finish this bill this week. that may be an optimistic goal, but i think it would be achievable if everybody cooperates and brings to us and to our staffs amendments that they are thinking about offering. mr. mccain: i thank the chairman, and i hope that all of our colleagues will bring their amendments as well as debate on the pending amendment. i thank the chair. mr. president, i suggest the absence of a quorum.

the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from mississippi. a senator: i ask that the quorum call be sra*eu indicated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. wicker: thank you, mr. president. as more americans become familiar with the details of the democrats' proposal for a washington takeover of our health care system, the wheels are beginning t to fall off, and for good reason. it's no longer just the republicans who are sounding the alarm. it's independents and centrist democrats who are showing generous -- are who are showing genuine concern. we still do not have a good answer about the cost of the two major senate proposals, one from the finance committee and the other from the "help" committee. but we do know that it will be enormously expensive once they're finally scored. there's also the house proposal

from speaker pelosi and chairman waxman which is believed to cost $1 trillion over a ten-year period. you know, mr. president, one great aspect of our representative democracy here in the united states is that elected officials still listen to the people who sent us here. even senators with six-year terms go back to their respective states often and have their fingers on the pulse of public opinion. what they heard over the recent independence day break was alarm over the amount of money the federal government is spending in such a short period of time and over the monstrous debt we're incurring. we also heard from the voters. we heard from the taxpayers that they are concerned over the direction health care legislation is heading. a recent cnn poll found that a broad majority of americans have concluded that their health care costs would go up -- not down --

under the democrats' plan. the poll found that 54% say their member insurance costs will increase if the democrat democrat plan is adopted while only 17% of americans feel their costs will decrease. only one out of five said their family would be better off if the democrats' reforms are enacted. this lack of enthusiasm for democrats' plans isn't just driven by partisan opposition. a recent rasmussen survey found skepticism is also high among independent voters with a plurality -- some 39% of those not affiliated with either party -- strongly opposed -- strongly opposed -- to the democrats' plan. mr. president, i want health care reform enacted this year. as a matter of fact, i wanted health care reform enacted in the last congress. but i want a plan that is closer

to president obama's campaign promise of last year, one that allows americans to keep their insurance plans if they are satisfied with them and one that actually saves money for the american economy. last year candidate obama said the united states is spending too much money on medical care and he vowed to put forth a plan to save money. i want to see that proposal. i want to see a proposal that would save money, not one that would spend another $1 trillion, $2 trillion or $3 trillion that we don't have, that we'll have to borrow from our grandchildren and from our great-grandchildren. and i hope my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will not characterize these legitimate concerns as scare tactics. the figures that have the americans frightened are ones published from the congressional budget office, not from some

right-of-center think tank here in washington, d.c. in addition, the suggestions about how to pay for this gigantic scheme for federal takeover are just as troubling. the kennedy bill, for example, includes a $58 billion tax on workers that would be imposed to create a government insurance program for long-term care. the bill also includes an additional $36 billion in penalties on individuals for not purchasing a government-approved health coverage policy. another $52 billion would come from new taxes on employers. the house is considering a $540 billion proposal to put a 1% to 3% surtax on small businesses. there are also plans to tax beverages that contain sugar and proposals to place payroll taxes

on capital gains earnings. and all of these tax increases would come during a recession and would still not be enough. there will have to be hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts to the medicare program. in essence, to finance this scheme, we will have to agree to tax workers, we'll have to agree to tax job creators and to cut benefits for senior citizens. two opinion pieces from "the washington post" last friday provide clear evidence of honest concerns over the way the democratic legislation is heading. in its own editorial, "the washington post," hardly a right-wing publication, noted discouraging developments on capitol hill. among other things, "the washington post" expressed disagreement over the democrats' continued insistence on a public option. the editorial went on to say -- quote -- "restructuring the health care system is risky

enough that the democrats would be well -- would be wise not to try to accomplish it entirely on their own." end of quote. this is sound advice from a leading newspaper that endorsed senator obama when he was running for president last year. in another op-ed on the same topic, columnist michael kinsley points out that -- quote -- "people, even liberals, are starting to get unnerved by the cost of all this." he cites two risks for health care reform. one is that it won't pass, and an opportunity will be lost. the second is that if it passes, it won't work. and i ask my colleagues this, mr. president: if we pass a $1 trillion or $3 trillion plan that doesn't work, how will we ever reverse that mistake? how will we get the genie back in the bottle?

mr. kinsley rightly urges the president to slow things down on health care reform in order to get it right. and then mr. kinsley goes on to suggest that the president not try for a total overhaul of health care, but instead seek smaller successes or low-hanging fruit. he advocates medical malpractice reform, outcomes research and eliminating paperwork and waste as a starting position. i believe such an approach is sound and could be on the president's desk by the end of september. when michael kinsley and "the washington post" editorial board begin asking advocates of an enormous washington takeover to pause and reflect, i submit it's time for all americans, from the left, from the right, and from the political center to sit up

and take notice. the good news from these developments is this, we now have a better opportunity for health care reform that doesn't break the bank. i hope that the congressional leadership will go back to the drawing board and write a targeted bill that addresses the real problem, such as, coverage for the uninsured. congress should listen to michael kinsley. congress should listen to "the washington post" editorial board and the growing chorus of concerns and develop a plan that makes health care more affordable, more portable, and more accessible. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.

mr. mcconnell: madam madam president, i ask that further proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: mr. president, i ask consent that i be allowed to proceed as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: mr. president, last week and again this morning, my good friend, the majority leader,, came to the floor and said he wants to work with republicans on health care reform. i welcome his comments and at a step in that direction, i would point out that one of the major concerns that americans have about health care reform is the

price tag. last week we learned that the federal deficit is now more than $1 trillion so far this year for the first time in our nation's history. to give people an idea of how dramatically the federal deficit has grown in just the last several months, i would note that the current deficit for this year is $800 billion more than it was at this point last year. $800 billion more than at this point last year. so the need for fiscal discipline could not be greater than at the current moment, and yet all the democratic proposals we're hearing on health care would only increase our nation's already staggering debt without even addressing the full extent of the problems that we all agree should be addressed as part of a comprehensive reform. americans do, indeed, want health care reform but they don't want to see their children and grandchildren buried deeper and deeper in debt without even solving the problem.

every proposal we've seen would cost a fortune by any standard. even worse, some of these estimates are totally misleadi misleading. in some cases, ten-year estimates are based on proposals that wouldn't even go into effect for four years. in other words, what's being sold as a ten-year cost would actually cost that much over six years. we also know from our experience with medicare that cost estimates on health care often prove to be wildly, wildly inaccurate. when medicare part-a was enacted in 1965, it was projected that in 1990, it would spend $9.1 billion on hospital services and related administration. as it turned out, spending in 1990 totaled almost $67 billion, more than seven times the original prediction. and today, medicare is already paying out more than it's taking in and will soon go bankrupt.

so if history is any goo guide,e actual cost of reform could be far, far greater than the estimates we're getting now, estimates that are already giving americans serious sticker shock. also troubling are some of the proposals we've heard to pay for these so-called reforms. the advocates of government-run health care have been searching frantically for a way to cover costs and they seem to have settled on two groups. seem to have settled on two groups: the elderly and small business owners in the form of medicare cuts and higher taxes. as for medicare, it's my view that any savings from medicare should be used to strengthen and protect medicare, not fund another government-run system that is all but certain to have the same fiscal problems down

the lead to medicare does. raiding one insolvent government-run program to create another is not reform. it's using an outdated model to solve a problem that will require a fresh hope and new ideas. as for higher taxes, advocates of a government takeover of health care have set their sights on small business owners to help pay for the proposals. it should go without saying that this is precisely the wrong approach in the middle of a recess. -- middle of a recession. small businesses are the engine of our economy and they have created approximately two-thirds of all new jobs in the last decade. at a time when the unemployment rate is approaching 10%, we need to help small businesses, not hurt them. yet according to news reports, democrats in congress are considering doing just that. in recent congressional testimony, the president of the national federation of independent business said that

some of these proposals could destroy more than 1.5 million jobs. and aside from killing jobs, these so-called reforms could actually cause millions to end up with worse care than they already have and they could come at a higher cost to individuals and families in the form of higher premiums. some have also proposed raising income taxes and limiting tax deductions for charitable giving. others have reported considering an increase on question -- on the employee medicare tax, which would take money out of the paychecks of american workers. a new national sales tax and taxes on soda and juice boxes. these proposals would hit low-income americans especially hard. all of these are bad ideas but it's unlikely that they'd cover the long-term costs of the proposals we've seen so far, in any event. the rest would simply be added to the national debt. in his comments last week, the

majority leader said health care reform is not a partisan issue. that's why some of us have for weeks put forward ideas that should be pretty easy for everybody to support, such as reforming medical malpractice laws to get rid of junk lawsui lawsuits, encouraging we willness and prevention programs such as the programs that help people quit smoking or overcome obesity, that have been shown to cut costs. and increasing competition in the private market. americans would like for the two parties to work together to reform health care, to cut costs without sacrificing the things that americans like about our current health care system, embracing the ideas i've mentioned and finding responsible ways to pay for health care reform is an obvious and commonsense place to start. mr. president, i yield the floor.and i suggest the absence of a quorum.. quorum call:

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quorum call: mr. brown: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from ohio. mr. brown: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent to dispense of the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. brown: and i ask unanimous consent to speak as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. brown: mr. president, this week the health, education, labor and pension committee is planning to finish marking up our health care reform legislation. a vital part of this legislation is ensuring that americans have access to affordable generic versions of brand name biologic drugs. these medicines are crucial to those suffering from parkinson's, from multiple sclerosis, from arthritis, from diabetes, from cancer, from all kinds of debilitating and deadly diseases.

yet for countless americans, these drugs are simply too expensive. more than 190,000 new cases of breast cancer will be diagnosed in american women in 2009. to treat these cases using a biologic drug herceptin costs approximately $48,000 a year. that's almost $1,000 a week to treat this breast cancer with this drug. each year more than 1.3 million americans are afflicted with rheumatoid arthritis. to treat these cases using the name brand biologic drug rumasayed costs more than $20,000 a year. here's another number, between 350,000 and 500,000 people in the united states suffer from multiple sclerosis. to treat these cases using name brand biologic drugs costs more than $25,000 a year.

to put this in perspective, the annual household income in my state of ohio, whether you live in cincinnati or youngs town, the average household income in ohio is $46,000. for far too long ohioans like gerald from miami county had to choose between paying for medication or paying their mortgage. gerald who served in the marines had to retire early because he was experiencing severe seizures. soon after his wife had to retire early because she was battling medical problems. between expensive medications needed to treat their conditions, gerald and his wife were forced to put their house up for sale. gerald wrote to me saying he didn't expect his golden years would mean losing his home because of unaffordable health care costs. health care reform must include an tp*d-approved process for generic biologics comparable to the process that includes access

to traditional generic drugs. only 15 years ago the most effective best known cancer drug was then called -- it was a chemical drug with not -- with ingredients that were not considered live ingredients. were a chemical drug, taxol. it costs about $4,000 a year. we thought that was outrageously expensive. but because of the generic approval process, because we can bring generic drugs into market we've been able to get those costs under control. but $4,000 for a drug for cancer only 15 years ago -- taxol -- today a drug for cancer costs upwards of $40 thousand thoup and there's no generic process, no road to competition to keep those prices in check. the companies that make those drugs can charge whatever they want. absent that generic process, there is no free market exerting downward pressure on biologic

prices. prices remain high for families like kimberly's also from miami county. she wrote to me explaining how her brother depends on remacaid infusions every six to eight weeks to treat ulcerative colitis. the annual cost can top $31,000 a year. there is no competition, no generic equivalent allowed to be developed under u.s. law. kimberly is worried if her parents lose their insurance her brother will no longer be able to get his infusions and his condition would not be covered by a new insurer. biotechnology is a high-risk, high-cost business. we can't give companies open-ended protection from generic competition. with no competition from generics, pharmaceutical companies enjoyed profits of tens of billions of dollars after they recoup their r&d costs. i say absolutely they should recoup their r&d costs. absolutely they should have a

generous profit for the risk they undertook and for the investment they made and even for the opportunity costs of their investment. when you look at the kind of returns they're making, the number of years they can continue to charge these high prices, what good is it to develop these wonderful drugs, these wonderful biologic drugs if people like kimberly can't afford them. if you combine the total r&d budget by a typical biotech to those who -- the number of biologics that make it to market, the r&d cost i is $1.2 billion. that includes all the trution including the -- drugs including the ones that are failure including the ones where the research is dead end. the top biologic companies are able to make up their cost in as little as a year and a half year

after year after year after year after decade, for that matter. because there's no generic path. so why should there be under some people's proposals in this body, why should there be a p 13-year monopoly period? president obama has said seven years is enough and the f.t.c. has directedly stated that 12 years or more of exclusivity would counterintuitively, perhaps, would harm innovation by discouraging biotechs from searching for new sources. giving them exclusivity far and away more years than the f.t.c. or the president or the aarp or the legislation sponsored bipartisanly by senator martinez, senator vitter, senator schumer and i, why should these companies with

these exclusivity bother. the they say that 12 years is too long. patient advocates say it, disease groups say it, major consumer groups say, it that 12 years is much too long. the only group advocating for 12 years or greater is, no surprise, the drug industry. no surprise there. with their army of lobbyists, they produce spectacular campaign contributions, the drug industries are all over capitol hill convincing congress that drug companies are different from other companies. the drug companies want us to believe they deserve something special, they deserve decades' long time for their product. no one has that even if the monopolies leave patients without the access to lifesaving drugs. much of the research they build upon is taxpayer funded through

the national institutes of health. i know in the presiding officer's state, as in mine there are all kinds of n.i.h. dollars spent by -- by startup companies, by universities, by people developing spectacular drugs. that's a good thing. but understand taxpayer money goes into a lot of this at the beginning, taxpayers at least deserve competitive prices after the product has been developed. the biotech industry association, their lobbying group spent nearly $2 million in the first-quarter alone lobbying on this issue that prevents generic drugs from making their way to people in galllepolis. it is a profit making enterprise. it is going to lobby congress to do whatever is in the drug company's -- drug industry's best interest, of course. there's no reason to believe it

would selflessly advocate for patients. it never has. it never will it is all about the bottom line. it should be. but it's their responsibility to argue fewer the bottom line. it's their responsibility to maximize profits. but it's our responsibility in this incident news the house of representatives in the united states senate, it's our responsibility to bring in competition to restrain costs so that through competition, not through rules, but through competition, so american consumers have the opportunity to buy these drugs that our tax dollars help to develop. i want toll you about a letter i received -- i want toll you about a letter from a registered nurse in cleveland. mary wrote to me that she works with family who too often must decide between visiting a doctor and buying medication to manage their child's seizures. mary is a nurse, as i said, that drug costs keep many parents from doing what they know is right. safe and effective biologic

drugs will bring help to the health care community. it will help ohioans like brenna, who wrote to me after being diagnosed with a rare disorder she lost her job and insurance. after receiving social security disability, brenna had to rely on sample medications from her doctor, a doctor who cared about about her patient because brenna can't afford the expensive medications that she needs to stay healthy and strong. she juggles her medications depending upon which part of her immune system is the weakest. why should that happen? that only happens because this institution as abdicated its responsibility. the drug industry, of course they're going to maximize their profits. it is up to the 100 members of the senate, 430 members of the house of representatives, and president obama to inject competition to allow competition

so these prices come down. of course it would be irresponsible not to pursue a safe and efficient path to generic versions of name brand biologic drugs. it would be irresponsible to give biologic manufacturers more than a decade of monopoly rights over a market that provides lifesaving products to american patients. that's how high, mr. president, the stakes are. every additional year of monopoly power we give to highly profitable drug companies, inflates the taxpayers' cost to health care, costs businesses struggling to pay for health care for their employees, causes them more burdensome causes an prevents americans have having medicines to treat disabling and life-threatening injuries conditions. we must not kowtow to the drug industry. we must and have an opportunity, mr. president, to do the right thing on the follow-on biologics

issue. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. a senator: mr. president, on behalf of senator dodd, i ask unanimous consent the military fellow and his office lindsey jordan be granted floor privileges for the remainder of this legislative session. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. leahy: i ask unanimous consent that lieutenant colonel martin a u.s. army special officer, be granted floor privileges for the duration of s. 1390, the national defense authorization act for fiscal year 2010. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. leahy: mr. president, what is the parliamentary situation? the presiding officer: the senate is considering s. 139.

-- s. 1309. mr. leahy: thank you, moments ago i left the judiciary committee hearing room. we're considering judge sotomayor to be an associate justice on the supreme court. considering this historic and well-qualified nominee, many americans may feel our country has completely turned a corner in terms of equality and civil rights. i certainly hope that judge sotomayor's nomination will unite us as a nation. but i'm aware that there is a lot more that still has to be done to protect the civil rights of all americans. i want to notify my colleagues that i plan to offer that matthew shepherd hate crimes prevention act is offered to the pending amendment of the defense authorization bill. i thank senator collins and senator snowe, and a number of other bipartisan cosponsors for

their support. now, this measure has long been a priority bill for senator ted kennedy. i commend him for his steadfast leadership over the past decade in working to expand our federal hate crime laws. and the amendment i am going to offer will aim to address the serious and growing problem of hate crimes. we all the recent events -- in fact, most of us were watching the news live from the holocaust museum here in washington. it made clear these vicious crimes continue to haunt our country. and our bipartisan legislation is carefully designed to help law enforcement most effectively. it has been stalled for far too long. it is really a case for the time to act is now. in the matthew shepherd hate crime prevention act has been pending for more than a decade.

it's actually passed the united states senate several times. despite the long history in the senate and despite the fact that it is cosponsored by both democratic and republican senators, it seems to get the same tired old attacks. last -- less than two years ago the senate passed a hate crimes bill as an amendment to the defense authorization act, that also passed the senate in 2004 and 2000 and 1999. last month at the request of the ranking republican on the judiciary committee, senator sessions, and all republican members of the committee, i chaired a hearing on this bill to assure that the legislation has been adequately discussed and considered to allow an opportunity to explore the minor changes that were made to the bill in this congress.

now, there's no doubt that testimony to the urgency of this legislation. the attorney general of the united states returned to the judiciary committee to testify. when i say it reflects the urgency of it, the attorney general had been before the committee less than a week before an oversight hearing. normally, we would not have seen him before the committee for another six to 10 months. he he came back within six days. so that he could testify in support of this important legislation. i commend the attorney general holder for that. we've also heard from state an local law enforcement organizations. the state and local law enforcement organizations all support the measure. we have the committee record as -- it has support letters from dozens of leaders of the faith community. and the civil rights community. i agreed with senator sessions

when he commented at the end of the year, that it was a good hearing with a good exchange of views. but now we've had more than enough process and consideration of this bill. it's really time to bring it to a senate vote. the hate crimes amendment would improve existing law by making it easier for federal authority to investigate and prosecute crimes of racial or ethnic or religious violence. victims will no longer have to engage in a narrow range of activities such as serving as a major to come under this federal law. but it also focuses the federal government on the problem of crimes committed against people because of their consume orientation or their -- because of their sexual orientation or their gender, and that's a long overdue protection. in addition the hate crimes amendment will provide assistance and resource to state

and local and tribal law enforcement to address hate crimes. we heard from them of the need. now in the last congress this legislation was attached to the defense authorization bill and the bipartisan support of the 60 senators. i expect, as i talked to senators, we'll have even more support today. president obama supports the immediate passage of hate crime legislation. in his first few months in office, he ensured that the benefits are awarded more equitably. he has shown through a selection as a nominee for the supreme court. he understands the greatest talent and experience, the highest devotion to law exists across lines of gender and eth necessity. unlike in previous years our bipartisan hate crimes bill does not face a threat because -- a veto threat because we have a

president that understands that a crime motivated by violence are particularly pernicious. they affect more than victims and the victims' families. i know, mr. president. a few years ago i prosecuted crimes committed based solely or primarily on bias against the victims. it's a hateful, terrible thing. it's hateful to the victim, the victim's family, the victim's friends. hate crimes instill fear in those who have no connection to the victim other than shared characteristic such as race or sexual orientation. you feel somebody with whom you share that connection and they have been the victim of a hate crime, and you fear that you may be the next. for nearly 150 years we have

responded as a nation by enacting federal laws to protect the civil rights of all our citizens. the matthew shepard hate crimes prevention act of 2009 continues that great and honorable tradition. that's why so many law enforcement, state and local, federal support this. adopting the amendment will show once again that america values tolerance, protects all of its people. so i urge the opponents of this measure to consider the message that says year after year we've been prevented from enacting this proudly supported legislation. the victims of hate deserve better. and those who fear that they may be the next victim of a hate crime, they deserve better. so i hope senators will join me in support of this important

amendment. i ask unanimous consent my full statement will be included in the record, and at the appropriate point i will call up the amendment. mr. president, i was going to suggest the absence of a quorum, but i see my good friend, the distinguished senator from connecticut on the floor, so i'll simply yield the floor. mr. lieberman: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut. mr. lieberman: i thank my opinion friend from vermont. i rise to speak in favor of s. 1390. but before i do, let me thank senator leahy for his leadership in introducing this antihate crimes amendment. i'm honored to be one of his cosponsors, and i hope the senate works its will in the interest of justice and adopts the amendment in due course. mr. president, as i say, i rise to support s. 1390, the national defense authorization act for fiscal year 2010, the matter before the senate today and this

week. i want to begin by commending chairman levin, the chairman of our senate armed services committee, and senator mccain, the ranking republican member, for their leadership and for the bipartisan example they set in drafting and reporting out this bill. this bill will keep our nation safe and provide our troops with the support that they deserve. and that's exactly what it ought to do. the bill will establish new programs to support the physical and mental well-being of our troops and their families. it will provide our fighting men and women a 3.4% increase in compensation. the fact is that nothing is more important than taking care of this extraordinary, gifted, brave generation of men and women who have volunteered to defend our country at a time of

war. i'm also very pleased that this bill will authorize the secretary of defense to grow the size of the army there 2011 and 2012, a period when our soldiers will still be under stress -- real stress -- as the army shifts its focus from operations in iraq and afghanistan. but the overall level of deployment will probably rise. there are so many things that we can do to reduce the stress on those who serve us in the military and on their families. but one critical thing we can do is to simply increase the number of men and women in uniform, particularly in the army, because the more supply there is of troops, no matter what the demand, the amount of time that

every soldier can look forward to being back at base, back with families, not deployed in a battle zone will dekraoets stress that they're under. -- decrease the stress that they're under. the additional troops and strength as it's called in the vocabulary in this legislation that are provided in 2011 and 2012 will ease the strain on our soldiers who have been asked too do so much on our behalf. i intend, mr. president, to work with my colleagues in the senate this week to amend this bill to extend the application of the authority to increase end strength from 547,000 to 577,000 so it can begin in the next fiscal year, the year 2010, because that is probably when it will be most needed. as we're reducing our presence

in iraq but, in a slightly more accelerated way, increasing our presence in afghanistan. now let me focus, if i may, on the parts of this legislation that have come out of our air land subcommittee of the senate armed services committee, a subcommittee which i have the honor of chairing. i want to start by thanking senator john thune for his service as ranking member of the subcommittee. it is a pleasure to work with senator thune on behalf of our army and air force and all involved in air and land programs. we've worked closely together in a completely bipartisan manner to carry out our responsibilities concerning the matters in the jurisdiction of our subcommittee. the air-land subcommittee has broad responsibility for policy oversight over substantial parts

of the army and air force budgets, but also over, to a lesser extent but a real extent, the navy and the marine corps. so that the subcommittee's portion of this year's national defense authorization act is a large one. our goal was direct, to promote and improve the current and, as best we can, the future readiness of our ground and air forces while at the same time ensuring the most efficient and effective use of taxpayer dollars. this year the portion of the budget requests falling under the air-land subcommittee's jurisdiction included a total of $71.1 billion, and that is made up of $55.4 billion in procurement and $15.7 billion in all-important research and development. as it stands right now, the full committee's recommendation is a

net addition to the president's budget request of $2.9 billion to support activities under the air-land subcommittee's jurisdiction. mr. president, in the past the armed services committee in the senate have supported stability and funding levels as requested for army readiness and modernization programs. this has been particularly true for the army's future combat system, which has been the major modernization program of the army. however, the army was forced to make some tough decisions in these tough budget times and decided in april to restructure the future combat system program, including termination of the man ground vehicle portion of that program.

the department has reoriented army modernization plans that have been in place for the last six years. that's the necessity that the army felt both for budgetary reasons and, i believe, for reasons of effectiveness. so the bill before us today supports the department's decision, the army's decision with respect to the restructuring of the future combat system program and recommends full funding for the spin-out portions, the network portions of that program, that it be carried forward. this is a remarkable application of modern technology to the battlefield. the history of warfare shows, generally speaking, that any developments, any technological advances that have occurred over history, from the first fires that were made to the wheel and on to the railroad, et cetera, et cetera, have found their way

obviously the ability to fly, have found their way into military use. and so it is with the remarkable capability to communicate with one another to, use telecommunications and the computer, particularly, has found its way into applications to combat which greatly expand the capabilities of our soldiers, each and every one of them. to see the battlefield beyond what they can see with their eyes and to conduct the most effective warfare on our behalf. the bill also requires and recommends full funding for a new ground combat vehicle research and development program as the secretary of defense agreed the army needs. in addition, this bill will direct the department to establish a development program for a next-generation

self-propelled howitzer to take advantage of technologies already matured as part of the future combat system nonlineup site cannon program. in other words, what we're trying to do is in the aftermath of secretary gates' decision to terminate a series of programs under the future combat system program is to harvest technological advances that were made as part of that, those now terminated programs. mr. president, to support our forces in afghanistan, this bill also recommends a large sum, but for an important purpose -- $6.7 billion for the mine resistant ambush protected vehicle fund. that's an increase of $1.2 billion above the president's budget request for what is family known as the mrap.

in this case the mrap all-terrain vehicles, a lighter version, more a skwraoeul version of the mraps that have done so much to protect the lives and well-beings of our soldiers in iraq from the impact of i.e.d.'s, bombs that our enemies set off. these mrap a.t.v.'s will now be of tremendous assistance to the growing number of troops that we are sending to afghanistan. this is a version of the mrap made particularly for our troops now fighting for us in afghanistan. in addition, in response to the army chief of staff's unfunded priorities list, the bill also recommends adding $179 million to procure additional force 21 battlefield command brigade and below systems to enhance the operational effectiveness of small units fighting on our

behalf in afghanistan and iraq. when it comes to air power, the bill also recommends an additional $560 million to buy 18 f.a., 18 e.f. aircraft in fiscal year 2010 as originally planned in the program of record rather than the nine aircraft requested by the president's budget. our subcommittee believed that these added aircraft are a sensible development to make against a looming dangerous shortfall in our nation's tactical aviation aircraft inventory. in other words, the new generation of tactical air fighters coming on will not be there early enough to help the navy overcome the running out of a life span of a series of tactical aircraft that they have now that will put them way below

what the navy itself believes it needs in the years ahead. the subcommittee also recommended an additional $1.75 billion to buy seven f-22a. raptor aircraft rather than terminating the production program as requested by the department. this was a judgment made by the full committee when it received our subcommittee report. although this was a hard decision, the continued production of the raptor will guarantee that we have balanced combat air forces in the future and support the transition between f-22-a and the f-35 joint strike fighter programs. the bill includes an additional $20.4 million to support 12 additional blackhawk a to l model conversions to accelerate modernization of the army's active and reserve component fleets. in the area of efficiencies, the bill recommends making adjustments or reductions as follows: a decrease of $209.5

million for the c-130 avionics modernization program because of delays in beginning the production program. and a decrease of $90 million for the csarx search and rescue helicopter program because of the availability of prior-year funds to cover fiscal year 2010 requirements. madam president, there is one prigprovision of this bill thati myself have grave reservations about. the full committee overturn add recommendation of our subcommittee that concerns the development of the alter national engineer for the joint strike fighter, a second engine for the joint strike fighter. president obama, as president bush before him, concluded that the one-engine program, after

the competition was held, that the one-engine met the needs of our military for the joint strike fighter program, without the additional cost required for a second engine development program. the full committee overturned our judgment of the subcommittee, providing $439 million in the coming fiscal year for the second engine. the president has singled out that engine as an example of one that he says -- quote -- "does nothing to keep us safe" -- end quote -- and has said if it's -- if the second engine is included in the bill, he will consider vetoing the bill. i do intend to work with my colleagues this week to hopefully remove the funding for the alternative engine and restore it to where it was intended to go, which was to fund the development of the joint strike fighter and to pay for 10 uh-1-y helicopters

familiarly noaa known as the hueys that were cut to pay for this program, that otherwise would go to the in accordance, both the commandant and the marine corps and the joint chiefs of staff have described as "critical" -- quote, end quote -- for our marines fighting in afghanistan. they need those 10 hueys i think the legislation and funding in the imil within the air-land subcommittee's jurisdiction and indeed in the bill in general strongly support our armed forces in a time of war and support the flexibility the department under secretary gates has requested as it charts a path to military modernization. i praised chairman leaf unin his absence-- --eleven in his. i don't want to miss the time prays him in his presence along with the leadership that he's brought to this committee and the extraordinary example of

bipartisan in the interests of our national security that chairman levin and senator mccain have demonstrated. i 0 hope my colleagues have have a lot of amendments. some will be controversial, but when it's all over and we come to adoption of the legislation, i hope with confidence that my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will give the national defense authorization act for fiscal year 2010 the resounding bipartisan support it and our military deserve. i thank you, madam president, and i yield the floor. mr. levin: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from michigan. mr. levin: very briefly, madam president, let me thank senator lieberman for all the work he's done on our committee, for coming to the floor and setting out the parts of the bill that he not only strongly supports bhu a great deal of effort that he put forth with colleagues on the complete committee to make happen. so we're grefl for that. and also -- so we're grateful

for that. and also indicating where some of the differences are on the amendments that we're going to need to consider this week. and i hope that other colleagues will come to the floor and indicate where they may be wanting to offer amendments this week so we can make progress. we're here awaiting those notices, notifications, and we would very much appreciate it. i want to thank hism i see senator nelson is on the floor. i know he'll be recognized next. but senator nelson also has a very, very critically subcommittee that he's put a huge amount of time on, and he's been invaluable as a member of our committee. mr. nelson: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator florida. mr. nelson: madam president, i'm happy to be here to support our committee work product and, madam president, we had a full complement of hearings and briefings for the members in a

very complicated area, the strategic defense systems of our national defense policy. and i had the privilege of chairing the strategic subcommittee. i want to give you just a few examples here. the whole question of missile defense, which has been so controversial over the course of the last two and a half decades -- we really had a good bit of consensus when you got down to the end on this. it's funded at the amount of the budget request by the president, and we did a little bit of rearranging from what the president had recommended but stuck basically with the theory that we will have 44 ground-based interceptors and 30

of them will be in the actual silos, so that they'll be reliable, available, and they will be effective. this has been a system where we are absolutely insisting that there is robust testing and it's testing not only a missile that would be fired at an incoming threat but that there would be a volley of them. a missile would shoot at a target. it would assess that target. and it would shoot a second missile at that target to make sure if that were an inbound icbm coming into the united states that we'd be sure that we could hit it before it ever reached its target in the united states. part of this was, we adopted an

amendment that would be part of the quadrennial defense review and the missile -- ballistic missile defense review, which both are now under way, and it would give a detailed assessment of the ground-based, mid-course defense system, and that report would also require a detailed plan for how the department of defense is going to sustain the planned ground-based missile deployment capablety and the department would -- deployment capability, and the department would provide that assessment and the plan to congress with the submission of next year's budget. at the end of the day, what we're looking for is that we've got a missile defense system that works and that we know it works in case some rogue state such as north korea or iran were to try to pull off an attack on

the united states so that we could knock that attack down. now, we've got a lot of other systems in place besides the ground-based interceptors, for example, we've got our aegis system off of ships. we've got the standard missile 3 that's land-based that on a lot of these threats coming, as i suggested, if it were from iran or from north korea, we can get them in the boost phase of their threatening missile. but this missile defense system that we're talking about, the ground-based interceptors that are in the silos in alaska and california right now, this would get them in midcourse so that when an icbm would be launched against us, if we don't get it

in its ncia initial phase, the t phase, we get it in its midcourse phase before it comes into its terminal phase -- the terminal phase would be the last part coming into the target -- and so we're going to have a layered system that's going to give us a lot of capability to protect ourselves in the future from anybody that wants to try to threaten us with an intercontinental ballistic missile. and that's a part of what we've done. the secretary of defense has said he wants 44 of these missiles. we're planning for that. but at any one time, 30 of them would be in the silos, in the ground, ready to go, knowing that if a balloon went up and that we had to strike, that we would strike with accuracy and we would strike with redundancy

in order to knock those threats out of the sky before they ever got to us. now, in other strategic systems, we want to look at the bombers. we want to make sure that we've got the future technologies that, if it is the decision of the united states government to develop a future bomber in addition to what we have now, which is the b-52's, the b-1's, and the b-2's, that we would have that capability by developing the technologies. part of our strategic systems are also our space systems. that is, the satellites in orbit that watch and listen in order to protect our national

security. and so we have funded something called "operationally responsive space," and it includes funds for a new satellite, which was not in the air force budget. it was on what they call their unfunded priority list. and so we're going to -- our recommendation is to develop that satellite, an o.r.s. number 1 satellite. and then we're looking to the future to go out for competition on developing a next-generation kind of satellite that would be a very small satellite that would be to observe but that would be a lot more economical and quicker to launch.

and we want the air force to be able to have space situational awareness information at all times, including from our commercial oarpts. we've got a lot of commercial satellites up there. well, they take a lot of pictures. well, that's of value to us in the government. to be able to use those pictures in addition to the others that we get. and we've also added funding to look at a new low-cost imaging satellite for future application. in our strategic subcommittee, we also deal in intelligence, and we've asked the department of defense to look at some of these commercial imaging satellites to utilize that information, maybe even a new kind of commercial imaging

satellite that would be capable and that would give us information and how to disseem that that information. -- and how to disseminate that information. we also, being concerned about the spread of nuclear weapons, we've requested a report on the proliferation of nuclear weapons and materials. the department of energy is a part of our strategic subcommittee, and that is the part that is involved in weapons activity. and we decided to increase their budget by $106 million to a total of $6.4 billion, and it's tockefocused on making sure thae stockpile that we have is effective, and that it is safe,

and that we continue the process under the treaties of dismantling. there is a provision that drectses the department of energy -- that directs the department of energy to carry out a stockpile life extension program to do what i had said; which is to modernize and to maintain the stockpile and to make it even safer and to do all of that without testing. and we've added additional funds for nuclear weapons laboratories to provide technical support and analysis to the intelligence community. and so there's another issue, and that is what we're going to do with some of the pensions in the department of energy

contractor-operated sites. there's another real issue, which we have addressed is what are we going to do with some of this nuclear waste, the waste from the weapons processing plants, and how do you go about making sure that that waste is safe and ultimately how it is disposed of. so, madam president, our strategic subcommittee was quite active. it's been my privilege to work with the chairman of the committee, senator levin, in what could have been a very contentious part of the defense authorization bill ended up we got very wide and very considerable bipartisan support. it's my privilege to have been a part of that. madam president, i yield the floor.

the presiding officer: the senator from michigan. mr. levin: madam president, when the senator from florida says the subcommittee has been active, it is a true understatement. there's -- it has been extremely active. it has been very creative. it has operated on a bipartisan basis under senator nelson's leadership. it's a very challenging position that he holds as that subcommittee chair because of the subject matter. i just want to thank him and commend him for all the great work that he does. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call: mr. levin: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from michigan. mr. levin: i ask unanimous consent that further proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. under the previous order, the senate will proceed to executive session to consider the following nomination, which the clerk will report. the clerk: nomination: department of commerce, robert m. groves of michigan to be

director of the census. the presiding officer: under the previous order, there will now be one hour of debate prior to a vote on the motion to invoke cloture. who yields time? mr. vitter: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from lewis lou. mr. vitter: madam president, i rise today to oppose cloture on the nomination of robert groves to be census director. madam president, as we all know, the 2010 census is right around the corner, and this is a very important process that should not be taken lightly. the census, of course, is an official count of the country's population mandated by the u.s. constitution, and it's used to determine distribution of taxpayer money through grants and appropriations and the apportionment of the 435 seats in the u.s. house of representatives. every u.s. household unit, including those occupied by noncitizens and illegal immigrants, must be counted.

now, we must take every effort to make this a fair and accurate census that's not skewed in any way by political influence or using poor materials -- statistical material. with that in mind, i have very serious concerns about some of the administration's plans for the census, particularly with regard to acorn, the association of community organization for reform now. acorn signed up in february 2009 to assist the u.s. census bureau as a national partner, and they signed up specifically to help recruit 1.4 million temporary workers needed to go door to door to count every person in the united states, and so they are a -- quote -- "2010 census partner" -- close quote -- an

official census pattern given this delineation by the u.s. census bureau. there was a very full report on this by the wall street jurnlg y "the wall street journal" just this last month in june. i have very serious concerns about this. like senator shell birk i wrote the administration asking for assurances that acorn would have no role whatsoever in the census. i believe senator shelby originally wrote his letter in march. i sent my letter in early june, and today we have gotten absolutely -- absolutely -- no response. now, let me just remind my colleagues why this should be a very serious concern of all of us, and we don't have to look far in terms of history to understand these concerns, just the last election cycle will do. in may 2009, nevada filed charges against acorn. the complaint includes 26 counts

of voter fraud and 13 counts for compensating those registering voters, both felonies. from july 27 through october 2 of 2008, acorn in nevada also provided additional compensation under a bonus program called "blackjack" or "21 plus." that was based on the total number of persons a voter registered. a canvasser who brought in 21 or more completed registration forms per shift would be paid a boins of $5. -- a bonus of $5. there are other serious complaints that have been filed against acorn. in march of 2008, an acorn worker in pennsylvania was sentenced for making 29 phony voter registration forms. 2507, washington state filed felony charges against several paid acorn employees and supervisors for more than 1,700

voter registration, 1,700 fraudulent voter registrations. i think it's fair to say that the american public does have strong concerns about acorn because of this long history of voter registration and voter fraud. and so why should this organization be signed up as an official 2010 census partner to do exactly the sort of activity of listing people, signing people up, as they did fraudulently with regard to voter registration? again, madam president, this is very, very worrisome. what's even more worrisome is that for months these clear concerns have been brought before the obama administration, and the administration has done absolutely nothing to dispel these very deep and very legitimate concerns. again, my colleague, senator shelby, who will be speaking in a moment, sent his letter in

march of this year outlining these strong concerns, asking the administration to state categorically that acorn would have nothing to do with the census. i sent a similar follow-up letter in june of this year. to date we have gotten no response. and so, as it stands now, madam president, we're going to sign up acorn to do exactly the sort of activity that they have done over and over and over again fraudulently, illegally, with regard to voter registration. it's outrageous when so much is on the line with this next very important census. for these reasons, madam president, i strongly will oppose this cloture vote for the census nominee. i hope -- i continue to urge the administration to assure us that acorn will have nothing to do with the process after they have built up a long and storied

record, unfortunately, of fraud with regard to similar activity in terms of voter registration. thank you, madam president. i yield the floor. mr. shelby: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from alabama. mr. shelby: madam president, i rise today with concern regarding the nomination of mr. robert groves to serve as director of the census. i have some of the same concerns that my colleague from louisiana has. conducting the census is a vital constitutional obligation, madam president. under the u.s. constitution, the country conducts a census every 10 years to determine apportionment to congress. article 1, section 2, of the constitution mandates -- quote -- "innumeration to determine the allocation of seats for each state in the u.s. house of representatives." as you well know. by extension, madam president, the census also determines the

composition of the electoral college which chooses the president of the united states. the information collected from the census has a significant impact on the distribution of political power in this country. the results of this process are a major factor in deciding where congressional district lines are drawn within each state. through redistricting, political parties can maximize their own party's complot while minimizing the opposition -- clout while minimizing the opposition's. the party in control could arguably perpetuate its hold on political power. madam president, the results of the census are also enormously important in another way: the allocation of federal funds. theoretically, if the census were to become politicized, the political party controlling the census process could disproportionately steer federal funding to areas dominated by

its own members through a skewing of census numbers. madam president, this could shift billions of federal dollars for roads, schools, and hospitals over the next 10 years from some parts of the country to others because of the population-driven financing formula. madam president, the census is vastly important and must proceed in -- as a reliable and accurate manner as possible. on march 20 of this year, i wreeiwrote to president obama regarding that acorn - had signd as a national partner with the u.s. census bureau to assist with recruiting temporary census workers. i want to say this again because it was disturbing to me. on march the 20th, i wrote to president obama regarding

reports that the association of community organizations for reform -- acorn -- had signed as a national partner with the u.s. census bureau to assist the census with the recruiting of temporary census workers. that letter remains unanswered. now, i cannot support the nomination of mr. groves when the administration he works for would partner with question a questionable organization as acorn. furkts i'm dismayed that mr. -- further, i'm dismayed that mr. groves, the nominee to head the u.s. census bureau, would not denounce acorn's role in the census. let me tell you a little about acorn, and i -- as i understand it. acorn has had numerous allegations fraud which would raise great concerns of the accuracy it would provide to the census, for example. washington state filed felony charges in 2007 against several

paid acorn employees and supervisors for falsifying 1,700 fraud vent voter registration card. an acorn worker in the state of pennsylvania was sentenced in 2008 for fabricating 29 falsified voter registration forms. in ohio in 2004, a worker for one affiliate of acorn was given crack cocaine in exchange for fraudulent registrations that included underaged as well as dead voters. acorn has been implicated in summer voter registration schemes around the country and its activities were frequently questioned throughout the 2008 presidential election. madam president, i believe the census must be nonpartisan. it must be totally above reproach. it must be honest. we cannot allow, i believe, a

biased, politically active organization to take any type of official role in the process, let alone recruit workers for the census. overcounting here and undercounting there, manipulation can take place solely for political gain. using acorn to mobilize hundreds of thousands of temporary workers can surely lead to abuses for those who want to gain political advantage. just as we saw with the voter registration issues in past elections. madam president, the laws that governor voter fraud were nolt enoug-- were not enough to disse those in the past. it is doubtful that the laws governing fraud in the census will be any more effective against such deceitful intentsz. the people of this nation deserve a census that is conducted in a fair and accurate manner, using the best methods to determine the outcome and that is free from political

tampering. given acorn's history and political connections, the u.s. census bureau should not partner with an organization that is had a systemic problems with both accuracicy and legitimacy. while i cannot support mr. groves' nomination, madam president, i hope he will carefully review this issue and terminate acorns role in the 2010 census. it would be a big first step for him. we must not let the census become a play tant political tool in this -- a blatant political tool in this country. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from delaware. mr. carper: madam president, this is -- you this is not about acorn. -- this is not about acorn. acorn is not going to be hired or out there recruiting folks to go door to door and to do the innumeration for the census.

acorn is going to be out there getting -- s. corn isn't going to be out there getting any money or grants. no census partners are receiving money or grants. acorn is no exception. the bureau -- census bureau has reiterated that acorn -- they're actually one of thousands of organizations. they're really -- their purpose in this whole thing is to try to he courage people to respond to the census. that's what they're about. trying to make sure that people respond to the census. we are right here in this cope o-- right here in this copy of the constitution, it lays out the responsibilities we have as a federal government. it is spelled out in the constitution. says we are expected to do this. every 10 years we are supposed to conduct a census. it says we are supposed to count everybody. we're supposed to count everybody. and we need, just like captain -- a team needs a good carnghts

a school needs a good principal, a country needs a good president, a census bureau needs a good director. we've been seven months without a census bureau director. we're supposed to turn the light switch on april 1 and do the census. it is a big deal. hundreds of thousands of people involved, years of effort, trying to make sure we count everybody as closely, as nearly as we can in a cost-effective way. and it's a constitutional requirement. the former governor of washington, was nominated literally to be secretary of commerce, census falls within the commerce department. i ran into him the day after i think his name was put out as a nominee for commerce. i said to him, i have three things i want you to think about. one, census bureau director. two, census bureau director. three, census bureau director. he said we don't have anybody, at least as far as i know.

if you have any names of folks you think would be good, let us have them. ironically a week or so later i hosted a subcommittee hearing, focused on the census, how we're getting ready for april of 2010 without a bureau director. and we had before us that day on our subcommittee we had folks who had been involved in the census in 1970, 1980, 1990 and 2000. at the end of the hearing i said to them we need somebody really good to run this operation. dr. murdoch, who had been our census bureau director for the previous year, was only with us for a year unfortunately, but we need somebody that good or maybe better. i said to the folks before us that day, by close of business this week, i want each of to you give me one or two names of who you think would be a terrific director for the census. guess whose name i got back from almost every one of our witnesses? every one of them. i got the name of robert groves. the name of robert groves.

dr. groves, in my view, is an inspired choice for this position. his extensive expertise in statistics, social research and survey method tkolg in the administration of large-scale surveys make him ideally suited for this position. he actually served once as the associate director for the census bureau, i think, was it ten years ago. about ten years ago. dr. groves knows how the agency operates, knows what its employees need and been able to successfully implement the ten-year census and other programs. those experiences have prepared him extraordinarily well to lead the census at a time when rapid developments and changes are occurring. as a manager, he's elevated the university of michigan's institute for social institute to a premier research organization. i'm an ohio state undergraduate. here i am waving a flag and

promoting a fellow from michigan. for me to do that, you know he has to be good. and this guy is terrific. i said to some of my colleagues. i've said on this floor before we're so lucky to have somebody this good to be willing to take this on at this late stage of the day and lead us to doing a good job, a great job on the census. numerous fellow and state agencies and policy-makers sought his expertise in survey design in response. dr. groves has been accessible to senators and their staff throughout this process. requests to meet with dr. groves was extended to every single member of the homeland security and governmental affairs committee here in the senate. he's also met with every senator, as far as i know, who requested a meeting regardless of committee assignment. dr. groves received two questions for the record after his hearing. they were answered within hours. not days, not weeks. within hours of the hearing's end. every senator has agreed to meet with dr. groves, as far as i know, republican and democrat alike has decided to support

him. dr. groves, or whoever is going to be our next census bureau director -- i hope it's him -- will undoubtedly face a host of operation challenges as we move closer to the 2010 census. however, i remain absolutely confident that he is well equipped, extraordinarily well equipped to understand the agency's inner workings to lead his staff, to be national spokesman for the 2010 census and equally important ongoing survey programs. somewhere here i have -- i think i have some questions that were asked of him at our hearing. let's see if i can find one of them. i don't know if it's been mentioned on the floor. i see we've been joined by senator collins who is ranking republican on our committee. i think it might have been senator collins herself who actually questioned dr. groves about sampling.

sampling as opposed to actually counting people and making sure we got things right. the census bureau has been very clear they will not adjust the 2010 census counts. census bureau's plans and design for the 2010 have been in place nor nearly a decade. operations are already underway. the bureau began to address canvassing in the spring. that's finding out what the addresses are. not necessarily who lives at those addresses, and try to automate that. the secretary of commerce reiterated that sampling is not included in the design for the 2010 census. couldn't be even if we wanted it to be. at this late stage of the game not only do we not want it to be, but it couldn't be. as to what 2020 will bring or need, it is too early to tell. first, until we know how we're going to perform in 2010 and what works best, we can't begin to dictate the design of the 2020 census. neither should we attempt to

prescribe for the future in congress in the scientific community frankly what we cannot now foresee. how much time have i consumed, madam president? the presiding officer: the senator's consumed 7 minutes. mr. carper: i would like to reserve the balance of my time. i thank you very much. and with that, i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: the presiding officer: the senator from maine. ms. collins: madam president, i rise -- first let me ask unanimous

consent that proceedings under the call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. collins: thank you, madam president. madam president, i rise in support of the nomination of dr. robert groves to be the next director of the census bureau. madam president, our committee, the homeland security and governmental fairs committee, scrutinized this nominee very carefully. i'd like to give first some background on why it's so critical that we have a well-qualified individual heading the census bureau as quickly as possible and then talk to my colleagues about why i believe dr. groves is indeed the right person for that critical position. madam president, with the 2010 census fast approaching, the director of the census bureau will need to quickly take action

to ensure an accurate actual enumeration of all those residing in the united states as set forth and required by our constitution. the census is a complex and extensive operation. the information collected has significant impact on the distribution of political power, because, after all, it governs the allocation of seats in the house of representatives and it also affects the allocation of more than $300 billion in federal resources. with so much at stake, madam president, it is essential that the results of the census be accurate, objective, credible and free from even the

appearance of political influence. the census bureau, unfortunately, faces significant operational and organizational challenges. bureau officials acknowledged in 2008 that they were experiencing critical problems in the management and testing of key information technology systems due to the leadership and investigative work of senator carper and senator coburn, our committee held numerous hearings looking at the failed procurements of the census bureau. and believe me, madam president, it has not been a pretty picture. these problems have resulted in a dramatic increase in the costs of the 2010 census, and it is particularly alarming in this day and age of technology that

millions of dollars invested by the census bureau in hand-held computers have gone to waste. the bureau in fact has returned once again to the use of paper and pencil to gather important data. isn't that extraordinary, madam president, in this day and age? it is clear that there are woefully inadequate and wasteful procurement practices and even gross mismanagement at the bureau. we simply cannot afford, madam president, to waste time and money on critical programs that do not produce results, particularly when it comes to a constitutionally mandated task like the census. the next director of the census bureau must take steps right now

to address the current shortcomings and to prepare for the current and future census challenges. he will be responsible for ensuring that the bureau fulfills its mission in accordance with the u.s. constitution without undue political influence and with careful management of taxpayer dollars. madam president, i have concluded that dr. groves is superbly well qualified for this important position. that is why our committee unanimously voted by a voice vote to confirm him. and, madam president, our committee spans the political spectrum, and all of us felt that dr. groves was well qualified for this critical

position. madam president, personally, i've had the opportunity to meet with dr. groves, to scrutinize his qualifications and background, and to question him intensively about the issues that have caused a few of my colleagues concern. and i would say to my colleagues, look at the hearing record. look at dr. groves' responses. i pressed him, as senator carper has pointed out, about the need to conduct the census free of any political influence, and i specifically asked him about the use of sampling for the 2010 and the 2020 census. dr. groves not only committed to keeping politics out of the

population count, but also said that he would resign and actively work to stop any action to improperly influence the census for political gain. he further stated under oath that he had no intention of seeking adjustment of either the 2010 or the 2020 census. let me read from the committee transcript, because i too am very concerned about this problem. there were some initial indications that this white house might in fact be looking to influence the census in an improper way, and that's why i wanted to get dr. groves on the record under oath on this important issue. and here is what i asked him:

dr. groves, would you be prepared to resign if you were asked or pressured to do something or take some action to satisfy a political concern? dr. groves responded to me -- quote -- "more than that, senator, if i resigned and i promise you today that after i resigned, i would be active in stopping the abuse from outside the system." end quote. in other words, madam president, dr. groves told me that if political pressure were put on him, that he would not only resign, he would go public and he would leave the fight -- he would lead the fight to protect the census from undue political influence. he committed to a transparent census process, sng