mr. alexander: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mr. alexander: i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. alexander: and for consent to speak up to 10 minutes in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. alexander: on the republican side. thank you, madam president. i've just finished reading an excellent address by secretary of education arne duncan. secretary duncan made this to the national governors' association and he said this. "i'm continually struck by the profound wisdom underlying the american political system. the genius of our system is that much of our power that shapes our future was wisely distributed to the states instead of being confined in washington." continuing he says, "our best ideas have always come from state and local governments which are the real hot houses of innovation in america." secretary duncan says, "on so many issues, energy efficiency, economic development, and education, it is the states that are often leading the way

mr. alexander: i thank you, madam president. i yield the floor. mrs. boxer: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from california. mrs. boxer: i ask unanimous consent that morning business be extended until 15 minutes from now when we have our vote. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. boxer: thank you. i also ask unanimous consent that jonathan colacant and matthew long of senator bingam bingaman's office be granted the privileges of the floor during the pendency of the travel promotion bill. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. boxer: thank you very much. madam president, i decided to come to the floor to talk about a couple of things. one, health care reform, and the other, the stimulus package. we're seeing attacks from the party of "no," the republican party, every day on this floor, and i believe the purpose is to derail health reform. and, you know, i think it's perfectly legitimate to debate how we proceed, but i think when everything is stripped away, you're going to see again the republicans as the party of the status quo, and i hav

mr. alexander: thank you, mr. president. today in the "help" committee -- the presiding officer: senate is in a quorum call. mr. alexander: thank you, mr. president. i ask that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. alexander: thank you. today in the health and education and labor and pensions committee in the senate, after several days of discussions, we are beginning to work on the health reform legislation that was proposed by our chairman, senator kennedy. as we begin our work today, i want to suggest that we put aside the legislation that we're working on and that we start over, because the kennedy bill we're dealing with is so flawed and expensive that it cannot be fixed. and there are better proposals available for us to work on, proposals advanced by senator burr, by senator coburn. there's a bipartisan proposal that senator wyden and senator bennett have offered, and senator hatch, a former chairman of the committee, is working with a number of senators on a proposal that seems to

mr. alexander: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mr. alexander: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. alexander: thank you, mr. president. i'm here to present the car czar award for monday, june 8, 2009. it's a service to taxpayers from america's newest automotive headquarters: headquarters. this is the first in a series of car czar awards to be confirmed -- to be conferred upon washington medallers who distinguish themselves by making it harder for auto companies, the auto companies your government owns to compete in the world marketplace. today's car czar award goes to congressman barney frank of massachusetts for interfering in the operation of general

mr. alexander: thank you, madam president. madam president, i'm looking for a way to offer an amendment to the health care bill that would sentence every united states senator who votes to increase medicaid eligibility to 150% of the federal poverty level to a term of eight years as governor in his or her home state so they can have an opportunity to manage the program and to raise taxes and to find a way to pay for that sort of proposal. if we senators were to increase medicaid in that way and go home, we would find first that medicaid is a terrible base upon which to build an improved health care system, because it is filled with lawsuits. it is filled with federal court consent decrease that sometimes are 20 and 25 years old that take away from the governor and the legislature, the authority to make decisions. it is filled with inefficiency. it is filled with delays as governors request waivers to run their systems that may take a year or more for approval from the federal government for relatively simple requests. and an i

mr. alexander: thank you, madam president. will you please let me know when four minutes remain? the presiding officer: will do. mr. alexander: i would like to congratulate the senator from nebraska, and recognizing the importance of the united states to trade with our friends in the rest of the world, especially our friends in latin america, especially when they're taking advantage of low tariffs with us and we're not taking advantage of low tariffs with them. our principal concern on the republican side, and i'm sure many democrats too, is the cost of living for middle-class families in america. there are many issues that come before us that deal with that. the level of our taxes, the level of tuition. if we get medicaid spending -- excuse me -- under control, states will be able to fund the states of tennessee and nebraska better. but another way to do that is to train the world. people walk into stores in america and look

mr. alexander: thank you very much, mr. president. mr. president, this morning one of our biparartisan breakfasts occurred which we have here every so often. senator lieberman and i and other senators organize this. there were 18 senators there. the presiding officer is often a participant in those meetings. we talked about health care. and one of the things we said, as we listened to the chairman and ranking members of the finance committee and other senior members, is that we agree on about 80% of what needs to be done. but one of the areas where we don't agree is cost. and another area is whether a so-called government-run insurance option will lead to a washington takeover of health care. a lot of us are feeling like we've had about enough washington take overs. our banks, our insurance companies, our student loans, our car companies, even our farm ponds. and now health care would be too much. that's not the best way to extend coverage to low-income americans who need it. the chairman of the finance committee indicated that his bill w

mr. alexander. >> may i comment on the issue? >> sure. i means in -- at this point, it's a house matter. but we're always happy to hear from a senator. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. chairman, my -- i do appreciate your recognizing me. i was on the floor of the senate when the senate amendment was being written. it was written with discussions with the president. the president supports the amendment. the senate agreed to it unanimously. the conclusion was arrived at because of the extraordinary statements of general petraeus and general odierno about the effect of the release of these photographs. and how they might endanger the lives of servicemen and women. the language of those two commanding officers was filed by president obama in his brief in the second circuit court of appeals in new york in support of his position that these shouldn't be released. the words that general petraeus used were further endanger the lives of soldiers, marines, airmen, sailors, civilians and contractors serving there. general odierno used similar words, i

mr. alexander: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, this is the car czar award for wednesday, june 10, 2009. the award is a service to taxpayers from america's new automotive headquarters: washington, d.c. it's a second in a series of car czar awards to be confirmed, to be conferred upon washington meddlers who distinguish themselves by making it harder for auto companies your government owns to compete in the world marketplace. on monday i presented the first car czar award to the honorable barney frank of massachusetts for interfering in the operation of general motors. congressman frank, chairman of the house financial services committee, intervened last week to save a general motors distribution center in his massachusetts congressional district. the warehouse which employs some 90 people was slated for closing under g.m.'s restructuring plan, but mr. frank put in a call to the g.m. chief executive officer, fritz henderson, and lo and behold the facility has a new lease on life according to "the wall street journal." mr.

mr. alexander: the -- in alexan, virginia, o, and much of the evidence that was gained to try him was classified and could not be shared with him and there were significant questions of due process as a result. how can you try somebody for a serious crime and not show them the evidence against them? that's when of the main reasons why it's very difficult to try these terrorists for crimes. the second problem is, the security issue, and the people in virginia and alexandria in the county will tell you it was a costly and difficult thing for them to be able to conduct this trial of zarqawi there. but it was possible and it was possible to get a conviction, i suggest, primarily because of decisions he made, but it was possible to do so. and, everybody acknowledges that there are some people who need to be tried for serious crimes. in effect, like war crimes. and that they should be tried in united states courts. it doesn't make it easy but it can be done. what it doesn't prove is that should be done for all of the people at gitmo. in fact, not even the president suggests that. the president, in his

mr. alexander did a good job of addressing medicaid and am not going to be everything he said but he is a good point. i would like to put in perspective. the first year medicaid was law and the first to the state of georgia appropriated in his budget appropriations act for mccain inappropriate $7,791,691. which was at that particular time 1 percent of the state of georgia's budget. in 2008 the state's share of medicaid as 2,468,000,003 had a $76,258 which is 12 percent of the entire state budget. and if you raise medicaid from 100 percent eligibility to 150 and tell the states they're not going to have to pay for the first four years we're going to have to pay for the first four years and is going to be an equivalent for my state alone of a billion dollars a year. we should remember that when we pass an economic stimulus bill is significant portion of it went to mccain to offset the difficult states are already having in meeting their obligations and when that stimulus expires in two years and the money is gone we don't have the money to do it again in the hole is already deeper so we nee

mr. alexander: thank you, madam president. i yield the floor and i thank the distinguished senator from florida for his forebearance and patience. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from florida. mr. nelson: and indeed the distinguished senator from tennessee is a great gentleman, and he's a pleasure to work with. madam president, the legislation that's on the floor is the travel promotion act. this is an important piece of legislation that will help our economy because it promotes travel to the u.s. and it promotes travel to areas not traditionally visited, which will highlight the united states as a premier travel designation. -- destination. the bill initiates a nationally coordinated travel promotion campaign established in a public-private partnership to increase international travel to the united states. and it also creates a corporation for travel promotion, an independent nonprofit corporation to run the travel promotion campaign. the program will be funded equally by a small fee paid by fore

alexander. >> thank you mr. chairman. in this room and this is a rumor to predecessors and i see it as two important questions -- howard baker as what to the president know and when did he know in the watergate hearing and then fred thompson was his minority counsel and he said mr. butterfield, or there any recordings of the office of those became the nixon tapes. and as a matter of interest at that time the watergate hearings were on every day for five or six hours a day on all -- and there are only three television networks and it was on all three networks. a senator in no way told us after about a month george gallup came and told him it was only one person in the u.s. but in on the senator and it was president nixon because the whole country was riveted to that set of hearings in this room. in case senator kennedy is listening which i hope he is, i would like to say to him how much we wish you were here because we know how i'm for this bill is two him and he is important to us and we hope he is doing well. out like to

lamar alexander, you're up. >> thanks, mr. chairman.i have an amendment to title three, section 311. the purpose of it is to make sure that the right choices program which is in that title doesn't require the states to spend any money on it, and this is a relatively small item, probably, but i would like to make a larger point in making my proposal, if i could say just a word about it. >> certainly. >> we have talked a lot here about cost and usually the cost is described in terms of cost to the federal government, and the cbo, congressional budget office, score has said that the kennedy bill even without three of its major points would add $1 trillion over ten years. senator gregg has said that once the program is implemented fully by the fifth year, it would be more like $2.3 trillion. but i would like to talk about a different sort of cost that i'm particularly sensitive to because of my experience as governor, struggling with the medicaid program and watching every other governor struggle with the medicaid program. in 1980, shortly

and then we'll go to senator alexander then senator sanders and senator enzi. go ahead, tom. >> mr. chairman, i just offer harkin number two. that's what it is called in the books, prevention and public investment fund. we talked around that with the foregoing enzi amendment. but this is the specifics of the trust fund itself. it establishes an expanded and sustained national investment and prevention and public health programs. again, it dedicated stable funding stream of $10 billion a year from 2010 to 2019. now if you'll notice in there, because of the lack of workforce and so we don't put the money in there right away, we ramp it up so the fiscal year 2010 it will be $2 billion, then for each year we go up by two to four to six to eight to ten and then continue with $10 billion for the -- from then on. so we ramp it up over a period of one, two, three, four, five -- five years up that $10 billion level. and, again, i don't know that i need to say a heck of a lot more about. this we already talked a lot about it. the reason that we have this amendment, it's also in the underlying

mr. secretary. >> i support -- i'm just teasing. i'm proud to be a co-sponsor of the alexander-and amendment because they joined to excellent ideas together in something i think is critical. the american people are fed up with this notion of the federal government taking over businesses and running them. part of this is in response to that. but there is a very good governance aspect to this that i want to bring to your attention. the government of the united states of america is made up of the people. the people came first. it is we the people, an order to form a more perfect union, get together and give the government some of our rights and we will see where it goes from there. the people are the government in the united states. when we talk about the government owning something, it is the people who own it. so it is the people who should have the shares of stocks, not the government. that is the first great idea. the stock in this company that the people now own will be held by the people. it's not just an abstract notion. the second important reason for what senator alexande

alexander? >> thank you, senator bennett. this has been very helpful. i thank the four of you for your comments. mr. rockwell, you said you would speak from the engineering point of view. is it possible to build 100 new nuclear power plants of 1,240 megawatts or so over the next 20 years? >> i think it clearly is. i thought that in your right up, the talk that you gave in oak ridge, you pointed out that we did build 100 plants in the 20 years between 1970 and 1990. . . i think that it is perfectly possible. >> i was going to ask you to say something about the naval program. much of it is classified i suppose. we cannot talk about it in public. what lesson is there to us as we look ahead from our success or lack of success with the nuclear navy program. >> back before we had even proved that the prototype plan for the nautilus would work, we had not gone to the point where that had produced power. president eisenhower was concerned that the bomb was the only image that anybody had of nuclear power. ge anyone had of nuclear power. he set up the act comes a -- atoms for peace program. at that early sta

alexander? >> thank you, senator bennett. this has been very helpful. i thank the four of you for your comments. mr. rockwell, you said you would speak from the engineering point of view. is it possible to build 100 new nuclear power plants of

as alexander hamilton told the constitution convention, senators -- and i quote -- "cannot themselves choose, they can only ratify or reject the choice of the president." mr. president, i take this role very seriously, as do all of my senate colleagues. in fact, just 3 1/2 years ago, on this very floor, one of our colleagues in the senate at the time rose and gave the following views on a then pending supreme court nomination. and i want to quote for you, mr. president, what he said. he said, "there are some who believe that the president, having won the election, should have complete authority to appoint his nominee and the senate should only examine whether the justice is intellectually capable and an all-around good person, that once you get beyond intellect and personal character, there should be no further question as to whether the judge should be confirmed. i disagree with this view. i believe firmly that the constitution calls for the senate to advice and consent. i believe it calls for meaningful advice and consent and that includes an examination of the judge's philosophy, ideology, and record." mr. president, the senator who made those remarks

alexander? >> thank you, senator bennett. this has been very, very helpful and i thank the four of you for your comments. mr. rockwell, you said you just speak from the engineering point of view. is it possible to build 100 new nuclear power plants of 1240 megawatts or so over the next 20 years? >> i think it clearly is. i thought that in your write-up, the talk that you gave in oak ridge, you pointed out that we did build 100 plants in the 20 years between 1970 and 1990. and that's absolutely true. and in one of my handouts, i've got the story on what the naval reactors did in eight years when we didn't -- you know, we didn't have any resources. that we had to create everything from scratch, and yet we built 41 full-sized plants in connection with the naval program in eight years. and so i think that's perfectly possible. >> i was going to ask you to say something about the naval program because much of it is classified, i suppose, and we can't talk about it in public. but what lesson is there to us as we look ahead in the next 20 years from our success or lack of success with the nuclear navy program? >> w

alexander hamilton said, the people govern. we can stop this bill and so we must. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from texas. mr. barton: can i inquire how much time remains? the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas has 5 1/4 and the gentleman from california has 13 minutes remaining. mr. barton: the gentleman from california has the right to close? the speaker pro tempore: yes. mr. barton: one more parliamentary inquiry, the leadership on both sides, each is allowed one minute to speak at any time, will that time come out of this debate or does that time come out of the debate on the forbes' amendment? the speaker pro tempore: depends on wart of the debate they're yielded to. mr. barton: could i -- would mr. waxman yield for a question then? i need to know if i need to reserve one minute for mr. boehner to speak or if the speaker and the majority leader are going to speak later and not in this part of the debate. mr. waxman: we're ready to conclude the general debate. we will then move onto the amendment. and in the course of the discussion of the amendment in the nature of a substitute, our leadership

alexander. >> [ inaudible ]. >> senator mccain. >> [ inaudible ]. >> senator hatch. >> no by proxy. >> senator mutuali in in ing -- >> no by proxy. >> test eign ayes, 13 nays. >> number 72. >> coburn amendment number 72. >> mr. chairman? since we decided we didn't like my idea of sending it all back to states, what this is is a compromise that says, perhaps we would allow hersa to contract in the states for states to put all -- funnel all their stuff into their three most areas of acute short aage. all we're saying with this is, whatever the title is that we've got, whatever we do, this allows hersa to form a contract with the state to funnel all these monies into their three or more acute shortages. we still get money into the state but we add some flexibility into the state based on differing state needs. i think this will give flexibility to accomplish what senator murray is trying to accomplish. it still has control. it allows hersa to be in charge of that control. but it's an imperfect solution as compared to what i offered earlier and was defeated. but i think this one makes some sense, that allows the flexibility to really address the varying needs of the various states. that stops my debate. >> sena

mr. secretary, whichever hat you may be wearing gang goes to one of the bankrupt auto companies. >> i support the kyl-- i'm just teasing. i am proud to be a co-sponsor of the alexander bennett amendment because they joined to excellent ideas together in something i think is critical. first of all understand, the american people are fed up with the notion of the federal government taking over businesses and running those businesses. barda this is in response to that, but there is a very good governance aspect of this that i want to bring to your attention. you know the government of the united states of america is made up of the people. the people came first. it is we the people in order to form a more perfect union get together and give the government some of our rights and then we will see where it goes from there because are the people of the government in the united states. when we talk about the government on something, it is the people who own it, so it is that people who should have the shares of stocks, not the government. that is the first idea here, that the stock in this company that the people now on will be held by the people. now it is not just an abstr

alexander graham bell, of course. but few can name the inventor of the wireless phone. a device used by more than half of the world's population. his name is martin cooper. mr. cooper estimates that the technological innovation has enabled us to double the amount of information transmitted over the spectrum every 2 1/2 years. as a result, we are 2 trillion times more spectrally efficient today than when the radio was first invented in 1997. this concept is known as cooper's law. this powerful trend should continue indefinitely unless the government adopts policies that frustrate rather than foster innovation. if i am confirmed you have my commitment to support policies that will promote and not stifle freedom, competition, innovation and more choices. if we adopt such policies we'll create boundless opportunities for american consumers and entrepreneurs alike. additionally if confirmed, i will commit myself to continuing to conduct the affairs of my office in a bipartisan and ethical manner. and i will continue to make decisionses as an independent commissioner at an independent administrative agency. furthermore, i will work to support policies that promot

mr. alexander: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator tennessee. mr. alexander: thank you, mammogram. i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. alexander: madam president, in about an hour, we'll be asked to vote on whether the united states senate can continue to do what the united states senate is supposed to do, and that is to amend and debate, amend and debate. when i ran for the united states senate, the people of tennessee sent me up here to represent them. snected that when i got here, i'd have a chance to say what i had to say on their behalf. what i think may not be so important. what they think is really important. and they know that the history of the senate, as senator byrd has so often said, is distinguished really by only a couple things. one is virtually unlimited right to amend and virtually unlimited right to debate. and so what is going to happen at 5:30 is, we're going to be asked to vote to cut off amendments and to cut off debate. a vote "yes" will be a vote to obstruct,

environmental staff on the committee, gregg doddson, laurie schmidt, alexander thais, jeff baron, alex baron, ben hicks and rob cobbs and, mr. markey, i don't know if you've put together -- mr. markey: may i do the same thing? i'd like to thank joe, michael gu, danielle, unra, i'd like to thank mihal, more began gray, jonathan phillips, evan, jackie, jeff sharp, ali broad i ask and especially -- broadski and especially jerry walden and jeff duncan. along with shannon henry who is still sitting over there had as well. all of you were fantastic and it's just a historic achievement and we thank you all so much for everything. mr. waxman: mr. speaker, i also want to add our appreciation to matt weiner, our staff assistance on this legislation. i feel empowered because i only asked for one minu and i've talked far more than one minute. but i guess that's become a new tradition in the house. but i don't want to abuse it and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from new york rise? >> mr. speaker, by direction of the committee on appropriations, i present a privileged r

, brownback, enzi, graham, martinez, thune, wicker, alexander, cochran, ensign, vitter, and i'm sure there are others. it's a bipartisan bill. now, mr. president, we have already wasted so much time on this. we had to file cloture on a motion to proceed to this heavily bipartisan bill. and once we're on the bill -- i spoke to the republican leader and we thought when he a pathway to having civility here so the republicans would try help us. but, of course, we learned that yesterday the senate g.o.p. still saying "no." democrats need to know when the bring bills up we're going to extend the debate as long as we can even if we can't win. we said okay, let's -- you offer -- you, the republicans, offer four amendments. and they did. they picked all the amendments they wanted to offer want germane to this bill. and i said okay. they were all involving tarp, the money that we all know about by now. and so i said, well, senator -- i told senator from vermont, senator sanders, i said, if republicans want to offer nongermane amendments, i'll be happy to offer your amendment. his is -- his is really a fairly simple amendment, mr. president.