[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 97 (Thursday, June 25, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7044-S7046]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  AUTHORITY OF U.S. PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE TO USE TRADEMARK FUND

  Mrs. BOXER. I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to the 
immediate consideration of S. 1358, which was introduced earlier today.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The clerk 
will report the bill by title.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (S. 1358) to authorize the Director of the United 
     States Patent and Trademark Office to use funds made 
     available under the Trademark Act of 1946 for patent 
     operations in order to avoid furloughs and reductions-in-
     force.

  There being no objection, the Senate proceeded to consider the bill.
  Mrs. BOXER. I ask unanimous consent the bill be read three times and 
passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no 
intervening action or debate, and any statements be printed in the 
Record.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The bill (S. 1358) was ordered to be engrossed for a third reading, 
was read the third time, and passed, as follows:

                                S. 1358

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. AUTHORITY OF PTO DIRECTOR TO USE TRADEMARK FUND.

       (a) Authority.--The Director of the United States Patent 
     and Trademark Office may use funds made available under 
     section 31 of the Trademark Act of 1946 (15 U.S.C. 1113) to 
     support the processing of patents and other activities, 
     services, and materials relating to patents, notwithstanding 
     section 42(c) of title 35, United States Code, if--
       (1) the Director certifies to Congress that the use of such 
     funds is reasonably necessary to avoid furloughs or a 
     reduction-in-force in the Patent and Trademark Office, or 
     both; and
       (2) funds so used are repaid to trademark operations not 
     later than September 30, 2011.
       (b) Expiration of Authority.--The authority under 
     subsection (a) shall terminate on June 30, 2010.
       (c) Definitions.--In this section:
       (1) Director.--The terms ``Director of the United States 
     Patent and Trademark Office'' and ``Director'' mean the Under 
     Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director 
     of the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
       (2) Trademark act of 1946.--The term ``Trademark Act of 
     1946'' means the Act entitled ``An Act to provide for the 
     registration and protection of trademarks used in commerce, 
     to carry out the provisions of certain international 
     conventions, and for other purposes'', approved July 5, 1946 
     (15 U.S.C. 1051 et seq.).

  Mrs. BOXER. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in 
morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                             Global Warming

  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I did not plan to come down to the floor 
and speak today about the global warming legislation. But I heard bits 
and pieces of my friend Senator Inhofe's speech about essentially why 
we will never approve global warming legislation, why it is a bad idea, 
and his usual litany of ``horribles'' about what will happen. My friend 
Senator Inhofe and I work very well together on most issues that come 
before our committee when it comes to building the infrastructure; the 
State Revolving Fund, we have been a team; the highway trust fund, we 
have been a team. He has been very helpful on most of our nominees, if 
not all. So I am very grateful to him. But I could not allow his words 
to be the last word here on the global warming legislation as we get 
ready to leave for our week to go home and work.
  I disagree very strongly with those who say that if we attack the 
problem with global warming head-on, we are moving into territory where 
we are

[[Page S7045]]

going to regret the fact that we did it because it is going to hurt our 
people, we are going to lose jobs, it is going to increase energy 
costs, when, in fact, we know the opposite is true. It is not just me 
saying it. I come from a State--California--where we have taken the 
lead in addressing the environment. We always have since the very early 
days. And what we have proven is that when you do it, you have a much 
healthier base for economic growth.
  If you look at the per capita use of energy in my home State over the 
last 20 years, it has stayed absolutely flat, if you were to look at a 
graph. The rest of the country has gone up like this. So the difference 
between remaining on a flat line--in other words, keeping your per 
capita energy use stable--even with the creation in that time of 
computers and bigger TVs and all the rest, and a lot of other comforts, 
I might add--bigger homes--we have been able to do it. The rest of the 
country has gone this way with their per capita use. The difference 
between energy efficiency and the rest of the country, we have a lot of 
room for improvement, and it has been tried and it is proven and it 
makes a lot of sense, whether it is better energy-efficiency standards, 
which have been absolutely key to us, or better fuel economy, which has 
been key to us. We are the State that happens to buy the most, for 
example, hybrid cars. We have shown that we can keep per capita energy 
use down. A lot of us in our State have changed to the lightbulbs that 
make sense, the compact fluorescent bulbs. We know we have laws that 
will move that even faster. And we have not given up one ounce of our 
quality of life. We have a very good quality of life.
  So by addressing the issue of global warming and getting the carbon 
out of the air, the first way to do it is through energy efficiency. 
That is what I call the low-hanging fruit. Renewable standards for our 
utilities--very important. We have done it in California, and I know my 
friend who is in the chair is on the Energy Committee, and I am very 
grateful they did renewable portfolio standards, although I would like 
to see it a little tougher. Be that as it may, we are on the road.
  These are the things we can do that actually will tackle the problem 
of global warming, but there is so much more we can do through a system 
where we expect our industries that are emitting the most carbon to 
gradually bring it down so that we make sure we don't suffer the 
ravages of increased temperatures.
  The science is so clear, and my friend Senator Inhofe and I have 
disputed this for a long time. He insists that the science is not 
clear. Well, he is not a scientist and I am not a scientist. So I think 
the best way to do this is to look to the most qualified scientists in 
the world. And we are very fortunate that we have had those scientists 
working at the United Nations, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate 
Change, and they have come out with a series of reports, all of which 
tell us that temperatures are going up even more rapidly than we 
thought, the icemelt in the Arctic is occurring faster than we thought 
would happen. We all see the pictures of the polar bears. That picture 
is worth so much to us because we can see what is happening to the 
habitat there.
  I will be leading a trip to Alaska for a couple of days at the 
invitation of Senator Mark Begich. He wants to show me and a group of 
Senators--and also Senator Murkowski has been gracious enough to say 
she will join us in this. We are going to see ground zero for global 
warming in Alaska. I know in Greenland, where I went, you can just see 
the ice melt. You can sit and actually see the ice break off from these 
giant icebergs and watch them go out to sea.
  So the scientists have proven it, and we know it is absolutely true. 
So when Senator Inhofe comes down here and he flies in the face of 
science, those of us who have been working on this--and I see one of 
our great leaders, not only, I say this, in the Senate but, frankly, in 
the country and even in the world community, John Kerry, who has joined 
us. Just for his information, I will be speaking for about another 10 
minutes, and then I am going to be so happy to sit and hear him because 
he has such an important vision on this.
  But here is the good news. The good news is that this is an enormous 
opportunity to move our country forward. Again, I could quote Thomas 
Friedman, who did an extraordinary job of writing books and articles, 
and he testified before the Committee on Environment and Public Works 
very clearly on this, that the country that does this now and does it 
right and sets up a price on carbon--and I am sure he now knows that a 
cap-and-trade system is a very good way to do that--is going to be the 
leader in the world, not just an environmental leader, which is very 
important for our kids and our grandkids--we don't want to turn over a 
planet to them where temperatures are so high that we see people dying 
in the summer from the high temperatures or see our kids swimming in 
rivers that have turned so warm that organisms now live in those 
rivers. We have seen some of that already happen, where toxins exist 
that couldn't exist before, where we can be harmed because of the kind 
of life that lives in these warmer waters that can, in fact, harm our 
children. So we do not want to know those stories. We do not want to 
see hordes of refugees coming to our shores because countries are 
inundated due to rising seas.
  Look, our own national security teams--the Department of Defense, the 
CIA--all of those that worry so much about national security--have told 
us--and Senator Kerry has the quotes chapter and verse--that this is a 
national security issue.
  So when my friend from Oklahoma comes down here and says: Don't worry 
about it, you know, don't worry about it at all, the science is 
divided, it is just not so, just not so.
  I guess there were always people who said smoking doesn't cause 
cancer. I guess there still are. I guess there are some people who say 
HIV doesn't cause AIDS. You know, I know there were people when I was a 
kid who said: Forget about polio, there is nothing you can do about it. 
But Dr. Jonas Salk figured out we could do something about it.
  The science is clear. The world is getting warmer. Yes, to a certain 
degree, we can handle it, but above that it gets very dangerous. None 
other than the Bush administration's CDC, the Centers for Disease 
Control, told us that it is unequivocal that the dangers are lurking. 
They started the work to say that there would be an endangerment 
finding, that our people are in danger if we don't act. And now 
President Obama sees it clearly, and his EPA has picked up the ball and 
they have issued a draft finding that we are in danger. So Senator 
Inhofe and other Senators can stand up and say that we are not, but 
this work started in the Bush administration, and Bush administration 
officials participated in a lot of these U.N. meetings. So it is clear.

  We have a great recession we are dealing with, and we have this great 
challenge of global warming. The great news is that when we act to 
solve global warming, we act to solve the problem of this great 
recession. Why do I say that? Because we know from the venture 
capitalists, many of whom live in the Silicon Valley, that the amount 
of funding from the private sector, not the public sector, that is 
going to flow into clean energy is going to dwarf that that went into 
the computer industry, that went into high-tech and biotech. This is 
testimony from those who are venture capitalists. And that, matched 
with the cap-and-trade system, which will have the ability to really 
help agriculture, which will have the ability to help our 
manufacturers, which will have the ability to make sure we have fair 
trade at the border when products come in, that means we are going to 
see technologies invented, cleanups start to happen, we will stop the 
ravages of global warming, and eventually, when all of this technology 
kicks in, the average family is going to pay less for their 
electricity. In the short run, if you have to pay just a little more--
and I mean a little more, like 50 cents a day more maybe, probably 
less--we have the wherewithal to give you a credit for that funding.
  I think the House of Representatives has worked very hard to make 
sure they have the bill that will keep people whole, that will 
transform this economy to a clean energy economy, will get us off 
foreign oil, which is only to the good.
  You know, Iran has been in the news, and our hearts go out to those 
who are

[[Page S7046]]

trying to take their country back, if I could say that. We all stand 
with those demonstrators. We will not forget what they have gone 
through in their struggle.
  I ask unanimous consent that when I am done, Senator Kerry finish 
this time on global warming, followed by Senator Coburn if he would 
like to be recognized at that time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mrs. BOXER. Good.
  So what Thomas Friedman--again, writing his great column, as he 
does--says is that Iran would not be such a formidable power in the 
world if oil was not so sought after in the world.
  We do not buy any Iranian oil for obvious reasons, but the rest of 
the world does. The fact is, if we can create these clean alternatives, 
it is going to make every difference--every difference--in the world.
  So in closing--and I am so pleased Senator Kerry is here--let me say 
this: My ranking member, Jim Inhofe, made a comment. I just want to say 
we are good friends, and anything I say here I say to him, and vice 
versa. My ranking member said in the press--and I do not know if 
Senator Kerry saw this--my ranking member, Senator Inhofe, said to me 
in the press I should get a life--get a life--and stop trying to pass 
global warming legislation because it is not going to happen.
  I want to say to him very clearly today, I have a life, and I am 
spending it getting the votes I need to make sure we take advantage of 
this momentous opportunity. I want to thank those over in the House who 
seem to understand this golden moment of opportunity for our economy, 
for our foreign policy, for the creation of millions of new jobs, for 
energy independence--that is what they are fighting for over there--and 
for great opportunities for our agricultural sector, our manufacturing 
sector.
  This is an opportunity we should not lose. I am very pleased at the 
progress we are making over here, and I want to send that signal: We 
are making great progress.
  Mr. President, I thank you very much.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, what is the parliamentary situation?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate is operating under cloture on the 
nomination of Harold Koh.
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, has the time for a vote been set at this 
point?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. It has not.
  Mr. KERRY. It is not set. I thank the Chair.
  With that in mind, I think the leadership is hopeful of trying to get 
that vote somewhere in the near term.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader is recognized.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, could I ask the distinguished Senator from 
Massachusetts if he would yield for a unanimous consent request or two?
  Mr. KERRY. Of course, I will yield, Mr. President.
  Mr. REID. As usual, I appreciate the courtesy of my friend from 
Massachusetts.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that all postcloture time be 
yielded back except for 30 minutes and that time be divided as follows: 
10 minutes for Senator Kerry--and we can count the time he has already 
used. Does the Senator need more time? OK--10 minutes for Senator 
Kerry, 10 minutes for Senator Cornyn, 10 minutes for Senator Coburn, or 
their designees; that upon the use or yielding back of time, the Senate 
proceed to vote on the confirmation of the nomination; that upon 
confirmation, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's 
action, and the Senate then resume legislative session.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, reserving the right to object.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I would ask to modify the consent request 
that instead of 10, 10, and 10, Senator Kerry be given 15 minutes and 
Senator Cornyn be given 15 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.


                 Unanimous Consent Agreement--H.R. 2918

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that upon 
disposition of the Koh nomination, and the Senate resuming legislative 
session, the Senate then move to proceed to the consideration of 
Calendar No. 84, H.R. 2918, the Legislative Branch Appropriations Act; 
that the motion be agreed to, and once the bill is reported, a Nelson 
of Nebraska substitute amendment, which is at the desk, be called up 
for consideration; further that the following be the only first-degree 
amendments and motion in order: McCain, Nebraska photo exhibit; Coburn, 
online disclosure of Senate spending; DeMint, Visitor Center 
inscription: ``In God We Trust''; Vitter, motion to commit, 2009 
levels; DeMint, audit reform Federal Reserve; that upon disposition of 
the amendments and motion, the substitute amendment, as amended, if 
amended, be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the 
table; that the bill, as amended, be read a third time, and the Senate 
then proceed to vote on passage of the bill; that upon passage, the 
Senate insist on its amendment, request a conference with the House on 
the disagreeing votes of the two Houses, and that the Chair be 
authorized to appoint conferees on the part of the Senate; provided 
further that if a point of order is raised against the substitute 
amendment, then it be in order for another substitute amendment to be 
offered minus the offending provisions but including any amendments 
which had been agreed to; and that no further amendments be in order; 
and that the substitute amendment, as amended, if amended, be agreed 
to, and the remaining provisions beyond adoption of the substitute 
amendment remain in effect.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, could I have a 5-minute notice from the 
Parliamentarian?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator will be notified.

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