[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 112 (Wednesday, July 28, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6351-S6386]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                SMALL BUSINESS LENDING FUND ACT OF 2010

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will 
resume consideration of H.R. 5297, which the clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (H.R. 5297) to create the Small Business Lending 
     Fund Program to direct the Secretary of the Treasury to make 
     capital investments in eligible institutions in order to 
     increase the availability of credit for small businesses, to 
     amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide tax 
     incentives for small business job creation, and for other 
     purposes.

  Pending:

       Reid (for Baucus/Landrieu) amendment No. 4519, in the 
     nature of a substitute.
       Reid amendment No. 4520 (to amendment No. 4519), to change 
     the enactment date.
       Reid amendment No. 4521 (to amendment No. 4520), of a 
     perfecting nature.
       Reid amendment No. 4522 (to the language proposed to be 
     stricken by amendment No. 4519), to change the enactment 
     date.
       Reid amendment No. 4523 (to amendment No. 4522), of a 
     perfecting nature.
       Reid motion to commit the bill to the Committee on Finance 
     with instructions, Reid amendment No. 4524 (the instructions 
     on the motion to commit), to provide for a study.
       Reid amendment No. 4525 (to the instructions (amendment No. 
     4524) of the motion to commit), of a perfecting nature.
       Reid amendment No. 4526 (to amendment No. 4525), of a 
     perfecting nature.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana.
  Mr. BAUCUS. I ask unanimous consent Senator Landrieu be recognized to 
speak for up to 1 hour at 12:30 p.m. today and that the Republican 
leader or his designee then be recognized following Senator Landrieu.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, the Senate once again has before it the 
small business jobs bill. We have created this bill to help move the 
economy toward recovery. We have crafted this bill to create jobs. We 
have crafted this bill to strengthen capital investment.
  Over the course of the great recession, small business capital 
investment has fallen dramatically. Since 2005, the percentage of small 
businesses that made a capital outlay in the previous 6 months fell by 
nearly 30 percent. Capital investments are an integral part of getting 
the economy back on track. We need to make sure that businesses, and 
especially small businesses, have the opportunity to make these 
investments so they can improve and expand.
  Our small business jobs bill includes two accelerated cost recovery 
provisions. These incentives would lower the cost of capital and they 
would help businesses to make capital investments. One accelerated cost 
recovery provision in this bill would increase the amount of capital 
investment that a business could expense under section 179 of the Tax 
Code. Section 179 is one of the most widely used tax benefits available 
to small businesses.
  We all hear of this constantly from our small business constituents 
in our home States. This year business owners may purchase and write 
off up to $250,000 in equipment for use in their trade or business. 
This tax benefit phases out for expenditures between $250,000 and 
$800,000, but in 2011, under current law, the $250,000 threshold will 
decrease sharply to $25,000, and the $800,000 ceiling on the benefit 
will decrease to $200,000. The bill before us today would increase the 
thresholds to $500,000 and $2 million in 2010 and 2011.
  Expensing is an important tool for small businesses because it is the 
most accelerated type of depreciation. With expensing, a business can 
deduct the complete cost of an asset such as equipment or software in 
the same year the business buys the asset. With expensing, businesses 
do not have to wait for years to recover these costs as they do through 
traditional forms of depreciation.
  In this weak and uncertain economy, the ability to deduct the cost of 
assets in the same year provides an immediate benefit for businesses. 
These immediate benefits strengthen the investment practices of a 
business, and that strengthens the economy as a whole. An increase in 
the thresholds for section 179 expensing effectively decreases the cost 
of newly purchased equipment, and that makes it more economical for a 
business to invest. These investments can help a business grow with 
relatively simple acquisitions.
  For example, a business could boost productivity by updating office 
technology. This provision will also increase cashflow for businesses, 
and businesses that invest in new equipment put money back into the 
larger economy with their purchases. Take, for example, Brown's 
Automotive in Billings, MT. Brown's Automotive specializes in 
transmission repairs. Those repairs require significant equipment 
investments, such as lifts and scanners. Business has been down lately 
as few people are able to afford expensive transmission repairs these 
days. When business is slow, purchases of heavy equipment can put a 
major strain on cashflow. But section 179 expensing and the 50 percent 
bonus depreciation extension in this bill make a huge difference for 
Brown's Automotive. Brown's can now write off a portion of the cost of 
new equipment, and that helps them maintain their cashflow and 
encourages them to make further capital investments.
  Because of provisions like 179 expensing, Brown's has retained all 43 
of its employees despite the recession.
  This bill also allows taxpayers to expense up to $250,000 of certain 
real property within the newly expanded thresholds in 2010 and 2011. 
Currently, taxpayers can expense only tangible personal property. 
Tangible personal property includes things such as machines or 
equipment. Expanding section 179 expensing to include some real 
property greatly increases the value of this provision to small 
businesses. This provision means a business could expense the 
improvements to the property itself.
  For example, a small business owner with a retail clothing store may 
expense improvements that were made inside the store, such as built-in 
cabinets to better stock clothing or lights to brighten the fitting 
rooms. Allowing a retail owner to expense these improvements 
immediately lowers the owner's costs, and ultimately this will help the 
retail store owner to run a better business. This expansion also 
applies to qualified restaurant property and qualified leasehold 
improvement property.
  A second accelerated cost recovery provision in this bill is bonus 
depreciation. Bonus depreciation also helps Brown's Automotive and many 
other small businesses. This bill would extend bonus depreciation 
through the end of this year. This important provision would quickly 
spark investment, increase cashflow, and help to create jobs.
  Bonus depreciation especially helps businesses that need to make 
large capital expenditures but that may not be able to take advantage 
of accelerated depreciation under section 179. Currently, businesses 
are allowed to recover the cost of capital expenditures over time. As a 
result of the great recession, Congress temporarily allowed businesses 
to recover the cost of certain capital expenditures more quickly by 
increasing the writeoff to 50 percent of the cost of property placed in 
service in 2008 and 2009.
  This bill would extend the additional depreciation to property placed 
in service in 2010. This additional depreciation makes property more 
affordable. The business can use the savings it receives to reinvest in 
the business and to hire new employees. This provision benefits 
immediate investments that can strengthen the economy now. We do not 
have to wait to see the benefits of this important provision.
  Bonus depreciation also helps the business that sells the equipment. 
It helps manufacturers and suppliers retain and hire employees as their 
businesses rebound. The more purchases that are made, the more other 
businesses are helped. This double benefit makes bonus depreciation a 
cost-effective way to strengthen business investment.
  Section 179 expensing and bonus depreciation encourage investment and 
creates jobs. There is no doubt about it, and very significantly, I 
might add, with this bill, we can help put the American economy back on 
track.
  This bill would provide continued support to our small businesses on 
the path to economic recovery. The bill increases access to much needed 
capital, encourages entrepreneurship, and promotes equity. The small 
business jobs bill includes incentives to strengthen capital 
investment.
  I urge my colleagues to support the small business jobs bill. I might 
add that today we are working to reach an

[[Page S6352]]

agreement on consideration of amendments to this legislation. We hope 
we will have more to announce later as we reach that agreement. I very 
much hope that can be done very expeditiously so we get this bill 
passed and get the needed assistance to our small businesses.
  I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                              Afghanistan

  Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise this morning to talk about the 
United States strategy in Afghanistan. However troubling the recent 
leak of classified documents, the topics discussed in those documents 
confirm some of the difficulty we face as a country today in 
Afghanistan.
  Much of what was reported in the newspapers the last couple of days 
is, frankly, not news, but a review of what we already knew, that 
corruption continues to plague the Afghan Government, the performance 
of the Afghan National Army and police is uneven and at times 
problematic, and the Taliban have been emboldened in recent years.
  As I said, this is all information we knew. It might have more 
details about it, some more reliable than others. But the release of 
these documents should, at the same time, help to sharpen our focus on 
all of those issues and more, and ask the tough questions, as is our 
responsibility in the Senate in a time of war.
  This year, 2010, has already been the deadliest year on record in 
Afghanistan. We have new military leadership on the ground, General 
Petraeus, and assurances from the administration that civil-military 
relations are strong. Two weeks ago, Ambassador Holbrook appeared 
before the Foreign Relations Committee where he described the civilian 
component of our engagement in Afghanistan.
  Our regular reports from the administration are instructive and do 
indeed show that we are making progress in some areas. But the overall 
picture is not encouraging. Casualties are up. Fifty-three 
servicemembers from Pennsylvania have lost their lives in Afghanistan. 
And, by way of comparison, in Iraq over the course of that battle, that 
war and the battles that were part of it, Pennsylvania has had 196 
killed in action. So when we get above 50 Pennsylvanians killed in 
action, that is getting very high.
  Of course, casualties mean both those who have been killed and those 
who have been wounded. So the 53 from Pennsylvania I mentioned are 
killed in action. We have many more who have been wounded. Our troops 
continue to be plagued by the threats posed by IEDs, improvised 
explosive devices, something I have been continually raising with the 
administration and others and will continue to do this until the threat 
to our servicemembers ends or is sharply reduced.
  Unfortunately, we have a problem which is not just the IED itself but 
the ammonium nitrate, which is the most significant ingredient, which, 
as everyone knows, is a fertilizer which is used across the region and 
in other parts of the world as well. But that ammonium nitrate is both 
the main and most potent ingredient, and its inflow from Pakistan is 
still a huge problem. We are working to address this proliferation and 
the transport of this deadly material in the region. We are also 
working closely with the Government of Pakistan to address this threat.
  But today I wish to review what I see as three main areas of our 
involvement in Afghanistan. The three we have talked about over and 
over here in the Senate are: security, governance, and development.
  First, the most significant issue for many Americans is the basic 
security or military question, and that part of the strategy. On last 
Tuesday, the international community met in Kabul to assess the 
progress as it relates to Afghanistan itself and the stability in 
Afghanistan. This was the biggest international gathering in Kabul in 
40 years, 70 dignitaries from around the world, including our own 
Secretary of State, Secretary Clinton, and U.N. Secretary General Ban 
Ki-moon. Kabul itself, the city, was under virtual lockdown for the 
gathering, which passed without any major attacks, thank goodness. That 
is a testimony to the Afghan security forces.

  The conference attendees endorsed President Karzai's plan for Afghan 
security forces to take over the responsibility for safeguarding the 
country by 2014, setting a potential timeline for foreign troops' 
departure.
  President Karzai also said his government ``continued earnestly and 
with the full dedication, the pursuit of the peace process,'' with the 
Taliban, which has been endorsed by the international community. The 
United States has laid down basic requirements or conditions for any 
group seeking to negotiate, seeking some kind of reconciliation. There 
are three, and we need all three.
  First, any group that wants to engage in this process has to end its 
ties to al-Qaida; second, they have to end violence itself; and, third, 
accept the Afghanistan Constitution.
  Secretary Clinton met with a group of women in Kabul and reiterated 
her commitment to protecting women during this difficult transition 
period in Afghanistan. This issue is critical and has a direct impact 
on U.S. national security.
  Women are the backbone of Afghan society, and they play a 
determinative role in whether their sons resort to extremism. It is 
that simple. With American fighting men and women giving, as Lincoln 
said, their ``last full measure of devotion to their country,'' the 
product of our troops' sacrifice cannot be an Afghanistan that does not 
respect the rights of women. The Taliban cannot be allowed to impose 
their Draconian version of justice as it relates to women or society in 
general.
  Senator Boxer and I cochaired a Foreign Relations Subcommittee 
hearing on women in Afghanistan a number of months ago and will 
continue to strongly advocate for the rights of women in Afghanistan. 
We commend and applaud the work of Secretary Clinton and her Department 
on this issue. It is not only the right thing to do, it is literally in 
our national security interest to do this work.
  The most unfortunate indicator in the security environment, however, 
is the increase in American casualties, killed in action, and wounded. 
June was the deadliest month on record. The death toll was 103. More 
than half of them were American servicemembers, and from Pennsylvania 
four servicemembers were among those 103 killed in action.
  A new Afghan study also revealed that civilian casualties are on the 
rise. More than 1,000 Afghan civilians were killed in the first 6 
months of 2010, a slight increase compared to the same period in 2009. 
However, the number of people killed in NATO air strikes in the same 
period has decreased by 50 percent because of changes in the rules of 
engagement. So it is good news that that number is going down.
  Most of the civilian deaths documented by the report were caused by 
insurgents, with the widespread use of roadside bombs, IEDs, as I 
mentioned before, particularly deadly. They alone have killed 300 
civilians, those kinds of explosions.
  In addition to security, which is essential, of course, in any 
strategy to make sure there is stability in Afghanistan, the second 
element is once you have security or are making progress on security, 
you hear this talk over and over again about clear, hold, and build. 
You clear out the insurgents, clear out the enemy, and then you have 
got to hold that region or that geography, and then build on it. The 
building, of course, cannot take place unless there is good governance. 
And to say we have a lot of questions in this area is a dramatic 
understatement.
  Corruption in the Afghan Government was a major issue at this week's 
conference. President Karzai identified corruption as a major concern 
in his inaugural address, going back a number of months. We support 
steps he has taken to begin addressing this problem. These include 
issuing a Presidential decree in March of 2010 that provided that the 
USAID-supported High Office of Oversight have additional investigative 
powers.
  It also outlined a process we are supporting for establishing a 
monitoring

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and evaluation committee on corruption comprised of Afghan and 
international experts. Last week, Afghanistan's Cabinet approved a bill 
which will allow government ministers and senior officials accused of 
corruption to be put on trial. For Americans, that doesn't seem like a 
big development, but that alone is significant progress, to put corrupt 
officials on trial and have a judgment rendered pursuant thereto. Once 
passed by Parliament or Presidential decree, this bill will allow the 
creation of a special tribunal to try officials accused of graft or 
corruption. Under current Afghan law, ministers are immune from 
prosecution in ordinary courts. It is hard to understand that, but that 
is the situation as it stands now.
  American officials estimate that $14 billion a year in assistance is 
put through the government, but most of the current assistance package 
now goes through Western organizations. As the Obama administration 
makes an effort to increase direct assistance to the Afghan Government, 
safeguards must be put in place to ensure Afghans bolster their 
financial management systems and combat corruption. As emphasized in 
the administration's January Afghan strategy document, there has been a 
major U.S. and Afghan push to build up local governance. This approach 
represents an attempt to build some of the tribal and other local 
structures destroyed in the course of constant warfare over several 
decades. We have a long way to go on governance, but it bears scrutiny 
and attention and a lot of tough questions asked by Members of the 
House and Senate and getting answers to those tough questions from the 
administration and from President Karzai and his government.
  Third is the issue of development. In his testimony last week, 
Ambassador Holbrooke highlighted USAID's agriculture voucher program. 
Launched in September of 2009, this program has distributed wheat seed 
to more than 366,00 farmers--critically important to give farmers the 
resources and help to develop their crops. This strategy also resulted 
in the training of 80,000 Afghan farmers in best practices and employed 
over 70,000 Afghans on short-term rural infrastructure projects. In 
many places throughout Afghanistan's south, these programs are being 
administered increasingly under the auspices of the Afghan Ministry of 
Agriculture, whose extension agents receive training from forward-
deployed USDA and USAID agricultural advisers. Many Americans might 
think the only people on the ground are soldiers and military 
personnel. We have a lot of dedicated Americans who work for the 
Department of Agriculture, for USAID, who work for a number of Federal 
Government agencies helping the Afghan people to develop their economy 
and to govern their country better.
  Ambassador Holbrooke also discussed our new counternarcotics 
strategy, which combines law enforcement, intelligence, interdiction, 
demand reduction, regional coordination, and alternative livelihood 
programs. He reports that:

       We have seen significant increases in: the number of drug 
     labs destroyed; the number of drug traffickers arrested; the 
     amounts of opium, poppy, heroin, and morphine [based-drugs] 
     seized; the number of joint operations with Afghan forces.

  A joint ISAF-Embassy Kabul effort has been restoring cellular 
telephone service in areas where the Taliban has destroyed or 
deactivated cell towers. Over 20 cell towers have been reactivated in 
Helmand Province and Kandahar, with significant benefits for local 
communities. One of the civilians embedded with the Marines in Helmand 
Province reported that soon after a local cell tower resumed operation, 
``three cell phone shops opened up in the district bizarre and SIM 
cards were available in the whole of the district--without involvement 
from the Marines or U.S. civilians.''
  That is a bit of good news in the midst of a lot of difficult 
challenges.
  All of us commend the Obama administration's work to bolster civilian 
efforts in Afghanistan. On a mission so important, where troops and 
families are sacrificing so much every day, building civilian capacity 
can never move fast enough. However, we have tripled the amount of 
civilian advisers since the Obama administration assumed office in 
2009. The administration has refocused development priorities on 
agriculture and changed the rules of engagement to ensure fewer Afghan 
civilians are negatively affected and turned into potential enemies. We 
are making progress, but much more remains to be done on the three 
critical measurements: security, governance, and development.
  I will continue to ask tough questions and demand answers on all 
three parts of our strategy. The American people have a right to these 
answers.
  The threat posed by IEDs in Afghanistan is the No. 1 killer. We know 
this from many reports. The work done by the Joint Improvised Explosive 
Devices Defeat Organization, known as JIEDDO, is working actively to 
address the threat on the ground. The State Department, led by 
Secretary Clinton, is engaged with governments across the region to 
develop a comprehensive approach on countering IEDs and having a 
strategy for stopping the flow of ammonium nitrate into Afghanistan 
from Pakistan and other places in the region, which is the central 
ingredient in the IEDs. I am glad this effort is taking place by our 
government but much more work needs to be done. We need to do 
everything we can to stop the attacks that result from the use of 
ammonium nitrate and other ingredients in the IEDs. Nothing is more 
important as part of our strategy.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Burris). The Senator from Virginia is 
recognized.


                 Reform of the Criminal Justice System

  Mr. WEBB. Mr. President, I rise to point out to Members of this body 
that yesterday in the House of Representatives, the National Criminal 
Justice Commission Act of 2010 was passed in a noncontroversial manner 
by a voice vote. This legislation is identical to legislation my staff 
and I have worked on for more than 3 years, which has cleared the 
Judiciary Committee, which now has 39 cosponsors, including the Senator 
from Pennsylvania and the Presiding Officer. I urge leadership on both 
sides of the aisle to bring this legislation to the floor. Let's get 
the task of reforming our criminal justice system into motion. It has 
been more than 40 years since we have had a strong look at all the 
different components of our criminal justice system and how broken it 
has become. This legislation would provide the right vehicle to do so.
  I started working on this issue as soon as I came to the Senate. We 
worked along with the Joint Economic Committee and many nonprofit 
groups and 501(c) groups to hold extensive hearings on the issues of 
mass incarceration, drug policy, how these different components of 
criminal justice interrelate, and why we need to take a larger look at 
the process. We designed this legislation with input from across the 
philosophical spectrum in order to provide strong advice to the 
Congress about how to fix all the components of the criminal justice 
system, from how people are apprehended, what to do with them after 
they are apprehended, when do we put people in prison, how long, what 
happens to them when they are in prison, what does prison 
administration look like, what do reentry programs look like, and how 
do we deal with issues such as transnational gains. While it is very 
difficult to deal with these issues one at a time, we have a vehicle 
here that has been scrubbed through the entire philosophical spectrum 
with great support. I will show some of the areas of support in a 
minute.
  The starting point is why, why do we need to move on this now.
  I wrote an article for Parade magazine last March when I decided to 
move our legislation forward. We got tremendous support across the 
country once we started talking about it. The two components we all 
ought to be concerned about are, first, incarceration in the United 
States has skyrocketed, particularly since about 1980. In the United 
States today, we have far more people in jail per capita than any other 
country in the Western world and actually in other parts of the world 
as well. We have 5 percent of the world's population and 25 percent of 
the world's known prison population. At the same time, we have another 
5 million people in different parts of the criminal justice process who 
are not incarcerated. More than 7 million people are involved in the 
criminal justice process today.

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  At the same time, if we ask people if they feel any safer, more than 
70 percent will tell us they feel less safe in their communities than 
they did 1 year ago. This is a trend that has actually increased over 
the years since about 2001. We are putting more people in jail, we have 
more people involved in the criminal justice system, and people feel 
less safe. Clearly, this is a leadership issue. We need to get our arms 
around it. We have a responsibility as leaders of the Nation to put the 
right process into motion so we can make better sense out of the 
criminal justice system.

  Another statistic, before I talk about the process we went through, 
when we look at the increase in incarceration, a huge part of it has 
been through our inability to get our arms around enforcement of drug 
policies. If we go from 1980 to 2007 and look at Federal, State, and 
local prisons or jails, we will see that our incarceration of drug 
offenders has skyrocketed by 1,200 percent. In 1980, we had 41,000 
people in jail on drug offenses. By 2007, it was 500,000. A significant 
percentage of these people are incarcerated for nonviolent offenses, 
and a very high percentage have been minorities.
  When we started talking about this issue, we heard a lot of unease, 
particularly from law enforcement's side. We brought them in one at a 
time. I am not on the Judiciary Committee. My staff brought them right 
into the office. We sat down with more than 100 different organizations 
from across the philosophical spectrum to listen, to get their input on 
what this Commission ought to do, and to make sure we are reaching out 
to all aspects of the issue of criminal justice. We have support now 
from across the philosophical spectrum: Fraternal Order of Police, 
National Association of Police Organizations, the International 
Association of Chiefs of Police, nearly 20,000 members who called their 
own press conference a couple months ago to endorse this legislation. 
Among their leadership, they were saying this was the most important 
issue they would be working on in their careers.
  At the same time, we have received endorsements from people who were 
more concerned about the individual rights area of criminal justice: 
the NAACP, the American Civil Liberties Union, Human Rights Watch, the 
National Association of Social Workers. This is a buy-in from all the 
elements in our country involved in this issue; that we need to find 
the type of solution that is going to make our system more fair, more 
efficient, and, in the end, is going to give us the potential, in terms 
of the reentry process, to reduce recidivism and reduce crime in 
communities.
  The last point I would make--and I hope my colleagues will think 
about this--with the passage of this legislation from the House last 
night, we are ready. There is not any major piece of controversy over a 
piece of legislation that we have sat down and listened to from the 
Republican side. We have a seven and seven buy-in on the membership of 
the commission in terms of appointments from different party leaders.
  This is a copy of the cover of this week's Economist magazine I show 
you in the Chamber. The Economist magazine, in my view, even though it 
is a British magazine, is probably the finest news magazine in the 
world. I have read it for more than 30 years. The cover is ``Why 
America locks up too many people.'' They have an indepth article in 
here asking the question, What is wrong with the American criminal 
justice system, and what needs to be done to fix it?
  So I would ask the leadership of both our parties, and particularly 
those on the other side, let's step forward and create this commission. 
It is a 1\1/2\-year sunsetted commission. It is not something that is 
going to keep going. We are going to put experts on the commission to 
come back to us and talk to us about how we can make this system fair, 
take care of the problems of crime, the worries people have, and at the 
same time be a lot more sensible in terms of whom we are incarcerating 
and how we are assisting them in their reentry into our society.
  Mr. President, 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.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.
  Mr. UDALL of Colorado. 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. UDALL of Colorado. Mr. President, are we in morning business?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate is considering the small business 
bill.
  Mr. UDALL of Colorado. I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning 
business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. UDALL of Colorado. Mr. President, I will speak to the bill we are 
considering.
  I rise today because I know we need to throw a lifeline to small 
businesses by increasing their access to credit. They have bills to 
pay, payroll checks to issue, and accounts payable mounting as they try 
to drive economic development. I supported the $30 billion lending 
increase this past week--I think the Presiding Officer did as well--
because we know we have to do all we can to get small business cranked 
up in our country. I supported it with the understanding that if we 
were going to finance $30 billion from the banking sector, the very 
least we could do as well would be to increase lending without costing 
taxpayers a dime.
  I wish to speak specifically to a piece of legislation I introduced, 
and I introduced it in amendment format as well, with bipartisan 
support. This amendment would get government out of the way so that 
credit unions could increase their small business loan portfolios. 
Right now, credit unions are making small business loans, but there is 
an arbitrary cap on the size and how many loans they can actually 
issue. In every single State--in Illinois, Colorado, California, and 
North Carolina--there are credit unions that have money and are ready 
to responsibly lend more money, but the Federal Government is standing 
in the way. I, for one, am not ready to say to all businesses that they 
have to close their doors because of a Federal cap on loans. In an 
economy such as the one we now face, we have to change that situation. 
We all know that when small businesses expand and grow, that will be 
critical to pulling us out of this recession. In the last 15 years, 
small businesses have generated two-thirds of all the new jobs created 
in the United States, and they currently employ more than half of all 
Americans in the workforce.
  As I travel across Colorado--as I know the Senator from Illinois 
travels across Illinois--and I visit with small businesspeople, they 
continually ask me: Where is the lending? I thought the banks were 
supposed to start lending again.
  Despite remaining profitable, small businesses have been unable to 
secure the loans they need to make investments in inventory, expand, 
and ultimately hire new workers. That is, again, why I introduced this 
bipartisan amendment to allow credit unions to ramp up small business 
lending without costing taxpayers a dime. I wish to say that again. We 
are not costing taxpayers a dime to put these changes into current law.
  Let me speak to current law. Under current statute, credit unions are 
required to limit their small business lending to 12.25 percent of 
their credit union's total assets. But credit unions have run up 
against that cap, and the only thing keeping them from jump-starting 
our economy is an outmoded, antigrowth law which I have referenced.
  After we introduced our bill last year, we heard from inside-the-
beltway banking representatives who said increasing credit union loans 
to small businesses wasn't going to be safe or sound. Now, I suspect 
they were more concerned about others making loans than they were about 
safety and soundness. We all know in this Chamber that banks and credit 
unions regularly snipe at each other. It is almost like the Hatfields 
and the McCoys. But in the end, this isn't a bank or credit union 
issue; this is a small business issue.
  So in coming to this updated, bipartisan compromise, I have spoken to 
the Senate Banking Committee, the Treasury Department, and even the 
credit

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unions' own regulator, the National Credit Union Administration. They 
have all agreed to support our compromise that will safely and soundly 
increase small business lending by the credit union sector without 
costing Americans a dime. Best of all, most important of all, this 
legislation could lead to large-scale job creation in my home State of 
Colorado and around our country.
  The amendment takes the most well capitalized, the most experienced, 
and best run credit unions that have run up against this lending cap I 
have mentioned and allows them to meet the rising demand for small 
business loans. When they meet those conditions, their regulator will 
then allow that small business lending cap to slowly increase from the 
current 12.25 percent to a maximum of 27.5 percent of total assets. We 
know these credit unions are the most prudent financial institutions 
around, and nobody can argue that allowing them to throw a lifeline to 
small business is irresponsible. So this amendment is a sound, surefire 
way to grow our economy by increasing credit unions' ability to lend to 
small businesses. Again, I wish to remind my colleagues that this is at 
no cost to the taxpayers--no cost to our taxpayers.
  The National Credit Union Association estimates that these sensible 
reforms would increase credit union lending to small businesses by $10 
billion within the first year of enactment, with an increase of nearly 
$200 million in my home State of Colorado. This is just an example. 
This new access to credit is estimated to create over 100,000 new jobs 
nationwide. It sounds to me like a probusiness, projobs policy that we 
all can agree we need. The National Small Business Association and even 
the National Association of Realtors have gotten behind our efforts, 
and they are urging us to pass this important provision.
  Everybody here--I look around the Chamber, and I see my friend from 
Oklahoma--knows what shape our economy is in today. Small businesses 
continue to struggle to access credit as large banks have significantly 
cut back on Main Street lending. We have all met business owners who 
have experienced this credit squeeze. If we are going to finance $30 
billion to increase lending, which I do support, we should at least 
take this small step and help small businesses at no cost to taxpayers.
  So as I close, I wish to urge my colleagues to avoid the infighting 
that would have us believe this is about banks or credit unions because 
it is truly about our small business sector. We can't turn away 
entrepreneurs in this economic climate. We want to create jobs and 
begin new businesses, especially because of our politics here in 
Washington. I know there is not a single Senator who wants to look a 
small business owner in the eye who hasn't been able to get a loan 
because of an arbitrary government cap on small business lending. So 
let's unlock credit markets in Colorado and throughout the country. 
This amendment could be an important part of that effort. I wish to 
work with colleagues on both sides of the aisle to quickly pass this 
amendment and allow our Nation's small businesses to again set our 
country on a path toward job growth and prosperity in the future.
  Mr. President, I thank my colleagues for their attention, and I yield 
the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that after 
addressing the Senate for 5 minutes, Senator Inhofe be next in line.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Oklahoma, 
and I thank Senator Udall from Colorado for his words.
  Each day in towns and cities across my State of Ohio, small business 
owners and manufacturers will walk into a bank and apply for a loan to 
expand their business. They have workers, they have the capacity to 
grow, and they have orders for sales. They want to hire more workers. 
Too often, though, a creditworthy bakery shop owner, an auto supply 
manufacturer, or a clean energy entrepreneur will be turned away, 
snuffing out their dream and our economic recovery.
  The strength of our economy depends on the strength of our small 
businesses. We know that about half of all employees in my State of 
Ohio and in most places across the country work in small businesses. We 
know that about two-thirds of jobs created in this country come from 
small business. Whether it is to create these jobs or supply services 
to other businesses or export products to new markets, small 
businesses, of course, rely on access to credit. Yet bank lending 
dropped by $578 billion last year--the largest decline since the 1940s. 
That means 60 percent of small businesses in America reported 
they didn't have the credit they needed to meet their business needs.

  It is unacceptable that the same banks taxpayers helped save when the 
economy faltered are refusing to lend to responsible small businesses 
with good credit histories and good business plans. Many of these banks 
are building massive reservoirs of cash rather than making simple loans 
or extending lines of credit to small businesses. As a result, small 
businesses are denied the capital they desperately need to expand 
operations and hire more workers. That need is especially acute for 
Ohio manufacturers that have higher operating expenses, large upfront 
costs, and complex machinery to maintain. The issue of easing access to 
credit for manufacturers has been simmering for more than a year.
  For the past year, I have chaired several hearings in the Banking 
Subcommittee on Economic Policy on how to restore credit to Main 
Street. We examined how to fix the problems to small business borrowing 
and lending programs, having heard directly from small manufacturers 
and other small businesses and small and big banks.
  Chairwoman Landrieu of the Small Business Committee has assembled a 
powerful small business bill that strengthens our economic recovery by 
partnering business and government. Senator Snowe has made significant 
contributions to this bill. There are few stronger advocates for small 
business and small manufacturers than she is.
  This bill has several provisions that will help small business owners 
access new credit, refinance existing debt, and open cash flow as the 
economy continues to recover.
  Last week, we took a big step toward helping small businesses in this 
country by ending debate on the amendment to add a $30 billion lending 
fund to the bill. I applaud Senator Voinovich, the senior Senator in my 
State, and Senator LeMieux for their work and support.
  A key feature in the bill is the State Small Business Credit 
Initiative Program, a program I have worked on with Senators Levin and 
Warner and Stabenow, along with the Secretary of the Treasury. This 
program would help small business owners and manufacturers whose 
collateral--it might be commercial real estate or it might be factory 
equipment--depreciated during the recession.
  It is the same collateral, but it is not worth as much because of 
what has happened to the economy.
  Too many small business owners have been forced to pay higher 
interest rates on their loans, through no fault of their own, because 
their underlying collateral lost value due to the weakened real estate 
market and overall economy.
  Almost daily, Governor Ted Strickland and I hear from small business 
owners who would benefit from the program, along with other State-based 
small business lending initiatives.
  The bill also extends the Recovery Act's Small Business 
Administration-backed loans, which have already helped create more than 
650,000 jobs nationwide.
  Because of these loans, small businesses can now create jobs and 
generate tax revenue for communities across Ohio, at no cost to 
taxpayers.
  By extending these loans, startup small businesses could buy new 
equipment, or existing small businesses can make long-term investments 
to expand operations.
  My office has held more than a dozen SBA workshops across Ohio--in 
New Philadelphia, Chillicothe, Toledo, Akron, Youngstown, Cleveland, 
and Columbus--to connect more than a thousand small businesses with SBA 
resources. Clearly, there is a demand for these types of loans, which 
is one of the reasons the bill is so important.

[[Page S6356]]

  Let's not forget that 2 years ago, our economy was on the brink of 
another Great Depression. When President Obama took office, we were 
losing 700,000 jobs a month. Today, we are growing the economy--not 
fast enough, and there is not enough job creation to hire everybody 
back who lost their jobs. We know that. And there is not enough job 
creation to hire high school and college graduates and young men and 
women returning from service in the military. We are growing, but we 
are not growing the economy at the speed we need. We need to continue 
the growth.
  From the Recovery Act, to the health care bill, to financial reform, 
we are helping small business owners achieve the American dream of 
entrepreneurship, while rebuilding the economy along the way.
  Through the Small Business Jobs Act, more small business owners can 
walk into a bank and receive the loans they need to expand operations, 
hire new workers, and get our economy back on track.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma is recognized.


                                 Energy

  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, first, let me state that I have a great 
deal of respect for my friend from Ohio. I cannot agree, however, with 
the things this administration has done to pull us out of the 
recession. A lot of people believe the Federal Government can do that. 
I look at the institutions, and I say to the Chair, I have people who 
come into my office and it doesn't matter what industry they are in, 
they are all scared to death. It is a mentality that the Federal 
Government can take these things over and somehow make them better.
  This administration is attacking every institution that made this 
country great right now. I don't care if you are in banking, insurance, 
health care, or the oil businesses--all of them are under attack. There 
is a myth out there that if the Federal Government takes it over, it 
will be run better than it would when run by the private sector. That 
is a prelude for the thoughts I want to share concerning what happened 
last night after 10 o'clock.
  The majority leader, Senator Reid, came out with a type of energy 
bill, I suppose you could say. He has been talking about an energy bill 
for quite some time. What I have seen in the bill that is called an 
energy bill--I can't speak too specifically about it, because it didn't 
come out until late last night. But we know this: First, they start off 
by taking off any liability cap on drilling, whether it is in the gulf 
or elsewhere. That is my understanding.
  The problem we have--and some of the people in this Chamber might 
remember that I had occasion to come to the floor and object to the 
Menendez request about four different times in the last month, because 
what he was attempting to do is what this bill is suggesting--take all 
liability caps off. If you do that, something happens that is bad. I 
hope that is not the intent of the authors of the bill that came out 
last night. But what you do by taking the cap off is you limit who is 
going to be able--once the moratorium is lifted--to drill offshore to 
the giants.
  We have five big oil companies--the big of the bigs--and everybody is 
talking about BP, the one responsible for the most devastating spill in 
our history. If you take the cap off, that allows the BPs and the 
nationally owned oil companies to drill. In other words, we have 
independents all over America that have the capability and are 
providing jobs in the gulf, to all the Gulf States. If you come along 
and, all of a sudden, say you cannot do it now because you cannot 
comply with this, there is a serious problem.
  We have a solution to that, where oil companies would be putting into 
a fund--some of you might remember, 20 years ago, the Exxon Valdez 
oilspill. I remember going up there 20 years ago. That was a 
devastating thing. We are still feeling the damage that came from that 
spill. When I got there, something interesting was happening. The far-
left environmentalists, who wanted to shut down all kinds of drilling 
all over America and elsewhere, were up there celebrating. I said: What 
are you celebrating? They said: We are going to parlay this spill--20 
years ago--into stopping drilling on the North Slope. I said: Why would 
we do that?
  That was a transportation accident. If you remember, that was a ship 
that came in carrying oil from foreign countries. They had the 
accident, and we had the devastating spill. But if you stop us from 
developing our own domestic resources, we are going to have to 
transport more oil from other countries. The incident of a potential 
oilspill would be much greater if we are transporting that much. They 
said: We are going to do it anyway.
  I saw the same thing when the oilspill took place a few months ago in 
the gulf. All the people down there were almost celebrating, saying: We 
are going to parlay this into stopping all oil production offshore, and 
maybe even beyond that. That is essentially what the far left wants to 
do.
  Here we have this bill that came out last night, which takes the caps 
off so that the only ones left--I call this the big oil bill. If we 
were to pass what came out of the majority leader's office last night, 
it would only allow giant oil companies, and maybe nationalized ones, 
to do the drilling. This is a huge thing.
  The statement I am making--by the way, I have to quote someone I 
don't often agree with, and that is Carol Browner, the head of the EPA 
during the Clinton administration, and now the environmental czar in 
this administration. She said:

       So it will mean [talking about this subject] that you only 
     have large companies in this sector, but maybe this is a 
     sector where you really need large companies who can bring to 
     bear the expertise and who have the wherewithal to cover the 
     expense if something goes wrong.

  She is saying that only big oil and China should be able to produce 
in the gulf. The problem with this is, everybody understands--certainly 
those Senators, Democrats and Republicans, from Texas, Louisiana, 
Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida all understand what the problem is 
here in terms of jobs. If you stop the independents from producing out 
in the gulf, it not only makes us more dependent upon foreign 
countries, or our ability to run this machine called America, but it 
does away with jobs.

  The IHS Global Insight came out with a study that said if you do 
this, the gulf region would lose over 300,000 jobs by 2020. That is the 
IHS Global Insight. People don't argue with their credibility.
  This is probably one of the biggest job loss bills we could have. I 
don't think it will pass, but if it did, that would be the problem.
  I am going to address one more thing in this bill, and that is the 
technique of hydraulic fracturing. Hydraulic fracturing is a system 
whereby they go down--here is the aquifer here, 400 or 500 feet below 
the surface, and about 2 miles down--they drill down through that and 
use the hydraulic fracturing in order to get the close formation of oil 
and gas so they can produce that. Without that, they say--and I think 
nobody disagrees with this--we are not going to be able to produce 
natural gas. Everybody is talking about natural gas and how we are 
going to need more and more of it, how we would develop our potential 
and the shale potential particularly, and we can do away with having to 
be dependent upon countries such as Venezuela and countries in the 
Middle East for our ability to run the machine called America. So we 
have this methodology called hydraulic fracturing. The first hydraulic 
fracturing was done in 1949 in my State of Oklahoma. That is 60 years 
ago. There has never been one incident of contamination of water since 
that happened.
  I am going to show you this. This is not me saying this; this is the 
EPA Administrator, Carol Browner:

       There is no evidence that the hydraulic fracturing at issue 
     has resulted in any contamination or endangerment of 
     underground sources of drinking water.

  Ever. Again, that is Carol Browner. This gives you an idea of where 
all this shale is. If you look at this--and I remember talking about 
hydraulic fracturing at some length some time ago, and Senator Dorgan, 
from North Dakota, came in and said he agreed with everything that 
Inhofe said. Obviously, this is Bakken shale up here. This chart shows 
the extremely large potential all over the country. Last July, I 
addressed the Senate for 30 minutes on this invaluable technique to 
access natural gas and oil reserves throughout the country.

[[Page S6357]]

  While the country is at nearly 10-percent unemployment, access to 
these reserves means good news for jobs. I provided some examples of 
the thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in royalties, State tax 
revenues, and economic activity shale plays, such as the Barnett shale 
in Texas, Woodford shale in Oklahoma and Arkansas, and Haynesville 
shale in Louisiana and, as you can see, all over America on this map.
  People are talking about big oil or oil in some negative context. 
There are hundreds of thousands of royalty owners around the country 
who would be shut down if we try to close down this methodology called 
hydraulic fracturing. This 60-year-old technique has been responsible 
for 7 billion barrels of oil and 600 trillion cubic feet of natural 
gas. The National Petroleum Council reports that 60 to 80 percent of 
all wells in the next 10 years will require hydraulic fracturing to 
remain productive and profitable. In other words, it is almost all of 
them that will require hydraulic fracturing to be competitive.
  In Oklahoma, we should know. The first hydraulic fracturing was near 
Duncan, OK, in 1949. Very simply, it is the temporary injection of 
mostly water with sand, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and other additives 
to fracture and prop open a ground formation to improve the flow of oil 
and natural gas through rock pores and increase oil and gas production. 
Ninety-five percent of the fluid is water, and 99 percent is water and 
sand.
  New reports over the last 2, 3 years reveal some of the highest 
totals ever of natural gas in the United States. These reports 
demonstrate that at 2 quadrillion cubic feet of current demand, we have 
enough natural gas for us to keep America going for the next 100 years. 
That is the significance of this. If you do this and do away with that 
process--hydraulic fracturing--that will shut it down. So we are 
talking about now we have the potential to supply enough natural gas to 
run this country for the next hundred years. That is how significant 
this is.
  Due to new natural gas shale plays all over the country, new studies 
demonstrate recoverable reserves of natural gas to meet the current 
demand for at least the next hundred years.
  By the way, a report that came out shows that the United States is 
No. 1 in terms of recoverable reserves. We are talking about gas, 
natural gas, oil, and coal.
  Some Democrats may argue that this section 4301 is only a disclosure 
provision of the chemicals used in the hydraulic fracturing process. 
That is not true. State regulators have safely and effectively 
regulated hydraulic fracturing for the past 60 years, as was stated by 
Carol Browner. State rules, such as in my State of Oklahoma, require 
disclosure of chemicals. What this provision is about is a new EPA 
Federal control. Somehow this administration thinks that if the Federal 
Government isn't running something--this is an obsession, where the 
Federal Government has to run everything. When I was mayor of Tulsa, we 
had a guy, a police commissioner, and he had a saying that ``if it 
ain't broke, don't fix it.'' This hasn't been broken once in 60 years. 
At a press conference, somebody talked about, well, didn't this happen 
in Nevada once? Well, I have no record--neither does Carol Browner--
that there has been contamination as a result of hydraulic fracturing.
  Proponents of this language argue that it is needed because fracking 
contaminates groundwater. As the ranking member of the Environment and 
Publics Works Committee, I have asked the USGS and the EPA's Assistant 
Administrators for both the Enforcement Office and the Water Office in 
testimony in front of the Environment and Public Works Committee 
whether they are aware of any documented case of water contamination 
due to hydraulic fracturing. They could not name one. That is because 
there isn't any.
  These officials are not alone in this opinion. President Obama's 
energy czar agrees with me. In 1995, as EPA Administrator, Carol 
Browner wrote in response to litigation that Federal regulation is not 
necessary for hydraulic fracturing. She correctly made the point that 
the practice was closely regulated by the States and that ``EPA is not 
legally required to regulate hydraulic fracturing.'' Most importantly, 
she further wrote that there was ``no evidence that hydraulic 
fracturing resulted in any drinking water contamination'' in the 
litigation involved. We are talking about something that is not broken.
  It clearly is necessary for us to get all of this out to run this 
machine called America. As we can see, this is not a partisan 
Republican issue; Democrats alike understand the importance of 
hydraulic fracturing.
  When I spoke on the floor last July, as I mentioned, Senator Dorgan 
from North Dakota followed my comments saying that he agreed with my 
assessment that not only is fracking needed to access new reserves, 
such as the ones in the Bakken shale in North Dakota, but that he is 
not aware of any groundwater contamination from the practice. I 
appreciate the fact that he is outspoken in this area.
  It is also extremely important to point out that Congress has already 
tasked EPA in law to study the effects of any hydraulic fracturing on 
water quality and public health. The EPA has already begun using $4.3 
million for this effort, which is being led by Dr. Robert Puls, who 
works in EPA's Groundwater Research Laboratory based in Ada, OK. I 
encourage this study. We know there has not been any problem. I want to 
make sure we can put the final nail in this coffin, that people somehow 
think hydraulic fracturing contaminates water. This is a way to do an 
independent study. Let the government study it.
  This bill was drafted last night at 10 o'clock in spite of the fact 
that we do not have any results back from that study. Even if one 
wanted to believe so badly and did believe this is a problem, let's at 
least wait for the study before composing new legislation.
  Natural gas development brings billions in private investment and 
millions of jobs to America. This country cannot afford to limit the 
production of its domestic energy resources due to unfounded rumors of 
environmental damage and the usual hysterical claims from extremist 
environmental organizations looking for the next crusade because cap 
and trade is dead.
  Let me repeat that. It was 13 months ago that I made a statement from 
this podium that for the next 12 months, people are going to say: We 
are going to pass some cap-and-trade legislation.
  I said: We are not going to because it is dead. How many people, 
particularly the newly elected Senators, want to go back to their 
States and say: Aren't you proud of me? I voted for the largest tax 
increase in the history of America. That would be cap and trade.
  Cap and trade is dead. Yesterday, the White House made some kind of 
statement that if we can get something thrown into conference and then 
have a lameduck session after all these faces have changed, we are 
going to try it again. It is not going to work. It is dead.
  Let's look at what came out last night and study it. We have not had 
time to do that. We have not seen the exact language yet. It was not 
drafted until 10 o'clock last night. When they come to the point where 
they say they are going to do something to change hydraulic fracturing, 
that would be critical. That is one thing that would kill the 
development and production of natural gas to run this machine called 
America.
  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.
  Mrs. LINCOLN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                     Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act

  Mrs. LINCOLN. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to speak 
again, as I did yesterday, on the committee-passed children's nutrition 
reauthorization legislation. Before I do, I ask unanimous consent that 
my colleague, Senator Chambliss, be able to speak for 5 minutes 
following my speech.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mrs. LINCOLN. Mr. President, I come to the floor today again to speak 
about our committee-passed bill, the child nutrition reauthorization, 
and certainly the critical need for us to pass this legislation before 
child nutrition programs expire on September 30. Most

[[Page S6358]]

people know we do not move at breakneck speeds in Washington, and we 
have very limited time between now and September 30. In that time, our 
children will be going back to school. They will be going to their 
respective schools across this country, and we will have missed an 
opportunity to improve their lives in that school and in that 
community, to improve their health and well-being through greater 
access to free and reduced lunches and--not summer feeding programs but 
our breakfast programs, as well as the nutritional value of those 
meals.
  I hope all of my colleagues will join me in helping us move our child 
nutrition bill forward. The bipartisan Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act 
will make a tremendous step toward addressing the childhood hunger and 
obesity crisis in our country and put us on a path to significantly 
improving the health of the next generation of Americans.
  Congress has the opportunity to make a historic investment in our 
most precious gift and the future of this country--all of our children, 
not just my children, not just the other Members' children, but 
children all across this Nation. Other mothers and fathers, parents all 
across this country, and grandparents who are raising their children, 
who love and care for their children just as much as I love and care 
for my children, will have an opportunity, when we pass this bill, to 
realize a greater opportunity for their children.
  Today, I am here to talk about what it will mean if we miss this 
opportunity, what it will mean for our children, our hard-working 
families across this Nation, and schools across the country if we fail 
to pass this bill and pass it before we leave.
  The obesity crisis America faces comes at a tremendous cost to our 
health care system. Many of us do not think of it that way, but it 
does. It costs us roughly $147 billion per year. We should not miss 
this opportunity to proactively address the obesity crisis and begin to 
relieve our health care system of those financial burdens that follow 
obesity-related disease.
  This bill includes the first congressionally mandated, 
noninflationary increase in the reimbursement rate for school meals 
prepared and served across this country since 1973. I do not want to 
talk too much because in 1973, I believe I was in junior high, perhaps. 
We have not increased the reimbursement rate for meals in our schools 
since 1973. We know what 1973 dollars purchased and we know what 
today's dollars purchase. We are strapping our school districts with 
trying to do a better job at providing healthier meals since we now 
know the difference it makes in our children's lives, both in their 
ability to learn and in their ability to grow and be healthy.

  This reimbursement rate is performance based in our bill. That means 
schools only get it if they provide healthy meals that meet program 
guidelines. This provision will invest roughly $3.2 billion in 
additional money over the next 10 years. That is over $300 million per 
year in additional revenue for our schools. That is meaningful to these 
schools that are working diligently to try to provide the healthiest 
meals possible for all of our children.
  I toured a lot of our schools during some of the breaks we have had 
this year and listened to some of those food service folks who work 
hard day-in and day-out trying to come together and figure out how they 
can meet guidelines and provide the healthiest foods possible to our 
students and to our children and to do so on those 1973 dollars. One of 
the things I found, which is amazing, is that many of them are still 
using 40-, 50-year-old equipment, which means they are having an even 
harder time not only because they do not have enough dollars to 
purchase the kinds of foods they feel would be healthier, but they do 
not even have the equipment to provide the preparation of those foods. 
Steaming vegetables one pot at a time for 300 students is impractical.
  We look at the opportunities that exist for us to do something. 
However, if we fail to pass this bill, schools will miss out on over 
$300 million each year, and the next generation will still continue to 
pay the price for the health risks caused by obesity.
  We can see on this chart what schools in each of our States stand to 
lose if we fail to pass this bill. I have looked pretty heavily at the 
State of Arkansas, and I notice that the children of Arkansas will miss 
out on $3.5 million a year that we could be providing them for 
improving the health and well-being of our children through healthier 
meals and through greater access for low-income children.
  We look at the economy and the economic crisis we have come through. 
We know many working families are in dire straits. Having to go through 
what they are going to have to go through to try to get their children 
into a free or reduced lunch is unbelievable. Yet that is a great place 
for those children to get a healthy meal when their families are 
suffering in these economic times.
  I look at what some of my neighbors might receive. I notice Texas. 
Texas gets well over $32 million in these increases to help them 
provide for their children through breakfast programs and lunch 
programs in their schools and in their school districts.
  Some of my other neighbors--Missouri. I look at Missouri and I see 
almost $6.5 million. Think about what it would mean to those school 
districts and those school service programs to have those additional 
resources. Those are critical dollars that schools desperately need to 
help reverse the dangerous trend of childhood obesity.
  All it will take is just a few hours of floor time to pass this 
bipartisan, fully paid for legislation.
  Another provision in our bill expands the at-risk afterschool snack 
program, also known as the Child and Adult Care Food Program. Our bill 
expands this program so afterschool sites in every State can offer 
children a full, healthy meal so they do not have to go hungry in the 
afternoons as parents are working and, at the end of their work day, 
having to pick up their children and then trying to get home to feed 
them. If we do not pass this bill, 29 million nutritious afterschool 
meals will not be served to hungry children.
  Other provisions in our bill expand and improve the use of direct 
certification for free school meals through the SNAP and Medicaid 
Programs. There will be 120,000 eligible low-income children each year 
who will not receive quality meals if we neglect our responsibilities 
and fail to pass this legislation.
  Again, as I mentioned yesterday, I think of the mountain of paperwork 
that comes home from school in the backpacks of my children at the 
beginning of the school year--paperwork that has to be filled out that 
is detailed. We know that through a direct certification program--and 
we know those families have already filled out that paperwork, whether 
it is for Medicaid or whether it is for other programs they qualify 
for, such as SNAP or other programs--it is critical that we use that 
opportunity and those resources to feed hungry children instead of the 
staff it takes or the time of the parent or the neglect, perhaps, 
because there is not enough time to fill out that paperwork so that 
child could have access in a dignified way to the free or reduced 
school lunch they need so desperately.
  I emphasize again that the critical investment this bill makes is 
completely paid for and will not add one cent to the national debt. I 
know people have great concern about the debt because I do too. I know 
my constituents do, and I know my colleagues do. In the committee, we 
worked hard, in a responsible way, to ensure that this bill would be a 
good, common-ground area where we could come to find an increase for a 
very critical need but to also pay for it in a responsible way. This 
truly is an investment, Mr. President, in the next generation. It 
ensures that our children will be healthy, and it does so without 
saddling them with the financial burden they cannot afford.
  Make no mistake, Mr. President, if we fail to pass this legislation 
there will be real-world consequences. Those statistics I just cited 
aren't just numbers, they are very real children. They are very real 
children from the age of 5 to the age of 18. Mine happen to be right in 
the middle right now, but they are growing boys. I know how desperately 
important it is for them to get nutritious meals, and I work hard at 
that. I know every other parent out there wants to do the same for 
their children; real children who come from hard-working families are 
struggling to make ends meet. These are real children who struggle with 
obesity and will

[[Page S6359]]

deal with long-term health consequences throughout their lifetimes if 
we don't take the steps to both increase their availability to choices 
and, more importantly, increase their access to nutritious meals in the 
schools where they spend the majority of their day to begin with.
  Let's take the time to pass this legislation. If it is a priority, we 
should do it, plain and simple. Just a few hours is all it will take. I 
hope my other colleagues will look at this issue and realize that even 
in the busy world we are in here, and all the things that we do, taking 
just a few hours to focus on things where we have done our work in 
committee, where we know it is essential, where we know it will expire, 
and when it does we will lose resources, that we can take the time now 
to get something done and move it forward.
  So I thank you, Mr. President, for this time, and I say a special 
thanks to my ranking member, Senator Chambliss, who does a tremendous 
job on the Senate Agriculture Committee. I am grateful to him for his 
hard work and dedication, and I am a great admirer of all the things he 
does and will continue to enjoy working with him on any of the issues 
he finds before us in the committee.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia is recognized.
  Mr. CHAMBLISS. Mr. President, I came to the floor to speak on 
something else, but I just want to say to my chairman that I commend 
her for her hard work and dedication and her leadership on this issue 
of child nutrition. We have worked extremely hard over the last couple 
of years on this issue, and when she assumed the chairmanship of the 
committee, she really put this as a top priority and I think it was the 
first major piece of legislation we passed out of committee under her 
leadership. Boy, did she ever work hard to make sure that happened.
  It is a pleasure always to work with her. She is exactly right. We 
have actually modified the bill a little, even though it came out of 
the committee unanimously. It is totally paid for, and we are using 
existing farm bill money, for the most part, to pay for it. So it is a 
matter of adjusting priorities within good, solid, agricultural policy.
  So I thank her for it, and I look forward to this bill ultimately 
coming to the Senate floor and its passage.


                   2009 Little League Softball Champs

  Mr. President, I rise today to congratulate the Warner Robins 
American Little League Softball team on winning the 2009 Little League 
Softball World Series.
  They visited the White House yesterday, where President Obama offered 
them congratulations, and I appreciate his hosting them in that very 
generous way. I can't imagine this will be the last time the Warner 
Robins Little League girls come to DC as the Softball World Series 
champions because they have the knack for winning.
  The girls went undefeated in the tournament. There was only one game 
that was ever in doubt. In the final game they beat a team from 
Crawford, TX, by a score of 14 to 2. Undoubtedly, there must be 
something in the water down in Warner Robins because, boy, do these 
girls know how to win. And they deserved to win. Throughout the 
tournament they played with heart, played with courage, and played with 
sportsmanship.
  In 2007, the boys Little League Baseball team from the same town--
Warner Robins--won the world championship title, making Warner Robins, 
GA, the first community in America to have a baseball team and a 
softball team win their respective Little League World Series 
championships.
  I am proud of what the girls have accomplished, but my pride cannot 
compare to that of Warner Robins, to the State of Georgia, or to the 
entire Little League community. I am also proud of the commitment shown 
by the parents, coaches, and managers, who offered so much love and 
support for these girls so they could achieve their dream.
  Softball is part of our American heritage, our history. It is a sport 
that cultivates competitiveness, hard work, and speed. It is also a 
sport that prepares children for the ups and downs of adult life 
because it brings together people and builds communities.
  I am grateful to these girls not only for the sense of community 
their softball team helps bring to Georgia, but also for the economic 
opportunities this win is helping to bring to Warner Robins. The Little 
League International's southeastern regional headquarters and stadium 
recently moved from Florida to Georgia, bringing hundreds of jobs to 
this city of 60,000.
  Mr. President, it is my privilege to be able to give voice to the 
citizens of our State in congratulating Warner Robins on a job well 
done and on thanking these girls for the recognition and opportunities 
they have brought to middle Georgia.
  Once again, I offer my congratulations to the Warner Robins Little 
League Softball team on this very special occasion, and wish its 
players the best of luck as they defend their title over the next year.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, in just a few moments Senator Landrieu is 
going to come to the floor to talk about the small business bill, and I 
will just say a word or two about my support for her efforts.
  She did something extraordinary last week. She is a determined 
Senator, and the time came when she wanted to see a fund created to 
lend money to small businesses. So she took to that desk and grabbed 
her charts and stayed there all day until she got the job done. She got 
60 votes, which is a daunting task sometimes in the Senate, and added 
into this bill a fund to loan money to small businesses across America.
  We need it. We need it across America, and we need it in Illinois. 
There were over 258,000 small business employers in Illinois in 2006--
that is the last year for which we have data--led by professional 
services and construction firms. They account for over 98 percent of 
the employers in our State. These small businesses added 93,000 jobs in 
2006, more than three times as many jobs added by Illinois companies 
with more than 500 employees. We can see that small businesses are a 
major part of our job economy. Another 850,000 people work for 
themselves, meaning the number of people working for small businesses 
was actually dramatically larger.
  I fear that some of the firms likely to have failed during this 
economic crisis would have continued to do battle and might have 
prospered if they would have had access to credit. That is why this 
small business bill is so important.
  Yesterday, the Republican minority leader, Senator McConnell, came to 
the Senate floor and questioned why we would even raise the so-called 
DISCLOSE Act, about the Citizens United decision at the Supreme Court. 
He said we should be on the small business bill. I couldn't agree 
more. I hope that sense of commitment and urgency from the Republican 
side will be shown again today.

  If there are amendments, let's bring them to the floor, debate them 
in an orderly fashion, and bring them to a vote so we can bring this 
bill to passage. The House of Representatives is waiting for this bill. 
They want to help us move forward to help create jobs and turn this 
economy around. The best place to start is with the small businesses 
across America. With 10.8 percent unemployment in Illinois, it is 
crucial we help Illinois small businesses start hiring again.
  I personally thank Senator Landrieu for her leadership. What she is 
taking are TARP funds, funds that were originally designated to go to 
the biggest banks in America but didn't. They were funds that were held 
back. What Senator Landrieu is doing is claiming these funds that went 
to these big banks and saying: Now let's send them to healthy banks, 
banks that are not going to fail, with the understanding they will loan 
them to small businesses. That, to me, is a good answer.
  I am disappointed with what happened to TARP initially. To think that 
we sent these moneys, taxpayers' dollars, to some of the largest 
financial institutions in America that were guilty of misconduct and 
bad judgment and they showed their gratitude by announcing bonuses for 
their officers instead of paying back the Government right away, is 
inexcusable.
  The remaining funds, some $30 billion, will come into this small 
business effort. I think I have heard Senator Landrieu say the 
multiplier on this is a factor of 10, so there could be some $300 
billion across the economy.

[[Page S6360]]

  In Illinois, in Chicago, across my State small businesses say: If we 
could just borrow money, we are doing well, we can expand, we can hire 
more people. But even though we have a good story to tell, with banks 
we have always worked with, we can't get the credit.
  I thank Senator Landrieu for her leadership. We are going to get back 
to this bill. As I said, as she was preparing to come to the floor, if 
there are amendments, let's get these amendments in order, let's have a 
reasonable time to debate them, and then let's move on. Let's get this 
done and pass it over to the House so they can act on it before we 
leave next week. That is critically important. The House, I know, is 
hoping to wrap up this week.
  Let me clarify one point. Although at one point in time this $30 
billion lending fund was to be created from unused TARP funds, I'm 
reminded that this is no longer the case. This fund will be created 
independent of the TARP or any other existing program. It will be a 
standalone lending facility within the Treasury that will help small 
businesses access loans through community banks. And according to the 
Congressional Budget Office, this fund will not cost the taxpayers a 
penny--in fact, it will raise money to help reduce the deficit.
  I urge my colleagues to support this bill, to help Americans get back 
to work.
  I thank Senator Landrieu for her leadership and I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Merkley). The Senator from Louisiana.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. I understand, under a previous order, I have the next 
hour to follow up on Senator Durbin's comments. I would like to claim 
that hour now.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is recognized.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, the Senator from Illinois is absolutely 
correct. One of the last remaining works that we have to do, as we try 
to wrap up this portion of the session as we move to an August work 
period in our home States and our home districts, is to get this small 
business bill passed. It has been a focus of the Democrats. It has also 
been the focus of some Republican support. That is what I wish to talk 
about today. I wish to make sure we understand that the team that is 
following this bill is a broad team of hundreds of organizations from 
the Chamber of Commerce to the National Federation of Independent 
Business, to the Small Business Alliance, to the Community Bankers of 
America, to individual business owners around the country, as the 
Presiding Officer knows because he himself has been a great leader in 
this effort. The point I wish to make in the first few minutes of this 
hour is the tremendous bipartisan support and input that has gone into 
this bill to get us to this point.
  There is some criticism that is not valid. There is a criticism out 
there that Democrats are trying to ram this through and Republicans 
have not been able to offer amendments. The facts are that this bill, 
this small business job growth bill, has been built through two 
committees, the Finance Committee and the Small Business Committee.
  I have the pleasure and honor of chairing the Small Business 
Committee. Senator Baucus chairs the Finance Committee. For the last, 
literally, year, these two committees have been working to bring a bill 
to the floor that is focused on Main Street, not Wall Street; that is 
focused on job creation, not capital accumulation; focused on job 
creation on Main Street through traditional, old-fashioned, smart 
strategic lending to small businesses that have the potential to grow.
  We know there is no disagreement that the new jobs created--the 
Presiding Officer will know--will be created by small businesses that 
do not hoard their cash. They cannot wait for a better day. They have 
to act now. That is the nature of small business. Lucky for us it is, 
because if we give them a little help, they can start creating that one 
new job or two new jobs or three new jobs. But if it is done millions 
of times across the country, which it can be, it can make a difference 
in a significant way by creating literally the millions of jobs we 
need.
  If people want to know why this is a jobless recovery, I would like 
to say--because it seems like it is--that is because we have been 
giving a lot of money to the big guys: a lot of money to Wall Street, a 
lot of money to big manufacturers, large manufacturers. But if we would 
spend some time today--and we have over the course of drafting a bill 
which we have done in a bipartisan way--to get money to Main Street, we 
might see an end to this recession. That is the hope of all of us.
  This is a description, Small Business Jobs and Credit Act of 2010. 
These are just the small business provisions--small business access to 
credit. You will see here, this was done jointly by myself and my 
ranking member, Senator Snowe. It passed our committee 17 to 1, and we 
have almost an equal number of Republicans and Democrats on our 
committee. It passed with overwhelming support. This will increase 7(a) 
loans from $2 to $5 million, increase 504 loans from $1.5 million to 
$5.5 million, and increase microloans from $35,000 to $50,000.
  It also extends the 90-percent guarantee on loans up from 75 percent 
and eliminates fees.
  Let me read what one business in Louisiana says. I can probably read 
you thousands of testimonies, but let me read from one. Sawyer 
Industrial Plastics of West Monroe has been in existence for 32 years. 
It has provided plastic repair parts for the paper industry. Mr. 
Sawyer's line of credit was canceled by his bank so he needed to term 
out his debt as well as arrange for expansion capital to move into 
other areas that could design plastic parts.
  Mr. Sawyer's existing business would service his debt, but without 
capital to expand into new markets and industries, his long-term 
business prospects would be tied to the weakening paper industry.
  With this provision that was in the stimulus package but which has 
expired, which is in this bill--which will reignite when this bill 
passes but not a minute before--Mr. Sawyer was able to get a 90-percent 
guarantee. It allowed the lender, North Louisiana BIDCO, to leverage 
its capital and provide more funds to meet this $700,000 loan. The 
waiver of the guaranty fee added over $20,000 to available working 
capital.
  In other words, instead of paying the $20,000 to the Federal 
Treasury, under the provision we are passing, he paid it to himself, 
which is the point of our legislation.
  We have $12 billion in tax cuts for small businesses and that is not 
including this fee waiver I am talking about now. This is a significant 
amount of money to go into the pockets of small business owners. Mr. 
Sawyer, from my State, took that $20,000 and, instead of paying a fee 
to the Federal Government, we are waving those fees under this bill, 
and he hired an additional worker.

  That is the point. That is the point of this bill you have helped to 
draft. We are reducing fees, we are reducing taxes, and we are 
targeting much needed capital--access to capital to small businesses, 
which will create the jobs that lead us out of this recession. So he 
added a new employee and he added some new product lines.
  Another story comes from First Bank and Trust. This is in Mandeville, 
LA. It is about Woolf Harris, Inc., a 14-year-old company. The 
acquisition of a building recently left the business short of cash. 
Although the national economy turned down, residual effects of two 
recent hurricanes continue to push demand for the product. It is a 
plumbing supply business. Lacking adequate collateral for a 
conventional loan, First Bank and Trust--again, a local trusted 
community bank--was able to extend a $120,000 line of credit, with a 
$125,000 3-year term loan for working capital to Woolf Harris. With the 
90-percent guaranty, First Bank felt comfortable taking the soft 
collateral available to secure the loan while being able to provide 
Woolf Harris a most favorable interest rate of 2.25 over prime.
  This might not sound like a lot, but to small businesses out there 
struggling, getting a loan at 2.25 points over prime is much better and 
much preferable to having to put it on their credit card and pay 16 
percent or 20 percent or 24 percent or run down to the payday lender 
because they are so desperate for cash and pay 36 percent or 50 
percent.
  If we can't help small business now, I don't know when we can. This 
bill we

[[Page S6361]]

put together with bipartisan support is supported by the Independent 
Community Bankers, the U.S. Hispanic Chamber, the National Small 
Business Association, the National Federation of Independent Business, 
the Small Business Majority, the National Association of the Self-
Employed, and, yes, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. They told me this 
morning they are proud that their membership is actually 
representative--96 percent is made up of small business. So I am proud 
to have the Chamber support for this legislation.
  Now we need all these coalitions to support bringing this debate to 
an end. We agree there are some amendments, two or three, that could be 
added--on the Republican side, on the Democratic side. We could have an 
open debate. But there is such a thing as amending a bill to death. I 
do not think that is going on. I hope it is not going on. I believe 
both leaders are working in good faith.
  But to the small business team out there that has done such a good 
job in building bipartisan support for this bill, I hope you will trust 
me when I say that at some point the debate has to come to an end and 
we have to vote on a bill. If we do not, we will leave here--I do not 
want to be one who does leave here without doing one of the most 
important things that I think we were sent here to do; that is, create 
jobs. The people creating the jobs are not us, it is the small 
businesspeople out there. To leave without this bill--fully paid for, 
$12 billion in tax relief, reduced regulations, reduced fees, and 
expansion of very popular and broadly supported programs--would, in 
fact, be a shame.
  I see the Senator from Virginia who has worked so diligently on this 
bill. If I could, as I relinquish the floor to him, I would like to ask 
him if he would comment, as a former Governor of the State of Virginia 
and someone knowledgeable about the programs he initiated as Governor, 
how this bill might be helpful to those programs and what other 
Governors are saying about this bill today, if the Senator would not 
mind answering that question.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I appreciate the opportunity to join my 
colleague and friend, the chair of the Small Business Committee, the 
Senator from Louisiana, in support of this very important piece of 
legislation. Let me first of all say: In her inimitable style, she has 
been relentless on this issue. The Presiding Officer and I are both new 
Members. I think we have seen, in our short time here, certain Members 
who get that bit in their mouth and just will not let it go. On this 
issue, Senator Landrieu has truly been a leader. It is an issue of 
paramount importance.
  I wish to answer the question of the Senator, but I wish to first of 
all preface it by saying what I hear in Virginia--and I know what the 
Senator hears in Louisiana, with all the other challenges Louisiana 
has--is our constituents want us to focus on jobs. On any historic 
basis coming out of recession, 65 to 70 percent of all the new jobs 
created come from small businesses.
  And while we can point to certain positive signs in our economy right 
now--the Dow at 10,500 from a low of 6,500, 15, 16 months ago; 
corporate balance sheets, large Fortune 500 companies with more money 
on their balance sheets than at any point in recent history--good news. 
But if they are not hiring--and I hear from corporate CEOs, as well, 
their concern that the small businesses that are in their supply chain 
are going out of business, not just the small businesses that would 
normally go out with a traditional recession, but this recession has 
been so deep and so hard that we have now cut through the fat and we 
are into the muscle and bone. And if we continue to lose small 
businesses at the rate we are, then the ability to create a robust 
recovery will be dramatically stymied.
  So what do we do? There is no single silver bullet. And what the 
Senator from Louisiana has crafted is a menu of options for small 
businesses, to get them that additional assistance, particularly in 
terms of access to credit, that will allow them to get back and do what 
they do best--continue to innovate, grow, and create jobs.
  The Senator asked me what I am hearing from other Governors. Other 
Governors, Democratic and Republican alike, are saying that we in 
Congress have to focus on jobs. The issue of credit and access to 
credit to small businesses is paramount to all of them, and they want 
to see this legislation passed.
  I was a former chair of the NGA. This is the kind of issue where 
Governors of both parties come together because we don't see these 
issues simply through Democratic or Republican partisan lenses. And 
sometimes this is the kind of bill that, candidly, as I remember as 
Governor, you kind of scratch your head and say: This is kind of a no-
brainer. This bill is paid for. Why would not the Congress do all it 
can to support small business?
  The Senator has outlined, and I know I was repeating some of the 
items, but I want to reinforce again--I want to particularly focus on 
one part of this legislation, but there are really four buckets here. 
They are, how can we expand some of the initiatives within the Small 
Business Administration that were put in place, particularly in the 
trough of the downturn, to make sure that these SBA programs, which 
have been vitally important to small business lending, are maintained--
the 90-percent matches, some of the other loan guarantee programs?
  I should acknowledge right here that I think the Administrator of the 
SBA, Karen Mills, has done a remarkable job in streamlining a lot of 
the processes. I have heard from banks for years about their challenges 
in dealing with SBA. Well, the current SBA team realizes this is a 
moment of crisis, and they have done everything possible to streamline 
their procedures. They need to have these tools put back in place so 
that the SBA can continue to do the very important work and, candidly, 
work that goes much broader in terms of a portfolio of small businesses 
that they are now attracting to their programs than in the past.
  I would also acknowledge the dramatic increase in the number of 
particularly independent and community-based banks that are now 
accessing and using SBA programs. If we don't pass this legislation, 
these programs will be dramatically cut back, No. 1.
  No. 2, the Senator has crafted, again, at her committee, in a 
bipartisan way, a whole series of targeted small business tax cuts, a 
kind of accelerated depreciation that will have the ability to write 
off core investments, the ability to focus on these job creators. How 
can we give them a little bit of a break right now, during these 
challenging times, in our Tax Code?
  The third bucket in this program is building on a proposal the 
Senator and I and others had. We actually suggested this to the 
administration last October, but they have now built in a $30 billion 
lending program. The interesting thing about this lending program is it 
actually, on CBO scoring, scores as a net positive. So this is money 
not only that we will recover, but we will make--albeit a small one--a 
profit on it, to shore up particularly independent and community-based 
banks and give them a direct incentive in terms of increasing their 
small business lending.
  Then a fourth bucket, one that I have been working on--and I wish to 
commend both my colleagues from Michigan, Senator Levin and Senator 
Stabenow. They have been very active in this as well--which is saying: 
Can we take what is already working in the marketplace at a State level 
and build upon it? This is the so-called Capital Access Program. 
Twenty-six States in America already have this program in place, and 
those States that do not have it can, in effect, piggyback on other 
State programs. So there is no need to create new bureaucracy. There is 
no need to create tons of new paperwork.
  I hear, I say to the Senator, from my banking community that this 
particular initiative is one that they are perhaps even the most 
supportive of because they know how to do it, they know how to access 
it, and it can immediately generate a great deal of additional lending.
  Let me take a moment, at the Senator's discretion and time--I know 
this is her hour, but I wish to take one moment to explain it because I 
think we have focused on the lending facility, we focused on SBA, we 
focused on some of the tax cuts, but the Capital Access

[[Page S6362]]

Program has not received as much attention. Each State has slight 
variations, but let me describe how this initiative works.
  Basically, the independent bank, frankly, at this point is probably a 
little leery of making a loan, even to a relatively healthy small 
business because chances are, most small businesses coming out of this 
recession, their cash flows are down, and if they have real estate as 
collateral, it has perhaps declined in value. So while I have great 
sympathy for the small businesses that cannot get their credit lines 
renewed, I also understand the bankers' predicament in that small 
business credit isn't quite as good as it was, perhaps, in 2007.
  So how does this program work to benefit these small businesses? What 
it basically does is it creates a separate loss reserve pool for small 
businesses that fall into this category. What does that mean? If a 
small business was coming to a bank, a local bank in Baton Rouge or a 
local bank in Martinsville, VA, wanting to borrow $100,000, the bank 
would charge that small business a couple of extra points--$2,000 or 
$3,000 out of that loan that would go into a separate loss reserve 
pool. We, with this Capital Access Program, would then match that 
separate loss reserve pool for, again, a matching amount of points, 2 
or 3 additional points. So on a $100,000 loan, you would have $6,000 
that would be absorbed, first dollar loss, if this loan went into 
default. Now, the bank still has to do its due diligence because if you 
eat through that $6,000, the bank has to bear the burden. But it gives 
you a little cushion there. It takes that marginal credit and makes it 
creditworthy during these challenging times.
  Think about this $100,000 with that $6,000 loss reserve pool taken 
times a hundred or times a million. You could have a $100 million 
basket of small business loans with a $6 million reserve, and suddenly 
you have a very valuable tool that can be used by banks across the 
country.
  The roughly $1.4 billion, $1.5 billion that is in the legislation in 
this program, it has been estimated it will be leveraged. And I know 
``leverage'' is a bad word in this Hall at this point, and I 
particularly have pointed out some of the concerns of overleveraging. 
But because the person who is receiving the loan is putting up money 
and we from the government side are putting up money, we actually 
double every dollar we put out, and on an actual dollar basis, we are 
going to be leveraging the Federal dollar commitment 20 to 30 times. So 
that means this $1.4 billion, $1.5 billion can create $50 billion of 
additional small business lending. Think about the power of this tool, 
a tool that banks are familiar with, a tool that already exists in 26 
States, a short-term shot in the arm for an awful lot of small 
businesses that might not prefer to use the SBA program, might not want 
to go through a bank, that might want to access the lending facility. 
It just gives us one more tool.
  So I hope my colleagues and folks who are watching and listening will 
recognize that what the Senator from Louisiana has tried to create is a 
menu of options because there is no one-size-fits-all in the case of 
small businesses. Their needs are different. The banking community's 
desires are different. I think she has crafted a great tool that will 
dramatically help small business lending.
  If we want to go back to our constituents in the month of August and 
talk about a real, live deliverable, if we want to talk about what we 
have done in a tangible way that will get credit back into the small 
business lending pool, that could be delivered by Labor Day, we need to 
make sure we move forward on this important piece of legislation.
  I again commend the chair of the Small Business committee for her 
relentless work on this issue. I hope our colleagues from the other 
side of the aisle will hear all of the various business organizations 
across the political spectrum that are supporting this legislation. My 
hope is that we can deal with the amendments, get those amendments 
dispensed with at some point during the day, and pass this bill today 
because it is very important to making sure this recovery we are just 
starting to creep into is actually not a jobless recovery but a 
recovery that creates jobs. To do that, we have to have these small 
businesses healthy.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I wish to thank my colleague from 
Virginia for that explanation and for his commitment to this bill and 
this effort. He was an extremely successful Governor before he became a 
Senator, and I say ``successful'' measured by the way those of us in 
public life are measured: by results. He left his State with a surplus. 
I know he did not do that singlehandedly, but it is a great feat these 
days to leave office with a surplus, and he did, with very high 
approval ratings and with a reputation as being very strong on fiscal 
matters. I think that is what our Congress needs. I thank the Senator 
so much for his help on this bill because that is exactly what people 
are looking for--a smart, strategic way to move big pieces of 
legislation forward but with our eyes on the bottom line and our eyes 
focused on results, not bureaucracy, not regulation, not additional 
rules, et cetera, but real results.
  That is the way this bill was built. It was built with, as the 
Senator said, menus and choices, not one-size-fits-all. We did not say: 
There is one way to save small business in America, and this is what we 
are going to do. We said: We have heard a lot of good ideas. Let's try 
to put them together in a bill--some strategic tax cuts, some reduced 
regulation, some reduction in fees, and some options for capital.
  Options--none of this is mandatory. All of this is voluntary on the 
part of the banks--all voluntary. If they want to use those programs to 
lend to small businesses, they can. No one is forcing them. No one is 
requiring them. And if they do, they can actually make a significant 
profit. So it really is putting the incentives in the right place.
  That is why this is not anything like TARP. We are not using TARP 
funds to fund this. We are not designing it like TARP. TARP was a 
completely different program in size, scope, and focus. TARP stands for 
Troubled Asset Relief Program. It was for big banks that were failing. 
This is for small community banks on Main Street that are healthy, so 
that they can lend to the small businesses that can grow with the money 
the banks lend.
  Let me read a letter we just received from the Lake Charles area, 
which is the southwestern area of Louisiana, from a business, Lake Area 
Marine.
  It says: Dear Senator Landrieu. Lake Area Marine strongly supports 
your substitute bill, the Small Business Lending Fund Act, and the 
other parts of the bill. Our company is based in Lake Charles. The 
provisions outlined will restore much needed credit to small business 
owners like me, by addressing one of the primary reasons for the extent 
of the depression in the boating industry. By restoring the disruption 
in the recreational boating industry's distribution chain caused by the 
credit crunch, thousands of American jobs will be preserved or created.
  It goes on to say: The Small Business Administration's dealer floor 
plan financing--which is part of this bill--is a critical component, 
helping, as I said, to raise the cap, from $2 million to $5 million.
  We have hundreds of letters. This happens to be from a marine 
business, but there is floor plan financing for other businesses where 
large inventories are required. Although lots of people do buy products 
in the house from the Internet, as you know, millions of consumers 
still like to go to the showroom, they like to touch and feel and drive 
and see before they buy a car, buy a boat, buy other products. Many of 
these businesses in all of our States have seen their lines of credit 
evaporate, just go away. This bill is a lifeline for them.
  So I thank the business owners, such as Jerald Link, who sent me this 
letter, and the thousands of business owners around the country who 
have said, yes, let's pass this bill now.
  I see my colleague from Michigan. He also helped to craft a section 
of this bill. I would like him to explain the importance of that 
particular section which has to do with supporting weakened collateral 
in States such as Michigan, States such as Nevada, probably Florida, 
where they have seen such a depression of real estate prices. Thank 
goodness not so much in Louisiana, although the spill and the 
moratorium are giving us fits at the moment. But

[[Page S6363]]

last year our prices held pretty well. In Michigan, in Ohio, Florida, 
Nevada, California, these assessments collapsed. Small businesses were 
trying to function and were asked to put up collateral, and did. Then 
the banks came a long and said: Mr. Jones or Ms. Smith, you have 
collateral, but it used to be worth $500,000. Now the assessors are out 
there, and it is only worth $200,000. We are pulling your loan.
  If we don't do something to fix that, they are going to lose their 
business. It is that simple. This is not complicated. It is horrifying, 
it is painful, but not complicated.
  Senator Levin worked hard and came up with an innovative solution. 
Hopefully, he will speak about how this provision will technically work 
in Michigan and throughout many of the States.
  I, again, wish to read into the Record some of the specifics about 
this initiative and talk about job creation by small businesses. First, 
to reiterate, there is great support for this bill, in large measure 
because it is not like TARP. It is not funded with TARP moneys. It is 
completely different--different focus, different scope--than TARP. What 
it does do is create a small business lending fund to banks with less 
than $10 billion in assets. TARP, although some of the money did go to 
middle-size and small banks, most of it was taken by the big banks, 
worth billions and billions of dollars. This is only for small banks, 
$10 billion or less. There are about 8,000 small community banks in 
America. The SBLF, Small Business Lending Fund, is performance based, 
unlike TARP, which we sort of gave the money and said: Do what you need 
to do with it. This says: If you take the money, you need to lend it to 
small business. When you do, we will give you a discounted rate so your 
bank can make more money, and the small business can make more money.
  The most important part, equally important, the taxpayers can be 
repaid. This program doesn't cost the Federal Government money or the 
taxpayers money. It will make $1.1 billion, according to the CBO score. 
This is what I call smart government. This is not big or little 
government; it is smart government. It is leveraging the power and 
assets of the Federal Government. There are many to be proud of. It is 
using it to support Main Street so that jobs can be created, the 
recession can end, people can get back to work, business can flourish, 
and then we can work our way out of the terrible deficit situation we 
inherited. This recession called for additional spending which was 
necessary, although it is troubling. In this case we are going to make 
money on this program for the taxpayer.
  It also supports a new small business credit initiative, as Senator 
Warner explained. It is going to save taxpayers $1 billion.
  One of the most important components of this argument is the 81-
percent job loss in the last year. This is from the national employment 
report. People need to know--and it is startling--that 81 percent of 
the jobs lost in America were from small business. Only 19 percent were 
from large business. The dramatic dropoff in employment has come from 
small business. If we do our job right on this bill today and 
tomorrow--not in September, not next week but today and tomorrow--if we 
do our job in the Senate, it will give the House enough time to deal 
with this before they go home, and we can give relief now. The pain is 
so great. The times are so desperate. They are not getting better. This 
is the bill that will jumpstart, jolt, be a catalyst.
  We have tried other things this year. Some things have worked; some 
haven't. But there is great confidence that this bill we are putting 
forward now will do the job. It is not one size fits all. It is not 
mandatory. It is a smart, strategic, voluntary, public/private 
partnership which makes so much sense in this day and age.
  I see others who may want to speak. Then, hopefully, we can get to a 
vote in the next few hours.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I congratulate Senator Landrieu and thank 
her. I am on the Small Business Committee. I serve with her on the 
committee and others. I have watched her extraordinary talent flourish 
as chair of the Small Business Committee.
  The bill before us does something we all say we believe in; that is, 
support small business. Every Member of this body has pointed out 
something which the Senator from Louisiana knows and reflects in her 
work; that is, the engine of jobs is small business. We all say that. 
Most of us believe it. I hope all of us believe it, if we say it. It is 
not a partisan comment. This is a jobs bill which should get bipartisan 
support. Some of the jobs efforts have not. But this bill, because it 
is focused on small business and because that focus has been supported 
so regularly by Republicans and Democrats, will pick up some Republican 
support, I hope. It deserves that support.
  Senator Landrieu has reached out to try to obtain that support for 
this bill. I hope she succeeds. In addition to thanking her for her 
great work on this bill, I wish to note the work of the Presiding 
Officer who worked very hard on a provision of this bill. As a matter 
of fact, he has worked so hard on other provisions on other bills which 
have recently passed this body and been signed into law. But Senator 
Merkley is actually the key sponsor of a provision which I will not be 
focusing on but which I believe has either already been discussed or 
will be.
  I commend Senator Merkley for his great work on this bill with that 
particular provision.
  I wish to begin my description of the part of the bill I have focused 
on with a thank-you, a thank-you to Senators Sherrod Brown, Stabenow, 
Warner, Baucus, Shaheen, Begich, McCaskill, and others who have worked 
so hard with me on a very major provision of this bill which I will now 
spend a few minutes describing in detail.
  Senator Landrieu made reference to a significant fact in this 
recession; that is, the value of real property has gone down. Almost 
all of our houses are assessed at less now than they were a few years 
ago. I don't know if that is 70 percent or 80 percent, but it is a high 
percentage of homes that have lost value because of the recession. The 
home is exactly the same home, it is either maintained well or not, the 
way it was before the recession. This is true with businesses.
  In all of our States, when we go home the thing we hear about more 
than anything else is jobs--get credit flowing to small businesses 
that, through no fault of their own, are unable to obtain credit; not 
because they are not creditworthy, not because they don't have 
customers, but because the collateral for their line of credit has gone 
down in value because of the recession. It hasn't gone down in value 
because it isn't maintained. It has gone down in value like most other 
businesses and industries on the same block or in the same community 
because the recession has reduced the value of these real assets.
  The part of the legislation I have focused on is called a State small 
business credit initiative. It provides crucial funding to State and 
local programs that expand capital access for small businesses. We have 
lots of companies in all of our States that have stayed open. They have 
customers, they have business. Indeed, in many instances, they have 
more customers than they are able to handle and want to expand. I will 
give a few examples of how that has happened in my home State of 
Michigan, and I believe it is true in other States. The customers are 
there; the creditworthiness is there. We have many examples of 
businesses that have never missed a payment on money they owed to the 
bank down the street or in their community. They are creditworthy.
  The problem is, because the banks require a certain ratio of 
collateral to the amount of the loan, that ratio cannot be met because 
of the collateral's loss of some value in the recession.
  A couple success stories are a powerful argument for expanding these 
programs which are in 30 of our States, and other States will be able 
to follow these programs and pursue these programs as well when this 
bill passes.
  In Saline, MI, a company called Saline Electronics makes electric 
circuit boards. They are good at it, and they are so good that in 2009 
the company began to plan for an extension of their facility because it 
was too small to handle increased production. However, it hit a 
roadblock when the recession came.

[[Page S6364]]

  Just as the company was exploring their expansion possibilities, the 
recession battered down the value of their real estate. Their building 
fell in value. So, again, they had good credit and great demand for 
their product, so much so that they wanted to expand, but the value of 
the collateral it could offer in applying for a loan had shrunk. That 
logjam carried a real threat that good-paying jobs for American workers 
would be going overseas instead.
  We have a collateral support program in Michigan. It stepped in to 
end that threat. The program is designed exactly for situations such as 
this, where the value of equipment or the real estate has fallen 
because of the recession and, therefore, the collateral amount is not 
there as it was previous to the recession and would not support the 
loan because of the ratio between collateral and the amount of the loan 
required by local banks. But the State has this collateral support 
program. With that support, Saline Electronics was able to add 32,000 
feet of production space and hired 30 new workers. There are similar 
examples across my State, across the country and, again, in the 30 
other States that have a similar program.
  Another example from Michigan: In Grand Rapids a company called 
Display Pack, a packaging company, got more than $1 million in 
financing through Michigan's capital access program which uses, again, 
very small public investments to leverage larger commercial loans for 
small businesses. That particular funding created 20 new jobs and saved 
another 125 that may have been at risk.
  Driesenga & Associates, a small statewide engineering firm, used the 
same program to get loans for operating capital expansion. They added 
11 new jobs, protecting 120 existing jobs.
  This program in Michigan has used only $24 million in State 
government commitments to generate over $600 million in private 
financing. That is a hugely smart investment, and especially so when 
small businesses are so starved for capital.

  As Senator Landrieu pointed out, this is not big government. This is 
not small government. This is plenty smart government. If you can 
leverage $1 of Federal funds and get, in this case, $30 of private 
funds as a result, that kind of leverage of public funding to private 
funding is a particularly smart investment.
  But as the State budgets have been stretched and more and more 
businesses have sought access to these programs, there is an inability 
to meet rising demand. So the need for Federal support is great.
  The State Small Business Credit Initiative in the legislation before 
us would provide support for States such as Michigan and the roughly 30 
other States that now have them. Again, States that do not have these 
programs would have access to that Federal support and could start 
these programs. The House has approved a larger amount than is in our 
bill. On the other hand, we have a significant amount in this bill, and 
I thank Senator Baucus--that even though it was not to the amount the 
House put in for their bill, it is a significant portion of that, and 
we are appreciative of his support for this provision.
  So there are a lot of other provisions in the bill that are worth 
commenting on, and, obviously, we are supporting, including the Small 
Business Job Creation and Access to Capital Act, which raises Small 
Business Administration loan limits. It includes a proposal I offered 
for an Intermediary Lending Pilot Program, which allows the SBA to make 
loans to intermediary lenders, such as business incubators, which can 
then loan that money to growing businesses.
  The Small Business Lending Fund, which is included in this bill, 
which is the provision I referred to, which Senator Merkley, Senator 
Landrieu, our chairwoman, and Senator LeMieux and others have worked so 
hard on, is very similar to the Bank on Our Communities Act, which I 
previously had cosponsored.
  So this bill is the right approach because it supports the engine of 
job growth. It is a small business bill.
  It deserves the support of Senators of both parties. I hope, given 
the job situation we find ourselves in and the support that has been 
proclaimed for small business across the aisle and on this side of the 
aisle, we can find some good, bipartisan support for this tremendous 
initiative.
  (Ms. LANDRIEU assumed the chair.)
  Mr. LEVIN. Again, I commend our chairwoman, Senator Landrieu, who I 
now see is the Presiding Officer, and all those who have worked with 
her to bring us to this point.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
  Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, I also rise to discuss provisions of 
this bill and would like to begin by saying, when one gets into the 
details, you see there is a spectacular array of provisions that have 
been put together by the Small Business Committee to assist small 
businesses in helping them get themselves back on track, and, in the 
course of doing so, get our Nation back on track.
  Particularly, I thank the chair of the Small Business Committee, the 
Presiding Officer, Senator Landrieu, for working in such a bipartisan 
manner to bring together the best ideas that can be brought to bear in 
that effort to assist our small businesses.
  I will mention just a few of them. A 100-percent exclusion of small 
business capital gains will be big factor for helping our small 
businesses, a carryback provision so small businesses can take and 
balance out losses against former profits, making the general business 
credit not subject to the alternative minimum tax, increasing the Small 
Business Administration loan limits, eliminating the Small Business 
Administration loan fees, and so on and so forth.
  These are terrific provisions to assist small businesses. But I wish 
to particularly speak to two additional parts of this bill. One is the 
Small Business Jump Start Act. This is intended to help businesses get 
started in their first year. Under this provision, it allows the 
deduction not of $5,000 in startup expenses but of $10,000. So it is a 
doubling of kind of a jump-start or a boost to getting businesses off 
the ground. It is for those entrepreneurs who say: Here is an 
opportunity, and I am going to take a big risk, and I am going to take 
my savings or borrow against my house or utilize my credit card in 
order to jump in and seize this opportunity.
  It is giving those folks additional help in that first year, and who 
knows when those first-year efforts--when so much is at risk--are going 
to turn into the successes that employ person after person after person 
on Main Street in communities throughout this Nation.
  The second piece I wish to address is the Small Business Lending 
Fund. I think every legislator who has been spending time back home in 
townhalls has heard from owners of small businesses, has heard the 
stories of how a long-term banking relationship--a relationship in 
which they knew they could always turn to their community bank for 
help--has not been able to yield the credit they need at this moment 
and not through the fault of the community bank. The community bank 
wants to lend but because the community bank's capital has diminished, 
they are at the limit of their ability to make loans. Unless they bring 
in additional capitalization, they are not able to make additional 
loans, no matter how good that opportunity might be.
  We have heard about small businesses that, in fact, are having to 
rely upon their credit cards. The percent of small businesses in 
America that are currently turning to their credit cards has increased 
14 percent in a single year--14 percent more small businesses having to 
rely on a credit card because they cannot get access to traditional 
lending from their community bank.
  Well, this chokepoint in our system is essential to address because 
if the small business entrepreneur cannot access credit to seize an 
opportunity or to expand on a successful formula, then we will not be 
putting businesses back to work, we will not be putting citizens back 
to work for those businesses. So that is what the Small Business 
Lending Fund does.
  There are a number of questions that have been raised about it. I 
wish to address each of those. But I wish to note the potential of 
taking $30 billion in recapitalization, which actually makes a profit 
for the taxpayer--CBO estimates a profit of $1.1 billion--and in 
addition will bring in additional revenue through the taxes on the 
additional

[[Page S6365]]

folks who are employed and the larger small business profits. So the 
$1.1 billion, that is just the base. That is not including the 
additional revenue that will flow from the success of small businesses 
and the restoration to employment of workers across this Nation.
  So one of the questions has been: Will these funds recapitalize or 
bail out failing banks? The answer is absolutely not. This is a program 
for small business, making capital available to small businesses 
through healthy community banks. That is a very important distinction, 
and there are ratings in which the regulators evaluate the health of 
banks. They range from 1 through 5. They are called CAMELS ratings, and 
only those banks with ratings of 1, 2, or 3--that is, healthy banks--
will be eligible for this program.
  A second question has been: Well, if we help recapitalize community 
banks, is there a possibility they will sit on the funds, prepare for a 
rainy day or a rainier day? The answer is no. The program is structured 
so that if funds are lent out, then the dividend rate falls to 
1 percent. But if they are not lent out, the dividend rate rises to as 
high as 7 percent. Well, that 7-to-1 distinction means you are not 
going to borrow money if you do not have an intention of using it to 
leverage funds to lend out because you will be losing money, and you 
want to take advantage of that incentive to only pay a 1-percent 
dividend. So there is a lot of carrot in this in a structure that makes 
it illogical for a bank to seek these funds in order to sit on them.

  A third question is: Why utilize community banks to help get lending 
to small businesses? Why not just do it in some other direct government 
fashion?
  Well, the answer can be discerned by anyone exercising a small 
portion of common sense. Main Street banks are in the business of 
evaluating opportunities, entrepreneurial opportunities, and funding 
those opportunities to make a profit. That is what community banks do. 
That is their expertise. This approach builds on the expertise of Main 
Street banks to produce successful Main Street small businesses across 
our country.
  Another question that was raised was: Will recapitalization cause 
banks to have to rush to make speedy loans and not take the time to 
evaluate that business opportunity thoroughly? The answer is it will 
not, because this program was designed so there is a 2-year span of 
time in which a bank has the opportunity to make that transition from 
capitalization to lending before the dividend rate is locked in. So 
there is no incentive for a rush to judgment.
  I ask all my colleagues: Is not this the type of bipartisan problem-
solving America wants us to undertake, bringing forth, through the 
committee process, through an open discussion--with television cameras 
running--the consideration of this idea and that idea being merged 
together to bring to the floor a coherent piece of thoughtful 
legislation to help address one of the major challenges in America, 
which is getting our small businesses back on track? Is not this what 
we are being brought here to do?
  So I applaud the Small Business Committee. I applaud the work of the 
chair and all the members of the committee who produced this type of 
concrete aid to put Main Street back on track, to create employment for 
citizens across this Nation, and, by so doing, put our Nation back on 
track.
  Thank you, Madam President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Hagan). The Senator from Louisiana.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. Madam President, I thank my colleague from Oregon, who 
has been one of the creators and designers of this bill and who has 
been a leading advocate and tireless in his efforts. He has conducted 
probably dozens of meetings in his office with Treasury officials, with 
Members from both sides of the aisle.
  I have put this poster up in the Chamber because I want everybody to 
know this is what we are talking about today: small business. We spend 
a lot of time in this Chamber talking about lots of other issues--
foreign aid, other countries, big corporations, Wall Street--but today, 
in these few hours--today and tomorrow--we are going to be talking 
about small businesses on Main Street. Small businesses on Main Street, 
I think they deserve this time, and they deserve our focus.
  I know there are many other issues Members of this body, both 
Democrats and Republicans, want to solve or try to solve before we 
break in a few days. But I have to say, we cannot solve every problem 
in the world in this bill for Main Street and for small business. Some 
have criticized and said: Oh, well, the Democratic leadership is not 
allowing amendments. Nothing could be further from the truth.
  This bill was built on amendments in committee--amendments by 
Democrats, amendments by Republicans, negotiations. The Presiding 
Officer most certainly knows this. I see my colleague from Texas, and I 
know he will have time in a moment. But the Presiding Officer knows, 
because she is a member of the Small Business Committee, this bill was 
built on a foundation of bipartisan support for small business because 
we all agree we want to end this recession, and the best way to end it 
is by smartly investing in strategic alliances with community banks and 
other lenders to get money to small businesses on Main Street. That is 
what this bill does.

  As I conclude, I am asking Members on both sides of the aisle: Let's 
work with our leaders. Let's not burden this bill to help Main Street 
with amendments that have nothing to do with small business, that have 
to do with other political objectives, et cetera. Let's try to come 
together for the benefit of all of the 27 million small businesses in 
America that are watching us, hoping we can take the right steps to 
help them end this recession and get the country moving again.
  I see my colleague from Texas.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.


                                 Energy

  Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I wish to speak for a few minutes on the 
subject of energy. Particularly I wish to contrast the approach that 
has been taken by the administration with regard to the blanket 
moratorium on drilling in the Gulf of Mexico for at least 6 months--but 
who knows how much longer that will slip--and a better approach that I 
think will provide a way of promoting safety but also not kill jobs in 
the Gulf of Mexico, particularly in the Gulf States, including 
Louisiana, Texas, Alabama, and Florida.
  There is no secret about the fact that the blanket moratorium, which 
has been struck down by a Federal judge as unjustified by the rationale 
given by the administration, is now being appealed, so drilling 
activity has essentially halted--new drilling activity in the Gulf of 
Mexico. I think there is a better way to approach this. These ideas are 
actually included in the alternative we will be considering I hope as 
early as tomorrow. I think there is a better way to approach this.
  A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to fly from Sugarland, TX, 200 
miles offshore into the Gulf of Mexico to a drilling rig called the 
Noble Danny Adkins. This drilling rig was sitting in 9,000 feet of 
water, and of course it was idle as a result of the drilling 
moratorium. When fully operational, it employs up to 200 people, but of 
course they weren't working because there isn't any drilling going on. 
This particular rig was scheduled to drill in more than 12,000 feet of 
water to a depth of 37,000 feet. It is one of dozens of rigs not doing 
any work today because of the uncertainty caused by the moratorium. I 
had a chance to talk with a number of the professionals who work on 
that rig, and I have to tell my colleagues my impression of being on an 
offshore rig was like my first experience going to NASA. It is that 
technically advanced and that impressive.
  The offshore drilling industry is a highly technologically advanced 
operation in which many very skilled professionals are working. These 
are typically high-paying jobs, as my colleague from Louisiana knows. 
My fear is that the blanket moratorium imposed by Secretary Salazar of 
the administration, unless it is modified in a more rational way, will 
destroy 50,000 jobs and up. We already know that the moratorium has 
caused two drilling rigs, offshore rigs--which cost an incredible 
amount of money to lease, and, of course, you can't afford to have them 
sit idle and not do what they are designed to do. What happens is with 
the moratorium attached, two of these rigs we know of moved to Egypt 
and one to the Republic of the Congo. Of course, with the departure of 
the rigs, the

[[Page S6366]]

workers go too, and it is a big question as to whether those rigs and 
the jobs associated with them will ever return.
  But it is not just the people who work on the rigs such as the Noble 
Danny Adkins and the other rigs that are idle now as a result of the 
moratorium; it is the associated businesses that support the oil and 
gas industry in the Gulf of Mexico, such as Sunbelt Machine Works 
Corporation. This is a small family-owned business I visited which 
manufactures many of the tools that are actually used in deepwater rigs 
such as the one I visited in the gulf. We need to think of not just the 
impact on the people who work on these rigs but also everybody who 
supports those efforts, including the people who supply food, people 
who supply the machinery, people who fly, the people who work on those 
rigs. Everyone is impacted negatively by a blanket moratorium.
  My colleagues don't have to take my word for it. The Energy 
Information Administration recently projected that in addition to 
killing jobs, it will actually cost a lot more than that in terms of 
the domestic production of oil and gas that we will have to make up for 
by importing it from abroad. The dependency we have in this country, 
which is a true national security problem, would be exacerbated by this 
moratorium, because as long as America is going to continue to consume 
oil and gas, until we are able to develop new forms of energy in the 
future, as I hope we will, we are going to continue to consume oil and 
gas in this country. Right now, about 30 percent of the oil consumed in 
America comes from the Gulf of Mexico--30 percent.
  The Energy Information Administration recently projected that 
domestic production will decline as a result of the moratorium by an 
average of 31,000 barrels a day in the fourth quarter of 2010 and then 
by an average of 82,000 barrels a day in 2011. By December 2011, 
monthly oil production in the Gulf of Mexico will decrease by an 
average of 100,000 barrels a day. Assuming the economy picks up, as I 
hope it will, we know there is going to be demand for that oil which 
will need to be replaced and, of course, where does that come from but 
places which I know most of us would rather not have to do business 
with: Venezuela, to mention one.
  The Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association estimated last 
May that the impacts of the moratorium were estimated to be 80,000 
barrels of production loss per day . That is what they estimated for 
2011. They estimate up to 37,000 jobs will be lost, and $7.6 billion in 
future government revenue will be put at risk. That is the effect of 
this blanket moratorium.
  I wish to talk about a better solution, I believe, that was offered 
in the energy legislation Senator McConnell introduced last Thursday 
which incorporates this approach.
  I also wish to talk for a minute about the attempts to basically make 
it impossible for independent oil and gas companies from working in the 
Gulf of Mexico. How do you do that? Well, it would be by raising the 
liability cap, or by removing it entirely, thereby making it impossible 
for independent oil and gas companies to work in the Gulf of Mexico 
because they, frankly, can't afford the insurance for unlimited 
liability. Under the current regime, there is a limit of individual 
liability up to $75 million and, above that, 8 cents on every gallon of 
oil imported into the United States or produced in America goes into an 
oilspill trust fund which is then used to pay for anything not covered 
by the $75 million liability for the company.
  Well, if, as some of my colleagues have proposed, we eliminate that 
cap, it makes it impossible for smaller companies--these independent 
oil and gas companies--to operate in the Gulf of Mexico or anywhere 
else. They simply will go out of business or take their operations 
elsewhere if they can.
  Let me give my colleagues an idea of what the job impact on that 
would be. In 2009, independents accounted for more than 200,000 jobs 
and $10 billion in State and Federal taxes and royalty payments. As my 
colleague from Louisiana knows, because she was one of the principal 
negotiators, we were able to get royalties which actually go to the 
Gulf Coast States for the incidental impact of oil and gas operations 
in the Gulf of Mexico. Of course, all of that income will be lost, 
together with the royalty that would be paid to the U.S. Treasury, as a 
result of the moratorium and certainly by chasing off these 
independents. The study forecasted that by 2020 this would eliminate 
300,000 jobs and cost $147 billion in Federal, State, and local taxes 
from the gulf region.
  The study also concluded that if independent oil and gas companies 
are excluded from deepwater oil and gas operations, the job loss would 
be 265,000 by 2020 and $106 billion in lost tax revenues over the 10-
year period. Of course, we know other countries are delighted with this 
moratorium because it means these rigs and these operators are moving 
to these other countries, creating jobs there and producing oil and gas 
from there.
  For example, a recent Washington Post article reported that Brazil, 
Canada, Nigeria, Angola, and Libya are among the countries that are 
moving forward with drilling, lured by oil reservoirs they are 
discovering that are two to six times as big as the average Gulf of 
Mexico reservoir. As I mentioned, once these rigs leave the United 
States, leave the Gulf of Mexico, they go to places with far less 
stringent regulatory controls than we have here in the United States, 
so actually the risk of an environmental disaster is greater in these 
countries that have far more lenient regulatory regimes. In fact, the 
moratorium has the perverse effect on safety as the newest and most 
expensive and most technologically advanced rigs move overseas to work 
while the less-in-demand older rigs stay behind.
  I mentioned there is a better alternative than a blanket moratorium 
such as the administration has proposed, and unlimited liability 
exposure which will basically chase off most of the independent oil and 
gas companies as proposed by the legislation that we will be 
considering tomorrow. My trip to this rig and my visits with these 
workers and these experts in producing this domestic energy source have 
made me even more convinced that it is an absolute mistake and really, 
frankly, not very smart, to essentially cut off our domestic oil and 
gas production from the gulf. Senators Vitter, Wicker, and I have 
introduced legislation which would lift the Obama administration's 
blanket moratorium and instead would require companies to go through 
new safety inspection requirements and then to be certified by third 
parties, after which the Department of the Interior would have to issue 
a permit for continued exploration and development of our domestic oil 
and gas reserves in the Gulf of Mexico.
  Our legislation would essentially limit the moratorium and make it 
easier for good-faith and conscientious operators who are in compliance 
to get their permits approved quickly and keep the rigs and jobs here 
at home. Our approach would ensure that operators who are in compliance 
with safety guidelines have some deadline on when their permits would 
be considered and keep gulf coast residents, and particularly those who 
work in the oil and gas industry, at work, and continue to produce 
American energy and not make it necessary for us to continue to buy 
that additional amount, in addition to what we already are purchasing, 
from abroad.
  Instead of reconsidering this devastating moratorium, though, I know 
the majority leader has introduced a bill that would have the Secretary 
of Energy publish a monthly study evaluating the effect of the 
moratorium. Well, I have to say we don't need a study to know what the 
effect of the moratorium is in Louisiana and in Texas, in Alabama and 
along the gulf coast, because we already know its devastating impact. I 
wish to invite my colleagues, any of them who wish, to come and talk to 
some of the folks who work in this industry and to look at the 
sophistication and the technological expertise that they employ in 
producing oil and gas in the Gulf of Mexico. I would be glad to help 
host them.
  One example, though. A seismic company in Texas is spending $250,000 
a day under a contract with the leaseholder to explore a potential area 
for oil and gas, but the seismic company can't even get a permit to do 
the work. I don't know how long they can hold on, how long they can 
continue to keep people on their payroll if they don't have any work to 
do. Something has to

[[Page S6367]]

give. These hard-working folks who live along the gulf coast don't want 
to wind up as another statistic on a monthly report on the impact of 
the moratorium, nor do they want to add to the 9.5 percent unemployment 
in this country, higher even in some parts of the country; as high as 
14.2 percent in Nevada. They want to work. They don't want to collect 
unemployment benefits. They want to work, and they want to provide for 
their families. I think they deserve better from their elected 
officials than this blanket moratorium or job-killing policies which 
are going to basically move their jobs overseas.
  The fact is we need to maintain our position in the gulf. Eighty 
percent of oil produced in the Gulf of Mexico comes from deepwater 
reserves now off limits due to the moratorium.
  Without this activity, production will fall as much as 100,000 
barrels a day by December 2011. To put this into perspective, the 
United States uses almost 20 million barrels of oil a day and produces 
nearly 5 million barrels a day, obtaining the rest from imports. The 
moratorium will not only destroy tens of thousands of jobs; it will 
leave us more dependent on foreign oil and gas, raising the cost of any 
products shipped and transported, not to mention travel.
  I think Jay Leno basically had it right when he said:

       President Obama said today he is going to use the Gulf 
     disaster to immediately push a new energy bill through 
     Congress. I've got an idea. How about first using the Gulf 
     disaster to fix the Gulf disaster?

  That ought to be our focus--preventing recurrences such as we have 
seen in the gulf--and I think we can do that by the safety inspection 
mechanism and third-party certification and let's get on with the 
production of oil and gas from American sources, rather than having to 
bring it in from abroad.
  We need to focus on the problems and look at solving these problems 
and not use these disasters as a reason to exploit them and to grow 
government and kill jobs in the meantime.
  America's energy security will continue to depend on oil and gas for 
the foreseeable future. As much as I like the idea that we are 
developing new energy resources--Texas, for example, produces the most 
electricity from wind sources of any State in the country--we know that 
developing these alternative sources of energy is still going to be a 
long time coming. We need to bridge into that new energy future, and 
that bridge will continue to consist of American-produced oil and gas.
  The question is, Will it be to the benefit of the American people in 
the form of good-paying jobs and associated revenue or will the 
misguided policy, included in the bill introduced by the majority 
leader, ensure that we merely increase our imports that we need and 
send the good jobs and rigs overseas by this misguided policy?
  I hope my colleagues will reconsider this misguided approach that 
would drive independent oil and gas producers out of the Gulf of Mexico 
by making it financially impossible for them to purchase the insurance 
they need in order to comply with an uncapped liability. We know the 
resources will remain there in the case of another disaster, which we 
hope and pray will never occur because of the oilspill liability trust 
fund--again, funded by 8 cents on every barrel produced in America, as 
well as every barrel imported from abroad. So this isn't eliminating a 
fund that will actually pay in the event of another catastrophe.
  Certainly, we don't ground all airplanes in America or around the 
world when there happens to be a terrible airplane crash. We look at 
the problem and try to make sure we understand the reason why it 
happened, and then we move on and continue flying.
  I think the oil and gas industry basically operates the same way. We 
need to make sure we understand what happened in this spill, do 
everything humanly possible to make sure it never happens again and 
make sure BP is held accountable and pays for all the cleanup that 
needs to be done as a result of this unfortunate incident. But the 
conclusion we should reach should not be let's shoot ourselves in the 
other foot by denying ourselves access to American energy and 
increasing our dependency on imports from abroad and, at the same time, 
kill jobs along the gulf coast in the oil and gas industry and all 
those companies and businesses that support the oil and gas industry 
during a time when unemployment is already at 9.5 percent.
  We can do a lot better than what the majority leader's bill proposes 
and continuing job-killing policies. We can actually do it smarter and 
better and come up with a real solution rather than creating more 
problems.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


           Congratulating Warner Robins' Girls Softball Team

  Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I am very pleased to come before the 
Senate today and commend the Warner Robins, GA, girls softball team 
that yesterday attended the White House and was honored by President 
Obama.
  The 11- and 12-year-old girls who went all the way last year and this 
year are in the finals to hopefully do the same thing again. This team 
of young women is coached by a great group of coaches: Emily Whaley and 
her assistants, Patti Carriker and Roger Stella.
  I commend each one of these young ladies individually: Kaylee 
Albritton, Sydney Barker, Carson Carriker, Melissa Cox, Sabrina 
Doucette, Ashley Killebrew, Avery Lamb, Hannah Livingston, Caitlyn 
Parker, Sierra Stella, Kelly Warner, and Chelsea Whaley.
  This is a fine group of young Georgians who went all the way in the 
Little League level and are about to do it again. In fact, yesterday, 
as she was leaving the White House, President Obama asked her if there 
was anything she had to say. Ashley Killebrew said: Mr. President, we 
are doing really well this year, and we are going to be back next year 
because we are going to win it again. That is the type of positive 
attitude in sports that separates the winners from the second-place 
finishers.
  I commend the Warner Robins Little League softball team, young women 
from Warner Robins, GA. I thank the President for honoring them 
yesterday at the White House.


                        Biennial Appropriations

  Mr. President, we have been going through difficult economic times as 
a country, not only in our expenditures but in the revenues of our 
citizens of our States who face higher unemployment, lower 
productivity, and very difficult economic times.
  As I have watched us on the floor time and again deal with paying for 
new amendments that have been proposed, we are all of a sudden 
scrambling to find a savings here to borrow from Peter to pay Paul to 
patch together an appropriations bill that hopefully keeps us out of 
debt but unfortunately continues to keep us in a downward spiral of 
borrowing.
  I wish to talk today about legislation I have introduced and have 
been joined by other Members of the Senate, a bill that has a simple 
proposition to it, and that is that maybe as a government we should 
start doing what the people of our country have to do--determining how 
much we take in, prioritizing what we spend--and get back into 
balancing our budget, while providing oversight on what we spend to see 
where savings can come from.
  There is a great American who has a syndicated radio show called Dave 
Ramsey. I don't know how many of my colleagues have ever heard him. He 
started Financial Peace University. He started it after he went 
bankrupt in the real estate business. He did a great job in real estate 
on the way up but leveraged himself all the way, so when times got 
tough and the leverage was too difficult, Dave Ramsey went bankrupt. 
After a couple years of struggling, he got himself back together and 
built himself a large company on the basis of a philosophy of staying 
out of debt and spending within your means. I commend everybody to look 
at his proposals, read his book, or attend Financial Peace. It is 
really an interesting concept because it works.
  Dave Ramsey suggested that what you really ought to do when you get

[[Page S6368]]

into economically difficult times and you owe more than you take in is 
sit down and say: All right, what do I make? And you write that down. 
You write down what you have to spend--utilities, food, whatever it 
might be--and then see what is left over. If nothing is left over, then 
you have to take the things you are spending on and don't have the 
money for and have been borrowing and begin to cut it piece after 
piece, so that each month and year you live on a budget that is not 
predicated on going into debt and living beyond your means.
  We as a country must do the same. There may be an exception, 
obviously, for war. There may be an exception, obviously, if there is a 
significant terrorist attack or a tremendous international incident or 
a natural incident that takes place that might demand some short-term 
appropriations. But in the general expenditures of government, we have 
to get back to the business of spending within our means.
  How do we do that? We have 12 individual appropriations bills or an 
omnibus bill that rolls in at the end of the year talking about 
spending $3.6 trillion. We cannot do it that way. We have to have a 
process where we are able to examine on what we are spending money, 
quantify how much money we are going to take in, and balance the two 
numbers so we do not go into debt.
  My suggestion and what I want to talk about is a biennial budget or 
appropriations, a change in the way we do business and how we do it, 
which I believe will result in less debt, more reasonable spending, and 
a more rational expenditure by the U.S. Government. First of all, it is 
predicated on appropriating for 2 years rather than 1 year. The 
appropriations years should be the odd-numbered years, and the even-
numbered years should be dedicated to oversight.
  I know the distinguished Presiding Officer, as I do, sits on a number 
of committees. Every now and then, we will have an oversight meeting, 
but more often than not, oversight gets left out because the focus is 
on what we are going to spend next or what project is going to be added 
to what we spend our money on. That process itself builds more debt, 
builds a bigger appropriations act, and never allows us to do those 
things we should be doing; that is, focusing on prioritizing the 
expenditure of our money.
  We all know, because from time to time we have found them, there are 
savings in the appropriations. We know that from time to time in 
oversight, we find dollars we did not realize we had. We need to make 
it a part of our culture in the Congress of the United States that when 
the even-numbered years come, two things ought to be happening: One, 
Congress ought to be doing oversight of its expenditures, and second is 
running for office. I would love to see a time when running for office 
is in a year when we are doing oversight so we are focusing more on 
what we are saving the American taxpayers than what we are going to 
spend to try to impress them to get their vote one more time.
  We have a serious, difficult problem in our country. We have a debt 
of $13 trillion. I am going to be the first--not the first who ever 
said this. I am not going to let this speech end without saying it. I 
voted against appropriations bills under President Bush, and I voted 
against them under President Obama. I am not taking a target at 
anybody. We all have a responsibility, and it is time we focused on a 
way to start saving rather than continuing to spend.
  I would like nothing better than that focus on savings to take place 
in the same election year where everybody is running to be reelected to 
come back and do the job. We would change the dynamics and paradigm of 
Congress toward a focus on savings rather than a focus on expenditures. 
Will it be difficult? Yes, but it is going to be a whole lot more 
difficult very soon. Our country owes $13 trillion today and is moving 
toward a number that could be as high as $19 trillion before the end of 
the next decade.
  To put in perspective how much that is, I will tell a short story. I 
was in Albany, GA, making a speech at the end of last year, and I 
referred two or three times to $1 trillion.
  At the end of the speech, this farmer raised his hand and said: 
Excuse me, Senator, can I ask a question?
  I said: Sure.
  He said: How much is 1 trillion?
  I don't know if you ever thought about it, Mr. President, but when 
somebody asks you a question like that, you try to come up with a 
comparison to explain, and it is hard to do, and I had a difficult 
time. In fact, I fumbled around, and I am not sure I ever did a good 
job of quantifying how much 1 trillion really is.
  I got home and talked with my wife. I said: I got stumped today, 
sweetheart.

  She said: What happened?
  I said: I was on the stump in Albany and was asked by a farmer to 
explain what 1 trillion was, and I couldn't quantify it. I didn't know 
a good comparison.
  In her own inimitable way, she said: Why don't you figure out how 
many years have to go by for 1 trillion seconds to pass?
  I thought, that is a great idea. I got a calculator out and 
multiplied 60 seconds times 60 minutes to get the number of seconds in 
an hour. I multiplied that times 24 to get the seconds in a day. I 
multiplied that by 365 to get the number of seconds in a year. And then 
I divided that product into 1 trillion.
  Mr. President, do you know how many years have to go by for 1 
trillion seconds to pass? It is 31,709 years. We owe $13 trillion. We 
are at a point where we are going to go one way or another. 
Fortunately, we are recognizing that we are at that point.
  I submit one of the keys to stopping the growth of debt and improving 
the plight of our country in the future for our children and 
grandchildren is to begin spending within our means. And it takes a 
process such as a biennial budget or biennial appropriations where we 
combine the responsibility of spending with the absolute responsibility 
of oversight.
  Everybody in America today during these difficult times is looking at 
where they spend their money, and they are trying to find savings. They 
are trying to find those places they can better allocate their money so 
they are not going into debt, not borrowing, and not raising the 
prospects of debt in the future. The American Government ought to be 
doing the same thing.
  I voted for the supplemental for our troops in Afghanistan last week, 
and we will do it again. That is a special appropriation for our men 
and women, who deserve that backing at a time we commit them to war. We 
are not always at war. War is a special and difficult time, and we 
ought to give our troops the support they need. But in every other 
case, it ought to be an expenditure that is based on the priorities of 
what are the most important things we should be doing. When we find 
those things that do not meet that test through oversight, that is 
where we begin the cutting process. Over time, the process is motivated 
toward savings, motivated against borrowing, and motivated for a 
balanced budget. I submit that we can talk about it all day long, but 
until we put it in a framework that brings about that type of process, 
we will never really do it.
  The biennial budget with appropriations in odd-numbered years and 
oversight in even-numbered years ensures we begin in an election year 
being accountable to the electorate on what we are spending. And in 
those off years when we are appropriating, we are doing it based on the 
previous year's oversight, so we know the effectiveness of the 
department we are appropriating the money for and whether it was 
prioritized appropriately the way it should have been.
  At a time when we are focusing on spending money, focusing on an 
appropriations act which will come up this November after the 
elections, I think we can look this year at going to a biennial budget 
process in future years so that instead of rolling everything into an 
omnibus bill after the elections, we have a process that ensures it is 
done systematically, as it should be, in odd-numbered years for 
appropriations and in even-numbered years we are doing oversight, so 
our election is based on accountability of spending money, not how much 
we can borrow and how much we can spend.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.

[[Page S6369]]

  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in 
morning business for up to 15 minutes.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                            A Second Opinion

  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I come to the Senate floor again today 
as someone who has practiced medicine in Casper, WY, taking care of 
families there since 1983. I come also as the medical director of the 
Wyoming Health Fair and someone who has brought low-cost blood 
screening to people, looking for ways to help with early detection of 
medical problems, whether it is high blood pressure or diabetes or 
cancer because so often early detection means early treatment and, as a 
result, longer survivability and better care.
  So I come to the floor of the Senate today with a doctor's second 
opinion about the health care law that was signed by the President a 
little over 100 days ago. The goal, of course, of health care reform 
was to lower the cost of care, to increase the quality of care, and to 
increase the access to care around the country. Since this bill was 
signed into law, we have heard week after week of new unintended 
consequences. We hear the personal stories of people whose lives have 
been affected because of the law, whose lives have been impacted by the 
unintended consequences of the law.
  During the entire debate, I was concerned if the legislation passed 
and became law that it would be bad for patients relying on our health 
care system, bad for providers--the nurses and the doctors in this 
country who take care of patients--and bad for payers because I 
believed the law would drive up the cost of care, making insurance more 
expensive, and also have an impact on the taxes people would pay. So I 
have come each week, as I do today, with this doctor's second opinion 
of things that have happened during the past week; new things that we 
have learned about the health care law and what is happening with 
trying to provide health care to so many Americans but also people 
worldwide.
  As part of the discussion of this health care law, there was a 
discussion about the Canadian health care system and the British health 
care system. We now have in charge of Medicare and Medicaid in this 
country someone who has said he is in love with the National Health 
Service, which is the British health care system. So, Mr. President, I 
come to the Senate floor today having come across an article in a 
British paper--the Sunday Telegraph--about their National Health 
System--a system who some in this country have held up as a model. It 
is a system I look to as one that results in people having care delayed 
and care denied.
  When I look at the survivability of patients after, say, cancer in 
the United States, we know patients with cancer survive longer in the 
United States than in Britain or in Canada, and not because our doctors 
are better but just because people receive more timely care.
  Mr. President, I am going to quote from this article, but I ask 
unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the entire article.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  (See exhibit 1.)
  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, this article, as I said, is from the 
Sunday Telegraph, and the headline is ``Axe falls on NHS services.'' 
This is dated July 24, and it talks about some of the most common 
operations performed in England, including hip replacements and 
cataract surgery. I am an orthopedic surgeon, so I have done many hip 
operations, but this is what the article says:

       Many of the most common operations--hip replacements and 
     cataract surgery--will be rationed as part of attempts to 
     save billions of pounds, despite government promises that 
     front-line services would be protected. Patients' groups have 
     described the measures as ``astonishingly brutal.'' An 
     investigation by The Sunday Telegraph has uncovered 
     widespread cuts planned across the National Health Service, 
     many of which have already been agreed by senior health 
     service officials. They include: Restrictions on some of the 
     most basic and common operations, including hip and knee 
     replacements, cataract surgery, and orthodontic procedures. 
     Plans to cut hundreds of thousands of pounds from budgets for 
     the terminally ill, . . . the closure of nursing homes for 
     the elderly . . . a reduction in acute hospital beds, 
     including those for the mentally ill.

  The article goes on:

       Thousands of job losses at NHS hospitals, including 500 
     staff to go at a trust where cancer patients recently 
     suffered delays in diagnosis and treatment because of staff 
     shortages.

  They are cutting 500 more staff positions there. The article 
continues:

       The Sunday Telegraph found the details of hundreds of cuts 
     buried in obscure appendices to lengthy policy and strategy 
     documents published by the trusts. In most cases, local 
     communities appear to be unaware of the plans.

  When we read on in this article, it is very disturbing. If I were 
living in Britain, I would be very disturbed. As someone living in the 
United States, with a new person now in charge of Medicare and Medicaid 
who has said he loves what is happening in the British health care 
system, I have great concerns.
  The article also says:

       As well as sending more patients home to die, the paper 
     said the savings would be made by admitting fewer terminally 
     ill cancer patients to hospital because they were struggling 
     to cope with symptoms such as pain. Instead, more patients 
     would be given advice on ``self management'' of their 
     condition.

  In other words, essentially telling them to go it alone. These are 
very disturbing words and a very disturbing situation now occurring in 
Britain.
  Next, there is an article that appeared in Tuesday's New York Times--
yesterday's New York Times--entitled ``Settling Down to a New Job, but 
Hampered by Old Words.'' This is an article about the new Director of 
Medicare and Medicaid. This article by Robert Pear talks about the fact 
that the new administrator has never had a confirmation hearing, never 
had a confirmation hearing and never had to respond to the American 
people through Congress to the questions that the American people have 
about the person who is newly in charge of Medicare or Medicaid, 
especially when we see the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of 
billions of dollars spent every year by Medicare and Medicaid.
  The article says he never had a confirmation hearing and has not 
responded publicly to critics. It goes on to say:

       The White House has declined to make him available for an 
     interview.

  Amazingly, the budget--we hear so much about the Pentagon and the 
military budget--but, amazingly, the budget of Medicare and Medicaid is 
larger than the budget for the Pentagon. Here we have someone newly 
appointed, in a recess appointment, someone in charge of Medicare and 
Medicaid at a time when this Congress, through its action and the laws 
signed by the President, cuts $500 billion from our seniors on Medicare 
and does it without having someone come and explain to Congress how he 
plans to keep the quality of care up or try to keep the quality of care 
up at a time with such cuts--not to save Medicare but to start a whole 
new government program.
  Dr. Berwick, it goes on to say, ``has received an honorary knighthood 
from Queen Elizabeth II in 2005,'' because of his love of the British 
health care system. In fact, they quote him here in this article 
saying, ``I am romantic about the National Health Service.'' He says, 
``I love it.''
  The other thing so interesting, at this time in the history of the 
United States, is we now have someone in charge of Medicare and 
Medicaid who says that ``any health care funding plan that is just, 
equitable, civilized and humane must--'' and he repeats the word 
``must''--``must redistribute wealth from the richer among us to the 
poorer. . . .''
  It is no surprise that this week in a report out Monday, 58 percent 
of Americans, in a Rasmussen poll, favor repeal of the health care law. 
Fifty-eight percent of Americans favor repeal of a law that was forced 
down their throats, with people around the country saying no, don't do 
this to us, we do not want to go in that direction. But this Congress, 
this body, felt it knew more than the American people.
  I talked a little bit about the British health care system. People 
also look to

[[Page S6370]]

Canada where, as the President said to us when we had our roundtable 
discussion in January, the summit at the White House, he said: 
Everybody in Canada gets coverage.
  There is a big difference between coverage and care. It is 
interesting where things are turning in Canada. It is in Regina, which 
is the birthplace of Canada's socialized health care system. That is 
where, in 1962, the bill was passed and the law was signed for a 
government-run health care system. Now the health care plan there is 
contracting out CT scans to the private sector. They are contemplating 
private reforms because the government system is failing.
  Some people say: But in Canada everybody has a doctor. According to 
the Canadian Medical Association, this report shows 4 million to 5 
million people still do not have a family physician.
  By the government's own standards in Canada--and that is a government 
and those are standards where they are used to waiting in line, where 
they expect long delays--even according to their own standards they are 
saying the Canadians are now waiting too long for care. This is even 
after massive increases in spending.
  They go on to talk about how much better the care is in the United 
States, in terms of surviving cancer, surviving heart attacks, 
surviving transplants--because in America there is greater access to 
preventive screening tests and higher treatment rates for chronic 
illnesses. So Canada is rethinking their system. Britain has announced 
they are rethinking their system under the new Prime Minister there, 
and the new government. They are cutting significantly more.
  That brings us back to Dr. Berwick, who said ``the decision is not 
whether or not we will ration care, the decision is whether we will 
ration with our eyes open.''
  It is no surprise that many people across this country view this 
nominee the same way that a former nominee who received a recess 
appointment was viewed. I will quote at the time Senator Obama when he 
was talking about a recess appointment made by then President Bush. He 
talked about the appointee, saying, ``He's damaged goods. He'll have 
less credibility.''
  That gets back to the New York Times headline, ``Settling Down to a 
New Job But Hampered By Old Words.''
  Does the public deserve a hearing for this Medicare appointee? Does 
the public deserve a hearing? Do they have a right to hear what this 
man has to say? According to the Washington Post, in a headline of 
their July 23 editorial, ``The public deserves a hearing for a Medicare 
appointee.''
  This goes on and says, in explaining his move to sidestep the Senate:

       President Obama said in explaining his move to sidestep the 
     Senate and use a recess appointment to install Donald Berwick 
     to run Medicare and Medicaid--they had some reasons.

  But they go on to say:

       Mr. Obama's hurry would have been more understandable had 
     he not waited for more than a year to select an 
     administrator. . . .

  Now the President has resubmitted Dr. Berwick's nomination, as is the 
general practice here, and those Members of this body and specifically 
those on the Senate Finance Committee, want and have made a reasonable 
request for a confirmation hearing. Still, none has been planned.
  It is interesting because the American people still want to know more 
about this nominee, what his beliefs are, and what we have to go by are 
the quotes. I have gone through a number of them now.
  The question comes also to what questions does Dr. Berwick not want 
to answer. When one looks into the past, you say: He is a doctor, he is 
going to be involved with health care, he is going to likely have to 
live under the system with Medicare and Medicaid. I am sure he is not 
going to establish something that is going to impact his health 
personally. But that gets back to the source, where Dr. Berwick has 
come from. It turns out Dr. Berwick does not need to worry about those 
things. He does not have to deal with the anxieties the rest of America 
deals with, created by limited access to care and the extent of 
coverage. I am reading now from an article from Washington, from the 
Examiner:

       As it turns out, Berwick himself does not have to deal with 
     the anxieties created by limited access to care and the 
     extent of coverage.

  It goes on to talk about a ``special benefit conferred on him by the 
board of directors of the Institute for Health Care Improvement,'' 
where he came from, ``a nonprofit health care charitable organization 
that he created and which he served as chief executive officer.''
  He and his wife will have health coverage ``from retirement until 
death.'' He has now retired to come work for the government, to be the 
head of Medicare and Medicaid. According to page 17 of his employment 
contract, under postretirement health benefits, ``health care coverage 
from retirement until death.''
  How many others can look for that sort of benefit who are working for 
nonprofit charitable organizations? Maybe he does not want to answer 
those questions. The Senate has a right and the American people have a 
right to ask the questions.
  I also found it interesting that for somebody at a nonprofit 
charitable organization, that that benefit of health care from 
retirement until death went along with the salary he earned. His 
compensation in 2008--$2.3 million, in a nonprofit charitable 
organization. I think it is reasonable for people to want to ask the 
questions, where does the $12 million in contributions come from? Where 
are the grants? How did it come in? What impact are those people going 
to have and try to have on you as you work on rules and regulations in 
Medicare and Medicaid? Those are reasonable questions that the American 
people would want to have answered, yet we do not have the answers.
  As a doctor, I go home every week, visit the people in Wyoming, and 
visit with doctors and nurses and patients. One of the things that 
strikes me is the last report--they talk about side effects. 
``Obamacare,'' it says, ``Could Punish Docs for Better Quality Care.''
  That is what I hear about the most at home from doctors who are 
taking care of their patients, saying: I do a good job, I do everything 
I can. Yet the rules and regulations are going to punish me for doing 
what I know is right for my patients.

  Part of that is rules and regulations that are coming out of Medicare 
and Medicaid and the Secretary of Health and Human Services who is 
developing these with financial incentives dealing with patient 
outcomes. One of the things they want to do is punish people, punish 
physicians and hospitals by penalizing them if a patient returns to the 
hospital after they have been discharged within a certain number of 
days.
  One of the finest hospitals in this country is the Cleveland Clinic, 
specifically relating to heart conditions. People from around the 
world--kings, sultans, queens--come to the Cleveland Clinic. Some fly 
in in their private jets. Why? Because of the quality of care at the 
Cleveland Clinic--very understandable.
  It is interesting, when the Cleveland Clinic took a look at their 
numbers, seeing how they are likely to do under the scenario that the 
Secretary of Health and Human Services says is the way to improve care 
in this country, the clinic found--it has to do with people with heart 
failure, people who are being readmitted to the hospital, patients with 
heart failure. It is considered to be a sign of poor quality care when 
a heart patient must be readmitted for further treatment.
  What the clinic did is they studied their readmission rates and they 
found that their readmission rate, in a 30-day period, was actually 
much higher than the national average. So they must not be a very good 
hospital, according to the Secretary of Health and Human Services, 
because that is how they are being judged.
  But when you look at the Cleveland Clinic in terms of how the 
patients do, how many live for much longer, what we find out is that 
the survivability of the patients at the Cleveland Clinic is also much 
longer. More people survive. The results are better. So if you are a 
patient with heart failure, you want to go to the Cleveland Clinic. If, 
on the other hand, you are somebody who works at Health and Human 
Services and are just keeping the records, they are going to say: You 
don't want to go there because some people come back into the hospital.
  Once again, we have a situation where government is saying one thing

[[Page S6371]]

and people--doctors, nurses, patients, families--know that the 
government is wrong and we should trust the doctors to make the right 
decision.
  That is why I return to the floor today to say it is time to repeal 
and to replace this health care law. We need a patient-centered health 
care bill. We need to replace anything that is either insurance company 
centered or government centered, and be patient centered. We can do 
that by allowing patients to buy insurance across State lines, to give 
people who buy their own health insurance the same tax breaks that the 
big companies get; by providing individual incentives for people who 
stay healthy, take preventive measures, lose weight, get their diabetes 
under control, get their blood pressure down, quit smoking--provide 
those incentives because that will lower the cost of care.
  We need to deal with lawsuit abuse and the expenses of unnecessary 
tests provided by doctors practicing defensive medicine. We also need 
to allow small businesses to join together to buy health insurance much 
more effectively.
  Those are the things that will work to get down the cost of care, 
increase the quality and increase the access. That is why today I offer 
my second opinion: It is time to repeal and replace this health care 
law.

                               Exhibit 1

                       Axe Falls on NHS Services

                   (By Laura Donnelly, July 24, 2010)

       NHS bosses have drawn up secret plans for sweeping cuts to 
     services, with restrictions on the most basic treatments for 
     the sick and injured.
       Some of the most common operations--including hip 
     replacements and cataract surgery--will be rationed as part 
     of attempts to save billions of pounds, despite government 
     promises that front-line services would be protected.
       Patients' groups have described the measures as 
     ``astonishingly brutal''.
       An investigation by The Sunday Telegraph has uncovered 
     widespread cuts planned across the NHS, many of which have 
     already been agreed by senior health service officials. They 
     include:
       Restrictions on some of the most basic and common 
     operations, including hip and knee 7 replacements, cataract 
     surgery and orthodontic procedures.
       Plans to cut hundreds of thousands of pounds from budgets 
     for the terminally ill, with dying cancer patients to be told 
     to manage their own symptoms if their condition worsens at 
     evenings or weekends.
       The closure of nursing homes for the elderly.
       A reduction in acute hospital beds, including those for the 
     mentally ill, with targets to discourage GPs from sending 
     patients to hospitals and reduce the number of people using 
     accident and emergency departments.
       Tighter rationing of NHS funding for IVF treatment, and for 
     surgery for obesity.
       Thousands of job losses at NHS hospitals, including 500 
     staff to go at a trust where cancer patients recently 
     suffered delays in diagnosis and treatment because of staff 
     shortages.
       Cost-cutting programmes in paediatric and maternity 
     services, care of the elderly and services that provide 
     respite breaks to long-term carers.
       The Sunday Telegraph found the details of hundreds of cuts 
     buried in obscure appendices to lengthy policy and strategy 
     documents published by trusts. In most cases, local 
     communities appear to be unaware of the plans.
       Dr. Peter Carter, the head of the Royal College of Nursing, 
     said he was ``incredibly worried'' about the disclosures.
       He urged Andrew Lansley, the Health Secretary, to ``get a 
     grip'' on the reality of what was going on in the NHS.
       The Government has promised to protect the overall budget 
     of the NHS, which will continue to receive above-inflation 
     increases, but said the service must make ``efficiency 
     savings'' of up to K20 billion by 2014, which would be 
     diverted back to the front line.
       Mr. Lansley said last month: ``This protection for the NHS 
     is protection for patients--to ensure that the sick do not 
     pay for the debt crisis.''
       Dr. Carter said: ``Andrew Lansley keeps saying that the 
     Government will protect the front line from cuts--but the 
     reality appears to be quite the opposite. We are seeing 
     trusts making job cuts even when they have already admitted 
     to being short staffed.
       ``The statements he makes may be well intentioned--but we 
     would implore him to get a grip on the reality, because these 
     kinds of cuts are incredibly worrying.''
       Katherine Murphy, of the Patients Association, said the 
     cuts were ``astonishingly brutal'' and expressed particular 
     concern at moves to ration operations such as hip and knee 
     operations.
       ``These are not unusual procedures, this is a really 
     blatant attempt to save money by leaving people in pain,'' 
     she said.
       ``Looking at these kinds of cuts, which trusts have drawn 
     up in such secrecy, it particularly worries me how far they 
     disadvantage the elderly and the vulnerable.
       ``We cannot return to the days of people waiting in pain 
     for years for a hip operation or having to pay for operations 
     privately.''
       She added that it was ``incredibly cruel'' to draw up 
     savings plans based on denying care to the dying.
       On Thursday, the board of Sutton and Merton primary care 
     trust (PCT) in London agreed more than K50 million of savings 
     in two years. The plan included more than K400,000 to be 
     saved by ``reducing length of stay'' in hospital for the 
     terminally ill.
       As well as sending more patients home to die, the paper 
     said the savings would be made by admitting fewer terminally 
     ill cancer patients to hospital because they were struggling 
     to cope with symptoms such as pain. Instead, more patients 
     would be given advice on ``self management'' of their 
     condition.
       Bill Gillespie, the trust's chief executive, said patients 
     would stay at home, or be discharged from hospital only if 
     that was their choice, and would be given support in their 
     homes.
       This week, Hertfordshire PCT plans to discuss attempts to 
     reduce spending by rationing more than 50 common procedures, 
     including hip and knee replacements, cataract surgery and 
     orthodontic treatment.
       Doctors across the county have already been told that their 
     patients can have the operations only if they are given 
     ``prior approval'' by the PCT, with each authorisation made 
     on a ``case by case'' basis.
       Elsewhere, new restrictions have been introduced to limit 
     funding of IVF.
       While many infertile couples living in Yorkshire had 
     previously been allowed two cycles of treatment--still short 
     of national guidance to fund three cycles--all the primary 
     care trusts in the county are now restricting treatment to 
     one cycle per couple.
       A ``turnaround'' plan drawn up by Peterborough PCT intends 
     to make almost K100 million of savings by 2013.
       Its cuts include closing nursing and residential homes and 
     services for the mentally ill, sending 500 fewer patients to 
     hospital each month, and cutting K17 million from acute and 
     accident and emergency services.
       Two weeks ago, Mid Yorkshire Hospitals trust agreed plans 
     to save K55 million in two years, with K20 million coming 
     from about 500 job losses.
       Yet, a month before the decision was taken, senior managers 
     at a board meeting described how staff shortages were already 
     causing delays for patients being diagnosed and treated for 
     breast cancer.
       Mr Lansley said any trusts that interpreted the 
     Government's demands for efficiency savings as budget or 
     service cuts were wrong to do so, and were ``living in the 
     past''.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware is recognized.


                              Health Care

  Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I was going to talk about small business 
lending and some ideas about how to get our economy moving again. I 
feel compelled to say something. I had the privilege of visiting, 
almost a year ago, the Cleveland Clinic. The Cleveland Clinic is one of 
a number of well-known, highly respected health delivery systems in 
this country--the Cleveland Clinic, the Mayo Clinic, Geisinger, which 
is in Pennsylvania, Intermountain up in Utah, Kaiser Permanante out in 
northern California, and several others. They have demonstrated the 
ability to provide better care for less money. Think about that. Better 
care, better outcomes, for less money.
  Their reputation is well known in this country, along with Mayo and 
some of the others I have mentioned. So I had an opportunity to go 
visit, go along with a member of my staff, Racquel Russell. We went and 
spent a day and actually stayed into the evening. It was so 
fascinating.
  What we learned was that if we look at the health care delivery 
systems, including the Cleveland Clinic I just mentioned, try to look 
and drill down on why they are able to provide better health care, 
better outcomes for less money, they have a lot of things in common 
with one another. I want to mention some of them.
  They focus on primary care, access to primary care. They like to 
catch problems when they are small, easy to repair, easy to cure. They 
focus big time on preventive care, making sure when people are the 
right age, they get colonoscopies or they have mammograms, and just a 
variety of other tests. They use preventive medicine to catch things 
when they are early.
  If prescription medicines, pharmaceuticals can be helpful in 
controlling particular cases, they make sure people have access to that 
medicine. They actually coordinate care across not just doctors that 
happen to maybe be in oncology but doctors and nurses who are in 
different parts of medicine. It may be oncology, maybe it deals with 
pulmonary disease, dementia.

[[Page S6372]]

  They do a better job working across medical lines than we work across 
party lines some days. But they do a very good job of coordinating care 
with different aspects of their health care delivery system. They have 
gotten away from what we call fee for service. Here we have something 
called fee for service. If the Presiding Officer, instead of being a 
Senator were a doctor, and I were a patient, I would come to see him. 
Every time I would come to see him, he would get paid. He would get 
paid for each visit. If he actually owns the lab he refers me to, every 
time he refers me to the lab for tests he gets some remuneration for 
that. If he has an interest in an imaging center, and I go for x rays 
or for MRIs or that kind of thing, then that is called fee for service.
  What happens in a number of places in our country, not all, is 
sometimes the doctors will, in an effort partly to make sure they do 
not get sued, and partly to make sure they are doing the best job they 
can to cure people, and in other cases there is some financial 
incentive, just refer people to maybe more visits, more tests than they 
really need. That is called fee for service. That helps drive the cost 
of our health care system. They do not have that problem at the 
Cleveland Clinic.
  I remember listening to an interview on television with a 
cardiologist at Cleveland Clinic, on CNN last year, before I went for 
the visit. He said: I am a cardiologist. He said: I am here at the 
Cleveland Clinic. I used to have my own practice. It used to be in my 
old practice I got paid--largely my salary came out of operating on 
hearts. He said: People came in and they were overweight or bad diet, 
bad fitness, and that kind of thing and just were not taking care of 
themselves, were not taking the right kind of medicines. I would urge 
them to do the right thing. But, he said, at the end of the day, if 
they did not do it, I would operate on their hearts, and that is how I 
made the bulk of my income.
  He said: Here at the Cleveland Clinic, when somebody comes to me with 
a heart problem, at the end of the day, I may operate on their heart. 
But we work very hard to make sure they are fit, that they are eating 
the right food. We work hard to make sure they are involved in some 
kind of appropriate exercise regimen. He said: We work hard to make 
sure they are not only prescribed the right medicines, they actually 
take the right medicines and do all of those things.
  He said: I get paid pretty much the same amount of money whether I am 
treating a patient that way or if I am operating on their hearts. I 
probably operate on fewer hearts today, but I think we get a better 
outcome for less money.
  One of the things I learned at the Cleveland Clinic that day is all 
of the amazing things they do to harness information technology for the 
delivery of health care. I was in a Walgreens drugstore in Seaford, DE, 
about a week or two ago and had an opportunity to see how at the other 
end--in this case we will use pharmaceuticals--but this is a way to use 
information technology to drive down health care costs.
  Anybody who was ever had a prescription given to them, written by a 
doctor, sometimes you look at it, you read it and say: What is this? Is 
this a prescription or does this say Alpo? What does this actually say? 
It is hard to read. My handwriting is not the best, but I read some 
others that are even harder than mine to read.
  At the Cleveland Clinic, they do not handwrite prescriptions; they do 
electronic prescriptions so there is no mistake. They are smart enough 
with their IT system that all of their patients have electronic health 
records. So they have the full health care picture of their patient.
  Not only that, if they were going to prescribe something, a 
medicine--let's say a patient is already taking 10 medicines. Whatever 
new ones they are prescribing, their IT system looks at the other 10 
medicines. They look to see whether the new prescription is compatible 
with medicines they are already taking. They do not want to prescribe 
medicine that creates more problems than actually helps people.
  Also, they have the ability--a bunch of our leading health care 
delivery systems--to know when a prescription has been ordered or that 
it has actually been picked up; that it has been filled and someone is 
taking it. They have the ability to know whether someone, if they are 
supposed to get refills in so many days, if someone actually refills 
the prescriptions and continues to take the medicines they are supposed 
to be taking. If they do not, they get a call from their health care 
delivery system, clinic, hospital, or doctor's office.
  We are getting smart enough now, after mapping the human genome, to 
actually know what medicines--let's say the Presiding Officer and I 
have the same health condition, but we have a different genetic makeup. 
He can take this medicine, and it will make him well. I can take this 
medicine all day, all week, all month, all year, and it will never help 
me at all. We have the same problem, but because of our genetic makeup 
it will help him but it will not help me.
  We are smart enough now to start figuring this stuff out. We are 
making sure that not only people are taking the medicines they need to 
take, but they do not interact badly with other medicines; that they 
continue to take the medicines they are supposed to be taking. But we 
stop spending money on medicines that are not going to help people and 
spend that money in ways that will help them and continue to provide 
the money for medicines that will help someone who has the right 
genetic makeup.
  My colleague who spoke before me said we need to sell insurance 
across State lines. Well, one of the things we do in terms of things 
that work, we have a big purchasing pool that all Federal employees are 
part of, the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan. We buy our health 
insurance from an 8 million-person purchasing pool, 8 million people. 
We do not have 8 million Federal employees, but if we add up all 
Federal employees, all Federal retirees, all of our dependents, it adds 
up to 8 million people. That is a large purchasing pool. We buy private 
health insurance from all kinds of private health insurance companies. 
They compete with each other, and it drives down prices. We have a 
large purchasing pool, economies of scale. The administrative cost for 
our purchasing pool is 3 percent; 3 percent for every premium dollar 
goes for administrative cost.
  If you go out on your own and try to buy health care in the DC area 
or back home in Delaware or Illinois or wherever you are from, 
administrative cost for an individual, for a family, for a small 
business, is more like maybe 23 percent of premiums or 33 percent. But 
they are not 3 percent.
  What we call for in our legislation, this new law, we want to create 
these large purchasing pools all across the country. Every State is 
going to be required to establish, by 2014, a large purchasing pool 
that individuals can join, families can join, small businesses can join 
to buy their health care. If it is a little State like Delaware, we are 
too small to have a big purchasing pool. But under our legislation, we 
can enter into an interstate compact with our neighbor, Maryland, or 
maybe with Pennsylvania, or maybe with New Jersey, or maybe with all of 
them and create a large regional purchasing pool, be able to drive down 
administrative costs, increase competition.
  Listen to this, to my colleague's point: sell insurance, health 
insurance, across State lines. We have a four-State exchange or 
purchasing pool. The insurance sold in Delaware could be sold in 
Maryland; it could be sold in Pennsylvania; it could be sold in New 
Jersey, and vice-versa, to drive down costs.
  My colleague mentioned we ought to incentivize people who take better 
care of themselves. Well, Senator Ensign of Nevada and I offered, and 
it was adopted and is part of the law today, something that says 
employers can offer premium discounts to employees who are overweight 
and lose weight, keep it off; employees who smoke, stop smoking, 
continue to stop smoking; employees who have high blood pressure, high 
cholesterol, if they bring it down, keep it down, they can receive 
premium discounts through their employer by as much as 30 percent for 
those employees to incentivize them to take better care of themselves 
and be less of a health risk.
  A lot of the problems we have with health care today in this country 
flow from the fact that we are overweight. One-third of us are 
overweight or on

[[Page S6373]]

our way to being obese. Almost one-third of us are obese, kids too.
  We actually have done in the legislation what my colleague was 
calling for, incentivize people to take personal responsibility. If 
they do that, they are better off. He also mentioned medical 
malpractice reform. We actually included in the legislation medical 
malpractice reform based on earlier proposals by Senator Mike Enzi, 
also from Wyoming, and Senator Max Baucus. They are in the bill. I 
think they are going to give us a lot of good ideas of what is working 
to do three things across the country: One, reduce medical malpractice 
lawsuits; two, reduce the incidence of defensive medicine; and, three, 
provide better outcomes. We will be seeing results of some very 
exciting things done in Delaware and other States to be able to emulate 
Michigan among those other States.
  I did not come to the floor to talk about that. But when I hear stuff 
like this, I say: Someone needs to set the record straight. As a guy 
who is on the Finance Committee, I worked a lot on the legislation and 
focused on, day after day, month after month, trying to figure out how 
to provide better health care for less money, looking at other the 
Cleveland Clinic or Mayo Clinic or other entities, or looking at other 
countries, such as Japan. They spend half as much for health care as we 
do. Eight percent of gross domestic product is what they spend. We 
spend 16 percent. They get better results: lower rates of infant 
mortality, higher rates of longevity. They get better results. They 
cover everybody. We have about 30 to 40 million who are not covered.
  So for us to say, well, we will just go willy-nilly on for the rest 
of this decade or this century and pretty much do what we have been 
doing, that is foolish. Ironically, some of things that my colleague 
was recommending, we are actually doing in the legislation and will be 
rolling out and doing more in the years to come.
  The last thing I want to say before I move to small businesses and 
job creation is Dr. Donald Berwick has been nominated to be the head of 
CMS, which is the entity that oversees Medicare and Medicaid. One of 
the people I most respect in trying to learn about health care and 
health care delivery, finding out how we provide better outcomes for 
less money, is a guy named Mark McClellan. Mark McClellan, when I first 
met him, was a health adviser to former President George W. Bush. He 
ended up being the head of the Food and Drug Administration. I think 
for a while he was the head of CMS, the position to which Dr. Berwick 
has been nominated.
  Among the people who have recommended Dr. Berwick highly for this 
position is Mark McClellan, who is an economist, who is a physician, 
who has actually run a couple of big Federal agencies. I think it would 
be smart to listen to a fellow who actually worked in a Republican 
administration, had the President's ear, and served us very well in 
some high-level positions, including the same agency, CMS.
  It would be smart to listen to Mark McClellan. I think I might have 
misheard, but I thought there was an assertion that Dr. Berwick and his 
wife had worked for a nonprofit and he had health care insurance for 
the rest of his life, up to death.
  I would just think, for the folks who serve here today, who served in 
wars--we have people who have earned the Congressional Medal of Honor 
for their service in World War II, folks who were prisoners of war in 
Vietnam and served, gosh, 20, 30 years and more in some cases in the 
military. They have lifetime insurance as well--not from being in the 
Senate but from the work for nonprofit; whether it was a State 
government or Federal Government or local government. I do not think 
there is anything that is so unusual about that. Should they be 
disqualified from being a Senator because they have lifetime health 
care because of their service or because they were Governor of a State 
or attorney general of a State? I do not know if that makes a whole lot 
of sense.
  So I did not come here to talk about any of this, but I just felt 
compelled to mention these things.
  Let me pivot, if I can, and just take 5 minutes to talk about small 
business. Mark Zandi is an economist, a smart one too. He started 
something called moodyseconomy.com. He comes and speaks to not just our 
caucuses, Democrats in the Senate, but he was, during the Presidential 
campaign in 2008, an economic adviser to John McCain, very well 
respected. He just calls them like he sees them, calls them like he 
sees them.
  We asked him earlier this year: Well, why are we not seeing--even 
though job loss is way down, where 18 months ago we lost 700,000 jobs a 
month, last month we actually gained 50,000 or 60,000 jobs or so. I 
think that is about what we are averaging for the first part of this 
year. We want to do better than that. It is not like losing 700,000 
jobs a month. So we have made improvements.
  But we asked him: Dr. Zandi, why aren't big businesses hiring?
  He said: Uncertainty. Businesses like certainty. There is too much 
uncertainty. He said this earlier this year. There is uncertainty about 
what, if anything, you all are going to do about health care; drive 
down costs, better outcomes, drive them down. What are you going to do 
about financial regulatory reform, Wall Street? What are you going to 
do about deficit reduction? What are you going to do about climate 
change, global warming, energy policy?
  What are you going to do about transportation policy? What are you 
going to do about a variety of things but those major things I have 
just mentioned.
  Dr. Zandi's counsel is: You want big companies to start hiring? They 
are making money. You want them to start hiring people? Address the 
uncertainties.
  So we have addressed the uncertainty with health care, not to 
everyone's satisfaction, but it does a lot more good than bad. We have 
addressed the uncertainties with respect to financial regulatory 
reform. I think it does more good than bad. Not everyone shares that 
view, but I think it does. We are trying to address with our 
legislation today and this week, this month, next month, something 
called tax extenders; a lot of tax cuts, tax credits that expired at 
the beginning of this year, such as the R&D tax credit and biodiesel 
tax credit. A bunch of them are expired and have been expired for 7 
months. We need to provide some certainty so that businesses and 
families know what to plan for and do.
  We need to provide some certainty so businesses and families know 
what to plan for and do. Mark Zandi said those are the concerns for big 
businesses that want to start hiring, to address the uncertainty, and 
to provide predictability and certainty.
  We said: How about small businesses?
  He said: Unlike big businesses--a lot of big businesses are reporting 
pretty big earnings levels--a lot of small businesses are not doing so 
well. One of the things that small businesses need is better access to 
capital. They need to be able to borrow money and raise money, whether 
they want to buy or rent a building, buy new equipment for their 
building, whether they want to buy transportation equipment, trucks or 
whatever, forklifts, whether they just need money for working capital. 
Small businesses need access to capital.
  There is not a perfect solution for that problem, but that is a big 
problem for small businesses, and access to capital is not the solution 
for every small business, but it is for a number.
  The legislation before us seeks to address that need for small 
businesses. I will take a moment and read through a couple items in the 
legislation that commend it to the Senate and to our acting on it soon.
  This bill has about $12 billion in tax incentives to help boost 
investment in small businesses and promote entrepreneurship. The bill 
eliminates the capital gains tax on small business stocks for people 
who purchase these stocks this year and hold them for 5 years. This 
legislation will encourage more people to invest in small businesses 
and will help give these businesses the capital they need to grow and 
create new jobs. The legislation also allows more small businesses an 
immediate tax write-off. We call this expensing for upgrades in their 
buildings and equipment. If they buy a building, a business, they 
usually have to depreciate it over a period of years. This legislation 
allows small businesses that make a capital expenditure, whether it is 
a

[[Page S6374]]

building or equipment, to write it off in the first year. That is a 
great incentive to making major investments. This kind of tax break 
will encourage businesses to purchase everything from new software and 
computers to buildings, new roofs, windows, and vehicles. At the same 
time, it will encourage hiring in industries that sell those products.
  The bill before us fosters the next generation of entrepreneurs by 
temporarily doubling the tax incentive, an existing tax incentive from 
$5,000 to $10,000 to incentivize entrepreneurs to start a new business. 
We call this the startup deduction. This increase will help offset the 
high cost of launching a new company.
  These ideas, along with many other bipartisan tax breaks in the bill, 
will encourage smaller employers to create jobs. It will strengthen 
capital investment and ultimately move the economy forward on the road 
to recovery.
  (Mr. MERKLEY assumed the chair.)
  The bill also includes what we call a Small Business Lending Fund to 
help our Nation's struggling small businesses succeed. Almost every 
week I visit businesses, small and large, in Delaware. I hear over and 
over again, especially from small businesses, the same concern--access 
to capital. The $30 billion Small Business Lending Fund in this bill 
addresses this concern by providing our community banks with the funds 
they need to increase lending to small businesses. We incentivize banks 
to increase their lending by lowering the dividend rate they must pay 
back to the Treasury as they demonstrate an increase in small business 
lending.
  We did something similar to this earlier. We created a fund, and we 
essentially didn't give the money to the banks. We didn't loan the 
money to banks. We bought the bank's preferred stock. They had to pay 
us a dividend on the stock. Five percent was the dividend rate on the 
preferred stock we bought. If they didn't buy back the preferred stock 
within several years, they had to pay us a 9-percent dividend rate on 
the preferred stock. We infused capital into the banks, largely banks 
with over $10 billion in assets. For the most part, they have returned 
to profitability. They have repaid, bought back their preferred stock. 
They have paid dividends on all of it for the most part. Actually, we 
have exercised, on behalf of taxpayers, something called warrants 
which, as the stock values recover, enables taxpayers to participate in 
the debt and the return of profitability.
  We wish to do a similar thing with banks of less than $10 billion. In 
this case, we buy the preferred stock. The amount of dividend they have 
to pay back to the Treasury depends on whether they lend the money to 
small businesses. If they lend the money and they use essentially this 
capital infusion as it is intended, they end up with almost a zero 
dividend rate. If they don't lend any of it, they have to pay a 9-
percent dividend rate. So there is an incentive there.
  Finally, we are building upon successful Small Business 
Administration initiatives that were part of the Recovery Act. By 
increasing both loan sizes and the guarantees for the Small Business 
Administration loans, we can help meet the credit needs of small 
businesses. According to a recent report by the National Small Business 
Association, these Recovery Act programs are working, and they are 
still greatly needed. Last week, the National Small Business 
Association announced that when the small business provisions of the 
stimulus package, adopted about a year and a half ago, expired at the 
end of May, Small Business Administration lending plummeted. In June of 
this year, the Small Business Administration approved only $647 million 
of loans to small businesses. The previous month, before this expired, 
it was $1.9 billion in loans. It is clear--to me at least--that the 
enhancements to current Small Business Administration programs in the 
bill are critically important and will help lenders provide loans and 
help small businesses create jobs in communities.
  One of the things we need to do to relieve uncertainty and get us 
going on the right track is to eliminate uncertainty. One of the great 
sources of uncertainty is what we do on health care. We have done 
something on health care--more good than bad. The CBO tells us the 
actual effect on the deficit is to reduce the deficit, forecasted 
deficits by $120 billion over the next 10 years and by roughly another 
$1.2 trillion in the years after that. So not only do we have the 
potential of providing better health care to people who don't have it 
but also to do something positive on the deficit side, beginning to 
address the uncertainty. In terms of uncertainty, it is important for 
large business and for small business. The real problem for small 
business is to make it possible for them to access capital, to get 
loans, whether for plant and equipment or for working capital. The 
legislation we are debating this week actually does that in a variety 
of ways.
  The Presiding Officer is somebody who has actually worked on this 
stuff pretty hard. I commend Senator Merkley and a variety of others, 
Senator Landrieu and others, for the good work they have done on this 
legislation, on both sides of the aisle. We ought to let this bill go. 
We ought to give this bill an up-or-down vote. In doing so, we will do 
the right thing not only for the Senate and those of us who are 
privileged to serve here but for the country, particularly our small 
businesses.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. BURRIS. Mr. President, I am impressed by the distinguished 
Senator from Delaware. Not only has he outlined the information in the 
small business legislation which we are in the process of debating, but 
he so eloquently expounded on what we have done in health care to 
respond to the second opinion of our distinguished colleague from 
Wyoming. The Senator from Delaware did a tremendous job of covering the 
health care issue and what is actually in the bill. It has to be on the 
record. I thank the Senator for being eloquent in that regard.
  I am here to speak about the small business legislation. I must also 
commend the Senator from Delaware, as he covered some key points. Being 
a former banker myself, an individual who actually financed companies--
when I was in the banking business, I financed small businesses, even 
startup businesses--I have a great knowledge of what it takes to make 
sure those businesses have the necessary capital and resources in order 
to survive and provide jobs across the respective communities they 
serve. The legislation before us is crucial to the recovery of our 
respective communities with this recession.
  As a public servant, I have been a strong advocate for American small 
businesses, especially disadvantaged and minority-owned businesses, 
because they are the engine of the economy. Before I was a public 
official, I was a banker. I worked hard every day to spur investments 
on Main Street. I worked to make capital available for small businesses 
so entrepreneurs and innovators could create jobs and bring prosperity 
to local communities. Today, as a result of the harsh economic reality 
in which we are existing, many of these businesses are finding it 
tougher than ever to survive. Credit is largely dried up. Capital 
investment is difficult to come by. Even as our economy begins to move 
forward toward recovery, small and disadvantaged businesses continue to 
lag behind. I believe we need to place small businesses at the heart of 
our response to this crisis. More needs to be done. Passing the Small 
Business Lending Act would be a step in the right direction. This 
incentive will create jobs for struggling Americans by providing 
increased lending to small businesses so they can support and expand 
their operations.
  Small businesses are in a position to create well-paying jobs and 
produce growth at the local level. It is time to make them a priority 
again. If we fail to act today, if we fail to pass the Small Business 
Lending Act and fall short of our commitment to America's innovators 
and entrepreneurs, I fear our Nation will fall into a jobless recovery, 
and small businesses across the country will continue to suffer the 
detrimental effects of this recession.
  I recognize government cannot directly create jobs in the same way 
the private sector can but few can deny that government has an integral 
role in getting America back on track. Our job as public officials is 
to support and

[[Page S6375]]

promote responsible practices, implement sensible regulations, and help 
direct investments to the areas that need it most. Under current law, 
the Small Business Administration provides key support to small 
businesses through its 8(a) program. This program offers technical 
assistance, training, and contract opportunities to small businesses 
that meet specific criteria. I am a strong advocate of this initiative 
which has helped to keep small and disadvantaged businesses viable and 
make sure everyone has a chance to share in the economic prosperity.
  Mr. President, 8(a) has made a difference in numerous communities. It 
has eased some of the worst effects of the crisis for those entities 
that are most vulnerable. Yet despite its success, this program's 
impact and reach has been restricted because only a small number of 
businesses are eligible for this kind of support. That is why I 
introduced an amendment during the debate that would expand the 8(a) 
program.
  My measure would have increased the continued eligibility amount from 
$750,000 to $2.5 million, so more small businesses could benefit from 
this assistance. But, unfortunately, my amendment was not included in 
the final package.
  While it did not make the cut this time, I hope my colleagues will 
join me in giving further consideration and attention to the 8(a) 
program in the near future. What this will do is allow those 
individuals who may have reached a net worth of $1.1 million or $1.2 
million or $1.5 million or even $2 million to say they are still small. 
In this economy, if you have $2 million, people say you are rich. Well, 
that is not the case if you are a small businessperson. That is the 
reason why I am saying in order to still be able to qualify for the 
8(a) program, we should increase the eligibility amount to $2.5 
million, and thereby they can continue to compete and continue to have 
a chance to be in the small and disadvantaged minority category.
  Expansion of this program would afford our small businesses the 
assistance they need and create jobs for Americans amid this rough 
economic climate.
  With the Small Business Lending Act before us today, we have an 
opportunity to renew our investment in America's small businesses. I 
urge my colleagues to vote in favor of this legislation so we can 
foster economic growth on the local level and generate much needed 
jobs.
  I wish to reiterate what the distinguished Senator from Delaware said 
in terms of how we can expand these businesses by giving tax incentives 
to these companies, by eliminating the capital gains tax that would 
come about for any transaction they would make, by allowing them to 
write off the depreciation for their capital purchases.
  We have this legislation before us now, which we must pass before we 
adjourn for our summer recess, and get this legislation over to the 
House so the House can pass it before they adjourn, a week before we 
adjourn. We need to make sure we get this legislation passed.
  We saw the Senator from Louisiana fight gallantly to pass the 
amendment to allow the banks to have $30 billion which they could put 
out for small businesses. That amendment had been stricken, and the 
Senator did not yield to that deduction from that piece of this 
package. She fought to get that amendment into this legislation. Now 
what we must do is get the 60 votes needed to pass the Small Business 
Lending Act so we can get about the business of saying, yes, we are 
concerned about Main Street as much as we are about Wall Street. When 
we do that, we can go back to our constituents and say we have done 
something that is beneficial to our communities which will help us to 
get this economy moving again to help those people who need it the 
most.
  Mr. President, I see the distinguished Senator from New Hampshire on 
the floor. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
  Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I am pleased to join my colleague, 
Senator Burris, from Illinois, and the other Senators who have been on 
the floor this afternoon to speak to the Small Business Jobs Act that 
is pending before us today.
  For weeks now, the Senate has been considering the Small Business 
Jobs Act. Today, I hope we will finally be able to pass this 
commonsense legislation that will help small employers and 
entrepreneurs to grow their businesses and to hire new workers.
  While we have seen some signs that our economy is beginning to 
recover in New Hampshire, too many workers still cannot find the jobs 
they need to put food on the table and pay the mortgage. The best way 
to create those jobs is to invest in our small businesses.
  Over the past 15 years, small businesses have created almost two-
thirds of the new jobs in America. Small businesses are the cornerstone 
of New Hampshire's economy. Over 96 percent of businesses in the 
Granite State are small businesses with fewer than 50 employees.
  But small businesses, as we all have heard, continue to feel the 
effects of a recession they had no hand in creating. That is why we 
need to pass the Small Business Jobs Act today.
  This bipartisan legislation will dramatically increase lending to 
small businesses. It will enhance the ability of small companies to 
export. It will provide tax relief to so many small firms.
  I am proud, as a member of the Small Business Committee, I worked 
with my chair, Mary Landrieu, who has done a terrific job on this bill, 
and ranking member Olympia Snowe, on provisions to enhance critical SBA 
programs. I am pleased to report this was a bipartisan effort.
  I have come to the floor several times over the past few weeks to 
talk about the many important provisions in this bill--provisions that 
will get capital moving to small businesses again, and to provide them 
with some tax relief. But today I want to come to the floor to discuss 
another critical component of this bill, one that every Senator in this 
Chamber should support; that is, helping our small businesses sell 
their products overseas.
  Exports are a great opportunity for small businesses that are looking 
to grow. Growing a small business is often about finding new markets 
for your products. Selling into foreign markets is especially important 
for businesses in my home State of New Hampshire.
  Even in the difficult economic climate last year, one of the real 
bright spots in New Hampshire's economy has been exports. In 2009, New 
Hampshire had its second highest export year ever. But there is still a 
huge potential to continue to increase exporting by America's small 
businesses.
  This chart I have in the Chamber shows the opportunity that exists 
for our small businesses. Only 5 percent of the world's customers live 
in the United States. We can see on the chart that is that very small 
blue portion of this pie chart. So that means 95 percent of the world's 
markets are outside of the United States.
  But, of course, there are still significant barriers to small 
businesses as they try to access that remaining 95 percent of the 
world's population. For a small business, starting to export can be 
challenging. Unlike big firms, they do not have the technical capacity 
to identify new markets. They do not have the resources to go on trade 
missions, and they do not have the marketing expertise to promote their 
products to foreign buyers.
  We can see the challenge small businesses face versus the challenge 
large businesses face on this pie chart. For large businesses, 42 
percent of them export. For small businesses, only 1 percent of them in 
the country export. So 99 percent of small businesses still have the 
opportunity to access those international markets.
  A vote for this bill is a vote to help small businesses in New 
Hampshire and across the country--businesses that are looking to export 
but do not have the resources or the expertise to do so. It is a vote 
to help small businesses create the jobs that will help us emerge from 
this recession.
  I want to talk a little bit about one New Hampshire business that has 
been able to benefit from the kind of export assistance this bill will 
offer. The company is called Dartware. It is a high-tech company in 
West Lebanon, NH, over in the western part of our State, right across 
the river from Vermont. It is a pretty sophisticated business. It 
builds software to help improve professional networks. But even though 
they

[[Page S6376]]

are sophisticated, they still had a tough time navigating the 
international terrain. So Dartware went to New Hampshire's 
International Trade Resource Center where they found a U.S. Foreign 
Commercial Service specialist who could help them, along with the folks 
at the Trade Resource Center. The center provided Dartware with a 
customized international market assessment and connected the business 
to international buyers for their services.
  As a result, Dartware now has developed partner relationships in 
countries such as Brazil, China, South Africa, Egypt, and Argentina--
countries that are emerging markets that offer opportunities for New 
Hampshire and America's small businesses.
  The bill that is pending before us would give more small businesses 
such as Dartware the opportunity to succeed in exporting.
  The Small Business Jobs Act includes two bipartisan bills I 
cosponsored that will help more companies access critical export 
resources. For the past few years, Federal and State resources have 
dwindled, while companies such as Dartware have clamored for more of 
these services to help them know how to export.
  The Foreign Commercial Service has not been able to replace many of 
their retiring officials and, as a result, the service has been 
severely understaffed. This legislation, the small business jobs bill, 
restores staffing at the Commerce Department to 2004 levels and creates 
a competitive grant program so that strapped State export assistance 
centers will have that ability to provide grants to companies. This 
bill passed out of the Senate Commerce Committee with broad bipartisan 
support.
  The Small Business Jobs Act also includes bipartisan legislation 
which will strengthen SBA export assistance programs. These programs 
help small businesses get the loans they need to finance their export 
growth and will provide export expertise. This part of the bill passed 
out of the Small Business Committee by a vote of 18 to 0.
  So two more provisions in the legislation pending before us that have 
broad bipartisan support. These commonsense measures that had strong 
bipartisan support in committee deserve support on the floor when we 
vote on this legislation. There is no reason we should not have a 
strong bipartisan vote today when the full Senate takes up this 
legislation.
  I hope all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will join me 
in voting for this bill because it is going to make a difference to our 
small businesses, and it is going to mean they can grow, they can add 
jobs, and we can put people back to work in this country. I urge my 
colleagues to join us in voting for this legislation.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant editor of the Daily Digest proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DORGAN. 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. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in 
morning business for 15 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                            Aviation Safety

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I have come to the floor to talk about a 
piece of legislation that perhaps is not on the front pages of the 
newspapers today but is very important in this Congress and to the 
American people. It is very important that we pass this legislation. We 
have been waiting and waiting, and we continue to wait. It is called 
the reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration bill. We 
have been working on this for a long time.
  This is not just reauthorization for some bureaucracy; this is about 
safety for the American public who is flying today. Let me put up a 
chart that shows where the airplanes are in the skies today. I think I 
have a chart on that which describes the number of flights in this 
country. The air is literally packed with airplanes flying all across 
this country. The question is, How are they controlled? Ground-based 
radar systems are keeping track of all of these flights. This is a map 
that shows the airplanes that are flying in the country at a given 
time--very crowded skies. This FAA reauthorization bill has a lot to do 
with safety. The reason it is so important--I am going to talk about 
the safety piece first, and then I will talk about why it has been 
blocked and how we finally get some action on this and why I finally 
have had a bellyful of trying to persuade people that we ought to pass 
legislation that I think is critically important to save lives in this 
country.
  Let me remind all of my colleagues about February 12 last year. 
February 12 of last year was the tragic crash of Colgan Air flight 
3407. That crash should not have happened. That crash took the lives of 
45 passengers, 2 flight attendants, 2 pilots, and 1 person on the 
ground. It should never, ever have happened.
  The families of the victims of Colgan Air flight 3407 have 
consistently been to every hearing I have held on safety dealing with 
aviation. They have been, at every moment possible, here in the Capitol 
Building, office to office, door to door, saying: Pass this legislation 
to reauthorize the FAA, including the dramatic safety changes we 
propose.
  They provided a chart board that shows photographs of their loved 
ones, those who climbed on that airplane that evening to fly from 
Newark to Buffalo, NY. It was a night flight on a Bombardier-8. During 
that flight, icing occurred on the wings.
  I have read the transcript from that cockpit between the pilot and 
the copilot. Let me describe a couple of things we learned.
  The young pilot lived in Seattle, WA, and commuted to work to Newark. 
She deadheaded all night long on a FedEx plane stopping in Memphis, 
landed in Newark--no evidence that she slept--and then she boarded an 
airplane to haul passengers to Buffalo, NY. That was the copilot. The 
copilot, I understand, earned somewhere around $20,000, $22,000 a year 
and had a second job in a coffee job to make ends meet. My 
understanding was she lived with her parents. That was the copilot. The 
pilot commuted from Florida. There is no evidence that the pilot slept 
the night before. He spent time in the crew lounge, where there is no 
bed. That pilot boarded the same plane. That raises all kinds of issues 
about fatigue and commuting--commuting all night to board an airplane 
to haul passengers.
  When you read the transcript of what occurred in that cockpit, you 
also understand there were very serious issues about training--the 
stick pusher and the stick shaker and flying into ice and not following 
procedures, all of these issues.
  Forty-five passengers died that night. The question is, Is there one 
level of safety in this country when you get on an airplane and you 
look in that cockpit? Is there one level of safety if you are on a 
large plane or carrier versus a small regional carrier? Do you have the 
same experience in the cockpit, the same level of training? Where have 
the crews come from? Did they fly all night all across the country just 
to get to their work station?
  Well, the Colgan crash told us a lot. Here is what happened that 
evening. There was ice on the wings. This was the crash site near 
Buffalo, NY, on February 12, 2009.
  Here is another photograph of the crash site. This crash should never 
have happened. Those victims should not have died. They should have 
been safely on the ground with their loved ones.
  What has gone wrong here? Let me at least describe a few things that 
I think. One was fatigue. Clearly, that played a role. Here is a quote 
that NBC News ran from a pilot on a 737 jet flying to Denver, CO:

       I had been doing everything in my power to stay awake: 
     coffee, gum, candy. But as we entered one of the most 
     critical phases of flight, I had been up for 20 straight 
     hours.

  Fatigue. Is this someone in a working condition who is sharp, on 
edge, landing a plane with perhaps 150 people on board?
  Here is another quote from an 18-year veteran pilot, describing the 
routine of commuter flights with short layovers in the middle of the 
night:

       Take a shower, brush your teeth, and pretend you slept.

  He said that is the way it works.
  Here is another quote from a pilot:

       I was bathed in sweat and scared to death.


[[Page S6377]]


  That is an 18-year pilot describing the approach to the runway after 
numerous early morning commuter flights over 3 days.
  Here is a photograph of a pilot crash pad. He watches a movie on his 
computer at a crash house in Sterling Park, VA, which is not far from 
here. These houses, which can have 20 to 24 occupants at a time, are 
designed to give flight crews from regional airlines a quiet place to 
sleep near their base airports. Many can't afford hotels, so they use 
crash houses where they pay $200 a month for a bed.
  I described the young lady who was the copilot on the Colgan Air 
flight that crashed. She commuted from Seattle, WA to Newark to get to 
her duty station. There was no evidence that she had slept in a bed. It 
raises a lot of questions.
  At hearings I held, I held up this chart to show where the Colgan 
pilots were commuting from flying on that particular regional airline. 
They were flying out of Newark. You could see where they are commuting 
from, such as home stations in Los Angeles, in Seattle, in Texas, and 
they commuted to work all the way across the country.
  I describe these charts only to talk about one phase of the 
investigation of the Colgan crash, and that is fatigue and rest--crew 
rest. We have a piece of legislation that addresses a number of these 
issues: What is the experience of the pilot in the cockpit? How many 
hours must that pilot have of relevant experience and training to sit 
in that cockpit and haul passengers on a commercial airplane?
  We addressed that and so many other critical areas of safety. That is 
in the FAA reauthorization bill--a piece of legislation we passed in 
the Senate Commerce Committee long ago. Now it is awaiting action on 
the floor of the Senate. Yet, we have not been able to get it done.
  I want to talk a little about the importance of this legislation. No. 
1, it creates jobs. It is investment in infrastructure, airport 
improvement funds--investing in the infrastructure of this country.
  Let me describe the central elements of this bill. Airport 
Improvement Program. That is tens of thousands of jobs around this 
country.
  Aviation safety. I have touched on that.
  Air traffic control modernization.
  A passenger bill of rights.
  Small community air service.
  Let me talk for a moment about the air traffic control modernization. 
I showed a chart with all of those airplanes in the air. Every single 
passenger on every one of those planes could be flying in safer 
conditions now if we were moving, as we should, with this bill, in 
modernizing the air traffic control system. Our kids carry cell phones 
around that have GPS capability. Those of the commercial airliners in 
this country are flying to ground-based radar, not GPS. They don't 
utilize what our kids have in their cell phones in commercial 
airplanes, which would allow them to fly safer routes, fly more direct 
routes. Modernization of the air traffic control system is long 
overdue, and it has a lot to do with aviation safety. It is in this 
bill.
  This bill must get done. To not move forward on this--Europeans are, 
and others--and to have us fall further behind is unthinkable to me. 
The passenger bill of rights--we include that in this bill, and it says 
some very important things. The passenger bill of rights says that they 
are not going to be able to keep you on an airplane for 6 or 8 hours 
when they have trouble on the runway and you sit on the tarmac for 6 or 
8 hours. Three hours. We set the conditions under the passenger bill of 
rights, airplanes--that is, the aircraft companies, airline companies, 
must comply with the rules that we have established.
  This legislation provides consumer benefits for 700 million plane 
trips per year taken by the American people. We have heard horror 
stories from around this country: passengers stuck on the tarmac for 6 
hours, 8 hours, bathrooms not working, out of water. The fact is, this 
bill will improve that and the disclosure of flight information to 
passengers, impose certain burdens on the airlines, and that is the 
right approach. All of these things are in this FAA reauthorization 
bill.
  What is holding up the bill? Well, first and foremost, in the Senate, 
we passed the bill with the understanding that there is a controversy 
called slots and perimeter rules at Washington National Airport. When 
we passed it through the Senate, 93 to 0, we understood that we didn't 
resolve the slots and perimeter rule issue. The House has additional 
slots at DC National, but we didn't do anything on it. We didn't do 
zero. We understood that we passed the bill and would negotiate it 
later, and negotiations have ensued. Now we have several 
representations saying: I represent my area, my region, or my airport, 
and therefore I object.
  Do you know what. It is fine to represent your interests in your 
region, but it is not fine to block the bill. It is not fine to block 
this bill. In fact, the latest discussions that have been held, with 
respect to slots at DC airport, are 16 additional slots--not new 
flights in or out of DC National Airport, but flights that would have 
flown within the perimeter that would now fly outside of the perimeter. 
I know that is lost on most people because this perimeter rule limits 
the number of miles you can fly from DC National Airport. This would 
convert flights inside the perimeter to flights outside of it--16 
flights. So it is no new traffic to DC National. Those who proposed it 
said: We would agree that we would have the same size airplanes flying 
the flights.
  Yet, we have massive amounts of controversy around here with people 
saying: Well, I am going to block this and that.
  Let me say this: If you care much about safety in the skies and at 
long last you want to pass an FAA bill to improve safety, if you care 
about the airport improvement program and infrastructure and airports 
and runways and building the infrastructure and creating tens of 
thousands of jobs, and if you care about small community air services, 
a passenger bill of rights and having America keep up with air traffic 
control modernization, you can't possibly be blocking this bill.
  I am not going to describe who it is, with names and so on. This is 
not about Democrats or Republicans, or conservatives or liberals; this 
is about, are we going to fail again? I have watched so many failures 
because people have decided they are going to block this or that. What 
we have had in this entire Congress is one side of the aisle blocking 
most everything for a long period of time. This bill happens to be 
bipartisan. There is no excuse, no reason to block this legislation.
  It appears to me that a couple things are likely to happen. If 
interests that have been involved in these discussions continue to 
block this, this bill will fail, and the American people will be flying 
in skies that are less safe than they could be. We will not have made 
the improvements we should make. We will not make the investments and 
create the jobs we should create. I suppose those who block it will 
think they have done something meritorious for the country, but they 
will have injured this country's interests.
  My hope is that in the coming couple of days, those who have said 
they are going to block this legislation will think again and 
understand that this place only works through compromise; it only works 
if we are willing to understand that everybody has different views on 
these things, and let's find a way to effectively compromise and pass 
legislation that strengthens this country.
  If I sound a little irritated, I am, because I have had a belly full 
of the intransigence that exists in this Chamber. Nobody fights harder 
for their interests than I do. But I also understand, having served 
here long enough, that there is a need to make this place work by being 
willing to compromise your interests in a fair way. We have gone at 
this now for some weeks. It has been a long while since the Senate 
passed this bill. It is very close to a point where, I believe, we will 
not have the time to continue working on this, and what we will see is 
that this bill will, once again, fail, and we will extend, once again, 
the FAA reauthorization bill for a short time, and then until the next 
Congress. God bless everybody who dug their heels in and decided they 
could only live with what they could live with and would not 
compromise, but they have done no favor to this country. They can all 
chew on that for a while.
  I hope that in the coming days, yes, families of the victims of 
Colgan will

[[Page S6378]]

perhaps have some ability to influence those who want to block this 
legislation. Perhaps those who are out of work and would get work with 
the airport improvement funds will influence them. Maybe those who care 
about continued air service to small communities would have some 
ability to influence them. Maybe those who care about the passengers 
bill of rights--at long last, maybe they will be persuasive.
  One way or another, I hope that finally we will see if maybe there is 
a public spiritedness in this Chamber and also an interest in doing the 
right thing and pass the FAA reauthorization bill.
  I understand my colleague from Kansas is here ready to speak. I will 
defer until later.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas is recognized.


                       Renewable Energy Standard

  Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I thank my colleague for yielding the 
floor. I invite him to stay. I want to talk about a renewable energy 
standard we need to have in an energy piece of legislation. I know it 
is something he is interested in, and has been, and it is something I 
am interested in. I think it is one of these commonsense approaches 
that you can get bipartisan support built for if you do it in a 
sensible fashion that doesn't raise utility rates; and that is a key 
issue to watch here--not to raise utility rights.
  I think if we have a robust enough--but not greedy--renewable energy 
standard that is prudent, workable, over a period of time, where 
companies can work into this, we can start moving forward on renewable 
energy in a sound economic fashion, and we can balance our energy needs 
with our environmental needs and our economic demands and not raise 
utility rates.
  That is why I was hoping that the leader, when he introduced his 
energy bill, would put forward a renewable energy standard. He didn't 
call for that. I do. If we get an energy bill on the floor--which I 
hope we do--I will certainly be supporting a renewable energy standard 
the likes of which we passed on a bipartisan basis through the Energy 
Committee.
  I am looking forward to supporting what we put forward in the 
American Clean Energy Leadership Act of 2009, which was reported out of 
the committee on a strong bipartisan basis. There was a provision in it 
that called for a 15-percent renewable energy standard by 2021, and 
within that 15 percent was even allowed 11 percent by renewables and up 
to 4 percent by conservation, so there were some ways for groups and 
individuals to be able to work forward, building in some conservation 
but also renewable energy into the portfolio, such as renewable energy 
of wind, solar, biomass, or other means.
  I have been advocating this, as has my colleague from North Dakota. 
It is something we have voted on recently in this body, as recently as 
2005, when we looked at a 10-percent renewable energy standard. The 
differences in the conference prevented that from moving forward.
  The amendment I would support on this bill that I hope the leader 
will reconsider and put forward in his base bill that he puts up on the 
floor is 15 percent, as I stated, by 2021. That is something that could 
have and would gain bipartisan support.
  If we are serious about moving forward on reducing our dependency on 
foreign oil, from foreign sources, if we are serious about moving 
forward on environmental needs, this is a very sensible, pragmatic, 
prudent approach. It is one we can do. It is one we can accomplish. It 
is one that has passed this body before. We already know the votes are 
here to pass something like a modest renewable energy standard. That is 
why I am calling for this to be put forward in the leader's base bill. 
If not, I am supporting an amendment that would be put in this Energy 
bill should it come to the floor. I hope it does come to the floor. We 
need to address the energy needs of this country. We have a huge 
problem that has been going on for some time in the Gulf of Mexico. We 
have enormous energy needs in this country. We need to balance our 
energy needs with the environment and our economic abilities. We are in 
difficult economic shape now. We cannot put a load on the economy. We 
should not put any load on the economy. If we are wise and prudent 
about this, we can do these renewable energy standards and not put any 
load on the economy. I ask the leader to do that. I hope we can in 
moving this process forward. It is my hope that this will be included 
in any energy legislation that ultimately passes this body.
  Mr. President, I ask my colleague from North Dakota for any comments 
he might have on a renewable energy portfolio in energy legislation.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, if I may, I know the Senator from Kansas 
spoke about this issue that we worked on in the Energy Committee over a 
year ago. We worked together to get what is called a renewable 
electricity standard, some people also call it a renewable portfolio 
standard--through the committee process. A renewable electricity 
standard is a requirement that a certain percentage of electricity 
delivered be from renewable sources--wind, solar, and so on. I believe 
that it is very important to do that. I appreciate the Senator from 
Kansas and his position.
  There is an old saying: If you don't care where you are going, you 
are never going to be lost. If our country does not describe the route 
we want to take, if we don't say here is where we want to go as a 
country, then wherever we find ourselves 5 and 10 years from now, that 
is where we are, I guess.
  I believe however, that it ought to be a circumstance where we decide 
what our energy future looks like. I believe that we should incentivize 
the development of renewable energy. How do we maximize the development 
of wind and solar energy? By creating a renewable electricity standard 
that drives the development and by building the transmission that 
allows us to produce it in one area and move it to a load center in 
another area. We did that in the bill that passed the Energy Committee 
just over a year ago.
  I fully support the notion of the Senator from Kansas that the 15-
percent renewable electricity standard we created in committee ought to 
advanced in any energy bill. In fact, I don't know whether we will part 
company on this point, but I have always indicated that I support a 20-
percent renewable electricity standard. I believe our country ought to 
push very hard to move in the direction of maximizing the capability to 
produce renewable energy where the wind blows and the Sun shines, and 
put it on the wires and move it to the load centers. That is exactly 
what we ought to be doing. The Senator and I sure agree on the 
philosophy of this issue and the need for this provision in an energy 
bill.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Franken). The Senator from Kansas.
  Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I wanted to engage my colleague from 
North Dakota because there is a strong base of bipartisan support to do 
this, and I also believe there is a strong majority community across 
America that supports this. Don't get it out there so wild that it 
starts driving up utility rates. Nobody wants to do that, and everybody 
is opposed to pushing up utility rates. We don't want them to go up. 
They cannot go up. We cannot afford for them to go up in bad economic 
times, and I do not want it to happen in good economic times. But if we 
do this in a balanced approach where we say we are going to have a 
modest renewable electricity standard, a modest RES that people can 
work with--and in the bill in committee, we actually had an 11-percent 
energy standard--we could do 4 of the 15 by conservation, which is 
prudent as well. This is something we can support.
  I know this is something which we could see a strong majority of the 
American public support. This is balanced and it makes sense and it 
moves us forward. That is why I hope that if we get into this Energy 
bill this week--it may not happen this week or it may not happen until 
September--that this is a piece that is in the bill, and it is 
something we can get done, and the vast majority of the public, if we 
do it wisely and prudently, will support this.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. BROWNBACK. Yes.
  Mr. DORGAN. The fact is, I happen to support limiting or capping 
carbon. I will support a price on carbon. I do not support cap and 
trade as a mechanism, as a way of doing that, or giving Wall Street the 
ability to trade carbon

[[Page S6379]]

securities. But that is another side to this.
  Because we have not been able to do climate change legislation and 
develop a consensus on broader climate change legislation in this 
country, I have always felt we should bring the Energy bill to the 
floor which was, in fact, bipartisan and which would, in fact, do the 
very things we would want done to limit carbon. Take energy from the 
wind--that limits carbon. You develop energy without putting carbon 
into the air, just as an example.
  I know Senator Reid is trying very hard to do a couple of things. No. 
1, he is trying to get this session moving on issues that matter. He 
has a lot of things on his plate. The Senator from Kansas knows--I am 
not being partisan when I say this--that a lot of things have been 
blocked, even motions to proceed. So the Senator from Nevada, Mr. Reid, 
has a difficult job getting legislation to the floor and getting them 
moving. He has indicated he wants to bring to the floor an energy bill 
that includes a lot of items with which the Senator from Kansas and I 
would agree. We need to do something about oilspill regulation and 
safety and try to address those issues in the right way, and we do need 
to address a number of the other issues the Senator from Nevada 
suggested. I happen to think that using natural gas for long-haul 
vehicles on the interstate roadways makes a lot of sense. He has 
proposed a number of items, including electric vehicles. The bill I 
introduced, along with my colleagues, Senator Alexander and Senator 
Merkley, that we passed through the Energy Committee last week, begins 
incentivizing and moving toward an electric vehicle fleet. All of those 
things are good. I support that, and I commend the Senator from Nevada 
for doing that. To the extent we can, if we can find ways to add other 
things that have a broad bipartisan consensus, that makes a lot of 
sense to me. I think that is what the Senator from Kansas is saying.
  In order for a renewable electricity standard to be added, it would 
take 60 votes because things just take 60 votes around here. I went to 
a small school, and I thought a majority was just a majority, but it is 
not these days. But if we have the 60 votes--and I think there is some 
evidence that may exist--then adding a renewable electricity standard 
will substantially improve, I believe, the potential to pass an energy 
bill that would matter to America.
  I want to say quickly that I understand Senator Reid is trying very 
hard to get something done, to get it up, get it passed, and get it 
done. I commend him for that. I do not want to be critical at all. But 
I commend the Senator from Kansas as well because he and I agree: If we 
can add a renewable electricity standard to this legislation, we will 
advance our country's energy interests in a very significant way.
  Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I thank my colleague.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. DORGAN. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                            Kagan Nomination

  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I wish to share a few thoughts on the 
nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court. I will share some other 
thoughts as we go along, and I will be producing for my colleagues a 
summary of some of the concerns I have about the nomination that would 
explain why I and a number of other Senators voted against this 
nomination in committee and why I think that calls for our colleagues 
to vote against the nomination on the floor of the Senate.
  This nominee has the least experience of any nominee in the last 50 
years, perhaps longer than that, having practiced law only about 2 
years, right out of law school, with a large law firm, never having 
tried a case or argued a case before a jury of any kind, and spent 5 
years in the Clinton White House, spent time teaching and being active 
politically. Those are issues that I think go to the basic qualities 
that you look for in a nomination. She had 14 months as the Solicitor 
General of the United States, and that is a legitimate legal job, but 
as I will point out, she didn't perform very well in that job and made 
some serious errors that I think reflect a weakness in her judicial 
philosophy.
  So while there is no sustained legal practice that gives us a direct 
view of her judicial philosophy, other things do indicate it. There is 
plenty of evidence that I think will show this nominee is not committed 
to faithfully following the law. The Constitution's words say we ``do 
ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States,'' not 
some other constitution--not a European constitution, not a 
constitution as viewed by somebody in Argentina or France or wherever 
but our Constitution, passed by real Americans through the process that 
calls upon American input to pass that Constitution. Judges take an 
oath to be faithful to our Constitution. They take an oath to serve 
under the Constitution and laws of the United States.
  So I think the evidence will show that this nominee believes judges 
have powers that go beyond what a judge has. This is what we have taken 
to calling an activist judge--a judge who believes they can advance the 
law, further the law, bend the law; that the Constitution is not plain 
words or a contract with the American people but a living document, 
which means they can make it grow into what they would like it to be; 
that they can set policy from the bench. That is not law, that is 
politics. Judges are required to adhere to the law. This is the great 
American principle that we are taught from elementary school on.
  This nominee, pretty clearly, is a legal progressive and acknowledges 
that in her own testimony. When I asked her if she was, she didn't 
acknowledge it to me. But later, when she was asked again about it, she 
acknowledged to Senator Lindsey Graham that she was. That is what 
liberals have taken to calling themselves today--progressives--
apparently thinking that is more popular than calling themselves 
liberals. I don't know why they have taken to doing that, but 
progressivism has a history in this country, and I think the people who 
call themselves legal progressives today are indeed in the tradition of 
progressivism that was rejected in the early part of the 20th Century 
by the American people.
  President Obama is a legal progressive, I am convinced. He is a 
lawyer, a good friend, and somebody we all liked when he was in the 
Senate. But he has a view of the law that I think is a progressive 
view. He seeks, he says, to advance a ``broader vision of what America 
should be,'' and that is what judges should do. I am not in agreement 
with that. I don't think judges have that responsibility. They have 
never been given that responsibility. Their responsibility is to 
objectively decide discrete cases before them.
  Some have complained that Justice Roberts somehow was an automaton by 
declaring that a judge should be a neutral umpire--just call the balls 
and strikes; that he can't take sides in the game. I think that is a 
very wonderful metaphor for what a judge should be--a neutral umpire.
  Judges cannot take sides in the game. That is not what they are paid 
to do. That is not what they are empowered to do, not in the American 
legal system. Maybe somewhere else but not in our system. The American 
people understand that clearly. They are not happy with judges who 
legislate from the bench, who think they know better, who consult some 
European somewhere, with very little accompanying scientific data, to 
say the world has advanced and evolved and the Constitution has grown 
and is alive and read new words into it that were not in there before, 
and we can find those words and we can have a broader vision for what 
America should be.
  I do not think that is law. It is not law, and I do not think the 
American people want that kind of judge.
  I do not believe in this nominee's slight differences of gradations 
in judicial philosophy. I do not think it is just a little bit more 
activist and it is a little bit more advanced law philosophy, and 
somebody else does not and there is not much difference. I think there 
is a very serious difference, and it is a question of where the 
American people allow power to reside--power over themselves.

[[Page S6380]]

  They can vote us out of office. I suspect people will be voted out of 
office this November. People are not happy with us, I can tell you 
that. Polling numbers show Congress is at the bottom of popularity more 
than it has ever been--11 percent or something. The question is, Who is 
that 11 percent who is happy with this crowd? Where are they? I have 
not met any.
  I would say the American people are not enamored with the idea that 
somehow, when a person puts on that robe they have been anointed with 
greater wisdom than if they had to run for office and answer to them. 
If you want to be a politician, run as a politician. Don't go for it on 
the bench.
  I think the President has an incorrect view of that, frankly, a very 
seriously defective view of that. In a speech in the Senate just a few 
years ago when he was a young new Senator, he opposed now Chief Justice 
John Roberts, one of the finest nominees ever to come before this 
Senate. What a fabulous person he was. How magnificently did he testify 
and what a good background he had. He was recognized as a premier 
appellate lawyer in America and argued 50 cases, I believe, before the 
Supreme Court--more than almost anybody, certainly more than anybody 
his age--and demonstrated the kind of skill you look for in someone who 
would sit on our Nation's Highest Court.
  President Obama voted against him. He said he thought that in truly 
difficult cases Judge John Roberts would rely on precedent and try to 
follow the law. He said that you can't rely on precedent or ``rules of 
statutory or constitutional construction.'' Instead, he argued that 
judges must base their rulings on ``one's deepest values, one's core 
concerns, one's broader perspectives on how the world works and the 
depth and breadth of one's empathy.'' That is what President Obama said 
a judge should do.
  I would assert that is contrary to the American heritage of law. That 
is not law. If you make decisions based on your deepest values--you 
mean the judge's deepest values? His core concerns? One's broader 
perspectives on how the world works and the depth and breadth of one's 
empathy? That is what a judge should do? Not in the U.S. order of 
jurisprudence, not the way I understand it, and I do not think it is 
the way the American people understand it either.
  In a speech to Planned Parenthood, President Obama said he hoped 
judges would reach decisions on ``their broader vision of what America 
should be.''
  His nomination of Ms. Kagan indicates that he believes she fits that 
bill. If we look at her record and speeches and background, I think it 
is fair to conclude she does. In a Law Review article she once declared 
that the Court primarily exists to look out for ``the despised and the 
disadvantaged.''
  I think the Court is required to do justice. The oath a judge takes 
says a judge should do equal justice to the poor and the rich.
  In another Law Review article, Ms. Kagan said, dealing with 
confirmation--actually the title of it was ``Confirmation Messes, Old 
and New.'' She quoted Stephen Carter's book, ``The Confirmation Mess'' 
with approval, writing:

       In every exercise of interpretive judgment there comes a 
     crucial moment when the judge's own experience and values 
     become the most important data.

  Well, I don't think so. What do you mean the judge's own values 
become the most important data? You mean we are ceding to the judge 
their personal values instead of faithfully following the law and the 
facts as written?
  In her Oxford thesis she wrote:

       Judges will often try to mold and steer the law in order to 
     promote certain ethical values and achieve certain social 
     ends. Such activity is not necessarily wrong or invalid. The 
     law, after all, is a human instrument, an instrument designed 
     to meet men's needs.

  The law is a set of commands from the government that have to be 
consistent with our Constitution. If they are, they should be followed, 
if they have been duly enacted by Congress. The American people can 
elect a new Congress and change those laws if they desire, but until 
they do so they remain the law and I do not think judges are supposed 
to be steering the law to promote certain ethical values.
  Let me ask you, whose values are they? Whose ethical values are they? 
The judge's? Is that what we put them on the bench for, to be able to 
steer the law to promote their ethical values?
  Some people wrongly say the Constitution is defined by the nine 
Justices on the Supreme Court. Not so, really. If we want to be cynical 
about it, if they are not faithful to the law, five Justices can 
redefine the Constitution.
  Recently, four Justices voted to basically eviscerate the second 
amendment, saying the constitutional right to keep and bear arms was 
not a personal right and that the Constitution did not apply to the 
States and counties and cities; and in effect a city, Chicago, could 
have basically eliminated all guns in their city, and it would not have 
violated the constitutional guarantee of the right to keep and bear 
arms.
  They just wrote it out of the Constitution, I guess--and they cited 
foreign law about it.
  We know other cultures are not as accepting of people having guns as 
in the American culture. It is just different. What does foreign 
culture have to do with ours? This is the kind of thing we are talking 
about. It played out in real cases and creates a real abuse.
  She goes on to say that judges will often try to mold and achieve 
``certain social ends.'' Such activity, she says, ``is not necessarily 
wrong or invalid.''
  I think it is wrong or invalid.
  Am I being unfair to the nominee, Ms. Kagan? I don't think so. When 
asked about Ms. Kagan's record, a person in a very good position to 
know, Gregg Craig, former counsel to President Obama in the first year 
or two of the administration, who knows Ms. Kagan and who reviewed her 
when she was considered, apparently, for the first Sotomayor 
appointment, said:

       She is largely a progressive in the mold of Obama himself.

  I have come to believe that is exactly right. I mean, I just believe 
that is right. I think the President looked around the country to pick 
somebody young, who would serve a long time. She is 50 years old. If 
she serves as long as Justice Stevens whom she is replacing, she will 
serve 38 years. It is a lifetime appointment. It could be longer. So 
Mr. Gregg Craig said ``she is largely a progressive in the mold of 
Obama himself.''
  The President was a community activist and a lawyer. He has taught 
some constitutional law--I am sure he is a good teacher. But if he is 
teaching this kind of philosophy I think it is not good, sound, 
judicial philosophy, and his approach I don't think is good.
  I believe he looked for somebody who shared his views. As 59 
Democratic Senators, he expects them to, lemming-like, go down the line 
and vote for whomever he puts up there, so he has put up somebody he 
thinks follows his views.
  A second person who has been in a good position to know Ms. Kagan is 
Vice President Biden's chief of staff, Ron Klain, who worked in the 
Clinton White House closely with Ms. Kagan when she spent 5 years in 
the White House doing mostly policy work, as she said. This is what Mr. 
Klain, an experienced lawyer who has been around Washington a long 
time, said about her:

       Elena is clearly a legal progressive. I think Elena is 
     someone who comes from the progressive side of the spectrum. 
     She clerked for Judge Mikva, clerked for Justice Marshall, 
     worked in the Clinton administration, worked in the Obama 
     administration. I don't think there is any mystery to the 
     fact that she is, as I said, more of the progressive mold 
     than not.

  Let's just take a note there, when she graduated from law school she 
clerked for Judge Mikva. She is a very smart individual, a very liberal 
individual. I believe she clearly would be considered a judge of the 
activist variety. Then she clerked for Justice Marshall, a great, 
famous Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court but probably considered the 
most activist member ever to sit on the Supreme Court of the United 
States. That is whom she worked for.
  She took a leave, I think it was a leave from her teaching position, 
to come to the Senate to work on the Judiciary Committee to help 
confirm to the Supreme Court of the United States the chief counsel for 
the American Civil Liberties Union, Ruth Bader Ginsburg. That is the 
kind of judge she has admired and worked for.
  She made a speech in which she called Justice Barak of Israel, who 
has

[[Page S6381]]

been called the most activist judge in the world, her judicial hero.
  I think the American people know the role of a judge. They know a 
judge is not empowered to legislate. They know a judge is not empowered 
to set policy. They know a judge is not empowered to redefine the 
meaning of words in the Constitution or some statute to make it say 
what they would like it to say in a given case that is before them. 
They know that is an abuse of power.
  It is a violation of oath, and the American people care about it. 
When I talk to people, when I am in townhall meetings, people 
invariably ask about activist judges who are legislating from the 
bench. They know it is against the American view of law because these 
judges are unaccountable to the public. They have a lifetime 
appointment. They cannot be removed if you disagree with their 
approach. So for them to advance an ideological, philosophical social 
agenda from the bench frustrates democracy in a very real way, and the 
American people understand it.
  I do not think the American people are going to hold harmless those 
who vote to impose a legal progressive activist legislator from the 
bench upon them. So I am asking my colleagues to look at this 
nomination carefully. Do not be a rubberstamp for the President. I am 
talking primarily to my Democratic colleagues now. It is your vote. It 
is your responsibility to make sure your constituents do not wake next 
year, next year, next year, and find some judge redefining the 
Constitution to make it say something it was never intended to say.
  So do not be a lemming. Review this nomination. Be careful about it 
because I am afraid we have a dangerous, progressive, political-type 
nominee who is going to be before us. So I would call on my Democratic 
leadership in the Senate, let's be sure we have a good time for debate, 
let's not curtail it. I call on all my colleagues to come to the floor 
and express their views, but, most important, to ask themselves, is 
this nominee the kind of nominee you who will serve on the Federal 
bench for the next 30, 40 years who will subordinate herself and serve 
``under the Constitution and laws of the United States'' as that oath 
says or will she feel she is just a little bit above it, and has a 
right to advance a social agenda or some other broader vision for what 
America should be that somehow Congress did not see fit to enact, the 
people's branch did not see fit to enact, so she should just do it 
anyway because Congress did not act. We should act. That is not a 
justification for judicial activism.
  When Congress does not act, it does not act. That is a decision not 
to act. Courts are not empowered to set about to fix all that if they 
are not happy with it.
  We are heading into an important period for the Congress, for the 
Senate. We will be looking at this nomination. The nominee was a 
skillful and articulate one and had a good sense of humor and handled 
herself in many ways well. But I think, as you hear from a number of 
people who studied her testimony, that it had a bit too much spin and 
not enough law, not enough clarity, not enough intellectual honesty to 
meet the high standards we should look for in a Supreme Court nominee.
  We ought to be looking for the best of the best, a lawyer's lawyer, 
not a political lawyer, a lawyer's lawyer or a proven judge. The fact 
that she is not a judge is not disqualifying. But I would expect, if 
you are not a judge, you ought to be proven as a lawyer in the real 
world of law practice. This nominee simply is not. She is a political 
lawyer, and I do not believe she should be elevated to the Supreme 
Court of the United States.
  I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Klobuchar). The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SCHUMER. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum 
call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I rise in strong support of the 
amendment offered by my good friend from Colorado, Senator Mark Udall. 
Credit unions across the country are currently restricted in the amount 
of lending they can provide to their members for business purposes. The 
Udall amendment, which I proudly cosponsor, will raise that limit. 
Congress should be focused like a laser on bringing unemployment down 
and getting the economy humming on all cylinders again. The bill before 
us today is part of that ongoing effort. It is a much needed, targeted 
bill that will help small business expand and hire.
  There are many worthy ideas and important programs in the bill, from 
bonus depreciation to increasing the loan limits on SBA's flagship 
programs to providing grants to help States expand innovative small 
business initiatives. But a core mission of this bill was always to 
jump-start lending.
  When I travel around New York and talk to business owners about 
creating jobs, the No. 1 thing they bring up is their inability to get 
access to credit. I believe the small business lending fund, which I 
vociferously supported and which the Senate approved last week, will 
prove to be a shot in the arm for small business, greatly increasing 
access to credit. I thank my colleague from Louisiana, Senator 
Landrieu, and my colleague from Florida, Senator LeMieux, my colleague 
from Washington State, Senator Cantwell, and others, Senator Shaheen, 
for their efforts to reinstate this important fund. But we can't stop 
there.
  Credit unions are an important source of credit for small businesses 
from coast to coast. They should not be neglected as we seek to improve 
the economy. When this idea was originally proposed, some concerns were 
raised about the safety and soundness of credit unions, their members, 
and the credit unions' insurance deposit fund.
  My office worked with Senator Udall and the Treasury Department to 
come up with a plan that would address those concerns. First, the cap 
is only raised for credit unions that meet strict eligibility 
criteria. To qualify, credit unions must be well capitalized, 
demonstrate sound underwriting and servicing based on historical 
performance, have strong management and policies to manage increased 
lending, and be approved by their regulator for the higher cap.

  They must also be at or above 80 percent of their current cap, with 5 
or more years of experience lending to member businesses. This means 
only credit unions with significant experience lending to small 
businesses will have their cap raised, and it is targeted at those 
credit unions most likely to expand their lending because they are at 
or near the existing cap.
  I commend Mr. Udall, the Senator from Colorado, for taking the lead 
on this novel approach. His amendment is a sensible compromise that 
successfully addresses the concerns that were raised.
  Based on conservative estimates, this amendment will lead directly to 
over $10 billion in new lending and will create over 120,000 jobs. In 
my home State of New York, it will create over $750 million in new 
lending and create over 8,000 jobs. It does it all with no cost to the 
taxpayer. I repeat, the amendment does not add a dime to the deficit 
and will have a positive impact on GDP.
  Certainly, this amendment is not a cure-all for our economy. But with 
small businesses starved for credit, it seems obvious to me we should 
be trying everything we can to increase lending to small businesses. 
Simply put, this amendment is a no-brainer. I urge my colleagues to 
support the amendment offered by my friend from Colorado.
  Madam President, 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.
  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Schumer). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I come to the floor today in support of 
the small business jobs bill, which is moving through the Senate.
  I first would like to say how much I appreciate Senator Landrieu of 
Louisiana and her leadership on this bill, as well as the members of 
the Small Business Committee, who have worked

[[Page S6382]]

incredibly hard to bring this bill to the point it is ready to get 
voted on.
  When we first began discussing how we could help our small businesses 
deal with the issues they face in this difficult economy, I spent a lot 
of time going around my State and actually talking to those who run 
small businesses, who work in small businesses, to get some ideas of 
what would really work. That is when I heard time and time again about 
how they desperately need capital.
  In fact, according to the National Federation of Independent 
Business, 45 percent of small businesses in America say adequate access 
to capital is their No. 1 problem. I think this is summed up well in a 
letter I got from a constituent of mine. He founded his first real 
estate company over 20 years ago, and when the market went south, he 
did not just tighten the hatches, he actually invested his savings in a 
new home staging business to help people get their homes ready to be 
put on the market.
  Wile his new business is profitable, he still cannot get credit. In 
the letter to me he said:

       I have approached over 10 banks and guaranteed a loan using 
     my building with a free and clear title, and have been turned 
     down by every bank. The answer to growing the economy and 
     creating jobs is getting the banks to lend to low risk 
     entrepreneurs like me.

  The great thing is, our community banks agree.
  Last week on the Senate floor, I read a letter I received from Harry 
Wahlquist of Star Bank in Bertha, MN. As you can imagine, Bertha is not 
exactly a majority metropolis. Bertha, MN, is not New York City. I just 
want to read it again because I think it drives home the point that 
there is broad consensus that this bill is what we need. In this 
letter, the banker from Bertha said this:

       I am a banker and need capital to continue serving my nine 
     Minnesota towns. Please pass the small business lending bill 
     now. You gave money to Wall Street. How about Main Street in 
     Minnesota?

  That is what this bill will do. It will help Main Street. It does it 
with more than a number of provisions to expand access to credit. It 
provides for a 100-percent exclusion on capital gains taxes on small 
business investments made in 2009 and 2010. It increases the maximum 
deduction for business startup expenses to help entrepreneurs get their 
businesses off the ground. It allows businesses of all sizes to write 
off more of their investments in property and equipment to help them 
grow.
  Provisions like these are why this bill has such broad support. 
Whether it is the Chamber of Commerce or the Independent Community 
Bankers of America, they want us to work together to pass this bill.
  We have gotten this economy off the cliff. We worked with our banks 
and our financial institutions 2 years ago. We also worked with the 
stimulus bill, with the Recovery Act. But we know the answer cannot 
just be government jobs. We know that. What we are looking at is how do 
we work with small businesses that create 65 percent of the jobs in 
this country? How do we work with the private sector to create jobs?
  Another reason we need this bill is that it helps small businesses 
increase demand for their products and services. At a time of sluggish 
consumer spending, we need to be sure all American businesses--both big 
and small--have a chance to reach new customers abroad because when our 
companies are able to unlock new markets, they are also able to create 
new jobs.
  Currently, the United States derives the smallest percentage of our 
GDP from exports compared to other major economies--the smallest 
percentage when we look at other economies across the world. As people 
in China, in India, and other countries gain more purchasing power, 
there is great potential for exports in this country because the people 
in these countries, in China and India, as they are gaining purchasing 
power, will become our potential customers.
  More exports will mean more business, more jobs, and more growth for 
the American economy. So you can finally go in the store, look at the 
best good for the best price, and you can turn it over and it says 
``Made in the USA.'' You can see that good on the shelves in China, and 
you can see it in India.
  First and most obviously, exports allow a company to increase its 
sales and grow its business. Second, a diversified base of customers 
helps a business weather the economic ups and downs.
  Currently, less than 1 percent of all American businesses export 
overseas. Of those that do, nearly 60 percent sell their products to 
only one foreign country, typically Canada or Mexico.
  With 95 percent of potential customers outside our borders, and with 
the purchasing power they have increasing, it is clear the 
opportunities that lay in exporting for our businesses, large and 
small, are there.
  But for many businesses, especially the small and medium-sized ones, 
the world looks like one of those ancient maps that contains only the 
outlines of the continent and a few coastline features, but the rest of 
it is a blank space of vast, unknown, and unexplored territory.
  But do you know what. Thirty percent of our small and medium-sized 
businesses say they would like to export if they knew how, if they had 
the connections. In many situations, our small and medium-sized 
businesses have the products. They have the services. They simply 
cannot deal with the complexity of the international markets.
  The overwhelming majority of businesses, even those that want to 
export, do not know about the export promotion services offered by our 
Federal agencies, and they do not know where to begin in order to make 
use of these services.
  To help blunt the learning curve for these businesses, Senator 
LeMieux and I introduced legislation, which is included in this small 
business bill, to make sure companies have the capital and tools not 
only to continue exporting but to expand their reach to those 95 
percent of customers who are located outside the borders of the United 
States.
  If we really want to get out of this economic slump, we have to look 
outside our borders. We have to look at the customers across the world.

  First of all, this bill increases the activities and staffing of the 
Department of Commerce U.S. and Foreign Commercial Service Officers in 
carrying out their mission.
  Secondly, it expands the Rural Export Initiative, which helps rural 
businesses develop international opportunities. Every $1 invested 
creates $213 in rural exports. That is a return on investment. It does 
so by helping businesses, to prepare them for profitable growth in 
global markets. It focuses on locating and targeting new markets, the 
mechanics of exporting, including shipping, documentation, and 
financing.
  My State is now seventh in the country for Fortune 500 companies. But 
these companies did not start big. Medtronic started in a garage. 3M 
started as a sandpaper company in Two Harbors, MN. Target started as a 
dry goods store in the Nicollet Mall in Minneapolis, and they grew and 
they grew and they grew and a lot of how they grew was exporting their 
products, building new stores across the world, sending medical devices 
to places such as China and India.
  Well, do you know what. It is a lot easier for big companies to do it 
because they have the staff to do it. It is a lot harder for small and 
medium-sized companies.
  I saw success in our State, a little company in southern Minnesota, 
near Austin, MN, Akkerman Inc., named after Darryl Akkerman, who is 
there now--the son of the owner. He has been named ``the trenchless 
digger of the year'' in the United States. He has a product, and it is 
a big one. He puts big steel piping underground and pushes the piping 
through to do trenchless digging. Guess what. Countries such as China 
and India that have a lot of people on the surface of their land, they 
do not want to dig up big trenches. They want to do trenchless digging. 
In the middle of a cornfield he has grown from a few dozen employees to 
77 employees, all because of exports.
  Mattracks, the moose capital of Minnesota, Karlstad, MN, has grown 
from 5 employees to 50 employees simply by driving to Fargo, ND, and 
meeting with a woman named Heather who is with the Foreign Commercial 
Service Department, and finding out what potential customers they had 
from Turkey to Kazakhstan.

[[Page S6383]]

  That is what we are talking about, exports. I am so proud the small 
business bill includes some major provisions, the bill Senator LeMieux 
and I introduced in Commerce. We got it through the committee, and it 
is now on the small business bill. It is going to make a world of 
difference so small businesses can access a world of opportunity.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Franken). The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant editor of the Daily Digest proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. 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. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I come to the floor to strongly support 
the legislation before the Senate on behalf of small businesses in this 
country. They are the greatest generators of jobs in the country. We 
hear that so often from our colleagues on the other side of the aisle. 
This is something on which we agree. They are the greatest generators 
of jobs in the country. So when we are trying to get people back to 
work, let's help them help us collectively in putting more Americans 
back to work. That is what this legislation is all about.
  We have talked a lot about protecting Main Street, and now this bill 
gives us the opportunity to do exactly that. It gives communities the 
guarantees they need to get lending started again, to put money into 
our engines of job growth, and all without any pay-go implications. 
That is a good bill.
  I wish to thank our distinguished colleague from Louisiana, Senator 
Landrieu, the chair of the Small Business Committee, for her hard work 
in putting this important legislation together, as well as the ranking 
member of the committee, Senator Snowe, for her work on the bill and 
particularly her past work with me on community development financial 
institutions or what we commonly call CDFIs. I am very grateful to 
Senator Landrieu, the chair, for including an important CDFI component 
in the bill before us.
  Let me take a moment to talk about how this is an opportunity to have 
direct and immediate opportunities to help jump-start job growth.
  It invests directly in small businesses and local communities by 
supporting community development financial institutions, or CDFIs, and 
based on what we know from historic performance--not because we are 
guessing but from historic performance--the provision I authored will 
create approximately 40,000 new jobs by authorizing the government to 
guarantee bonds issued by qualified CDFIs for community and economic 
development loans. Best of all, again, there are no pay-to 
implications.
  As their name implies, the primary mission of community development 
financial institutions is to foster economic and community development 
in underserved areas. They have a proven track record of job creation 
and are arguably the most effective way to infuse capital in 
underserved areas for community and economic development.
  CDFIs leverage public and private dollars to support economic 
development projects, such as job training clinics and startup loans 
for small businesses in areas full of potential but desperate for 
development.
  CDFIs have been hit hard by the recession because they have had to 
rely on big banks for capital. We know and have seen that capital is 
neither affordable nor accessible and, to be honest with you, not 
forthcoming.
  I am proud to have had bipartisan support on this provision that is 
included in the bill. Again, I thank Senator Landrieu for including it. 
I thank Senator Snowe for cosponsoring it, along with Senators Johnson, 
Leahy, and Schumer.
  The idea is simple: If big banks don't care about lending to small 
businesses and communities in need of capital, then we should empower 
the very organizations that do care, that make it their mission every 
day to rebuild Main Street across this country, and that have a proven 
record of achievement. As I said earlier, all the calculations are 
based upon their historic performance, and this provision alone, within 
this bill, could create 40,000 new jobs.
  I don't understand how our colleagues on the other side of the aisle 
can go back home to their States, looking at high unemployment, and 
rail about the realities that unemployment continues to be high and 
then be here in Washington stopping the very essence of what could 
create the jobs to reduce those unemployment levels, put people back to 
work, and give them the dignity of having a job that can help sustain 
their families and realize their hopes and dreams and aspirations. I 
don't get it. But that is where we seem to be. We seem to be where 
everything has a political equation, which is to ultimately have this 
President and this Congress fail, and somehow that is the road to 
electoral victory.
  If you were just a political tactician, maybe that would make sense. 
The problem is, it is not about this President or this Congress 
failing; it is about failing the country at one of its most critical 
junctures in history. I hope we can see some support for this 
legislation.
  Finally, I have often heard my colleagues talk about the home 
building industry. Well, I have an amendment that is out there, and I 
believe we should be supporting small businesses regardless of what 
industry they are in. The home building industry has been especially 
hit hard by this recession, resulting in the loss of hundreds of 
thousands of the middle-class, blue-collar jobs this country was built 
on and that communities were built on. Encouraging community banks to 
fund the construction of housing would not only put many of our 
unemployed construction workers back on the payroll, it will help 
revitalize the housing market, which is one of the root causes of this 
recession in the first place. But it would be nice to have some 
Republican support, to have that provision included, and to ultimately 
help us pass the bill, so we can get people back to work.
  I hope the Republicans will join in this effort to ensure that all 
small businesses share in the benefits of this valuable program and 
this legislation. If we do that, this will be a good downpayment on 
getting more people back to work.
  I don't know, again, how our colleagues seem to be able to go back 
home and rail about where are the jobs and then be here as the job 
killers. That is what they seem to be doing all the time--voting no, 
opposing process, so the creation of jobs is not achieved, so that, in 
fact, we can find ourselves in a situation in which the American people 
who are looking to this Senate to help create the circumstances in this 
country and the economic underpinnings to drive the private sector and 
create the jobs that they can work in, which will give them gainful 
employment and help them realize their hopes, dreams and aspirations 
and, therefore, have money in the economy to spend for the challenges 
they have and then further enhance the ripple effect of that, which 
will create more jobs. That is what this is about. It is about the 
private sector having the opportunities, but the private sector that 
creates the greatest rates of growth for job opportunities is small 
business.
  I hope our colleagues on the other side of the aisle can find their 
way to finally come together with us on this specific piece of 
legislation to create jobs for our families and put America back to 
work.
  With that, 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. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Begich). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I know we are awaiting the arrival of 
the majority leader on the floor, but I wish to say a few words as in 
morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                              Health Care

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, almost every family in America has 
experienced the pain of a loved one who has been diagnosed with cancer. 
Today, I want to tell the story of the Grimes family from West 
Greenwich, RI.

[[Page S6384]]

  According to the Rhode Island Department of Health, nearly 4 in every 
10 Rhode Islanders will develop cancer sometime during their life. In a 
State as small as ours, this means almost everyone has a friend or a 
family member who is affected by this disease. For those of us who have 
been touched by cancer, directly or indirectly, those are memorable 
emotions. In my family, both my mother and father died of cancer.
  Survival rates have greatly increased for many forms of cancer, 
thanks to new technology. But one form of cancer has not seen the same 
progress, and that is pancreatic cancer. Janet Grimes recently wrote to 
me about her mother Muriel who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer 
this past April. Currently pancreatic cancer patients have about a 6-
percent chance of living more than 5 years and about 75 percent die 
within the first year. These are dismal numbers.
  Janet has watched this cancer deeply affect her mother's quality of 
life. Janet wrote me that her 82-year-old mother was active, sharp, 
vivacious, and living in her own home in North Carolina until this 
disease struck. Since then, Janet has had to move her mother to Rhode 
Island to care for her, taking a leave of absence from her work. In the 
past few months, her mother has lost 25 pounds, is frequently 
nauseated, and needs constant care. Janet is seeing all too clearly how 
devastating this disease can be. As I speak, it appears our thoughts 
and prayers need very much to be with the Grimes family.
  Janet has authorized me to speak about what is happening in her 
family because she is concerned about pancreatic cancer research, that 
it suffers from a lack both of funding and of institutional focus, 
constituting less than 2 percent of the National Cancer Institute's 
research funding. According to the American Cancer Society, pancreatic 
cancer remains the fourth leading cause of cancer death overall. In 
fact, they estimate that in 2010, more than 43,000 people in the United 
States will be diagnosed with this disease, and nearly 37,000 will die.
  We may not yet be able to cure this terrible disease, but there are 
important steps we in Congress can take. I have introduced the 
Pancreatic Cancer Research and Education Act to help address this 
funding and research gap. It is a bipartisan bill cosponsored by 20 
colleagues, including 4 Republicans. It makes vital investments in 
research into new treatments and represents a strong Federal commitment 
to fight back against pancreatic cancer.
  Specifically, this bill directs the Secretary of Health and Human 
Services to design and implement an initiative to coordinate and 
promote pancreatic cancer research and increase physician and public 
awareness of the disease. It creates an interdisciplinary committee to 
guide pancreatic research activities, develop an annual strategic plan, 
and make recommendations regarding the prioritization and award of NIH 
grants for pancreatic cancer research. Finally, it authorizes an NIH 
grant program for research institutions to develop innovative compounds 
or technologies for prevention, early detection, or treatment with 
cancers with 5-year survival rates of less than 50 percent. And, of 
course, pancreatic cancer is well less than 50 percent.
  It authorizes the Secretary of Health and Human Services to designate 
two centers of research excellence focusing on pancreatic cancer 
research.
  As I said, our thoughts and prayers this evening need to be with the 
Grimes family. Their story, however, is just one of many that my office 
has received calling for this much needed investment.
  For these families and for others who will face the same dread 
diagnosis, we need to keep working toward advancing pancreatic research 
and awareness. I hope my colleagues will join me in support of this 
legislation.
  Mr. President, I rise to speak about an important provision included 
in the Small Business Jobs Act that will significantly reduce fraud, 
abuse and waste of taxpayer dollars in Medicare. I commend the Senator 
from Florida, Mr. LeMieux, who introduced the idea earlier this year. I 
am a cosponsor of that legislation, and he and I have worked on it 
together with Senator Baucus. I am gratified that my colleagues have 
voted to include it in this bill.
  Neither the public nor private sectors have done enough to detect and 
prevent health care fraud. The National Health Care Anti-Fraud 
Association estimates that private insurers and government health care 
programs lose at least $60 billion annually to fraud. In 2008, HHS 
estimated a 3.6 percent improper payment rate in Medicare fee for 
service, totaling $10.4 billion, and 10.6 percent rate in Medicare 
Advantage, or $6.8 billion. These funds should be used to provide 
health benefits for seniors but are squandered on criminals instead.
  The Departments of Justice and Health and Human Services have taken 
important steps to attack the problem, creating a joint task force on 
health care fraud and a specialized unit--the Health Care Fraud 
Prevention and Enforcement Action Team--to prosecute fraud and abuse. 
But in a program as large and complex as Medicare, these efforts are 
too often hindered by technical blind spots. We can only pursue those 
offenders we can detect, and the volume and speed of Medicare 
reimbursement data too often overwhelms our ability to catch 
wrongdoers.
  The fraud prevention provisions in this bill represent a paradigm 
shift in fraud detection and prevention, moving away from the ``pay and 
chase'' model to an environment in which fraudulent claims can be 
flagged and investigated before taxpayer funds are spent. The bill 
requires Medicare to deploy the most advanced technology at our 
disposal predictive modeling systems currently used in the credit card 
and banking industries to sift the chaff from the wheat, so to speak.
  These systems can analyze significant volumes of data and identify 
patterns of behavior by certain providers as presenting a high risk of 
fraud. These claims can then be flagged for further investigation and 
denied if fraudulent.
  In the program's first year, the system will be rolled out in 10 
States that have the highest levels of waste, fraud and abuse. Ten more 
States will be added in the second year. The Department's inspector 
general will report on the effectiveness of the program at the end of 
each of these years. If such reports demonstrate to the Secretary's 
satisfaction that it saves taxpayer funds and operates correctly, the 
system will be expanded to Medicare claims nationwide.
  We must marshal our best technical know-how to defeat the cheats and 
crooks that swindle the taxpayers and Medicare beneficiaries. This bill 
starts us down that road, and I applaud my colleagues for including it.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, on Thursday night, we had a successful vote 
on the small business jobs bill. It was an amendment that had been 
worked on for more than a week by Senator Landrieu and many others, 
including Members on the other side of the aisle. We were able to get 
the votes to pass the amendment--60 votes on it. Now we are back on the 
bill.
  I was told by the Republicans who voted with us on that amendment 
that it was appropriate before we moved to cloture that there be 
amendments by the Republicans on the legislation. I conferred with 
Senator Landrieu and, because Senator Baucus of the Finance Committee 
had to provide some of the money for some of the things we did, I 
conferred with him.
  We were told that there were three amendments they wanted to have: a 
Hatch amendment, one by Senator Grassley, and one by the Senator from 
Nebraska, Mr. Johanns. We agreed with those amendments.
  As happens around here and has for many years, when someone offers an 
amendment, it is very traditional to have an amendment opposite that, a 
so-called side-by-side amendment. I do not know what could be more 
fair. We have agreed to their amendments, that we would have votes on 
them. Our amendments are within the same subject matter of their 
amendments. I cannot understand why we cannot move forward in good 
faith on this legislation.
  Both parties claim they are friends of small business. This bill 
gives Members of both parties an opportunity to prove that.
  This bill expands access to credit for small businesses across our 
entire

[[Page S6385]]

country, cuts taxes for small businesses across our entire country, and 
expands both domestic and foreign markets for small businesses.
  We spent the last several weeks working with Members of both parties 
to pull this bill together and bring us to the point we are today--on 
the verge of final passage. My friends on the other side of the aisle 
said the only thing standing between us and their support for final 
passage is giving them an opportunity to vote on some of their 
amendments.
  Last week, they requested we give them votes on three amendments. I 
repeat, a Grassley amendment on a biodiesel tax credit; a Hatch 
amendment on a research and development tax credit; and a Johanns 
amendment on repeal of the corporate reporting requirement in the 
health care bill. I do not know what could be more fair than saying 
yes.
  I am going to propound a unanimous consent request that would give 
the Republicans votes on all three of their amendments, with a vote on 
a Democratic alternative on each one of them.
  In addition, I will ask for a vote on a Democratic education jobs 
amendment and, of course, Republicans would have an opportunity to 
offer an alternative to that amendment. If they truly are friends of 
small business, if they meant what they said last week, the Republicans 
should accept this request because we are, in effect, saying yes, and 
we would then be on a path toward completing this bill.
  The only alternative we would have then, which would be disappointing 
for I think most everyone, is we would have, by virtue of the rules, a 
cloture vote sometime in the morning. I hope that is not necessary.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending motion to 
commit be withdrawn; that all pending amendments be withdrawn, except 
amendment No. 4519; and that the following amendments be the only 
amendments in order to amendment No. 4519, with no motions to commit or 
motions to suspend the rules are in order during the pendency of H.R. 
5297; that all amendments included in this agreement be subject to an 
affirmative 60-vote threshold; and that if the amendment achieves that 
threshold, then it be agreed to and the motion to reconsider be laid on 
the table; that if it does not achieve that threshold, then it be 
withdrawn; that any majority side-by-side amendment be voted on first 
in any sequence of votes; further, that debate on any amendment 
included in the agreement be limited to 60 minutes each, with all time 
divided and controlled in the usual form:
  Baucus amendment regarding information reporting provisions health 
care as a side-by-side to Johanns amendment No. 1099 reporting 
amendment; Johanns amendment No. 1099 which is on reporting; Murray-
Harkin amendment regarding education funding; a Republican side-by-side 
to the Murray-Harkin amendment regarding education funding; Baucus 
amendment regarding expiring provisions, as a side-by-side to the Hatch 
R&D amendment; the Hatch amendment regarding R&D Reid amendment 
regarding FMAP/Cobell funding; Grassley amendment regarding 
biodiesel; that upon disposition of the listed amendments, no further 
amendments be in order; that the substitute amendment, as amended, if 
amended, be agreed to, the bill, as amended, be read a third time, and 
without further intervening action or debate, the Senate proceed to 
vote on passage of the bill; finally, that once this agreement is 
entered, the cloture motions on the substitute bill be withdrawn.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, reserving the right to object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Republican leader.
  Mr. McCONNELL. This is a bill which, at its core, initially had 
pretty broad bipartisan support. But, as sometimes happens in the 
Senate, it got all snarled up with a variety of other matters.
  I would like to propound an alternative consent with the following 
explanation. When you review the record on this bill, you will find 
that we have had exactly two votes. One was a motion to proceed, and 
the other was on an amendment offered by the majority. The majority 
leader has filled the tree on three separate occasions on three 
different substitutes. In effect, we have been completely shut out on 
the floor in terms of amendments we wanted to offer. We basically had 
to ask permission to offer amendments. I don't like that kind of 
process, but to get things moving, we actually gave the other side 
copies of our first few amendments almost 2 weeks ago--2 weeks ago. We 
were told the other side would want alternatives to our amendments, and 
it took until about an hour ago--an hour ago--before they produced 
their amendments.
  So to be clear, the majority leader moved to proceed to this bill on 
June 24, and since the time the bill was actually pending, the small 
business bill was set aside to consider six other legislative matters 
during that period. And although I supported a number of those other 
issues, the fact is, we have not had any opportunity to offer 
amendments.
  Having said that, I believe a better way forward is as follows:
  I ask unanimous consent that the cloture motions with respect to the 
small business substitute and bill be vitiated.
  I further ask that the following amendments be in order to the Reid 
substitute: the Johanns 1099 repeal, the Hatch R&D, the Hatch tax hike 
prevention, the Grassley biodiesel, the Sessions amendment on spending 
caps, a Hutchison amendment on nuclear loan guarantees, a McCain 
amendment on border security, and a Kyl amendment on death tax.
  I further ask unanimous consent that it be in order for the majority 
to offer a relevant side-by-side to any of the above-mentioned 
amendments.
  Before the Chair rules, I would tell the majority leader that I will 
work with each of our sponsors to lock in reasonable time agreements on 
these amendments.
  Therefore, Mr. President, I propound that alternative consent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. REID. Reserving the right to object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. I am terribly disappointed, Mr. President. We have tried 
our utmost to be fair and reasonable, but it is obvious there is no 
effort here to solve the problem with small business across this 
country.
  The spending caps in the Sessions amendment we voted on five times, 
at least. Anyway, we have voted on it quite a few times.
  Nuclear loan guarantees. This is an amendment that is suggesting 
there are not enough loan guarantees for constructing nuclear 
powerplants. And that is probably true, but that has nothing to do with 
this bill. That is not small business. We are talking about tens of 
billions of dollars--tens of billions of dollars for one plant, and we 
are talking about five or six plants. So we are talking about maybe $50 
billion. That has nothing to do with small business.
  The McCain amendment on border security. We know that is the place 
they always go--``they'' meaning my friends on the other side of the 
aisle--is to border security. It is interesting to note that on the 
supplemental appropriations bill, that was one of the amendments that 
was on the bill we got from the House, and we agreed to do that. We 
said: Let's do that. The money is there. Let's do it. There was an 
objection from the Republicans.
  So I feel so disappointed for a lot of reasons, not the least of 
which is small businesses in America need this help. The Small Business 
Administration needs what we are doing here, and community banks need 
what we are doing here.
  I also feel badly for another reason. Senator Landrieu, the chairman 
of the Small Business Committee, has worked on this matter tirelessly 
for a couple of weeks. The Landrieu provision was taken out of the bill 
in an effort to get enough votes to pass this. She was given the 
assignment of getting some Republican support, and she did that. That 
is how we got the votes last Thursday evening, because she worked with 
them and we picked up two Republican votes. So I feel bad that she is 
not going to see the fruit of her labors unless something changes. She 
has done remarkably good work.
  This legislation is supported by chambers of commerce and all kinds 
of

[[Page S6386]]

organizations. This is not a Democratic bill; this is one that is 
bipartisan. If there ever were anything that is bipartisan, it is this 
bill.
  The estate tax? Let's be serious. We all know, Mr. President, that 
this is an effort to stall and not do this bill. There is no suggestion 
that we don't need to do something with the estate tax before we end 
this congressional session, but it has nothing to do with this 
legislation before us. We were told there were three amendments they 
wanted, and we agreed to take those.
  So regretfully, unless someone can come up with a proposal that is 
something that has reasonableness in it--I can't imagine what is wrong 
with what we have suggested. We take their three amendments, we have 
side-by-sides to those and go to cloture in the morning.
  I notice the consent agreement they have given us here has no time 
limit. I know my friend said he would work on time agreements. And even 
when we finish this, there is nothing that says we would even go to the 
bill then. This is the proverbial stall we have had all year--an effort 
to say no to everything we do. So I regretfully have to object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Is there objection to the majority leader's request?
  Mr. McCONNELL. Reserving the right to object--and I will object--I 
would just say to my friend that this bill initially did enjoy 
bipartisan support. But where we stand today, the Democrats want to 
offer amendments about health care, about educational funding, about 
FMAP, and about Cobell funding, so we have both sides sort of piling on 
here.
  I guess I would say to my friend from Louisiana that this is a 
discussion worth continuing with her counterpart, the Senator from 
Maine, who is our leader on the Small Business Committee, because 
somewhere in all of this there is a bipartisan bill, if we can 
structure the right kind of process that eliminates the feeling--beyond 
feeling, the reality of the minority getting shut out.
  Therefore, Mr. President, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Louisiana.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, if the minority leader will yield for a 
question, I appreciate how the leaders have tried to work together, 
although we don't seem to be getting to an agreement at this moment, 
but I wanted to ask the minority leader to clarify something. When he 
said things got snarled up, I don't know what has been snarled. The 
only amendment that has been offered on this bill, which was passed 
with 60 votes, was an amendment offered by Senator LeMieux from 
Florida, who is a Republican. It wasn't mine. I was a cosponsor, but he 
was the lead sponsor. It was a Republican amendment that was offered on 
the floor and received 60 votes. Is that what he was referring to that 
got snarled or was it something else?
  Mr. McCONNELL. I would just say there is now substantial opposition 
to the bill. I sense a significant lack of enthusiasm on the part of 
our ranking member. She can speak for herself, but my advice to my 
friend from Louisiana is that this is worth continuing to discuss to 
see if there isn't some way to get this bill passed in a form that is 
acceptable to most of the Senate.

  Ms. LANDRIEU. May I ask another question? I appreciate what the 
Senator has said, but the ranking member has made it clear for many 
months now that she doesn't support--and I have great respect for her--
the Small Business Lending Fund. So we actually did what we were 
supposed to do. We had a debate for 12 hours on the floor, and 
everybody got to speak. She spoke, I spoke, everyone spoke. And do you 
know what happened? The minority leader may remember. We got 60 votes, 
so we won.
  Mr. McCONNELL. If the Senator will yield for a suggestion.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. Hold on. I just want to say, if that is not the 
process, I don't know what is. We didn't cut that deal in the back 
room. We told everybody what we were going to do. I stood out here for 
12 hours. We voted in public. Everyone knew about it. So if that is the 
definition of snarled, we have a real problem.
  But go ahead. Yes, I will yield for a question.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Republican leader.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I was going to say that those points are ones better 
addressed to the Senator from Maine, and she is not on the floor at the 
moment. I am sure, if you can discuss it--you know a great deal about 
it as you have worked on it together. I think you ought to continue to 
discuss it.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. Well, I appreciate that because I do have the greatest 
respect for the Senator from Maine. But she has not been excited about 
this program. She voted no, but we got 60 votes for the program. So I 
think perhaps we might find a way forward.
  I am going to yield in just a minute, but the minority leader said he 
wanted eight amendments; our side wants three. Maybe we can figure out 
some way to agree on five on each side and get the small businesses in 
America the help they need.
  I don't know if the Senator from Illinois has an idea, but the 
Republicans want eight; we want three; let's get five.
  Mr. DURBIN. If the Senator from Louisiana will yield for a question, 
the majority leader just said we are going to continue to work on this, 
but I remember yesterday, during the debate on the DISCLOSE Act, the 
Republican leader came to the floor and was critical of the fact that 
we had left the small business bill. He said: Why don't we stay on the 
small business bill? It is very important.
  Today, we couldn't work out an agreement when we accepted the three 
amendments which the Republicans said they wanted to offer. We said: 
Fine, you may offer those three, we will offer three, and let the 
Senate decide.
  Now the Senate minority leader, the Republican leader, comes to the 
floor and objects again. He can't have it both ways. He can't complain 
that we are killing time here on the floor instead of taking up small 
business and then, when we return to it, object to finishing the bill.
  Right now, if I am not mistaken, we are facing a cloture vote. That 
will happen automatically in the morning, if I am not mistaken, on this 
bill, and I am hoping we can either get a unanimous consent agreement 
by then or some agreement by some Republicans to stand up for small 
business.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. Yes. And I thank the Senator.
  Mr. DURBIN. Is that not true? I am supposed to form a question.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. I think the Senator has assessed it correctly. But we 
have worked in a bipartisan fashion through both the Finance 
Committee--and I see the Senator from Montana, the leader of that 
committee, is here--and through the Small Business Committee. There 
were a few issues that couldn't be worked out in those committees, so 
the idea is to bring them to the floor and get a vote. We brought the 
lending provision to the floor, we had a vote, and we got 60 votes.
  So let's just continue to move on. If someone wants to offer an 
amendment to strike it and take it out--I don't think they will get 
that but, fine, and let's move on. It is a very strong bill.
  I just want to say that the only amendment that has been adopted to 
this bill has been a Republican amendment--with my cosponsorship--by 
Senator LeMieux from Florida because he says he has a State full of 
small businesses that desperately need this help. So we are not that 
far apart. They want eight amendments; we want three. Maybe we can 
figure out five amendments that could be offered because I think the 
small businesses of America deserve our best efforts.
  I thank the Senator from Illinois.

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