I want to give you an update on what the Senate has done this year and take a quick look at what we have coming up the rest of the year.
First, lets look back at the first nine months of the 110th Congress. As the new Congress led by Democrats convened in January, I hoped that we would get things done for America in a bipartisan way. The Democrats won in 2006 largely on a message of working across party lines to get tough issues solved. Unfortunately, this Congress has been the most partisan I have seen in over two decades in Washington, D.C. The Democrats are more concerned with politics and investigations than getting serious legislation signed into law. I am not proud of the fact that Congressional approval ratings with Democrat Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at the helm have hit an all time low. In the latest Gallup Poll only eighteen percent of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing.
The American people understand that Congress should be doing a better job. The Fiscal Year ends at the end of September, but we have not had one of the 13 appropriations bills that will fund the government signed into law. For the first time in decades it looks like we will not pass a Department of Defense Authorization bill.
The Senate passed an Energy Bill that had zero to do with energy production and everything to do with pleasing environmentalists. I tried to get provisions from my bipartisan bill that I wrote with Senator Barrack Obama that would turn coal into diesel fuel included as an amendment to the bill, but was unable to get any Democratic support. You would think that the amendment would have been an easy sell since it would help cure America’s addiction to foreign oil. Coal-To-Liquid fuel (CTL) is environmentally friendly, and can burn cleaner than biofuels. The United States Air Force has been using CTL in testing with B52 bombers and CTL has performed better than conventional aviation fuel. Unfortunately, the environmental lobby circled the wagons and went after the amendment making it’s defeat their number one priority. With the coal industry, labor unions, the Department of Defense, and the airline industry all on my side, I am ready to keep fighting on this issue because it is important to the American people, our military and our economy to continue to develop new sources of domestic energy.
The Senate also took up an immigration bill, but the bill was written in secret and did not go through the committee process. The final product was a bill that contained amnesty for illegal aliens plain and simple. I have always opposed amnesty in any shape, size or form. The thousands of calls and e-mails my office received over the course of the spring and summer against this amnesty bill only strengthened my resolve. I appreciate those calls, and your voices were heard loud and clear. I do believe that we need immigration reform including a temporary guest worker provision, but we need the right immigration reform that does not include amnesty. We must go back to the drawing board through the committee process and try to solve the immigration crisis.
When Congress goes back in session in September, the war in Iraq will be on everyone’s minds. As you know, we started a new strategy earlier this summer in Iraq that called for a surge of American and Iraqi forces in many areas of Iraq that have previously been hotbeds of the insurgency, particularly Baghdad. In mid-September, the commander of coalition forces in Iraq, General David Petraeus, will give us his first report card on the new strategy. Like many of my colleagues, I anxiously await his report. I know General Petraeus well from his days as Commander of 101st Airborne and he is the finest military officer we could possibly have on the ground in Iraq. It is more important to listen to the Generals on the ground than politicians thousands of miles away from Iraq when it comes to war planning. I urge you to do the same.
The easy thing to do is pull out from Iraq and let the chips fall where they may in that troubled region, but Iraq has become a central front in the War on Terror regardless of how Americans feel about whether we should or should not have toppled the horrific regime of Saddam Hussein. We have a commitment to the Iraqi people, and more important we owe it to the American troops and their families that have sacrificed so much in Iraq to see that we complete our mission. After General Petraeus’ report, we will likely have a better idea of what that mission will look like as we move forward. Our young men and women in uniform have fought a valiant fight, and they deserve our full support.
It is hard to believe that September 11, 2001 was six years ago. We are at war even though some Americans do not seem to understand the continued threat from Islamic fascists. Unlike previous wars that ended with the signing of a peace treaty, the War on Terror has no finite ending due to the nature of our nationless enemy. It is a hard pill to swallow but that is the truth. The War on Terror started way before September 11th. Beginning in 1983 with the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut; to the first bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993; the bombings of our embassies in Africa in 1998; to the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000; and then September 11th. America has been under constant threat by Islamic fascists. When 3,000 Americans died on our own soil six years ago, we finally woke up. And making sure that the world is safe from terrorism is the most important part of my job as a U.S. Senator. I want my grandchildren and yours to live in the greatest country in the world free from the threat of terror. That is the battle that American troops stationed around the globe wake up to every day, and we owe them a debt a gratitude that we can never repay.
In July my office launched a new interactive website to help communicate with you. It is vital that you have quick and easy access to what I am doing here in the United States Senate. The site has an interactive map of Kentucky where you can click on the Congressional District in which you reside and get the District news and contact information for my District office. I take great pride in my constituent service, and I hope this new site will make it easier for you to contact me. To visit the new site please go to: http://bunning.senate.gov
