[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 130 (Tuesday, September 6, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5315-S5317]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                SCHEDULE

  Mr. REID. Following leader remarks, the Senate will proceed to a 
period of morning business until 5 p.m. During that period of time, 
Senators will be permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.
  At 5 p.m., the Senate will proceed to executive session to consider 
the nomination of Bernice Bouie Donald of Tennessee to be U.S. circuit 
judge for the Sixth Circuit. There will be 30 minutes of debate, 
equally divided, prior to the vote on confirmation of the nomination.
  Upon disposition of the Donald nomination, the Senate will resume 
consideration and vote on the motion to proceed to invoke cloture on 
the patent reform bill. Senators should expect two rollcall votes this 
evening about 5:30 p.m.


                              JOBS AGENDA

  Mr. President, first of all, I welcome the Presiding Officer and 
everyone back to the Senate after the August recess, as well as my good 
friend, the Republican leader.
  I look forward to the No. 1 priority we have; that is, job creation. 
This isn't just a conversation among those of us in the Senate. The 
American people agree that is the No. 1 priority we should have.
  I am sorry to say Republicans have distracted Congress from its most 
important responsibility--getting our economy back to work and back on 
track. That means jobs. We have been distracted time and time again. 
They have filed endless amendments on legislation that should engender 
bipartisan support. They have killed good bills with obstructionism and 
stall tactics. They have dragged out votes to continue funding the 
government. They did that on the CR we worked on for weeks and weeks, 
and all we were trying to do was to fund the government until October 1 
and to avert a default crisis. Votes that normally had been routine 
under Democratic and Republican administrations were not with this 
Republican obstructionism we have had.
  President Reagan asked Congress to extend the debt ceiling 18 times, 
and it was done 18 times. But this year--not like the era of President 
Reagan, when the debt was increasing significantly as a result of his 
agenda--our jobs agenda was held up and set aside for months. The work 
of Congress and our ability to do something about the economy was being 
held hostage. Rather than working with Democrats to pass job-creating 
legislation, Republicans insisted on reckless cuts that hurt our 
economic recovery.
  Economists--take, for example, Mark Zandi, certainly a person who has 
shown some bipartisanship, worked for John McCain as his economic 
adviser and who is now in the private sector--have said we have to cut 
spending, and we have all acknowledged that. We agree with Mark Zandi. 
But we also agree with economist Mark Zandi in saying we have to be 
very careful about how we cut now because of the difficult times we are 
going through. We cut significantly in programs that create jobs, but 
we did it because we have to get this debt under control.
  As my friend said, his No. 1 goal is to defeat President Obama--my 
friend the Republican leader. With that as the No. 1 goal, it makes it 
very difficult to get things done around here.

[[Page S5316]]

  The August employment report, released last week, should be a wake-up 
call to every Member of Congress--Democrats and Republicans. We cannot 
waste any more time, as has been wasted over the last 8 months. The 
private sector added less than 20,000 jobs last month, and that was 
offset by the further unemployment that came in the ranks of 
government. So the net job increase was basically zero. Although August 
marked the 18th straight month of private sector job growth, a stagnant 
unemployment rate is simply not good enough. Congress must act very 
quickly to jump-start the economy, and in doing that it will help the 
recovery.
  We have to bring the unemployment rate down. It is time for us to get 
down to work, as we should have been doing all along, and we look 
forward to working with the Republicans who have delayed our ability to 
work together for some 8 months. That is going to take cooperation, 
which has been in short supply, it seems, in Washington in the last 8 
months. I am hopeful we can begin a new work period, where our 
constituents' voices will be fresh in our minds.
  I just returned from Nevada--as we all have returned from our 
States--and I had the time to talk with my friends in Nevada, people 
whom I have known for many years. I was talking to one of my friends in 
Reno today, and I said to him: Pete, it is very hard to look as you 
drive by these strip malls and see the for lease signs all over, in 
Reno and in Las Vegas. It is not good. They are struggling. Nevada 
leads the Nation in unemployment. That is not something of which we are 
proud.
  People are having trouble finding steady work not only in Nevada but 
around the country and in all segments of our economy. Public radio had 
a piece on law schools, where enrollments have been cut way back. As I 
understood the piece they had on the radio, 16 percent of law school 
graduates can't find work--not in the legal profession or anyplace. So 
it is not only Nevada, it is all over the country. People are having 
trouble finding steady work--people with education and people without 
education. People are having trouble making their mortgage payments and 
even putting food on the table. So our constituents are going to be 
watching very closely this fall to see whether we have heard their 
message: We need some jobs.
  We must set aside partisanship and we must do it for the sake of 
America and jobs. The American people are not going to be satisfied 
with the same obstructionism and gridlock they saw in the spring and 
summer. They know, as I do, that the Nation's economy depends on 
dedicated men and women--Democrats, Republicans, and Independents--
working together to put bipartisan bills together and get America back 
to work.
  We are going to waste no time in the Senate getting down to business. 
Today, we will hold a vote on legislation to streamline the patent 
system, which will help entrepreneurs start new businesses. The America 
Invents Act--which passed the beginning of this Congress--will 
significantly reform the patent system for the first time in some 60 
years. It passed the House with more than 300 votes, and it passed the 
Senate with 95 votes. This is exactly the kind of job-creating 
legislation our country needs to get our economic recovery back in 
motion. This bill will promote innovation, create American jobs, and 
grow our economy without adding a penny to the deficit.
  I have to say, the patent bill was not held up by Republicans in the 
Senate; it was held up by Republicans in the House who held that bill 
for months and months. It is here now, and I am going to do everything 
I can--I think we all feel this way--to move this legislation along. 
Today, there are 700,000 patent applications--3 years' worth, at 
least--waiting to be reviewed. Who knows what is in that pile of 
patents. Could it be another Google? Could it be another software 
system that will revolutionize different parts of our society? Of 
course, there could be and likely is. We need to get through that 
backlog, and we need to unlock the job-creating potential of each 
patent.
  This bill will also lower fees for small business applicants by up to 
75 percent, helping put more people to work.
  It is time our patent system became a tool to spark innovation, which 
is important, and so we need to move forward. The American Invents Act 
is the kind of bipartisan effort Americans have demanded and deserve 
from Congress, though I acknowledge it is only a beginning, a 
downpayment on the aggressive jobs agenda we understand is necessary.
  We will hold a cloture vote on this legislation tonight, which I hope 
will allow us to get on the bill. I hope we will not have to file 
cloture on the bill itself. I have told my Republican colleagues, if 
there are amendments that need to be offered--a reasonable number of 
amendments--let's get them done. We have too much to do to waste weeks 
on this piece of legislation. We have already done that. So I hope we 
will have final passage in the next few days. This is important 
legislation, and we have had plenty of time to debate this in Congress. 
It is time to move on to other job-creating measures.
  This work period is 3 weeks long. I hope we don't have to extend it 
into the following week. We have a holiday on the Wednesday following 
the Friday we intend to leave here. I hope we don't have to work into 
that work period, so we are going to do everything we can to avoid 
that. But during this work period we must extend the authorization of 
the Federal Aviation Administration. This is important.
  As we know from what happened last month, 80,000 Americans were put 
out of work. I think it was certainly something which had some impact 
on the safety of what was going on around the country. We had safety 
inspectors who were paying their own way to go around the country. They 
were buying their own tickets and their own meals. We can't afford 
another FAA shutdown. It would put air travelers at risk and, as I 
indicated, immediately lay off 80,000 workers--thousands of them 
construction workers and 4,000 of them permanent employees.
  This bill was held up for one reason and one reason only, to protect 
one airline company--one airline company--that is all. All the other 
excuses are only excuses. We need to move forward with this legislation 
and make this legislation pass on a permanent basis. We have had 20-
plus temporary extensions of this legislation. We have to move on, but 
we certainly have to get an extension until after the first of the 
year. We can no longer be wanting to protect one airline--one airline 
of all the airlines in America. Only one airline company is 
complaining. Neither can we afford a disruption in the collection of 
the gasoline taxes or delay highway and mass transit construction 
projects that employ--I believe Senator Boxer indicated--1.7 million 
people. She is the chairman of that committee.
  So before the end of the month, we must authorize Federal spending 
for the Nation's highways. Even Grover Norquist, the person who goes 
around telling everybody which bills are good to vote for and which 
aren't, has said advancing the highway bill is not a tax increase. And 
he, as I understand, is clearly one who won't oppose this crucial 
legislation which extends the highway bill we hope until the first of 
February or thereabouts.
  During this work period, Congress also must make sure that FEMA, the 
Federal Emergency Management Agency, has the resources it needs to help 
American families rebuild their lives after some of the most deadly 
disasters in the history of this country. No. 1 was Hurricane Irene. We 
don't know for sure, but it will be in the top 5 or 10 of the most 
costly disasters in American history. We have to free this money. Right 
now, because of FEMA running out of money because of these disasters--
just this past month, we had an earthquake here in the East, which 
surprised everyone. It was in the Presiding Officer's State but had 
impact in a lot of other places. The National Cathedral was damaged 
significantly, the Washington Monument was closed. FEMA has frozen 
long-term aid to Joplin, MO. We had almost 30 people killed, Mr. 
President. FEMA is there to lend a helping hand, and that hand has been 
drawing back because they are running out of money. So we need to fund 
FEMA and help the victims of Hurricane Irene and to make sure, with 
those other disasters taking place, we can also complete that work. We 
plan for these disasters as best we can. We put money in our budgets 
for what we anticipate will be disasters. But no one

[[Page S5317]]

can have a crystal ball and determine all these disasters are going to 
take place. So we need to understand these are emergency monies. If 
there ever were an emergency--it is these people who have been hurt by 
these devastating storms and emergencies.
  On Thursday, I look forward to hearing President Obama's speech. It 
is a joint session of Congress. He is going to talk about job creation. 
It will be crucial for Congress to work together with the President to 
jump-start our flagging economy. It won't be easy for Congress to 
tackle all the things this fall--and I am only talking about things we 
need to do this work period--but it has never been more important than 
now to put our jobs agenda ahead of either party's political agenda.
  I look forward to a productive work period during which colleagues on 
both sides of the aisle will work together for the good of our economy 
and the good of this great Nation.

                          ____________________