[Pages S456-S468]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

NOMINATION OF MARTHA N. JOHNSON TO BE ADMINISTRATOR, GENERAL SERVICES
ADMINISTRATION

The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, there
will be 2 hours of debate prior to a vote on the motion to invoke
cloture on the Johnson nomination, with the time equally divided and
controlled between the leaders or their designees.
The clerk will report the nomination.
The legislative clerk read the nomination of Martha N. Johnson, of
Maryland, to be Administrator, General Services Administration.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Madam President, I rise to urge my colleagues in the
strongest terms to vote for cloture on the nomination of Martha Johnson
to be Administrator of the General Services Administration. The point
of cloture is to allow this critical agency to finally have a permanent
leader. It would be the first time in nearly 2 years and could
potentially save America's taxpayers billions of dollars in the
bargain.
Let me give a few examples of what is at stake, which is to say what
the General Services Administration can do for us. Last year, Federal
agencies bought $53 billion worth of goods and services, and they did
so through contracts negotiated by the General Services Administration,
the GSA. Having GSA negotiate these procurements lets the individual
agencies focus on their core missions, doing what we or previous
Congresses created them to do. It also allows the Federal Government to
leverage our buying power because if the buying is occurring from one
central agency, we can get, in conventional terms, volume discounts,
leading to lower costs and, therefore, savings to the taxpayers.
We need strong leadership at GSA to ensure these savings are a
reality. For example, in 2007, GSA awarded the NETWORX contracts to
provide telephone network and information technology services to all
Federal agencies. That is a program estimated to be valued at, at
least, $68 billion in the course of its 10-year lifetime. These
contracts will allow agencies to take full advantage of the new
technologies their colleagues in the private sector use every day to
increase efficiency and lower costs. But without a permanent
Administrator at GSA, agencies have been slow to move to the NETWORX
services, costing taxpayers more than $150 million to date and an
additional $18 million every month.

Given GSA's wide responsibilities in providing information technology
and telecommunications services, I am concerned that we lack a
confirmed Administrator at a time when we are also trying, of course,
to strengthen our cyber-defenses. Government Web sites, such as private
Web sites, are constantly under attack. GSA needs to play and can play
a very important role in ensuring that our Federal IT systems are
resistant to those cyber-attacks. Furthermore, because of the
government's buying power, GSA's purchases will have a natural positive
spillover effect in the private sector.
In other words, GSA, by its own requirements associated with
purchases, can drive technologies that then become more available to
the general public, and I am thinking here specifically of technologies
that can defend

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against cyber-attack on private companies as well as on public Web
sites.
Here is another example about another function of the GSA. GSA is
effectively the government's landlord, with 8,600 buildings and assets
under its control that are valued at more than $500 billion. It is one
of the largest, if not the largest, property management organizations
in the world.
Another of GSA's roles is to help other agencies dispose of buildings
and property they no longer need. Across the government, these numbers
are both stunning and unsettling. There are different agencies that own
thousands of buildings worth about $18 billion that are not being used.
Every day I hear Members come to the floor saying we need to work
hard to trim the fat from the Federal budget so we can cut the deficit.
I agree. Yet the GSA--the very agency established to help make
government operations more cost efficient--has been languishing without
a leader for over half a year and I think in that sense is losing some
opportunities to save some money.
What is frustrating is that a hold has been placed on this nominee
for reasons that have nothing to do with her qualifications or her
personal history. That is why I am glad Senator Reid filed a cloture
motion and we have forced this nomination to the floor. It is
important, in a totally nonpartisan way, that we get a full-time
Administrator in here at GSA.
Martha Johnson's nomination received the unanimous support of the
Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in June of last
year--more than half a year ago. So that says she had total bipartisan
support in our committee based on her experience and qualifications,
and I am confident she has wide bipartisan support in the full Senate
as well. I hope and trust we will see that when the vote occurs on
cloture and final confirmation at around 3 o'clock.
I hope this nomination is a call to action and common sense--and not
only bipartisan cooperation but the cooperation of every Member here
who has the right to hold up nominations but ought to think about the
public interest and the national interest when they do this--that we
cannot continue the practice of holding nominees ``hostage,'' as
President Obama said yesterday, for reasons that are parochial and
unrelated to the nominee's ability to do the job they have been
nominated for. I think these kinds of actions damage the Senate as an
institution and further reduce the public's respect for how we do our
business.
I wish to remind my colleagues at this point how well qualified this
nominee is. To begin with, Ms. Johnson is a former Chief of Staff of
the GSA. So she already knows the agency inside and out and will be
ready to roll up her sleeves and get to work on day one--no on-the-job
training needed. This is crucial both to the efficiency and morale of
an agency that has not had a permanent Administrator since April of
2008--almost 2 years. April 2008 was the time when the former Director
was asked to resign by the previous administration. GSA has since been
run by five acting Administrators who could not act with the same
authority as a Presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed person in
that top job.
But both before and after her government service, Martha Johnson's
career shows a quite extraordinary mix of work in the public, private,
and academic sectors that we should want in government service. Ms.
Johnson holds a BA in economics and history from Oberlin College and an
MBA from Yale Business School. She also taught some classes during this
time.
After graduating from Yale, Ms. Johnson began her career in the
private sector as a manager at Cummins Engines Company. She then had a
series of other management positions in the private sector and was
asked by President Clinton to become Associate Deputy Secretary of
Commerce, and then Chief of Staff of GSA from 1996 to 2001.
Since leaving government service in 2001, Ms. Johnson has served as a
vice president for the Council for Excellence in Government--a
nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing the
effectiveness of government at all levels--and, most recently, she
served as a vice president for Computer Sciences Corporation.
This is an extraordinarily experienced and qualified nominee, and
that is why I think she deserves--and I think will receive--broad
bipartisan support when this matter comes to a vote at around 3
o'clock.
It is past time for GSA to finally have a permanent Administrator,
and we happen to have a nominee here who is remarkably well suited for
the job. I urge my colleagues in the Senate to vote ``yes'' on cloture,
and then we can have a final vote and get this able person on the job
working for the American people and I think help us not only manage the
Federal Government's activities better but to save billions--literally
billions--of dollars for the American taxpayers.
I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
I would yield, if I might, to my friend and colleague from Louisiana
whatever time she needs to speak at this time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Burris). The Senator from Louisiana is
recognized.
Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I thank the Chair and thank the Senator
from Connecticut for yielding the remainder of his time. I understand
he has an hour under his control, and I intend to take the full measure
of the hour that is left, first speaking in favor of the nominee who he
has so eloquently described in terms of her background and experience
and the arguments he is making about trying to bring more civility and
bipartisanship to this body and the importance of getting some of these
very important Federal officials appointed so government can work
better and more efficiently.
It has been my pleasure to serve with the chairman now for several
years on the Homeland Security Committee, and I am familiar with the
work he and his ranking member, Susan Collins, the Senator from Maine,
have done together. They have shown a real example of bipartisanship,
and I would hope his calls for this nominee to move forward without
delay and not be held up would be heeded.

Louisiana FMAP Formula

Mr. President, I am on the floor to speak about a different subject,
one that is very important to the State of Louisiana and the people of
our State--an issue that has been mischaracterized for months now in
all sorts of venues--and I thought taking an opportunity today, for a
couple of hours, to go through the request by the State of Louisiana
for a change or realignment of our FMAP formula, the formula that funds
our Medicaid system, would be good to do.
It is good to do for several reasons, the most important of which is
not to bring up this subject again for further review to try to clear
anything that people have said about me. I have been in public office
now for 30 years. People have said all sorts of things about me as a
public official. I would venture to say every Member of this body has
been called some very choice names. That is actually not why I am here,
to defend myself. The Record will do that.

What I am here to do is to defend the people of Louisiana and to
express clearly and strongly why and how our delegation came forward,
united in a very public way, to press our case here in Washington--the
only place this can be fixed--why we felt as a delegation, strongly
united Democrats and Republicans, to press this case to the Federal
Government to get some immediate and necessary and urgent relief for
the people of our State.
I make no apologies for leading this effort. I do not back up an inch
from the yearlong effort we have undertaken. I am here today because I
actually do not have any idea at the moment what will happen to the
health care bill we have worked on for the better part of a year. I do
not know if we are going to have a bill. I do not know if it is going
to be the Senate version or the House version. I do not know if it is
going to be a bill passed by 60-plus people or more on the Senate side
and a wide majority in the House. I do not know if there is going to be
reconciliation that is used. Those discussions are happening actually
right now above my pay grade.
But what is in my pay grade, what I actually do get paid to do here,
is to represent the people of Louisiana, and I intend to do that for
the better part of this hour and for the rest of the day because there
has been some great misunderstanding about this in the national media--
not much in the mainstream media but on the fringes; but

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sometimes those fringes can be quite loud, and I would like to try my
best to silence them a little bit at this point. The mainstream media
has been, for the most part, taking their time to understand, and I
appreciate it.
I most certainly appreciate the newspapers in my State that actually
know more about this than any media outlets. They would because they
have covered it longer, have editorialized generally in my favor and
the favor of our delegation that has stood strong, except two members
who have folded on this issue.
So I want to start to try to take everyone through chronologically
the timeframe. First of all, I have been, and the State of Louisiana
has been, criticized for a ``secret'' deal, for something that happened
at the very end of the process that people did not know about.
I wish to call everyone's attention to a Times-Picayune headline--
this is the newspaper in New Orleans--a Times-Picayune headline, dated
January 11, 2009. We are in February of 2010, so this was a year ago.
This was a year ago. I also would call to the attention of my critics
that this date is actually almost 2 weeks before President Obama was
ever sworn into office, just to remind people.
This meeting, called by my Governor, who is a Republican Governor,
happened in a public place, in the Governor's mansion in Baton Rouge
and five members of our delegation were there, and the entire
delegation was represented. It was reported at length in several
papers. In the Times-Picayune, this is the headline: ``Jindal reviews
wish list with LA delegation; aid for recovery, health care stressed.''
This is the other headline: ``Governor Jindal Stresses Urgent Need for
Federal Government to Fix Faulty FMAP Rate.'' Let me repeat that:
``Governor Jindal Stresses Urgent Need for Federal Government to Fix
Faulty FMAP Rate.'' Not special FMAP rate, not FMAP rate problems that
every State is fixing, but faulty FMAP. I will explain why we think it
is faulty in a minute.

``The Advocate,'' August 29. This was in July. These meetings
continued through the year: Jindal, Republican Governor; Landrieu,
Democratic Senator, Pushed for Federal Funding Fix.
So I wish to put my critics on notice. I am going to submit letters
and documents and these articles. Nothing about this effort was secret.
Nothing. If there is one Member of this body, either the junior Senator
from Louisiana, or the great Senator from Arizona, or any other Senator
who would like to come and talk to me about this ``secret'' effort, I
would look forward to hearing their comments on the floor of this
Senate sometime today because I am staying here today until 6 or 7
o'clock, until we go out of session tonight. I thought it would be good
to spend the better part of the day.
If anyone, if any Senator, wants to come down and say they thought
this was some kind of secret arrangement, I think the editors of our
newspapers would be very interested since they have been reporting on
it since the first meeting on January 11, 2009.
Secondly, I wish to show a letter signed by our entire delegation to
make another point. My critics have said: Oh, there she goes again,
Senator Landrieu, just running off on her own making all sorts of
terrible things and making the State of Louisiana look bad.
I have spent 30 years of my life trying to represent the people of my
State and make them look good. Even when they were wrong, I have
defended them. When they were right, I praised them. When I was wrong,
I apologized; and when I was right, I was very proud of my work.
Never--never--in my life have I ever or will ever throw the people of
my State under a bus to save my reputation or my job.
I know who I am inside. I don't need anyone to remind me of the
goodness I have inside. My parents do that. My husband does that. My
children do that for me every day. I most certainly don't need anyone--
and I don't need this job badly enough; maybe some people do, I don't--
to throw the people of my State under a bus to protect myself
politically.
I wish to show everyone a letter dated May 4, and I am going to read
every single signature because I am actually proud to lead this
delegation. I only have one Democrat besides myself, but other than
about one member of this delegation, we have some pretty extraordinary
leaders. I am proud of them. Some are very conservative and some are
very liberal and some are in the middle. We have a very diverse
delegation.
I signed this letter; Rodney Alexander signed this letter, a member
of the Appropriations Committee; Charlie Melancon signed this letter, a
Member of Congress; Bill Cassidy is a Member from Baton Rouge; David
Vitter, the Senator; Charles Boustany from Lafayette; Steve Scalise
from Jefferson Parish; and John Fleming from Shreveport and Joseph Cao,
a Vietnamese-American Member of Congress from the New Orleans area
signed this letter.
This was made public. Actually, some Members put out their own press
releases. The letter is to Secretary Sebelius, who was finally sworn in
after being held up for months:

We write to you today to follow up on an April 9 letter
your office received from Louisiana Secretary Alan Levine.

That is our Secretary.

While many states will face challenges to their Medicaid
programs in the coming years, we believe that Louisiana's
case is unique.

We believe Louisiana's case is unique.

As you may be aware, our state is still rebuilding from
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005 as well as Hurricanes
Gustav and Ike in 2008, including the rehabilitation of the
health care system in the New Orleans area. These extensive
recovery efforts have inflated Louisiana's per capita income,
but they were only temporary and do not accurately reflect
the increases to incomes in industries not related to the
hurricane recovery.
Since the FMAP formula per capita to calculate how much
each state will receive, we are greatly concerned that the
post hurricane per capita income increase would significantly
impact our State's FMAP allocation. We ask that you meet with
Secretary Levine to develop a solution to the unique problem
that our state is facing.

This is an example of one letter--I have many others--signed by our
entire delegation asking the officials here, from the White House to
Kathleen Sebelius to other powerful Members, to please look at
Louisiana's situation because ours alone among the 50 States was
unique, and I will explain why in a minute.
So the fact that this was a secret is a lie. The fact that it wasn't
supported by our delegation is a lie.
Now I wish to explain what our problem is, and this map explains it--
or chart--better than I can. As anyone knows how this Federal formula
works for Medicaid, Medicaid is a voluntary program to a certain extent
that States can enter into to cover their very poor. The Federal
Government says: If you want to do that, if you are a wealthy State, we
will pick up 50 percent of your effort. If you are a moderately wealthy
State, we will pick up 60 percent of your effort. And if you are one of
the poorest States in the Union--not that Louisiana isn't an
extraordinary State, but we have high poverty relative to other States,
just like Mississippi and Alabama, West Virginia. We know who our
cohorts are. We have been at this a long time.
For us, the Federal Government says: If you try to cover your poor,
we will pick up 70 percent for you, which is the right thing to do. The
Federal Government should help the poorest States a little bit more
than the wealthier States. It is actually what is taught in the Bible.
I wish we would follow it a little bit more around here.
So for years, this is what has occurred. In 1999, the Federal
Government paid 70 cents of every dollar. You can see, basically, that
it is done by an income calculation. Because our income--we have gotten
a little bit richer here, you can see, a little bit richer, a little
bit poorer, a little bit richer. But all of a sudden, because of a
unique set of circumstances that happened because of Katrina and Rita
and Ike and Gustav--not because of any politics here but because of
hurricanes and levee breaks and a catastrophic flood and an influx of
Federal dollars that came to help, which we are grateful for--our
calculations were terribly distorted and skewed when the new
calculation was made. As a result, the Federal Government's portion
would have fallen to 63 percent. So from an average of about 70, we
would have fallen to 63 percent. That doesn't sound

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like a lot, but it would have meant about a $400 million to $600
million--very roughly, $400 million to $600 million difference.
Either the people of my State would have had to cut $400 million to
$600 million out of programs today or they would have had to raise $400
million to $600 million in taxes. That is a lot of money even in
Washington where we throw around $1 billion and $1 trillion like it is
nothing.
I can promise you, there are people sitting around their kitchen
tables in Louisiana way down in Tibido and way up in Mansfield, LA,
thinking: Where are we going to come up with $500 million? This is
terrible, Senator. We didn't do anything. We are not that much richer.
We are actually still struggling from the recovery. Does anyone in
Washington understand that we did not get--we are not 40 percent richer
than we were 2 years ago? Does anybody know up there that we are still
struggling with this recovery?
I assured them I knew, and our delegation knew, and that I knew some
people who might be understanding. I mentioned to them actually that I
would bring this to Harry Reid, I said, because he is a good man. He
has a good heart. I thought if I explained this to him and to Kathleen
Sebelius, who is a very good Secretary, and got their staffs to look at
it, perhaps they would agree with us that we needed some special
assistance. I thought there might be one person--one person with a
heart on the other side of the aisle. I still think there may be. But,
I said, let's just try.

So our delegation went to work and, lo and behold, then we have a
health care bill coming along. It is a bill that some people like and
some people don't, but it is most certainly germane to my subject. It
is most certainly germane to my subject.
So I say: This is nice. I know we are going to be on health care.
Let's see what we can do to get this in this health care bill. I don't
know what the bill is going to look like. I don't know if I can vote
for it when it finally comes. I don't even know if I am going to be for
it. But it is a health care bill. This is a health care amendment.
Some people have actually criticized me and said: You know, the
Senator put it on the wrong bill. The Senator discussed this at the
wrong time. The Senator has ruined the efforts of the State to get help
because she asked for this amendment.
Was I supposed to ask for it on a transportation bill? Was I supposed
to ask for a Medicaid fix on a jobs bill? Was I supposed to ask for it
on a lands bill? Forgive me for asking for a health care amendment on a
health care bill.
So I did. We pursued it openly, we pursued it bipartisanly, and we
pursued it intelligently and smartly on the health care bill. And I
assured my Republicans privately and publicly: I know you are not for
the bill. You don't have to vote for the bill. I may not vote for the
bill. I didn't know I was going to vote for the bill until the very
end. I am going to talk about why I decided to vote for the bill.
I said: But no matter how we vote on this bill, let's really make a
case as strong as we can that this should be fixed. We basically agreed
to do that, and the record will show that.
So at some point later, as the debate moved over to the Senate, I was
asked to present, on any number of occasions, just as every Senator was
asked, what are the things that I think are the most important in this
health care bill as we begin the debate. I wasn't on the HELP
Committee. I am not on Finance. So those of us not on HELP and not on
the Finance Committee submitted our documents, which I am going to
release today to the leader, and said: These are the things that we
think are most important.
This was always on that list. I am proud it was on the list, but what
I want people to realize is it wasn't the only thing on the list. It
wasn't the first thing on the list. It wasn't on the list in any letter
or correspondence that said if this doesn't get on, I am not voting for
the bill. In every correspondence, in every public meeting, and in
every private meeting, I pressed for this issue, but never did I say at
any time that if this wasn't in the bill, I wouldn't vote for it, or if
it was in the bill that I would vote for it because I don't believe in
that.
As strongly as I feel about this provision and the merits of it, I
would never have asked my colleagues--I did ask my colleagues to
understand a few other things, and they can tell you that I said this
in any number of meetings and, unfortunately, some of them were locked
up with me for days. So they actually got to hear this over and over
again.
I said: I cannot vote for this bill unless it drives down costs. I
cannot vote for this bill if there is a government-run, public delivery
system. I will not vote for this bill if there is an employer mandate.
I can only vote for this bill if it extends coverage to people who
don't have it in a way they can afford it where they have choices in
the private sector.
I said that speech 100 times in my State. I was on the radio. I was
on this floor. My colleagues have heard it any number of times. I said
to my colleagues: If you are going to cover children who can stay on
their parents' insurance--if the underlying bill, whether it comes from
the Senate or the House, is going to cover children up to 26 years old,
which is a very good reform--something I think the American people
support, and most certainly the people in my State would love to be
able to do until they are 26--I said I would be hard-pressed to vote
for bills if you left out children who don't have parents. Since I am
the cochair of the adoption caucus and cochair of the foster care
caucus, with Chairman Grassley, I felt very empowered to speak those
words to the leaders here. Part of my job that I have taken on myself
is to try to represent children in foster care. I don't do a very good
job every day, and sometimes I don't do the job I should do for them. I
try my best. When we are in those meetings, when they have no one
speaking for them--they most certainly don't have any money to hire a
lobbyist. They most certainly have no parents here advocating for them.
But I said if you are going to put that in the bill so every child in
America gets to stay on their parents' health insurance until they are
26--do you all realize we have 22,000 children who graduate or come out
of our foster care system who don't have any parents? I said: What are
we going to do for them? They said: We don't know. We think we will
leave them out. I said: If you want my support for this bill, that has
to be in there.
I said that on the floor and in meetings. This was not in that
conversation. This was. We need it. We believe we have a $400 million
to $600 million fix. We would love you to fix it all. We would love the
full $600 million, but we would appreciate whatever you can do to help
us. Frankly, the reason we should fix it is not only will it be good
for Louisiana, but by chance if any other State--when the earthquake
hits Memphis, and it will some day, or when it hits California, and it
will some day--do you know what. If this is in the law, they will not
have to pay double for their Medicaid 3 years after that disaster
because there will be this adjustment that says, if your rates are
arbitrarily or artificially distorted by the fact that you have an
increase in public assistance coming into your State, we will not count
you as having a 40-percent increase in income. It will help. Contrary
to what the Senator from Arizona says, it doesn't just affect
Louisiana. For the time being, it does, but in the future it would
affect a lot of other States. That is the right thing to do.
Nobody should be punished for having a disaster. Why would you punish
that? This money--this $400 million is to protect the poorest children
in my State--children who lost their parents in floods, lost
grandparents in floods, children who lost siblings in the floods,
children who are still not back in their houses. Why would we punish
these children, these disabled people, the poor people on Medicaid
because the Federal Government's levees broke? Why would we do that? I
don't think we want to.
I am not going to stand by silently while the people of Louisiana are
criticized for asking for something in a public way, describing our
situation, expressing that we are unique among the States in this, and
asking for assistance. I think the White House understands this. I know
that Kathleen Sebelius understands this. I am most certainly confident
the leadership on the Democratic side understands it. I

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am very interested in what the Republican leadership has to say about
this. They have been very quiet.
If this isn't the place to ask for it, where is the place? I would
like to go there. If this isn't the time to ask for it, what is the
time? This budget is being crafted right now by my legislators--not 2
years from now but right now. They are either going to know they have
$350 million to work with or they are not. They are either going to
raise $350 million on the backs of my people who can hardly pay the
taxes they are paying now or they are going to cut off more from the
elderly, the poor or the disabled who rely on Medicaid. So if this
isn't the time, when would I come?
To close, because I have a few more minutes, I am going to leave with
the one statement my Governor made publicly on this for the record.
Being in public office takes more than being intelligent, more than a
fancy resume--it takes guts. Some people have more of those than
others. This is what my Governor said on November 20 to CNN:

The bill is awful, but it is unfair to criticize Senator
Landrieu or the rest of our delegation for fighting to
correct this injustice to Louisiana. Our entire delegation is
working together across party lines to correct this flawed
formula.

This is the one statement he made. I see my colleague from Missouri
here to speak about other matters. I am going to rest for a moment. I
will be on this floor until 6 o'clock today. I am not leaving. If any
Senator from the Democratic side or the Republican side wants to debate
me on any aspect of this, I kindly ask them to let's get this over with
today. I look forward to seeing them. I will be here until 6 o'clock.
If they don't come, then I hope they will keep their mouths shut about
something they know nothing about.
Thank you.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri is recognized.
Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I rise to shed some light on the situation
going on at the General Services Administration, the GSA, a tangled
mess of bureaucracy I have been fighting for the last 5 years. In the
past, I worked very cooperatively with GSA, but for some reason,
somehow, they have gotten themselves and us into a situation that is
untenable.
Yesterday, the President accused me of holding hostage the nominee to
be Administrator, Martha Johnson. I feel no joy in holding up this
nominee, but the hostage I am concerned about is not the one looking
for this distinguished position in Washington. Instead, the hostages I
am worried about are the 1,000 people working in a Federal office
building dump in Kansas City at the mercy of an agency that refuses to
act to remedy a problem they acknowledge exists. Again, the hostage,
with due respect, is not Martha Johnson; the hostages are the 1,000
Kansas City workers at the Bannister Federal Complex.
As Senators, we have a few tools at our disposal to carry out our
responsibilities. One of these important responsibilities is oversight
of the Federal Government. One of those tools is to force the Senate to
debate and actually vote on an issue rather than be just a rubberstamp
to the administration.
While he has criticized me for using this oversight tool, the
President wielded it himself when he was a Senator in this very
Chamber.
Senator Reid, our distinguished leader, shares some responsibility in
delaying Martha Johnson's confirmation. You see, the Johnson nomination
actually passed out of committee in May. Was she ever called up for a
vote? No, because until July--when I formally placed a hold on the
nominee--the Senator from Nevada, according to Congress Daily, delayed
her confirmation to ensure that taxpayer dollars were still being used
to send Federal employees to Las Vegas.
Senator Reid has his priorities regarding the delay on this
nomination, and I have mine. He wants more Federal employees able to
come to Las Vegas, and I certainly understand his reason; it is very
important for his State. I want Federal employees in Kansas City to
work in a building with a roof that doesn't leak and doesn't have other
risks of contamination.
Some are complaining about the delay of this nominee. The truth is,
the majority leader could have confirmed Martha Johnson in May, June or
July. In addition, he waited until Thursday to file cloture, and he
could have picked any date in the last 7 months to do so, but he waited
until last Thursday. We had thought we made progress, and every time we
thought we made progress, somebody in the administration pulled back
that small step of progress.
There are many reasons why a Senator might wish to place a hold on a
nominee that are related to our oversight responsibilities. I think it
is important to have debates such as this not only when the
qualifications of the nominee are at stake but when a Federal
bureaucracy stops being responsive and serving of the people in the
communities in which they work. That is the real issue.
Martha Johnson's qualifications are not in doubt. But as you will
hear, the GSA is not being responsible to the people of Kansas City
and, most specifically, to the Federal workers there.
The history goes back about 5 years. It is part of a larger plan to
move all tenants out of the dilapidated Bannister Federal Complex. GSA
initiated a plan to construct a new building in downtown Kansas City in
order to move the jobs out of the complex. That was a long time ago,
and at the time they were looking for a lease-to-own process.
The community of Kansas City--the leadership, elected officials, the
employees, and Kansas City's financial community--had worked with the
GSA to get a building--a new building to replace the Bannister Federal
Complex.
The existing building, by any stretch of the imagination, is
extremely expensive to operate, will be sparsely occupied, is not
conducive as a good workplace, and must be replaced.
After 3 years, the plan brought together, with GSA's participation,
the leadership of the Kansas City community at all levels, from the
mayor to the council, to the business community, the Finance Committee
that was going to put up the money. They came together, and they got a
commitment that financing would be available to construct on a lease-
construction basis.
What happened? With no warning, GSA called up the Environment and
Public Works Committee the week of the markup, when it was supposed to
be approved, and effectively put their own hold on the project they
developed and approved, citing GSA's shift away from proceeding on a
lease-construction basis.
For anyone following the project, this latest move by GSA was very
difficult to understand. After all, 3 months earlier, in June of 2008,
GSA was holding roundtables with real estate developers on the value of
lease-construction plans and telling them how they could seek and
pursue such projects.
In scrapping their own plan, GSA ensured that after all other tenants
vacated the inefficient, 5.2-million-square-foot complex, more than
1,000 Federal employees would be stuck working there.
That is about 5,000 square feet per employee. This nonsensical plan
would cost taxpayers $13 million to $15 million annually just to
mothball unused space and operate shared heating and cooling equipment.
That is $13,000 to $15,000 a year per employee for the unused space.
GSA was so convinced this was the best path forward that for 9
months, they even went so far as to conduct an analysis to justify the
continued use of the Bannister Complex. But then, in a 60-day analysis,
``GSA concludes that the Bannister Complex should be a mid-term hold
(approximately 15 years).'' This translates into nearly 10 years of
continuing to run a complex at 20-percent capacity. Does that make
sense? I cannot figure any building manager, any responsible party in
the private sector or in government who thinks that works out. It does
not take a mathematician to figure out the numbers. They are not good
for the taxpayers. Put pencil to paper on that. Pencil it out. Anybody
can do that. However, yet again, GSA decided to change its mind in
September of 2009. This time, GSA agreed to their original position
that a new building in Kansas City was GSA's ``preferred option.''
Bear with me. I know this is getting confusing because we have been
confused.

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Imagine how the Kansas City community feels after being jerked around
for 5 years, where we sat down and worked with the staff, and a very
helpful staff decided--laid out the path forward. That sounds like a
good idea. Everybody at home was on board. The Kansas City community
was on board, the officials, and we said, fine. Then somebody in the
administration, whether GSA or above, put a halt to every one of those
steps forward--every single one of them. Every time they laid out
something, nothing happened. We are beginning, quite honestly, to feel
like Charlie Brown. Every time we get ready to kick the football,
somebody in the administration moves it.
Where are we now, now that the GSA went back to their original
objective that they earlier rejected? Unfortunately, we are not one
step closer to a new building for these workers. GSA has still taken no
action, still has put nothing on paper, has made no commitments.
Is there a way forward? What is their way forward? Let the people of
Kansas City know what you are going to do, how you are going to do it,
and when you are going to do it. We cannot even find that out from
them. There is no official plan out of GSA. GSA clearly agrees that the
new Federal building is needed, so it should not be asking too much for
somebody who represents them and the community to be told their plan.
Yet they have stubbornly refused to produce one.
I met with Ms. Martha Johnson. I have worked with the PBS
Commissioner. They are fine people, wonderful people. I think they are
very qualified. But I have asked repeatedly that GSA come up with an
official plan to move Kansas City forward. They refused. Bureaucracy
has broken its word once again, and I want a chance to tell my
colleagues what they have done.
My bottom line, the reason I am on the floor today opposing this
nomination is quite simple: As Missouri's senior Senator, my job is to
fight on behalf of the people who sent me here. My job is to make sure
bureaucrats in Washington do their job and serve the people across the
Nation and in Kansas City.
GSA continues to ignore the Kansas City community. My efforts have
always been about keeping 1,000 jobs in Kansas City, not blocking one
position in Washington.
But my colleagues should be aware that there is more bad news at this
very same Bannister Federal Complex. At the same time GSA has been
unwilling to move forward on a new building, they have also apparently
been unresponsive to the ongoing health concerns of their employees and
tenants at the Bannister Federal Complex. In the next day or so, tests
will come back on the levels of trichloroethylene, or TCE, a dangerous
carcinogen, at the Bannister Complex. These tests were called for after
a local TV station reported unexplained illnesses afflicting Bannister
workers and a possible link to toxins, such as TCE and beryllium, at
the complex. While the pending results of these tests are of great
concern--they are of great concern to the employees and their families,
but most of all, we are hearing from parents whose children were in a
daycare center at the complex. They want to know to what their children
might have been exposed.
These scares and reports are coming more and more frequently to us
from the Bannister Complex. It is alarming that I learned about this
information not from GSA but from the media. Based on media reports,
the implications for the health of these workers could be very serious,
so I have called for an investigation. I even asked the inspector
general of GSA to get to the bottom of these alarming health
allegations.
I will work with the proper authorities on all levels of government--
the Environmental Protection Agency, the Missouri Department of Natural
Resources, the Missouri Department of Health, the Agency for Toxic
Substances and Disease Registry--to uncover any additional information.
It goes without saying that I will demand more transparent and
comprehensive testing throughout the Bannister Complex. For the safety
of the workers, we need to know what is going on, what is happening at
Bannister, what has gone on in the past, who knew about it, why they
did nothing about it, and how to move immediately to protect those
potentially at risk.
The bottom line is that these workers deserve answers. The situation
at GSA tells the American people that all they can expect out of
Washington right now is business as usual, keep going forward, don't
listen to the people we are supposed to serve, a government that is out
of touch with their concerns and slow to act. I do not support business
as usual. For these reasons, I will vote against the nomination and ask
my colleagues to do the same.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan is recognized.

Department of Defense Nominations

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I wish to take a few minutes to express my
frustration and my dismay at the roadblocks which have been placed in
the way of Senate nominations for key positions at the Department of
Defense. These obstructions take place at a time when these nominees--
there are four of them--are critically needed by the Department of
Defense. We are a nation at war. Our national security interests
require us to end these obstruction tactics and immediately fill these
four positions with highly qualified patriots.
Each of these nominees has been favorably reported to the Senate by
unanimous vote from the Committee on Armed Services. They responded to
extensive advance policy questions. They appeared at a hearing of our
committee. Nobody has informed me of any concern about the
qualifications of any one of these four nominees. Yet there is an
objection here on the floor of the Senate every time these nominations
are considered for confirmation. If any Senator has a concern about any
of these four Defense Department nominees, I wish they would let me
know about those concerns so we can address those concerns. We have
heard from nobody. We have unanimous approval by the Armed Services
Committee of four Defense nominees. They have been sitting on our
calendar since December 2--over 2 months--while these positions go
unfilled and we are in the middle of two wars.
One of these nominees is retired Marine Major General Clifford
Stanley. He was nominated to be Under Secretary of Defense for
Personnel and Readiness. This position is critically important. It is
responsible for our military readiness. It is responsible for our total
force management. It is responsible for military and civilian personnel
requirements that need to be filled. This position is responsible for
pay and benefits. Let me repeat this. The pay and benefits of our
military personnel is the responsibility of the person who has been
nominated for this position, and he has been sitting waiting for
confirmation for 2 months. What kind of a message is this to the men
and women who put on the uniform of this country? Military and civilian
personnel training is the responsibility of this office, military and
civilian family matters, exchange, commissary, nonappropriated fund
activities, personnel requirements for weapons support, National Guard
and Reserve personnel matters, and health care for the military and
their families.

General Stanley was the first African-American regimental commander
in the Marine Corps. He has served with honor and distinction. He is
now retired. We are lucky we can get someone such as General Stanley to
come back into public service to fill this position. Yet there has been
a hold on his nomination since December 2.
The Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff have both made personal appeals to me and to other Members,
including, I think, the leadership of this body, to confirm General
Stanley so he can perform those essential duties which I have outlined.
His nomination, again, was unanimously supported by our committee. Our
distinguished Presiding Officer is a wonderful member of our committee.
No one, again, has brought any problem with this nomination to my
attention. No one has said he is not qualified. I think there is
unanimous consensus that he is extraordinarily well qualified.
While we have servicemembers, who have volunteered to serve, and
their families under great stress, they are fighting for our interests
in two wars, we have a critically important person

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who is awaiting confirmation for a position which affects every one of
their lives. It is unconscionable that these roadblocks were placed in
the way of these nominees.
Another critical nomination is that of Frank Kendall III, who was
nominated to be Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and
Technology. The individual confirmed to this position is responsible
for assisting the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition Technology
and Logistics in supervising Department of Defense acquisition,
establishing policies for acquisition, including the procurement of
goods and services, research and development, developmental testing,
and contract administration.
We have all these problems with contracts, with testing, with
development, with cost overruns. We reformed our law now so that we
have much better acquisition rules in place to try to see if we can't
get rid of some of these cost overruns.
We have a nominee to fill the position of Deputy Under Secretary of
Defense for Acquisition and Technology, and our friends on the other
side of the aisle--someone over there--have a hold on his nomination
for, I know, no reason related to his qualifications. There has been no
issue about his qualifications, about any of the four of these
nominees. Again, we have a critical position. As I indicated,
particularly we have acquisition reform which we just adopted. It is so
essential to control the cost of our national defense. Mr. Kendall's
nomination, like General Stanley's nomination, has been before this
Senate since December 2, over 2 months.
Another nomination is that of Erin Conaton to be the Under Secretary
of the Air Force. We all know her. She is on the staff of the House
Armed Services Committee. Nobody has raised an issue about her. We are
lucky to have her. Yet there is a hold from the other side of the aisle
for some unspecified reason, nothing to do with her. But here she is in
a position which is so important to the Air Force.
If designated by the Secretary, the Under Secretary of the Air Force
serves as the Department of Defense Executive Agent for Space. She also
serves as the chief management officer of the Air Force--we have all
these problems, and our Presiding Officer knows about the problems of
auditing and knows about the management and the business problems we
have in our defense units. He knows it from experience in the Senate.
He knows from his own personal life experience how important this is.
And we cannot get the woman--who probably is as knowledgeable about
this subject as anyone, based on all of her years over at the House
Armed Services Committee--we cannot get her off the Senate calendar.
Terry Yonkers has been nominated to be Assistant Secretary of the Air
Force for Installations and Environment. This Assistant Secretary is
responsible for overall supervision for all matters relating to Air
Force installations, environment, and logistics, including planning,
acquisition, sustainment and disposal of Air Force real property and
natural resources, environmental program compliance, energy management,
safety and occupational health of Air Force personnel.
These are important, vital positions to the well-being of our men and
women in uniform. It is unconscionable that one or more people on the
other side of the aisle continue to put holds on these nominations.
They cannot find any problem with their qualifications because there is
none. It is just endless holds, endless filibuster threats, endless
roadblocks that stop these and so many other nominations. But these are
Defense Department nominations in the middle of two wars, and these
roadblocks have to be removed.
I hope we will take up all four of these nominations immediately. We
have servicemembers volunteering to risk their lives in defense of the
Nation. The least we can do--the least we can do--as a Senate is to
confirm nominees for the critical positions to lead the Department of
Defense.
Again, finally--and I know my great friend from Illinois is sitting 3
feet away from me and has made the same suggestion, as he has pressed
so hard to get these roadblocks removed--if anybody has a problem with
these nominees, would they please come to the floor and tell us. They
can tell us, hopefully, publicly, but they could tell us privately. We
have heard nothing. These nominees--all four of them--were unanimously
approved in the Armed Services Committee. So we don't know of any
problem. We know their qualifications, and they are extraordinary in
every one of their cases.
This filibustering that is going on around here and the threat of
filibustering and the constant roadblocks that are thrown up in front
of these nominees is unconscionable. It goes beyond anything I have
ever seen around here in 32 years. We all know there are people who
object to nominees, but, hopefully, usually because they have an
objection against something the nominee has done or said. In this case,
there is nothing like that. This is some unrelated matter, apparently,
which has caused somebody to hold them hostage while they try to
extract some concession out of somebody.
It seems to me, as a body, we simply have to find a way where we can
get our nominations back on a reasonably decent track. I say that, with
greater emphasis, when in the middle of two wars we have four essential
nominees.
Mr. DURBIN. Will the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. LEVIN. Yes.
Mr. DURBIN. I would tell the Senator I am not 100 percent pure. I
have held up a nomination in the past, but I always state my purpose.
The two I can recall immediately were to get agencies to do things they
said they would have done long before and, in fact, they did them and I
released my hold immediately. It was issuing a report. It wasn't a
matter of filling a job or a project or something such as that. So it
has been done. But I think if it is done with transparency and in a
timely way, we can live with it. In this situation, we are seeing our
Executive Calendar stacked with nominations.
There was one in particular, which I spoke about the other morning,
that struck me--Dr. Stanley, who is trying to take a position with, if
I am not mistaken, manpower and readiness.
Mr. LEVIN. In charge of it; right.
Mr. DURBIN. For the Department of Defense. If I remember correctly,
this gentleman has served 33 years in the U.S. Marine Corps, was a
major general, and he was the first African-American regimental
commander in the history of the U.S. Marine Corps. It is clear he is
qualified. There is no question about his patriotism and love of this
country. The fact he would go through this process--let them go through
every aspect of every corner of his life to prepare him for this
nomination--and then be held up on the floor by the Senator from
Alabama, I would ask the Senator: When he was considered before your
committee, did anyone question this man's ability or his service to our
Nation?
Mr. LEVIN. Quite the opposite. His references were superb. Not only
was there no objection raised, it was quite the opposite. We were
delighted he was willing to come out of retirement and serve. This is a
real find. These nominees are performing a real public service, in many
cases taking a lot less money in pay than they could get in the private
sector.
I agree with my good friend from Illinois too. Many of us--I will not
say all of us--including myself, have placed holds on nominations. That
is not unusual. But usually there is some reason you have that you are
willing to disclose and you want to take up with the nominee or you
want some report that has not been filed that was promised. You want
something that relates to the nominee. The objections here, the
roadblocks here have nothing to do with these nominees. There is no
objection to these nominees.
I see my good friend from Vermont has come to the floor. He has to
live with this a lot more than I have to with this. This is probably 20
percent of my time. He has roadblocks in front of the Judiciary
Committee nominees that take up probably more than half Senator Leahy's
time.
Mr. LEAHY. If my two friends will yield on that point, it has gone
way beyond anything I have seen in my 35 years in the Senate, by either
Democrats or Republicans. It is ridiculous.
I will give one example--not my committee, but I mentioned it the
other day. During the height of the H1N1 flu, every morning you could
pick up the

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paper or hear of children--little children--dying while there was an
anonymous hold by the Republicans on the Surgeon General. You would
think, particularly at a time such as that, you would want to have
everybody you could have there. This was blocked for months and months
and months. Finally, the hold was lifted and she was confirmed
unanimously.
We have had judges supported by both parties, and the nominations
have come out of the committee. The distinguished deputy majority
leader is a member of the committee, and he knows they have come out
unanimously. Yet they are held up for months. We finally vote cloture,
waste 3 days of the public's time--at a cost of tens of thousands,
hundreds of thousands of dollars--only to then have a vote and it be
virtually unanimous.
I mean, this is being childish. It goes beyond misusing a
parliamentary procedure. It becomes childish.
I thank my two colleagues for letting me speak to this.
Mr. LEVIN. I yield my time.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I know my colleague from Vermont is going
to take the floor, but I would ask for his indulgence.
I ask unanimous consent to be recognized for up to 5 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Farewell to Senator Kirk

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, in my era in politics, one of the most
frightening things you could ever hear when you were about to go into
an event was when the host of that event called you to the side and
said: You will be speaking following Ted Kennedy. That was the worst
news you could receive. No one in the world wanted to follow Ted
Kennedy. He was that good and well loved and a man who had given his
life to public service and to the State of Massachusetts.
Well, our friend, Paul Kirk, who is seeing his tenure in the Senate
come to an end either today or this week had the unfortunate
responsibility to follow that great man. But if there was ever a person
who could stand and take the job, it was Paul Kirk. He came to the
Senate not just as a former staffer of Senator Ted Kennedy after
Senator Kennedy passed away but as truly a very close friend of Senator
Kennedy.
On the day he was sworn in, Senator Paul Kirk of Massachusetts said
he assumed his duties feeling ``the profound absence of a friend'' but
a ``full understanding of his devotion and understanding of public
service.''
Paul Kirk promised to be a voice and a vote for the causes which
Senator Kennedy believed in, and for 4 months and 10 days he has
honored that promise to his old friend and to the people of
Massachusetts.
I will tell you that Paul Kirk, in his short time here, has served
with dignity and integrity. We thank him and his wife Gail, who made a
personal sacrifice to let her husband come and take up this
responsibility for this important chapter in his life and this
important chapter in the history of the Senate.
I think it is fair to say Paul Kirk never dreamed he would be a
Senator. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1964. He worked as an
assistant district attorney in Massachusetts. He came to Washington in
1968 and worked on Senator Robert Kennedy's Presidential campaign. He
considered quitting politics, as many people did, after Robert
Kennedy's political assassination. But Ted Kennedy convinced him to
pick up the fallen standard and carry on Bobby's work.
For the next 8 years, Paul Kirk worked in this Senate as one of Ted
Kennedy's closest aides. He was with Senator Kennedy in 1980, when the
last of the Kennedy brothers ran for President. I remember that so well
as the downstate coordinator of the Ted Kennedy for President campaign
in Illinois.
In 1985, Paul Kirk took on the challenge of chairing the Democratic
National Committee in the middle of the Reagan era--quite a political
challenge for any Democrat. He served as cochairman of the Commission
on Presidential Debates, and he has been chairman of the John F.
Kennedy Library Foundation since 1992.
Paul Kirk is a good fellow, with a great sense of humor. I can tell
you what has been said about him. He has never been known for
excitement. One friend said of Paul Kirk several years ago: Behind that
quiet exterior is a quiet interior. He is that sort of person--soft
spoken but effective. He may not speak in a lion's roar, as Ted Kennedy
did, but his reverence for America and his belief in this great Nation
and his sense of justice is just as strong. On the Saturday before
Thanksgiving, during the historic effort to break the filibuster on
health care reform, Senator Paul Kirk came to the floor and told the
story of a young woman from Somerville, MA, who had finished college,
prepared for graduate school, and who suffered organ failure. In many
States, that woman might have quickly found herself in a critical state
and in medical debt and surely she wouldn't have been able to find
insurance.
But because of Massachusetts's first in the Nation, near universal
health care program, Paul Kirk told us that young woman could still
obtain affordable health care, even though she now has what is
characterized as a preexisting condition that will require her to be on
medication for the rest of her life.
Senator Kennedy was proud of what Massachusetts, his home State, had
achieved in health care. Ensuring that Americans in every State had
decent, affordable health care, Paul Kirk said, was the ``cause of his
life.'' It has been Senator Kirk's consuming goal in the Senate, and I
hope it will soon become a reality. We are too close to a solution on
health care--and the need is too great--for us to stop now.
In 1968, when Ted Kennedy became majority whip--the position I now
hold in the Senate--then-majority leader Mike Mansfield welcomed him to
the leadership by saying: ``Of all the Kennedys, the Senator is the
only one who was and is a real Senate man.'' Part of what made Ted
Kennedy a real Senate man was his personality and his inexhaustible
patience and optimism. Part of it was his knowledge of how the Senate
works and part was his great staff.
The Kennedy staff has always been known as the A-Team in the Senate.
They are smart, they are talented, they are dedicated, and after they
leave Ted Kennedy, they go places unimaginable for most staffers
because they are so highly regarded. Some have been with Senator
Kennedy for decades and continue with Senator Kirk, including the
legendary Carey Parker, the Senator's chief speech writer; Michael
Myers, whom I know well from his activities on the floor, the Senator's
staff director on the HELP Committee, who worked so hard on health care
reform. He has been amazing.
I wish to thank all the staffers for Senator Kirk, and previously for
Senator Kennedy, for carrying on that standard of justice and fairness.
I thank them as a group for their service to Massachusetts and to
America. It is because of them, and countless others whom Senator
Kennedy touched, myself included, we have been enlisted in the Kennedy
causes and the Kirk causes with a great deal of pride.
A special thank-you to the Kennedy family--especially Vicki, Kara,
Ted, and Patrick, Caroline and Curran--for sharing so much of the man
they loved with the Nation he loved.
Finally, I wish to welcome to the Senate--and in a short time he will
come to be sworn in--Senator Scott Brown. As Senator Kennedy would have
said, if he were here: failte. He was always eager to reach across the
aisle and find solutions to the problems we face. I look forward to an
opportunity to do the same with Senator Brown in the Senate.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I see my friend from Wyoming on the floor,
and he has been recognized, but I ask unanimous consent that when he
finishes, I be recognized for 10 minutes to speak about Vermonters who
have been in Haiti helping with the devastation.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from Wyoming is recognized.
Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I yield myself 10 minutes of Senator
Bond's time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

New Climate Change Allegations

Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, there has been significant attention
given to efforts by the United Nations to establish a global climate
change agreement. The effort has been based, in

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large part, on information contained in reports prepared by the United
Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Supporters repeatedly cite figures and conclusions in the U.N.
reports to justify a complete overhaul of the world economy. Supporters
have been steadfast in claiming the report is conclusive, in claiming
the scientific data is solid, and in claiming the integrity of the
findings are above reproach. Any mistakes identified and pointed out
are minimized and ignored.
They have been singing this song for years. The U.N.'s top climate
official is Dr. R.K. Pachauri, and the chorus of defenders of the U.N.
reports have grown louder in recent months as the house of cards they
have built is falling apart.
There have been disclosures of e-mails that show scientists
manipulated the sciences; there have been nonscientific materials
utilized to reach scientific conclusions; there has been scientific
conclusions that are not properly peer reviewed. Each week, the list of
errors grows. The excuses from Dr. Pachauri, the man in charge of the
U.N. climate change reports, well, they have been wearing thin.
I come to the floor as a Senator who serves on both the Energy
Committee and the Environment and Public Works Committee. I come to the
floor to tell you and our Nation the United Nations' scientists are
manipulating data to further political goals--political goals of
passing a climate change accord that will cost the world billions.
This is not my accusation. The person making the charge is the person
who verified the false conclusion.
It is better to hear it in the person's own words:
His name is Dr. Murari Lal. Dr. Lal is a retired Indian academic, now
a consultant. He was one of the four lead authors of the Asia chapter
of the U.N. report.
He is also behind the bogus claim in United Nations climate change
reports that Himalayan glaciers will have melted by 2035.
He admitted that this scientific ``fact'' as climate change
supporters like to state, was included in the report ``purely to put
political pressure on world leaders.''
Let me repeat--he said this so called ``fact'' was included in the
United Nations report ``purely to put political pressure on world
leaders.''
According to Dr. Lal, ``It related to several countries in this
region and their water sources.''
``We thought that if we can highlight it, it will impact policy
makers and politicians and encourage them to take some concrete
action.''
The so called ``fact'' in the report is just not true.
On January 21, the Economist stated that when informed about the
error the United Nations ``did nothing'' and the claims were ``airily
dismissed by Rajendra Pachauri.''
The Times of the U.K. reports a second factually inaccurate
conclusion. It reports that the United Nations wrongly linked global
warming to natural disasters.
In an article written by Jonathan Leake, he stated that: The United
Nations climate panel faces new controversy for wrongly linking global
warming to an increase in the number and severity of natural disasters
such as hurricanes and floods.
The original link between climate change and natural disasters was
based on an unpublished report. According to the Times the report ``had
not been subjected to routine scientific scrutiny''--and ignored
warnings from scientific advisers that the evidence supporting the link
was ``too weak.''
Despite the warnings once again, the United Nations Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change included the fiction in its report.
Today the claim by the U.N. that global warming is already affecting
the severity and frequency of natural disasters is a large part of the
political debate across this country.
How many politicians made the claim that Hurricane Katrina was the
result of climate change? Well now they know the inconvenient truth.
According to the Times of the U.K., the actual authors of the claim
on natural disasters withdrew the claim--but the United Nations did
not.
Every day new scandals emerge about the so called ``facts'' in the
U.N. reports.
Claims that ice is disappearing from the world's mountain tops were
apparently based on a student dissertation and an article in a
mountaineering magazine.
It was revealed that green activists with little scientific
experience were the source for unsubstantiated claims that global
warming might wipe out 40 percent of the Amazon rainforest.
These revelations are in addition to the released e-mails by the
Climatic Research Unit at East Anglia University. These are the e-mails
that first raised serious questions about the conduct of U.N. and even
U.S. scientists.
These e-mails demonstrate a coordinated effort by trusted climate
scientists to suppress dissenting views and manipulate data and methods
to skew the U.N. reports to reach a politically correct view of the
impact of climate change.
Scientists at the Climatic Research Unit said that they ``admitted
throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their
predictions of global warming are based.''
The lack of any raw data prevents other scientists from checking
their work and raises additional questions about the accuracy of the
data used in the U.N. reports.
The actions by scientists and others to suppress data that
contradicts their conclusions is misleading, unethical and
unacceptable.
Their conduct needs to be investigated.
Senator Inhofe and I have written U.N. Secretary Moon to have the
U.N. conduct an independent investigation into the original climate
gate revelations.
That request has not been acted upon.
Revelations of ongoing scientific fraud at the United Nations Inter-
governmental Panel on Climate Change is disturbing.
Concrete action by world leaders is needed.
The integrity of the data and the integrity of the science has been
compromised.
Today, I call for government delegations of the U.N.'s general
assembly and U.N. Secretary Moon to pressure Dr. Rajendra Pachauri to
step down as head of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change.
It is time to conduct an independent investigation into the conduct
of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Dr. Pachauri should be removed from any involvement with the
investigation.
Recent reports over the weekend raise questions about whether or not
Dr. Pachauri knew of the false information in the U.N. report months
prior to the disclosure.
These claims, first reported in the Times of the U.K., stated that:

Pachauri was told that the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change assessment that glaciers would disappear by
2035 was wrong, but he waited two months to correct it.

If proved true, this would mean that Pachauri failed to alert the
world to this mistake before the December Copenhagen conference.
Investor's Business Daily in an editorial stated:

If we're serious about restoring science to its rightful
place, the head of the UN's panel on climate change should
step down. Evidence shows he quarterbacked a deliberate and
premeditated fraud.

Walter Russell Read, project director for Religion and Foreign Policy
at the Pew Forum was quoted in Investor's Business Daily Tuesday
February 2 as saying:

After years in which global warming activists had lectured
everyone about the overwhelming nature of the scientific
evidence, it turned out that the most prestigious agencies in
the global warming movement were breaking laws, hiding data
and making inflated, bogus claims resting on, in some cases,
no scientific basis at all.

President Obama, Secretary of State Clinton, and U.N. Ambassador Rice
need to apply all the necessary pressure to ensure that Dr. Pachauri is
removed.
I also call on President Obama to direct his cabinet to stop
supporting any policies that relied in whole and in part on the
fraudulent United Nations reports.
It is time to have the scientific data behind such policies
independently verified.
Administration policies relating to climate change will cost millions
of Americans their jobs.

[[Page S465]]

We need to get this right.
To continue to rely on these corrupted U.N. reports is an endorsement
of fraudulent behavior.
It is a signal to the American people that ideology is more important
than their jobs.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont is recognized.

Haiti

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, on January 22 I spoke in this Chamber about
the earthquake that struck Haiti on January 12 and the unprecedented
devastation it caused. We now know that an estimated 3 million people
have been affected, including some 700,000 people displaced from Port-
au-Prince and living under plastic or other makeshift shelter. As many
as 200,000 more may have died; tens of thousands have suffered
injuries, including many whose limbs had to be amputated, some as the
only way to save their lives and to extricate them from the rubble.
Hundreds of thousands of children have lost one or both of their
parents. It is hard to quantify the scale of human suffering.
Think of it. Thousands of commercial buildings, 200,000 homes, the
presidential palace, the national cathedral as well as the parliament
building, the government ministries, U.N. headquarters were either
heavily damaged or destroyed. Roads, ports, and communication
infrastructure were extensively damaged.
Ninety percent of the schools in Port-au-Prince have been destroyed.
This rebuilding is going to take years, even with the help of the
international community, the United States, working side-by-side with
the people of Haiti.
The generosity of the American people as well as people from so many
other countries has been extraordinary. Hundreds of millions of dollars
have been raised from private organizations, foundations, corporations,
and individuals, including schoolchildren. There have been countless
tons of donations of food, clothing, medicines, and other supplies. It
is especially heartening to see the commitment and dedication of
volunteers, many of whom after they received word of the earthquake
immediately began to pack their bags to travel to Haiti to help any way
they could--not sure of where they would stay but knowing they had
skills that were needed.
One such group is the Vermont Haiti Relief Team. It includes members
of the Vermont Haiti Project and the Vermont Federation of Nurses and
Health Professionals. They traveled to Haiti. I talked with some of
them who helped with the recovery, I heard and read their stories, I
have seen the photographs they sent back. Here is one photograph--the
nurses are carrying, obviously, a patient on a stretcher.
As a Vermonter, as an American, I could not be more proud of the
lifesaving work they are doing. Our little State of Vermont, as far
north from Haiti as it could be--right up there on the Canadian
border--answered the call to help a neighbor in the hemisphere.
On January 20, 11 volunteer doctors, nurses, and other health
professionals from Vermont arrived in Jimani, Dominican Republic. That
is a remote border town where some of the injured from Haiti were taken
immediately after the earthquake and where many more have arrived.
The Vermont health workers joined other doctors and nurses to care
for hundreds of patients in the hospital. They coordinated helicopter
and ambulance transports, they established clinics to evaluate and
treat injuries. They cared for over 250 amputees. They worked
tirelessly to meet the needs of the victims and their families.
What they did helped immeasurably. I look at this one photograph--at
one of the nurses helping this child. Some couldn't speak the language.
None of them knew the people before they went there. All they knew was
that the Haitians are fellow human beings, suffering, and they felt, as
we do in Vermont and in so many other places: If your neighbor is
hurting, you are hurting, and so you help your neighbor. They went and
helped.
It is life-saving work. But it is also life-changing work. These
Vermonters will return home having endured, improvised, and made a
difference through the experience of a lifetime. How many of us can say
we have done something that made such a difference in someone's life?
They have, but their own lives have also been changed.
They were confronted with hundreds of injured people. They had just a
handful of medical personnel, no supplies, and they worked around the
clock with volunteers from Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and many
other countries. Sometimes the electricity worked, sometimes it did
not. Death surrounded them. But many of those who would have died
survived because of the care of these Vermonters.
The team also traveled to Fond Parisien, Haiti, where a clinic was
established. They worked with Haitians and other relief organizations
to create a wound clinic, and a hospital for hundreds of displaced
persons.

After 2 weeks working in difficult conditions, the first team of
Vermonters is coming home. They are exhausted physically and
emotionally, but they are proud of the help they provided to their
Haitian patients and of being able to represent Vermont in the relief
effort. This Vermonter is proud of them and proud of a second team that
has now arrived in Haiti and has begun working.
The Vermont Haiti Relief Team hopes to continue to send volunteers
for 2-week rotations to support the hospital in Jimani and the clinic
in Fond Parisien for the next 3 to 6 months.
I have been to Haiti. I know what a poor country it is. My wife
Marcelle is a registered nurse, now retired. She has gone to those
hospitals. She has seen how little there is to work with. She knows
that somebody coming with the equipment that's needed, the supplies
that were lacking, what a difference that makes.
Marcelle and I are very impressed with the commitment of those
Vermont volunteers. It is emotionally and physically exhausting, but no
less rewarding. I thank them for their hard work and dedication, for
their selfless example.
What happened in Haiti was as great a natural disaster as any one of
us will ever hear of. But what it has done is spark the generosity of
people everywhere. The help has to continue. I will make sure of that
as chairman of the State and Foreign Operations Subcommittee.
Thanks to this small group of Vermonters who went down there, lives
were saved, lives were changed, children were rescued. We Vermonters
are proud.
I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the vote on
the motion to invoke cloture on the nomination of Martha Johnson occur
at 2:45 p.m., with the time until then divided equally; with the
provisions of the order governing this nomination remaining in effect.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. LEAHY. I ask further unanimous consent that upon disposition of
the nomination of Martha Johnson, and the Senate resuming legislative
session, the Senate then proceed to a period of morning business with
Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes, except when
Senator Kirk is recognized, he be recognized for 20 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. LEAHY. I suggest the absence of a quorum and ask unanimous
consent that the time in the quorum call be divided equally.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. BURRIS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Leahy). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
The Senator from Illinois is recognized.
Mr. BURRIS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 6
minutes as in morning business.

[[Page S466]]

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Black History Month

Mr. BURRIS. Mr. President, we remember the giants of American
history, those who led troops into battle, or rose to high office, or
gave their lives for something greater than themselves; the warriors,
the statesmen, the heroes who fought to defend our values and our
freedoms.
We quote their words and etch their names into stone. We rightfully
honor their place in the annals of history.
But the quiet moments of our history are often overlooked.
There are many unsung heroes whose actions give shape to our national
identity. Too frequently, these brave men and women are pushed to the
margins or relegated to obscurity.
That is why I am here today to honor one woman who did not fight in
wars, give great speeches, or perish on the battlefield.
Make no mistake: those pursuits are noble, and it is right that we
honor them.
But our quiet heroes have just as much claim to our national
attention, and also deserve our respect and praise.
So today I would ask my colleagues to pause and to think of just such
a quiet American hero:
She never wore a uniform, though in a sense she led a great and
diverse army. She never rose to high office, although she paved the way
for others, including myself to do so.
Rosa Parks began her life in a world that largely considered her to
be undeserving of equal rights. She knew the injustice of segregation,
and was no stranger to racism and hatred.
She grew up poor in Tuskegee, AL, where she wasn't even allowed to
ride the bus to school.
But, thanks to a life of principled activism, and a moment of quiet
courage on a city bus in Montgomery, this poor country girl would grow
into a strong woman whose name became synonymous with ``freedom'' and
``equality.''
And when she passed away, not on a foreign battlefield, but quietly
in her home, at the age of 92, she was mourned by her friends and
neighbors from back home in Alabama, but also by an entire nation, in a
funeral held at the National Cathedral and lasting a full 7 hours.
Such was the impact that Rosa Parks had on our social and political
landscape.
Such was the indelible mark left by her decision, on that first day
of December in 1955, to say ``no.''
To refuse to accept that she was a second-class citizen.
To claim what was rightfully hers as an American, not by force, and
not by attacking or degrading her fellow man, but by insisting, with
quiet conviction: I am your equal. I am any man or woman's equal.
On that day, she knew that her cause was just. She had unshakable
faith not only in the righteousness of her beliefs but in the heart and
soul of this great nation that its people would turn away from bigotry
and hate, that unjust laws could be changed, and that the great promise
of America lives not in the imperfect here and now, but in our ability
to define who we wish to become, to chart our own course, and remake
our destiny.
Rosa Parks was not alone in this belief. There were many others, from
all backgrounds and walks of life, who shared a similar faith in
American ideals.
But, by refusing to give up her seat on that bus in Montgomery, Rosa
Parks brought those ideals to life.
She helped give wings to a movement that grew, and gathered steam,
and inspired millions to work tirelessly on the side of justice and
equality.
Today, Rosa Parks would have celebrated her ninety-seventh birthday.
Just this morning, I joined Leader Reid and our Congressional
colleagues to commemorate this milestone.
And as we observe Black History Month, I can think of no finer way to
begin this time of remembrance and celebration than by honoring the
legacy of a great American like Rosa Parks.
So I ask my colleagues to join me in remembering this quiet pioneer
and millions of others like her, ordinary people who are not afraid to
reach for extraordinary things.
Regular folks who see this country and this world as they are, but
are not afraid to imagine what they can be.
Few of these unsung heroes will ever see their names in print, or
etched into our collective history, but all remind us of the enduring
greatness of the United States of America and the fundamental goodness
of our fellow human beings.
Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a
quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. LEAHY. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call
be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Burris). Without objection, it is so
ordered.

Cloture Motion

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, pursuant to rule
XXII, the clerk will report the motion to invoke cloture.
The legislative clerk read as follows:

Cloture Motion

We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the
provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate,
hereby move to bring to a close debate on the nomination of
Martha N. Johnson, of Maryland, to be Administrator of
General Services.
Harry Reid, Joseph I. Lieberman, Jeff Bingaman, Mark
Begich, Byron L. Dorgan, Edward E. Kaufman, Barbara
Boxer, Benjamin L. Cardin, Robert Menendez, Kay R.
Hagan, Sheldon Whitehouse, Barbara A. Mikulski, Jon
Tester, Blanche L. Lincoln, Roland W. Burris, Kirsten
E. Gillibrand, Bill Nelson, Mary L. Landrieu.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum
call has been waived.
The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on the
nomination of Martha N. Johnson, of Maryland, to be Administrator of
the General Services Administration, shall be brought to a close?
The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator
from Utah (Mr. Bennett) and the Senator from Texas (Mrs. Hutchison).
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Shaheen). Are there any other Senators in
the Chamber desiring to vote?
The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 82, nays 16, as follows:

[Rollcall Vote No. 19 Ex.]

YEAS--82

Akaka
Barrasso
Baucus
Bayh
Begich
Bennet
Bingaman
Boxer
Brown
Brownback
Burr
Burris
Byrd
Cantwell
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Coburn
Collins
Conrad
Corker
Cornyn
DeMint
Dodd
Dorgan
Durbin
Ensign
Enzi
Feingold
Feinstein
Franken
Gillibrand
Graham
Hagan
Harkin
Inhofe
Inouye
Johanns
Johnson
Kaufman
Kerry
Kirk
Klobuchar
Kohl
Landrieu
Lautenberg
Leahy
LeMieux
Levin
Lieberman
Lincoln
Lugar
McCain
McCaskill
Menendez
Merkley
Mikulski
Murkowski
Murray
Nelson (NE)
Nelson (FL)
Pryor
Reed
Reid
Roberts
Rockefeller
Sanders
Schumer
Shaheen
Snowe
Specter
Stabenow
Tester
Thune
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Vitter
Voinovich
Warner
Webb
Whitehouse
Wyden

NAYS--16

Alexander
Bond
Bunning
Chambliss
Cochran
Crapo
Grassley
Gregg
Hatch
Isakson
Kyl
McConnell
Risch
Sessions
Shelby
Wicker

NOT VOTING--2

Bennett
Hutchison

The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 82, the nays are
16. Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn having voted in
the affirmative, the motion is agreed to.
The majority leader is recognized.
Mr. REID. Madam President, with the storm fast approaching, I think
it is to everyone's advantage we complete our work today. So I am
convinced this will be the last vote of the day. Now, I would say this.
I have been working

[[Page S467]]

with Senators Grassley and Baucus, and, of course, the Republican
leader, trying to get something keyed up for Monday, and I think we are
making a lot of progress in that regard.
It appears we are going to have a cloture vote on a nominee on
Monday. I already talked to the Republican leader about this several
days ago. We are also going to move forward on a jobs package Monday.
We are either going to do one on a bipartisan basis--I sure hope we can
do that; it really would be good for the country and good for us--if
not, we will have to do one that will be my amendment rather than an
amendment of a bipartisan group of Senators. So I hope we can do that.
But we will have that worked out later today more than likely. But this
will be the last vote for the day.
Madam President, we also are working on someone to replace Judge
Alito in the New Jersey Circuit, and his name is Joseph Greenaway. We
hope that can also be done on Monday.
Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, in order to vote on the nomination of
Martha Johnson to head the General Services Administration, the Senate
was required to overcome the 15th filibuster of President Obama's
nominations to fill important posts in the executive branch and the
judiciary. That number does not include the many others who have been
denied up-or-down votes in the Senate by the anonymous obstruction of
Republicans refusing to agree to time agreements to consider even
noncontroversial nominees. There have been as many filibusters of
nominations as there have been confirmations of Federal judges in
President Obama's first 2 years in office.
This 15th filibuster is three times as many as there were in the
entire first 2 years of the Bush administration. Was it not just a few
years ago that Republicans were demanding up-or-down votes for
nominees, and contending that filibusters of nominations were
unconstitutional? Again, the 15 filibusters of nominations matches the
total number of Federal judges confirmed in President Obama's first 2
years in office.
In the second half of 2001, the Democratic majority in the Senate
proceeded to confirm 28 judges. By this date during President Bush's
first term, the Senate had confirmed 31 circuit and district court
nominations, compared to only 14 during President Obama's first 2
years. In the second year of President Bush's first term, the
Democratic majority in the Senate proceeded to confirm 72 judicial
nominations, and helped reduce the vacancies left by Republican
obstructionism from over 110 to 59 by the end of 2002. Overall, in the
17 months that I chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee during
President Bush's first term, the Senate confirmed 100 of his judicial
nominees.
The obstruction and delay does not only affect judicial nominees and
our Federal courts. Martha Johnson is the second executive branch
nominee this week that has been filibustered by Republicans. Her
nomination has been stalled on the Senate Executive Calendar since June
8 due to the opposition of a single Republican Senator over a dispute
with GSA about plans for a Federal building in his home State. The will
of the Senate and the needs of the American people are held hostage by
a single Senator.
Overall, as of this morning, there were more than 75 judicial and
executive nominees pending on the Senate Executive calendar.
Yesterday, at the Democratic Policy Committee's issue retreat, I
asked President Obama if he will continue to work hard to send names to
the Senate as quickly as possible and to commit to work with us, both
Republicans and Democrats, to get these nominees confirmed. So far
since taking office, the President has reached across the aisle working
with Republicans and Democrats to identify well-qualified nominations.
Yet even these nominations are delayed or obstructed. The President
responded by stating:

Well, this is going to be a priority. Look, it's not just
judges, unfortunately, Pat, it's also all our federal
appointees. We've got a huge backlog of folks who are
unanimously viewed as well qualified; nobody has a specific
objection to them, but end up having a hold on them because
of some completely unrelated piece of business.
On the judges front, we had a judge for the--coming out of
Indiana, Judge Hamilton, who everybody said was outstanding--
Evan Bayh, Democrat; Dick Lugar, Republican; all recommended.
How long did it take us? Six months, six, seven months for
somebody who was supported by the Democratic and Republican
senator from that state. And you can multiply that across the
board. So we have to start highlighting the fact that this is
not how we should be doing business.
Let's have a fight about real stuff. Don't hold this woman
hostage. If you have an objection about my health care
policies, then let's debate the health care policies. But
don't suddenly end up having a GSA administrator who is stuck
in limbo somewhere because you don't like something else that
we're doing, because that doesn't serve the American people.

I could not agree more with President Obama. This should not be the
way the Senate acts. Unfortunately, we have seen the repeated use of
filibusters, and delay and obstruction have become the new norm for the
Republican in the Senate. We have seen unprecedented obstruction by
Senate Republicans on issue after issue--over 100 filibusters last year
alone, which has affected 70 percent of all Senate action. Instead of
time agreements and the will of the majority, the Senate is faced with
a requirement to find 60 Senators to overcome a filibuster on issue
after issue. Those who just a short time ago said that a majority vote
is all that should be needed to confirm a nomination, and that
filibusters of nominations are unconstitutional, have reversed
themselves and now employ any delaying tactic they can.
The Republican minority must believe that this partisan playbook of
obstruction will reap political benefit for them and damage to the
President. But the people who pay the price for this political
calculation are the American people who depend on the government being
able to do its job. I hope that Republican Senators will rethink their
political strategy and return to the Senate's tradition of promptly
considering noncontroversial nominations so that we can work together
to regain the trust of the American people.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, all postcloture time
is yielded back.
The question is, Will the Senate advise and consent to the nomination
of Martha N. Johnson, of Maryland, to be Administrator of General
Services?
Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk called the roll.
Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator
from Utah (Mr. Bennett), the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn), the
Senator from Texas (Mrs. Hutchison), and the Senator from Georgia (Mr.
Isakson).
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber
desiring to vote?
The result was announced--yeas 96, nays 0, as follows:

[Rollcall Vote No. 20 Ex.]

YEAS--96

Akaka
Alexander
Barrasso
Baucus
Bayh
Begich
Bennet
Bingaman
Bond
Boxer
Brown
Brownback
Bunning
Burr
Burris
Byrd
Cantwell
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Chambliss
Cochran
Collins
Conrad
Corker
Cornyn
Crapo
DeMint
Dodd
Dorgan
Durbin
Ensign
Enzi
Feingold
Feinstein
Franken
Gillibrand
Graham
Grassley
Gregg
Hagan
Harkin
Hatch
Inhofe
Inouye
Johanns
Johnson
Kaufman
Kerry
Kirk
Klobuchar
Kohl
Kyl
Landrieu
Lautenberg
Leahy
LeMieux
Levin
Lieberman
Lincoln
Lugar
McCain
McCaskill
McConnell
Menendez
Merkley
Mikulski
Murkowski
Murray
Nelson (NE)
Nelson (FL)
Pryor
Reed
Reid
Risch
Roberts
Rockefeller
Sanders
Schumer
Sessions
Shaheen
Shelby
Snowe
Specter
Stabenow
Tester
Thune
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Vitter
Voinovich
Warner
Webb
Whitehouse
Wicker
Wyden

NOT VOTING--4

Bennett
Coburn
Hutchison
Isakson
The nomination was confirmed.

Change of Vote

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, on rollcall 20, I voted ``no.'' It was
my intention to vote ``aye.'' Therefore, I ask unanimous consent that I
be permitted to change my vote as it will not affect the outcome.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

[[Page S468]]

Mr. BUNNING. Mr. President, on rollcall vote 20, I voted ``no.'' My
intention was to vote ``aye.'' Therefore, I ask unanimous consent that
I be permitted to change my vote since it will not affect the outcome
of the vote.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(The foregoing tally has been changed to reflect the above orders.)
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the motion to
reconsider is considered made and laid on the table, and the President
will be immediately notified of the Senate's action.

____________________