[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 41 (Thursday, March 17, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1788-S1800]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     MAKING FURTHER CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2011

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will 
proceed to the consideration of H.J. Res. 48, which the clerk will 
report.
  The bill clerk read as follows:

       A Joint Resolution (H.J. Res. 48) making further continuing 
     appropriations for fiscal year 2011, and for other purposes.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, there will be 3 
hours of debate equally divided between the leaders or their designees.
  The Senator from Hawaii.
  Mr. INOUYE. Madam President, I rise to discuss H.J. Res. 48, a short 
term continuing resolution designed to keep the Government open through 
April 8th. If the Senate passes this resolution it will be the sixth 
short term continuing resolution this year. With its passage we will be 
more than half way through the fiscal year and still operating without 
a budget.
  H.J. Res. 48 would fund the Government for an additional 3 weeks and 
would reduce the rate of operations for the Federal Government by an 
additional $6 billion. If adopted, we would be operating the government 
at a rate that is $51 billion below the amount requested by the 
administration for fiscal year 2011.
  At this level, our spending on security programs will be $30 billion 
below the president's request and $21 billion lower on domestic 
spending. I would also point out to my colleagues that this is $31 
billion below the so-called Sessions-McCaskill level which every member 
of the Republican caucus voted for last year.
  The aggregate amount in this short term CR is the level proposed by 
the President as a compromise with the House Republicans and it is the 
same amount that was included in the amendment which I offered as an 
alternative to the House continuing resolution last week.
  By agreeing to this level, the Senate will be $6 billion lower than 
current spending levels, but no lower than the President has 
recommended.
  While several of my colleagues have complained that we simply have 
not cut enough Government spending, most of our subcommittee chairmen, 
and many Members of the Democratic caucus are beginning to think that 
we have already cut too much.
  I believe the disparity in views can be partially explained by the 
information described below.
  Recently the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities released a report 
which notes that in comparing appropriations funding levels, the 
appropriate measurement should be expressed in inflation-adjusted 
dollars, normally referred to as real growth.

[[Page S1789]]

  The Center's point is that the cost of Government operations 
increases each year by inflation. One cannot ignore the fact that if 
the price of goods and services rise by 1, 2 or 10 percent, the Federal 
Government's cost in providing those goods and services also increases 
by this rate.
  When we fail to consider the effect of inflation on Federal 
discretionary programs in viewing spending rates, we are not accurately 
reflecting what it costs to run the Government. If utility prices are 
increasing by 5 percent, and if we don't budget the extra amount, we 
are forced to cut other programs to pay for the fact of life increase 
in our utility bills.
  Longevity increases paid to civil servants and military pay raises 
are also fact of life increases that we cannot ignore. These bills have 
to be paid even if we aren't budgeting for their increased cost.
  And. if we aren't basing our funding decisions on real costs, 
adjusted by inflation, we are in fact forcing Government to cut the 
services it provides even when it receives the same funding level as in 
the previous year. This isn't a political talking point; it is a 
mathematical fact.
  The report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities measures 
the impact of inflation on the cost of Government. By its calculation 
using the CBO baseline, real spending approved for fiscal year 2011 to 
date is $34 billion lower than what was provided in fiscal year 2010, a 
cut of $18 billion in real security spending and $16 billion in 
domestic spending.
  With this amendment we will be cutting domestic spending by another 
$6 billion in nominal terms, but more than that in inflation adjusted 
dollars.
  Democrats have been chastised for only cutting $10 billion from 
fiscal year 2010 levels.
  I would note that even in that comparison, which fails to take into 
account many fact of life increases, we should all understand that 
domestic spending is being cut by more than $14 billion, while security 
spending is slated to increase.
  Furthermore we are now halfway through the fiscal year. Agencies have 
spent on average 50 percent of their funds. Each dollar we reduce at 
this time has the effect of doubling the cut made in programs for the 
rest of the year.
  Our subcommittee chairmen recognize the difficulties that this level 
of spending will create for the programs they oversee. Accordingly, 
many of my colleagues on the Appropriations Committee are saying enough 
is enough, while those who are not as familiar with the details of 
budgeting complain that we should be able to cut spending more.
  I ask the Senate to consider one more measurement. For domestic 
discretionary spending the total available for the whole year after the 
passage of this bill will be $400 billion. In FY 2010 we had $413.6 
billion for these purposes. For nearly the entire first half of this 
year we were spending funds at a rate of nearly $410 billion.
  Since the year is halfway over, approximately half of the $140 
billion--or $205 billion--has already been allocated. In general, that 
means we will only have approximately $195 billion to cover the cost of 
operations for all of our domestic agencies for the rest of the year.
  This rate of spending for the rest of this fiscal year is $23.6 
billion below the rate we spent last year. And when we compound this, 
recognizing that inflation has increased the cost of operations for 
domestic programs by $16 billion a year according to the center on 
budget and policy priorities, we see that effectively for the remainder 
of the year we will be asking our agencies to operate at a rate which 
is $39.6 billion below what we gave them for the same level of goods 
and services that we supported last year. In real terms even under this 
short term CR, we will be requiring our agencies to absorb more than a 
9 percent reduction in spending compared to a year ago.
  Agreeing to a cut of this size this late in the fiscal year will be 
challenging for our agencies to manage. I believe our subcommittee 
Chairmen recognize this reality and it is why most of them are 
concerned that the level of cut that we are agreeing to is already 
deeper than is prudent.
  Finally, I want to point out to everyone who is listening exactly 
where we are, and what we are really talking about in trying to 
conclude our negotiations on spending for this fiscal year. Those who 
talk about $3.7 trillion in spending and billions in unneeded funds are 
not dealing with the reality of this continuing resolution.
  What the decision comes down to is this. After this resolution 
passes, our domestic agencies will have approximately $195 billion to 
meet all their needs through the end of the year.
  This covers the salaries of people who monitor our food supplies, of 
our air traffic controllers who keep U.S. airspace safe, of our customs 
officials and U.S. Marshalls who monitor our borders. It includes the 
cost of all of our programs to support education from kindergarten 
through college, of those who ensure that our social security benefits 
are paid, and of thousands of other activities.
  We have reduced their funding effectively by 10 percent.
  How much more of this $195 billion which accounts for only about 5 
percent of the $3.7 trillion budget; how much more of this spending can 
we really afford to cut before we are required to lay off food 
inspectors and shut down meat plants?
  How much more can we cut before we have no funds to pay employees to 
monitor our borders and ports? How much more before we have to cancel 
the construction of dams, bridges, highways, levees, sewers, and 
transit projects and throw thousands of private sector workers onto the 
street?
  It should not be forgotten that when we force either civil servants 
or private sector workers out of their jobs, they both add to the 
unemployment rolls. They will not be paying taxes any longer, but they 
will tax already stretched social services. Surely we can agree cutting 
jobs, whether public or private, is not the right approach to assist 
our slowly rebounding economy.
  This is not a question of how much we can or should save from a $3.7 
trillion budget, but a question of how much more our colleagues think 
we should cut from the $195 billion we have left to pay for our 
domestic agencies when we will be effectively asking the agencies to 
cut another 10 percent in spending over the next 6 months.
  In the coming days as we try to resolve our differences on domestic 
spending for the rest of this fiscal year I hope my colleagues will 
keep these points in mind.
  Having said that, I intend to support this CR because it will provide 
the funding level that the White House has endorsed, and because if it 
fails we would likely have to shut down the Government. That would be 
unacceptable.
  I encourage all my colleagues, those who think we have cut too much 
and those who do not, to support this 3 week extension to allow our 
colleagues additional time to try and reach an overall compromise on 
discretionary spending for the rest of the fiscal year.
  Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the time in quorum 
calls be allocated on both sides.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. INOUYE. 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. NELSON of Florida. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that 
the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to 
speak as in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                              Health Care

  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, you remember a year ago, before 
we passed the health care bill, everybody testified that Medicare was 
set to go into bankruptcy in 7 years? Do you remember back then, just a 
year ago, Medicare paid doctors when seniors got sick, and Medicare was 
focused on the quantity of care instead of the quality of care? Back 
then Medicare paid hospitals more if a patient got an infection that 
could have been avoided in the hospital, and they paid hospitals less 
if they avoided that infection in the first place because Medicare, 
whatever the cost was, paid it. And do you

[[Page S1790]]

remember back then that doctors would perform the same test over and 
over for the same patient because they had not been encouraged in a law 
to work together and to share results? That is why a year ago we passed 
the Health Care Reform Act. Now that act extends the life of Medicare 
by 12 more years until at least the year 2029.
  Now, because of a change in that law, Medicare does not just care for 
people when they get sick, it is a more comprehensive health care 
system. Now the senior citizens receive an annual wellness visit. As 
part of the new Medicare law they can receive screenings and tips on 
how to manage or prevent conditions such as if they have diabetes or 
high blood pressure, and they do not have to wait until they get sick. 
In my State of Florida that is a lot of senior citizens. That is 3.2 
million senior citizens.
  Another thing this health reform law does is increase payments to 
hospitals for providing higher quality care. It gives hospitals the 
incentives to prevent avoidable illnesses, and the law improves the 
quality by increasing the number of primary care physicians.
  In my opening statement I said hospitals were paid more if people got 
an infection in the hospital. We are now going to pay the hospital 
less. We are going to give the hospital an incentive not to have that 
kind of hospital that increases infections while the patient is there. 
Now doctors, under the new law, can track the patient care. They can 
make sure patients are seeing the right specialists, and they can help 
specialists avoid repeating the tests and the procedures.
  There is a part that is just being implemented now in the health care 
bill called the accountable care organization. Combined with that will 
be electronic records. So, instead, the Medicare beneficiary, the 
senior citizen going to this specialist, this specialist, this 
specialist, and this specialist, and all of them getting Medicare fee 
for service, now they are going to be under the umbrella of an 
accountable care organization that may be in the private sector. It may 
be part of Medicare Advantage, in an insurance company that is managing 
the care for the Medicare recipient.
  Whatever it is, it is going to integrate with electronic records, 
with the enhancement of primary care physicians, so that all of that 
duplication is not done and so that everybody is talking to everybody 
through the electronic records. So these doctors now are going to be 
able to keep track of patient care, to see the right specialists, and 
to help the specialists avoid repeating the tests.
  Now, you remember a year ago when senior citizens had to pay a lot 
for their senior citizen prescriptions under Medicare? That meant that 
sometimes our seniors did not get the treatment they wanted because 
they could not afford it. Remember back then that Medicare covered the 
first $2,800 worth of prescription drugs, but then they did not get any 
Medicare coverage for drugs until they had exceeded $6,300.
  If they did not have the money and were a senior citizen, I will tell 
you what was happening in that $3,000-to-$4,000 gap. The senior 
citizens, as some of the senior citizens in my State and in your State, 
Madam President, were doing without, or they were cutting their 
prescription drugs in half, or they were, unfortunately, making the 
choice between food or their medicine, something that in America, in 
the 21st century, you cannot believe is going on. But, in fact, it was 
and, unfortunately, it still is.
  It is about to go out because we are now covering that gap that is 
known as the doughnut hole in the new health care reform bill. So this 
bill that was passed a year ago is closing the gap in that coverage, 
and in my State alone, that means that 235,000 Florida seniors received 
a check this year of $250 that helped cover the cost of those 
prescriptions in that last year of 2010. This year, in 2011, under the 
new law, the seniors who hit that gap called the doughnut hole are 
going to receive a discount of 50 percent off the cost of their 
prescriptions.
  The gap under this new law is going to be entirely eliminated by the 
year 2020. It is going to be gradually phased in.

  One year ago, a lot of folks talked about the effect of health reform 
on Medicare Advantage. Remember that? Remember all that criticism about 
how Medicare Advantage was going to go down and how it was going to get 
cut? When we started proposing some real improvements to Medicare 
Advantage, a lot of the opponents were saying it was going to kill the 
program. They said it was going to cut those benefits, and it scared a 
lot of our senior citizens.
  The truth was, the insurance companies that provided Medicare called 
Medicare Advantage had a cushy extra 14 percent over Medicare 
prescription direct benefits. Medicare fee for service plus 14 percent 
is what the insurance companies were getting. Those insurance companies 
pocketed much of that government extra spending, and we were not, under 
the old law, holding those insurance companies accountable for enough 
on quality.
  As a result of that health care reform bill, today that program is 
stronger than ever. Remember how they said it was going to get whacked 
and it was going to cause the seniors to go way down?
  I can tell you, in my State, enrollment is up 6 percent in Medicare 
Advantage, and the premiums are down in Florida by 9.6 percent on 
Medicare Advantage. The new health care reform bill allows us to push 
back against the insurance companies that wanted to charge too much for 
Medicare Advantage. Just in my State, we were able to save Florida 
seniors $4 million in the form of extra health benefits or reduced out-
of-pocket costs for their Medicare coverage.
  Under the new law, we are going to be able to reward Medicare 
Advantage plans: Medicare insurance companies--we are going to be able 
to reward those that provide the quality plans, the high-quality care.
  Remember back 1 year ago what was happening on waste, fraud, and 
abuse in Medicare? The standards to prevent that waste, fraud, and 
abuse in Medicare were certainly not tough enough. How many times did 
we pick up the newspaper and we read about this guy had fleeced 
Medicare by opening a storefront that was a fake storefront and they 
started billing Medicare right and left and Medicare was paying it. As 
a result, the criminals were able to rip off Federal health care 
programs. A lot of that was because there was not an adequate enough 
review.
  This new law has enforcement officials with new tools to prevent 
fraud before it occurs. This Senator had a part, a little bitty part, 
in that. The law gives States money to conduct background checks on 
long-term care providers and to educate seniors on fraud prevention, to 
educate them about those people who prey on our senior citizens and 
take advantage of them. My State has received in excess of $3 million 
thus far in order to provide that education on fraud prevention.
  Because of the changes in this health care reform bill, Medicare is 
now stronger than ever. As it is being implemented over the course of 
the next several years, it did not take effect all at once. There is a 
lot of implementation in each year over about the next 4 years. As it 
does, Medicare is going to be stronger than ever. We certainly need to 
continue to protect and strengthen Medicare for all of our seniors.
  On the occasion of 1 year ago, when this new law on health care 
reform became law--it is so complicated and there are mistakes in it 
and we will correct those mistakes over time. That is the good part 
about this being implemented over the next several years; that where 
there is a mistake, it can be corrected. If this goes all the way up to 
the U.S. Supreme Court, which I expect it will, and if the Court 
declares a part of it as unconstitutional, that does not mean the Court 
is going to strike down the whole law. But there are plenty of 
opportunities, where there need to be corrections as it is being 
implemented, that we can do that.
  But I wished to come to the floor and point out some of these reforms 
that have already strengthened the Medicare Program, as well as 
providing a more favorable environment in which to receive health care 
coverage, particularly for America's senior citizens.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.

[[Page S1791]]

  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Manchin). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I wish to speak for a moment on the 
continuing resolution and then speak on something else. It should not 
matter which political party we belong to. It is not right for any 
elected official to use the budget process to squander our economic 
potential and undermine our economic competitiveness. I see far too 
many people doing that in this debate.
  I also see we are looking in a small window of the budget--something 
like one-sixth of the budget is where all the cuts are--confining the 
discussion to that, without looking at a millionaire's tax, without 
looking at closing loopholes.
  We know, the Presiding Officer knows, if a company in Wheeling, WV, 
right across the river, or in St. Clairsville, OH, shuts down and moves 
to Mexico or China, they can actually deduct the cost of that move and 
that shutdown. That makes no sense. We need to close those tax 
loopholes. We need to look at the entire budget as we make these cuts.
  Yesterday, I was on the phone with the majority leader talking to 
Ohio and Nevada media and also with John Paul Hill, an Ohio veteran 
who, after being discharged from the Army, was left homeless and turned 
to drug abuse.
  With the help of a Housing-Urban Development-Veterans Affairs 
Supportive Housing--called HUD-VASH--Grant Program, he has an 
apartment. His life is on track. He is enrolled in college at Cuyahoga 
Community College in northern Ohio and he is on track to graduate and 
will be very employable.
  Those are the kinds of cuts Republicans have made to maternal health 
care programs, to Head Start, to programs such as this for homeless 
vets. It is unconscionable that is the approach they have taken instead 
of much more serious long-term deficit reduction.
  We also know from what John McCain's chief economic adviser said that 
the Republican budget that came out of the House would result in 
700,000 lost jobs this year because of their approach, and that is 
clearly not good, as this economic recovery has begun--not fast enough 
in West Virginia or Ohio or anywhere else in this country, but it has 
begun. So we do not want to undercut that.
  (The further remarks of Mr. Brown of Ohio are printed in today's 
Record under ``Morning Business.'')
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. 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. ALEXANDER. 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. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator 
Bennet and I have up to 10 minutes for a colloquy.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, Senator Bennet and I have just 
announced an effort that I think most teachers, most principals, and 
many parents will want to be a part of. We are going to look at the 
education system in Tennessee and in Colorado--two of the more 
progressive States in education--to see if there are too many tests and 
too many regulations. We want to make sure the tests we have are good 
tests and the regulations we have are reasonable regulations, and any 
minute we can save from an unneeded test or an unnecessary regulation 
is a minute a teacher can spend devoted to teaching.
  So we have done two things. First, we are introducing today 
legislation that we hope will be a part of the new Elementary and 
Secondary Education Act when it is passed that will have the Education 
Secretary set up a task force that will do something we don't usually 
do in government, which is subtract instead of add government--in other 
words, to continuously ask teachers, principals, and others what tests, 
what regulations are unnecessary so we can get rid of them.
  Second, we are going to start right away to do this in Colorado and 
Tennessee. We have talked to our Governors--Governor Hickenlooper and 
Governor Halsam--and we are going to put together a task force of 
educators in our State and ask them to say to us: What regulations are 
unnecessary? What tests are unnecessary?
  When I was Governor, I used to say to the Education Secretary, who 
was then Bill Bennett: There are too many Federal regulations. He would 
say to me: I bet you have more State regulations than Federal 
regulations. And he was right.
  When I was Education Secretary, I had many teachers and others say to 
me: We can't do this, we can't do that because of the Federal 
regulation, when, in fact, there was no such Federal regulation. What 
often happens is that the confusion between what the Federal Government 
requires and what the State government requires creates inordinate 
confusion in the classroom, and teachers feel all tied up.
  So we are going to start right away to do this. We are both very 
excited about this. We think this should give teachers and others in 
the classroom an opportunity to do their jobs. One day less on an 
unneeded test might mean one more day teaching a child U.S. history, 
which would suit me fine.
  I wish to congratulate Senator Bennet for his contribution to the 
debate, his ideas. His ideas come from his experience as an 
extraordinarily successful superintendent of the Denver Public School 
System. So we are taking his more recent experience and my own 
background, putting them together with our teachers and principals, and 
we look forward to reporting to our colleagues what we find, as well as 
to Secretary Duncan, who will be a full partner with us in this. We 
hope this is part of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act when it 
is enacted in a bipartisan way.
  Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I thank Senator Alexander for his 
leadership over so many years on education issues confronting this 
country and making sure every child in America has the opportunity to 
fulfill their full potential. I thank him also for his work on this 
bipartisan effort to do something very unusual for government and also 
for public education, which is actually to begin an inquiry about not 
what the next rule or regulation should be but whether there are rules 
and regulations that are now obsolete or whether our State regulations 
and Federal regulations are actually not accounting for each other in 
any way other than to overburden the people who are actually teaching 
our kids and our kids themselves.
  I used to spend a lot of time when I was superintendent of Denver 
public schools wondering why everybody in Washington was so mean to our 
teachers and to our kids. Now that I have been here for a couple years, 
I know the people here are not mean. But this Senate floor is a very 
long way from the classrooms of this country--the classrooms in 
Tennessee and the classrooms in Colorado. We have to remember what the 
effects of everything we do are on that moment when a teacher is in her 
classroom with 20, 30 kids and trying to do her best to make sure they 
move forward.
  This is an opportunity to not show up with the answers but to ask 
questions of our teachers and principals and moms and dads and see what 
we can take away. I have learned something since I have been here, 
which is that an awful lot of the burden we are placing on people in 
schools and classrooms and the way in which State and Federal 
regulations interact with each other--if we can reduce that burden 
while at the same time elevating our accountability system, improve our 
accountability system, make sure we are holding everybody accountable 
for delivering the outcomes from our kids, that not only will we get 
better results but we are going to find that there is a lot more time 
in the schoolday and the school year for kids to have well-rounded 
education all across America.
  I thank our former Education Secretary for his work, and I thank our 
current Education Secretary, Arne Duncan, for working with us on this 
initiative. I am so looking forward to having a conversation with 
people, where we are saying: What can we take away, rather than: What 
are we going to impose on you now?
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed 
in the Record a memorandum on the

[[Page S1792]]

Colorado-Tennessee working group on effective regulation and assessment 
systems for public education, which outlines the roles Senator Bennet, 
myself, Secretary Duncan, along with Governor Haslam of Tennessee and 
Governor Hickenlooper of Colorado, will have.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

Go-TN Working Group on Effective Regulation and Assessment Systems for 
                            Public Education

       The structure of the working group will be as follows:
       Co-Chairs: Sen. Michael Bennet, Sen. Lamar Alexander, 
     Secretary Arne Duncan, Governor Bill Haslam, Governor John 
     Hickenlooper.
       Charge:
       (1) Examine Federal, State, and local regulations governing 
     public schools in Colorado and Tennessee.
       a. Differentiate between financial, programmatic, general 
     education, special education, and civil rights requirements.
       b. Identify which governmental entity requires each 
     regulation.
       c. Measure cost of compliance in terms of funds spent on 
     compliance and time in hours and personnel.
       d. Identify duplicative, redundant, or unnecessary 
     regulations at each governmental level.
       e. Investigate how Federal, State, and local 
     interpretations of laws and regulations create additional or 
     unnecessary burden and are used as rationale (or cover) for 
     imposing requirements that are not actually mandated by law.
       (2) Examine Federal, State, and local assessment systems 
     for public elementary, middle, and high schools.
       a. Determine purpose and intent and length of each 
     assessment (e.g., measuring student achievement, teacher 
     effectiveness, system accountability).
       b. Determine frequency, length, and scheduling and measure 
     impact on length of time in hours and days spent on testing.
       c. Identify duplication in the current system and 
     opportunities to streamline the accountability system.
       d. Examine whether current assessments are returned with 
     sufficient speed and quality to inform instruction, student 
     grading, and teacher effectiveness.
       e. Examine reporting practices of test results and the 
     degree to which they are returned in a timely manner with 
     sufficient quality to be useful to parents, teachers and 
     principals, and students to inform and improve their work, 
     including targeting instruction to student needs, grading 
     student work, and evaluating teacher and principal 
     effectiveness.
       f. Analyze the ability of quality assessments to measure 
     whether a student is prepared to graduate from high school 
     and pursue college or a career without the need for academic 
     remediation.
       g. Examine what factors most contribute to quality 
     assessments and the extent to which high-quality assessments 
     can advance student learning.
       h. Assess the technology infrastructure for next generation 
     assessments.
       i. Identify opportunities to improve assessment practices 
     to better promote parent, teacher and principal, and student 
     understanding of progress toward college and career readiness 
     and public understanding of school performance and 
     educational productivity.
       (3) Prepare a report analyzing findings and make 
     recommendations for local, State, and Federal policy makers 
     including:
       a. State legislators
       b. Chief State School Officers
       c. State Federal Programs Director
       d. Superintendents
       e. Principals
       f. Teachers
       g. Assessment Experts
       h. Educator Effectiveness Experts

  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, one more time, the bottom line of this 
proposal by Senator Bennet and myself is that every minute a teacher 
spends on an unneeded test or regulation is a minute the teacher cannot 
devote to teaching a child. What we are asking the teachers of 
Tennessee and Colorado to do for us is to identify the rules and 
regulations we need and the rules and regulations we can get rid of.
  Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I will add one more example to this from 
my experience in Denver. We complied with No Child Left Behind in the 
Denver public schools. But there was something that didn't make sense 
to me and to our teachers and our families, which is that we thought we 
were asking and answering a completely irrelevant question when it came 
to accountability, which was: How did this year's fourth graders do 
compared to last year's fourth graders?
  The accountability system in the United States is based upon that. 
What our teachers told me is: Michael, it is irrelevant because they 
are not the same kids.
  They are right. So we moved to a system that asked the question: How 
did this group of fifth graders do compared to when they were fourth 
graders and third graders, compared to what every other child in 
Colorado with a statistically similar test history did as well. All of 
a sudden, we began to see places that were driving growth for kids but 
that were completely unrecognized by the Federal law. We saw other 
places where kids were achieving at high levels but were falling behind 
during the course of the year.
  There is a lot of wisdom in this country about how to move our kids 
forward. What we have to do is tear down some of the barriers that are 
in the way of those good ideas. It took me a long time to get that 
performance system signed off on both at the State and Federal levels. 
The State of Colorado has a growth model, and we are talking about 
growth models all over the country as a result of the work we did in 
Colorado and the good work that has been done in other States as well.
  Sometimes people ask: Why is it so hard to scale quality in public 
education? If we can, in some small way, tear down some of the 
unintended barriers to that scaling of quality education, I think our 
kids will be better for it.
  Again, I thank the Senator from Tennessee for signing up on this 
initiative. I look forward to learning what is working well and what is 
not working so well in our respective States and watching this spread 
across the United States. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. I thank the Chair also.
  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. 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.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, we will soon be voting on a continuing 
resolution to continue funding the U.S. Government for 3 weeks. I 
believe that will reduce spending over that 3-week period by $2 billion 
a week, which is far less than the debt we are incurring in each of 
those weeks, but it is significant progress. Add it to the $4 billion 
we did in the previous 2-week CR.
  I will support this continuing resolution. It keeps us on track to 
achieve a $61-billion reduction in Federal spending this fiscal year, 
which ends September 30. It is important we take action. It is a matter 
that is important financially to American business interests and 
foreign business interests that may be thinking of investing in the 
United States and people who might buy our huge number of Treasury 
bills that we sell each week and are purchased by people all over the 
world. They want to know if we have our house in order, if this is a 
safe place to invest their money.
  We need to do something now. When our majority leader, Senator Reid, 
proposed not $61 billion but that we reduce spending only $4 billion 
throughout the rest of this fiscal year, I said then and believe now 
that is only a product of being in the Washington bubble. We are in 
denial of the reality of the crisis we face. I do not want to talk down 
the American economy. I believe the American worker is willing to work, 
is competitive, but we cannot burden that worker with excessive debt.
  How does that happen? I am ranking Republican on the Budget 
Committee. We have heard testimony from Drs. Rogoff and Reinhart, who 
have written a book called ``This Time is Different.'' Their study of 
nations that have gotten into trouble financially and have had debt 
crises over the last 20 years shows a consistent pattern of problems.
  One of the things they concluded is that when a nation's debt reaches 
90 percent GDP, the economic growth in that country slows down. The 
median was 1 percent, but the average was more than 1 percent. Some 
countries had more than a 1-percent drop in growth. Japan has a higher 
debt than we do, I think the highest in the world. They have an 
interesting way they have been able to finance it, but they have had no 
growth for quite a long time. It is consistent with the Rogoff-Reinhart 
study.
  Does that apply to us? We are about 95 percent now. Our debt is 
surging. By the end of this fiscal year, the numbers are that our debt 
will be 100 percent of GDP, well above the figure. One might

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ask: What does 1 percent growth mean? If we are looking for growth of 2 
or 3 percent, 1 percent is half our growth.
  What does it mean in other terms? Experts have said that a 1-percent 
reduction in growth amounts to 1 million jobs lost.
  I believe we are beginning to feel a negative pull on our bounce back 
from this recession as a result of growing debt right now, not years 
down the road as some people have been saying and predicting; that we 
are going to have a debt crisis down the road. I hate to say it.
  Erskine Bowles, President Clinton's Chief of Staff, was appointed by 
the President to cochair the debt commission with Senator Alan Simpson. 
They testified before our committee last week, and this is what they 
said about the nature of the crisis we face. They spent weeks studying 
the numbers, hearing from experts all over the world, about our debt 
situation. They reported that we have to take action now.
  In a joint statement they presented to the committee, they said this 
is the most predictable financial crisis this Nation has ever faced. In 
other words, they said if we do not change course, it will be the most 
predictable crisis we have faced.
  Senator Conrad, our Democratic chairman, who is very concerned about 
these issues, asked them when. Mr. Bowles, who himself is a successful 
financial businessman and financier, said about 2 years. Senator 
Simpson contributed to the discussion and said: I think a year.
  I hope we do not have some sort of debt crisis in a year. The fact 
that has even been discussed should be a cause for alarm. Let me say, 
in January, Alan Greenspan said we could have a debt crisis in 2 to 3 
years. Moody's has discussed downgrading our debt. They have warned 
they might downgrade our debt in less than 2 years. We need to take 
action now. That is the deal. That is the matter.
  We had some fine new Members elected to the House and the Senate last 
Fall. The American people believed those they elected would come to 
Washington and help us get off this course of wild spending. I believe 
the American people get it. They are not in a bubble. They know we 
cannot continue this way. They are prepared to take some action, and we 
need to do it. If we fail to take action that is noticeable and 
significant, it would send the wrong message around the world. They 
would say: Even with this election change that occurred in Washington, 
you are still not changing your course.
  I urged the President before the State of the Union Adderss to talk 
straight to the American people about the threat we face, and he did 
not do so. The first 37 minutes of his speech was about new investments 
he called on us to make. Investments, of course, is new spending. He 
never once took a few moments to explain to us the kinds of things Mr. 
Erskine Bowles said or Mr. Alan Greenspan said about how we are on an 
unsustainable course. He never even acknowledged we are on an 
unsustainable course. He never warned us that we are going to have to 
tighten our belts, just as Governors are doing, as mayors are doing all 
over America. When we do not have money, we do not have money. If we do 
not have money, we have to change course.
  I was disappointed, as were some of our Democratic colleagues, that 
we have not had the kind of national dialog and ask the American people 
to receive somewhat less from the Federal Government than they have 
been.
  Why do we have to do it? Because we are facing a crisis in good 
leadership, which means the leader has to tell the people what the 
threat is, what the danger is, and how we are going to get out of it.
  I truly believe one of the highest duties of any Member of Congress 
or any leader in America is to protect the American people from 
foreseeable dangers. As Erskine Bowles said, this is the most 
predictable crisis we have ever faced. It is heading to a bad end--
hopefully, not as soon as they warned us it could happen so we will 
have time to get off this course. That is important.
  The President said in his State of the Union Address that we will be 
living within our means. He did a radio address after he submitted his 
budget, and he said: We are going to be living within our means. My 
budget puts us on a track to prosperity. We are going to continue to 
invest, and we will be living within our means and paying down the 
debt.
  Mr. Jack Lew, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, 
says we are going to be living within our means and paying down our 
debt. Basically, they are saying: Don't worry. You guys are getting all 
hyped up. We can still invest. We can still spend. Don't worry about 
it.
  What do the facts say? We do not need political talk; we need a fact-
based budget. We need fact-based discussions. The facts are we are not 
going to be paying down our debt in 10 years under the President's 
budget. We are not going to be living within our means.

  What is the situation? His own budget is four volumes. In that plan 
it calls for spending levels that increase the total gross debt of the 
United States from $13 trillion to $26 trillion. Under that plan, the 
lowest single annual deficit that occurs is over $600 billion. The 
highest deficit President Bush ever had was 450. That was too high. The 
lowest he is projecting in his own numbers is 600.
  Even more troubling, in years 7, 8, 9 and 10 of his budget the 
deficits are going up. It is almost $900 billion in the 10th year. How 
could they say that? How could the President look the American people 
in the eye and say my budget is going to cause us to live within our 
means? How could Mr. Lew say that?
  I examined Mr. Lew in the Budget Committee. I asked Mr. Lew, the 
lowest deficit you are going to have is $600 billion. How is that 
living within our means? He said: Well, there is something called a 
primary deficit. I said: What? He said: The primary deficit. I asked: 
Well, what is that? He said: Well, you don't count interest.
  You don't count interest. When a family living in tight times today 
is trying to squeeze their budget, do they not count their interest on 
their credit card or their mortgage payment? How can they say they are 
balancing the budget, living within our means and not count interest 
that we pay on the debt? All of the money we borrow we have to pay 
interest on. We pay interest on $14 trillion. If it doubles to 26, we 
will pay interest on that. Last year, our interest payment for the 
United States of America was about $208 billion in interest payments 
alone.
  Under the President's budget, the interest payment in the 10th year 
is $844 billion, according to his numbers. This is the fastest growing 
item in the entire budget. They assume an interest rate at 3.5 percent. 
I don't think and most experts do not believe that is going to remain 
so low. This is historically very low. Historically, we average about 6 
percent on our debt. So if it went from 3 percent to 6 or 7 percent, 
instead of $840 billion I guess it would be $1.9 trillion in interest 
payments. And that could happen if we don't get off this unsustainable 
path we are on.
  I am frustrated about this. People say: Well, this CR business is 
only discretionary spending. It is only a small part of the overall 
budget. You shouldn't even attempt to fool with it. You are wasting 
your time. No, no, no. We are going to have to take every part of the 
budget and see what we can do to contain the growth in spending, or 
even reduce spending, to eliminate some spending that is totally 
worthless because we get no real benefit from it. We need to make our 
government more productive, lean, and efficient. We can do that.
  We cannot continue on this course. The House of Representatives has 
passed a proposal, a continuing resolution, that would reduce spending 
through the rest of the fiscal year a total of $61 billion. We should 
accept that. That is not too much. It is probably not enough, but it is 
enough to count.
  For example, it is a $61 billion reduction in baseline U.S. spending. 
If you reduce the baseline, even if next year you start going up 1 
percent, that 1 percent will be on a baseline that is $61 billion 
lower. We have calculated the numbers, and over 10 years, that $61 
billion, plus the interest you don't have to pay, will save the United 
States Treasury $860 billion. That is a good step. That does make a 
difference. People who deny it makes a difference are wrong. It is not 
going to savage

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anybody, unless some of these programs aren't working, and then they 
ought to be zeroed out. So I want to make that point clear.
  How much is the discretionary spending--the money we spend here on 
education, on highways, on things of that nature--defense? 
Discretionary nondefense is about 12 percent of the budget; 60 percent 
or so is in Social Security and Medicare, and they are growing at an 
unsustainable rate. We need to take steps now to save Social Security, 
to put Social Security on a path so our seniors can rely on it and our 
young people can have confidence that when they become senior citizens, 
they can rely on it also. It is not that difficult to do.
  This has been talked about by editorial boards around the country, by 
experts and economists and professors and Congressmen and Senators for 
years. But the crisis is getting more real and acute now. Yet what did 
the President do? He said not one word about that in his State of the 
Union or his budget. His budget doesn't do anything about any of the 
entitlements. You can't cut discretionary spending and you can't cut 
entitlement spending. In effect, they are saying nothing is to be 
challenged. I know that is not a rational approach to the crisis we are 
in today.
  We have to work together. We have Senators together right now--
Democratic and Republican--who are trying to figure out a way to make 
some alterations in the trajectory of our debt in America and to put us 
on a sound path. Democrats and Republicans are meeting--Senator Warner, 
Senator Chambliss, I think Senator Manchin and others are talking. They 
want to see us do something historic. I think we need to. But on the 
Budget Committee, Budget Director Lew said the President wasn't for any 
change. He took the view that Social Security doesn't have a problem; 
nothing is going to happen until 2037. Well, what happens then? It 
falls off a cliff, and that is assuming you count this paper that is 
supposed to be backing it up. But the money has been spent. We need to 
get Social Security on a sound course, and we can do it.
  We have to work on Medicare, which is even more problematic and more 
dangerous. We need to get it on a sound course. We need to get our 
heads together on discretionary spending and contain our growth in 
discretionary spending, all of which is possible to do. All of that is 
possible to do. We have the opportunity to put our country on a road to 
prosperity and growth. We will need to do some things such as reforming 
our tax laws to more fairly raise revenue in a way that allows more 
growth to occur, because we need to have growth. We have to create 
jobs. We need to redo our energy policy and produce more American 
energy and hold the cost of energy down, not drive up the cost of 
gasoline and electricity on the American people.
  Momentum, I think, is on the side of this. When Majority Leader Reid 
offered his pittance of a reduction--a $4 billion reduction--10 
Democratic Senators defected. They didn't vote for it because they 
didn't think it reduced spending enough. We had three Republicans who 
didn't support the $61 billion. They thought it ought to go lower than 
that. So the momentum out there is to go further than we are going.
  The American people get it. Our expert testimony from witnesses tells 
us that. We have seen Bill Gross, of the PIMCO Bond Fund, the largest 
fund in the world, say they are not buying any more U.S. Treasuries, 
basically calling on the United States to reduce our debt. He didn't 
have confidence in it. We need to get busy and do some things. It is 
going to have to be done in a bipartisan way, there is no doubt about 
it.
  There are two choices, I believe, truly. One is a tougher road, but 
it is the road to prosperity. It can return us to the kind of 
leadership role in the world we need to be in. The other road is the 
road to decline. Nothing comes from nothing. Nothing ever could, Julie 
Andrews sang. There is no free lunch. Debts have to be paid. Interest 
has to be paid on debts. This is reality. We don't live in a fantasy 
world. The time to stand and be counted is now.
  This $61 billion reduction in spending through the last 6\1/2\ or so 
months of this fiscal year is a statement. It is actual, it is real, it 
will reduce the total indebtedness of the United States by $860 billion 
over 10 years. We could do more, but Congress being what it is, slowly 
coming around to the challenge, we are not ready probably to do more. 
But we need to do $61 billion. We do not need a compromise halfway, 
some $30 billion reduction in spending. I do believe that would show 
weakness on our part--a lack of resolve--which would not be a good 
signal for our fragile economy today.
  We need to meet the test, to face the defining challenge of our time, 
and that is spending. It is the dominant issue facing America today, no 
doubt about it. It dwarfs every other issue. I wish it weren't so. When 
I came, in 1997, I guess we were still fighting over spending then, 
trying to contain spending, but by 1998 and 1999 we were in surplus. We 
balanced the budget. They started in 1994 and made some tough 
decisions. It is going to be harder this time. The hole is deeper, the 
demographics and the systemic threats to our financial order are 
greater than it was, there is no doubt about it. But we can do it.
  I think it is our time to fulfill our duty--our duty to our Nation 
and to the American people to preserve America's heritage. We are 
standing at a time in this country where we have to make a choice. 
Let's make this choice. Let's do this 3-week extension, take it down $6 
billion more over that 3 weeks, and then let's come back and do $61 
billion and celebrate the first real step in decades to contain growth 
and spending. Let's promise this is the beginning. Let's promise that 
we are going to review all our spending, and we are going to do it in 
an honest, aboveboard way, fact based, not politics, not smoke and 
mirrors, or fantasy budgets, but real numbers facing real threats.
  If we do that, I think the American people will be supportive. They 
were supportive in the last election. I believe they will be supportive 
again.
  I thank the Chair for his leadership on these issues in the Senate. I 
think there is growing consensus here that progress must be made.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cardin.) Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I wanted to say a few words in support of the 
continuing resolution that the House of Representatives passed that we 
are going to be voting on here in another hour or so. It is H.J. Res. 
48.
  This is the second short-term funding extension to prevent a 
government shutdown while our congressional leaders are negotiating to 
try to reach an agreement on a long-term plan to keep our government 
working through the end of this fiscal year ending in September. The 
short- and long-term continuing resolutions under discussion are 
leftover work from 2010 to finish the job of funding the government, as 
I said, through the end of this fiscal year.
  Notably, the spending cuts that have been achieved so far are really 
the first meaningful spending cuts the Congress has passed since the 
Deficit Reduction Act which was enacted in February 2006.
  The House-passed 3-week CR or continuing resolution, which runs until 
April 8, includes $6 billion in spending cuts, which will keep the 
Congress on track to implement the overall $61 billion in spending 
reductions which are included in the long-term CR. Enactment of this 
short-term measure would mean that in just 5 weeks we will have cut $10 
billion from this year's spending, and because of the adjustment in the 
baseline, that means that over a 10-year period of time, we will have 
saved the taxpayers $140 billion. Even in Washington, DC, that is real 
money.
  The cuts in H.J. Res. 48 include funding rescissions, reductions, and 
program terminations. It also eliminates earmarked accounts within the 
Agriculture, Commerce-Justice-Science, Financial Services, General 
Government, and Interior Subcommittee jurisdictions. It reduces or 
terminates 25 programs, for a savings of $3.5 billion, and

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eliminates $2.6 billion in earmarked account funding--all in all, a 
pretty good day's work. While we could argue the spending cuts are not 
large relative to the overall budget, as I said before, they will 
amount to $140 billion in savings over 10 years.
  I urge my colleagues to support this ability to cut funding--
something we do not often have the opportunity to do. Why do we need to 
do this? Well, we all know that, first of all, we have a gross Federal 
debt exceeding $14 trillion. In fact, we are piling up debt at such a 
fast rate, that soon, the administration says--and the administration 
has--the President has asked us to increase the debt ceiling of the 
United States because of the amount of debt we keep adding to that that 
exists.
  Obviously, we are living beyond our means. We have to borrow $4 
billion a day. Another way to look as it is that for every dollar we 
spend here, we have to borrow 42 cents of that from somebody else. 
About half of that borrowing occurs from foreign nations. If you want 
to look at how the debt relates to the American citizens, it is equal 
to $45,500 per American or, if you want to relate it just to those who 
pay taxes, it is $127,000 for every taxpayer in the United States. That 
is how big our debt is.
  That money has to be paid back. This is not something that just is 
out there in the ether somewhere; our creditors will want to be paid 
back when the bonds we have issued become due. It is either going to be 
us here in Congress and the President deciding how to reorder our 
priorities so we get our fiscal house in order or eventually the 
bondholders are going to do it for us by demanding far higher interest 
rates in order to buy our debt.
  It is not just a fiscal problem, it is a national security problem. 
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mike Mullen, has made the 
point: ``I believe that our debt is the greatest threat to our national 
security.''
  Now, why does he say that? Well, there are two basic reasons why. If 
we do not have the economic capability of funding all of the national 
security requirements we have, we no longer are the world's leading 
power, able to project our authority throughout the world, our ability 
to help others as well as defend ourselves.
  Second, when we get into hock with other countries, become their 
debtors, our ability to influence their decisions in the world is 
diminished. It is very hard for us to go to the Chinese, who hold a 
couple trillion dollars of our debt--I think it is a figure roughly in 
that neighborhood--and say: We demand that you support us in the United 
Nations Security Council to impose sanctions on Iran. It is pretty easy 
for them to say: Oh, really? How about that debt you owe us? How about 
if you pay a little higher interest rate on that money?
  Well, of course, paying a higher interest rate would devastate both 
our Federal budget and our economy. So it impacts our ability to 
influence others around the world, thereby also influencing our 
national security.
  Finally, there is the impact of the cuts we are making today, when we 
pass this legislation, on job creation in our country. There is a 
direct relationship between government spending on the one hand--going 
into debt--and job creation on the other. It is one of the reasons we 
have the high unemployment we have today. In fact, if you look at a 
chart, there is an absolute direct correlation between the unemployment 
in our country and the deficit spending and debt in our country. That 
is why we have to get that lower. When we reduce the amount of debt and 
we spend less, which is what this legislation will do, we can leave the 
money in the private sector, enabling private businesses to invest that 
money, including in jobs, thereby not only hiring more people but 
helping our economy to grow.
  In his work, Stanford economist John Taylor has shown this direct 
correlation between these spending cuts and increased employment. He 
recently released an analysis, and it is titled ``Why a Credible Budget 
Strategy Will Reduce Unemployment and Increase Economic Growth.'' That 
is the title. It concluded that the spending cuts in H.R. 1, which is 
the underlying continuing resolution in the House, ``will increase 
economic growth and employment as the federal government begins to put 
its fiscal house in order and encourage job-producing private sector 
investment.'' He is, by the way, among 150 top economists in the United 
States who signed a statement arguing for a change in direction and 
immediate action ``to begin to slow government spending, reduce 
uncertainty, and support the creation of new private sector jobs.''
  We can begin that process by adopting the legislation that is before 
us here in another hour or so. It will, as I said, cut an additional $6 
billion, so that the total in this last month and 1 week will be $10 
billion in spending cuts that will, over a 10-year period of time, save 
the taxpayers $140 billion--all in all, a good day's work.
  I urge my colleagues to support the legislation.
  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. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from New York is recognized.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I rise to speak about the current debate 
over the current Federal budget. On Tuesday, a very telling and very 
troubling vote was held in the House of Representatives. In order to 
pass the 3-week continuing resolution needed to avert a government 
shutdown, which we are considering here in the Senate today, Speaker 
Boehner was forced to rely on votes from House Democrats.
  He had to do so because conservative Republicans abandoned their 
party leadership in droves. They fumed that the measure lacked special 
interest add-ons dealing with ideological issues such as abortion, net 
neutrality, and global warming.
  In all, 54 conservative Republicans rejected the measure--even though 
it was necessary to avert a shutdown, even though their own leadership 
negotiated the proposal, and even though it included $6 billion in 
additional cuts to domestic discretionary spending. This is a bad omen.
  Last week, the Senate held two test votes: one on H.R. 1 and one on a 
Democratic alternative. We knew that neither proposal would have the 
votes to pass and, sure enough, both went down.
  The purpose of those votes was to make it clear that both sides' 
opening bids in this debate were nonstarters and thus pave the way for 
a serious and good-faith compromise. But, unfortunately, an intense 
ideological tail continues to wag the dog over in the House of 
Representatives.
  Speaker Boehner had hoped after H.R. 1 failed in the Senate, it would 
convince his conservatives of the need to compromise. Instead, those 
conservatives have only dug their heels in further, and that is no way 
to improve our Nation's fiscal footing.
  Speaker Boehner has said in no uncertain terms that he wants to avoid 
a shutdown, and I believe him. He is a good, honest man. The problem 
is, a large percentage of those in his party think ``compromise'' is a 
four-letter word.
  I do not envy the position the Speaker is in, but he is going to have 
to make a choice. This is not a yellow wood in Robert Frost's poem, but 
there are two divergent roads, and, sorry, Speaker Boehner cannot 
travel both. He can cater to the tea party element and, as Congressman 
Mike Pence has suggested, ``pick a fight'' that will inevitably cause a 
shutdown on April 8--that is one path--or he can abandon the tea party 
in these negotiations and forge a consensus among more moderate 
Republicans and a group of Democrats. I think we all know which road he 
should choose.
  Speaker Boehner would not have been able to pass this short-term 
measure without Democratic votes, and he will not be able to pass a 
long-term one without Democratic votes either.
  Throughout this debate, Democrats have repeatedly shown a willingness 
to negotiate, a willingness to meet Republicans somewhere in the 
middle, and yet the rank and file of the House GOP has been utterly 
unrelenting. They have wrapped their arms around the discredited, 
reckless approach advanced by H.R. 1, and they will not let

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go. In fact, they just keep squeezing harder.
  Worse, the last few days have taught us that spending cuts alone will 
not bring a compromise.
  The new demand from the far right is that we go along with all their 
extraneous riders. These riders don't belong on a budget bill, but they 
were shoehorned into H.R. 1 anyway. Now the hard-liners want them in 
the final deal.
  This is why a compromise has been so hard to come by in the budget. 
It is because Republicans want more than spending cuts; they want to 
impose their entire social agenda on the back of a must-pass budget.
  Those on the right are entitled to their policy positions, but there 
is a time and a place to debate these issues, and this ain't it. If 
this debate were only about spending cuts we probably would come to an 
agreement before long, but we will have a hard time coming to an 
agreement if those on the hard right treat the budget as an opportunity 
to enact a far-ranging agenda.
  Many Republicans in the House recognize the unreasonableness of the 
hard-liners, to their credit. Steve LaTourette of Ohio said passing the 
3-week stopgap was ``exactly what people expect us to do--find cuts and 
continue to talk.''
  Michael Grimm, a very bright freshman from my home State of New York, 
said the tea party lawmakers were making ``a big mistake.''
  This is proof positive there are reasonable Republicans in the House, 
including some reasonable freshmen such as Mr. Grimm who, along with a 
group of Democrats, can provide Speaker Boehner with the way around the 
tea party. In order to avoid a dead end on these budget talks, Speaker 
Boehner should abandon the tea party and work to forge a bipartisan 
consensus. It is the only way out of this bind.
  Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, on March 2, we voted on a short-term 
continuing resolution. We vote today on another. I opposed the earlier 
measure, and for the same reasons, I oppose this one as well.
  First, this legislation makes unjustified cuts in important Federal 
programs. These cuts will affect the safety and well-being of Americans 
who already have suffered through the worst recession since the Great 
Depression, and who still are waiting for a robust economic recovery to 
lift their fortunes.
  The cuts in this bill include a more than 15-percent reduction in 
important agricultural research programs that help our farmers fight 
threats such as plant diseases and invasive species. And they include a 
reduction of $200 million--almost 25 percent--in funding for community-
oriented policing grants that help local law enforcement agencies 
afford the equipment they need to keep our communities safe.
  Second, while this legislation will do real damage to important 
programs, it will have little effect on its professed target: the 
Federal budget deficit. Focusing solely on cuts in nondefense 
discretionary spending, as this and previous continuing resolutions 
have done, cannot solve our budget problems, because those programs 
make up less than 15 percent of our budget.
  Lastly, this legislation makes not even a gesture toward what must be 
an essential part of any deficit-reduction strategy: revenue 
improvements through the closing of tax loopholes and a rollback of the 
unjustified tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans that occurred under 
President Bush.
  I will repeat what I have said before: We cannot seriously dent the 
Federal budget deficit unless we address revenues as well as spending. 
This is a matter of simple arithmetic. Hacking away at a narrow slice 
of the budget cannot significantly reduce our deficit. But it can do 
significant damage to our Nation's safety and security and to the 
welfare of American families. Passing legislation that does such damage 
is an error; passing it while failing to address unjustified tax cuts 
and loopholes that benefit the wealthy adds insult to injury.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I want to take a few moments to discuss a 
pressing matter.
  In a few hours, the Senate will take up another short-term continuing 
resolution to fund the government for fiscal year 2011. Earlier this 
month, I voted no on another short-term CR. From my perspective, the 
spending reductions provided in that bill were a start, but they sent a 
bad sign.
  Washington needs to make clear, to citizens and to the markets, that 
it is serious about restoring the fiscal integrity of the United 
States. Don't get me wrong, any spending reductions are good spending 
reductions. But by getting into the habit of passing continuing 
resolutions rather than long-term funding bills with significant 
reductions in government spending, Congress and the White House send 
the signal that real spending restraint is impossible. The spending 
reductions in the last CR were a start, but they simply did not go far 
enough to bring fiscal sanity back to Washington. Unfortunately, in 
this opening volley in the debate over spending--to borrow from the 
former coach of the Arizona Cardinals, Denny Green--Democrats have 
shown that they are what we thought they were.
  The rest of the world heard voters loud and clear last fall. Voters 
want spending restraint from Washington. Republicans told voters that 
Democrats could not be trusted on spending. And Democrats are still 
making our case.
  One of my Democratic colleagues in the Senate has said that with 
respect to fiscal year 2011 spending reductions, I think we have pushed 
this to the limit. Last week, Democrats drew their line in the sand, 
and according to the Congressional Budget Office, they refused to 
reduce spending by any more than $4.7 billion. So in an appropriations 
bill that would spend over $1 trillion, Democrats could not find any 
more than $4.7 billion in reductions. The most they could come up with 
is a spending reduction of one-half of one percent? If Democrats 
consider these pathetic spending reductions pushing it to the limit, I 
would hate to see them really slacking off. In the Democrats' world, 
you are only truly stingy if you fail to increase spending. But failing 
to increase spending is not reducing spending, and we need to be 
reducing spending. American families are doing it at home, and we need 
to be doing it here. Pushed it to the limit? Give me a break.
  There is no better time than right now to get serious about reducing 
spending. First, with each short-term CR that passes, it becomes less 
likely that we will get the full $61 billion in spending reductions 
that Americans want to see Congress adopt. Second, I am not going to 
sign onto the Democrats' strategy of short-term CRs that will 
jeopardize our national defense. We cannot be funding national defense 
in little 2- and 3-week blips. And third, we need to make it clear that 
discretionary spending matters. Democrats are fond of saying that the 
problem with our budget deficits is not discretionary spending. Well, 
it might not be the entire problem but it is a big part of the problem.
  Democrats suggest that discretionary spending is a sideshow. The real 
money is in entitlements. Let me make one point here. Democrats today 
say they want to focus on entitlements, but you can bet the farm that 
today's budget-minded Democrats will start bludgeoning Republicans for 
any effort, no matter how modest, to get entitlement spending under 
control. The writer Andrew Ferguson got it right when he called these 
Democrats tough-choosers. They always talk about making the tough 
choices to get our spending under control, but the minute Republicans 
attempt to address deficits and debt, these same Democrats hammer 
Republicans for the coldheartedness.
  Getting at entitlement spending requires bipartisan leadership and 
Presidential leadership. Yet the President, who has enough time to go 
on national television and fill out his NCAA bracket, is only committed 
to a serious conversation about entitlements. We need more than a 
conversation; we need leadership. But leadership on spending is wanting 
among Washington Democrats.
  In the end, these Democratic tough-choosers won't stand strong on 
discretionary spending or entitlement spending. So let's focus on 
discretionary spending. It is a problem, and it is what the American 
people sent us here to address. Nondefense discretionary spending has 
grown by 24 percent over

[[Page S1797]]

the last couple of years. This needs to be rolled back significantly. 
People in Utah understand that returning us to 2008 spending levels is 
the responsible thing to do.
  When Democrats tell you that discretionary spending does not matter, 
think of a person who needs to go on a diet. The person weighs 300 
pounds and needs to radically change his lifestyle in order to get in 
shape. When a Democrat says that we don't need to worry about 
discretionary spending, it is like an overweight person saying there is 
no need to worry about the half-pint of cookie dough ice cream he eats 
every day because he has cut out his daily large pizza. If you want to 
lose weight, you can't have either. And if you want to reduce spending, 
you need to address all of it.
  The fact is, we are up to our eyeballs in deficits and debt. For the 
third consecutive year, we will have a deficit of over $1 trillion. We 
blew $1 trillion on the stimulus and followed that up with a $2.6 
trillion health care bill that we could not afford.
  I appreciate the efforts of my Republican colleagues, both in the 
House and the Senate, as they try to reach an agreement on a spending 
bill that should have become law last year. But Democrats, who 
controlled the White House and both Houses of Congress, shirked their 
responsibilities. And now they are digging in, trying their best to 
thwart the will of the American people and hold the line on the 
spending that Democratic special interests demand.
  Here is a basic question that should inform this debate. What do you 
do when you are spending more money than you make? Even a second grade 
student could tell you that you stop spending money. Democrats' 
subservience to the spending status quo would not pass a second grade 
math class. But do they really mean to say that they can't find 
anything to cut? For some, every new crisis--real or imagined--seems to 
demand a solution that only government can provide. But how often do we 
really look back with a critical eye and evaluate the effectiveness of 
all of these new government programs? I am afraid not nearly enough.
  Thanks to the work of my colleague from Oklahoma, Dr. Coburn, the GAO 
recently identified possibly hundreds of billions of wasteful and 
redundant government spending. Government is littered with programs 
that can be reduced or eliminated. To that end, along with my colleague 
from Colorado, Senator Udall, I have introduced legislation that would 
create an anti-appropriations committee specifically designed to ferret 
out and cut government waste. And, of course, the ultimate fix for all 
of this spending is the balanced budget amendment, which I have 
introduced with my colleague Senator Cornyn, and is cosponsored by 31 
of our colleagues. With a balanced budget amendment and with serious 
efforts by Congress, we can reduce spending in Washington, and we can 
restore constitutional limits on the size and reach of the Federal 
Government. This is no longer an ideological issue. Democrats might not 
know that yet. But spending is now an issue that transcends partisan 
allegiances.
  Washington's reckless spending has now become a serious enough issue 
that financial markets are paying attention. Just last week, the 
world's largest bond investor divested all of its holdings in U.S. 
Treasuries. This is hardly a vote of confidence in the integrity of our 
Nation's finances. Yet what is the Democrats' solution? Let's reduce 
spending by $4.5 billion. To borrow from my friend and colleague from 
Iowa, Senator Grassley, this is a spit in the ocean.
  Congress needs to send a signal to the world that it is serious about 
taking on government spending. Unfortunately, Democrats remain intent 
on being unserious. I will not play these games with our Nation's 
fiscal integrity. I look forward to a meaningful debate over a long-
term fiscal year 2011 spending bill. In the meantime, I will not be 
supporting the CR when it comes up later today.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, today the Senate will vote on the sixth 
continuing resolution of the fiscal year. While this is not a record 
for Congress, it is certainly a number far higher than is appropriate 
for responsibly funding the government. I want to take a minute to 
explain how we got to this point.
  Last December the Senate Appropriations Committee prepared an omnibus 
spending bill to fund the government for fiscal year 2011. The omnibus 
was not a perfect bill, but it was based on hundreds of hours of 
hearings, committee meetings and bipartisan negotiations. Members of 
both parties had input into the process and content of the bill. So it 
was perplexing that in the waning hours of the 111th Congress our 
friends on the other side of the aisle walked away from this bill. 
Because any action in the Senate is now subject to the approval of a 
supermajority we were unable to pass the omnibus and instead passed a 
continuing resolution to fund the government through the beginning of 
March.
  I fully understand concerns about using an omnibus as a method for 
budgeting; it is far from a perfect mechanism. But the alternative is 
to operate the way we have for the last 6 months, stringing along stop-
gap measures that undermine Federal programs and agencies. The impact 
of uncertain budgeting is felt at the State and local levels as well. I 
hear on a daily basis from Vermonters about Head Start programs that 
are considering layoffs, college students concerned whether they will 
have to take out more loans if Pell grants are cut, and hundreds of 
others worried about the future of home heating, housing and basic 
safety net programs for many who are struggling mightily right now.
  It is critical that rather than muddling along with more short-term 
continuing resolutions that we pass a responsible budget plan for the 
remainder of the year. The current 3-week CR under consideration is an 
example of how this process does not serve us well. Halfway through the 
fiscal year we are debating significant cuts to infrastructure funding 
like Save America's Treasures, the Public Television Facilities Program 
and to efforts that provide basic services such as rural housing 
assistance to Vermonters.
  I am extremely disappointed with the elimination of the Save 
America's Treasures program. It has preserved hundreds of historic 
landmarks throughout the country, a number of which are iconic Vermont 
structures, valuable parts of my State's identity. Another cut that is 
disappointing is the elimination of funding in fiscal year 2011 for the 
International Fund for Ireland. It is an unfortunate twist that on St. 
Patrick's Day, Congress is poised to pull the plug on this program of 
assistance for the most economically depressed communities of Northern 
Ireland.
  These are not abstract cuts. The elimination and reduction of this 
funding will have a measurable and negative impact on job creation and 
the daily lives of Americans. While I believe these cuts are misguided, 
I will reluctantly support the continuing resolution. I do not make 
this decision lightly or with any enthusiasm. Unfortunately this bill 
is the only option available to keep the government running and prevent 
a shutdown. A shutdown would cause severe hardship for countless 
people, and the President and Congress must use this time to find an 
acceptable compromise to fund the government through the remainder of 
the year.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I rise in reluctant support of another 
short-term CR because I am absolutely against a government shutdown.
  But enough is enough. We are 6 months into the fiscal year and no 
closer to having a budget than the day we started. The American people 
want a budget that is frugal, on their side and brings stability to 
their lives. Both parties must come together and agree to sensible 
budget cuts for remainder of this year. But cuts are not a strategy to 
reduce the deficit. Cuts are a tool, not a strategy. We must also 
tackle the items that are responsible for adding to our deficit.
  We cannot continue a cycle of cutting $2 billion every 2 weeks. That 
is no way to govern. Even though many of the cuts in the new CR are 
cuts that I agree with, short-term CRs are a government shutdown by 
proxy. I don't want a government shutdown. I am fighting to prevent it. 
But we cannot fund the government with two to three week payments. It 
is bad for Federal workers, contractors, families and the economy.
  Senate Democrats have initiated cuts. First we cut $41 billion from 
the

[[Page S1798]]

President's budget request. Then we offered to cut another $10 billion 
for a total of $51 billion in cuts. But our offer was rejected. 
Republicans want to cut $100 billion. We met them halfway. But that 
wasn't good enough. Whether we cut $100 billion at once or several 
billion at a time in short term CRs, this is not a strategy to reduce 
the deficit and will hurt middle class families.
  I am for cuts. The biggest cut I want to make is to the unemployment 
rate. Last week, I voted for Chairman Inouye's package with $51 billion 
in cuts. And in my own CJS bill, I have agreed to cut agency overhead 
by 10 percent, and cut agency party funds by 25 percent.
  I am for making cuts to programs that middle class families don't 
depend on for their survival. Let's end lavish subsidies for oil and 
gas companies to save $4 billion each year before we cut Head Start and 
Child Care by $1 billion. Let's stop the tax breaks for corporations 
that send jobs overseas to save $5 billion before we cut afterschool 
programs by $100 million. Let's stop subsidizing big agribusiness to 
save another $5 billion a year before we cut Pell grants for middle 
class kids by more than $600. And let's end the war and bring our 
troops home which costs $1.1 billion a week in Iraq and $2.5 billion a 
week in Afghanistan before we ask our military men and women and their 
families to sacrifice any more for our country.
  The uncertainty of these short-term CRs is bad for workers and 
contractors. One-hundred thirty-thousand Federal employees and tens of 
thousands more contractors live and work in Maryland. These are some of 
the most dedicated, hardworking people in our Nation. They make sure 
the food we eat is safe, find cures for the most devastating diseases, 
and make sure seniors get their checks every month. At Goddard Space 
Flight Center in Prince George's County there are 9,100 employees 3,400 
civil servants and 5,700 contractors leading the world in green science 
initiatives. Of these 9,100 workers, 65 percent are scientists, 
engineers and technicians taking us into the next century with research 
on the Earth and its climate and leading missions to learn about the 
Sun, Moon, Mercury and Saturn.
  Maryland's Federal employees win Nobel Prizes. Dr. Bill Phillips of 
the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg 
shared the 1997 Physics Nobel Prize for development of methods to cool 
and trap atoms with laser light, making it possible for us to study 
atoms with unprecedented precision. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu was 
one of his co-winners. Dr. Martin Rodbell of NIH shared the 1994 Nobel 
Prize in Medicine for his discovery of G-proteins and the principles of 
signal transduction in cellular communication. Dr. John C. Mather of 
NASA Goddard shared the 2006 Nobel in Physics for a discovery that has 
enabled precise measurements of the first moments of the universe. 
Whether they have won a Nobel Prize or provide the petri dishes or 
support services for this important work, these are hard working 
federal employees and contractors who are duty and mission driven.
  In Prince George's County, I heard from a small business owner who 
does contract business with the government. Over the years she has 
grown her business with help from the Small Business Administration. 
Her company graduated from the SBA's 8(a) business development program, 
which was created to help small and disadvantaged companies compete. By 
taking advantage of the resources offered like mentoring, business 
counseling, training, financial assistance and technical assistance she 
grew to a $43 million business based in Maryland with divisions in 
other states. She's a success story. She asked me, ``What should we do 
if the government shuts down?'' She's afraid that the gains she's made 
could all be lost in a shutdown. At a time when we are seeing signs of 
economic recovery Congress should be nurturing this trend with 
predictable, stable funding for small business owners, not destroying 
it.
  I support Federal employees and contractors. I support the mission of 
our government agencies and I support providing the money needed to 
carry out their mandates. But I don't support a government shutdown.
  I support cuts. But cuts are not a strategy to reduce the deficit. 
Cuts are a tool, but they are not the only tool. We need a more 
thoughtful approach. We need a real strategy.
  I will vote for today's CR but we cannot continue to pass short-term 
spending bills. Both sides must come to agree on a long-term budget for 
remainder of fiscal year.
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, today I will vote in favor of the 
continuing resolution to keep our government and all its essential 
services open and operating for the next 3 weeks. I am supporting 
another short-term extension for the last time. I am only supporting 
this legislation today because I have been guaranteed by the leadership 
on both sides of the aisle that this will be the last time we will be 
forced into adopting a short-term fix to our budget problems and 
because the only other option would be to shut down the operations of 
the government.
  I believe a government shutdown is in no ones interests but I remain 
deeply disappointed in the political process that has put us in this 
untenable position. A 3-week extension that merely defers tough 
decisions on funding for the fiscal year that started almost 6 months 
ago is hardly progress. The American people deserve better than a 
stalled process which delays important decisions of how we can reduce 
our Federal budget deficit while maintaining our important investments 
in infrastructure, research, education, technology, and clean energy 
which will result in new jobs and will bolster our long-term 
competitiveness.
  The American people deserve a serious dialogue within the Congress 
about our fiscal situation, discretionary spending, entitlements, and 
revenues. We need to work towards a long-term solution to reduce both 
our current budget deficit and our staggering debt. We will need to 
reduce federal spending and make appropriate changes to our entitlement 
programs to meet the fiscal challenges facing our country. To do this 
appropriately, everything--revenue, tax reform, spending and 
entitlements--needs to be on the table.
  The question now is what are the tough decisions we are going to make 
today? What are the issues we are going to wrestle with together at a 
moment of enormous challenge? This process cannot be done in 3 weeks, 
but it should have already begun--and it needs to begin today. The 
American people deserve no less.


 impacts of cuts to the national oceanic and atmospheric administration

  Mr. INOUYE. Mr. President, at my request, the National Oceanic and 
Atmospheric Administration has provided information on the potential 
impact of a fiscal year 2011 continuing resolution on the agency's 
long-term ability to effectively carry out its mission. In particular, 
they highlight potential impacts to their ability to provide accurate 
and timely weather and hazard forecasts and what the economic impacts 
may be on a State-by-State basis. I ask unanimous consent that their 
response be printed in the Record so that we may have a more informed 
debate.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                      U.S. Department of Commerce,
                                                   Washington, DC.
     Hon. Daniel K. Inouye,
     Chairman, Senate Committee on Appropriations, U.S. Senate, 
         Washington, DC.
       Dear Chairman Inouye: Thank you for meeting with me on 
     Monday, March 7, 2011, and for your letter regarding the 
     level of funding for National Oceanic and Atmospheric 
     Administration included in the proposed FY 2011 Continuing 
     Resolutions. Enclosed are answers to your questions on the 
     Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) and state-by-state data 
     on NOAA funding.
       I appreciate your interest in our polar satellite system, 
     which is of vital importance to the Nation. NOAA provided the 
     best information possible in the rapid time frame that the 
     current debate demands. If we may be of further assistance to 
     focus on more specific information or examples, please do not 
     hesitate to contact me.
           Sincerely,

                                        Jane Lubchenco. Ph.D.,

                                   Under Secretary of Commerce for
     Oceans and Atmosphere.
                                  ____

       What impacts would the CR have on NOAA's ability to 
     continue development of the Joint Polar Satellite System 
     (JPSS), and if it is not adequately funded this year, how 
     would that affect funding needs in future years?
       The FY 2011 President's Budget Request included $1.06 
     billion to maintain continuity of

[[Page S1799]]

     earth observations with the next generation of polar 
     satellite, NOAA's JPSS. To ensure data continuity, the 
     Administration had submitted an anomaly request for $528 
     million.
       Because of insufficient funding, and the uncertainty caused 
     by the temporary continuing resolutions this year, the launch 
     date for JPSS-1 has already slipped to March 2016, a delay of 
     at least 14 months and the costs of the program have risen. 
     Continued inadequate funding will cause further delays--on an 
     approximate day-for-day slip--and further cost growth. Thus, 
     if JPSS funding were kept at the CR level for the entire FY 
     2011, the launch date for JPSS-1 will slip to no earlier than 
     September 2016.
       An analysis done by the Aerospace Corporation demonstrates 
     that even small slips to the launch schedule for JPSS-1 in 
     2016 yields large increases in the likelihood that a gap in 
     satellite coverage will occur. This is because NASA's NPOESS 
     Preparatory Project (NPP) that will launch later this year as 
     a temporary replacement will have reached its end-of-life and 
     the probability it will survive another day or month 
     decreases dramatically. Thus, additional funding in FY 2011 
     of $528 million will allow for a launch in the March 2016 
     timeframe vice September 2016 timeframe and decrease the 
     probability of a gap in coverage from 90 percent to 35 
     percent. Additionally, in order to maintain a March 2016 
     launch date, full funding of JPSS will be required in FY 2012 
     of $1.07 billion.
       At the CR level, NOAA can only support about half the JPSS 
     workforce planned. Funding uncertainty also precluded hiring 
     the approximately 700 additional contractors, nationwide, 
     required for the program. As a result, NOAA has focused its 
     development efforts on the delivery of those program elements 
     that will support the launch of the NPP satellite this fall, 
     which will provide data for NOAA operational weather 
     forecasts after the failure of NOAA's current operational 
     polar-orbiting satellite. The inability to support the 
     necessary workforce requires us to focus the resources we 
     have on the NPP mission and forces us to delay work on the 
     JPSS spacecraft and instruments resulting in a delay of at 
     least 14 months to the date JPSS needs to be available to 
     launch. The planned launch has now slipped from 2015 to 2016. 
     Given this schedule slip and the amount of time needed to 
     calibrate a new satellite before it can generate useful data 
     for weather and climate needs, it is highly likely that JPSS 
     will not be operational in time to ensure data continuity 
     with NPP. We estimate a 90% likelihood of a ``data gap'' in 
     2017, which would result in a degradation of forecast 
     accuracy that is further discussed in the next response. A 
     lack of funding in FY 2011 will also increase the total life-
     cycle cost of the system as development efforts are 
     stretched, opportunities to capture purchasing and production 
     efficiencies are lost, contract management expenses increase, 
     and the compounding impact of inflation as the program is 
     delayed. Experience suggests that without additional 
     funding in FY 2011 the total life-cycle cost of the 
     program could grow by approximately $1.6 to $2.6 billion.
       What kind of impacts do you foresee for weather forecasting 
     capability if JPSS is not adequately funded, and what would 
     be the effects on the safety of U.S. citizens?
       What economic impacts would you expect if the U.S. were to 
     lose the observations expected from the JPSS program?
       During the gap period, NOAA will have to rely on 
     international partners for non-optimal data to support our 
     weather prediction models, resulting in a degradation of 
     forecast accuracy by 1 to 2 days. Higher confidence forecasts 
     would only extend out 5 days instead of 7 days as they do 
     currently. This degradation would cause the National Weather 
     Service to suffer a loss of decades' worth of continual 
     improvements in forecast ability. The economic and security 
     consequences to the Nation would be severe:
       $100 to $200 million per year to the aviation industry from 
     reduced volcanic ash monitoring.
       $6--$8 billion lost annually due to reduced accuracy of 
     drought forecasts impacting the agriculture, transportation, 
     recreation and tourism, forestry, and energy sectors.
       Alaska, due to its high northern latitude and remoteness is 
     only serviced by our polar satellites. During a gap the State 
     would lose almost all of its weather forecasting for aviation 
     as well as for the economically vital maritime, oil and gas 
     industries. The estimated average expected annual losses to 
     container shipping (lost containers and damage to vessels) in 
     the absence of good information about extratropical storm 
     conditions is on the order of $250 million/year in the North 
     Pacific.
       Less accurate long range forecasts of severe weather will 
     adversely impact emergency response and evacuation planning 
     for major storms and events. Every excess mile unnecessarily 
     evacuated during a coastal storm or hurricane costs an 
     estimated $1 million and disrupts thousands of lives.
       The degradation of 2-10 day long-term forecasts, which are 
     imperative for troop deployments and planning operations. 
     Within the military, these data and products allow military 
     planners and tactical users to focus on anticipating and 
     exploiting atmospheric and space environmental conditions. 
     For example, Air Force Weather Agency requires accurate wind 
     and temperature forecasts for any decision to launch an 
     aircraft that will need midflight refueling or for weapons 
     deployment.
       In 2010, 295 lives in the U.S. alone were saved thanks to 
     the satellites picking up rescue beacons. NOAA's polar 
     satellites carry the search and rescue antennas that receive 
     these signals. During a gap in coverage the emergency 
     response times would increase or rescue signals may be 
     missed, significantly increasing the jeopardy of those in 
     distress.
       Recognizing the troubled history of the National Polar-
     orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS), 
     do NOAA and NASA now have the right acquisition and 
     management mechanisms in place for the program to succeed?
       The NPOESS Program attempted to reduce duplication of 
     efforts and reduce costs by combining common requirements of 
     the civil and defense satellite programs. However, after a 
     decade of continued program cost growth and schedule delays, 
     an Independent Review Team found that the tri-agency 
     management structure was ineffective and there were divergent 
     program priorities for civil and defense needs. In February 
     2010 the White House announced a restructuring of the 
     program. The current JPSS program replicates the successful 
     NOAA-NASA partnership with NOAA as the responsible agency for 
     operating this critical national resource to support weather 
     warnings and forecasts and monitor climate and NASA acting as 
     NOAA' s satellite acquisition agent. Over the last four 
     decades, this partnership has successfully developed, built, 
     launched and operated over 60 weather satellites.
       Do you believe that NOAA's Earth Science mission can be 
     completed by other Government agencies, like NASA? Is there 
     duplication in the U.S. Government's Earth Science missions?
       For over forty years, NOAA and NASA Earth observation 
     missions have operated to complement and not duplicate each 
     other's efforts. NASA and NOAA have fundamentally different 
     missions, meeting the needs of different user communities. 
     NASA focuses on new science and discovery; NOAA focuses on 
     reliable and stable long-term monitoring of the environment 
     to protect life, property and commerce. Ensuring the 
     continuity of weather data from our satellites is fundamental 
     to NOAA's mission; it has historically not been fundamental 
     to NASA's mission. The structure of the U.S. civil space 
     programs results in complementary programs, located within 
     the agencies that have clear authority, accountability, and 
     responsibility for budgetary, policy, and user requirement 
     decisions.
       Time and again, Congress and Presidents (including the 2010 
     National Space Policy, http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/
default/files/national__space__policy__6-28-10.pdf) reaffirm 
     the need to maintain funding of the civilian meteorological 
     satellite program in a manner that extracts the core 
     capabilities from NASA and NOAA to execute continued US 
     advancement of space-based Earth observations that protect 
     life, property and economic competitiveness. In a 2009 
     report, after an in-depth analysis of NASA's Earth Science 
     projects related to climate and weather research, the 
     Government Accountability Office (GAO) confirmed that there 
     was no duplication of effort with other federal agencies.
       Can you provide information on NOAA's economic impact on a 
     state-by-state basis?
       I have attached a breakdown of the amount of money NOAA 
     provided to each state through grants and contracts in FY 
     2010 for your review.
       I appreciate your interest in this issue of vital 
     importance to the nation, and provided the best information 
     we can in the rapid time frame that the current debate 
     demands. If we may be of further assistance to focus on more 
     specific information or examples, please do not hesitate to 
     contact me.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader is recognized.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the vote on the 
continuing resolution start at 2:45. The time will run as if it started 
at 3 o'clock. There are some problems with a few Senators, so I ask 
consent that the vote start at 2:45.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I further ask that the time until 2:45 be 
divided equally between the Democrats and Republicans.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. REID. I note the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Klobuchar). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I suggest we proceed to the vote on the 
joint resolution.
  The joint resolution (S.J. Res. 48) was ordered to a third reading 
and was read the third time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The joint resolution having been read the 
third time, the question is, Shall the joint resolution pass?

[[Page S1800]]

  Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second? There is a 
sufficient second.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The result was announced--yeas 87, nays 13, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 44 Leg.]

                                YEAS--87

     Akaka
     Alexander
     Ayotte
     Barrasso
     Baucus
     Begich
     Bennet
     Bingaman
     Blumenthal
     Blunt
     Boozman
     Boxer
     Brown (MA)
     Brown (OH)
     Burr
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Chambliss
     Coats
     Coburn
     Cochran
     Collins
     Conrad
     Coons
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Durbin
     Enzi
     Feinstein
     Franken
     Gillibrand
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hagan
     Harkin
     Hoeven
     Hutchison
     Inouye
     Isakson
     Johanns
     Johnson (SD)
     Johnson (WI)
     Kerry
     Kirk
     Klobuchar
     Kohl
     Kyl
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Lieberman
     Lugar
     Manchin
     McCain
     McCaskill
     McConnell
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Mikulski
     Moran
     Murkowski
     Nelson (NE)
     Nelson (FL)
     Portman
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Roberts
     Schumer
     Sessions
     Shaheen
     Shelby
     Snowe
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Thune
     Toomey
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Vitter
     Warner
     Webb
     Whitehouse
     Wicker
     Wyden

                                NAYS--13

     Crapo
     DeMint
     Ensign
     Hatch
     Inhofe
     Lee
     Levin
     Murray
     Paul
     Risch
     Rockefeller
     Rubio
     Sanders
  The joint resolution (H.J. Res. 48) was passed.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The motion to reconsider is considered made 
and laid upon the table.

                          ____________________