voinovich: i thank you, mr.resident, and i want to thank senator lieberman for the leadership that he has shown on this effort to make a difference in the lives of students in the district of columbia. i think that the senator from california did a beautiful job of outlining the difference that it has made for just the few that have been able to participate in the program thats far. i rise, of course, to support the amendment, an amendment that will continue to give thousands of children in the district of columbia an opportunity for a good education. it was first authorized in 2004 and the program has the potential to provide 1,700 children with scholarships of up to $7,500 each to attend the school of their choice. to qualify, students must live in the district and have a household income of no more than 185% of the poverty line, and in the district, recipients' average family income is $24,300, so these are very, very poor kids from families that are just making it. and it's not something that we've created t

and i wonder if you could speak to that. >> well, first, senator, as i expressed to senator voinovichearlier in the foreign service appropriations committee, thank you for going to southern europe and the balkans. there's a lot of unfinished business there. we can be proud of the role that the united states played. but we can't rest on any laurels because there are still some volatile situations that have to be addressed. with respect to nato membership, i believe strongly in leaving the door open. i also believe it needs to be left open for the european union although we have no direct role in that. and i think it's particularly important for bosnia. now, we have been trying to persuade bosnia to do the necessary constitutional reform that will enhance the prospects for unity and not division within that country. and some people have argued, well, that should be -- that should be the carrot that is held out to them so that if they do the constitutional reform then they can get into the map process for nato. others have said, no, let them in and then don't let them become members unti

i'm pleased to say senator collins of maine, byrd of west virginia, feinstein of california, voinovich of ohio and ensign of nevada. the purpose of this amendment is to reauthorize, literally to save the opportunity scholarship program, or o.s.p. -- some know it as the d.c. school voucher program. we are introducing our amendment to this legislation because without prompt action by congress, the o.s.p. program, i'm afraid, will end. the current administrator has advised secretary duncan that it will no longer administer the program absent a reauthorization. and no other entity has expressed a willingness to take over, given the constraints imposed by congress under the prevailing set of circumstances. so, despite the president's stated intent in his budget to continue the program if only for those students currently participating, even that will become impossible. this amendment, as i'll explain in a moment, will reauthorize this program for five years at essentially its current levels. as i will explain in a moment, it is working. it is immensely popular with families of children at f

george voinovich is retiring. that's a race in which republicans clearly have the upper hand with rob portman, the former bush budget director. democrats think they can make headway against him late in the year. we'll see. he's going to have a lot of money. five house seats in the democratic party. the tide came in in '06 and '0837 they won some seats that are a hard ground to defend for democrats. they're going to have their work cut out for them to defend those seats. that is also a double didn't unemployment state. finally, it is important to make clear that it's not only unemployment, and it's not only the level, but everybody across the country realizes it's a weak economy. look at pennsylvania, arlen specter switched over from the republican party, the democratic party supported obama on health care, has a tough race. the republican is challenging him. he has a challenge from the left in joe sestak, one of the house members. sestak's seat is vacant and also john murtha, the veteran who passed away some weeks

sometimes our stuff go on staff notes and one of our staff, senator lieberman's stuff and senator voinovich's staff and the places they've visited where yemen and saudi arabia and they spend a little bit of time in holland and germany, and one of the things i will get into saudi arabia and yemen but one of the things they heard about in holland especially with respect to the amsterdam airport was the kind of behavior a system or profiling that takes place some of those airports to hit the israelis are noted for these techniques but i'm told you have airport security officials who try to identify and prevent bad guys from getting on airplanes and causing trouble. they do it in part by observing that passengers and by understand airports position while trained personnel at various points to ask questions politely to scrutinize expressions to check out body language and speech patterns. i don't know if it is a good idea or not. the israelis think it is and some other countries do as well. but i would just be interested in hearing of the thoughts of our witnesses today on this type of screening a

proposed site for a nuclear facility in ohio and inasmuch as our two state representatives, george voinovichand jean smith -- can you tell me at what. , at what stage this facility is as far as going ahead with the permit? >> guest: i can't. i am sorry, i don't know the status of individual sites. i know there are 22, 19 companies that have gone to the nuclear regulatory commission with 22 potential sites for bringing new reactors on but where each one of those individual sites stands in the regulatory process, whether whether for would be it would be the very beginning because the nrc is just beginning to process those applications and they are site-specific now so it would be at the earliest stages. but i don't know exactly, couldn't comment on where it is precisely. >> host: denniston columbus, ohio. >> caller: good morning. my question for you is the reason why people for the government or the government isn't using gravity as a power source. it is very cheap, inexpensive and probably the lowest cost you can get. >> guest: again, i am not a scientist so i can tell you why they happened.

introduce this amendment with senators collins of maine, byrd of west virginia, feinstein of california, voinovich of ohio, and ensign of nevada. its purpose is to reauthorize and, in fact, to save the opportunity scholarship program or o.s.p., for students here in the district of columbia. we are introducing our amendment to this legislation. and i use the word save, because without prompt action by congress, there is a reasonable probability that the o.s.p. program, the scholarship program, will not be just limited to the number of students who are in it now and, in fact, there haven't been any new students submitted in the last two years. but it will be doomed. as i explained here on the floor of the senate yesterday, the current administrator has advised secretary duncan that it will no longer -- the administrator being a corporation, an entity, that it will no longer administer the program without a reauthorization. no other entity has yet expressed a willingness to take over given the constraints imposed by congress so despite president obama's intent stated in -- his budget message to conti

. >> senator voinovich? >> [inaudible] our foreign relations people came in and said we need [inaudible] my question is this. i met with ambassador holbrooke in october. and i talked about securing the environment there. [inaudible] the question i have, is how much is that costing us? and how long are read going to have to be there [inaudible] -- in terms of how long it is going to be? next, is how much help are we getting from our nato and other allies in terms of this nation building. that is on your side of the coin. secretary gates, on your side, i would love to have the information, how much how are you getting out from our nato allies with boots on the ground? we have people there, but they have unpaid debts. i have gone to countries, and they say, i am sorry, we cannot have our people involved in military activity, but we can train these individuals. how much help are we getting from them? you are asking for $2.60 billion it to build up the afghanistan army. the question i have a, is anybody else pitc

i'd also like to ask unanimous consent that on my amendment number 3416 that senator voinovich be added as a cosponsor. the presiding officer: without objection, it is so ordered. mrs. lincoln: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i also would like to set aside the pending amendment and call up my other amendment number 3401. the presiding officer: without objection, the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from arkansas, mrs. lincoln, proposes an amendment numbered 3401 to amendment number 3336. mrs. lincoln: unanimous consent that the amendment be -- the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mrs. lincoln: thank you. thank you, mr. president. just for my colleagues, i want to let them know that we've worked in a bipartisan way on the underlying amendment and we've worked in a bipartisan way to look at how we make these modifications to actually bring about $30 million of additional savings to the overall bill. so i look forward to working to complete in bill. i think we've got a great opportunity here to create jobs and look at the future of hour we can put our eco