mr. cardin: mr. president, i take this time to share with my colleagues the tragic events that unfolded these past few weeks in the ukraine. the ukraine is an incredibly important country. the recent events are tragic, the result of a corrupt government and loss of life. i remember the orange revolution that took place in ukraine starting in november 2004, ending in january 2005. hundreds of thousands of ukrainians took to that protest, protest a corrupt election. they did it in a peaceful way. they not only got the attention of the people of ukraine but the attention of the world. as a result of that peaceful revolution, the government stood for new elections, free and fair elections, democratic leadership was elected, and all of us thought the future for ukraine was very, very positive. mr. president, i was in key he t long after that. i saw that sense of hope that ukraine at long last would be an independent country, without the domination of any other country. and the proud people would have a co

mr. cardin: mr. president, there is an especially at that tim-- there is anepitaph above f england's greatest architect's buried. it reads in parkts "here lies christopher wren who lived beyond 90 years, not for his own profit but for the public good. reader, if you seek his monument, look around you." end quote. a similar epitaph would be entirely suitable for my dear friend, the great businessman, engineer, philanthropist and devoted baltimoreian william hachiman who died yesterday at the age of 95. willard was a 19-year-old civil engineer who had just graduated from johns hopkins university. he went to work for a contracting company in his native baltimore. g.w.c. whiting and lebaron turner had started the construct firm in 1909. in 1955, whiting promoted willard to be the president and chief executive officer of the firm. in 1955 and he served in that capacity to his recent death. whiting turner issued a press release stwaited, mr. hackiman led us from a regional contractor to a leading construct

. >> senator cardin. >> no. mr. chairman on the vote the yeas are three and then azar six. on the vote by proxy the or three in the nays are three. on this vote the yeas yeas are six and then azar nine. the motion is not agreed to. >> let's move to the begich amendment. senator begich would you like to comment further? >> mr. chairman i don't know the amendment number but i think it might be number four so i will use that as the number for a placeholder. again this is highly focused on the issues that i know i hear a lot about making sure that people are not breaking the law as they going to get their mail and we have this problem all throughout alaska. the court case resolves that problem and i would encourage a yes vote on this mr. chairman. >> i have a quick question of senator begich. >> pleased. >> is this amendment say it's permissible where it is consistent with state law? >> state and local law. >> any further discussion? on the begich amendment we will call it number four at this time with the clerk call the roll please? and clerk can you confirm the number. >> beg

cardin has pointed out there is a law but there is no regulation. that is why senator manchin's l. is so critical because we could could -- and mr. faulk i love lawyers. i'm married to one and my father was one in my son is one. you are eloquent in your philosophy but it doesn't get to the point of where we are which is that we have got people suffering at this time so it seems to me that without getting into an argument about federalism although i do agree with you the state should have absolute flexibility to move on this, i would rather see if we can first of all help you solve a problem which i think since you have a responsibility under current law and states have the responsibility to declare whether water is safe it sounds to me we need some help here in monitoring and measuring and i want to get to that in a minute. but also we want to make sure in the future with these 80,000 chemicals out there mr. weaver do you have any idea how many chemicals might be stored all over this great nation at various area water supply is? do you have any idea that? >> how many? i can speak to our member facilities which i do know about it

cardin. >> we have a very distinguished panel before a senate size of pleasure remember the last time we had mr. donohue and mr. trumka together it was on a similar bill so it's nice to see the entire panel together with labor and business recognizing the importance of the long-term surface transportation reauthorization. i want to stress that madam chair. i think it's critically important that we do a long-term surface transportation reauthorization to give predictability to our transportation program in this country. you can't plan transportation needs on a one-year or two-year basis. you have to have at least a five or six your reauthorization bill in order to do the types of modernized transportation that we have in this country. as many members of this committee have already pointed out and as members of the panel has pointed out this is about jobs and will create jobs for our economy. not only direct jobs related to construction and transportation needs but also jobs in the way in which we can attract the type of economic activities in our community that modern transportation provides. it