mr. carper: thank you, madam president. the presiding officer: madam president? the presiding officer: -- a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from michigan. mr. levin: i yield myself three minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. levin: i support bob groves to be the director of the u.s. census bureau. he is not only a well-qualified candidate he may be the best qualified candidate nominated to this position. dr. groves has been endorsed by many scientific organization, including the american statistical association, the american social logical association. he has been endorsed by six former directors of the u.s. census bureau who are appointed by both plawnd democratic presidents -- by republican and democratic presidents. i would submit that letter of endorsement. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. levin: in 2001, dr. groves was elected by his peers to lead the institute for social research at the university of michigan. this is the largest academic-based research institute of its kind in the world. he has educ

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

mr. carper: mr. president, thank you very much. i thank the floor manager on the majority side for unanimous consent request allowing me to proceed now under morning business. i want to say a word or two about the defense authorization bill which is before us and then i want to pivot and talk about the health of our nation's defenses but about the health care of our people. we start off by extending my thanks to our leaders of the defense committee, the armed services committee, senator levin and senator mccain and their staffs and the good work they have done and i thank senator reed of rhode island for his contributions and where i am stand on the floor i am looking at senator reed a graduate of military academy at west point and across the aisle, senator mccain, a graduate of the naval academy. great to have that kind of experience here in the u.s. senate. sitting on opposite sides of the aisle coming from schools sometimes to the to be rivals but working together when we need for them to. i want to express my thanks to the pres

mr. carper: madam president, i want to commend -- the presiding officer: the senator from delaware. mr. carper: thank you. i want to commend the leaders of the committee. i just want to commend senator chambliss and senator dodd for their herculean efforts here to try to stave off the closure of the line. i try to put myself in the shoes of others when i take a position on an issue. i say what i say because this comes from the heart and not because of lack of respect for the efforts that you have shown in support of your constituents. madam president, we have today -- we've just come out of eight years where we've seen our national debt double. we've incurred as much new debt over the last eight years as we did in the previous 208 years. we're looking this year to a one-year deficit higher than any in the history of our country, believed to be well over $1 trillion. if you go back to tkwupb and you look -- go back to 2001, in 2001 the cost of major weapons systems it was about $400 billion. we tell folks who are running the pentagon, tell us which weapons systems you need and those you d

mr. voinovich: thank you, madam president. i ask that the voinovich-carper amendment, amendment number 1841, be called up. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from ohio, mr. voinovich, for himself and mr. carper, proposes an amendment numbered 1841 to amendment number 1813. on page 63, after line 23, add the following -- mr. voinovich: i ask that further reading of the amendment be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. voinovich: thank you, madam president. i want to thank chairman dorgan and ranking member bennett for allowing me to bring this amendment to the floor. madam president, this bipartisan amendment renews authorization granted to the nuclear regulatory commission and the general services administration in the fiscal year 2009 omnibus appropriations bill. that allows g.s.a. to acquire additional permanent office space near the nuclear regulatory commission headquarters location in rockville, maryland. we need to renew this authorization in fiscal year 2010 appropriation because the current l

mr. carper: mr. president, thank you for recognizing me. mr. president, i want to return to the underlying bill. senator voinovich and i have offered an amendment, i think it is 1841. i'm not going to call up the amendment now, but i would like to talk just a little bit about it. as the chairman and our colleagues know, we spend -- we receive in this country probably 20% of the electricity we consume from nuclear power plants. all those nuclear power plants were built several decades ago. we have about 104 in all. a number of them are 40 years old, and they were licensed for 40 years, and the utilities that own those power plants have to come back to the nuclear regulatory commission and ask that the -- for an extension, if you will, on the life of a license. they're asking for 20-year extensions. the nuclear regulatory commission has many jobs. one of those is to make sure that the 104 nuclear power plants that are in operation operate safely day. if it isn't perfect, to make it better, to create a culture of safety and make sure we don't have

mr. president, i rise to speak of an amendment senator carper and i filed today, amendment 1891. this is a simple amendment and one i hope the senate will support. our amendment addresses the delaware river deepening project. this is a project to deepen the river's shipping channel from a depth of 40 feet to 45 feet in an ever to bring in more commerce. 29 miles of the shipping channel runs through the state of delaware open the way to the ports in philadelphia and new jersey. those of us with ties to the three states that are involved know a long history -- know the long history. there have been a lot of stops and starts over the years and put on hold in 2002 before being restarted in 2007. what our amendment does is prohibit the use of any funds from this bill on the portion of the project that is within delaware. part of this is up the delaware river. there's a section of the delaware river which is ruled to be part of delaware. what this thing does is say no funds should be spent until, within delaware, until the state government issues an applicable people. this is necessary

mr. carper: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from delaware. mr. carper: thank, mr. president. i want to take -- i was going to talk about aircraft and aircraft procurement. and i will do that. before i do that, i -- i feel compelled to respond to the comments of my colleague from -- from arizona with respect to health care. as it turns out the -- as we -- we're gathered here on the senate floor today, negotiations are under way between democrats and republicans, led by senator max baucus, chairman of the senate finance committee and senator chuck grassley, ranking republican on the senate finance committee, trying to find common ground with respect to health care in a day and age when we spend more on health care than any other nation on earth. we don't get better results. i think that 14,000 people are likely to lose their health care in our country today in a country where we have 47 million folks who don't have health care coverage. we can do better than that. and a strong bipartisan effort led by two very good people, senators grassley and senator baucus to find