the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut. mr. lieberman: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that

further proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. lieberman: i thank the chair. mr. president, it's my honor now to rise as chairman of the homeland security and governmental affairs committee to speak on behalf of s. 679, the presidential appointment efficiency and streamlining act of 2011, and i do so with great gratitude toward senator alexander, who is here now on the floor; senator schumer, and others who worked together to clear away procedural obstacles to focusing on this piece of legislation. this is a noble effort that's been tried before and failed, but i'm confident that this time, with the support of our leaders, really our bipartisan leadership -- senator reid,

senator mcconnell, senator alexander, senator schumer, not to mention senator collins and me, in our committee role -- we're going to get this passed. this is a bipartisan effort to solve a problem, or at least help solve part of a problem that's been growing for a long time in washington in our government, certainly since the kennedy administration, which is that it takes too long for an incoming president and a sitting president to get his team in place, and there are too many vacancies throughout the course of an administration. as i'll indicate during my remarks, the average is 25%, one-quarter of the positions in the administration are empty at any one time because of the length of the process, the delays that occur in the executive branch, the white house and here in the senate. and this is a direct attempt to try to lessen that problem. one of my favorite descriptions

of it, of our current nomination and confirmation process, i've used this so often, i have actually forgotten who said it. the occupant of the chair may have, described the current nomination process as -- quote -- "nasty and bruteish without being short." end of quote. hopefully this will make the process at least less nasty and brutish and shorter as well. 100 days into president obama's administration, only 14% of the full-time senate-confirmed positions in his administration had been filled. only 14%. and after 18 months, 25% of key policy-making positions were still vacant. this is not an unusual circumstance. presidents clinton and george w. bush faced similar difficulties. it's a problem that does have,

however, a serious national and economic security complication because crucial office -- implication because crucial offices go unfilled for months. president bush did not have his national security team, including critical subcabinet officials, confirmed and on the job until at least six months after he took office. the 9/11 commission pointed out how dangerous 0 this was and recommended steps to speed up the process for national security appointments, some of which were adopted as part of the 9/11 commission act of 2004. at the height of the financial crisis that we're still working our way out of, secretary of the treasury geithner was actually home alone with no other senate-confirmed positions at the treasury department filled for over three months. that's an outrageous result.

so what would the bill before the senate now do? it would eliminate the need for senate confirmation of about 200 positions out of about 1,200 that now need senate confirmation. of these 200 positions, most of them are in the area of legislative and public affairs, internal management positions such as chief financial officers who report to others up the chain of command, directors, commissioners or administrators at or below the assistant secretary level who, again, report to another senate-confirmed official. and the members of a number of part-time advisory boards which under the current state of law have to go through full vetting and then full senate consideration and confirmation. the proposal before us is not by any means a radical proposal. removing these positions from

the need for senate confirmation would free up both the senate and future administrations to concentrate more fully on the nominations for those key positions where public policy is really made. mr. president, i want to note again the bipartisan nature of these proposals. in january, majority leader reid and minority leader mcconnell decided that the nomination and confirmation process had become too slow and cumbersome. that's in january, of course, of this year. they established a working group on executive nominations and asked leaders schumer and sal san tker to be in charge -- schumer and alexander to be in charge of that. senator collins and i were also privileged to be part of that group. the reforms proposed by senators schumer and alexander and our group have been carefully

crafted, and i can't thank them enough both for their legislative intellectual work on this, but also for sticking with it right to this moment. they introduced their legislation on march 30. that's schumer and alexander, with a bipartisan group of 15 cosponsors. and on april 13, our homeland security governmental affairs committee, again on a bipartisan vote, reported the bill favorably to the senate. senators schumer and alexander are also proposing an important senate resolution, s. res 116, that would streamline the confirmation process for approximately 200 other presidential appointments that receive senate confirmation by allowing their nominations to bypass the committee process and come directly to the senate floor as long as no senator objects. this is a really important companion proposal.

so if all goes well, we'll have 400 of the current 1,200, that is about a third of the current nominations requiring full senate consideration, senate proposal, committee consideration, et cetera, to be in a different status. these 200 that will be the subject of second-degrees 1616 -- subject of s. res 116 would come from bipartisan federal advisor groups and councils like the social security advisory board and the i.r.s. advisory board. this is the way the senate should work. the problem is identified. both sides of the aisle worked together to craft a solution and then bring it to the floor for debate. hopefully it's a model of what we can and should do in a lot of other areas that are pressing, not just on the senate but on the country and the people of

the country. on march 2, senator collins and i -- speaking a bit more detail -- held a hearing which we called eliminating the bottle neck, streamlining the nominations process. we heard from a group of former executive, white house officials, both parties, and from some experts in the private sector. they made a compelling case for change. when president kennedy and -- here's some of what we learned. when president kennedy entered office in 1961, there were 850 senate-confirmed positions that the president had to fill. by the time president george w. bush took office, that had increaseed to 1,143. and when president obama was sworn in, obviously just eight years later, it was already up to 1,215.

not surprisingly, with more positions, it take longer to fill them. the delay is not fortunately at the cabinet level. between 1997 and 2005, it took presidents an average of only 17 days from the time of a vacancy to nominate a cabinet secretary and the senate an average of just 16 days to confirm the nominee. but it set the critical subcabinet level where things slow to a crawl. it took presidents an average of 95 days -- of course more than three months -- to nominate deputy cabinet secretaries, and the senate another two months to confirm them. now we're up to tpaoeufl months for deputy cabinet members, which are critical to the functioning of their departments. noncabinet agency heads waited an average of 173 days for a

nomination and 63 additional days for confirmation. so you're up to over 230 days, over seven months, approaching eight months. noncabinet agency deputy heads fared even worse. an average of 301 days before nomination and 82 days before confirmation. so that's more than a year to go through this process. while those offices are effectively unfilled and the people's business is not being done. part of the problem here is that a large number of appointments that need to be made at the outset of an administration can overwhen many the resources available -- whoefrpl the resources available -- overwhelm the resources available to vet these nominees. eliminating the policy for

lower-level positions should allow an incoming administration and the senate as well as the f.b.i. and the office of government ethics, which do the vetting, to focus on the more policymaking positions, speeding up the process. another problem contributing to the delay are the numerous duplicative and time-consuming forms that potential nominees are required to fill out. most nominees actually submit to at least four reviews, each represented by a separate packet of government forms, including a white house personnel data statement, questionnaires from the f.b.i., office of government ethics and at least one questionnaire from the senate committee of jurisdiction. very interesting study done by professor terry sullivan at the university of north carolina found that half the questions asked for each nominee are

redundant. they're repetitive. this act would establish, therefore, an executive branch working group to study and report to the president and congress the best ways to streamline all this paperwork along with a detailed plan for creating and implementing a smart reform. for instance, an electronic system for collecting and distributing background information for nominees requiring senate confirmation. with a smart form like this, a nominee could answer a question once, the information would be filled in for all the relevant forms. the need for reforms in the federal appointments process is not a new topic. over the past three decades arcs number of -- an abundance of commissions, think tanks, government-government groups and individual academics have turned their sights on this problem. at this point i'm going to enter

this next part of my statement in the record without reading it both because it's long and because i don't want to depress those who are listening. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. lieberman: thank you. thank you, mr. president. let me go on to a substantive part here, which is a question that seems to be of concern to some of our colleagues, which is : is the senate, in limiting like 200, and in some sense limiting another 200, giving away its power to advise and consent? i say the answer is a resoundin. let me read from article 2 of the constitution. i quote -- "the president shall nominate and by and with the advice and consent of the senate shall appoint ambassadors, other

officers of the united states whose appointments are herein otherwise provided for and which shall be established by law, but the congress -- and i depart from the quote -- this is crucial, mr. president, the congress back to the quote may by law vest the appointment of such inferior officers as they think proper in the president alone, in the courts of law or in the heads of departments, end of quote. and the very first congress in which, of course, many of the framers of our constitution sat did precisely what they authorized in the constitution when they created the state department, which was then called the department of foreign affairs. the secretary, a man by the name of thomas jefferson, was subject to senate confirmation, but the legislation creating the department also called for the

hiring of a chief clerk who would be second in command, essentially a deputy. that position was not subject to confirmation, and jefferson hired a man named henry remson who held the same job under the previous articles of confederation. so right from the beginning, from the founding fathers, the drafters of the constitution, it was clear that they understood there had to be limits on the number of offices that the senate would be called on to advise and consent to. incidentally, mr. president, it's also worth noting that i think the first congress on a single day in 1789, the united states senate took up 102 nominations sent to it by president washington just two days earlier and approved them all but one. needless to say, president washington complained about the one nominee who the senate did

not confirm. but washington obviously acknowledged as the father of our country was unique and no president, appropriately, i would say, has received exactly that kind of deference since. the nomination's process can be a rough-and-tumble one, and that's to be expected under our separation of powers. this legislation, however, i want to emphasize does nothing to change that. in fact, i want to argue that this legislation enhances the senate's authority regarding advice and consent by enabling us to focus our energies on the qualifications of those who would shake national policy. if we don't fix this system -- which almost everybody regards as broken -- i think we risk what's already begun to happen, which is that some of our

nation's most talented people will simply not accept nominations for these important positions because of the time involved, the redundancy involved, and they will go unfilled. there has been a lot of work done to support this effort, including some from former colleagues of ours, including senator bill frist and chuck robb and former white house officials clay johnson from the bush administration and mack mclarty from the clinton administration who they have headed up a bipartisan commission to reform the federal appointments process and they have all endorsed this bill, as well as s. res. 116, and so, too, has the partnership for public service. i know that there is a natural tendency nong all the reasons that everybody understands to limit the number of nominees that come before the senate for advice and consent.

that you come to that moment where individual chairs of committees and ranking members don't want to yield what seems to be any authority, but honestly, this is not -- this is not an authority worth fighting to retain, and it really works against the general functioning of the senate, against the functioning of our government and in my opinion actually undercuts the vitality of the advice and consent clause. so i call on my fellow chairman, ranking members and of course all our colleagues on both sides of the aisle to vote yes on this legislation so future presidents can recruit the best nominees to serve us and the senate can make sure that it does its full job under the advice and consent clause to investigate and confirm them before they take office and deal with the nation's business. as always, i have been tristled on the committee to be working with senator collins as my ranking member. mr. chairman, i would yield to

her at this ms. collins: mr. president, i would suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: ms. collins: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from maine. ms. collins: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that proceedings under the call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. collins: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i'm delighted to join with the chairman of the

homeland security committee, my dear friend, senator lieberman, in rising today in support of the presidential appointment efficiency and streamlining act of 2011. first, let me join senator lieberman in commending senators schumer and alexander for their leadership on this bill. senator alexander in particular has worked so hard on this issue. in fact, i am convinced that we would not be where we are today without his persistent leadership. he deserves great credit for his patience and his dogged determination to bring this bill and this issue to the floor.

senators reid and mcconnell also deserve great credit. they made the commitment in january to make reform of the nominations process a priority, and finally i want to recognize senator lieberman, the chairman of the committee, on which i have the privilege of being the ranking member. he and i have also been part of what has truly been a bipartisan effort to craft this bill. this is an effort that we need to see more often in the senate, mr. president, if we are to tackle and actually solve the many problems facing our nation. the bill before us addresses shortcomings in the process of confirming presidential appointees without diminishing

the constitutional roles of the president or of the senate. the fact is, mr. president, this is a very modest bill that takes limited but much-needed steps to reform the confirmation process. when you look at the full-time positions that now require senate confirmation, this bill would eliminate only approximately 85 full-time positions, a truly modest number. these positions were selected because either they do not have significant policy making authority or funding responsibilities or report directly to a senate-confirmed official. to be clear, not included in these numbers are almost 3,000

officer corps position that is would no longer require senate confirmation under this bill, but let me quickly explain exactly what those officer positions are, because when many people hear the word officer positions, they're going to think the department of defense and that would raise the issue of civilian control, of the military. let me say these are not military or department of defense positions. rather, they are members of the public health service and the national oceanic and atmospheric administration score -- corps of the department department of co. apart from these officer corps positions, more than 83% of all

currently confirmed positions and more than 90% of all the full-time positions will continue to require senate approval under this bill. let me emphasize that again, mr. president, because unfortunately there is some misinformation about this bill. more than 90% of the full-time positions in the federal government that have required senate confirmation will continue to require senate approval under our bill. furthermore, nothing in this bill limits the ability of congress to create new senate-confirmed positions in the future. it may be that there is a new

department created someday or a new position that is very important. the senate can choose to exercise its will to make those new positions subject to senate confirmation. the companion standing order reported by the rules committee proposes that some additional 240 positions go through a new, expedited confirmation process. although that resolution is not now before us, it will be, i hope, shortly after we con clued our work on this bill, so i want to explain just briefly what the process would be under that process. that expedited process would still require nominees to respond to all committee questionnaires and would still

provide the opportunity for closer scrutiny of a nominee if requested by a single senator, any senator. mr. president, the confirmation process must be thorough enough for the senate to exercise its constitutional duty, but it should not be so onerous as to deter qualified people from public service, particularly when they are being asked to serve as a part-time member of an advisory board. a letter from three of our former colleagues, one a house member, two senators, really put it well. the bipartisan policy center in endorsing this bill sent us a letter that is signed by former congressman and secretary of

agriculture dan glickman, senator pete domenici and senator trent lott who, of course, served as the majority leader of the senate, and here's what they said and here's what we heard over and over again at the hearing that senator lieberman and i conducted before our committee. this is the bipartisan policy center's conclusion. many public-spirited people are discouraged from serving an appointed office because of the length and the extreme adversarial nature of the confirmation process. mr. president, this is an issue that the committee on homeland security and governmental affairs has been working to address for a long time. in fact, in 2001, when senator

fred thompson chaired the committee, we held two hearings focusing on the state of the presidential appointment process, and as a result of those hearings, the committee reported favorably reformed legislation, and a few of the provisions of that bill were later incorporated into the intelligence reform and terrorism prevention act of 2004, which i along with senator lieberman authored. let me give our colleagues some more background, some of which has been covered by the chairman of the committee. but i think it is important to repeat to counter some misimpressions about this bill that somehow it undermines our constitutional obligations. in fact, the constitution in the

appointments clause makes the appointment of senior federal executive officers a joint responsibility of the president and the senate. the president determines who, in his judgment, is best qualified to serve in the most senior and critical positions across the executive branch of our government. then we, the senate, exercise our independent judgment to determine if these nominees have the necessary qualifications and character to serve our nation in these important positions of public trust. but at the same time, mr. president, the constitution envisions the appointment of lesser officers by the president alone. specifically, the constitution

provides that -- and i'm going to quote -- "congress may, by law, vest the appointment of such inferior officers as they think proper in the president alone in the courts of law or in the heads of departments." end quote. so that process is spelled out in the constitution. the national commission on the public service, commonly known as the volcker commission, has gathered some very illuminating statistics. they differ a bit from some of the statistics that the chairman has given you, but what they -- because he's using c.r.s. -- but what they show is the enormous

increase in the number of positions that are now subject to senate confirmation and approval. when president kennedy came to office, he had just 286 positions to fill that had the titles of "secretary," "deputy secretary,," "under secretary," "snrants secretary"senate secred "administrator." there were only 286 when president kennedy assumed office. by the end of the clinton administration, there were 913 positions with those titles. and today, according to the congressional research service, there are between 1,200 and 1,400 positions in total that are appointed by the president

that require the advice and consent of the senate. too often that large number of positions requiring confirmation leads to long delays in vetting, nominating and confirming these appointees. and i would also point out, mr. president, that there is a great expense that goes along with this process. having an f.b.i. background check is expensive. having our congressional investigators do their own vetting process is expensive. and many a nominee will tell you how expensive it is for the nominee to go through this process. the result of the length of this process is that administrations can go for months without key

officials in these many agencies, and that's why, mr. president, you'll find there is bipartisan support from previous administrations urging us to finally tackle this issue. the 9/11 commission found that at the subcabinet level there were significant delays in the confirmation of key officials, particularly at the department of defense in 2001. it was not until six months after president bush took office that he had his national security team in place. our enemies take note of that fact. that's what the 9/11 commission found. and it creates a national security vulnerability that terrorists can and have exploited. we've seen that in the united states. we've seen that in madrid.

that when there is a change in administration it is a particularly difficult time, particularly if we don't have our appointees in place. as i have mentioned, senators schumer and alexander have been the bipartisan authors of this bill, which has been cosponsored not only by senator lieberman and myself but by members of the leadership of the senate on both sides of the aisle. but i believe that of all members of the working group, senator alexander may have the best perspective. in fact, i believe he does have the best perspective. because he's one of the few members of the senate who has served as a cabinet secretary and as a senator. he has endured the nominations process himself, and i'm sure he'll explain what he went through in his comments later.

but he will talk about how long it was, that it was nine months before he had a chief financial officer, took him six months, i believe, to be confirmed, and he couldn't get his team in place because the process was so bogged down. the nominations reform bill we take up today removes only 203 positions out of an estimated 1,200 to 1,400 from the senate confirmation requirement, and most of those positions are part-time advisory board members. i would ask my colleagues, should the senate really spend its time and its resources confirming 10 part-time members of the national institute for

literacy advisory board? now, i'm not in any way denigrating the way work o works board on the people who are willing to serve on it, i'm just suggesting, mr. president, that i don't think that board requires our confirmation. what about the national board of education sciences or the national museum and library sciences board, which has 20 part-time members, all of whom have to be confirmed by the senate? and, again, i would point out that there is a cost involved for my colleagues, and that involves everyone here, who are concerned about the amount of money we're spending in the federal government. there's a cost to an f.b.i.

background investigation. there's a cost to our staff having a -- having a sufficient number of staff to go out and do the kind of background checks and vetting that we do. there's a cost to the nominees involved, who have to fill out all these forms, who have to be very careful that they are divesting themselves of certain assets, and it makes sense for the office of government ethics, which already has a system in place to check for those kind of conflicts, to not have its work duplicated, and that's happens now far too often. this legislation will free the senate and enable us to focus on those nominees whose jobs are absolutely critical to our nation. who do have significant policy responsibility, who do have

significant control over federal funds. and that will make a difference. it will also enable the senate to spend more time on the critical work of how can we best create more jobs in this country, how can we reduce our unsustainable $14 trillion debt, how can we strengthen our homeland security, and how can we conduct more effective oversight at the executive branch? isn't it a better use of our time to be holding oversight hearings to examine the enormous duplication that the government accountability office has found across government that wastes hundreds of millions, perhaps billions, of taxpayer dollars rather than spending our time

worrying about the confirmation of 20 part-time members of the national museum and library sciences -- or services board? over the years, mr. president, our committee has continued to hear from experts on the executive nominations process. in april of this year, we received a letter from the bipartisan commission to reform the federal appointments process, which is chaired by our former colleagues, senators frist and roth, as well as we've heard from the former director of presidential personnel from the bush administration, clay johnson, the former chief of staff for the clinton administration, mack mccollarty, and they've wrote -- and i think it puts it well, that most everyone agrees that

the federal appointments process is broken. they underscored that the bill before us will help the next administration to put in place very early in its first year the people that the new department heads need to get off to a fast start, working effectively with congress. mr. president, i hope that we can agree to undertake the modest reforms that we have included in this bill. i hope that we do not let this legislation and the rules committee resolution get caught up in the turf battles and the power struggles that too often sink good government initiatives in this body. this bill is a step in the right

direction and a step that we should take together by an overwhelming margin. mr. president, at this point, i would ask unanimous consent, if they've not already been entered into the record, for letters endorsing the bill from the bipartisan policy center, the partnership for public service, the -- from senator fred thompson, from former defense secretary frank carlucci, and from former senators bill frist and chuck robb to be entered into the record. i thank you, mr. president. and i thank my cleesmghts. the presiding officer: without objection. the senator from tennessee. mr. alexander: i want to thank the distinguished senator from maine and from connecticut for

their comments, not just for today but for their work for nearly a decade on this issue. this is hard slogging work in the united states senate. it is not easy to do. it is not one bit glamourous. but it makes the senate a more effective institution. and if we're more effective, then we can deal better with our debt rs then we can deal better with libya, then we can deal better with creating jobs, then we can earn more respect from the people who elect us. so i thank them for their leadership. i thank senator mcconnell, senator reid for creating the environment in which this can happen. and i thank all of the colleagues, many of whom did not exercise all of their rights, and allowed the bill to come to the floor in this agreement by unanimous consent. we haven't had this privilege very often in the senate. it is a good way for the senate to work, it is the right way for the senate to work. what it means is that over the next day or two, however long it takes, senators may bring their relevant amendments to the floor and they may call them up

without asking unanimous consent to set aside a pending amendment. and then we'll have a debate and then we'll vote on them. when we're through voting, we'll vote on the bill. i would encourage my colleagues to prepare to bring their amendments to the floor. i'm going to defer my remarks until this afternoon when senator schumer, the chairman of the rules committee, will come to the floor at 2:40. and i'll speak following him, and we'll talk about the resolution, which is the other half of the bill. but this is legislation about making senate oversight, senator lieberman said more effective, not less effective. it's about putting a stop to the trivializing of our constitutional duty for advise and consent. it's about ending the phenomenon of innocent until nominated which is what happens to distinguished citizens of this country who are asked to serve

for the federal government, to their great horror discover they're heading through a maze of conflicting forms and questionnaires until finally they're drug before a try pwhaoeurpbl in the senate and -- tribunal in the senate and made out to be a criminal, when they thought they were an upstanding citizen having served in their home towns for a long time. we should stop that business. and every administration in recent years has asked us to do it. so this is the right thing to do. it's a modest step but an important step. it's a signal that we can do our business well and that we can treat american citizens with respect and that we can focus our attention where it needs to be focused and not focus our attention where it's not. senator collins mentioned there are several thousand public health officers and others who are now confirmed by the united states senate. that's the rough equivalent of confirming forest rangers or

staff members of the senate or agriculture extension officers. they're all valuable positions, but did our founders expect that we would be sending the f.b.i. to ask whether they live beyond their means or not before they get their job? of course not. so we're going to end up with really about 1,200 nominations of the president to whom we need to devote advise and consent, one indication of why it's so necessary to do this is nobody can really tell us how many presidential appointments there are that need advise and consent. the congressional research service first said 1,200. then when our staffs began looking at it, it's more like 1,400. and then the last congress, how many of these advise and consent important positions actually deserve a roll call vote?

3%. so we only had time to give a roll call vote to 3% of the men and women whom we have decided need the extraordinary constitutional process of advise and consent. we need to elevate the advise and consent process back to where it ought to be, do our jobs correctly, treat people who are nominated by the president with dignity, hope that the president can staff his government appropriately so we don't have, as senator collins said, six months while we wait to get the president's defense team in place. that's partly the president's own fault, but it's partly our fault. we need to work together and have a process in this bill where we will work together to try to speed that up. i'm glad i had the opportunity to hear senator lieberman and senator collins. this is not the first time they've tried to do this, but they will succeed in doing this because they have broad bipartisan support in an era of

cooperation within the senate. we'll have some debates. we still have some disagreements about which position should be in and which position should be out. but that's why we have relevant amendments. that's why we bring them up. that's why we vote on them. that's why we'll eventuallydom a final -- eventually come to a final vote on the bill. mr. lieberman: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut. mr. lieberman: i thank our friend and colleague from tennessee for his statement. even more for the hard work he's done along with senator schumer; the hard work, the steadfast work, without which we wouldn't be on the floor right now. and senator collins and i both agree that this, this is one of those rare cases where i wouldn't say we gave up, but we were beginning to grow pessimistic about our capability to achieve these reforms. and it's unusual for us because we're usually so stubbornly

persistent. but senator alexander, you and senator schumer working with the encouragement and blessing of the two leaders -- senator reid and senator mcconnell -- have really put us in a position to get this done. it would be a real step forward. so i thank you for it. obviously the work begins now. the floor is open for debate. and as of 3:00 for amendment. if either of my colleagues don't have anything more to say, mr. president, i would suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

recognized. a senator: i ask the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. politburo hoeven: thank you, mr. president. i rise to speak today to call attention to my home state of

north dakota where we have terrible flooding occurring. we have flooding today on the souris river. the community of minot is now in the process of evacuating more than 11,000 people from their homes. in truth, we have had tremendous challenges with flooding all spring throughout the state of north dakota -- the red river valley, the cheyenne river valley, james river valley, around devil's lake, the missouri river, up and down the missouri, other points throughout western north dakota, and today it's in north central north dakota. the souris river is flooding, not only in the community of minot but also communities upstream to the north, small communities, counties, rural areas and downstream as well, creating real hardship for our citizens. and so as i speak more than 11,000 people are leaving their homes in and around the

community of minot. the minot community is about something over 40,000 people, so somewhere between a third and a fourth of our citizens in that community in the region are being displaced from their homes and their businesses, and our thoughts and our prayers go out to all of them. and at the same time, we must do all we can to help them, both now and at this time of need but also in the days coming as we go forward. minot and the region have been in this flood fight for some time. in fact, together with the corps of engineers, with the national guard, with local contractors, with the local officials, state support, the federal agencies, corps of engineers, the citizens have been fighting a battle against flooding for months this spring, and they built up their defenses. they built levees along the

river, the souris river that flows through the minot community and through the region. they built those levees up to an elevation of 1,556. so they have built levees and dikes along the river. in addition, years ago, the community, in fact, leveed a sales tax on itself to help build dams in canada. rafferty dam and alameda dam to try to have permanent flood control in place. so this is a community and this is a region of our state that has worked very hard using its own local dollars, along with state and federal sources to build permanent flood protection, dams in canada, as well as levees along the river. those defenses have stood for more than 30 years and protected the community and the region from flooding, but this time they are not enough. as i say, the elevation is about

1,556 on those levees along the river, and it looks like the crests will be 1,563, seven or maybe ten-feet higher than the levees provide the fence. so that means that people have to leave their homes and their businesses and their property. ironically, just three weeks ago, with the projections that we had at that time, roughly 10,000 to 11,000 people were forced to leave their homes at that time, but fortunately the crest came in lower than was projected, and with the work they were able to do on the levees, raising the levees yet again, they were able to keep the waters within the banks of the souris river, so people were able to return to their homes and their property was not damaged. but unfortunately that is not the case now, and already the water is rising to the very tops of the levees, and as i say, the

crest is projected to be well above those levees. so the first part must be to keep people safe, protect lives, protect people. the mayor is working with local officials and our governor, the national guard is there on the order of 500 national guardsmen are helping with this evacuation process, local law enforcement, fire, emergency responders, they are all engaged, and we truly appreciate their help and their efforts. minot air force base, a major air force base for our nation is located right near the community. i think there are on the order of 12,000 or more people that live at that air force base. some of the airmen and women that are stationed at that base, of course, live in the community and those men and women of the air force are helping the community. minot air force base is providing a place for shelter,

for our citizens and providing help, and i have spoken with the air force officials and we truly appreciate their help with manpower, with transportation and with shelter. also, minot state university, a local university, is providing shelter for people that need it in the community, and we have the relief organizations there as well, the red cross, the salvation army and others. and, of course, in addition to all of that, we have citizens helping each other, and that is truly the north dakota way, and they're doing a fine job. as a matter of fact, in the recent evacuation that i mentioned just several weeks ago, even though more than 10,000 people were evacuated, very few ended up staying in the shelters because friends, family, caring people in the community and the ronald provided a place for so many to stay. and, of course, we know that that will happen again as people open up their homes to help

others in a time of need. but clearly, more help will be needed, and help with recovery will be needed as well, and so that means homeland security, that means fema, that means the other federal agencies as well. many homes and many businesses will be flooded, and those homes and businesses will be likely in floodwaters until into july, and so that assistance will be very much needed, very much required. so that means things -- programs like public assistance and individual assistance through fema to help with public infrastructure that's damaged, to help individual homeowners with damage to their homes will be necessary along with flood insurance, s.p.a. disaster assistance for businesses because this flood is right through the very central part of the community so it affects not

just homes and property but many businesses as well, and of course it will affect public infrastructure. to that end, i'm already meeting with the director of fema, craig fugate this afternoon. we must be committed to that process to help all we can, both in this flood fight and in the ensuing recovery. it's been a real challenge this year as you look around the country, as you look around our state, the flooding i described here in minot but throughout our state and as you look around the country with flooding, up and down the missouri, up and down the mississippi and you look at the tornadoes and now the fires that are occurring in the southwest. this really has been a tough year. it's a challenging year. and so we need to pull together and we need to help each other, and i know we will because that's the american way. that's the way we have always

done it, and i know that we'll be there to help each other, to help our citizens in minot, in the minot region, throughout the state of north dakota, but in other places around the country as well. as i say, that's the american way, and we will prevail in this endeavor. i thank you, mr. president, for the time. at this time i yield the floor. also i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: the

senator from wyoming. mr. enzi: thank you, mr. president. i'd ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be lifted. the presiding officer: without objection, the senator from wyoming is recognized. mr. enzi: thank you, mr. president. and i know the issue before us is to change the way the nominations are handled a little bit. i wanted to express my appreciation nor that -- for that act and ask my colleagues to support it. a number of the nominations that come through the health and human services committee. i've been the chairman that have committee. i i'm now the ranking member. i've had times when 250 appointments come through at one time. there's no way to check on any of them. there hasn't been much interest

on checking on many of them anyway. so it is kind of a waste of time to have to take that through a committee process and then through a floor process. this bim would eliminate that -- this bill would eliminate that need and would do that to a number of other offices. but a really important part is there is a provision in here that if there is anybody, even one of those 350 that we have no information on that somebody wants to go through the regular order, there is the ability for them to ask for it to go through the regular order. so nobody is getting a free ride in this bill. anybody that has a concern over anybody that the president appoints has the leverage to be able to take a look at that person and to voice their comments and to have it considered in the regular order. so i don't see any damage done to our system, and i do see a great capability for us to be more productive. and that's what i'd like to seekers and so i'd ask everybody to -- and that's what i'd like to seekers and so i'd ask

everybody to support the bill. i yield the floor and suggest the absence of quo erm. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: esiding officer: the

senator from new york. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent that the quorum be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection, th the senator from w york is recognized. mr. schumer: thank you, mr. president. first i rise in support of s. 679, a bipartisan effort that will streamline presidential appointments and reduce the number of senate confirmations for certain types of positions and urge my colleagues to support this bill. first i want to praise my colleague and friend, senator alexander, who has been a leading, if not the leading force in this area, and we have worked together well in a bipartisan way to try to come up with a proposal that meets the agreement of the chamber.

he's done a great job and it's been a pleasure, i would sty my friend from tennessee, to work with hirnlings as it always is. -- to work with him, as it always s i also want to thank, of course, senator reid, who has encouraged us to get involved in this process and has been right there with us all the way, as well as republican leader mcconnell, who, again, has from the beginning been on our side and agreed that this is a worthwhile thing to do. and so we formed a bipartisan working group at senator reid and senator mcconnell's behest to try and figure out how to reduce the number of presidential appointments that require senate confirmation and to create new procedures to confirm the pace of confirmation for executive branch nominees as part of an overall reform of the senate rules. senators alexander, lieberman, collins, and i, in conjunction with the leaderreds, worked

closely to develop this bill and the accompanying resolution which we'll turn to immediately after the bill. throughout this entire process, we've partnered with folks from both sides of the aisle and many have significantly contributed to this process. this package is an essential piece of the bipartisan rules reform we began at the star staf congress and senators lieberman and collins have had a lot of experience in this regard. they have tried it before and their advice to us has been invaluable as w now, the senate was designed to be a thoughtful and deliberative body. but the confirmation process is often slowed to a near standstill. this legislation will clear some of the more noncontroversial positions so the senate can focus on its constitutional advise and consent power as it was intended to confirm the most important positions. the bill is not intended to take away or diminish the senate's advise and consent power. the power will remain and still be used for the confirmation of

senior policy-making appointments. the purpose of this legislation is to help the senate function better and more efficiently. rather than spending time in committee and on the floor confirming nominees who have part-time appointments, nonpolicy-making responsibilities, or who directly report to senate-confirmable individuals, we can alleviate ourselves of this burden and make these individuals nonconfirmable. with that said, i recognize that some of our chairmen would like to see certain positions remain civel. we are continuing to work with them on their concerns and we want to be flexible, and we will be working with some of the senators from both sides of the aisle who have voiced some objections and think the list is too large. however, we also want to avoid the hollowing out of this bill so that it no longer represents real reform. over the past few decades, hundreds of these positions have been created which have contributed to a clogging of the senate and a delay in getting

good midlevel candidates in place. the blil eliminate from senate confirmation 200 executive nomination positions t covers several categories of positions, including legislative and public affairs positions, information technology administrators, internal management and administrative positions, and deputies or nonpolicy-related assistant secretaries who report to individuals who are senate-confirmable. aviadditionally, we've removed several positions from the national oceanic officer corps from the confirmation process. these positions are noncontroversial and their reform will further prevent the possibility from gridlock. removing these positions from the senate confirmation process will allow a new administration to be set up with more efficiency and speed, thus making government work better for the people. the public should not be harmed

because we're not able to get qualified people confirmed in a timely manner. the bill will also create a working group that will provide recommendations to the president and the senate to further improve the confirmation process. the group will focus on offering guidance and the paperwork process for nominees through examining the creation of a single, searchable electronic smart form and will also conduct a review with the current background investigation requirements. in conclusion, this will help make the confirmation process less tedious for nominees by preventing them from having to submit the same information in several different forms to several entities. the bill was successfully passed by the homeland security and government affairs committee, and s. res. 116, which we'll return to immediate lid after this bill, was marked up in the rules committee unanimously. we're confident that this bill, in conjunction with the resolution, will eliminate many of the delays in the current confirmation process.

in conclusion, these delays are very detrimental to the efficient operation of government and to the efforts to recruit the most qualified people to these federal jobs. the public deserves for us to focus our deliberation on confirming the most important positions and not to hold up those generally noncontroversial positions which more closely resemble appointments that are currently made without senate approval. i yield the floor and i know my colleague, senator alexander, will speak next. mr. alexander: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee is recognized. mr. alexander: i want to recognize senator schumer for his diligent work on this effort to help the senate do a better job with its responsibilities of advise and consent. as the chairman of the rules committee, he and i have been working together at the direction of senator reid and senator mcconnell to come up with a consensus about how to do this and our colleagues, all 100, have agreed that we can move on to the bill and debate

any relevant amendment, which hasn't happened very often around here and is exactly the way the senate ought to work. so i thank senator shiewm for taking on this -- so i thank senator schumer for taking on this task. it is one that hopefully will make the senate more effective. if it is more effective, we can do a better job of dealing with the debt, of helping to make it easier and cheaper to create private-sector jobs, of coming up with an energy policy that helps us find more american energy and use less, and that gains respect from the american people who have given us the privilege of serving here. i start this discussion with our constitution, which the late-senator byrd used to suggest we should carry with us all around. perhaps the most celebrated constitutional duty of the united states senate is our responsibility to advise and

consent. it's in section 2, article 2, of the constitution. it talks about the president there, but he says, "he shall have the power by and with the advice of the senate to make treaties and to do other things, to appoint a number of people." but it also says, "the congress may, by law, vest the appointment of such inferior officers as they think proper. in the president av alone, in te courts of law or in the heads of departments." so this discussion, mr. president, is about that part of our constitutional responsibility. deciding what inferior officers should be vested the a-- the appointment of which should be vested in the president alone or in heads of department. i'll talk more about that in a moment, but there are really two major -- three major goals of this legislation.

one was -- one is to stop the trivializing of the constitutional duty of advise and consent. we're advising and consenting on so many presidential nominations that the president isn't able to spend as much time as he should on getting them to us rapidly. it's slowing down the organization of government. we, in turn, are not able to spend as much time as we should reviewing the qualifications of the really important officers of the government that the president needs to appoint, and we're not serving ourselves well. we're trivializing the constitutional duty of advise and consent. the second thing we're doing -- and this -- and in this, the executive, the president of the united states ands, and the congress are equal will to blame. we create an environment that i

would describe as being until nominated. in which we -- as being innocent until nominated. in which we take some self-respecting united states citizen. the president invites this emto come take a position in the federal government of honor and dignity. and suddenly they find themselves emersed in a -- immersed in a series of duplicative interrogations in which they must fill out forms that define words "income" in different ways, all of which seems signed to eventually lead them before a senate committee, not to really assess their qualifications for the job but to see if they can be trapped and turn into an apparent criminal. in other words, they're innocent nominated. every former administration officials in recent memory has come to us and said we need to work together, number one, to stop the trivializing of the

senate's advise and consent spent. and, two, to do something about the syndrome of innocent until nominated. and finally, this legislation, which, as i said, has been moved to the floor with the consent of all 100 members of the senate for debate, is really the third step in a discussion that began in january about what steps can we take to make the senate a more effective place. one step was to get rid of secret holds. another step was to limit the reading of the minutes as a dilatory tactic. and this is the third step, appoint bid our two leaders -- the majority leader, senator reid; the republican leader, senator mcconnell. they asked senator schumer and me to form a working group. staff has worked hard. we now have come forward with a bill and a resolution which we'll debate today and tomorrow until we're finished.

and it will streamline executive nominations and hopefully give us a chance to do more oversight on the positions that need the oversight, and not waste our time with positions that don't. and at the same time it will make it easier for the next president to staff his or her government promptly so that they can deal with questions of war and the economy as they come up, and not wait until six months or nine months after they've taken office. and it will make it more inviting for good citizens of this country to accept a president's invitation to come serve in the federal government. as i mentioned, this came about earlier this year when we were about to have a showdown over the filibuster. the senator from oregon was a big part of that discussion and debate, and i hope he feels some credit for moving this discussion to where it is today. this is not all that the senator

from oregon or the senator from new mexico or others wanted, but i think what we quickly learn in the senate is a few small steps in the right direction are one good way to get where you want to go. and we've taken a couple, and this would be a third. basically this is what we'll be doing. we're affecting about 450 presidential appointments. this represents about one-third of all the senate-confirmed positions. that sounds like a lot, and it is a lot, but let me qualify in this way. here's what has happened over the last several years. president kennedy in 1960 had to fill 286 positions in the ranks of secretary, deputy secretary, under secretary, assistant secretary and administrator. by the end of -- by the time

president clinton came into office, there were 914 positions with those titles. that's according to volcker commission report which recommended the kind of changes that we're taking today. since then the congressional research service has counted more than 1,200 presidential appointments requiring the advise and consent of the senate. our staff on the rules committee and the homeland security committee have found more than 1,400. so we're in the embarrassing position of having to answer the question if somebody were to say here's this enormously important position of the senate, this constitutional duty to advise and consent, how many presidential appointments are subject to advise and consent? the answer would be we don't know. the congressional research service says 1,200. our staffs say 1,410. and another indication that

we're not giving them the sufficient attention we should, at least the ones we should, is the number of roll call votes on presidential appointments requiring advise and consent. you would think that if a, that if a presidential appointment were important enough to require a full f.b.i. check, which is very expensive and very time-consuming, and takes several months, and then a nomination by the president and all the vetting that goes with that, and then the work of the white house personnel office and all the time that is spent with that, and then it comes to the senate and goes to our committee, and our committee has its own questionnaire, its own investigator and its own schedule for hearings and its own schedule for voting and then it reports it to the floor, you'd think if it were important enough to go through all of that in order to go through advise and consent that we'd take time to vote on it, would you not? well, in the last congress this senate voted on 3% -- 3% -- of

the nominations that require advise and consent. that's one indication in a we, that we're doing too many. we're trivializing the duty. so not only do we not know how many there are, we think now there are about 410, now that our staffs have worked through this -- 1,410, not know how many there are, 97% of them are not important enough to vote on them. we pass them by unanimous consent. as senator enzi reported earlier -- i don't think he minds my bringing this up -- sometimes we approve these nominations en blocs, 280 of them at a time. as the senator said, without knowing anything about them. so we are pretending that we're giving advise and consent when we're not.

an example of that would be the positions that are several thousand members of the public health service officer corps and the national oceanic at tpaoerbg administration -- atmospheric administration adviseer corps. these are all very valuable public servants, i'm sure, but to subject the public health service officer corps and the national oceanic administration officer corps to a full senate advise and consent would be the approximate equivalent of requiring advise and consent of agricultural extension officers or forest rangers or members of the united states senate staff. they all have important jobs, but they're not supposed to rise to the level of advise and

consent, which is why the united states constitution specifically said that we should select inferior officers -- in its words -- inferior officers whom the president himself, the president alone or heads of departments may appoint. now, what is an inferior officer? well, words have meaning, and justice scalia gave a definition to the word "inferior" and "inferior officer" in the case of edmond v. the united states, which was in 1997. justice scalia said, we think it is evident, said the justice, that inferior officers are officers whose work is directed and supervised at some level by others who were appointed by the presidential nomination with the advise and consent of the senate. that makes pretty good sense.

that if, that if you're working for someone who is appointed by the president and subject to advise and consent of the senate, then you are accountable to the senate and to the people of the united states through your superior. that makes you an inferior officer. you may be an important officer, but you're subordinate to someone else whose appointment was subject to advise and consent. here is what we have done in the legislation. first, we have a bill, and then we have -- that's from the homeland security committee. and then we have a resolution which comes from our rules committee. of the 451 positions that are affected, in addition to the thousands of members of the

officer corps that i mentioned, of the 451 that are affected, 248 are part-time boards and commission positions that could be expedited and will keep their advise and consent roles and remain senate-confirmed. i'll talk more about that in just a minute. and then 118 other part-time board and commission positions will no longer require senate confirmation. and then 85 positions that are full-time wouldn't require advice and confirmation. after all is said and done, when you include the fact that 248 of the positions we affected are merely expedited, they are still subject to advise and consent if a single united states senator says that it's necessary. well, they're still subject to advise and consent under any event, and to the full treatment, to the full

investigation of a single senator says it is necessary, we'll still have more than 1,200 senate-confirmed executive branch nominations. so, senator collins said on the floor today, after this is done, if our bill or resolution is passed, more than 90% of the full-time positions that now are subject to advise and consent will still be subject to advise and consent, more than 85% of the part-time positions. now, why is it important that we have so many positions that are subject to advise and consent? one could grew that why don't you narrow it simply to the cabinet members or to the cabinet members and their deputies? why slow the president down in his work by requiring so many to come over? because even after we're through with this, even if everything that senator schumer and i and

collins and lieberman recommended were adopted, the senate would have 1,200 persons it could put through this gauntlet of advise and consent confirmation and make its point. and many senators choose to use these confirmation proceedings to exercise our prerogative as elected members of congress to get information, or to as -- assert our views or influence the direction of government. for example, senator mcconnell has been hold president obama's trade nominees until president obama sends his free trade agreements to congress. senator grassley and senator chambliss held up the solicitor general's nomination because it had been two years, and their request for documents from the department of justice had not been forthcoming. after they held up the solicitor

general's nomination in the advise and consent, they got their documents. but i would suggest that having 1,200 opportunities to hold a presidential nominee hostage is enough for any senator to work his or her will in order to make a point, and that to go beyond that is to begin to trivialize the whole process. as i mentioned earlier, our legislation has two parts. in the first part, the part we're debating now, the bill, there are approximately 200 positions that now are subject to presidential confirmation that would not be subject to

presidential confirmation. and these would be 85 full-time positions, including legislative affairs and public affairs positions, chief financial officers, information technology positions, and others. these are all important positions. but let's think of it this way. i was once a cabinet member, and it took me about three months -- well, four, five, from december to march after i was announced to be confirmed by the senate. and then i had the opportunity to ask the president to send to the senate all of the subordinate officials who required senate confirmation. that means the president had to vet those people. that means the senate had to go through its whole process once the information got here, and vet those people. it had to schedule a hearing. it had to report out the name.

that had to come to the senate. that had to be voted on on the floor. so there i was sitting, confirmed in march or april after i had been announced in december, as the president's education secretary. but it took me until toward the end of the year to get most of the president's team in place in the department of education. now, who does that serve? who does that serve well? wouldn't it be better if i could appoint my own legislative affairs officer who could then come up and deal with congress from april on instead of having to wait until later? this is i -- important for the citizens to know. if you're in a position subject to advise and consent, you're not to go to the department until you're confirmed or you won't be confirmed because it would be considered to be an insult to the senate. so you have cabinet members, particularly at the beginning of an administration, sitting there

almost alone without any new members of the president's team to help them implement policy, and that -- that affects the voters in a bad way. let's say all the voters in the country get upset with president obama and elect a republican president whose job it is to bring the deficit down. let's just pose a hypothetical. yet in comes the new republican president and it takes two or three months to confirm the secretary of the treasury, the office of management and budget, and then other key people, it might take six or eight months, and the people of this country are saying wait, i voted in november, and the government -- here we are in the next summer and the government still isn't formed and the deficit is very bad. i'm very frustrated with my government. this is -- this is legislation that's set to deal with that. so the first position, the bill itself takes some positions, about 200, and removes advise

and consent. 118 of those are part-time advisory commission members. then the second part of the bill that will be -- that we will be discussing takes 248 nominations and expedites them. these are all part time. this might be the goldwater scholarship foundation or the national council on the arts. and what it does is create a new procedure here in the senate and the president's nomination simply comes to the desk, the president has already vetted this person. the person has to answer the questions of the relevant committee in the senate, but unless some senator objects, once that's done, the vote can come to the floor within ten days. yet, if one senator objects, all 240 of those nomination consist go through the full process. so with those, we at least believe we're speeding things up. so to summarize, for 451

nominations, we -- in this bill, we -- we take about 118 part-time positions and remove them from advise and consent. these include, for example, 20 members of the national board of education services, 20 members of the national museum and library service board, i mean, 15 members of the national board of education scientists, seven commissioners of the mississippi river corporation. now, i'm sure the national museum and library sciences -- library services part-time advisory board does good work for us and for this country, but is it really necessary for the senate to spend its time on advise and consent of these part-time advisory members of the national museum and library services board when we ought to be reducing the debt, inquiring into the policies of a cabinet member or working on some other

legislation? and then in the resolution, 248 part-time positions are expedited, and as i mentioned earlier, nearly 3,000 members of the officer corps public health service are taken out of advise and consent. let me speak, mr. president, for just a moment about the other part of the legislation. i have talked about how the bill and the resolution will take 451 of approximately 1,410 presidential nominees subject to advise and consent and take about half of those and expedite them and take the other half and take away the advise and consent requirement, leaving 1,200 persons whose nomination actually requires advise and consent. well, what happens to those persons? let me -- let me give you an example. it's a personal example that i have repeated on the senate

floor before. in december of 1990, president bush announced in the white house that he had -- he was going to nominate me to be the united states education secretary. i was excited about that. i was then the president of the university of tennessee. i packed up my -- my -- sold my house, my wife and i packed up, we moved our children to schools in washington, and i came up here prepared to serve and help the president be the education president. i forgot about senate confirmation. now, i should have known, i should have known because i used to work in the senate years ago, but i -- i forgot about the senate confirmation and all of its splendor. so when i got up here, i was after a while summoned before the health, education and labor and pensions committee, on which i now serve, and with my family sitting there, the senator from ohio, the late senator, senator

metzenbaum, said well, senator alexander, i have heard some very disturbing things about you -- governor alexander, he called me, but i don't think i'll bring them up here. well, senator kassebaum from kansas turned around and said howard, you just did bring it up. why don't you go ahead and talk about it. i said, senator, if you have heard any disturbing things, i would like to know about them because i'd like to answer the question. but he decided not to do that, and in his wisdom and was his right, senator metzenbaum held my nomination up for three and a half months. i didn't know what to do about that, so i went around and finally saw senator warren rudman of new hampshire. i told him the story of what happened. i said what's your advice? he said keep your mouth shut, you have got no cards to play. i said what do you mean? he said let me tell you my story. he said president ford nominated me, senator warren rudman, to be on i think it was the federal trade commission in the 1970's.

and warren rudman was then the attorney general of new hampshire, a well-respected citizen. the senator from new hampshire put a secret hold on warren rudman's nomination, and so days and weeks went by and no action in the senate on the attorney general of new hampshire. he was greatly embarrassed by the whole thing. and i said, well, what did you finally do? he said well, i asked the president to withdraw my name. i said is that the end of the story? he said no. then i ran against the so-and-so in the next election and beat him and that's how i got in the united states senate. not every citizen can run in the united states senate and defeat the senator who they think doesn't treat them fairly in the confirmation process, but there is a lot about the confirmation process that can be fixed and still leave all of us with the right to hold up, vote against, defeat 1,200 different

nominations by the president. take, for example, what happened in president obama's first year. according to news accounts, we were in march of 2009, there were key vacant positionings -- positions at the treasury department, the assistant secretary for tax policy and the deputy assistant secretary for tax policy and the deputy assistant secretary for tax analysis and the deputy assistant secretary for tax trade and tariff policy, the deputy assistant secretary for international tax affairs, the first choice for deputy secretary of the treasury withdrew her name from consideration. four months after the president's election in the biggest economic crisis we had had since the great depression, according to one news source, the list of vacancies on the treasury department website -- quote -- "showed main treasury building is a lonely place, conjuring up visions of geithner signing dollar bills one by one, watering the plants and answering the phones when he's

not crafting a bank rescue plan. of course, there are other career employees available and there was at least one holdover assistant secretary and there are various czars in the white house." this kind of delay actually encourages the unhealthy appointment of czars in the white house because the president can just do that. but even one of the czars expressed concern about the slow filling up of the treasury department, and of course whether you're a republican or democrat and voted for president obama or not, you certainly didn't want a president whose treasury secretary wasn't equipped to deal with the biggest economic crisis since the great expression. now, the president brought some of this difficulty on himself, and our legislation recognizes that. not just this president but previous presidents and the next president. part of the president's difficulty in filling jobs -- and this is one that has

afflicted every president since watergate -- is the maze of investigations and forms that prospective senior officials must complete and the risk they run that they will be trapped and humiliated and disqualified by unintentional and harmless mistake. now, i voted against secretary geithner's nomination because i thought it was a bad example for the man in charge of collecting taxes not to have paid them, and i didn't think his excuse for not paying them was plausible, but that doesn't mean, i think, that every minor tax discrepancy in our byzantine tax code that reaches 3.7 million words and is badly in need of reform should disqualify any citizen for public office. i think very few americans with complex tax reforms could make their way through our maze of investigations and come out without a single change in what they did. take -- take the case of the

former mayor of dallas, ron kirk. he was president obama's nominee to be the u.s. trade representative, headlines in the newspaper said kirk paid back taxes. why? primarily because he failed to list his income and then take a charitable deduction on speaking fees that he gave away to charity. let me say that again. he failed to list his income and then take a charitable deduction on speaking fees he gave away to charity. now, common sense suggests that mr. kirk and his tax advisor did what was appropriate. after all, he didn't keep the money. the i.r.s. apparently has a more convoluted rule for dealing with such things. in any event, the matter is so trivial as to be irrelevant to his suitability to be the trade nominee. tax audits are only the beginning. there is an f.b.i. full field investigation. i mean, should we really be having f.b.i. field investigations for part-time

advisory board members on the museum library corporation? paying these diligent f.b.i. agents instead of investigating terrorists or catching bank robbers, they are out asking your neighbors does he or she live beyond his means in order to serve on a part-time advisory board for the federal government. and then there are the federal financial disclosures. there is the white house questionnaire. and of course the questions from the confirming senate committee. all these are different, and the definitions they ask for are different, and an unsuspecting nominee, as i mentioned earlier, might actually fill out a form that says what is your income in the same way each time, but the question might have been different each time. it's easy to make a mistake, and then when you finally appeared before the confirming committee, you are innocent until nominated.

washington, d.c., has become the only place where you could hire -- where you should hire a lawyer, an accountant and an ethics officer before you find a house and put your child in school. the motto around here has become innocent until nominated. every legal counsel since president nixon of the white house agrees with what i have just said. in the name of effective government, this process ought to be changed. there are some limits on what we can do in the senate. we have to respect separation of powers. in the end, the president has to conduct his own vetting process, and in the end, the senate must conduct its own veegz, but we might work together to look at possible ways of reducing burdens and delays in the appointment process, and that's what the executive branch working group provided for in

our legislation -- and our legislation says. it would be chaired by the director of the office of presidential personnel and members would include representatives from the office of personnel management, the office of government ethics, the f.b.i., individuals appointed by the chair who have experience and expertise, individuals from other agencies, other individuals from previous administrations, and they would report to us in 90 days on a smart form. a smart form would simply be a single form that would make it possible for a nominee to answer duplicative vetting questions one time. now, that makes pretty good common sense. why can't the government do that? and it would submit those findings within 90 days to the president for his consideration and to our relevant senate committees for our consideration. in addition, senator collins has asked the working group within the next 270 days to take a look at the background veegz. a big part of the delay in

forming a government are the president's own background veegz. we'd like to know if somebody used to be a member of al qaeda or has some other serious problem before they come into a government, but there are gradations of that, whether you're the secretary of the treasury or a member of a part-time advisory board, you might have a little different level of vetting, i would think. in any -- but, in any event, they would like them to report back to us the use of non-f.b.i. personnel to conduct background investigations for senate-confirmed investigations. so these will be simply reports, an effort between the senate and the executive to take a look at streamlining the process, also so we can staff the government more quickly, so we can stop wasting sophisticate time here in duplicative ways, so we can stop the expense of that wasted

time, and so we can treat with respect the men and women that any president invites to become a member of the administration. madam -- mr. president, since -- since our bill was first drafted, we've made a number of changes in response to suggestions by our colleagues, both on the democratic and republican side of the ievment i suspect-- suspect-- that's one reason why all 100 senators have agreed to allow this bill to come to the floor and to be debated with any relevant amendment is because we'retope that. we've made some changes. for example, i mentioned that 248 expedited part-time appointments. the concern was that while there is a democratic president there is a requirement in the law that a minority of those appointees be republican members of the part-time advisory board.

well, what if a democratic president said, i'm going to appoint republican members who i define as republicans. we republicans didn't like that very much. the democrats would like it very much if they were on the other side of the fence in another administration. so the solution was this he can expedited process whereby we could send those 248 nominations through the senate much more quickly and if a single senator thinks that the president is playing games with minority nominations, he or she can insist that the nominee go through the whole advise and consent process. in fact, for any reason a single senator can do that. nor change we've done -- we've made is to say all relevant amendments are open for debate and for voting. and i'm hopeful that my colleagues will bring some of those to the floor this afternoon and we'll begin to debate them, perhaps to vote on

them today. if not vote on them today, start voting on them tomorrow. we've also agreed that senator demint, senator vitter, senator coburn, each can offer a specific amendmen amendment. i know senator schumer has been meeting with democratic senators to see if there are any other chaifntle we'll have the amendments. i may oppose them all. i may support them all. but at least we'll be doing what the senate ought to do, which is bring them up, if they're good amendments. if the majority of us agree -- or 60 of us agree, we'll change the bill and even eventually von it. senator collins earlier mentioned the amount of support that we've gotten from outside groups who have worked on this and especially from those who once served in the senate or once served in the white house

in positions that have to do with personnel. my work with the white house goes back a long tiessments i was a young staff aide in the nixon administration, and i was a cabinet member in the first bush administration. so i know a lot of the men and women who have been the general counsels to presidents, who've been the personnel directors, who've watched the process closely. i think it was boyden gray who was counsel of the first president bush who gave me the phrase "innocent until nominated." but every single one of those men and women -- yo i don't know one who doesn't think the system is broken, who doesn't think we're trivializing the advise and consent process of the senate. who doesn't think we're doing a great disservice when we allow this "innocent until nominated" syndrome to persevere.

and they've watched over the years senators who have tried to change this. senator mcconnell tried do it when he was a whip. senator lieberman and senator collins tried a few years ago. they didn't succeed. senator thompson tried to do it when he was chairman of the homeland security committee, and he got a few changes made but not very many. and it's only this year in response to our general discussion about thousand make the senate a more effective place -- about how to make the senate a more effective place and because of the strong support of senator reid and senator mcconnell and because of the battle scars that senator lieberman and senator collins have because of their having tried before, i think we'll get to where we need to go. but i want to make sure that in this debate we don't succumb to the desire to say, oh, well, my committee would like to is there person in advise and consent just for the press stiej of it. i think it is more important to have an appointee who can serve

the president and the country and do his or her job and then let the secretary and the deputy social security and the under secretary be the ones who are accountable to the president, at least that's the recommendation of former senator fred thompson, who was chairman of the committee on governmental affairs. that's the recommendation of a task force formed by the astin institute which included former senator bill frist, chuck rorks a democratic senator, clay johnson, who was george w. bush's director of presidential personnel, matt mcclarty. they all said this urgently needs to be done. frank carlucci, former secretary of defense, weighed in thi withs support. dan glickman and trent lott, our former whip and majority leader, pete domenici, our former senator, dirk kempthorne, former

governor and cabinet member and senator -- they all your hono uo do this. senator collins asked that all these letters of support be placed in the record, and so i won't ask that they be added at this point. but i'd simply conclude by saying that there has been a little information around somehow this is legislation to reduce oversight. this is legislation to make oversight more effective. if we were to propose using advise and consent for every senate staff member, for every agricultural extension service member, and for every forest ranger, that would be less oversight because you won't have time to do anything. that in effect is what we're doing now with advise and consent by the bucketload of

officer corps members, and of advisory commission part-time members who the president can can vet aappoint and all report to somebody who we do have advise and consent control over. so i look forward to this discussion and debate. i am very grateful to my republican colleagues, some of whom have questions about the bill, who have allowed this bill to come forward in the way the senate should operate. senators can bring their relevant amendments to the floor as long as they and the parliamentarian agree that it's relevant. they can call it up. we'll debate on it. we'll either vote on it then or set a time for a vote in the near future. i expect that there will be several amendments. i would urge senators to come to the floor and hope that at the end of the day that we complete these modest but important steps toward making the senate more effective by reducing the trivializing of advice and consent, our constitutional duty, and by reducing the syndrome that presidential

nomineeser innocent until nominated. mr. president, i thank the chair. i yield the floor, and i notice the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. graham: are we in a quorum call? a senator: yes, we are. mr. demint: i ask the quorum call be suspended. -p. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. demint: tha*eu, mr. president. i'd like to call up three amendments and speak on them at another time. first i would like to call up amendment 501. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from south carolina, mr. demint, proposes amendment numbered 501. mr. demint: i ask the reading be suspended. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. demint: amendment 510. the clerk: the senator from south carolina, mr. demint proposes amendment 510. mr. demint: i ask the reading be suspended.

i'd like to call up bill 511. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from south carolina, mr. demint, proposes amendment 511. mr. demint: i would ask the reading of this amendment be suspended. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. demint: i thank you for the time. i yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. vitter: thank you, mr. president. i ask unanimous consent to end any quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. vitter: thank you, mr. president. now, mr. president, i call up and would make pending amendment number 499, which is part of the agreement in terms of the debate of this bill. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from louisiana, mr. vitter, for himself and others proposes an amendment numbered 499. mr. vitter: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent to waive reading of the whole. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. vitter: thank you, mr. president. and i also want to thank senators paul and heller and grassley for cosponsoring this amendment, which is about so-called czars. this administration, any administration usurping the appropriate role and authority

of the senate in the advise and consent process. mr. president, this is obviously directly relevant to this legislation. as we debate this legislation designed to reduce the number of positions in the government that require senate confirmation, we should also ensure that the senate's role is not eroded by unconfirmed federal czars in very significant positions which should be subject to advice and consent. that's what my amendment is about. that's what my amendment would correct. this amendment would ensure that any administration -- not just this one; any administration -- republican, democrat, other is prevented from using so-called czars or similar positions to perform duties that are the responsibility of those positions subject to confirmation by prohibiting funding of those so-called czar

positions. specifically, the amendment would prohibit funding for these czar positions. the amendment does not unduly restrict presidential advisory staff. we all agree the president is entitleed to direct advisors. instead it focuses on -- quote -- "the head of any task force, council, policy office or system hrar office established by or at the direction of the president." it's aimed squarely at positions created in order to circumvent the advice and consent role of the united states senate. and, unfortunately, mr. president, that's exactly what has happened at greatly increasing frequency over the last several years. it also carves out of the prohibition and allows two things. number one, any individuals who are serving in the position of assistant secretary or the

equivalent that requires senate confirmation. that situation is living by the normal appropriate advice and consent requirement. and it also carves out the assistant to the president for national security affairs, and we include this carveout simply to ensure that national security concerns are not impacted. as a result of these carefully crafted exemption, my amendment keeps the focus on the intended targets and the real abuses. czars created to circumvent the scrutiny of the senate and the advice and consent and the confirmation process. under the current administration, mr. president, we have seen dramatic increases in this practice, in the amount of power given to these so-called czars appointed

directly by the president and not subject to advise and consent and confirmation by the president -- by the senate, excuse me. politico has written that president obama -- quote -- "is taking the notion of a powerful white house staff to new heights." and he is creating -- quote -- "perhaps the most powerful staff in modern history." close quote. president obama has created many of these new czar positions. some include a climate czar, a health care czar, a pay czar and more, and the power of implementing policy and directing federal agencies was never meant to be put in these czar positions, subject only to the control of the president. that was always meant to be put in high-level administration positions, subject to the advise and consent role of the subject, subject to senate confirmation. so in this bill, which is all

about advise and consent, which is all about the confirmation process, we should certainly address the single biggest problem with that process in the eyes of the american people, which is recent administrations, particularly the current administration just doing a state end run around the constitution, trying to ignore the genius of the constitution, trying to ignore one of the fundamental balances created by the constitution through senate confirmation. so, mr. president, with that in mind, i urge all of my colleagues, democrat and republican, to support this vitter amendment. this isn't an amendment against the obama administration. this is an amendment for the advise and consent role of the united states senate. this is an amendment in support of balance of powers. this is an amendment to preserve the significance of the confirmation process, and every

senator of any u.s. senate should be for that no matter who the administration is. unfortunately, the czar practice has reached new heights recently, so all the more reason we need to act, but we need to act to preserve and defend the constitution, to preserve and defend the appropriate role of the u.s. senate under the constitution, advise and consent and con firnlings. -- confirmation. thank you, madam president, and with that, i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. coburn: thank you, madam president. in a moment or two -- the presiding officer: a quorum call is in progress. mr. coburn: i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. coburn: in a moment or a few minutes from now, i'll introduce an amendment, but i wanted to talk about a bill that myself and 26 other senators have introduced today. it's called the enumerated powers act. our founding fathers understood that the only way to preserve freedom for future generations was to limit federal authority.

they understood the tendency of government to seize increasing power and thus they created in our constitution protections for posterity. earlier this year, newly and elected and returning members of the senate took an oath to support and defend the constitution of the united states. in my case, that oath never mentioned the state of oklahoma or any other state or individual senator -- that any individual senator might represent. rather, the oath that each of us took was to uphold the constitution for the betterment of the country as a whole. yet, every day members of congress ignore their oath and protective principles embodied in the constitution, trampling both the freedom and the prosperity of the american people. this has never been as evident as in the congressional spending spree we've seen over the last three and a half to four years. at the beginning of the 111th congress, our national debt stood at $10.6 trillion.

it today is over $14.4 trillion. nearly $4 trillion in the last three-plus years. how did we get there? how did we get to such deep debt? how did we shackle our children and grandchildren to an increasing deficit and an inevitable decreased standard of living? it really doesn't lie with any president that has done that. where it lies is with the congress of the united states. today, along with senator -- the senator from kentucky, dr. rand paul, and 23 other cosponsors, i'm introducing the enumerated powers act. this legislation ensures the members of congress truly follow article 1, section 8 of the constitution. that section plainly lists the enumerated powers of the constitution and enumerated powers given to congress, of which there are 18 very well-defined. one of the major reasons why we are facing such tough economic

times and such tough fiscal challenges is because congress routinely in the recent past has ignored this aspect of the constitution, and until we reconnect congress with its limited and enumerated powers, we will never put our nation back on a sustainable basis. james madison stated in federalist 51 that if men were angels, no government would be necessary. if angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. in framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this. you must first enable the government to control the governed, and in the next place oblige it to control itself. clearly, we have a government administered by men over men, and the government has failed to control itself. the best way for the federal government to appropriately restrain itself is for congress

to abide by the enumerated powers of the constitution. the supreme court noted at the beginning of the 21st century every law enacted by congress must be based on one or more of its powers enumerated in the constitution. the powers of the legislature are defined and limited and that those limits may not be mistaken or forgotten, the constitution is thus written. and with respect to the words general welfare, which is what is so often used to justify new government programs, i have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of enumerated powers connected with them. to take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be by and by itself a me metamorphous of e constitution which was not contemplated by its writers and creators. the tenth amendment states the powers not delegated to the united states by the

constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states are reserved to the states respectively or to the people. in other words, everything outside of those 18 renumerated powers -- enumerated powers are reserved for the states and the people. they are not ours to deal with. our founding fathers intended the federal government to be a limited power that cannot encroach on the powers to the state or the people. what this does is highlight those principles embodied in our constitution and gives members of congress a new procedural tool to stop unconstitutional legislation. congressman chattie started this in 1984 until he left congress. he joined him in offering this bill starting in the 110th congress and again in the 111th. today i'm delighted to be, along with these 24 eqips, and -- he

could sponsors to reintroduce this important legislation. the renumerated powers act requires each act of congress, bill and resolution to contain a concise explanation of the specific authority in the constitution under which the measure would be enacted. it also states members cannot merely mindlessly invoke sections of article 1, section 8 to meet that test. the goal of the legislation is to assure that congress is accountable 0 the american people -- accountable to the american people for its actions. the very least we can do if we're going to violate article 1, section 8, is to explain our constitutional basis to the american people for that. with the sufficient two-thirds vote of the senate, a point of order raced against the bill can still be overcome, however the renumerated powers act requires both houses of congress to

debate that point of order. the american people need to see the transparency when we violate the constitution and what our basis is for doing that. as i mentioned earlier as members of the senate we have each taken an oath to uphold the constitution not to put our individual states first. if each of us abide by that oath we will improve our country as a whole. for oklahoma, kentucky or maine or any other state to farewell in our country, they cannot do so if the country as a whole is not faring well. let me take a moment and just use as an example one of the reasons that i would like the enumerated powers act passed, but also why i am going to discuss the amendment that i have at the desk. here's what we know right now from the first third of the federal government that was studied by the government accounting office. they just looked at the first

third of the federal government and we asked them in the last debt limit increase to give us the list of duplications of programs that do essentially the same thing across that first third. we will get the next third about six months from now and the final third a year from then. but what you see and what they came up with is we have more than 100 different federal programs for surface transportation. that's 100 sets of agencies. that's 100 sets of bureaucracies and that's mindless and thousands upon hundreds of thousands of rules and regulations that is just on surface transportation. nobody in congress knew we had 100 agencies. teacher quality. we have 82 separate teacher quality programs across six different government agencies. one is, it's a question of whether or not that's a responsibility of the federal government under the enumerated powers act. but to have 82?

how about economic development, 88. 80 of which are under four different agencies, which we just had a bill on the floor in the economic development act, it was one of 80 programs run by those four agencies. none of them have metrics to see if they are effective. there's no metrics. 88 sets of bureaucracies, within all these agencies duplication after duplication. transportation assistance. 80 different programs. financial literacy, a government that's $14 trillion in debt running a $1.6 trillion deficit has no business telling anybody about financial literacy. yet we have 56 programs across multiple agencies teaching the american people about financial literacy. i think the source of that wisdom is somewhat questionable. we have 47 different job training programs cost $18 billion a year, run

across nine different agencies. not one of them has a metric. in all but three duplicate what the other 44 are doing. why would we do that? why would we have all that? homeless prevention and assistance. we have 20 programs out of the federal government for homeless prevention and assistance. food for the hungry. we have 18 separate programs. disaster response and preparedness, we have 17 different programs. so the point is we got there for two reasons, one, is we didn't look at the enumerated powers. and number two, too often we are trying to fix a problem from great intent, the right heart, even when it is constitutional and would meet the demands of article 1, section 8, we have no idea what else is out there. so when we see a problem, rather than to go see what we are doing

now, we create a new program. and so i would ask consideration of my amendment, which is amendment number 500, which is an amendment to change the rules of the senate -- the standing rules. and what it does is that it -- it mandates a rule in the senate that every report that comes to the senate, every bill, an analysis by the congressional research service to determine if the bill or joint resolution creates any new federal program, any new federal office or any new initiative that would duplicate or overlap any other existing federal program. any other existing federal office or any other existing initiative with similar mission, similar goals or activities along with a listing of the overlapping or duplication. and an explanation provided by

the committee as to why the creation of another new program office or initiative is necessary if a similar program offers or initiatives already exist. it's a rule change. and the reason i bring it to this bill is because this is a bill for rule changes. and it requires 67 votes for this to pass. i understand that we have heard some concerns from the congressional research service, but with the work that the government accounting office has done and will do, it will be very easy for them to look at the results of the government accounting office and their list of duplications -- and it's very straightforward. it's less than 100 pages. and they can see and then they can advise the congress on what we have. if we cannot depend on the congressional research service to tell us where we have

multiple programs when that is available from the government accounting office and list what their intentions and what their budgets are, then we need to relook at the government -- the congressional office and what it does. they do great work for me. we ask them for things all the time and they do great. this is something that they can accomplish. it is going to get easier as we go forward. but without this knowledge of what we are already doing we will never solve our problems. so my hope is -- and i know my chairman has some concerns with this initiative in terms of how it might affect this bill, but i plan on going right back to the congressional research service to have a discussion with them after i am on the floor -- after i have been on the floor. but if we can't do this, we can't do anything. if we can't change the rule so we actually know what we are doing, so we can actually know if a new bill duplicates something that is already operating when we have this

tremendous list -- i just picked some of the obvious ones. there are hundreds of thousands of duplicate programs in the federal government wasting billions if not trillions of dollars every year. so if we cannot do something like this, then what can we do to solve our problems? knowledge is power and knowing what programs are intended to do now, before we create another new program, to me, is the height of insanity. we should be aggressively asking for as much information as we can get so we know what we are doing when we pass new pieces of legislation. with that, i yield the floor. ms. collins: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from maine. ms. collins: madam president, i am not going to take long at this point. i personally support the policy behind the amendment offered by my friend and colleague, senator

coburn. in fact, i am a he could sponsor of a stand alone bill that he has on this issue. my concern is that it is a rules change and the bill before us is not a rules change. it is not a resolution. it is not a rules change. it is legislation. now, coming up after this bill is the second half of the nominations reform package and that is a rules change that is coming from the rules committee. so my suggestion to my colleague and friend from oklahoma is that his amendment would be better directed to the second half than to this bill. but, again, i am oppose -- i am a cosponsor of his stand-alone bill. so it is not that i object to the policy. i would note, for the information of my colleagues,

that the congressional research service does have concerns about whether it has the resources and the ability to carry out the task that the senator would assign it. from my many years of working both with g.a.o. and c.r.s., this sounds to me like a job for g.a.o., which has the auditors and the experience to do this kind of review and, indeed, has already started due to the good senator's far-sighted amendment which became law to identify duplication. mr. coburn: mr. president? i would ask to call up my amendment number 500, and then i would also tell the senator from maine i will very much consider your recommendation in terms of trying to put it in on the second half of this. i would like to call it up now and ask that maybe we withdraw

it. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from oklahoma, mr. coburn for himself and others proposed amendment numbered 500. mr. coburn: i ask that it be considered read and i yield the floor. the presiding officer: without objection. the presiding officer: the senator from illinois is recognized. mr. durbin: unanimous consent that marie and -- be given privilege of the law during the presidential appointment efficiency and streamlining act. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered.

deutsche deutschmr. durbin: mr.i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: without objection, the clerk will call the roll. quorumquorum call: quorum call:

mr. kerry: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from massachusetts. mr. kerry: i ask further proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. kerry: mr. president, yesterday senator mccain and i introduced -- mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that we go to morning business. i ask unanimous consent that we be permitted to speak as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. kerry: thank you. thank you, mr. president. mr. president, as i was saying, and now it makes an enormous difference because we're in morning business, yesterday senator mccain and i

introduced a resolution with respect to our engagement in a support role in libya. that is now, i think the majority leader is making a determination about exactly when the senate might consider this. but a number of colleagues on our side have expressed some questions about it, and because of those questions, i thought it was important that we clarify for the record as senators consider this over the course of the next days the answers to their questions. and with that in mind, i'm happy to engage in a colloquy now with both the senator from california, senator boxer, and the senator from illinois, senator durbin. i think senator boxer would like to lead off. mrs. boxer: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from california is

recognized. mrs. boxer: mr. president, is it in order for me to ask some questions of the distinguished chairman of the foreign relations committee at this time? the presiding officer: without objection, the senators may engage in a colloquy. mrs. boxer: i thank the president very much. i just want to say to my chairman, who i sit next to in the foreign relations committee, how much i admire his work in the whole arena of the foreign policy. what he's really giving up to be, i think, one of the most informed human beings on the planet in terms of the challenges that this country faces. and i want to thank him so much for his hard work on a resolution regarding libya. i are just wanted to -- i just wanted to make sure today by asking him a tkoufpl questions that the -- asking him a couple of questions that the clear intent of this resolution which is s.j. res. number 20 regarding our engagement in libya, that

the clear intent is that there not be authorized in this resolution any, whatsoever, any troops on the ground, any boots on the ground, any ground forces of america in libya. so i'm going to ask him a couple of questions. assuming that those questions are answered the way that i hope that they will be, given the resolution, i will be much at peace with this resolution. so my understanding, senator kerry, from reading this resolution is that while it does not explicitly prohibit the use of u.s. ground forceness libya, it also does nothing to authorize the use of u.s. ground forces in libya; is that correct? mr. kerry: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from massachusetts. mr. kerry: mr. president, i would say to the senator from california, first of all, i'm very appreciative for her generous comments at the

beginning of this colloquy. and i thank her for that, and i thank her for her support and involvement on the committee, which is critical. secondly, i fully understand and am very sympathetic with the concerns of a lot of senators given our engagement in afghanistan, pakistan, middle east, yemen, africa, elsewhere, people are deeply concerned about the question of where we're heading. and so i would answer her question very directly with respect to the authorization. unequivocally this resolution does not authorize ground troops with respect to the libya operations. there is no affirmative language in this resolution authorizing the use of u.s. ground forces. mrs. boxer: thank you, senator. mr. chairman, i'd also like to ask you this, although there is

no authorization in this resolution for the use of ground forces in libya, for which i'm pleased, are there any circumstances where ground forces could be deployed? mr. kerry: mr. president, the resolution states that congress opposes the use of forces on the ground in libya except in the exceptional case where they might be needed for the immediate personnel defense of united states government officials or for rescuing a member of the nato force from imminent danger. those are the only circumstances in which it might be contemplated. the intent of this resolution is to authorize only the very limited mission, the continuation of the very limited mission in libya that is a support role and that does not include the use of u.s. ground forces. mrs. boxer: i just have two

more questions. senator kerry, if the president decides to change the mission and order the use of u.s. ground forces for reasons other than the circumstances previously mentioned, does the chairman agree that nothing in this resolution would authorize him to take that step? mr. kerry: i agree. mrs. boxer: and it is also my understanding that the authorization provided for under this resolution would expire after its enactment, one year after its enactment. it's my understanding that the authorization provided for under this resolution would expire one year after its enactment? is that correct? mr. kerry: mr. president, the senator from california is corrected. mrs. boxer: well, i just want to say thank you very much, mr. chairman, john kerry, for your work on this. i want to thank the others who helped work on this. i know other senators did, in addition to senator mccain. on our side i know senator durbin, senator cardin and

others had a lot to say. this is important, and i sew appreciate your willing -- and i so appreciate your willingness and your staff's willingness to work with us because words matter, intent matters. and i think we've cleared it up, and i'm feeling a lot better about this resolution, and i would yield back my time to senator kerry. mr. durbin: mr. president, first, let me thank my colleague from california, spwofrpblgts i want to associate -- from california, senator boxer. i want to associate myself with her remarks and colloquy with senator kerry. is the pointed questions asked by senator boxer and the responses given by senator kerry are consistent with what he has described to me as the legislative intent of this resolution. mr. president, i'm a newcomer to the senate foreign relations committee. it's my first year serving.

i sit way at the end of the table, even though i've been around congress for a number of years. i just want to salute the chairman of that committee. i don't think the american people can appreciate the hard work that senator kerry puts in to that committee and to his responsibilities with this administration. it is an indication of the trust which he has earned with the president and the secretary of state that he has been called on often to visit important places around the world at very critical moments to represent the united states and the united states congress. a trip that he made to pakistan just a few weeks ago could not have come at a more important moment. and he returned to not only brief the administration, but also his colleagues in congress. i know he will be taking other journeys in his capacity as chairman of the senate foreign relations committee, and i want to tell him how much i appreciate it as all americans should. i also want to tell him how much i appreciate the effort he put into this resolution relative to our assistance to nato in libya.

if you look back in terms of this debate on the floor of the united states senate, you realize that it really goes back to the origins of america. when the founding fathers sat down and defined what this congress had the power to do. i don't think they wasted words. and those who will look at article 1, section 8, clause 11, will see that congress is given the authority to declare war. it is one of the most awesome responsibilities given to congress. but it was clearly given to congress so the founding fathers said we would represent the feelings of the people of america, the people whose children, sons and daughters and husbands and wives would be called into combat, and we will make the decision will this american go to war? the president's commander in chief has authority to defend america and americans but when it came to combat and war congress was given the

responsibility. throughout history many presidents honored that clause and have come to congress asking for the authority to proceed to war. probably one of the most notable and historic was franklin roosevelt who came the day after pearl harbor. in december of 1941, hobbled up to the rostrum in the house of representatives and declared a day that would live in infamy and asked for a declaration of war against those who had attacked the united states. it was a clear exercise of constitutional responsibility given to congress and exercised accordingly. after that, though, there was a long period of uncertainty. the so-called korean conflict with two of my brothers served in the united states navy was characterized as a police action. some action that was inspired and authorized by the united nations. many men and women died in that conflict, but it wasn't an official declaration of war that led to it. and then came the war in vietnam, where senator kerry

served with such distinction in the united states navy, literally risking his life in a conflict where there was no official declaration of war. the controversy that came out of that vietnam conflict led to proposed legislation called the war powers act. and the war powers act, set up to describe in statute what we believe the constitution said in its clear language, and that is at some point a president must step forward and say to congress, we need your authority to go forward with this conflict involving hostilities. there have been debates back and forth about whether or not it was to be applied. some presidents came here asking for authority. president george herbert walker bush did before our invasion of kuwait. president george w. bush before the invasion of iraq and afghanistan. but there were exceptions in panama, grenada, bosnia and other places. so this has been an ongoing battle between the executive

branch, the white house and congress about when the president as commander in chief has to come to congress under the constitution and ask for a declaration of war. it's become even more complicated because war has changed. there was a time in history when the onset of war was very visible. the marching of troops, the weighing of anchors, planes lifting off in flight, and you knew a war was underway. but now we live in a different age, an age of no-fly zones and embargoes and predatory drones and cybersecurity and the definition of war is one that we need to look at in this new context. i have felt from the beginning that president obama handled this right in libya. senator kerry and others like myself were privy to early conversations before the decision was made where the president briefed us on what we were setting out to do. we were setting out to stop

moammar qadhafi from massacring his own individual citizens in that country, particularly as he said he was going to march into benghazi and kill the people of libya like rats in the street. and president obama said to us we cannot let this massacre of innocent people continue. but the president went on to say the united states will play a specific and limited role in this conflict. first, we come to it at the invitation of the arab league, and this is significant because before the united states is involved in anything of a military nature in another muslim nation, we are looking for at least an invitation or cooperation from arab nations, and in this case, the president had it. and then he went on to say, and we will use the nato alliance in europe to initiative this -- to initiate this action and we will support them. we may play a larger role at the beginning of the conflict but a more diminished role as it continues. the president went on to say and

there will be no ground troops from the united states committed to libya. that was the early briefing. of course it's gone on now for several weeks, several months, and the question is where it goes from here. i want to salute senator kerry because what he has done is to use the war powers act to authorize what the president is doing in libya. that way there is no question about the authority of the president to go forward, and he has done more. chairman kerry has reached out in a bipartisan fashion to bring in senator mccain, senator kyl, senator graham and others from the republican side of the aisle in a bipartisan approval of what we are doing in libya. i think this is consistent with the constitution, with the war powers act and with the finest traditions of the senate where we can fight like cats and dogs, night and day on many things, but when it comes to the use of our military and our commitment to the men and women in uniform, we do our very best to come together in a bipartisan fashion. what senator kerry offers here is consistent with that. the answers that he has given

earlier to the questions by senator boxer satisfy my concerns, that there is no authorization in this resolution for the use of ground troops other than in the specific examples given by senator kerry when it comes to rescuing government officials and military personnel of the nato alliance. he goes on to say in the answers to senator boxer that if this president wanted to use ground troops, it would take an additional passage of legislation authorizing the president to do so. now, for the record, president obama has been clear in his statements. on march 18, he said -- "i also want to be clear about what we will not be doing. the united states is not going to deploy ground troops into libya." that's the president. on march 28, he reiterated that point in an address to america when he said -- "i said that america's role would be limited, that we would not put ground troops into libya, that we would focus our unique capabilities on

the front end of the operation, that we would transfer our responsibilities to our allies. tonight we are fulfilling that pledge." finally, in the communication with congress last week summarizes the president's clear public statement. it reads in part and i quote -- "as president obama has clearly stated, our contributions do not include deploying u.s. military ground forces into libya with the exception of personnel recovery operations as may be necessary." and so, mr. president, i would close by thanking senator kerry for those direct answers to senator boxer and make one last point before i yield the floor. first, i want to thank my colleague from maryland, senator cardin. he really led the way and i was happy to partner with him in this effort to use the war powers act for approval of this action, but i want to close by saying there are rumors afloat on capitol hill that some on the other side of the rotunda are going to try to stop funding for our military operations, supportive of the nato alliance in libya. i sincerely hope that does not

occur. if that occurs, it will unfortunately give hope to this dictator, moammar qadhafi, that he can somehow survive. it will unfortunately undermine the efforts of innocent people in libya risking their lives to end his administration and bring a new day to that poor, beleaguered country, and finall it would strike a blow at our nato alliance, an alliance which is still critically important for the security of america, europe and the world. so i hope that the house will follow suit in a bipartisan fashion and follow this resolution which senator kerry has authored and brought together on a bipartisan basis. i yield the floor. mr. kerry: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from massachusetts. mr. kerry: mr. president, i want to begin by thanking the senator from illinois. first of all, i want to thank him for his -- also for his generous comments, but much, much more important to this effort, i want to thank him for the serious and entirely

appropriate consideration that he has given this important issue. he has really been a leader in our caucus on making certain that the constitution, which he read from and cited, has been properly adhered to, lived up to by this body, which is our solemn responsibility. after all, we all take an oath when we are sworn in here and we promise to uphold it, and that is first and foremost. and so this tension that has existed, as he rightly points outgoing back to the vietnam war, is a real one. president after president has declared they simply believe the law is unconstitutional, they don't follow it. president obama, to his credit, has not asserted that. he has, in fact, written a letter to the congress in which he said he would not assert that but rather he asked us for the

appropriate authorization, and he did that, i might add, before the 60 days had expired. so it's up to us to be responsible and to do our duty, and i want to thank senator durbin for the careful way in which he has taken the past slippages or problems, whether inadvertent or advert ent that have followed the war powers act through its history and either seen the law not applied or simply ignored, and he has been diligent in insisting that we have a responsibility and we need to live up to it, and i think that has been very important. together with senator cardin, they have been important voices in helping to structure this resolution, together with senator mccain and senator graham and others, senator kyl and the other side of the aisle

who have been equally committed to making certain that we live up to our responsibility. this has been a bipartisan effort, and that's really when the senate works best and that's when our foreign policy, i might add, is strongest. so i hope that the senate will have some impact perhaps on the thinking in the house, but no matter what that the senate will have its opportunity to be able to be heard with respect to this issue. in response to the senator's -- the senator from illinois' remarks, i just want to make it clear that i agree with the statements that he has made. it is the clear understanding of the senate based on the president's repeated statements as reflected in the resolution that united states operatives with respect to libya operations will not involve the introduction of ground troops, with the very narrow exception that i cited earlier to the senator from california with respect to rescue or grievous

immediate danger to american government officials. not military. government officials. and that language is very carefully structured in the resolution where in section 2-a it says the president is authorized to continue by virtue of embracing the word continue, we're embracing the current status, and to continue the limited use of the united states armed forces in libya in support of national security policy objectives and interests. as part of the nato mission under the united states security council resolution, as requested by the transnational -- transitional national council, the gulf war corporation council and the arab league. so this resolution simply authorizes the president to continue the limited support operations that we're currently engaged in, and i think it is explicit about what it entails,

just as i think it is explicit about what it does not entail. and so i don't think it's necessary, mr. president -- i would ask unanimous consent that the balance of my comments be placed in the record as if read in full at this point. unless the senator has an additional question. but i think that -- that we have been crystal clear about what this resolution is and isn't. i thank the chair. employment the statement will be included in the record in full. mr. kerry: i thank the chair. i think the senator from maryland wants to be part of -- the presiding officer: the senator from maryland is recognized. mr. cardin: thank you, mr. president. first, let me ask unanimous consent that shane nisely of the d.o.d. in my office have the privileges of the floor in this discussion. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. cardin: i think all of us understand how valuable our detailees trick-or-treat department of defense is and the work we do. particularly in this matter, it's been extremely helpful to me to have shane's advice. i pressure the fact that he is in our office and has been a

very valuable member of our team on this issue. i just really want to join in the comments of senator durbin and senator kerry. first, let me say i think senator kerry would agree, senator durbin may be a new member of the senate foreign relations committee, but he is one of the most thoughtful members of our -- of the senate on foreign policy issues and many other issues, and he has been extremely helpful working our way through what is the proper responsibility of the united states senate and the congress as it relates to the deployment of our troops. i just want to concur completely in senator durbin's comments about senator kerry. senator kerry, we're so proud of the work that you do, the commitment that you have made to travel around the world representing our nation and advancing the cause, u.s. issues of freedom and democracy and giving hope to so many people. we have even the universality of democracy spring up around the world. they look to the united states as a facilitator to make those aspirations real. you have been an incredible

voice in their hopes, and we thank you for the personal commitment that you've made. i just really want to thank senator kerry and senator durbin for their colloquy on this issue. i join in their view that we have a responsibility to act whenever our military is placed in harm's way when the president commits our troops. i think we have a responsibility to act under the war powers act. i understand there may be some different views about this, but i think most of us here agree that there is a responsibility for us to pass a resolution, and i think the resolution brought forward by senator kerry clearly complies with that responsibility, first and foremost, making it clear that we are acting under the authority given to us by the war powers act. but secondly -- and i appreciate the clarification that you made on the record, senator kerry, about how this resolution really limits the authority of the

president consistent with the current mission, which i think is very important. i agree with senator durbin. i think president obama did the right thing in calling on our military to join the international community. this was a matter in which there was a clear will internationally to stop atrocities being committed by colonel qadhafi on his own innocent people, and the united nations security council acted by resolutions, and many other countries stepped forward and nato was prepared to take the lead. the united states was not going to have to take the lead. what was required from us is to give some military -- give some air support, which we in fact are doing. so i think the president did the right thing, but we want to make sure that our resolution not only complies with the war powers act but makes it clear that it is consistent under the authority given under the united nations resolutions that we are limiting our involvement, and senator kerry has made that

point very clear. it's limited in time. it's limited to the fact that u.s. ground troops cannot be deployed except for the very limited causes that senator kerry pointed out. it's clear that our authorization is consistent with the nato mission to enforce united nations security council resolutions 1973 as requested by the transition national council. so i think we have made it clear that this is the -- to continue the current mission. it's limited in time, it's limited in scope and it's the right, responsible thing for us to do as members of the united states senate. so, mr. president, i just really want to take this time to thank senator kerry and senator durbin for taking the time to explain the intent of the legislation. i think we couldn't be clear. i think the president has been very clear as it relates to the use of ground troops, and the senate is very clear that ground troops cannot be interjected into this conflict under the