[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 107 (Tuesday, July 20, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6010-S6021]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
AMERICAN JOBS AND CLOSING TAX LOOPHOLES ACT OF 2010
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will
resume consideration of the House message to accompany H.R. 4213, which
the clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
House message to accompany H.R. 4213, an act to amend the
Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to extend certain expiring
provisions, and for other purposes.
Pending:
Reid motion to concur in the amendment of the House to the
amendment of the Senate
[[Page S6011]]
to the bill, with Reid amendment No. 4425 (to the amendment
of the House to the amendment of the Senate to the bill), in
the nature of a substitute.
Reid Amendment No. 4426 (to amendment No. 4425), to change
the enactment date.
Reid motion to refer in the amendment of the House to the
amendment of the Senate to the bill to the Committee on
Finance, with instructions, Reid amendment No. 4427, to
provide for a study.
Reid amendment No. 4428 (to the instructions (amendment No.
4427) of the motion to refer), of a perfecting nature.
Reid amendment No. 4429 (to amendment No. 4428), of a
perfecting nature.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the time until 2:30
will be equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their
designees. That time has expired.
Cloture Motion
The cloture motion having been presented under rule XXII, the Chair
directs the clerk to read the motion.
The assistant editor of the Daily Digest 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 motion to
concur in the House amendment to the Senate amendment to H.R.
4213, the American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act, with a
Reid amendment No. 4425.
Harry Reid, Max Baucus, Jack Reed, Edward E. Kaufman,
John F. Kerry, Sheldon Whitehouse, Carl Levin, Roland
W. Burris, Richard J. Durbin, Jeff Merkley, Benjamin L.
Cardin, Christopher J. Dodd, John D. Rockefeller, IV,
Barbara Boxer, Patty Murray, Robert P. Casey, Jr.,
Charles E. Schumer.
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
motion to concur in the House amendment to the Senate amendment to H.R.
4213, the American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act, with a Reid
amendment No. 4425, 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.
The result was announced--yeas 60, nays 40, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 209 Leg.]
YEAS--60
Akaka
Baucus
Bayh
Begich
Bennet
Bingaman
Boxer
Brown (OH)
Burris
Cantwell
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Collins
Conrad
Dodd
Dorgan
Durbin
Feingold
Feinstein
Franken
Gillibrand
Goodwin
Hagan
Harkin
Inouye
Johnson
Kaufman
Kerry
Klobuchar
Kohl
Landrieu
Lautenberg
Leahy
Levin
Lieberman
Lincoln
McCaskill
Menendez
Merkley
Mikulski
Murray
Nelson (FL)
Pryor
Reed
Reid
Rockefeller
Sanders
Schumer
Shaheen
Snowe
Specter
Stabenow
Tester
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Warner
Webb
Whitehouse
Wyden
NAYS--40
Alexander
Barrasso
Bennett
Bond
Brown (MA)
Brownback
Bunning
Burr
Chambliss
Coburn
Cochran
Corker
Cornyn
Crapo
DeMint
Ensign
Enzi
Graham
Grassley
Gregg
Hatch
Hutchison
Inhofe
Isakson
Johanns
Kyl
LeMieux
Lugar
McCain
McConnell
Murkowski
Nelson (NE)
Risch
Roberts
Sessions
Shelby
Thune
Vitter
Voinovich
Wicker
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Upon the reconsideration of this vote, the
yeas are 60, the nays are 40. Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen
and sworn having voted in the affirmative, the motion is agreed to.
Cloture having been invoked on the motion to concur with amendment in
the House amendment, the motion to refer falls, as it is inconsistent
with cloture.
The Senator from Vermont.
Unanimous Consent Request--Executive Calendar
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I see the Republican leadership and the
distinguished Senator from Tennessee on the floor. I would note that I
am hopeful the Senate Republican leadership would take the opportunity
to enter into a time agreement on 1 of the more than 20 judicial
nominees who have been stalled from Senate consideration. I am
referring to the nomination of Jane Stranch of Tennessee. Her
nomination was reported by a bipartisan majority of the Senate
Judiciary Committee last November, 8 months ago.
A native of Nashville, Mississippi, Ms. Stranch has practiced law in
that community for 32 years, and has often appealed before the Sixth
Circuit--the court to which she is now nominated. She has decades of
experience in labor and employment law, an expertise she put to good
use when she taught a class on labor law at Nashville's Belmont
University. Ms. Stranch also has an active appellate practice, as well
as significant experience with alternative forms of dispute resolution,
such as mediation and arbitration. She is a leader in her community who
dedicates significant time to pro bono work, civic matters, and her
church. She also has impressive academic credentials, having earned
both her J.D., Order of the Coif, and her B.A., summa cum laude and Phi
Beta Kappa, from Vanderbilt University.
Since this nomination was reported last November, all Democratic
Senators have been prepared to debate and vote on her nomination. I had
given my friend, the distinguished senior Senator from Tennessee, my
assurance about that. I, myself, have spoken about this nomination a
number of times because it is one of the oldest on the calendar.
I know the senior Senator from Tennessee has expressed his
frustration to me about the fact that this nomination has not been
voted on in the last 8 months. So I went to him last week and said I
was going to make a unanimous consent request for a time agreement to
consider her nomination. The Senator asked me if I would wait until
today, which I was glad to do. We have waited 8 months already.
I, in no way, fault the senior Senator from Tennessee. He has been
very clear to me he is ready to vote whenever this nomination comes
forward. So seeing the Republican leader on the floor, I will now
propound a unanimous consent request. I ask unanimous consent, as if in
executive session, at a time to be determined by the majority leader,
following consultation with the Republican leader, the Senate proceed
to executive session and consider Calendar No. 552, the nomination of
Jane B. Stranch, of Tennessee, to be a judge on the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the Sixth Circuit; there be 3 hours of debate with respect
to the nomination, with the time equally divided and controlled between
the chairman and ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, myself and
Senator Sessions, or our 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 motion to reconsider be
considered made and laid upon the table; any statements related to the
nomination be printed in the Record; the President be immediately
notified of the Senate's action; the Senate then resume legislative
session.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I thank
the Senator from Vermont, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, for
his request. Jane Stranch is a well-qualified nominee.
It has long been my position, without going into the history in this
body, that a President's judicial nominees deserve an up-or-down vote.
She is President Obama's longest pending circuit court nominee yet to
be confirmed. She was nominated last August. The committee reported her
in November. She has my support, that of Senator Corker.
I know it is difficult, with the amount of matters we have on the
Senate floor, to schedule anything, including a circuit judge.
But it would be my hope that the Republican leader and the majority
leader could, before long, set a time certain for an up-or-down vote on
Jane Stranch, the President's nominee for the Sixth Circuit Court of
Appeals. I thank the Senator from Vermont for his request. I will not
object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Gillibrand). The Republican leader.
Mr. McCONNELL. Reserving the right to object, I know my good friend
from Tennessee is interested in this nomination. There were, however,
some no-votes on the nominee in committee. We will be running the traps
on our side and seeing if we can work out
[[Page S6012]]
both the debate time and a time to take up this nominee in the not too
distant future. But for the short term, I must object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
The Senator from Vermont.
Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, I am terribly disappointed. With this
objection, Senate Republicans have further ratcheted up the obstruction
and partisanship that has become commonplace this Congress with regard
to judicial nominees. I had honestly hoped that working with the
respected senior Senator from Tennessee, we would be able to obtain a
standard time agreement. I am not asking any Republican Senator to vote
for the nominee, but simply to vote. I am not asking Republican
Senators to vote before they have had a chance to debate the
nomination, only to agree to a reasonable time for debate. If they do
not think 3 hours reasonable, I wish they would indicate what time they
think they need for such a debate. During the past 2 years, their
demands for time have gone unused in debates on the nominations. Often,
hours will be demanded in opposition without any of it being used for
that purpose. If it were just a matter of the number, I would hope we
could have worked that out and reached an agreement. Instead, this
objection is like the Republican leader's objection last week to the
request from the Senator from North Carolina to consider two nominees
from that State to the Fourth Circuit. They were both reported by the
Judiciary Committee last January, more than 6 months ago. One was
reported by a vote of 18 to 1 and the other by a vote of 19 to 0; they
are supported by both home State Senators, one a Republican and one a
Democrat. Still the Republican leadership refuses to allow the Senate
to consider them.
I was disappointed to see my friend from Kentucky object last week.
He did not speak about the nominees, or to their unquestioned
qualifications, including their backgrounds in military service. It
seemed as if his justification was along the lines of tit-for-tat. That
is most unfortunate. I note that when I became chairman of the
Judiciary Committee midway through President Bush's first tumultuous
year in office, I worked very hard to make sure Senate Democrats did
not perpetuate the judge wars as tit-for-tat. In fact, we did not.
Despite that fact that Senate Republicans pocket filibustered more than
60 of President Clinton's judicial nominations and refused to proceed
on them, including one of the nominees from North Carolina now pending
before us, again, during the 17 months I chaired the committee during
President Bush's first 2 years in office, the Senate proceeded to
confirm 100 of his judicial nominees. By contrast, during these first 2
years of President Obama's term, Senate Republicans have allowed only
36 Federal circuit and district court nominees to be considered by the
Senate, 100 to 36.
Ironically, the history of the Sixth Circuit and our efforts to turn
away from the destructive practices that Republicans had followed
during the Clinton years is detailed in my July 29, 2002, Senate
statement in support of another Tennessee nominee, Judge Julia Gibbons.
As chairman, I proceeded to a confirmation hearing for Judge Gibbons in
April 2002; it was the first hearing for a Sixth Circuit nominee in 5
years. Despite the well-qualified nominees of President Clinton, the
Republican majority did not consider them. Republicans refused to
consider the nominations of Judge Helene White, an experienced State
court judge; Kathleen McCree Lewis, an accomplished attorney and the
daughter of former Solicitor General of the United States and former
Sixth Circuit Judge Wade McCree; and Kent Markus, a law professor and
former Justice Department official who had the support of his
Republican home State Senator. This was the partisan record Senate
Democrats overcame when in the Senate majority. Republicans' pocket
filibusters of President Clinton's nominees resulted in numerous Sixth
Circuit vacancies. By proceeding with President Bush's nominations of
Judge Julia Gibbons of Tennessee and then his nomination of Judge John
Rogers of Kentucky, to the Sixth Circuit in 2002, the Democratic Senate
majority did not engage in a tit-for-tat but acted to break the logjam
the Republican obstruction had created.
When I resumed the chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee in 2008,
we were able to fill the last remaining vacancies on the Sixth Circuit
when we confirmed President Bush's nominations of Judge Helene White
and Judge Ray Kethledge of Michigan to the Sixth Circuit. Judge White
had been one of President Clinton's nominations in 1997 who was pocket
filibustered after having waited in vain for a hearing for more than
1,450 days. During the Bush years the Sixth Circuit went from half
vacant to full.
With respect to Senate Republican leadership's current practice of
holding, delaying and obstructing Senate consideration of judicial
nominees reported favorably by the Judiciary Committee, this is a
tactic they reserve for nominees of Democratic Presidents. Indeed, when
President Bush was in the White House, Senate Republicans took the
position that it was unconstitutional and wholly inappropriate not to
vote on nominees approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee. With a
Democratic President, they have reverted to their secret holds that
resulted in pocket filibusters during the Clinton years. Last year,
Senate Republicans successfully stalled all but a dozen Federal circuit
and district court nominees. That was the lowest total for judges
confirmed in more than 50 years. They have continued that practice
despite the fact that judicial vacancies continue to hover around 100,
with more than 40 declared judicial emergencies.
No one should be confused: The current obstruction and stalling by
Senate Republicans is unprecedented. There is no systematic counterpart
by Senate Democrats. In fact, during the first 2 years of the Bush
administration, the 100 judges confirmed were considered by the Senate
an average of 25 days from being reported by the Judiciary Committee.
The average time for confirmed circuit court nominees was 26 days. The
average time for the 36 Federal circuit and district and circuit court
judges confirmed since President Obama took office is 82 days and the
average time for circuit nominees is 126 days.
Overall judicial vacancies were reduced during the Bush years from
almost 10 percent to less than 4 percent. Federal judicial vacancies
are now over 10 percent. During the Bush years, the Federal circuit
court vacancies were reduced from a high of 32 down to single digits.
That progress has not continued with President Obama. Instead,
Republican obstruction is putting that progress at risk. During the
Bush years, we reduced vacancies on nine circuits. Since then,
vacancies on six circuits have risen. I note that during the Clinton
years, Republican obstruction succeeded in virtually doubling Federal
circuit vacancies.
I trust that the Republican leader remembers how I treated and Senate
Democrats treated judicial nominees from Kentucky. During the 17 months
I chaired the Judiciary Committee during President Bush's first 2
years, we proceeded to consider and confirm Judge John Rogers of
Kentucky to the Sixth Circuit by voice vote before the end of the
session in 2002, having already confirmed Judge Danny Reeves and Judge
Karen Caldwell to the Eastern District of Kentucky, and of course,
Judge David Bunning to the Eastern District of Kentucky by voice vote,
as well. During the more than 4 years that Republicans were in the
majority during the Bush Presidency, one other judge for the Eastern
District of Kentucky was confirmed, Judge Gregory Van Tatenhove, a
former aide to the senior Senator from Kentucky. The year I resumed the
Judiciary Committee chairmanship, we proceeded to confirm Judge Amul
Thapar to the Eastern District of Kentucky. Nominees the Republican
leader supported for his home State's vacancies were very well treated.
I am confident the senior Senator from Tennessee remembers how fairly
we treated judicial nominees from his State. I was chair when we broke
a longstanding logjam on the Sixth Circuit by confirming Judge Julia
Gibbons of Tennessee in July 2002. During the first 2 years of the Bush
administration we worked to see the Senate also confirm Samuel Mays,
Jr., as a judge for the Western District of Tennessee and Judge Thomas
Phillips as a judge for the Eastern District of Tennessee. When I
resumed the chairmanship in 2008, we also facilitated the Senate
confirmation of Judge Stanley Anderson
[[Page S6013]]
to be a judge for the Western District of Tennessee. During the
intervening years three other nominees were considered and confirmed to
be Eastern District of Tennessee judges, Judge Thomas Vartan, Judge
Ronnie Greet and Judge Harry Mattice, Jr. In addition Judge J. Daniel
Breen was confirmed to be a judge in the Western District of Tennessee.
There did come a time in the 108th Congress when President Bush and
Senate Republicans were intent on packing the courts with ideologues
and the Republican Chairman of the Judiciary Committee violated the
rules and practices of the committee in support of this effort. They
forced filibusters of 10 nominees, 6 of which were ultimately
confirmed.
I have not done what the Republican chairman did. I have respected
and protected the rights of the minority. President Obama has not made
nominations opposed by home State Senators but has instead reached out
and worked with home State Senators from both parties. He has by and
large nominated well-qualified moderates.
I have tried to ratchet up the cooperation between parties and
branches in my role as chairman. It is disappointing to see the Senate
Republican leadership take the opposite approach. They are holding up
consideration of nominees reported unanimously from the Judiciary
Committee for weeks and months for no reason. Just last week, after a
needless 3-month delay, the Senate confirmed a judge for the Northern
District of Illinois unanimously. That is more evidence of the pattern
of stall and obstruct. Earlier this year the majority leader had to
file cloture to get to a vote on the nomination of Judge Barbara Keenan
of Virginia to the Fourth Circuit. When the vote was held, she was
confirmed unanimously.
Republicans' sense of injury is misplaced in my view. Moreover, the
disproportionateness of their response disserves the American people
and our Federal justice system.
Jane Stranch of Tennessee is just one example of the harm they are
causing. Judge James Wynn of North Carolina is another example, as is
Judge Albert Diaz, also of North Carolina. The list includes the 21
judicial nominees currently stalled by Republican objection from final
Senate consideration but also many of the 36 who were needlessly
delayed. What is being perpetuated is a shame.
I thank the distinguished senior Senator from Tennessee for his
efforts in moving this forward. I am obviously disappointed, but I am
not disappointed in the actions of the distinguished Senator from
Tennessee. He did work very hard.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Republican leader
Tribute to Senator Paul Coverdell
Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, about 10 years ago, one of our dear
friends, the Senator from Georgia, Paul Coverdell, was unexpectedly
taken from us. He became ill and passed away. Here we are 10 years
later, and we wish to commemorate his life and service. His good
friends, the Senators from Georgia, Mr. Chambliss and Mr. Isakson, are
both here. We all want to say a few words about our departed friend
Paul Coverdell.
Paul was a patriot. I admired him a great deal. Nobody worked harder
than Paul Coverdell, and nobody wanted less credit for it. We were
talking on the floor a few moments ago. Senator Lott, who was the
Republican leader at the time, used to call him Mikey. What he meant by
that was some character we believe was in a commercial named Mikey who
always got the job done and didn't care where the credit ended up. That
is exactly how Paul was. No matter how tough the task, no matter how
thankless the job, Paul was ready to pitch in with good humor and
credible persistence and see it through to completion.
He had a distinguished career in the private sector before he entered
public life. He spent a long time toiling in the Georgia State Senate
before he came here. In fact, he used to joke that he knew all too well
what it was like to be an underdog because he spent 15 years
representing all five Republicans in the Georgia State Senate against
51 Democrats. That gives one a certain humility, shall I say.
Paul's deep understanding of the power of freedom is well known, and
his efforts to promote and spread freedom are a big part of his legacy.
As Director of the Peace Corps in the late 1980s, Paul sent the first
Peace Corps volunteers into Eastern Europe to work with nations about
to experience freedom for the very first time.
In a speech he delivered shortly before his death, Paul said:
I believe that in the 20th century, America has helped
plant the seeds of democracy and freedom around the world. I
hope that when the stories are written at the end of this new
century, it is said of this nation that we tended to liberty,
nurtured it around the world, and sustained freedom and
prosperity here in this Hemisphere.
That was Paul shortly before his death.
He served in this Chamber for nearly a decade, and those of us who
served alongside him know he never, ever sought the spotlight. He was a
decent hard-working guy who was dedicated to his wife Nancy, the people
of Georgia, the American people, and to promoting what he called the
three pillars of freedom: economic liberty, security for persons and
property, and a well-educated citizenry. Paul often said that an
uneducated mind can never truly be free. It is an idea he shared with
the men who founded our Nation. As Washington put it in his first
annual address to Congress:
Knowledge is, in every country, the surest basis of public
happiness.
As with all the lessons Paul liked to share, he delivered it with a
smile.
Paul is deeply missed by all of us in this room, but his
contributions are lasting. Ten years after his sudden passing, we
continue to learn from the life and example of Paul Coverdell.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia is recognized.
Mr. CHAMBLISS. Madam President, I rise, like my leader from Kentucky,
to celebrate the life of Paul Douglas Coverdell. I thank the leader for
his kind comments about a very personal friend to both Senator Isakson
and me as well as to the leader.
Paul Coverdell served in this body from 1993 until his untimely death
on July 18, 2000. Paul was a longtime politician in our State, having
first run for office in 1968. He lost the first election and then was
elected to the State senate in 1970. He rose to the rank of minority
leader in the Georgia State Senate and had a successful career there.
He then decided to run for Congress and lost his first race for the
House of Representatives.
Paul did something that is so Coverdell-like in the summer of 1978.
He was then the chairman of the Georgia Republican Party. He was on
vacation in Maine. He knew, obviously, of the soon-to-be Vice
President, George H.W. Bush, but he didn't know him and he wanted to
get to know him. So he walked up to his house in Kennebunkport--didn't
have to worry about the Secret Service back then--and knocked on his
front door. President Bush came to the front door. He introduced
himself. They became fast friends after that.
When President Bush was elected, Paul Coverdell was very involved in
his campaign. He wrote him a simple note. He said: If I can help you, I
would like to. Well, the President took that to heart and appointed
Paul to be the Director of the Peace Corps. Anything Paul undertook, he
put his whole heart and soul into. When he became Director of the Peace
Corps, he did exactly that. He also was a very good thinker. He created
what was called World Wise Schools within the Peace Corps. Those
schools all of a sudden cropped up all around the world under the
sponsorship of Peace Corps volunteers and all under Paul's leadership.
Paul led the first Peace Corps volunteers into Eastern Europe after the
fall of the wall.
I will never forget going to the Peace Corps building as a Member of
the House after Paul's death when the Peace Corps building was named
after Paul. To hear the many tributes of volunteers who had served for
so long under Paul and the personal stories they had about the
involvement of their leader and their affection for their leader was
truly humbling and moving.
When Paul was elected to the Senate in 1992, he actually had to be
elected four times that year. He was in a primary which he won after a
runoff. He then came in second in the general election in November, but
because of the rules being what they are in Georgia, as I experienced
myself in 2008,
[[Page S6014]]
Paul was in a runoff with the incumbent because an independent third-
party candidate got enough votes so that the incumbent did not get 50
percent plus one. Paul then won, after coming in second, the runoff
election and, thus, his fourth election in 1992.
In 1998, he became the first Georgia Republican to ever be reelected
to the Senate. He was such a class guy here that he was respected and
admired by folks on both sides of the aisle. I went back and looked at
some of the comments Republicans and Democrats made on the floor of the
Senate after Paul's death. It truly was, again, a very moving
experience to read those comments.
He created what is called the Coverdell ESA, or the Coverdell
education savings accounts--they are really education IRAs--to allow
families to set aside money on a tax-free basis to educate their
children. Paul loved education. It was very near and dear to him. He
was very proud of being able to establish those IRAs for future leaders
of the country.
A quick story about Paul. He was a very unique individual. He never
wore anything but a dark suit, never wore anything but a long-sleeve
white shirt. I remember one day I had an event down in the very
southern part of my congressional district, down at the Okefenokee
Swamp. It was in July or August, I don't remember which, but I do
remember it was extremely hot. The humidity in south Georgia on a June
or July or August day is extremely high. We were all there, and some
other Members of Congress who were there were in shorts and golf
shirts. Whatever we could put on to stay cool or somewhat cool, that is
what we had on. Paul showed up. As always, Paul had on a dark suit and
a white shirt. We finally did get him to take his tie and coat off
because we were going to ride out into the swamp. I used to kid Paul
about that really until the time of his death.
The leader is right, Senator Lott had a term for Paul Coverdell. He
called him Mikey because anytime Trent needed to get something done, he
would go to Mikey. Paul just had a way of making sure that whatever the
challenge was, it got done and got done in a very efficient way.
The photograph I cherish most of all my political photographs is a
black-and-white photo. It is a picture of Paul and myself sitting in
his office at one of our weekly meetings that took place while I was in
the House and he was in the Senate, the two of us just sitting there
talking. The expression on Paul's face is so classic Coverdell. It
always makes me feel good and is a great reminder of Paul.
Paul's wife Nancy has always been a dear friend. She was such a great
asset to him. She has chaired my military academy appointment committee
in all of my years in the Senate. She is a wonderful lady. Again, we
have some very fond conversations together about Paul from time to
time.
Paul Coverdell was not just a great Georgian; he was a great
American. He certainly loved our State and our country as much as
anybody who has ever served in this body. It is a sad day but yet a
very good day from the standpoint of having the opportunity to remember
the strong and positive leadership of Senator Paul Coverdell.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.
Mr. ISAKSON. Madam President, I am honored and privileged to join
Leader McConnell and Senator Chambliss to take a few minutes to talk
about one of my great friends, Paul Coverdell, and his lovely wife
Nancy. Mitch McConnell has done some great recollections of Paul's
service in the Senate. Senator Chambliss told some great stories of his
relationship with Senator Coverdell. I wish to share some of mine to
certify and document that everything they have said is absolutely
correct.
I met Paul Coverdell in 1972, 2 years after he was elected to the
Georgia State Senate as the fifth Republican to serve there. I was
running for the Georgia House of Representatives. Although I lost in
1974, I won in 1976. A few years later, I became the leader of the
Republicans in the Georgia House of Representatives, and Paul was the
senate leader. The senate had their caucus elections every January
after elections. I always loved the senate election. They had five
caucus officers and five Republican Senators. So instead of having an
election, they drew straws. They drew straws and they drew Paul
Coverdell, to which he was forever reelected as leader of Republicans
in the Georgia State Senate.
Paul was the most organized guy I have ever known and was the most
goal-oriented guy I have ever known.
His goal--when we were outnumbered 10 to 1 in the senate, Democrat to
Republican, and 8 to 1, Democrat to Republican, in the house--he
dreamed of the day when we were in the majority. As the Republican
leader of the house, he would summon me, by kind invitation, on every
Monday morning, to the Buckhead Waffle House or the Buckhead IHOP where
we would have coffee and talk about how one day we were going to be the
majority party in Georgia.
Now, I am an optimist. I was a salesman all my life. I believed we
could get there too. But Paul had a step-by-step plan--a plan that in
1976 seemed tantamount to impossible but a plan that was realized with
his election to the Senate in 1992, a congressional majority for
Republicans in Georgia in 1994 and, ultimately, the first Republican
Governor in the history of our State Post-Reconstruction, in 2002.
Paul meticulously was a partisan, but he was, above that, an
American. Paul Coverdell was also a man of ideas. Folks have talked
about the Coverdell education savings accounts, which he authored in
the Senate and are now law. But I remember, in Georgia, in the 1970s
and 1980s, when he championed the mandatory seatbelt law. Believe me,
in a State such as Georgia where you have a lot of pickup trucks and a
lot of rural communities, wearing a seatbelt was not the most popular
thing in the world. But Paul knew it was good for saving lives. He knew
it was good for lowering insurance rates because he was an insurance
man. He fought against a majority that did not want it, but he
prevailed and he won, and today many lives have been saved because of
the efforts of Paul Coverdell in the Georgia Legislature.
Senator Chambliss told his story of Paul in his dark suit and his red
tie and his white shirt. I want to tell mine.
Back in 1982, I was on the beach at Jekyll Island, GA, following a
joint house Republican-senate Republican conference. The late Haskew
Brantley--then a Georgia State senator--and I were on the beach under
an umbrella enjoying the beautiful coast of Georgia on our great
island, Jekyll Island. In the distance we could see this figure coming
toward us that looked from a distance as having on a suit, walking on
the beach with his shoes in his hand and his pant legs rolled up. The
closer he got, the more Haskew and I realized: That is Paul Coverdell.
Paul came in his red tie, his buttoned-down white shirt, his dark
pin-striped suit but with his shoes in his hand. He sat in the sand
with us, talked, got up, walked back to the parking lot, and drove to
Atlanta. In fact, I am not sure I ever saw Paul when he did not have on
the dark suit, the red tie, and the white shirt.
He was always dressed to the nines, and he was always ready for
whatever challenge came. His wife Nancy, who is a beautiful lady I saw
just a few weeks ago on the coast of Georgia, actually had her real
estate license in my company. So not only did I know Paul, but I knew
Nancy, and for 35 years they were as close of friends as I have ever
had. But for 35 years they served Georgia day in and day out in
whatever capacity they could to make it a better State.
I think it is a great tribute to tell this story: When Paul was
elected to the Georgia State Senate as the fifth Republican in history
in 1970, for somebody to think a Republican majority could ever have
taken place, they would have laughed. But shortly after Paul's death,
the legislative office building where every member of the Georgia House
and Senate in downtown Atlanta has an office was named the Paul D.
Coverdell Legislative Office Building. He went from the bottom in terms
of numbers, and he went to the top, but he climbed it one step at a
time; he climbed it one commitment at a time, and he never lost sight
of the fact that he was an American first and a Republican second but
always committed to the values of Georgia and the values and the
conservative principles we shared.
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So on this day, just 10 years after his passing, we rise to pay
tribute to a great American, a great Member of the Senate, and a leader
who made it possible for people such as Senator Chambliss and myself to
follow in his footsteps and one day, ultimately, serve in the greatest
deliberative body in the world, the U.S. Senate.
I pay tribute to Paul Coverdell and his legacy and his beautiful wife
Nancy.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in
morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. MERKLEY. Thank you, Madam President.
Oil Independence
Madam President, today I come to this Chamber to speak about oil
independence for a stronger America. Many folks across America are
continuously talking about the downside of our addiction to overseas
oil. Today I am going to be presenting a plan embodying a bill with
that name: Oil Independence for a Stronger America.
One of the big issues of our dependence on foreign oil is national
security. We send $1 billion a day overseas to governments that often
don't share our core American values; governments in the Middle East,
in Nigeria, in Venezuela. Sometimes those dollars end up directly in
the hands of terrorists. As some national security analysts have noted,
in our current wars we are sometimes funding both sides of the battle,
and that is not a good place to be.
In addition, to maintain our access to that overseas oil, we have to
maintain a significant national security military force. Some analysts
have estimated the cost of that additional security, that additional
access to guarantee oil for America, has a value or a cost of up to $5
per gallon. So those aren't dollars we pay at the pump, but we
certainly pay them in terms of our national security overhead.
In addition to national security, our addiction to overseas oil is
terrible for our economy. We are sending $1 billion a day overseas. Two
years ago, when the cost of a barrel of oil surged upwards, we were
sending $2 billion a day overseas. It will be that again. It will go
higher, because the world's demand for oil is only increasing. As the
economies of Asia, and particularly the economy of China, are growing,
the demand for oil is growing as well, and with it we will be paying
more.
Take that $1 billion a day. That is $3 for every man, woman, and
child in America. I have a family of four: $12 a day for my family. A
significant sum, hundreds of dollars a month for my family, goes
overseas. When those dollars go overseas, they create jobs overseas
instead of creating jobs here in America. Try to picture the difference
between spending $1 billion a day overseas and spending $1 billion a
day on red, white, and blue American-made energy. That is the
difference between families who have jobs, a stronger economy, or a
weaker economy.
Oil addiction makes us weaker as a nation. Oil independence makes us
stronger as a nation. Isn't it time to choose strength over weakness?
I wish to take a look at the numbers demonstrating the challenge
before us. The estimate for the amount of oil we will be importing as a
nation 20 years from now is between 6 million to 7 million barrels per
day, as indicated by this column. If we were to put together a plan
that would reduce our consumption of oil by more than 6 million to 7
million barrels per day, then we would have a plan that equates to
independence from oil so that we would be able to eliminate the
requirement, the need to import oil from overseas.
The good news is that the tools are at hand to have such a strategy.
What we have lacked is the will, the political will to move forward;
the will to say, yes, we are going to have a plan and we are going to
stay on that plan over the course of time, the two decades necessary to
implement it.
So what are the major strategies through which we can end our
addiction to overseas oil? The first strategy I wish to talk about is
changing the consumption of gasoline in passenger vehicles. Right now
we have a number of hybrid cars that consume a lot less oil. We have
coming on the market next year the Nissan LEAF, the Chevrolet Volt. We
have the Tesla sedan. We are going to have numerous options for
customers in America to be able to satisfy their domestic
transportation needs in ways that consume vastly less gasoline, and
that means less overseas oil. So the question is whether we promote
adoption of these strategies. There is a tremendous amount to gain by
promoting adoption of these strategies.
I wish to thank Senator Byron Dorgan and Senator Lamar Alexander who
partnered with me, the three of us together, on the Electric Vehicle
Deployment Act. This is an act that will take a half dozen or so
communities across this country and create deployment communities to
test drive, if you will; building the infrastructure necessary for
electric vehicles in partnership with the deployment of electric
vehicles, because the two have to work together. From what we learn
from those deployment communities, we can develop an accelerated
strategy to shift to electricity from gasoline across this Nation. The
potential savings are 3.2 million barrels per day.
The second strategy is to have more efficient freight transportation.
There is a lot to be gained in this area as well--up to 2 million
barrels of oil per day. We have a group out in Oregon, a nonprofit
called Cascade Sierra. Cascade Sierra works in partnership with the
trucking community to make sure there is a one-stop shop to acquire
different technologies designed to increase the efficiency of trucks.
They deploy airfoils to make the trucks go down the highway more
efficiently. They provide the technology for automatic tire inflation
which makes a huge difference in mileage over time. Cascade Sierra
makes available different types of generators so that a truck, instead
of running its large diesel engine to provide electricity when it is
stopped, can instead run a small generator. Now they are working to
help develop charging stations where the trucks can actually plug in to
power up their electric infrastructure on the truck rather than running
their diesel engine.
There are many ways to increase efficiency on trucks as well as
increasing efficiency by shifting a percentage of our freight
transportation from trucks to barges and rail. Rail and barges are
incredibly efficient. I am constantly amazed at the statistic of how
far you can take a ton of freight with one gallon of diesel. For all of
my colleagues who may be wondering: Well, how far can you go? Can you
go 50 miles? Can you take a ton of freight 50 miles with one gallon?
Well, no, it is higher than that. Is it 100 miles? No, it is over 400
miles, a ton of freight, with one gallon on rail or by barge.
Significant savings are available in that area.
The third section is smart metropolitan transportation options.
Portland, OR, is a city that is working very hard to provide options to
its citizens on how they commute back and forth to work. We have light
rail not too dissimilar from what we have here in Washington, DC. Back
home in Oregon, we also are building streetcars, and streetcars create
a whole infrastructure around efficient electric transportation for
neighborhoods. Then we are working on other strategies, including bike
lanes, and so forth, that create a network of options for effective
noncar transportation. Those types of strategies can do an enormous
amount in reducing the amount of fuel we consume, not to mention
reducing the congestion and, therefore, improving the quality of life
for Americans throughout metropolitan areas. Potential savings: 1.7
million barrels of oil per day.
The fourth area is in alternative fuels. There have been natural gas
forklifts since I was a little kid. Compressed natural gas is an
effective fuel. Through recent developments in drilling technology, we
have discovered we can produce a lot more natural gas in our Nation,
which means a lot more potential to power up trucks with natural gas
rather than diesel. So that is a technology that will have a big
impact.
A second area is advanced biofuels. Certainly I wish to see the
forests of
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Oregon generating some advanced cellulosic ethanol for our truck fleet
and to do so in a fashion which is environmentally sustainable so the
power of plants, if you will, can be a significant factor in
strengthening our domestic energy economy and creating more jobs here
in America and reducing our oil imports from overseas.
The fifth area is energy-efficient homes and buildings. In this case,
the savings are more modest: 200,000 barrels of oil per day. They are
more modest because most buildings are not heated by heating oil. But
we should pay attention to those buildings that are heated by heating
oil, because the savings, when you increase the energy characteristics
of a building, are substantial. So that merits attention.
If one combines these strategies, we are looking at savings of well
over 8 million barrels per day, as compared to the estimate for imports
20 years from now of 6 million to 7 million barrels per day. So it is
unquestionable that we can end our oil addiction if we have the
political will, if we have the determination to sustain a plan through
every 4-year cycle over 20 years.
Here in America, we tend to oscillate back and forth as Presidencies
change, and that is why this bill, the Oil Independence for Stronger
America Act, calls for a National Energy Security Council that will
sustain the attention to the national plan as Presidents come and go,
as Members of Congress come and go.
There should be little question in any of our minds that America will
be stronger as an oil-independent nation rather than an oil-addicted
nation. There should be little question that creating jobs here, buying
American-made energy at $1 billion a day is far preferable to sending
billions of dollars a day overseas, where they are no longer in our
retail stores and are no longer creating jobs.
Certainly, many of these strategies will have a very positive
influence on creating cleaner air and having American leadership and
stewardship of our planet. So numerous positive factors go together. I
want to be sure to thank my original cosponsors of the bill. Senator
Tom Carper has done terrific work on CAFE and CLEAN TEA, which involves
metropolitan transportation options. Tom Udall brought insights on
freight, rail, natural gas, and biofuels. Senator Michael Bennet has a
comprehensive understanding of energy issues that is of real value in
the Senate Chamber.
I will conclude with this: Let's choose a stronger oil-independent
America over a weaker oil-addicted America.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kaufman). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak
for up to 10 minutes as in morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Hugo Boss
Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, last April a German clothing
company, Hugo Boss, announced it was planning to close down its only
North American manufacturing plant located in Brooklyn, OH, outside of
Cleveland. Hugo Boss told us they were going to expand their American
sales force but shut down all U.S. production. Despite the Cleveland
plant being profitable--a plant that had been in existence for decades
and decades prior to Hugo Boss purchasing it--Hugo Boss planned to move
its Cleveland production to the country of Turkey.
I recognize Hugo Boss's desire to expand their sales force by
eliminating production in the United States and shipping it to Turkey--
a sad but all too common story in our Nation today--but it was a
devastating announcement for the workers and for the community in
Brooklyn, OH. Cleveland has a long and storied history of manufacturing
clothes and apparel, in addition to chemicals and steel and autos and
so much else. In Brooklyn, a suburb of Cleveland, a factory is a source
of pride and economic prosperity. Yet despite the shock and
disappointment of the announcement, the community rallied behind the
workers.
In the ensuing months, Governor Strickland and I met Hugo Boss
executives and workers. I talked to the Hugo Boss people in Germany by
phone. I went to the plant and talked to workers, heard their stories--
often workers who had been there 10, 20, 30 years, husbands and wives
working together at the plant making no more than $15 an hour. So these
were not jobs that paid a lot of money or made a lot of people rich,
but they were jobs that gave particularly immigrant workers a real
opportunity in this country to work. They had decent health benefits,
and they made a wage that they could at least make a go of it.
Earlier this year, in February, when I traveled to meet with some of
those 400 workers, I began to hear these stories. As I said, the
workers make no more than $15 an hour, and many make less than that.
They are paid decent benefits but barely enough to keep these working
families in the middle class. These workers did everything they could
to keep this plant profitable. Their work meant everything to the
community.
When the decision to close the factory was made, Joe Costigan, Sue
Brown, Mark Milko, and Dallas Sells--all of Workers United--fought
tirelessly on behalf of these workers. Mayor Richard Balbier rallied
the community to help keep the plant open, recognizing a healthy
manufacturing sector means a healthy and prosperous community. In the
meantime, management, workers, elected officials, and community leaders
all continued to work together to find a way to keep the factory open.
Exactly a year later, in April 2010, an agreement was made that would
keep workers in their jobs and would sustain that community's economy.
These workers agreed to absorb wage cuts. Many of them went from $12 or
$13 an hour down to $10 or $11 an hour.
Yesterday, we celebrated what happens when we work together to save a
plant and a community. Yesterday, Governor Strickland and I joined 200
workers and Hugo Boss executives to celebrate the first suit off the
line of this restarted manufacturing plant. Wanda Navarro and Sheila
McVay were among those who spoke. Sheila McVay introduced the Governor,
and Ms. Navarro introduced me. But before they did so, they spoke
eloquently of what being back to work means. I am proud to have stood
by Wanda and Sheila and those who fought for the classic American
success story.
I wear a suit. The suit I have on today was union made in Cleveland,
OH, by these workers. One of these workers came up to me as I was
standing there and she pointed to the vest pocket of the suit, saying:
I make those vest pockets; I probably sewed that one. It makes me proud
to have worked with Workers United and Hugo Boss to ensure that a
premier global company continues to invest in this town, in this State,
in American manufacturing.
Yesterday marked a new chapter for this company's global
competitiveness and for our community's economic prosperity. But that
celebration yesterday must be viewed in the context of what is
happening all too often in our country. The closing of a plant too
often means moving it offshore. It looks like a good deal for the
company's quarterly financial statement. That is initially what Hugo
Boss thought when they were going to close this plant--a profitable
plant--and move to it Turkey: manufacture more clothes, sell more
clothes in Turkey, increase their U.S. sales force, and sell more of
them back into the United States. We know that story can be told again
and again, when U.S. trade law, U.S. tax laws, and companies think
about the next quarter more than they do the next year or the next
decade and outsource those jobs, then sell the products back into the
United States.
As an example, I was meeting with someone today who is working to
push the Commerce Department to simply enforce U.S. trade law and
enforce or stop some of the currency manipulation by the People's
Republic of China. He told me that only 10 years ago we had 19 million
manufacturing jobs in the United States. Today, we are down to about 11
million. Yet China has some 100 million people working in
manufacturing.
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For the last two decades, manufacturing has steadily declined, as
financial services expanded. The Presiding Officer from Delaware has
worked on and has talked about this. He understands this in terms of
what has happened with manufacturing versus what has happened with
financial services. Only 30 years ago, manufacturing made up more than
a quarter of our Nation's GDP, our Nation's gross domestic product.
Financial services was only 11 percent of our gross domestic product.
Today, those numbers are almost reversed, where manufacturing is only
about half of what it was as a percentage of GDP and financial services
is double what it was. Look where that brought us as a nation. Look
what happened to our jobs. Look what happened to the middle class.
People at Hugo Boss and these other companies make things. People in
this country who make things can provide a middle-class lifestyle for
their loved ones and their families. If we stop relying on
manufacturing as something that is important to us as a nation--not
everything but something important to us as a nation--we will see the
middle class continue to atrophy and decline.
We need a national manufacturing strategy that ensures that trade
agreements and tax laws come down on the side of workers and
communities, not encourages investors to go overseas, make things in
China and then send them back to the United States. We need a national
manufacturing strategy that once again invests in American workers and
incentivizes companies to promote manufacturing innovation. We need a
national manufacturing strategy that recognizes manufacturing has been
and always will be a ticket to the middle class for millions of
Americans. That is what manufacturing means to workers at the Hugo Boss
plant in Brooklyn, OH, a suburb of Cleveland. That is what it means to
workers in communities in Toledo and Dayton and Cincinnati and Lima and
Mansfield, OH, and that is what it means to the middle class all over
this great country.
Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a
quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. NELSON of Florida. 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. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, what is our parliamentary
position?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. We are in a period postcloture.
Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to
speak as in morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
NASA Authorization
Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I wish to compliment a lot of
Senators on both sides of the aisle for the extraordinary
bipartisanship--no, the extraordinary nonpartisanship that occurred in
coming together unanimously to pass the NASA authorization bill out of
the full Commerce Committee last week.
The budget for NASA was about to be blown apart by centrifugal
force--having different elements, different interests all going off in
different directions. Everybody seemed to have their own agenda.
Geographical circumstances came into it as to whose States were being
affected. The companies were at war with each other. There was a lack
of cooperation that was going on between the legislative branch and the
executive branch. All I can say is hallelujah, it all came together,
and we passed the NASA bill out of the Commerce Committee last week
unanimously, with all the Senators who spoke singing its praises.
I am going to outline it in just a minute, but let me make note of
another fact. We had unprecedented cooperation between the authorizers;
that is, the authorizing committee, and the appropriators. As we speak,
the Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, State, Justice, which
includes the NASA appropriations--are preparing the markup. We will
find out the result tomorrow afternoon. But I can tell you the
cooperation was extensive and so was the communication, the likes of
which we have not seen around here this year, particularly in this year
when there is so much gridlock and we have so much difficulty getting
anything done. That has not been the case with the NASA bill.
There are a host of Senators, they all know who they are, to whom
this Senator wants to express his appreciation for their coming
together. As the Good Book says: ``Come, let us reason together,'' and
it happened. As I said at the time we passed it, I think it was a near
miracle, but I believe in miracles. Indeed, it happened.
Let me tell you what is in the bill. A good part of what the
President requested is there. That is why we had the verbal and the
written support of the President of this consensus that developed,
which we passed. We had the President's recommendations on the top line
of the spending for NASA, about $19 billion for this next fiscal year
starting in October.
The President recommended the extension of the International Space
Station to 2020, which was originally supposed to expire in 2015, which
was absolutely ridiculous. We are just now getting it built and it is
about a $100 billion investment. The President wants to start a
commercial rocket industry, already under contract with NASA--two
companies, SpaceX and Orbital Sciences--to deliver cargo to the
International Space Station. Those contracts are already underway and
the testing is beginning. We put in the President's recommendation on
that commercial cargo in this bill, which was a recommendation for $300
million.
We agreed with the President to start the process of human-rating
commercial rockets for the purpose of being, in effect, a taxi service
to and from the International Space Station. Human rating of a rocket
is no small measure, because when you strap in to a rocket, there has
to be all kinds of redundancies in order to protect human life. Safety
is one of our major watchwords. That was authorized as well--at a
different level from what the President had originally recommended and
over 6 years as opposed to 5 years that the President had recommended,
but nevertheless it gets the project started.
The main thing we did differently from the President's recommendation
is this. When the President came to the Kennedy Space Center a few
months ago and said he wanted to develop a new heavy-lift rocket that
will ultimately take us out into the cosmos, the President set the
goal--and I gave him great credit for this because you have to have a
goal when you are developing cutting-edge technology--he set that goal
of going to Mars by a flexible path. The first way station he pointed
to, with a date 2025, is an asteroid. He said he wanted that heavy-lift
rocket to start to be developed by 2015. That is a 5-year wait. Our
committee did not want to wait that long. We want to get started now.
In the authorization bill, in a congressional committee, we cannot
design a rocket. But we can set policy guidelines to the executive
branch of government and to the agency, in this case NASA, as to using
shuttle-derived technology and building on that, making it, in the
parlance of the space community, evolvable, and that is what we did in
the authorization bill. We want to start it now instead of waiting
until 2011.
We also did another thing differently. Although the White House was
contemplating this, by them embracing the consensus that we built, now
they have supported it; that is, to fly an extra flight of the space
shuttle. This is not a space shuttle that we have to go out and build
the parts for. It is a space shuttle, a stack with the external tank
and the two solid boosters as well as the orbiter we already have and
ready to be on the pad as a rescue shuttle for the remaining two
flights, one of which will come this November, the other next February.
We wish to fly that third flight. It is likely to be the orbiter
Atlantis. That would come a year from now, probably next June.
There is a lot more stuff to take up to the space station. There is a
lot more equipment, supplies, and, interestingly and importantly, there
is a lot of stuff up there that you need the big volume of that cargo
bay of the orbiter to be able to bring back to Earth. That third flight
will supply that.
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We continue the President's recommendations on all the other parts of
NASA--on the science part, on the aeronautics part, and on the
acceleration of research and development for new technologies. We
continue that. We focus some of that development of technologies in our
authorization bill toward the building, the designing, and ultimately
the flying of this heavy-lift vehicle, complete with a crew
compartment, which more than likely will be in the form of what we
thought of in the old days as the capsule.
Therefore, at the beginning of the new fiscal year, which comes this
October, assuming that we have the authorization in place--if that is
the decision of the Appropriations Committee as well, and we can get
that appropriation passed and signed into law by the President--then,
come October 1, they will start on the development of that new heavy-
lift vehicle.
This has been met with wide consensus. The research and development
on new technologies will continue. They will be more focused and
directed. They will be more immediate. The capability of having the
commercial rockets be human rated, to be the trip to and from the space
station, will be there, and it will start immediately.
All this dissonance and argument and criticism, it all came together
and it passed unanimously. I await very expectantly and very hopefully
for the Appropriations Committee--they are acting as we speak--on
seeing the results of their work.
Let me say in conclusion, I could name a dozen Senators. They all
know who they are. I have said it in press conferences, and so forth,
singing their high praises. Somewhere down the line, if this Chamber is
still in gridlock on so many other issues that we have and if we get to
the point we are not able to pass appropriations bills and if we, in
fact, have to go back in order to fund the government starting October
1 on what is called a continuing resolution, which usually is a
continuance of the previous year's funding--hopefully, we will have
passed by the Senate Appropriations Committee their bill that is very
similar to the authorization bill I have just described. In that case,
if we are in gridlock, it would be my hope, it would be the hope of
some dozen of us Senators that we would be able, then, to take that
Appropriations Committee bill, passed by the Senate Appropriations
Committee, if we have to go to a continuing resolution, and put that
NASA appropriations bill in the continuing resolution.
The alternative would be disaster. It would be appropriating on the
basis of last year's bill that would completely blow apart the
consensus I have just described. It would have the manned space program
dead in its tracks by the funding at last year's levels without the
policy direction.
But, despite gridlock, I am an optimist. I believe what I have laid
out is the mere expression of support of so many of our Senators on
both sides of the aisle so that when it comes to this little $19
billion agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the
agency that carries the hopes and dreams of a lot of Americans, it is
my hope that under those circumstances, as we get on into the fall,
that that is how we can fund NASA with an appropriations bill, if we
cannot pass the overall CJS appropriations bill in its entirety.
I come as someone who 2 weeks ago didn't know where in the world we
were going or how we were going to get the votes. But Senators came
together, and I, for one, this Senator, hope for the sake of all those
young people out there whose hearts beat a little bit faster when they
see that rocket as it climbs into the heavens, who had the dreams of
understanding what is out there in that universe that we are
exploring--for the sake of all those young people, for the sake of this
country and its technological prowess, for the sake of this country and
its people, for the technological spin-offs that come out of the
research and development of the space program that absolutely pervades
our everyday life to make our quality of life better, for the sake of
the future of this country, that we stay on the cutting edge, inspiring
our young people into math and science and technology and engineering
so we can stay as the leader in this global marketplace, because we
have the ingenuity, the creativity, the inventiveness.
A lot of that inspiration comes out of our space program, both manned
and unmanned. It is our destiny as a people to explore. It is our
heritage as a people that we have explored. We have always had a
frontier. When we developed this country, we expanded westward on the
frontier. Now that frontier is upward. We can do no less than to
continue the quest.
I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Hagan). The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant editor of the Daily Digest proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, after months of obstruction, we have
overcome a shameful effort by the Republican minority to block the
extension of emergency unemployment benefits.
Because of the obstructionism of those on the other side of the
aisle, more than 2 and a half million unemployed Americans have seen
their benefits terminated in recent weeks--49 days ago, to be exact.
They are among the nearly 6.8 million Americans who have been out of
work for more than half a year. That is the highest number of long-term
unemployed we have had since we started keeping track in 1948. Again,
this is the highest number of long-term unemployment we have had since
1948.
In recent weeks, I have come to the Senate floor several times to
share the heartbreaking letters and e-mails I have received from long-
term unemployed workers in Iowa. These families are struggling to
survive. These Iowans are trying their hardest, doing everything they
can to find any kind of work. But the jobs just aren't there.
Officially, there are five job seekers for every new job opening.
Unofficially, and more accurately, there are more than eight job
seekers for every opening. Here on the chart, it says that when you
include the discouraged workers who aren't counted in the official
numbers, unemployment has gone up to 26 million. Yet there are 3.2
million job openings. So there is between five and eight unemployed
workers for every job opening.
I say to those desperate families in Iowa and across America that we
have listened to you, we have heard you, and we have been fighting
desperately over the last 49 days here to get an extension of
unemployment insurance benefits. Every time we have tried it, we have
been obstructed by the minority, the Republicans. So thanks, today, to
the first vote cast by the new Senator from West Virginia, Mr. Carte
Goodwin--by the way, I might say to Senator Goodwin, who was just sworn
in at about 2 p.m. and then cast his first vote, he can be rightfully
proud of the first vote he cast in the Senate--to help lift up people
who, in many cases, have lost all hope, to make sure families get the
necessary wherewithal to put food on the table and keep their families
together. Thanks to the first vote of the new Senator from West
Virginia, today we were able to get cloture and stop the filibuster.
I also thank the two Republicans--Senator Snowe and Senator Collins--
who also voted with us today to make sure we were able to get this
extension into law.
Just remember, on three occasions this summer Republican Senators
pulled out the stops to filibuster and kill efforts to extend
unemployment benefits. During that time, we heard a rising chorus on
talk radio and even from some Senators. They said that extending
unemployment benefits would be a bad idea because, in so many words,
people are lazy, and they are just relying on their benefits instead of
looking for work.
As the distinguished minority whip, the Senator from Arizona, Mr.
Kyl, put it:
. . . continuing to pay people unemployment compensation is
a disincentive for them to seek new work.
I believe that is woefully out of touch with the reality of trying to
survive on unemployment benefits. Let's look at the facts. While the
numbers vary from State to State, the average weekly unemployment
benefit nationwide is only about $300 a week. As this chart shows, $300
a week in UI benefits adds up to
[[Page S6019]]
about $15,000 a year. That is the average. The poverty line for a
family of four is $22,000 a year. So is the Senator from Arizona saying
someone who is getting $15,000 a year--a family of four--would rather
get that than find a job and make well over $22,000 a year, which would
be the poverty line? Would they rather exist on $15,000 a year than,
say, $45,000 a year or $55,000 or $60,000 a year?
It is incredible to think that someone would say that when there is
one job for five to eight people out there looking. To say that somehow
by giving them $15,000 a year--$300 a week--that will keep them from
going to work is preposterous.
This line of argument is not just absurd and factually wrong, it is
shameful. It is shameful to say that about hard-working Americans, who,
through no fault of their own, are out of a job. I keep saying every
time I come to the Senate floor that we all have jobs here. Every time
I come here and look around, I see fellow Senators and staff--we all
have jobs. We are not worried about tomorrow. Think about your own
family. What if you were out of work and have been out of work for a
year and you are out there looking for work, and for every job there
are eight other people out there looking for that job? You have to put
yourself in the shoes of those kinds of families.
It is shameful to say somehow that by giving people unemployment
benefits, they are not going to go back to work because of that--I have
more faith in the American people. The American people want to work. In
fact, the figures show that we are still the most productive Nation on
Earth. Does that somehow point to lazy Americans? No. Given the
opportunity, Americans can outwork anybody anywhere in the world--if
there is only a job.
To say that somehow giving unemployment benefits encourages people to
be lazy flies in the face of the facts about hard-working Americans--
how hard they work and how productive American workers are. Well, there
is little question that the long-term unemployed would like nothing
more than to pull themselves up by the bootstraps. But this economy
right now is very short on bootstraps.
Our Republican colleagues have trotted out another justification for
stopping extending unemployment benefits. They say that extending the
benefits will add to the deficit. They argue that we should cut off
some of the most desperate people in our economy. We should take away
their last meager lifeline out of a concern for the deficit.
Yet these very same Senators today are demanding that the 2001 and
2003 tax breaks for the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans be extended
for another 10 years. Let me repeat that. These same Senators on the
Republican side who are arguing that we can't extend the unemployment
benefits because it would add to the deficit are some of the same
Senators who are saying these tax breaks President George Bush and a
Republican Congress gave to the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans in
2001 and 2003 should be extended for another 10 years. And they are
saying the cost of those tax breaks should not be offset, they should
simply be added to the deficit.
So let's be clear about what our Republican friends are saying. They
are saying the roughly $33 billion cost of extending unemployment
benefits for some of the most desperate workers in our society is
unacceptable if it adds to the deficit, but extending tax breaks for
the most fortunate and privileged Americans, which would cost a
whopping $670 billion over the next decade, well, we can just add that
to the deficit. So, again, $33 billion to help people who are out of
work, who are desperate, to help them feed their children, stay in
their homes, pay their mortgages, keep their families together, that
$33 billion we can't spend because it adds to the deficit; however, we
can extend these tax breaks that cost $670 billion for another 10
years. Oh, yes, we can add that to the deficit. That is what my
Republican friends are saying. Well, this is breathtaking. It is
breathtaking to hear this line of argument. It is nothing more than a
return to the Bush years when the President, with a Republican majority
here, dragged us into trillion dollar wars and turned major surpluses
into historic deficits--historic deficits. Well, today, finally, the
Senate said: No, we are not going to go any further on this. We drew
the line. We had our vote. Shortly, we will vote on passage of the
bill--49 days too late.
Imagine, if you will, that you are one of those persons and you have
a family. Maybe you have an illness in the family. Maybe you have a
child who is sick or a child with a disability or maybe some other
unfortunate things have happened to you. Maybe you have been out of
work and you lost your unemployment benefits 49 days ago. What have you
done for those 49 days? Think about it. Think about what you would do.
Well, I am sorry. I apologize to all those Americans, on behalf of the
Senate, that we didn't pass this 49 days ago. But the Republican
minority would not let us do it because of a filibuster--because of a
filibuster--which requires 60 votes. We didn't have 60 votes until
today. So I am sorry people had to wait 49 days, but the unemployment
extension we will pass today will be retroactive, so it will fill in
those last 49 days. I hope and trust that many of the bills that piled
up on those kitchen tables--maybe the mortgage payment that wasn't made
or maybe the mortgage company is calling all the time and hounding you
about it, maybe you have had to go out and get one of those awful
payday loans with high interest rates to tide you over--I hope that
will soon get taken care of, that you will get your unemployment
benefits and be able to pay those off. These will be extended until the
end of November. So we can now say to the people who are unemployed:
You will get your unemployment benefits until the end of November. And
I hope the programs we are working on will turn this economy around.
Tomorrow, the President will sign into law the financial reform bill
we passed here last week. This is going to go a long way toward
reassuring the markets that we are going to have openness and
transparency and that we are going to now deal openly and forthrightly
with our financial institutions and demand of them that they deal
openly and forthrightly with the American people. I am hopeful the
economy will turn around, but the economists say things are still kind
of dicey. Well, if that is the case, our obligation is to make sure we
have a safety net, and the biggest safety net of all is unemployment
insurance benefits.
I am sorry we had to wait 49 days because of Republican intransigence
and their raising the filibuster on this, but we finally got it done
today, and pretty soon those checks will be going out to our American
families. I just hope we don't have to keep extending it. I hope the
economy turns around. But if it doesn't--if it doesn't--I say to my
Republican friends right now, as we go into next year, these tax breaks
they want to extend for the wealthiest 1 percent, I am sorry, that is
going to have to take a backseat to the people who are unemployed in
this country. We need to make sure we do everything possible to get
them jobs, to get them back to work, and to make sure they get the
unemployment benefits they need until such time as those jobs do
return.
Madam President, with that, I yield the floor, and I suggest the
absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll. The assistant
bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the
quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Udall of Colorado). Without objection, it
is so ordered.
Mr. CARDIN. I ask unanimous consent I be permitted to speak as in
morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
iran
Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I rise today to express my deep concerns
over Iran's nuclear ambitions and to applaud new and tougher U.S.
sanctions recently passed by Congress.
With both of the sanctions imposed in U.N. Resolution 1929, and the
Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act
becoming law, we are finally poised to inflict real damage to Iran's
nuclear program. But only a strong, unified, and forceful
implementation of a sanctions regime will stop Iran from continuing on
its current dangerous path.
[[Page S6020]]
While Iran still clings to the myth that its recent Turkish-Brazilian
compromise proposal is an antidote to the global and U.S. sanctions, we
must not waste time pretending this is a sign they are halting their
nuclear program. Under this proposal, Iran would ship only half of its
low enriched uranium out of the country for further enrichment while
continuing to violate a multitude of U.N. Security Council resolutions.
The international community cannot afford to be fooled by Tehran into
slowing the implementation of the sanctions and this is precisely why
we should step up pressure on the regime.
Make no mistake: Iran wants to become a world nuclear power, with the
ability to threaten Israel, the United States, and the global
community.
Containing a nuclear Iran would be virtually impossible and this
growing threat looms large in all international diplomacy. If they
acquired this capability, it would be an unequivocal ``game changer''
in the Middle East and, indeed, throughout the world. An undeniable
threat to Israel and the United States, a nuclear Iran cannot become a
reality. We therefore must do all in our power to prevent Iran from
acquiring nuclear capabilities.
I am heartened to see the administration embrace both tough global,
but more importantly, stringent Congressional sanctions. The enactment
of powerful and effective economic sanctions against Iran--and the
foreign companies that do business with Tehran--will go a long way in
further isolating this rogue nation.
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, millions of Americans all across the
country, and hundreds of thousands in my State, have lost their jobs.
To soften the blow of those job losses, we seek to extend the emergency
unemployment insurance benefits that many of these Americans receive.
Since the beginning of this crisis, we have extended these benefits
several times, but more recently, a Republican filibuster has kept us
from doing so.
I hope we will finally clear the way to extend these benefits today,
because the failure to do so has been deeply wrong. It has done great
harm to millions of American families. Already coping with an economy
that is not yet creating the jobs they need, these families must also
cope with the fact that because of a Republican filibuster, Congress
has failed to provide the help they need.
The arguments offered in opposition to this extension aren't just a
matter of differing opinions. They are fictions. And based on these
fictions, the opponents seek not just to block an extension of
unemployment benefits for millions of jobless Americans, but to stop us
from even holding a vote.
Some opponents tell us they oppose this extension because jobless
benefits encourage workers to stay on unemployment instead of seeking
work. In fact, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported just last week
that in May of this year, there were about 3.2 million job openings in
the United States. There were at the same time roughly 15 million
unemployed Americans. With nearly five jobless workers for every job
opening, desire to work on the part of the American people is
definitely not the problem. Instead of disparaging the work ethic of
Americans, these members should help us get desperately needed aid to
workers who lack not the desire to work, but the opportunity.
These opponents also tell us they oppose this extension because it
will add to the deficit. This is an odd position to take after having
supported proposals, such as the Bush tax cuts, that added far more to
the deficit than this legislation would add. To account for this clear
contradiction, they say that they do not believe those tax cuts added
to the deficit. The Republican leader was quoted last week as saying,
``There's no evidence whatsoever that the Bush tax cuts actually
diminished revenue.'' He went on to say that this is ``the view of
virtually every Republican.''
Tax cuts decrease tax revenue. This is not debatable. The entire
economic team from President Bush's White House will tell you so. Alan
Viard, former chief economist of President' Bush's Council of Economic
Advisers, has said, ``Federal revenue is lower today than it would have
been without the tax cuts. There's really no dispute among economists
about that.'' And according to the Congressional Budget Office, roughly
half the increase in our deficits since 2001 is due to those tax cuts.
By contrast, the unemployment extension would barely move the needle on
our debt.
And what is the consequence of making these inaccurate arguments? It
is millions of Americans dealing with tragedy on top of tragedy. Not
only have they lost the jobs that provided a decent living for
themselves and their families, but the benefits that could help them
keep food on the table and help clothe their children are held up by
politicians who fail to see that their justifications are fictional.
It is deeply frustrating and sad that so many of our colleagues do
not see the need to help these families. It is disappointing that they
justify their obstruction with clearly false arguments. And it is
outrageous that they would oppose even our ability vote on this
measure.
Michigan families who need us to act should not have to wait 1 more
day for the help they need. Voting to approve this cloture motion is
the only justifiable course.
Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I rise today to thank my colleagues for
voting to extend the emergency unemployment compensation program
through November 30, 2010. This vote is long overdue. While we have
been debating the issue, families across the country dealing with long-
term unemployment have been suffering. While we have been arguing about
this extension, they have been struggling to survive. I am pleased that
this body has finally taken action to ease the burden they face.
Extension of the emergency unemployment compensation program provides
additional weeks of unemployment benefits to out-of-work Americans once
regular State unemployment benefits have been exhausted. The number of
weeks of benefit is determined by a State's unemployment rate.
The legislation also extends full Federal funding of the extended
benefits program. This program provides 13 to 20 weeks of benefits to
unemployed workers who have exhausted regular and emergency
unemployment compensation benefits in States with threshold
unemployment rates.
Thanks in part to some of the actions of this Congress, including the
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, we are beginning to see some
upturn in what is considered the most severe economic recession this
Nation has experienced since the Great Depression. The recovery,
though, is not a quick and easy process.
Even though job loss has slowed, unemployment remains high at 9.5
percent. This translates into 14.6 million unemployed Americans.
Further, an unprecedented number of Americans have been without jobs
for more than 6 months. The average length of unemployment is now
stretching to 35 weeks. To put it simply, there are more job seekers
than jobs available. For every job, there are five applicants.
Americans want to work and are willing to work but until the job
market improves, many rely on unemployment compensation to support
themselves and their families. That is why the passage of the extension
of emergency unemployment insurance benefits is so crucial; many
unemployed Americans quite literally can't survive without this
support.
More than 19,000 Marylanders have lost their benefits due to the
delay in passing the legislation. The average benefit in Maryland is
$312 a week. This isn't ``money in the bank.'' It is food on the table.
It is gas in the car. It is medicine and other necessities.
Unemployment checks contribute to the local economy as they are spent
almost immediately on basic goods. For Maryland, the delay in passing
the legislation dealt a 6 million dollar blow to the State's economy
each week. Nationally, 2.5 million Americans have lost their benefits,
costing the economy approximately $775 million a week.
Again, I thank my colleagues for standing up for American workers and
families. Workers like 57-year-old Cynthia Allen of Baltimore County,
MD. Cynthia was laid off from her data management position in January
2009. Outsourcing has made it difficult to find another job in that
field. So, here she is, 19 months later, savings expended, credit cards
maxed, and unemployment benefits exhausted. Until
[[Page S6021]]
this point, throughout her work history she had never drawn
unemployment. Still, Cynthia perseveres. She continues her job search
and she hopes something will open up for her soon. Our thoughts go out
to Cynthia and to the millions of Americans who are struggling to
survive in these difficult times.
It is time to finish the job of extending these desperately needed
benefits to people like Cynthia Allen.
I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
____________________