Congressional Record, Volume 157 Issue 136 (Wednesday, September 14, 2011)

[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 136 (Wednesday, September 14, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5594-S5616]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

APPROVING THE RENEWAL OF IMPORT RESTRICTIONS CONTAINED IN THE BURMESE
FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY ACT OF 2003--MOTION TO PROCEED

The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the
Senate will resume consideration of the motion to proceed to H.J. Res.
66, which the clerk will report by title.
The legislative clerk read as follows:

Motion to proceed to the consideration of a joint
resolution (H.J. Res. 66) approving the renewal of import
restrictions contained in the Burmese Freedom and Democracy
Act of 2003.

The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Michigan.
Ms. STABENOW. Madam President, I rise to speak about the need to have
a disaster assistance effort to support those in New York, your State,
as well as across the country and the tremendous needs we have as a
result of what has happened regarding the weather. This year we have
seen a terrible string of natural disasters that have shut down
businesses, farms, and left families homeless all across our country.
As chair of the Agriculture Committee, I am particularly focused, of
course, on what has happened to our farmers in America.
I am concerned about the flooding along the Mississippi and Missouri
Rivers, the record droughts that have devastated the livelihoods of men
and women who grow our food all across America. Earlier this year we
had the worst drought in recorded history in Oklahoma, with about $1.6
billion in crop losses. In Kansas I have had the opportunity, and my
staff has, to join with my ranking member, my colleague, Senator
Roberts, to talk with folks and a chance to see that the drought had
wiped out about $2 billion in crops.
Floods in the Mississippi River Valley washed over 3 million acres--3
million acres--of farmland. Hurricane Irene destroyed more than 450,000
acres of cotton and 300,000 acres of corn in North Carolina. In New
York we have seen similar damage to corn, soybeans, alfalfa, fruits,
and vegetables. In Vermont crop losses are estimated at more than $5
million.
All across our country we have serious challenges that are creating
hardships for our businesses, our farmers, and our families. We need to
respond. That is our responsibility. Right now the droughts are worse
in Texas where the damage is also in the billions of dollars. We have
more than 1,000 homes that have been lost.
Already this year there have been natural disasters in 48 of our
States--48 out of 50 States have had natural disasters. Michigan, thank
goodness, is one of the two States that has not been affected by the
weather. But throughout our Nation's history when men and women in one
part of the country were hit with a natural disaster, all of America
came together to support them and to help rebuild.
That is what this effort is about, coming together as Americans. That
is who we are as Americans. We stand with each other in times of
trouble. This is not the time to play politics, not when hundreds of
thousands of families, farmers, and businesses have been devastated by
an unprecedented string of floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, wildfires,
and other natural disasters.
Already, FEMA has had to halt rebuilding efforts in 41 States. So it
is critical that we get this done. This legislation in front of us
needs to pass, and it needs to pass quickly.
But I also want to tell you about another emergency that has taken
place in my State and in too many other States. It is called a jobs
emergency. We may not have been affected by the natural disasters of
the weather, but as we look over the last decade in a global economy,
as the economy has changed we have been through the same kind of
devastation--over a longer period of time, but our people are affected
as much as any other State disaster.
We have 14 million people out of work in this country--14 million
people out of work. We have a huge national deficit. We will never get
out of debt with more than 14 million people out of work. We have to
make smart decisions on cutting what is not important, and we have to
grow. We have to create jobs for people and support the efforts of the
private sector to create jobs.
For each and every one of those families, their job search is an
emergency. It is an emergency every time they think about how to put
food on their table. It is an emergency every month when they have to
scrape together money for the rent or the mortgage. It is an emergency
every minute of every day when those men and women are filling out
applications, going to job fairs, trying their best to get back to
work.
So I find in the middle of all of this, in the middle of support for
all that is going on around the country in terms of natural disasters,
it is extremely concerning--and in fact outrageous to me--that the
House Republicans have proposed a job-killing offset to pay for the
help that is critically needed for natural disasters; that would pull
the rug out from under businesses and families all across our country
and put up to 50,000 American jobs at risk. That is what they are
proposing.
I absolutely oppose this. They propose paying for this critical
disaster bill by taking dollars out of a very successful advanced
manufacturing retooling program that we passed in the 2007 Energy
bill--and it took a while to get it up and going. The previous
administration never administered it. I thank the Obama administration
for coming in in 2009 and beginning the process of putting it together
and all of the rules it took, and so on. So it took a while to get up
and going. It has not moved as fast as I would like at all. But, thank
goodness, the Obama administration saw it as a priority and has moved
forward to put it in place.
So what has happened already? Well, these retooling loans have meant
41,000 jobs in Tennessee, California, Indiana, Michigan, Delaware,
Illinois, Kentucky, Ohio, and Missouri. These retooling loans have
helped companies retool older manufacturing plants to build the
products of the future in America rather than shipping those jobs
overseas. It has been extremely successful.
In Michigan retooling loans made it possible for Ford Motor Company
to save 1,900 jobs at the Michigan assembly plant in the city of Wayne
so they could build the all new Ford Focus and the battery-electric
Focus in America. In the process of that, as we partnered with them on
battery funding as well--in the process of that, with the help of these
retooling loans they are bringing jobs back from Mexico to support the
work they are doing on the new vehicles.
I do not know how many economic development efforts we can stand on
the Senate floor today and talk about in the Senate or House that are
actually bringing jobs back from overseas. This is the program that the
House Republicans want to cut. This loan--and it is a loan, so it has
to be repaid--is allowing them to be able to have lower costs to be
able to do the retooling on those older plants, to be able to make
these new high-tech vehicles.
As I said, in the case of the Ford Motor Company, they have saved
1,900 jobs and are bringing jobs back from Mexico. Another Michigan
company, Severstal North America, was able to secure a retooling loan
to retool an old steel mill, the Rouge steel mill in Michigan, into a
cutting-edge plant building advanced, high-strength steel for
automotive production.
Jobs here. That does not count what is happening in States across
America. That loan, along with private loans and a billion-dollar
investment from the company, will help create over 2,500 constructive
jobs and will bring the total number of permanent manufacturing jobs at
that plant, again, to

[[Page S5595]]

1,900. That is a pretty good investment from a loan that is going to be
paid back while creating jobs.
These are the kinds of things that we need to be doing--we need to be
doing--to address the jobs emergency that Michigan and States all
across the country are feeling and have been feeling. Right now there
are 35 to 40,000 jobs at stake in this proposal by the House
Republicans.
We have other companies that want to use the retooling loans to make
things in America--in Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, Indiana, Louisiana, and
Florida. These loans are expected to be approved in the next few
months. They are very close, and we would see 35 to 40,000 jobs
disappear--the opportunity for those jobs to disappear--if we were to
accept the House proposal.
After the next round of manufacturing retooling loans, we could see
another 10,000 jobs created across the country. But if these retooling
loans do not happen, those jobs will not happen either. To add insult
to injury, these companies have been working closely with the
Department of Energy, in some cases for several years, in order to
qualify for these loans.
They have had to undergo the must rigorous screening to make sure the
products and companies are in sound financial shape, as they should. We
need to make sure they are going through rigorous screening not only so
they can be successful but to make sure that we are making products in
America. It is an important project and partnership.
These companies have invested countless hours and, frankly, a lot of
money to get these projects off the ground and to get to this point. As
I indicated, we have a number of companies in States around the country
that are within a month or 2 months or 3 months from being able to
complete the deal and create the jobs.
We are so close, and the rug will be pulled out from under not only
the companies but the communities and the families who are affected.
These businesses are America's job creators. They are doing the right
thing. They want to invest in America. While others have been on the
sidelines waiting, they have jumped in. They are committed to creating
jobs. They want to make things here, and they have moved through a
process, spent time, money--a tremendous amount of time. In fact, in my
judgment, it hasn't moved as fast as it should. But they are now at a
point to actually make it happen.
I am outraged that we would see an effort to end the creation of
these jobs. There is no question, as I said, that we have had a series
of natural disasters, and families, businesses, and farmers who are
affected across this country. Even though those natural disasters,
fortunately for us, did not come to Michigan, I support the effort to
address them. We are all in this as Americans. But I will not--I will
not--support an effort that, in the process, takes tens of thousands of
jobs away, because the crisis for Michigan is a jobs crisis. We were
the first ones in it. We have been in it the longest. We are coming out
of it now but way too slowly. We are coming out of it because we have
been creating partnerships to support the private sector to make things
in America again.
I strongly urge everyone involved not to come forward with something
that will in fact jeopardize these jobs. It makes absolutely no sense
to me, and it is certainly something I will strongly oppose if it does.
I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Florida.
Mr. NELSON of Florida. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that
the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. NELSON of Florida. I ask unanimous consent that I speak as if in
morning business.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.

IRS Tax Scam

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Madam President, there is a tax scam that is
going on in this country for which you certainly have to give some
creativity to these thieves and robbers--and that is exactly what they
are.
I first started to get wind of this when people in the Tampa Bay
region of my State called in saying an interesting thing happened. They
had sent in their income tax return, and they got back a notice from
the IRS that their return had already been filed. What they found out
was that somebody had stolen their Social Security number, had in their
name filled out a tax return, and then, guess what. It showed they had
a tax refund due.
When I started hearing from about 25 or 30 people, I knew there was
something going on. Sure enough, law enforcement in the Tampa Bay
region--the sheriff's office, the city police, combined with the State
attorney and the U.S. Attorney--a couple of weeks ago had a bust and
arrested 49 people who were in a scam whereby they procure people's
Social Security numbers. What is unbelievable is the amount of money
they were getting back, estimated at being, just in the Tampa Bay
region, something like $100 million in refunds. That is a rip-off of
the American taxpayer because that is their money.
But the story doesn't stop there. Oh, if you were one of the victims
whose Social Security number had been stolen and you wanted to file
your tax return, the IRS is telling you you can't do it because you
have already filed a tax return. Guess what a nightmare that is for the
legitimate taxpayer.
So we have filed legislation. A number of Senators have joined me.
No. 1, one of the unbelievable things was that it was difficult to get
the IRS to cooperate with the local and State law enforcement agencies,
because the IRS is prohibited because of privacy from sharing any of
this information. And, of course, we want to protect the privacy of
people, but we also want to go after these crooks.
We had done it a few years ago with regard to inmates in the Federal
prison system by allowing the IRS, under the law we passed back in
2008, to cooperate with the Federal prison system in order to get the
inmates who were filing false tax returns to get tax refunds. That was
extended administratively into the State prison system with the IRS.
But then this has been taken to a new level, one in which it is a great
rip-off of the taxpayers.
What was incredible is when the Tampa police department and the
sheriff's department ended up arresting some of these people, it was as
if they didn't know they had done anything wrong.
What is going on? They did not know they had done anything wrong, and
they are driving around in BMWs, with Rolex watches and gold chains all
over them. It is the use of tools in the electronic age just the same
as yesterday, when the thief used a crowbar to break in and steal
somebody's possessions. This has to stop.
What we do not know is the extent to which this is all over the
country. So the first thing we have to do is get the legal ability for
the IRS, without divulging people's private financial information, to
be able to cooperate with local and State law enforcement and the U.S.
attorney to be able to go after these people, to identify them so the
U.S. attorney and the State attorney can prosecute.
Additionally, we have to help the victims. In this legislation we
filed, we say the IRS will give the victims a special PIN number so
they can file a return and that PIN number will identify them as a
victim and it will not be kicked out of the system.
Additionally, since so much of this is being done electronically, we
have to give the taxpayer the option to file what we called in the old
days a paper tax return and in the process see if we can stop this;
otherwise, if $100 million has been stolen from the American taxpayer
just in the Tampa Bay region of Florida, you can imagine how extensive
this crime probably is across the entire country.
It is important we act and that we get to the bottom of it. If we
pass a law, a crook will try to figure out a way to get around it. But
when somebody in this electronic age can just sit at a computer, steal
a Social Security number and then file a false tax return, enough is
enough.

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It is my delight to see my colleague from Maryland. It looks as if he
has some good stuff to tell us.
I yield the floor.
Mr. CARDIN. Madam President, I am not sure it is good stuff, but it
is what has happened in our State. I thank the Senator from Florida for
his leadership on so many of these issues and his comments on the floor
of the Senate.
About 2 weeks ago, right before Hurricane Irene struck, I was at the
Maryland Emergency Management Center located in Reisterstown, MD. I was
with Governor O'Malley, the Governor of our State, and other leaders. I
saw our team there to prepare the people of Maryland for the onslaught
of Irene and later from Tropical Storm Lee. I saw Maryland preparing
the best it possibly could to minimize the risk to the people of our
State from a natural storm. I saw the local officials do the right
thing and tell people in our coastal areas to evacuate their homes
because of the potential risk to life and property from this massive
storm.
I also saw another agency that was located right there, side by side
with the Maryland agencies, and that was FEMA, the Federal officials.
These were people I met for the first time. They were not from
Maryland. They had come in from other States to help the people of
Maryland and provided the expertise to our State officials so we could
properly prepare for this storm that was potentially damaging to the
people of Maryland. They were there.
I thank President Obama for declaring, before the storm hit,
emergency declarations to Maryland so we could utilize Federal
resources and we could take maximum steps to minimize the loss of life
and property. It was the right thing to do.
I take this time on the floor--I am going to talk a little bit about
the damages that occurred in my State--to point out that we have always
come together as a nation to stand by those who have been devastated
through these natural disasters. This has been a particularly rough
year. We have seen hurricanes and storms and tornadoes and flooding and
even an earthquake on the east coast of the United States. This has
challenged our ability to respond in a timely way. We have a
responsibility to make sure our Federal agencies have the resources to
respond--how they were able to be about Maryland before the storm,
during the storm and after the storm and they are there now to help the
people of Maryland. Our governments--our local governments, our
businesses, and our residents are counting on that continued Federal
purpose to get us through this very difficult period.
Hurricane Irene caused severe storms, flooding, and strong winds in
the State of Maryland. It was followed by Tropical Storm Lee, which
aggravated the flooding and other damage throughout the State,
including damage to roads, water treatment plants, and agriculture. Our
agricultural community was hit hard. Our water treatment facilities,
the plants we depend upon to keep our waters clean and to keep our
neighborhoods safe, were damaged severely by this storm. I have talked
to our transportation people. Roads were knocked out. Damage was
caused.
On the Eastern Shore of Maryland, as I have already indicated, there
was a mandatory order for evacuation of Ocean City the weekend before
the Labor Day weekend, resulting in heavy economic losses during one of
the most profitable periods during the summer for that city. The
flooding in Queen Anne's County destroyed railroad tracks. I have a
photograph. This is, by the way, railroad tracks. They have been
knocked out by the hurricane. As you can see, this required emergency
attention.
Multiple roads were closed and numerous homes were flooded in the
town of Millington after the Chester River flooded over its banks. In
Millington, the wastewater treatment plant was disabled, also affecting
the residents in Kent County. The storm in Talbot County caused roads
and pipeline damage.
Let me show you this photograph, if I might, because I think it
points out the problem. When that amount of water goes through the
storm pipes, it can cause significant damage because these pipes were
not able to handle the amount of water that was brought down by the
hurricane and tropical storm. As a result, the pipes burst, causing the
road which the pipe was under to give way, bringing about a road
closure. That was terribly inconvenient, of course, to the people of
that area, the businesses, et cetera. I am showing an example in Talbot
County, MD, on the Eastern Shore. We could show numerous other examples
of the failure of stormwater management pipes as well as roads that had
to be closed for public safety. In Caroline County, the towns of
Federalsburg and Greensboro experienced major flooding of the Choptank
River, including the malfunctioning of a wastewater treatment plant. In
Cecil and Harford Counties, Irene led to the opening of a significant
number of floodgates at the Conowingo Dam, due to rising water levels
feeding in from the Susquehanna River. This was the first time the
engineers took such measures since Tropical Storm Isabel hit Maryland
in 2003. Opening the floodgates led to flooding and property damage in
many areas, and mandatory evacuation orders were issued for Port
Deposit and Havre de Grace, in Maryland.
People had to leave their homes. The streets were underwater. When
the water receded, there was muck and damage to the towns.
In southern Maryland, damage from metal on a roof that was blown into
a transformer forced the shutdown of a reactor at Calvert Cliffs
Nuclear Power Plant. In Calvert County, many of the substations were
damaged and rendered inoperable during Irene, resulting in widespread
power outages for many customers and that forced businesses to close
for several days. You heard about power outages. We had whole counties
where everyone was out of power--everyone. In most of our counties the
majority of people lost their power, not for a couple hours, for many
days, causing major disruptions to our businesses, to our families, to
schools that could not open and, therefore, parents who could not go to
work because they had to deal with the unexpected news that the schools
would be closed because there was no power in the schools themselves.
In the Washington metro region, Irene and the additional storms
caused severe power outages and flooding in Montgomery and Prince
George's Counties. In Prince George's County, the loss of power caused
thousands of basements to flood. As you know, without power you cannot
use your sump pumps. Without that, there is significant damage.
Frankly, because the water came in from the low level rather than
from the roof, these property owners are now being challenged as to
whether their insurance will cover this damage. That raises the
importance, I might say, of the Federal protections that are available
when a disaster is declared an emergency by the President because of
the altercations over what insurance does not cover. All the more
reason why the Federal Government must be there in its traditional role
to help communities when a storm or emergency occurs.
Hurricane Irene and subsequent storms required governments to incur
additional expenses due to overtime needed for first responders who
save lives and property after the storm. I must tell you, I saw those
first responders. I saw them out there working 24-hour shifts in some
cases. They didn't get home to their families because they were there
to help us maintain order and help reduce the loss of life and the loss
of property. I thank President Obama for making a timely major disaster
declaration for the State of Maryland in advance of the hurricane.
Maryland is now eligible for Federal disaster recovery dollars through
the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The State budget has already
been very much impacted. We all understand our States do not have the
flexibility of our country. It is during emergencies that our State and
local leaders look to Washington, look to their Federal Government to
be there as a partner to deal with this issue that States cannot deal
with.
Congress has always acted in a bipartisan manner to help Americans
and their communities recover from natural disasters. Congress has
never insisted that disaster fund being offset.
Let me explain this issue because it may be confusing to the people
who are watching. Yes, the Federal Emergency

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Management Agency has a budget. FEMA has a budget. But you cannot
predict the number and scope of natural disasters. No one had predicted
this storm would be as widespread as it was. Hurricane Irene affected
the entire east coast of the United States. FEMA did not have in its
budget that type of a scenario, along with the tornadoes we had, along
with what has happened in the Midwest. During this period, we have seen
48 of our States declared eligible for FEMA assistance. This affects
our entire country. Now the people on the east coast of the United
States are looking to the Federal Government to be there. We have
always done this, as I said, in a bipartisan manner, without the
requirement that if additional moneys are needed, those moneys will be
appropriated by Congress. We will not ask other agencies to have to
contribute toward that because that was not anticipated when we did the
budget. I might point out that we had a very contentious fight over the
Budget Control Act. That is the bill we passed that allowed us to
increase our debt ceiling and set our budget allocations for fiscal
year 2012, the year that will start on October 1.

As you know, there was an agreement in that Budget Control Act that
permits the modification of the fiscal year 2012 discretionary cap to
be adjusted to accommodate additional disaster relief funding without
an offset. That is what we did. We came together as one entity
recognizing we cannot predict the next hurricane, storm, earthquake,
flood, or tornado. We just cannot predict that. Therefore, Democrats
and Republicans said adjust the cap. Meet whatever disaster is out
there. Whether it was Katrina in Louisiana, whether it is a bridge
falling down in Minnesota that the Presiding Officer had to deal with,
whether it is tornadoes as we had in the Midwest, droughts and floods
that occurred in our country, we will be there to help the people of
America. We helped rebuild countries around the world. We want to make
sure we help the communities.
I was with my colleagues from Vermont, and they shared with us the
number of bridges that had been wiped out, people who have been
isolated as a result of Hurricane Irene and then Tropical Storm Lee. We
have a responsibility, and we recognize that in the budget agreement,
that we adjust the caps without setoffs so the Federal Government can
be there as a true partner in dealing with these issues. We were there
for preparation. It is now time to help restore the communities. In
some cases it will take months before we are back to normal. We know
that, the people know that, but they have a right to expect that the
Federal Government will be there to help.
I commend Senator Landrieu, the chair of the Homeland Security
Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee; Senator Inouye and the
members of the Senate Appropriations Committee. They recognize that.
They have given us a budget that will accommodate the extra needs so
FEMA will have the resources it wants.
I thank President Obama. His budget request to us reflects the
resources we need so we have the recommendation from our Appropriations
Committee. We have the leadership from the White House. Now it is time
for us to act. We have the vehicle on the floor of the Senate. It is
time for us to give the resources to the Federal agencies so they can
be there in all parts of this country--including helping the people of
Maryland cope with the disaster of Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm
Lee and the other natural disasters that have happened in other parts
of the country by--taking up this issue now, passing it at this moment
so the funds are there and the resources are there.
We can live up to the historical mission of the United States to
always be there to help any part of our Nation affected by a natural
disaster. I hope we will be able to bring up this issue quickly. As the
vote in the Senate Appropriations Committee indicated, it should not be
delayed because of offset issues. We should get the needed funds and
resources to the agency, working with our State and local governments,
working for our local communities so we can try to restore and rebuild
those areas that have been devastated by these natural disasters. I
would urge us to do that as quickly as possible.
Mr. President, I would yield the floor and suggest the absence of a
quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Franken). The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Tribute to Tim O'keefe

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I rise today to bid a fond farewell to
a man who has been a fixture in the Senate for 33 years. Mr. Tim
O'Keefe of the Senate Disbursing Office is retiring today after more
than three decades of service to this body and his country. Known to
many as a loyal friend and well liked by nearly everyone he has met in
these halls--including most of my colleagues and thousands of Senate
staffers--he will be greatly missed.
Tim began his career with the disbursing office, and in the Senate,
in 1978. Every Senate employee becomes familiar with that office early
in their tenure because that is the office in charge of the Senate
payroll as well as everything relating to an employee's compensation,
payroll deductions, retirement, life and health insurance, and other
benefits. The disbursing office used to be located in the Capitol when
Tim started. In fact, it was located in S-233, which is now part of the
Republican leader's office. During Tim's early years on the job,
staffers and Senators alike would line up in the hallways on payday to
receive their paychecks. Maybe that is how Tim became legendary for
never forgetting a face or a name for so many members of this very
large Senate family, and always having a kind word for every one of
them.
The disbursing office moved in 1980 when my predecessor, Howard
Baker, expanded the Republican leader's suite of offices. That is how
Tim and his coworkers ended up in their now familiar location on the
first floor of the Hart Building. Tim has kidded me about that a few
times over the years. So on behalf of the Republican leader's office,
let me take this opportunity to apologize to him for being booted from
his perch.
Tim is a native Washingtonian. He attended St. John's College High
School and the University of South Carolina, which has a heck of a good
football team this year. Just as Tim is loyal to the Senate, he is a
loyal alumnus of both those institutions. He goes to Columbia, SC,
every year to see South Carolina play football. Tim is also a great fan
of the Washington Redskins who, amazingly enough, are off to a good
start this year. He has season tickets, and has been attending their
games since his boyhood. He loves to talk football, college or pro,
with folks in the office, but be careful if you are a Cowboys fan.
Tim's father George O'Keefe was a distinguished veteran who fought in
World War II. His mother Gisela O'Keefe worked for the District of
Columbia school system at Alice Deal Middle School. I know they would
both be proud to see how well liked and well respected their son has
become. Tim also has a brother, Dennis, who lives in South Carolina,
and Tim lives in Alexandria with his teenaged son Connor.
When the disbursing office held a retirement party for Tim a few
weeks ago, he got quite the sendoff. It was the day of the historic
earthquake, felt all along eastern North America from Quebec City to
Atlanta and centered about 90 miles away in central Virginia. As Tim
was opening his presents, the ground began to shake and the Capitol
complex was soon evacuated. It is almost as if Washington, DC, itself
was protesting that it did not want Tim to go.
Indeed, it will be hard for many to imagine the Senate with Tim gone.
He has the longest tenure of anyone in the disbursing office today, and
thousands of Senate staffers know him as the man who led them in the
Federal oath of office they take on their first day on the job--the
same oath the Vice President of the United States administers to
Senators at the beginning of their 6-year terms.
In his retirement, Tim will have time to pursue his many interests,
including his love of horse racing. He is particularly a fan of
Lexington, Kentucky's Keeneland racetrack. And I would be

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remiss if I didn't mention that today, the day of his retirement, is
also Tim's birthday.
I know many on Capitol Hill, after hearing about his retirement, have
taken a moment to say thank you and goodbye to Mr. Tim O'Keefe. I
wanted to make sure I was one of them. He will be missed here in the
Senate, and we are very grateful for his 33 years of service.
Mr. President, 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. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Poverty in America

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, yesterday the Census Bureau released
information about poverty, income, and health insurance in our country,
and the news was, in short, devastating. The number of people in
poverty is at an all-time high. Income gains over the last decade have
been totally wiped out. Americans are struggling more than ever before.
I am appalled by these facts and I know my colleagues are too. Today
I wish to talk about these numbers, but I wish to talk about what we
can do about them and about where our country's priorities must be and
how we have to focus on rebuilding the middle class in light of the new
census numbers.
Yesterday we learned that 46.2 million people in America were poor
last year. That is more than 15 percent of Americans. Let me remind my
colleagues what this means. The poverty line for a family of four with
two adults and two children is $22,000--just slightly over $22,000 a
year. Can anyone here in this body--and we all know what we make; every
Senator, every Congressman, except leadership who get paid a little bit
more, makes $174,000 a year. If we think to ourselves: Could we and our
spouses and two children live on $22,000 a year, $425 a week? But,
beyond that, we also learned that deep poverty; that is, families with
incomes less than half the poverty line, is also at the highest rate on
record. More than 20 million Americans lived in deep poverty last year.
That is just over $11,000 a year for a family of four. That is almost
mind-boggling. How do people live like that?
Our children are suffering incredibly high levels of poverty. The
Census Bureau pointed out that 22 percent--1 out of every 5 kids in
America--were poor last year. When compared to other industrialized
nations--the OECD countries--the United States has one of the highest
rates of child poverty in the world. That is inexcusable. It is a
national crisis. It is something we should be discussing here on the
Senate floor daily.
In addition to our children, other vulnerable populations are
suffering as well. People with disabilities continue to face higher
poverty than people without disabilities. About 28 percent--almost 1
out of 3 individuals with disabilities in America--are poor, compared
with 12.5 percent of those without disabilities. That is twice the
amount.
Minorities also face devastating levels of poverty. More than a
quarter of Blacks and Hispanics--more than 25 percent or 1 in 4--are in
poverty in America. Again, keep in mind, for a family of four, that is
just $22,000 a year. So 25 percent of Blacks and Hispanics are in
poverty, 10 percent of Whites, 13 percent of Asians. These disparities
are deeply troubling. More than 10 million Black and Hispanic children
woke up this morning in a household struggling with poverty.
Again, we have to remember, while I talk about these as numbers,
there is a real story, there is a real family, a real individual, a
real child behind every one of them.
There are 46 million stories about families sitting around their
kitchen table--if they are even lucky enough to have one--struggling to
figure out how to make ends meet, stories of people choosing between
whether to pay the rent or pay the utility bills, choosing whether to
pay for diapers or medication for their kids, choosing whether to put
food on the table or gasoline in the car--so they might get to a
minimum wage, part-time job someplace. This should not be happening in
America.
We have heard a lot of talk and I have heard Senators and Members of
the House in speeches recently talking about how we cannot afford this
and we cannot afford that because, let's face it, we are broke, we are
deeply in debt in this country and we are broke. I beg to differ. The
United States of America is today the richest country in the world--the
richest country in the history of the world.
If we are so rich, why are we so broke? We are not poor. We are the
richest country in the world. So what this census report yesterday
points out is this is a wake-up call that we are failing. We are
failing our most vulnerable citizens. We are failing to provide a
ladder of opportunity for people to become part of the middle class. We
are destroying futures, destroying hope among our children.
First and foremost, I think this report yesterday graphically
illustrates how dangerous it would be if we as lawmakers give in to the
current atmosphere of budget hysteria--budget hysteria--fear, and
fatalism that is now going on on Capitol Hill. By giving in to it, we
eviscerate the essential economic security programs just because
somehow we want to score political points.
Well, people all know that most people in poverty have a higher rate
of not voting than wealthier people. We know that. So I guess, if you
want to get votes, you appeal to people who have money. If you want to
get elected, you appeal to people who have money because they are the
ones who give you money to get elected by, like big corporations. So
the poor are kind of forgotten about. So if we give in to this budget
hysteria, the first people who are usually hurt are the most vulnerable
of our citizens.
The Census Bureau's numbers show, again, without question how
effective and important these safety net programs are to keeping
millions of people out of poverty. Social Security alone--according to
the census numbers, kept 20 million people above the poverty line.
Unemployment insurance kept 3.2 million more people out of poverty.
We have always known these are crucial programs, but now we know just
how important they are. And other programs, if they were counted by the
official poverty measure, which they are not, would have lifted
millions more people out of poverty. For example, the SNAP program--
food stamps--would have lifted 3.9 million people above poverty. The
earned-income tax credit would have lifted 5.4 million people. Without
these crucial safety net programs, the poverty situation would be much
worse. Yet, mark my words, with this supercommittee that is meeting or
whether we go into some kind of a sequestration or whatever that means
around here, are we going to cut back on the food stamp program, are we
going to cut back on unemployment insurance, maybe cut back on Social
Security, as some would want to do, and Social Security benefits? That
just means more people will fall below the poverty line.
I think the second lesson we can learn from this report is about the
crippling effect falling paychecks and rising inequality are having on
our economy. Income went down again last year. Real median household
income was $49,500. That is down 2.3 percent from the year before and
down 6.4 percent since the start of the recession. This is not just the
effect of the recession; these are long-term economic trends that have
caused a dramatic increase in the income inequality in this country,
and it has been going on for at least the last three decades, little
bit by little bit by little bit, to the point now where we have a huge
disparity in income equality in this country.
Again, paychecks for American workers are not falling because they
are not working as hard or producing less. According to testimony from
former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich to the HELP Committee, the
typical American family is working more than 500 hours longer per year
now than they were in 1979. Got that. The typical American family is
working 500 hours longer per year than they were in 1979. In addition
to working longer, their productivity, as measured by the Bureau of
Labor Statistics, has continued to rise.

[[Page S5599]]

So what has happened? People are working longer. There is more
production, more units per person per hour worked, and yet wages have
fallen. Why is that? You would think wages and benefits would have gone
up with longer hours and more productivity. Well, that is not what
happened. It is not that companies cannot afford to pay their workers
more. Profit margins of Standard & Poor's 500 companies are at their
highest levels since the late 1960s. So what has happened during the
last three decades, since 1979, is that the executives have shifted
revenues from workers' paychecks to the corporate bottom lines and
their own pockets--more to profit, more to capital, less to labor.
We cannot allow these trends to continue. Economists across the
political spectrum agree that a major cause of our current economic
stagnation is a chronic lack of demand. For nearly three decades,
workers' incomes have been stagnant. Working families lack the
purchasing power to drive America's consumer economy. Without adequate
demand, businesses are reluctant to invest and hire. Simply put, until
we raise the numbers on people's paychecks and the number of people
working and making a paycheck, the economy will never recover.
The final lesson I think we can learn from yesterday's census report
is about health care. There is a small silver lining here. While the
recession is obviously continuing to impact health care coverage, there
are some signs that the early stages of implementation of the
affordable care act, that is, the health care reform bill, are making a
difference. While the census data shows that the number of uninsured
increased from 16.1 percent to 16.3 percent of the population--the
Census Bureau deemed this ``not statistically different''--the
affordable care act's requirement that health plans provide dependent
coverage to young adults to stay on their parents' policy until age 26
is making a difference.
The data from the Census Bureau shows that the 18-to-24 age group was
the only group ``to experience a significant increase in the percentage
with health insurance over the past year,'' up to 72.8 percent from
70.7 percent in 2009. So, again, there is a small silver lining there
in terms of health care coverage for our younger population. So it is a
modest step forward for young Americans.
But the overall picture the census report reveals is a nation--the
United States of America--on the brink of a crisis. It should be a call
to action. I think the President's jobs bill is a good start. We have
to create more jobs, not just any job but good-quality jobs that pay
decent wages and benefits, a job to lift a family out of poverty and
not to keep a family in it.
Again, I have been paying attention a little bit to some of the
debates that have been going on in the other party.
I was looking at the figures from the State of Texas that more jobs
have been created in Texas than any other part of the country. Well,
when you look closely, Texas had by far the largest number of minimum
wage jobs than any other state, and the number of minimum wage workers
more than doubled between 2007 and 2010. That is our future--minimum
wage jobs at $7.25 an hour? That is barely $15,000 a year, under the
poverty line for a family of four. Is that something to brag about,
that we are creating more minimum wage jobs that will just keep
families in poverty? As I said, we need jobs to lift families out of
poverty, not keep them down, under the poverty level.
Lastly, I have said so many times here on the floor that we will not
be able to tackle the problem of poverty in this country until we have
a strong middle class and a clear path for people to become middle-
class citizens. That means we should invest more in education, more in
innovation, more in infrastructure-building in this country. It means
restoring a level playing field with fair taxation--fair taxation. To
repeat something the President said the other night--why should Warren
Buffett pay less of a percentage of his income than his secretary? You
wonder why people get cynical about government. Of course they are
cynical. They have every reason to be cynical when we pass these laws
around here and we tax capital at a lower rate than we tax labor. Why
should someone who is laboring and working be taxed at a higher rate
than a wealthy person who maybe invested a lot of money, and they are
putting it all into capital gains, and they are paying a lower rate of
taxes than someone who is out there working for a living? Why is that
fair?
Well, we also need vibrant unions, vibrant unions that can bargain
collectively for their people for wages, hours, conditions of
employment. We need a strong ladder of opportunity to give every
American access to the middle class.
So, again, yesterday's poverty numbers told a bleak story about 46
million Americans who cannot make ends meet. I hope that next year at
this time, when the new census numbers come out, we can begin to tell a
different story about how we acted boldly, with imagination and vision,
to help these people turn their lives around and build a better future.
In a nation as strong and as vibrant and, yes, as rich--as rich--as the
United States of America, no one who works hard for a living should
have to live in poverty, and we should not rest until that vision
becomes a reality.
Mr. President, 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.
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Udall of New Mexico). Without objection,
it is so ordered.

Spirit of Cooperation

Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, there has been a promising new tone in
Congress since our return from the summer recess. It has taken some by
surprise. But even more striking than the new tone is that it has
brought with it a few modest signs of a new spirit of cooperation.
The House this week sent us the highway extension and an aviation
extension that are clean. During August, there were clamors from some
corners in the other party to mount a fight over the gas tax or insist
on harmful cuts to road and bridge repair, even if these demands risked
a shutdown of road construction projects. As recently as last Friday,
Republicans were planning to insist on a 5-percent cut to the FAA
budget--a move that could well have threatened another shutdown of that
agency like we saw in August. But both fears, fortunately, have
receded. Barring a setback in the Senate, we should be able to extend
both the FAA and highway measures on time and without controversy.
This is a very positive sign. There was a sour taste left in
everyone's mouth at the end of the debt ceiling debate, and that is
causing a change in behavior. It is actually bringing us together. That
process was made unnecessarily difficult because of the extreme tactics
of a bloc within the House. The political process broke down and the
public noticed.
In the aftermath of that debate, it seems everybody finally realizes
there is a premium on reasonableness. The public does not want to see
more of the ``my way or the highway'' approach that has been exhibited
by some in the House. That is why there was head scratching earlier
this week to hear a new rumor in the Capitol that the House Republican
leadership might consider seeking to reopen the debt ceiling fight,
ignoring the agreed-upon spending level for the 2012 fiscal year. As
you know, the deal included a top-line budget number of $1.043 trillion
for the fiscal year that begins October 1. This was a significant cut,
an actual cut from the fiscal 2011 level of $7 billion. This agreement
was ratified by all of those who voted for the final debt ceiling
agreement. It was hailed as one of the better aspects of the overall
debt ceiling deal because it would mean a lesser likelihood of another
budget fight on September 30.
However, since this number was agreed to, some extreme Republicans
have started looking to cause trouble. They have tried to see the $7
billion in cuts represented by the $1.043 trillion figure as a floor,
not a ceiling. This would be a violation not just of the spirit of the
debt limit deal but the letter of it.
The public will not stand for another budget fight. Republicans
should understand that more brinkmanship on

[[Page S5600]]

the budget at the end of September is not in either side's interest.
Some, thankfully, in the House leadership seem to realize this.
Majority Leader Cantor, in a memo to the House Republican caucus sent
in August, warned against picking another budget fight on the CR.
Leader Cantor wrote:

While all of us would like to have seen a lower
discretionary appropriation ceiling for the upcoming fiscal
year, the debt limit agreement set a level of spending that
is a real cut from the current year. I believe it is in our
interest to enact into law full-year appropriation bills at
this new lower level.

Leader Cantor affirmed these remarks earlier this week:

I say to my Republican colleagues, a deal is a deal. It's
hard to imagine you would go back on the debt limit
agreement, but if you are even considering it, please stop.

We already will likely need to take time next week resolving what
level of FEMA funding we should appropriate for fiscal year 2012.
Earlier indications are that some House Republicans may want to
shortchange the level of funding FEMA says it needs for next year. I
can't imagine why anyone would want to play games with disaster relief.
But if they want to debate that, they should not also be tying it to
another budget fight that we have already resolved and that nearly
caused a default for the first time in American history. We should not
go back over those pages. We have had enough debates on the docket
without reopening the ones we have already done.
The public is tired of these fights, and the public understands who
keeps instigating them. To the House Republicans I say: Don't go back
on your word on the CR. Leader Cantor was right when he said in August
you should abide by the level agreed to over the summer. Stick with
that decision and let's move on to other issues.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.

International Space Station

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I am very happy to announce to
the Senate that today NASA announced its new, big rocket design, with
the President stepping forth to indicate that he will request funding
for the design and building of this rocket.
I want to take the opportunity to share with the Senate what this
rocket is going to be. To set the stage, you will recall that we have
the International Space Station up in orbit now. There is a combination
of six astronauts on board. It is an international crew. The space
station itself--people don't realize how big it is. If you think about
sitting in a football stadium on the 50-yard line, and looking from one
end zone to the other, that is how big the space station is--120 yards
long.
The space shuttle has been the vehicle that we have used now for 30
years, the last 10 of which have been used to build the International
Space Station. The Russians have been taking up some components, but
the major components, the heavy components are being taken up in the
cargo bay of the space shuttle and assembled over the last decade into
the station. We have six astronauts doing research in the zero gravity
of orbit.
The future rockets going to and from the space station--a space taxi,
if you will--are a competition among commercial rocket companies, and
we think that competition will bring down significantly the cost of
those rockets to take cargo and crew, and at the end of this year one
version of those rockets will in fact launch, rendezvous, and dock with
the space station and deliver cargo.
To make those human rated, with all of the redundancies and escape
systems to save human life, it is going to take another few years. Of
course, it is a disappointment for so many of us that the new rocket,
ready to go to and from the space station, as the space shuttle used
to, is not ready for humans, even though we are launching cargo. Thus,
in the interim, we have to rely on the Russians with their spacecraft,
which we have done before, because when the Space Shuttle Columbia was
destroyed on reentry back in 2003, for well over 2 years we were down
and not flying the space shuttle, until we could make sure that it was
fixed. We relied on the Russian Soyuz to get to and from the space
station.
All right, that is going to low-Earth orbit. But NASA, with its human
space program, has another mission. Now, with the nonmanned space
program, we just launched to Jupiter, we just launched a mission to the
Moon, next month we are going to launch a mission on Earth
observations, and before Thanksgiving we are launching a Volkswagen-
size Recovery to Mars, with six wheels powered by a plutonium source so
it doesn't have to go to sleep in the Martian night. This will rove all
over.
It has a pole that will stick up, with a laser, and it can zap rocks
so we can analyze their chemical content. It has a big scooper that can
also get us additional samples. It has two eyes that will pop up as it
roams around so we can see in real time the surface of Mars.
So we have a vigorous space program. But we still have to do what
NASA is supposed to do; that is, leave the orbit of the Earth and
venture out into the heavens with humans. That is what was announced
today--announced by Senator Hutchison and myself, with NASA
Administrator General Charlie Bolden making the formal announcement.
The President has signed off on the specifics.
I am going to explain this rocket. But before I do, let me say there
have been a lot of critics saying: Oh, it will cost too much. Remember,
last year we passed the NASA bill unanimously in the Senate and passed
it in the House with an overwhelming three-quarters vote. That set the
parameters on the funding for this new rocket, and all of NASA's
figures have come in underneath those levels that we set in the NASA
authorization bill. Those are the numbers the Office of Management and
Budget and the White House have scrubbed to make sure they are
realistic, and that is what has been announced today.

Here it is. This is the rocket. Just to give an idea of the scale of
this monster, the space shuttle in the stack, with the external tank
and the two solids on either side, the tallest point of that stack is
the top of the external tank. From here that would come up to right
there. That gives an idea of how much larger this rocket is. This
rocket will launch more payload than any rocket in America's space
program and probably the Russian/Soviet space program, certainly, now.
Back in the old Soviet days I don't think the Soviets had one that was
anywhere near this one.
What this rocket has is a core, and this is a core with liquid
oxygen, liquid hydrogen fuel tank. It is taking the space shuttle
engines--so we can keep the cost down, and a lot of this has already
been developed--and putting five in the tail of this first stage. So
first stage, liquid hydrogen, liquid oxygen. But it is boosted on
either side by those solid rocket boosters--in this case a new one.
Under the space shuttle it was four segments, but this one has five
segments. So it is elongated and gives more thrust. These, on future
versions, will be competed as to whether it is going to be solid
rockets--and, by the way, the consistency of this pencil eraser is what
the solid rocket material looks like--or whether those in the
competition will be liquid boosters.
All right, that is the core. That comes up all the way to here. Then
there is the second stage. We have second-stage engines we have been
using in the past called the J-2. They are now updated with a new, more
powerful version called the J-2X. So we have a lot of history on these
engines. That is what is going to be the second stage, which then takes
the housing for a lot of the electronics, and then the capsule.
The tower at the top is an escape tower. We could actually have an
explosion right here on the pad, and the crew could survive because
they would eject in the full capsule, being thrust away from the
explosion, and then the parachutes would deploy and the crew saved;
likewise, we could save the crew on this rocket all the way to orbit.
So if there was a problem, we could still save the human life of the
four to seven astronauts who are going to be in this crew capsule. We
could save their lives, and that was one of the mandates after we lost
Columbia in the reentry over Texas. The investigation board said: Build
a safer rocket, and certainly one that is more economical.
This is now on a schedule for its first test--this version. This is
the smaller version. This thing can evolve. This is

[[Page S5601]]

about 70 to 77 tons. This thing can evolve to 150 tons, and then we are
talking about a monster. On this version they will test it on a
schedule for 2017. They will have several other tests, and they are on
a schedule to put a crew into this rocket in 2021. They are then
scheduled to rendezvous, or land, on an asteroid--this will be the
first time that has ever been done--as a way of preparing us to then go
to Mars.
So that is what NASA has announced today. I want to give great
credit--great, great credit--to Senator Hutchison. She has been the
ranking member and, alternately, chairman of the Subcommittee on
Science and Space and is now the ranking member of the full Committee
on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. She has been a princess in
helping guide, first of all, the NASA authorization bill and the
funding. Tomorrow, she and Senator Mikulski--the chair of the
Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies of the
Committee on Appropriations--will be taking up NASA's budget as they
get ready to come to the floor.
This rocket will now allow us to get out of low-Earth orbit, assemble
components--heavy components--that ultimately will take us out into the
heavens exploring in ways we never have even started to design.
Remember, 40 years ago we went to the Moon. That was quite an
accomplishment. But the Moon is about 250,000 miles from Earth. With
rockets like these, we are going to go far out into the heavens to
explore the origins of the universe, to explore that which we have
never even dreamed of, as we fulfill our destiny as a people who are
explorers and adventurers by nature.
Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a
quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Carolina is recognized.
Mrs. HAGAN. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum
call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mrs. HAGAN. Mr. President, I rise to join my colleagues in imploring
Congress to provide needed assistance to our families, our communities,
and our businesses suffering from the rash of natural disasters that
have hit our country hard this year.
While many of us who represent States on the east coast planned to
spend our final week of our August work period traveling our State,
touring factories, stopping by schools, and visiting military bases,
Mother Nature had other plans.
We still traveled to our States, but we saw a very different scene:
whole streets and towns flooded, homes and businesses washed away from
their foundations, destroyed crop fields, and constituents worried
about the loss of their homes and mourning their loved ones.
Over 2 weeks ago, Hurricane Irene barreled down our eastern seaboard,
and early estimates suggest it could be one of the top 10 costliest
disasters in U.S. history. I am here to tell the story of North
Carolina.
In the early morning of August 27, Irene first touched down over
eastern North Carolina's Outer Banks. Even before it made landfall, the
storm brought on several tornadoes along the coast that swept away
entire homes.
This is a photo of what is left of three homes hit by tornadoes in
Tyrrell County. I was there, and it was truly devastating. One elderly
man who had one of these homes was there the next day with a rake,
forlorn look in his eyes, and said: The only thing I own now are the
clothes on my back.
By the time Irene finally moved beyond the State of North Carolina,
six North Carolinians had been killed, storm surges 6 to 9 feet high
had flooded many towns, more than 500,000 were without power, and
countless homes, businesses, and schools had been destroyed or severely
damaged.
Fortunately, our State had prepared diligently for days leading up to
the storm, boarding up houses and businesses and declaring mandatory
evacuations for tourists and residents in our most at-risk towns.
A lot of pundits woke after Irene hit and started saying: Hey, it
wasn't that bad. I wish to invite those individuals to come to eastern
North Carolina and see what I saw in the wake of Hurricane Irene.
I saw small business owners in downtown Manteo emptying stores they
have run for decades, tossing their waterlogged inventory, moving their
furniture to the curb, moving out carpet totally destroyed, and these
business owners wondering if it was even worth reopening their stores.
There was a bookstore, and a resident in the community came up to me
and he said: Senator Hagan, I have raised my children by sitting on
this man's knees having books read to him day in and day out. We need
this bookstore back in Manteo.
I wish to be sure it gets there.
I also saw crops that had been beaten by wind and rain for 15 hours,
and it looked like they had gone through the spin cycle of a washing
machine. I saw flooding in the fields so severe that Agricultural
Secretary and former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack said it was the worst
agricultural flooding he recalled seeing.
I saw families clearing and burning debris, pumping floodwater,
tossing aside their soaked possessions that were beyond saving.
I also stood along Highway 12, eerily quiet, a highway that is
usually busy with traffic, totally still at the point where Irene had
left a gaping hole, blocking any vehicle travel to and from Hatteras
Island and the towns of Rodanthe, Waves, Salvo, Avon, Buxton, Frisco,
and Hatteras. We can clearly see the breach of the highway here. It
actually breached in three separate points along Highway 12. The only
way to get to the island now is by ferry; and, according to local
reports, the line for that ferry was 15 miles long this weekend.
That is the picture in North Carolina. It is not the only picture.
While there were scenes of destruction and loss, I also saw tremendous
acts of determination and kindness. If winds and rains may have swept
away our possessions, they also stirred up the best parts of North
Carolina spirit. Our intrinsic devotion to community and to assisting
those in need produced countless heroes across our State the past 2
weeks.
Everywhere I went, I saw emergency workers, volunteer organizations,
and members of the community reaching out to their neighbors in need.
In Craven and Tyrrell Counties, the American Red Cross and the North
Carolina Baptist Men and Women provided hot meals. The North Carolina
Baptist Men and Women were there, distributing 5,000 meals one
afternoon when I was with them and also helping shelter and debris
removal for those affected by the hurricane.
The North Carolina National Guard activated 400 members--including a
member of my own staff who serves in the Guard--to provide emergency
water, food, and supplies to some of the hardest hit areas. Emergency
workers throughout the State continue to help families, businesses, and
entire communities recover and rebuild.
While the people of the great State of North Carolina are committed
to getting themselves and their neighbors back on their own feet, we
have to do the same in Congress. For the North Carolina families,
farmers, fishermen, educators, seniors, and small businesses struggling
to recover, government assistance cannot come fast enough. It must not
leave too soon.
Here is my bottom line: Congress must fully fund Irene recovery
efforts now. But we must also fund the emergency funding needs in
tornado-devastated Joplin, MO, and Alabama, and the flooded communities
of the Midwest, also, and in the wildfire disaster currently in Texas.
Without a doubt, this year, our country has been ravaged by an
unprecedented series of natural disasters. Since January 1, the
President has issued disaster declarations in 48 States, and the
hurricane season is far from over.
We are aware of this trend all too well in North Carolina. Just about
4 months before Irene hit, 28 tornadoes touched down across central and
southern North Carolina, the most severe weather to hit our State since
1984. More than 20 North Carolinians were killed, 6,200 homes damaged,
and about 440 homes were completely destroyed;

[[Page S5602]]

21 businesses, including the largest employer in the town of Sanford,
were demolished, with another 92 significantly damaged, leaving at
least 2,000 North Carolinians in that one area out of work. Shaw
University, located in downtown Raleigh, was forced to close for the
remainder of the semester due to the immense damage to its campus.
We will never be able to predict the whims of Mother Nature, but we
are able to prepare and prepare we must. Right now, FEMA's Disaster
Relief Fund is running dangerously low. Even before Hurricane Irene
arrived we were using $400 million a month on disaster relief efforts.
Today the fund is down to $377 million, not enough for a week of
spending before Hurricane Irene hit, and we still have 3 weeks to go in
this fiscal year.

If we do not act now to fix this shortfall, millions of Americans
will be left behind. Already, FEMA is shifting funds away from vitally
needed reconstruction projects in previously hard-hit areas to what
they call ``immediate needs'' assistance. I do not believe any one of
us wants to be in the position of telling one of our constituents--one
of our small business owners, one of our school principals--that we
can't help because they are not considered an ``immediate need.''
American victims of natural disasters should not be left at the mercy
of a rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul system. That is not who we are as Americans.
We have a choice right now. In my mind and in the minds of all North
Carolinians affected by the storms of Irene and the tornadoes that took
place in April, the choice is clear: Congress must make these FEMA
supplemental funds available.
The Budget Control Act that we passed in early August established
strict spending caps to get our fiscal house in order while also
allowing for a limited amount of funds to be made available in case
disaster struck. Disaster struck, and now is the time to make those
funds available. Meeting these needs is not just a necessity for the
people of my State and many others, but it is also wholly consistent
with the fiscal discipline that we agreed on and voted on in August.
But FEMA funding is not enough. Our farmers in North Carolina and
across the eastern coast were devastated by Irene, and they are in
desperate need of assistance. North Carolina is an agricultural State.
Agriculture generates about $78 billion a year in economic activity,
and it employs close to one-fifth of the workers in North Carolina. Our
agricultural industry, particularly our cotton and tobacco farmers, are
in trouble.
At the end of the day, when all of the damage assessments are
completed, our farmers could be out more than $400 million from
Hurricane Irene, and these crops were just getting ready to be
harvested. Our farmers in our State absolutely cannot afford a blow
like this one. We in Congress need to work together so assistance from
the U.S. Department of Agriculture can be expedited and delivered in a
timelier manner. We need to act soon.
I want to end with a story from my State that I believe is
particularly relevant at this time when communities across the country
are in the process of recovery. Back in April, one of the most
recognizable scenes from the post-tornado coverage was of a Lowe's
store in Sanford, NC. Unlike with Irene, there were few warnings of the
tornado's arrival. But when Michael Hollowell, the store manager, saw
the storm approaching his store--and it was very fast--he calmly moved
every customer to the back corner where he knew--because he had been
trained--they would be the safest. I saw that Lowe's the very next day.
This is what that store looked like. It was completely demolished.
But every single person in the store when the storm hit was alive. Mike
Hollowell is a hero, not just to those people in the Lowe's store but
to people all over North Carolina. Last week, not even 5 months after
this devastation, that same Lowe's reopened, and it reopened with 2,000
more square feet than it had before. It just shows that North
Carolinians and people across the country are committed to a recovery
that will leave our communities better than ever.
The people of this great country are stronger than any storm. They
will rebuild and recover. But that process may take many months, it may
take many years. As their representatives, we have a responsibility to
provide a reliable, comprehensive program of relief for that duration.
To do any less is a dereliction of duty.
I call on all my colleagues to pass this FEMA supplemental bill as
soon as possible.
Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cardin). The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Stimulus Bill

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, in recent days the President has
repeatedly told Congress to pass the stimulus package immediately. This
began during his joint address to Congress last week when he said at
one point:

I am sending this Congress a plan that you should pass
right away. You should pass this jobs plan right away. Pass
this jobs bill--pass this jobs bill.

Immediately following the President's joint address to the Congress,
Press Secretary Jay Carney declared:

The President will submit a bill early next week, the
American Jobs Act, which will specify how he proposes paying
for the American Jobs Act.

As ranking Republican on the Budget Committee and wrestling with
these difficult issues--I know Senator Cardin is a member of the
committee--we tried to figure out what this means and how much money
the spending will be. But the bill that was transmitted to Congress
Monday afternoon does not contain any fiscal tables, costs for any of
his provisions, actually how those provisions will be paid for and when
the pay-for will occur, or even an overall pricetag for the bill.
How can the President call on Congress to ``pass this bill
immediately'' when no one even knows how much it will cost or where the
money is coming from?
I sent a letter yesterday to the President's Director of the Office
of Management and Budget, Jack Lew, asking that this information be
provided to the Congress at once. But so far we have had no response.
Part of the reason we need this information is that the total cost of
the President's bill may be much higher than advertised. That has been
the pattern around here. No one should be surprised. When the President
said his plan would be ``paid for,'' he did not specify if he meant the
total cost--to include increased interest resulting from the borrowed
money to be spent immediately--or just the cost of the jobs provisions
alone, actually how much goes out the door. Depending on whether the
money is spent out and when it is paid back--assuming it is ever paid
back--interest costs resulting from just this bill's borrowing could
top $100 billion. In other words, the interest on the money over the
10-year window, the 10-year budget we are talking about--if we spend
$450 billion now, we pay interest on that money. It is borrowed money.
People loan us the money and we pay interest. Interest rates alone
now--CBO projects them to go up, our Congressional Budget Office.
Certainly they will. They are extraordinarily low today. But, at any
rate, we could easily see the interest on this money over 10 years
reaching $100 billion.

The problem with looking at it as a 10-year scenario is that the debt
is probably not going to be paid off in 10 years. Most of the debts we
run up will be part of our deficit. If we want to raise taxes to fund a
new program, maybe we ought to raise taxes to pay off the debt we have
instead of spending it on a new program. The debt we have distributes
American wealth to people who hold our debt all over the world.
In my letter to OMB, I request tables showing the year-by-year data
for this bill's budgetary impact, including projected changes to the
deficit for each of the next 10 years. In other words, how will it play
out? If we spend $450 billion in 1, 2, or 3 years, how much does that
run up the debt? When does the repayment begin? How will it be paid,
and at what rate? If the President wants to advocate for a sharp, near-
term increase in the deficit in exchange for the possibility of some
undefined economic future, with the possibility of a

[[Page S5603]]

stimulus, he ought to make that argument clearly to the American
people.
I believe the President also needs to be honest in admitting that the
bill's short-term costs would wipe out--obliterate--the $7 billion in
savings next year resulting from the debt limit deal. In other words,
we went through this long, painful exercise that resulted in an
agreement in the eleventh hour and the 59th minute to save $900
billion, and then, hopefully, form a committee that would save another
$1.1 trillion to $1.5 trillion, only a fraction of this $2.1 billion in
savings, of the $13 trillion the Congressional Budget Office tells us
will be added to the debt in the next 10 years. So it would save a
little over $2 trillion over 10 years but, at the same time, we are
running up over $10 trillion in debt. So it is not a big enough step.
It is a step. There is progress. I certainly respect that, but it
wasn't much.
To show us how small it is, next year we are projected, under the
agreement Congress ratified, to reduce spending by $7 billion. That is
all. That is all it would be reduced from this year to next year in
actual spending levels. So I ask my colleagues: Don't we need to be
careful? After all the effort we took to achieve that much savings,
shouldn't we think very carefully about a new stimulus plan that would
spend $450 billion, obliterating that savings? I think we should. But,
at any rate, we do need to know precisely how much it is going to cost
and precisely how the money would be spent.
Let's flash back to February. The Office of Management and Budget
Director, Jack Lew, said this. This was when the President submitted
his budget for the next 10 years. It was brought up here on the floor
of the Senate. In fact, I brought it up. It was voted down 97 to
nothing. But this is what Mr. Lew said about that budget:

Our budget will get us, over the next several years, to the
point where we can look the American people in the eye and
say we're not adding to the debt anymore; we're spending
money that we have each year, and then we can work on
bringing down the national debt.

We all know there is a certain amount of political license people get
to utilize in the political world, and exaggeration sometimes is
forgiven. But let me tell my colleagues, this is the Office of
Management and Budget talking about the President's budget that he had
just submitted to Congress. He said:

What is the truth? The Congressional Budget Office scored this
budgetary plan and this is what they concluded: that over a 10-year
period there would be huge deficits every single year. In about year 6
or 7, the lowest deficit would occur--$750 billion would be the lowest
annual deficit that would occur--and by the 10th year we would be back
up to $1 trillion. President Bush's largest deficit he ever had was
$450 billion and he was criticized for that. So we are going to have
the lowest--and he says this is going to pay down the debt and wouldn't
be adding more to the debt if we passed his budget, when his budget
spent more, taxed more, and ran up more debt. I believe this is the
most irresponsible budget ever submitted to the Congress of the United
States, at a time of national crisis, when all experts are telling us
the greatest threat to our national security is our debt.
Forgive me if I want to see the fine print on this legislation, when
an administration tells us that--and the President said very similar
things; the President himself said very similar things--we would not be
adding more to the debt.
We in Congress raised the legal debt limit--I did not vote for that
particular bill--but we have breached, I am afraid, our economic debt
limit. America's $14.5 trillion gross debt is now 100 percent of our
GDP, our economy. Experts tell us we have already crossed a dangerous
threshold. Our debt is pulling down growth and putting a damper on job
creation right now.
We have to ask ourselves: Can we continue to borrow, running up even
more debt in the hope that we can spend it today in a sugar-high type
stimulus to create jobs in the short run? The Congressional Budget
Office scored the first stimulus package 2 years ago that has come
nowhere near achieving what was promised for it. They said, OK, if you
spend $825 billion now, you will get some short-term economic benefit,
but scored over a decade, we would have an economic decline. The net
growth of the United States would be less over 10 years than if we
didn't pass a stimulus package at all. When we get up to 100 percent of
GDP, I submit it is even more dangerous to keep running up debt.
This is a dilemma. We are in a fix. The economy is not growing the
way we wish it to grow. CBO was projecting in January of this year that
economic growth for the first 6 months would be about 2.9 percent. We
were hoping that would be true. But what happened? The first quarter of
this fiscal year it was .4 percent--not 2 percent, not 2.9 percent--and
the second quarter was extremely low also. We have averaged about 1
percent growth the first half of this year.
We want to do something to help this economy grow. I submit we should
do everything we can that would help our economy grow now that does not
run up the debt. What are some of those things? Producing more energy
at home, creating jobs here; pumping more energy supply which could
bring down the cost of energy. We can bring down the cost of energy,
create jobs, create tax revenue, and create growth that way. We should
eliminate every regulation that is not beneficial to this economy, and
there are a lot of them. Some regulations are good. Many of them add
costs to the entire economy for little or no benefit. We need to have
the kind of tax reform of a permanent nature that creates confidence in
our economy--the kind of tax reform that advances economic growth
rather than increasing taxes to give Washington more money.
Those are my suggestions about how to deal with this. First and
foremost, we are going to look at this proposal. We certainly are
worried about the status of the economy today. We are deeply
disappointed in the job numbers that continue to fall and, hopefully,
we will find the key to changing that. But fundamentally the economy
will come back and jobs will come back when growth occurs and growth
will occur not in the public sector but in the private sector. We need
to ask ourselves what it is we can do to create a better climate for
growth and job creation. We need to be rigorous in analyzing the
President's proposal, and to look at the details of it and how much it
is going to cost and how we plan to pay it back. I think at a very
minimum, we are entitled to that.
I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The assistant majority leader.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I thank my friend and colleague from
Alabama who has come to the floor. We see the world differently, but we
both acknowledge we are at a moment where action is the only
alternative. Doing nothing is unacceptable. When President Obama came
to speak to us in a joint session of Congress last week, that is what
he told us. He basically said, Let's roll up our sleeves, work
together, both parties in Congress, for a change, and do something
about this economy.
There are 14 million Americans out of work. The report now from the
Joint Economic Committee and others cites the highest level of poverty
in our country in decades; the problems working families are having
week to week, month to month, and year to year, falling behind, despite
all of their hard work. Their wages aren't rising to keep up with the
cost of living. Many are surviving paycheck to paycheck.
A survey was taken recently across America asking working families
the following question: Could you come up with $2,000 in 30 days if you
had to, either from savings or borrowing it? Fifty-three percent of
working families said yes and 47 percent said no. That is how close to
the edge almost half of working families are living. A $2,000 medical
bill at an emergency room is almost nothing these days--it is for a
minor injury--and these families could not come up with it. That is
what they are facing. That is why the President said let us focus on
doing things that will help these families and equally, if not more
importantly, help small businesses create jobs.

[[Page S5604]]

There is no argument here about creating an army of government jobs.
That is not even on the table. The President is not proposing that.
Here is what he said: Let's give a tax cut, a payroll tax cut to
working individuals so they have more take-home pay. I took a look at
what it would mean in the State of Illinois. It would mean that for the
average income, which is $53,000 a year, that family would get $1,400
in tax cuts or $120 a month. I think it is worth something to working
families to have that much more in their pockets to meet the needs of
their families and perhaps make some critical purchases for their
children, for their future, whatever it might be. That is a tax cut the
President has proposed.

He also proposed a tax cut for small businesses if they will hire
unemployed people, a tax credit of up to $4,000 to hire these folks,
take them off the unemployed rolls, and put them to work.
I went to several job centers during the August recess. One was in
McHenry, IL, and one was in Elgin, IL. I spent the better part of the
day sitting with unemployed people and talking to them. You ought to go
there. If you think unemployed Americans--the 14 million on whom we
hear the statistics--are living the life of luxury on their
unemployment checks, they are not. Most of them are struggling to
survive, and many of them come each day to a job center to brush up
their resume, to find out the latest people asking for new workers and
put in new applications day after day. Many of them are discouraged
after submitting hundreds of applications with no response. Some go
back to school. I met a few who really made the right life choice by
going back to take courses at community college, where they could
afford it, or at job-training centers where there would be no charge to
them, so they could pick up a new skill in an area in which they could
get a job. That is the reality. The President is trying to create tax
incentives for small businesses to hire those people.
Usually the Republicans who come to the floor applaud tax cuts. My
experience is that they are for tax cuts when times are good and bad,
but this time they are against these tax cuts. What is the difference
between these tax cuts and the ones the Republicans historically
support? There are two differences: The President's tax cuts are
focused on middle-income families, not the wealthiest, and they are the
President's tax cuts. Those are the two differences.
I hope some on the Republican side will reflect on the fact, as the
President said, that the American people are not going to reward us for
our campaign rhetoric if this economy does not turn around. They want
us to work together to solve the problems facing our economy. They want
tax cuts for working families. They want small businesses to have an
incentive to hire people. They want us to focus on creating good-paying
jobs here at home. What kinds of jobs? Building America.
As the President said, if we are going to succeed in this world, we
need to outeducate our competitors, outinnovate our competitors, and
outbuild them.
I went to China over Easter. What is happening in that country is
incredible. They are building in every direction--building cranes and
construction activity everywhere. They are building the infrastructure
in China to become the No. 1 economic power of the world in the 21st
century. What are we doing? We are hearing speech after speech saying
that because of the deficit, we cannot invest in America. Some say we
cannot invest in education. They argue that we cannot invest in
research, we cannot invest in building America. I think they are wrong.
The deficit is a serious challenge. Even the Bowles-Simpson
Commission, which I served on and voted for, said: When you get serious
about cutting spending, do it when this recession is behind you. They
know, we know you can't balance the budget with 14 million Americans
out of work.
Let me say a word about the safety net in America. I made a visit in
Champagne, IL, to a food-distributing operation. They distribute food
to pantries and soup kitchens all around central Illinois.
Unfortunately, their business has never been better. More and more
families are showing up in these places for a helping hand. I went in
there to hear how they are doing. They are getting a lot of help from
the private sector that donates food that is near expiration, for
example, and a lot of contributions from churches and charitable
individuals. It is very heartwarming to see it.
As I went to tour this place, there was a young woman there. She was
an attractive, well-dressed woman. I assumed she worked for this food
depository. She said to me that she had a job in a local school
district as a teacher's aide. I was a little bit puzzled as to whether
she was on the board of directors or what her connection was. She came
there to tell me that as a single mom with two little kids, even with a
job in the school district, which she was happy to have, she still
needed food stamps to put food on the table every day for her kids.
I don't think Americans--those of us lucky enough to never have to
worry about the next meal--know what families are going through,
working families struggling with low income, trying to keep their kids
well-fed and to do what every parent wants to do. More and more of
these families are going to soup kitchens very quietly because that is
a meal they don't have to pay for. They are going to the pantries to
pick up the groceries. I have seen them in one of the nicest and most
prosperous counties in my State, DuPage County. I went to the pantries
there, and I saw the people coming through the door. You would not be
able to pick them out, but they are working families who need a helping
hand. That is the reality. That is why the safety net is so important.
I am troubled that so many people today are on food stamps. I am not
troubled that they are on food stamps; I am troubled because they have
to be on food stamps. I hear critics come to the floor who say: There
are too darned many people on food stamps. There is something wrong
here.
What is wrong is not the food stamps; what is wrong is hunger and
low-income and working families struggling to get by paycheck to
paycheck. That is what is wrong. The number of Americans now qualifying
for this food stamp assistance is even going up among those who are
employed, such as the lady I met in Champagne, IL. That is a reality.
Something else is happening too. As more and more people lose their
jobs, they lose their health insurance. When I sit down with the
unemployed, that is one of the first items that comes up. Once you have
lost that health insurance premium your employer helps you pay, most
folks can't afford it. It is just way beyond them. So they are out
there without insurance, and they are vulnerable. Some of them have
sick kids, chronically ill children, and they worry about it. They go
to the free clinics. We are seeing more and more working families
showing up at free clinics across America. That is a reality of this
economy too.
When we talk about cutting spending on Medicaid, keep in mind who
receives Medicaid payments in America. In my State of Illinois, 36
percent of Illinois children are covered by Medicaid insurance. When it
comes to births in the State of Illinois, 52 percent of all births in
Illinois are paid for by Medicaid. But the biggest single expense in
Medicaid is neither one of those. Mr. President, 20 percent of the
Medicaid recipients in my State account for 60 percent of the cost of
the program: the elderly--parents, grandparents, great-grandparents in
nursing homes and convalescent centers, on Medicare and broke and stay
there because Medicaid steps in and helps them keep things together, so
they have at least some care and some attention in the late years of
their lives. When we talk about cutting spending in Medicaid, we are
talking about hurting the most vulnerable people in America: children,
such as the kids of that single mom I met; those who need prenatal care
so their babies will be healthy; and, of course, the elderly who are
stuck in that situation.
The same thing is true with Medicare. I understand Medicare costs are
going up dramatically. I also understand the number of people under
Social Security and Medicare is going to rise as baby boomers reach
that age. But we have to take care that at the end of the day we
protect the basic premiums and benefits that are presently available
under Medicare. For a lot of

[[Page S5605]]

seniors, it is their only health insurance. It is what keeps them
independent and strong. We can't compromise that basic protection by
privatizing Medicare or raising the cost of Medicare beyond the reach
of senior citizens.
Finally, when it comes to Social Security, let me just say that this
is a program which means a lot. For 70 percent of Social Security
recipients, it is a majority of their retirement. For 25 percent of the
Social Security recipients, it is all they get. That is it. So guarding
Social Security and protecting its future is important for our parents
and grandparents. It is important for our country and for its future as
well.
The President came forward, and he said: This is my jobs bill. This
is what I think will help move America forward, put more spending power
in the hands of working families, create incentives for small
businesses to hire people, focus on putting firefighters, cops, and
teachers back to work. That is a priority in our country for sure, and
investing in building in America.
One of the few lines the President had that got a bipartisan standing
ovation--and there were not many last Thursday--was when he said it is
an embarrassment that 10 percent of our returning veterans are
unemployed. Let's put our veterans back to work. That is part of our
President's plan.
When I listened to the Senator from Alabama--he doesn't like the way
the President is paying for the plan, but he does pay for it. How does
he pay for it? One thing he does is he reduces the Federal subsidy to
oil and gas companies. Filled your tank lately? Take a look at what
they are charging at the pump. In Illinois and most places, it is over
$4. That is translating into the highest reported profits in the
history of American business. Oil companies have never ever had it so
good. President Obama has said--and I agree with him--that if there
were ever a moment in time when the Federal subsidies to these oil
companies should come to an end, this is it. The money saved should go
to small businesses and families across America in this difficult
economy.
The President also believes--and I agree with him--that the
wealthiest among us, those who are most comfortable, should be asked to
share in the sacrifice. There are some on the other side who would not
accept one penny more in taxes on the wealthiest people in America. I
don't get it. As I travel around Illinois, a lot of families are
sacrificing in this tough economy. They know they have to. It is the
only way they are going to make it. They know that some of the
government programs which have been around in the past are not going to
be there in the future or may be not as generous.
If working families and middle-class families across America accept
that reality, why can't the wealthiest families in America accept it
too? Honestly, I think they can. By and large, the people I know who
are blessed with a lot of wealth and a pretty comfortable life have
said to me: Senator, I don't need all of this. I don't need all of that
Social Security payment. I can get by without it. I don't mind paying a
little more in taxes.
Those are the people I run into. But you hear from the other side
that is totally unacceptable. Some of them have said the President's
plan is going to fall flat on its face because it taxes the wealthy in
America. I think the wealthy should pay their fair share, and I think
the President's plan is an honest, good plan that moves us forward. So
for those who are critical of it, give me your alternative.
I wrote down here what the Senator from Alabama suggested. He wants
more energy produced here at home. I am for that. I think we ought to
go to places where it is environmentally responsible and produce more
energy here in the United States. But I will say two things to keep in
mind:
No. 1, all of the known oil and gas reserves in the United States of
America that we could reach onshore and offshore equal 3 percent of the
known oil and gas reserves in the world. Each year, the United States
of America consumes 25 percent of the oil and gas consumed in the
world.
We cannot drill our way into energy independence. We can expand the
base and do it in an environmentally responsible way, perhaps find
better sources, newer sources for things such as natural gas, but this
is not the answer to our prayers.
Secondly, moving toward energy efficiency is not only good for the
environment, it is good for the bottom line for a family and for a
business, promoting efficiency.
My wife and I take a little pride in the fact that we own a car, a
Ford Fusion Hybrid, and we were kind of patting ourselves on the back a
little bit. As we came back from vacation in Michigan, we were getting
36 miles a gallon. We felt pretty good about it. I was bragging to my
friends about it, and now I am bragging on the Senate floor. It can be
done. We can create more fuel-efficient vehicles. We didn't compromise
anything, and we bought American.
I think that is what we need to encourage in this country: cars and
other energy-saving equipment made in this country, creating jobs,
reducing the need for energy to be imported from overseas and reducing
the pollution that, unfortunately, hinders our environment and our
health. I think that is a good thing.
So on the Senator's first point, sure, more energy at home, but put
it in perspective. That is not the answer to America's economic needs.
The second point he says is to eliminate certain regulations. That
could be true. I am sure the President agrees there are regulations now
that don't make any sense. Get rid of them. I am not sure this is a big
ball and chain being dragged around by our economy, but there is no
sense in wasting time or money on regulations that really don't serve a
good public purpose.
The final point he said--and I couldn't agree more--tax reform. We
lose $1.2 trillion a year to the Tax Code. Credits and deductions and
exclusions and special favors written in the Tax Code for businesses
and individuals have to come to an end. I actually think that is a good
way to raise revenue and maybe even reduce marginal tax rates for
corporations and individuals in the process.

That is what Bowles-Simpson said. So even my friend from Alabama who
spoke earlier--even he and I can find some common ground. I hope he
will agree with me and the President: doing nothing is unacceptable.
The President has said: No more games, no more delay, no more politics.
Do something. That is the message I got in August, as I returned to
Illinois. It is a message I hope my colleagues share as well.
Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant editor of the Daily Digest proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. BARRASSO. 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 Wyoming is recognized.

A Second Opinion

Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I come to the floor, as I do almost on a
weekly basis, to talk about the health care law and, I do that as a
physician, someone who has practiced medicine in Wyoming for a quarter
of a century, taking care of Wyoming families. I come to the floor
because I have great concerns about this health care law.
We know--history proves--that landmark pieces of legislation written
in Congress often contain drafting errors at one stage or another
during the bill's development. This is one of the main reasons most
landmark bills are written and negotiated in an open and transparent
manner. Writing and negotiating bills in this way helps Members of
Congress minimize mistakes. It helps uncover any unintentional
consequences. It helps fix problems. This is done through rigorous
committee and floor debate, as well as House-Senate conference
committees, as the bills go through the process.
Most importantly, doing something in an open and transparent manner
gives the American people, the folks at home, an opportunity to read a
bill, to study it, to think about it, to discuss it during townhall
meetings with their Members, and ask questions and weigh in.
Well, unfortunately, we all know the largest health care law ever
enacted did not undergo an open, transparent, or bipartisan process.
President Obama

[[Page S5606]]

promised the American people they could watch the discussions and the
writing process--he said--on C-SPAN. Well, instead, the President and
Democrat leaders in both the House and the Senate sealed themselves
behind closed doors. Their strategy? Pass sweeping health care
legislation based on stealth and speed. Use sound bites to sell America
about expanding coverage, about cutting costs, about improving quality,
and then offer very few details explaining exactly how the bill would
impact individual Americans, nor what it would cost the country.
Well, while this entire strategy was being played out, the President
and Washington Democrats were writing the legislation behind closed
doors. Why? Well, to limit the time the bills could be read and
reviewed by the American public. Some in Washington thought rushing a
health care bill into law before America could read it was the perfect
way to avoid public debate and public questioning.
Many of us recall when former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi
infamously said: First, you have to pass the bill to find out what is
in it. Well, the President passed his health care law, and the American
people continue, on a daily basis, to find out what is in it. They do
not like it, and it is easy to understand why.
As the American people had a chance to read the details, they started
asking more questions. The numbers simply were not adding up. Health
care costs, they were seeing, were going up, even though the President
promised that health care costs would go down. There were costly
mandates on small employers, and that was going to discourage hiring.
Nancy Pelosi said they would hire 400,000 people immediately. They have
not been hired. She said 4 million new workers would be hired
ultimately. We have not seen it yet.
Mandates we have seen come out of the health care law do nothing to
spur economic growth and help the 9.1 percent of individuals
nationwide--14 million Americans--who are currently unemployed and are
looking for work. Then there are even more government orders forcing
individuals to buy one-size-fits-all, government-approved insurance or
face a fine.
The American people have had 17 months to find out what is in the
President's health care law. One news report after another has been
uncovering a laundry list of so-called glitches in the health care law.
Well, former Speaker Pelosi wanted the American people to find out what
was in the law, and 17 months later the American people are finding out
that the President and Washington Democrats did not even write it
correctly.
On Wednesday, September 7, of this year, Investor's Business Daily
printed an article titled, ``Oops! No ObamaCare Tax Credit Via Federal
Exchanges?'' The article explains that the way ObamaCare was written,
individuals who qualify for a taxpayer-funded subsidy to buy
government-approved health insurance in the new State exchanges may not
get it. Section 1311 of the health care law requires the States to set
up a State-run ``exchange.'' This State-based exchange is a place where
individuals can use their government subsidy to buy health insurance.
Now, if a State declines to set up their own exchange, then section
1321 mandates that the Federal Government set it up and run it for
them.
Here is the catch: The health care law, as written, as signed by the
President, explicitly says the taxpayer-funded subsidies can only go to
people who are enrolled in exchanges set up by the State. Nowhere does
the health care law mention that the subsidy can be given to people
enrolled in the Federal exchange.
So the American people are now finding out that their family might
actually qualify for government help to buy health insurance, but they
are not going to receive the help. Instead, individuals enrolled in
federally run exchanges could be forced to buy health insurance that,
absolutely, they cannot afford.
Not only might this law cause individuals to spend money they do not
have, the law may also offer taxpayer-funded subsidies to people who do
not actually need it. Let me repeat that. The law may actually offer
taxpayer-funded subsidies to people who do not actually need it.
At a time when our country can hardly afford to spend money we do not
have, Medicare's Chief Actuary, Richard Foster, exposed yet another
glitch in the President's health care law. The law allows approximately
3 million middle-class early retirees to qualify for Medicaid. Well,
Medicaid is a safety net program designed to help low-income Americans.
Here is how this one works: The health care law defines how the
Federal Government will set an individual's Medicaid eligibility. The
calculations are all based on income. Here is the glitch: The health
care law excludes a large part of an individual's Social Security
income from that calculation. Well, today, Federal low-income
assistance programs are required to count Social Security benefits as
part of an individual's income. Thanks to the health care law, early
retirees earning up to $58,840 a year could now be eligible for
Medicaid.
Here is what Mr. Foster said in an Associated Press article. He said:

I don't generally comment on the pros or cons of policy,
but that just doesn't make sense.

This is the Chief Actuary of Medicare. ``I don't generally comment,''
he says, ``on the pros or cons of policy, but that just doesn't make
sense.''
Well, I agree. That is why I cosponsored legislation introduced by
Senator Mike Enzi closing this loophole. Senator Enzi's bill, S. 1376,
changes the health care law subsidy eligibility calculation to include
all nontaxable Social Security income.
The Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation
estimate if we enacted Senator Enzi's bill, we will save the Federal
Government and the American people about $13 billion. The Senate should
immediately take up S. 1376 and pass it. This is $13 billion we can
save right now, today. Let's show the American people that when we see
our country spending money that it shouldn't, we will take a stand,
collectively as a Senate, and stop it.
These examples--these two examples--inevitably beg the question: What
next? Clearly, the self-described ``most transparent Administration in
history'' has a lot of explaining to do. I do not believe my friends on
the other side of the aisle, who wrote this very flawed health care
law--and they did it behind closed doors--I do not think they knew what
they were doing when they wrote these provisions. How do I know that?
Well, if they understood how devastating their policies would be, I
think they might have had second thoughts.
How many more disruptive, ticking time bombs are there lurking in
this law and in the regulations that still have not been written about
this health care law that was signed a year and a half ago? We do not
know. We do not know because many of the provisions do not even go into
effect until the year 2014 or later.
As a physician who has practiced medicine a long time, cared for
patients all around the State of Wyoming, been active in the Wyoming
health fairs, bringing low-cost health screenings to people all around
the Cowboy State, I intend to fight each and every day in this Senate
to make sure the American people will not have to find out what kind of
additional ticking time bombs there are in the health care law. That is
because I am more committed than ever to repeal the health care law and
replace it with patient-centered care, replace it with health care
reforms that help American families get the care they need, from the
doctor they want, at a price they can afford.
Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant editor of the Daily Digest proceeded to call the roll.
Ms. LANDRIEU. 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 Louisiana is recognized.
Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I know we have had several speeches over
the last couple of hours on very important topics--the jobs bill, our
efforts to stimulate the recovery, a response from one of our
Democratic leaders to Senator Sessions, and the good Senator who was
just speaking talking about health care--but I have

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come to focus our attention, if I could, again this afternoon on a
particular issue. We spent most of yesterday talking about a matter
that is absolutely right at hand; that is, disaster relief funding and
calling on this Senate and the House of Representatives to focus some
immediate and comprehensive thought and attention on this subject,
which is affecting so many of our constituents--Republicans, Democrats,
and Independents--in big cities, small towns, and rural areas all over
this country.
In fact, this is the first year in our memory and in, I think, the
recorded recent history, we have had a Presidentially declared disaster
in 48 of our 50 States. Just a few days ago, we along the eastern
seaboard and the gulf coast, where I am from representing Louisiana,
suffered from the original hit and then remnants of Tropical Storm Lee
and then Hurricane Irene.
There are some Senators who joined me in a press conference earlier
today. I think it was the Senator from North Carolina who said it has
actually been three disasters: an economic disaster, in terms of an
economy that is weak and fragile and we are doing our best to lift it
and to strengthen it, and then Tropical Storm Lee and then Hurricane
Irene.
It has been millions and millions of dollars of damage.
Unfortunately, we on the gulf coast tragically are getting to be
experts in this field because we, as Senators and House Members from
the gulf coast, have battled multiple disasters over this last decade.
Katrina and Rita, which broke all records, surpassed any planning this
government has ever done.
We had a FEMA that showed up not ready, not comprehensive enough in
its view. Our people have suffered. But we have made a lot of changes
since then, and here we are today with actually a better FEMA, from all
accounts. I wish to give a lot of credit to this administration,
particularly, and not just Homeland Security. But the Cabinet of this
President has been extraordinary in their reasonableness when it comes
to this subject.
I have seen the opposite. So I think I am in a position to see the
difference. It is a big difference in this Obama administration in
terms of the Cabinet. They want to say yes to disaster victims. They
did not want to say no. That is very important. They cannot always say
yes to everything, to rebuild every building, repave every street,
elevate every home. But they are trying to say yes. Most importantly,
the lawyers have been instructed to find a way forward, as opposed to
instruction that came from the last administration which was to find a
way to say no.
So let me give credit where credit is due, to the Obama
administration and their willingness to be flexible, to be forward
leaning, to have attorneys who are trying to be on the side of the
taxpayer, on the side of the victims, and not shortchanging people in
times of desperate need.
Having said that, the administration cannot do it all on its own.
They need Congress, as the Constitution says, to provide the funding so
the executive branch can do its job. The executive branch, by all
accounts, even Republicans have come to the floor from States that have
been hard hit and said: It is a more muscular FEMA, it is a more
dynamic FEMA, it is a more flexible FEMA.
I wish to thank Senators Lieberman and Collins. They are the
authorizers. Yes, I have had a part of it--others have, but they have
worked tirelessly after Katrina and the disaster that happened on the
gulf coast, where we were all shamed when we saw what did not happen
that should have.
We fixed a lot of it, and that is something to be happy and proud
about. When government does set its mind to improve things, it can. But
we cannot do anything without the funding. Right now, FEMA is empty.
The pot of money is empty. Projects, millions, hundreds of millions of
dollars today, not just in my State but in California, in Tennessee, in
Iowa, in Texas, and in North Dakota--and I could go on and on--but for
the Record let me say a couple.
In Tennessee, mitigation of private residences from the 2010 floods
has been halted. For those who might not be familiar with the word
``mitigation,'' which most people are, it means one could be elevating
their house, one could be putting shutters or storm windows on their
windows. Let's see what else. A person could be potentially
strengthening the frame of their house if they are trying to mitigate
against high winds from a tornado. There are rules that allow people to
try to improve their home so the next time it happens not only are they
not homeless, but taxpayers are not paying again for the same sort of
incident.
The Federal Government, under good policy, requires a certain portion
of all disaster funding to be specific, to go to mitigation because
taxpayers think, when we are trying to rebuild from a flood or a storm
or a tornado or a bridge collapse, do not just build the same old
thing, try to mitigate so it does not happen again. That is smart
because then we are not double, triple spending taxpayer money.
But in Tennessee this family, let's say, is in the middle of
elevating their home. Let's say they have gotten it off the ground by 2
feet, and the contractor showed up on Monday. They were sent home
because this project has been stopped. So somewhere there are homes in
Tennessee--I am not sure in what particular community--where private
sector contractors, many small business owners and their employees,
showed up to work and were told: Go home. FEMA is out of money.
We have to fix this this week before we leave and, if not, at the
latest by next week.
In Iowa, repairs for an electric utility--I am not sure who provides
utilities in Iowa. Potentially, it may be, as in my State in rural
areas, the local rural co-op. Everybody knows what a rural co-op is.
Their project has been shut down. Potentially, people are still
receiving electricity. I do not think people are sitting in the dark. I
am hoping not. But whatever they were planning to repair and fix in
Iowa has been halted because we have run out of money.
In Texas, repairs to the University of Texas medical facility have
been stopped. In Louisiana, roadway construction has been stopped. In
fact, there was an article in our paper, the Times-Picayune, just this
week that said $100 million for Jefferson Parish--$100 million--that is
just 1 of my parishes, 1 of 64, the suburban parish that sits right
beside Orleans that was very hard hit by these storms, not as hard as
Orleans Parish but received billions of dollars of damage--those
projects have been put on hold while we move that money to help the
victims in the Northeast. That should not be the case.
We need to act quickly to refill the FEMA funds. In addition, I
understand in North Dakota and in other places there are problems. It
is not just the DRF. The Corps of Engineers in its budget last year did
not have enough money for emergencies. I slipped out of the Chamber a
few minutes ago to go actually meet with the mayor of Grand Isle, who
was here, as he is quite often, advocating on behalf of the only
barrier island that is inhabited in the State of Louisiana, and he
brought up pictures. Again, they are too small to see, but I am going
to have them blown up for tomorrow. But I have in my hand pictures of
the levees that were just ripped up and destroyed again from Tropical
Storm Lee. These were levees on the gulf that we just completed.
But because the Corps of Engineers, when they rebuild levees, in
their authorizing legislation are prohibited--which makes no sense
whatsoever, it is a complete waste of taxpayer money--they are
prohibited from betterment. They can build back what was there, but
they cannot build it better or higher, unless they are directed to do
so.
I am about ready to direct them because I am tired, on behalf of my
people and the people of this country and the taxpayers, from
rebuilding levees 10 times in a matter of 5 years. It is a waste of
money--it is aggravating to the people whose homes are behind these
levees--because we do not even have a policy, when we are building
levees, to be ordered to build them stronger, higher, except, of
course, in the case of some levee systems in Katrina. That was
specifically directed, and it is being done.
We are building around the city of New Orleans a much stronger, much
better system. One would think that would be being done all over the
country. It is not. Why? Because we are

[[Page S5608]]

short on funding, short on political will, and short on imagination and
creativity when it comes to building infrastructure in this country. I,
for one, am tired of it. So are the people I represent.
I am asking the other side of the aisle to step up and to provide
funding, funding that is not offset in the middle of a disaster. We
will figure out how to pay for these later--these disaster funds later.
But as I think Senator Leahy said so eloquently in our press conference
today: Do the Republicans, some people in the Republican Party,
actually believe we want fire departments all over the United States,
when someone's house is on fire and they show up with the engines, to
debate in the middle of the street how they are going to pay for the
extra overtime to put out the fire? I do not think so.
Even if the fire department is broke, even if the funding has run
out, we do not want to have a debate over how they are going to pay for
overtime when the fire is burning. Put the fire out. Bring the people
to safety. Put the families in shelter. Then go back to the city
council meeting next week and they can debate for as long as they want
how they are going to ultimately pay for it.
We paid for World War II, obviously. It was a long time ago. It is
completely paid for. We paid for World War I. We are paying for
Afghanistan. We are paying for Iraq, which, by the way, not one,
single, solitary Republican--and not many Democrats, for that matter,
but not one Republican whom I can recall stood and asked or debated for
5 seconds how we were going to pay for the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan.
But when the people of Vermont stand in front of their bridges
collapsed, their homes collapsed, their schools collapsed, and say: We
need help, we have to have now a month-long debate on how we are going
to pay for it. We have not done this since the 1800s.
We will eventually pay for it. America has to pay for everything. We
will pay for it. We do not have to have that debate now. What we do
have to have a debate about is how do we repair levees and what is the
best way to mitigate it. What are the new technologies that can be used
to make our communities stronger and smarter? How can we streamline the
process? How can we eliminate the redtape? How can we get help to
people faster? That is what we should be debating.
Instead, I have Cantor and Boehner making us argue about what offsets
there are. So I have to go to the State of Maryland and say: Senator,
what can you give up this year in your State? I have to go to Michigan:
What can you up in Michigan? I have to go to California: What can you
give up in California, so we can pay for people who are underwater in
Vermont and North Carolina?
What kind of government is this? I do not want to be a part of that
and I am not going to be. So we have to fund these disasters now. The
saddest thing about all this--it is sad and it is also puzzling and it
is perplexing and it is aggravating is that we already sort of made
this deal 1 month ago, when we negotiated that big agreement we all
came to, about how the levels of funding would be for 2012.
Everybody remembers that, before we left for August, and we had this
big knock-down, drag-out--in that agreement, our leadership,
Republicans and Democrats, already agreed to do something that I think
is very smart. I want to show what they agreed to. They agreed--because
it is a puzzlement--how do we fund in advance disasters, how do we know
how much to set aside. It is a problem because every year is different.
I wish to show what our problem is, so people listening can give me
their own suggestions about how to solve it. In 2003, we set aside, in
the whole budget of the United States--we can see this a little bit--
$800 million for disasters. But we had $1.7 billion. So we were short
$984 million. We funded it. That went on our books.
The next year we said: Well, this year we had $1.7 billion in
disasters. So the next year we put $1.8 in our bill, thinking we would
cover it because last year was $1.7. But, lo and behold, we had an
additional $3 billion worth of disaster funding. We did not know these
disasters were going to happen.
So the next year we increased the amount of money in our base budget.
Then, lo and behold, in that year, we put in $2 billion dollars.
Katrina hit.
The levees broke. Do you know what the bill came in for? It was $43
billion. We had budgeted $2 billion because in the history of the past
that is all we needed to cover disasters. It went from $2 billion to
$43 billion. Who would have had a crystal ball to know that? Did we sit
and debate? Some people tried to, until I said there was no way I was
going to have to find a $43 billion offset before we can let the people
of the gulf coast know that help was on the way. We spent what was
required to help the gulf coast.
You can see the next year here. These numbers are very erratic,
unpredictable. So what our leadership did, looking back on these 10
years and listening to the debate and argument, was come up with a
pretty good plan. They said, OK, we will throw out the high number, we
will throw out the low number--in 2009 we didn't have any emergencies.
Can you imagine 1 year that you have no declared emergencies, and the
next year you have one in almost every State? That is how erratic this
is. It is not as though we are not trying to plan. It is just
impossible by the nature of what an emergency or disaster is. You can
plan for them, but you cannot always predict how many you are going to
have and where they will be. Of course, everybody understands that.
What our leaders did is they threw out the top one and the bottom one
and came up with an average. That average is about $11 billion--a very
reasonable approach. So they put in our agreement that we made 30 days
ago--we said, OK, next year, this is what the Federal Government can
spend and, in addition to that, you can go up to the average. You can
spend an additional $11 billion, which is a very small amount of money
compared to the whole Federal budget.
You would think we would not be having this debate. Why? The need is
very evident, the history would dictate that we don't have debate over
disasters, and the Republican and Democratic leadership has already
provided a way, over and above our 2012 numbers, to pay for these
disasters.
I ask this: Why are we having to fight for this? That is a very good
question. I think it is because some people on the other side of the
aisle think this is a good thing to fight about. They think they have
to find a pay-for for everything we do even, as I have described, when
you cannot predict. Even if you do plan responsibly, you never know, as
in the cases of Katrina, Rita, and Wilma. But our leadership negotiated
a way forward.
Yet we have people all over the country looking to the Republican
leadership and listening to Representative Cantor and to Speaker
Boehner saying: I want to help you, ladies and gentlemen, but we have
to find an offset.
I think people might say: Why didn't we hear that when they sent
troops into Afghanistan or Iraq? Why didn't we hear that when they are
rebuilding Iraq and Afghanistan? The same people are not yelling and
screaming--or didn't do it when we went in there. I think we have a
good point.
I am saying I am proud of the Senate for last night, with Democrats
mostly--and, yes, about 8 Republicans--who voted to move this debate
forward. I thank particularly Senator Blunt from Missouri, who is an
outspoken leader on the Appropriations Committee, for the need to act
now, act quickly, to fund the DRF, the Corps of Engineers. Of course,
Missouri has had terrible tornadoes and flooding. Not only did they
have Joplin, but they had the great flood of the Mississippi River,
which was the highest in 50 years. It was so high along our capital
city when I visited our mayor a couple months ago--that is Baton Rouge,
which is our largest city, since 100,000 people left New Orleans to
literally live on higher ground, although it has broken their hearts
and divided their families. They have moved to Baton Rouge, as we are
rebuilding levees and our flood control is stronger in the southeastern
part of our State. People spend time walking on levees and riding bikes
on the levees. Of course, mechanical vehicles are not allowed. You
cannot have cars, trucks, and four-wheelers because that would be
destructive to our levees. Our levees are quite huge. They are almost
like linear parks. For the first time in the history of anybody who can
remember, the mayor had to declare that

[[Page S5609]]

everyone stay off the levees because the water was so high and seeping
through. We literally thought maybe some of these great levee systems
would breach. Happily, they did not. It was a frightening situation for
millions and millions.
In some parts of Missouri, and other parts north of us, the levees
did breach. Sometimes the levees will blow to protect other areas. It
is frightening if your business is behind one of those levees, as North
Dakota residents know all too well.
Nonetheless, we should not be debating this. I hope our bill will
pass this week and get over to the House for a quick vote. If the House
decides to send us a continuing resolution, please, I want the
leadership to hear clearly what I am saying--and I will send them a
message by letter in the next few minutes--please do not think you can
nickel and dime recovery efforts, that you can fund it 6 weeks at a
time, or 4 weeks at a time. Disaster recovery doesn't operate that way.
Our mayors, Governors, the Republican Governor of New Jersey, the
Republican Governor of Virginia, the mayor of Patterson, who was with
us today, and mayors up along the east coast who are with their people
every day--the mayor of Joplin, MO, who has to be able to know that he
can plan a year out or 2 years out--having to rebuild an entire town is
overwhelming even if you have the money and the plan. Can you imagine
if you sort of have a plan, but you don't know if the Federal
Government will provide you money? Do you know the frustrating council
meetings and school board meetings that will be had, and they will say,
well, the Republican party in Washington cannot figure out if we should
get funding, but it is 6 weeks at a time?
I will not allow that to happen. I am going to draw the line in the
sand right now. You may get around me on it, but it will take a huge
effort to get around this desk on that subject--a huge effort. If I
have to shut the Senate down--and I have done it before--I will do it
again, because I can tell you, as much as my name is Mary Landrieu, you
cannot rebuild communities with 6-week plans. It took us 2 years to put
together the Road Home Program--2 years after we got the funding. The
reason we could not put it together before was--even though Mississippi
had their money because President Bush gave it to them right away but
made the people of Louisiana wait--because Congress would not decide
how much money to give us. No mayor, no Governor, no matter how great
they are, no matter how smart they are, no matter how many engineers
they have, no matter how many Rotary Clubs are helping, no matter what
the chamber of commerce is doing, I am telling you that it cannot be
done without a reliable source of funding, so the planners can say
something like this: We lost eight schools in this flood. They bring
the community together--and these are how these discussions go--and say
we might not have money to build all eight, but we have money to build
six. Which six do you want to build, and where, what materials do you
want to use, and which kids should go to which schools?
I have been in these meetings. I am not going to allow the mayors and
Governors to call their people together and say we lost six schools and
we don't know when the money is coming to build them, and we cannot
make any plans because the Republican leadership has decided that every
6 weeks they are going to let us know how much money we are going to
get.
That is not going to happen.
I want Speaker Boehner to think about this, and I want Mitch
McConnell to think about this, and I want the Republican leadership to
think about it. I will negotiate on the top number. I will talk about
maybe FEMA doesn't need quite this much. I will talk about maybe the
Corps of Engineers doesn't need that much. But I will not, under any
circumstances, agree to a 6-week or 4-week continuing resolution. You
may run the Government of the United States that way. We have,
unfortunately, gotten used to it. That is a sad commentary, I might
say, that we run the greatest government ever created in the eyes and
vision and hearts of mankind, but we operate it on a 6-week basis. That
might be the game we play with the government, but I am not going to
allow that game to be played with people who have lost their homes,
lost their businesses, and who look up from a storm and say, my gosh,
what happened to me? Then they don't know what is going to happen
because we cannot make a decision that lasts more than 6 months or a
year. So the minimum will be 6 months. I hope we can find the will to
do a whole year, because without that you are going to shut down
recovery operations at a time when it is heartbreaking to think of
small business owners who have lost their print shop or their dress
store or their shoe store, and they see everybody talking about
creating jobs. They used to have three of them last week--selling
printing material or selling shoes or whatever--and they are trying to
get their business back, and we cannot decide--even though we have the
money, even though we already budgeted the money, and although we
already made an agreement about how we would do this--we are going to
still argue.
I will tell you, if this is on the tea party's agenda, I suggest they
take it off. If it is somebody else's agenda, please speak up. I have
not had one single Republican Senator come down and defend this
position, because it is indefensible. I hope when the leadership is
negotiating--and they are doing so now--they will hear me in summary
very quickly: The FEMA pot is empty. The Corps of Engineers is always
running on fumes. Levees are breaking and flooding, and it is occurring
in places that haven't flooded in a hundred years. When we wake up and
realize that we have to put more money in emergency funding and be
there when our people are hurting, as they are now--and we will
eventually pay for this; we don't have to figure that out in the next
30 days. We have to give them a green light and the billions of dollars
they need to operate for a year. Everything else is negotiable. But
this is not going to be negotiated. We are not going to rebuild pieces
of 48 States 4 weeks at a time. That will not happen. Whatever amount
of money we give, let it be for as long as we can make it, let it be as
robust as it can possibly be, and let's give a green light to our
Republican Governors, Republican mayors, Independents, and Democrats
out there, who are shellshocked about the work before them.
The people in neighborhoods are still crying and in shock about what
they have to do in making decisions. Should we come back? Should we not
come back? What should our neighborhood or community do? Maybe we
should all move to higher ground. These decisions are being made right
now. The last thing they should worry about is Congress debating
whether there is money there to turn that hose on.
Let's do our job the way we have done it for 150 years.
Let's continue to do it and let our people know we are there for
them, as we try to be there for other people in the world who are
caught in situations such as this. We most certainly need to be here
for our people in America.
I thank the Chair. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a
quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Merkley). The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. WARNER. 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. WARNER. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to talk about a
site of particular historic significance to the Commonwealth of
Virginia and an action we in Virginia are requesting the President
make. But before I get to that subject, I want to take a moment to echo
what I know the Presiding Officer said, and my colleague, the
distinguished Senator from Louisiana, and so many other of my
colleagues who have come to the floor over the last few days to express
concern and talk about the series of natural disasters and calamities
our various States have experienced over the last few weeks and months.
We have had, in effect, the trifecta in the Commonwealth of Virginia
in the last month, where, about a month ago, we had an earthquake hit--
something that was a bit unprecedented in Virginia--which shut down
schools in Louisa County. That earthquake also caused damage at the
Washington Monument and at the National Cathedral, but in central
Virginia--in Louisa

[[Page S5610]]

County, in Mineral, and Culpeper, and other places around Virginia--it
caused enormous damage.
We had Hurricane Irene, which--again, through central Virginia and
down into Hampton Roads--caused enormous damage. Then, most recently,
we had Tropical Storm Lee, where I had the opportunity to visit a
community not far from where I know some of the distinguished folks who
work in the Clerk and Parliamentarian's Offices live--in Alexandria.
Not too far away from there is a neighborhood named Huntington, VA.
This community I walked through has been flooded out three times in the
last decade. So we have a 100-year floodplain. Yet three times in the
last decade they have been flooded out.
So all these folks--whether in Hampton Roads in Richmond or the folks
in Louisa County and central Virginia with the earthquake or the folks
in Huntington--are saying: We just need that assistance that other
communities have when they have been met by natural disasters. What
purpose do we have for government other than to make sure there is an
emergency response, and then after that response that there is an
ability to get people back on their feet?
So I thank my colleagues again, particularly the Senator from
Louisiana, who has been tireless on this issue of making sure FEMA has
the resources it needs to address these disasters, and that we do so in
a meaningful way. We recognize, of course, we can't just put these on a
credit card forever; that we have to have a rational way to pay it back
and figuring out a 10-year rolling cycle to budget for emergencies
ought to be part of our discussions going forward. But trying to say
that must be done at this moment, with the economic downturn and the
recession, while communities are in need--whether they are in Oregon or
in Virginia or one of the other 48 States that have had a disaster
declaration issued over the last year--is not the way we ought to be
doing business.

Fort Monroe

Mr. President, in addition, I rise today to encourage President Obama
to use his authority under an act that probably most in this Chamber
are not that familiar with--called the 1906 Antiquities Act--to
designate Hampton, VA, Fort Monroe, as a national monument, which would
make it an official part of the National Park Service. Our hope is that
the President will consider designating this in the coming days as this
historic fort is turned back over to the State of Virginia, having gone
through the BRAC process, with the Federal Government disposing of it.
Let me take a moment on the Senate floor this afternoon to tell you a
bit about this special place. This fort was built in the early 1800s,
but, actually, the fortifications go back much earlier than that. It is
an area called Point Comfort. As early as 1608 Captain John Smith
recognized the importance of building a fort at Point Comfort, as the
English colonists called this land.
From its very beginnings, Fort Monroe has been associated with many
key figures in American history. Robert E. Lee supervised work on the
fortress as a young U.S. Army lieutenant. Edgar Allan Poe, the famous
poet--and I am sure our pages, at one point, hopefully, had to memorize
``The Raven'' in high school--was a soldier at Fort Monroe. Abraham
Lincoln, during the midst of the Civil War, paid a critical visit to
Fort Monroe. And Harriet Tubman, an incredibly important American--who
was only recently, in the last 50 or so years appropriately
recognized--nursed wounded soldiers there in 1865.
Another historic American figure had maybe mixed feelings about his
visits to Fort Monroe. Jefferson Davis was at Fort Monroe on two very
different occasions: First, as the U.S. Secretary of War, and later, as
the former President of the Confederacy, he was imprisoned at Fort
Monroe for 2 years.
By World War II, Fort Monroe was the headquarters of our military's
successful efforts to protect the mid-Atlantic coast. After World War
II and to the current day it has been home of the Army Command
responsible for training our warfighters.
For all of these various events alone, I would argue, as a Virginian,
that would warrant the designation of Fort Monroe as part of the
National Park Service. But its true historic significance goes back,
actually, to a night in May of 1861.
During the Civil War, Fort Monroe had an important strategic role as
one of the very few Union military installations located in the South
that was never occupied by Confederate forces. For the folks who have
traveled down to Norfolk and Virginia Beach, they know that Fort Monroe
is the point that sticks out right before they go through the bridge-
tunnel that takes them over to Norfolk and Virginia Beach. It has a
commanding view of the whole gateway into what we call Hampton Roads.
On May 23, 1861, three slaves--Frank Baker, Shepard Mallory, and
James Townsend--got into a small boat in Hampton, crossed the James
River, and presented themselves at the front gate of Fort Monroe
seeking safety and sanctuary. For the previous many weeks, Baker,
Mallory, and Townsend had been forced by their owners to help construct
a Confederate artillery post aimed directly at Fort Monroe. Obviously,
that was not something these individuals wanted to be part of.
I want you to think a moment about the choices that were being made
by these three men--these three slaves--Frank Baker, Shepard Mallory,
and James Townsend. They left behind the community where they had spent
most, if not all, of their lives. At least two of the three left behind
wives and children. It was entirely possible that once these three men
reached Fort Monroe, the Union soldiers would simply turn them around
and send them back to their owners.
One of the things I think even students of American history sometimes
forget is that it was the official U.S. Government policy, even in the
so-called Confederate States, after the Civil War had begun in April of
1861, to still turn slaves back over to their owners.
Baker, Mallory, and Townsend had to know if they were returned as
runaways, they could expect the most Draconian of punishments. But they
figured the choice should be theirs to make, so they made it. They soon
found themselves standing before the new commander of Fort Monroe, MG
Benjamin Franklin Butler.
Deciding it might be easier to apologize later rather than seek
permission beforehand, General Butler made a huge and historically
courageous decision. He classified the three slaves as ``contraband of
war,'' a policy that was later adopted across the Union to protect any
slaves who managed to reach Union lines. As a result, Virginia's Fort
Monroe ultimately became a beacon of hope for thousands of enslaved
people seeking freedom. In fact, Fort Monroe became known as the
Freedom Fort.
The day after General Butler's edict, eight more slaves showed up at
Fort Monroe. The day after that, 47 more appeared. By the war's end,
thousands--literally thousands--had appealed for contraband status at
Fort Monroe. General Butler's declaration of this decision of
``contraband of war'' helped change the course of the Civil War and our
Nation's history.
This Thursday, September 15, the U.S. Army will officially hand over
Fort Monroe to the city of Hampton and the Commonwealth of Virginia as
part of the 2005 BRAC process. I proudly join with my colleague Senator
Webb, the bipartisan Virginia House delegation, Virginia's Governor Bob
McDonnell, local residents, and the National Trust for Historic
Preservation in urging the President to take this opportunity to
declare Fort Monroe a national historic treasure. By using the
Antiquities Act to grant this designation, it also will allow us to
begin the work to create a national park at Fort Monroe.
For more than 100 years, Presidents have used the Antiquities Act to
protect some of America's most important and beloved historic places.
As a matter of fact, it was use of the Antiquities Act that first
designated the Grand Canyon as well as the Statue of Liberty. So there
is obviously enormous historical precedent. And there is no dispute
over the historical significance of Fort Monroe.
Over the last few years, I have spent a considerable amount of time,
both as Governor and then subsequently during the BRAC process and now
as a Senator, working with State and local residents and officials to
explore the

[[Page S5611]]

opportunities to partner with the National Park Service to preserve
this incredible piece of American history. I spoke as recently as last
Friday with the White House about Fort Monroe. I am hopeful we will
have promising news in short order.
It would certainly be timely if the President's decision could be
announced this week, as the Army prepares to exit Fort Monroe, as our
Nation marks the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, and as many
Virginians focus anew on the future of this very special place.
I feel this is an especially appropriate time for the President to
recognize the crucial role Fort Monroe has played in our Nation's
history, and I again urge him to use his long-established power under
the Antiquities Act to keep this process on track.
Mr. President, I yield the floor and I note the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. the clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Hagan). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak
for up to 10 minutes as in morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Trade

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Last week, new trade figures were released. I know
the Presiding Officer from North Carolina is very concerned about what
has happened with these trade figures and what it means for jobs in her
State and in my State.
The trade deficit with China widened from $26.7 billion in June to
$27 billion in July. That is one country in one month. Granted, it is
the country we have the biggest trade deficit with, but it is 1 month.
President Bush, Sr., some years ago, said that a $1 billion trade
surplus or trade deficit translated into some 13,000 jobs. Whether that
number is precise or quantifiable or measurable is not the point. The
point is that when we have persistently large trade deficits month
after month, year after year, now decade after decade, we know what it
means to the industrial base in our country.
I spent much of August in places such as Belmont County, St.
Clairsville, Cleveland, Dayton, Mansfield, and Springfield, OH, where,
in my State alone, these cities and communities had proud industrial
heritages. They are places where people had real opportunity to join
the middle class. After they graduated from high school, they could go
and be trained and work in manufacturing and usually buy a home, a car,
and send their child to college. My wife is the daughter of a utility
worker, since deceased, in northeast Ohio, and she and her two younger
sisters and brother were able to go to, in her case, Kent State, and
other universities, in part paid for by her father's work in
manufacturing--if you will, his union card--and assistance from
government Pell grants and all they were able to do so the kids didn't
graduate with huge debt the way they too often do now.
The trade deficit with China through July 2011 totaled $160 billion,
up from $145 billion over the same period in 2010. We debate the budget
deficit, as we should. But too many politicians in this city, too many
editorial writers, too many pundits and economists ignore the trade
deficit. They are too focused on things such as pay-fors. They ignore
how the trade deficit has a dangerous effect on American jobs.
The best way to get our fiscal house in order is to get America
working again, and one way to do that is by cracking down on unfair
trade practices of some of our so-called trading partners. When the
President steps up and enforces trade rules--and while I do not agree
with the President sending the Korea, Panama, and Colombia trade
agreements to the Congress for votes because I don't think they serve
America's interests, I do believe this President, more than his
predecessors, has been, relatively--I say ``relatively'' but blessedly
so, and in some cases aggressive at enforcing trade rules. I have seen
that in Youngstown in creating jobs. I have seen it in Loraine, where
it has created jobs, and in Fenway, where it has created jobs, and it
has helped our industry in Butler County in steel, in paper, and in
tires.
It is clear that part of this problem is currency manipulation from
the Chinese, which undermines American manufacturing and our very own
job-creating efforts. In June, the Economic Policy Institute released a
new report showing that addressing Chinese currency manipulation could
support the creation of 2.25 million jobs. Put that in contrast to what
they say--the ``free traders at any cost'' sort of free market, free-
trade fundamentalists who preach: Pass NAFTA. It will mean hundreds of
thousands of jobs. Pass CAFTA. Pass PNTR with China. It will mean
millions of jobs.
It never does. It means job growth, but the job growth usually takes
place--with NAFTA, it was in Mexico; CAFTA, in Central America; and
PNTR, in China, which is East Asia. There is job growth, but there is
nothing close to net job growth in our country. Even that, the
President is saying, with this new agreement with South Korea, that it
will sustain or keep or contribute to sustaining or keeping 100,000
jobs or so. So even the promises aren't that great on this new trade
agreement, and we know they never live up to their promises. But we do
also know if we stood up to currency manipulation, it could create 2.25
million American jobs. My friends on the other side of the aisle don't
ever want to do any kind of direct spending on infrastructure in terms
of job creation; that costs tax money. I think it is a good investment;
they don't. But standing up on currency we know doesn't cost American
taxpayers and it will, in fact, mean American jobs.
A paper mill in Butler County, down near Dayton and Cincinnati,
someone who worked at that paper mill told me they are now competing
with China for coated paper, which is a higher tech manufacturing of
paper--the kind of magazine paper we all touch and use--that the pulp
comes from Brazil, it is shipped to China, it is milled in China and
shipped back to the United States and they undercut American prices.
Yet only 10 percent of the cost of paper production is labor. What does
that mean? It means they are gaming the currency system. They are
subsidizing water and capital and land and they are paying low wages.
How do we compete when they are not playing fair? Forget the low wages
even for a minute. How do we compete when they are playing these
currency games? By continuing the currency manipulation, we lose far
too many jobs. By combating it, we help level the playing field for our
manufacturers, we help our workers, we help spur our economic recovery.
That is why I introduced the Currency Reform for Fair Trade Act. It
would strengthen countervailing duty laws to consider undervalued
currency as an unfair subsidy in determining duty rates.
So when we contest on a trade agreement, all we are saying when we
contest is that undervalued currency is considered an unfair subsidy,
because it is. It is not hard to convince people of that. It is not
hard to illustrate or prove that. So when an industry such as the
coated paper company in Hamilton or the oil country tubular steel used
in drilling in Lorain or in Youngstown, where there is a new steel mill
because of a trade decision the President made--thank you--or aluminum
in Sidney--when an industry petitions the International Trade
Commission for relief against unfair subsidies, currency manipulation
under this new bill and amendment we are going to offer on the floor
will be part of that investigation.
This is a designation that would ensure the government has the tools
to respond on behalf of American manufacturers and workers by imposing
countervailing duties on subsidized exports from China.
We have broad support here. Senator Schumer from New York, a
Democrat, has been very involved. Senator Snowe from Maine, a
Republican, has been very involved. Senator Stabenow, a Democrat from
Michigan, and Senator Graham from South Carolina, a Republican, have
been very involved in understanding that these kinds of currency
manipulations cost us American jobs and undermine our economy. This
designation would ensure the government has the tools to respond on
behalf

[[Page S5612]]

of American manufacturers and workers by imposing these countervailing
duties on subsidized exports from China. It is simple, straightforward,
and achievable.
Addressing currency manipulation would decrease our budget deficit up
to $70 billion a year and somewhere between $500 billion and $800
billion over 10 years if sustained. Addressing our trade deficit should
be part of the debate in reducing our budget deficit. If we are going
to create jobs, we have to ensure that our trading partners don't stack
the deck. We want trade, and we want more of it, but we want fair
trade, not this kind of phony free trade.
Almost every country in the world practices trade according to their
national interests. The United States in this body and the President of
the United States--typically, Presidents in both parties--have
practiced trade according to some economics textbook that is 20 years
out of date. If we are serious about standing for American workers and
companies that continue to play by the rules, we need to pass this
legislation.
With each passing week, more companies and workers are faced with the
harsh realities of unfair competition and unwanted cutbacks due to
Chinese currency manipulation. In towns and cities across our country--
go anywhere in this country, including Texas, where Senator Hutchison
is from and who is awaiting a chance to speak on the floor, or North
Carolina, the Presiding Officer's State, or my State, and we see that
companies and workers are faced with the harsh realities of that unfair
competition.
Workers have the proud tradition of making products that matter to
America. From the tanks made in Lima, OH, supporting our troops abroad,
to steel tubes created in Lorain, equipping our energy markets, Ohio
manufacturers are vital to our Nation's security and economy. Our
national security, our economic security, our family security, all
those are dependent on making things in the United States of America.
My State is the third largest manufacturing State in the country. We
are seventh in population, but we are third in manufacturing. We have
lost far too many jobs in Zanesville and Jackson and Columbus and Akron
because of this undermining of currency, because of this gaming of the
system by China, its gaming of the system on currency.
It is time to take bold action. It is time to stand up to China. It
is time to practice trade according to our communities and our national
interests. It is time to do that. It is time to pass this legislation.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.

Nasa's Vision

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Madam President, I wish to mark today, September 14
of 2011, as the day that NASA announced our vision for the future.
Since the shuttle was retired earlier this year and we saw the last
people go into space on an American flight, many of us have worried
that there wasn't going to be another heavy launch vehicle that would
take our astronauts to beyond low earth orbit. Today, after much study
and a lot of going back and forth with NASA, I was encouraged to see
the design approved by both NASA and the OMB, and I think it is going--
well, it will be the heaviest, biggest, strongest, most robust vehicle
we have seen since we put men on the Moon.
I was very concerned because of the long timeframe. Congress asked
that this design be delivered by January of this year. We kept getting
delays and delays and delays. Finally, Senator Bill Nelson and I just
got frustrated about that timeline, so we had meetings.
As recently as yesterday, I met with the director of OMB, Mr. Jack
Lew, who did come to my office to meet with Senator Nelson and myself
and General Bolden, who is the NASA Administrator, to get his
commitment that we would be on a robust timeline and that it would be
as much a priority of NASA to go beyond low earth orbit as the ferry to
the space station would be for NASA. We got those assurances from Mr.
Lew and the NASA Administrator. Senator Nelson and myself, Senator
Rockefeller was represented, Senator Boozman--we had all the relevant
people in the loop on this issue because we want to make sure Congress
and the administration are on the same goal with a timeline to achieve
that goal.
What worried us about the delays were the loss of cost efficiencies
and the loss of experienced personnel to design that new heavy launch
vehicle.
We want to have the most experienced engineers who will use the
proven technology that has been time tested and add to that proven
technology the added boosters, the added capabilities that we know we
must have to go to Mars, to an asteroid, and to make sure we do it in a
safe manner.
I am very encouraged by the commitments that were made and the
timetables we are seeing. I am told by the NASA personnel that we are
now going to look, in 1 week or 2, to have the contract modifications
in place that will tell the workers that they are going to have those
jobs, that we are going to have that expedience, that they have a
project to work on. I think it is essential we have that kind of
experienced personnel to do this.
I am very pleased we now have this way forward. It is the most
powerful vehicle we will have seen in many years. I think the
announcement today is going to set us on a path. If we can see those
contract modifications going out from NASA in the next week--or a
little more, but no more than 2 weeks from now--then we will know there
is progress and that we are going toward the time when we will have the
building of that rocket, that we will have the design, followed by the
building, and then, of course, testing, and then the launch.
I think when we saw that last flight come down this summer, so many
people had very mixed feelings because space exploration has been a
part of America's drive and spirit for all these years we have watched
more and more things be accomplished. From President Kennedy's first
challenge that we would put men on the Moon, Americans have been
excited about that opportunity. They have not just been excited,
though, about the exploration and the pushing of the envelope, they
have also been excited with the quality of life that has been produced
by what came from the research: the advancements we have had in medical
treatment, MRIs, the advancements in products we have been able to
discover.
I fully expect that with the space station we are going to be able to
do the research on cancers that will grow in the microgravity
conditions in space that will not grow the same way on Earth, and that
maybe we will be able to test antidotes and medicines for those. That
is why I was pleased the President did announce we would extend the
space station until 2020. We have international partners as well. So we
want to make sure we are a good partner, that we are a reliable
partner, and that we do some things for mankind that might make a
difference in our lives.
National security. We have gained so much in satellite-guided
missiles for our national security. And being able to put a missile
into a window from 1 mile out is because we have been able to discover
in space the use of satellites. Earlier this summer the space shuttle
carried the magnetic spectrometer that Dr. Ting, the Nobel laureate
from MIT, built and insisted on putting on the space station, it will
help us understand the nature of dark energy and its relationship to
the origins and function of the universe.
We are looking at how matter was formed. We are looking at the cosmic
rays. I went to the Johnson Space Center in Houston and saw from the
space station the magnetic spectrometer that was getting the hits from
cosmic rays. There were 60 scientists in the room who were tracking
these hits, trying to determine what was happening when those cosmic
rays hit the magnetic spectrometer because they want to see if we can
understand the nature of dark energy. There are things we have not even
thought of that we hope to find by using the space station, and then
going to an asteroid or going to the Moon.
We have taken a first step today. I think many people in America were
waiting for the blueprint for the future. Now I think we have one. As
long as we stay on a regular timetable and with the funding levels that
have been approved already in the authorization bill passed by Congress
and signed by the President--if we can stick with those, this has the
potential to bring us energy, health, possibly curing breast

[[Page S5613]]

cancer, things that will make a difference in the lives not only of
Americans but of our fellow citizens all over the world. That is what
the investment can be in NASA if we go forward as we have made this
blueprint to do.
We are in a time where we must be more efficient. We must fund the
priorities and not fund the lesser priorities.
In today's markup of our committee, our Appropriations subcommittee
that does fund NASA, we have found the priorities. We also cut
programs. Senator Mikulski said in her whole time in the Senate she has
never been an appropriator who actually cut programs. But we did today.
We cut programs that were lesser priorities in different areas of our
jurisdiction. But we funded NASA so we would have this heavy launch
vehicle. We would fund the commercial vehicle that is going to take our
astronauts to the space station. That is going to be done in the
private sector. That was the balance we did in our authorization bill
last year. Then we fund the Webb Space Telescope because that is part
of the scientific advances we must make if we are going to know what is
out there in space that we might be able to utilize or utilize the
knowledge for better life on Earth.
I am very pleased we have the Appropriations Committee that will,
hopefully, approve the bill tomorrow and that we have made those tough
decisions. We came in under the 2011 continuing resolution on our
overall bill. We came in under the President's request. But we have
fully funded the priorities which have the possibility to reap the
benefits from exploration and assure that America remains the No. 1
country in the world in space exploration. Our economy has benefitted,
our national security has benefitted, and now we are going to be
looking at health care possibilities, energy possibilities, and living
in space, and seeing how we can do that in a better way.
I think we have a plan that will excite the American people again
about what we can do in space if we put our minds to it, if we
prioritize, if we are efficient with the taxpayer dollars, and we do
not lose sight of the vision that is the spirit of America.
Madam President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a
quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant editor of the Daily Digest proceeded to call the roll.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. COBURN. I would ask unanimous consent that the order for the
quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. COBURN. Madam President, I would like to spend a few minutes
discussing some things in general.
In making a couple points today, I was referred to by one of our
colleagues as a dictator. I am not offended at that; I understand the
frustration of what is going on. But I think there are some significant
points that the American people ought to hear about where we are and
what we are doing.
Quite frankly, if we look at our financial situation and we look at
the history of the world, no country has ever recovered from the
situation in which we find ourselves in terms of our debt-to-GDP ratio
and our debt-to-export ratio.
In August, before we left, we passed a piece of legislation that
goes--a small amount--toward fixing the very real problems that are in
front of our country in terms of spending money we don't have on things
we don't absolutely need. But we have before us, and coming before us,
two different pieces of legislation: One is a shell piece of
legislation, and the assumption is the majority leader will utilize it
to fund supplementation for disaster relief for the many areas in our
country that need that funding. There is not a dispute that we should
be doing that. There is a dispute about how much that should be. But
the greatest dispute is, when we are running $1.3 trillion and $1.4
trillion deficits, and we know we have significant waste, duplication,
and fraud in the Federal Government, whether we ought to spend another
$6 billion or $7 billion by borrowing or we ought to actually reduce
spending somewhere else to pay for a much more important and proper
need in which the Federal Government has a role. That is the real
debate.
I think we have worked a way to have appropriate amendments to try to
pay for that, and we should probably go forward. There are, however,
two other programs that are precarious in their funding: One is FAA--
and we have coming to us the 22nd temporary reauthorization--and the
Transportation bill, which is, I believe, its sixth temporary
reauthorization.
Now, there are some real questions the American people ought to be
asking about why 22 times we have temporarily reauthorized the FAA for
a short period of time, and why now we are on our sixth temporary--or
fifth; I may be wrong on one of those numbers but close--temporary
reauthorization. That is because we are not prioritizing what is
important for the country in terms of our legislative agenda. We don't
control that, but there are some things that the American people are
interested in that we do control.
The highway trust fund has received a supplementation over the last 4
years of $35 billion from the American taxpayer outside of the taxes
they collect for that trust fund. Out of that amount of money billions
of dollars have been spent on things other than highways and bridges.
We now have 146,000 deficient bridges in our country, some in every
State in the country. We have more now after the floods in the
Northeast. We have significant problems and we have a limited amount of
money, and what is in front of us is another short-term extension of 6
months for the transportation funding which continues to spend money on
items that are a low priority.
I am not saying we couldn't spend the money on it. But when we are
short of money, and we are borrowing money to put money into the trust
fund, and our No. 1 priority ought to be safety and quality roads and
bridges, to spend significant funds on things that are not a priority
now--not when we are head over heels in debt, not when the trust fund
is precarious--then we ought to not force States to spend money they
don't want to spend. Yet in this bill 10 percent of the surface
transportation moneys have to be spent on enhancement.
So that tells Oklahoma, or any other State: If you have an excess
number of bridges, it doesn't matter that that is a safety problem for
your citizens; we are still going to make you spend this 10 percent
money over here that doesn't have anything to do with safety or true
transportation, but we are going to require it because we can--except,
the problem is, the people in your State pay the taxes in the first
place for their highways and their bridges, not for the museums, not
for all the hundreds of other things that are spent that are low
priority.
So I thought I might give us a little flavor of what some of those
things are. If we were at a different time where we had an excess of
funds, I am not saying they are necessarily bad. But when we have
bridges falling down in this country, and concrete--like the summer
before last in Oklahoma--falling out of an interstate highway bridge
injuring somebody, falling onto their car as they drove under it, I
would think that we would want to repair these 146,000 bridges rather
than spend money redecorating a sign.
So I will not go through all of them--I will put all of them into the
Record--but let me go through a few of them just to see. If the
American people actually believe we should not fix bridges or roads and
we ought to spend money, I am fine. If the Senate believes we ought to
not fix bridges, we ought not concentrate on safety, we ought not
concentrate on the quality of our roads and bridges and they vote it
down, I am fine too. But the fact is, we ought not to be spending money
when we have the hundreds of thousands of bridges that are dangerous to
people in this country.
All we are saying is, if a State wants to continue to spend money on
something other than safety and bridges and roads, fine, it can, but
don't make those of us who already have a big problem with safety have
to spend money on something that doesn't protect our citizens, doesn't
enhance their highways by spending money on something that is called an
enhancement but doesn't enhance their safety or their ability to
commute.
So what are some of them? Lincoln Highway 200-Mile Roadside Museum in

[[Page S5614]]

Pennsylvania--it received $300,000 in enhancement funding to
commemorate the historic highway along the 200-mile route. Interpretive
signage, colorful, repainted vintage gas pumps, engaging murals,
refurbishing a large coffee pot.
Notably, Pennsylvania ranks No. 1 in the country in terms of bridge
deficiency levels. Forty-six percent of the bridges in Pennsylvania are
either structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. Mr. President,
$300,000 would have fixed two of them. So we chose to not fix two but
spend the money elsewhere. At a different time, sure, or if
Pennsylvania wants to spend it, let them. But don't force them to spend
money on something that does not protect the quality of transportation
for their citizens.

How about Chinatown Gateway, a $250,000 enhancement to supplement the
construction of the Twin Dragons Gateway to the Chinatown area?
California has over 7,000 bridges that are structurally deficient or
functionally obsolete. One out of every three bridges in California is
in trouble, and we are doing aesthetics instead of fixing bridges.
How about the White Squirrel Sanctuary in Tennessee? Kenton, TN,
located in Gibson County, calls itself ``the Home of the White
Squirrel.'' They received $110,000 in transportation enhancement
funding to construct a white squirrel sanctuary with walking trails,
brick crosswalks, a footbridge, and a parking lot. There are 3,856
bridges that are structurally deficient in the State of Tennessee. They
didn't necessarily want to do this. They did not have any choice. They
had to spend 10 percent of their surface transportation money on things
such as this.
Tuscumbia Landing in Sheffield, AL--$104,000 to investigate Tuscumbia
Landing's archaeological features. The only problem is, 23 percent of
Alabama's bridges are structurally deficient. That could have fixed two
of them.
How about the National Corvette Museum Simulator Theater in Warren
County, KY--$200,000 to build a grand simulator theater. Mr. President,
31 percent of the bridges they cross in Kentucky are structurally
deficient or functionally obsolete.
The Pennsylvania Trolley Museum--$400,000 to construct the
Pennsylvania Trolley Museum. It is a great idea if we are in the black
and have a good cashflow. But when Pennsylvania leads the Nation in
deficient bridges and dangerous bridges, why would we spend that money?
Why would we force them to spend that money?
I can go on. I will add to the record many other examples, all the
way up to 40 separate examples of where we are spending money but we
are not fixing bridges.
I ask unanimous consent that those examples be printed in the Record
at the conclusion of my remarks.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(See exhibit 1.)
Mr. COBURN. We are not pouring asphalt, we are not laying concrete,
we are not decreasing congestion, and we are not increasing safety.
What we are doing is we are following the rules of Washington when we
have greater needs. We are in trouble as a nation because Congress does
not set priorities, and when they do set priorities, there is no
connection to the reality of our financial situation.
We have some options on how to go forward. One of the options would
be to take the FAA bill, split it out, approve it, send it back to the
House, and FAA is taken care of. The second option would be to pass the
highway extension for 6 months with the elimination of enhancements and
send it back to the House. But I will not give a unanimous consent, as
is my right as a Senator of the United States, for us to continue to
spend billions of dollars on things that are not a priority when the
country is struggling to survive. Its very survival depends on us
changing the way we do business. If that means the highway
transportation bill does not get approved, so be it. But there has to
be a point in time in this country when we change direction and we
start meeting the obligations that are put before us.
The No. 1 obligation is to start spending money where it does the
most good and quit spending money we do not have on things we do not
absolutely need. With a 35-percent deficit--and we are going to run
another $1.3 trillion deficit next year, which will cost a significant
amount of funds for our kids and our grandkids just to repay what we
are going to waste next year--there ought to be a time at which we say
enough is enough.
I know there will be several, including my own senior Senator, who
will be unhappy with my position, but I believe it is time to draw a
line in the sand for the American people, for our future. It is not
popular. It is certainly not expedient. But it is absolutely the right
thing to do.
If the Senate wants to solve the problem of these two bills, we can
split them or we can keep them together, but we need to end the
enhancements right now until we get the highway trust fund healthy
again, No. 1, and, No. 2, until we get our country healthy again. When
we do, I will be happy to defer.
Remember, we are not saying you cannot do it. We are just saying you
ought to have the option to not do it.

Exhibit 1

Kalanianaole Highway, Ka'lwi Scenic Shoreline Trail--
Federal Transportation enhancement funds were used to
intervene in a local land use dispute in Hawaii. A decades
long dispute over the preservation of Hawaiian shoreline
versus local developmental interests was assisted by the
Department of Transportation, which used $11 million in
enhancement funds to acquire land for conservation purposes,
effectively meddling in the local land use. In the mean time,
45 percent of Hawaii's bridges are either structurally
deficient or functionally obsolete.
Antique bike collections--The University of California
Davis received a transportation enhancement grant of $440,000
to purchase 60 unique antique bikes for its Bicycle Museum
Collection.
Shrine to Tennessee state history costs federal government
$23 million-- Nashville, Tennessee received $23 million in
federal enhancement funding to construct its bicentennial ode
to Tennessee state history. The project included the building
of ``a 1,400-foot Wall of History etched with historic events
from the state's first two centuries, 31 fountains that each
represent one of the state's rivers, and a 200-foot granite
state map.'' The only thing more egregious than federal funds
used for a clearly state interest, is that 20 percent of
Tennessee Bridges are either structurally deficient or
functionally obsolete.
ARTwalk--ARTwalk is tagged as a unique outdoor experience
that constructs pathways between shopping areas, galleries,
and museums in Rochester, Vermont. The project used $234,000
in federal enhancement dollars to build the artsy outdoor
museum, while 861 of Vermont's bridges remain either
structurally deficient or functionally obsolete.
Old Roman Bath House Renovation--$160,000 worth of
enhancement funding was used in Berkeley, West Virginia for
the renovation of the oldest building in town, an Old Roman
Bath House. While local residents may be interested in
visiting a bath house where George Washington used to
frequent, federal taxpayers may find the connection to
critical infrastructure more puzzling. Moreover, 36 percent
of West Virginia's bridges remain structurally deficient or
functionally obsolete.
Saddletree Factory Renovation--The Ben Schroeder Saddle
Tree Factory, a historical factory in Madison, Indiana,
received transportation enhancement funding for historical
preservation purposes because the factory used to make
Saddletrees, the foundation of a saddle. 21.5 percent of
Indiana's bridges are either structurally deficient or
functionally obsolete.
Toledo Harbor Lighthouse--The Toledo Harbor Lighthouse in
Toledo, Ohio, protected by the ``phantom'' officer Frank,
will receive a $500,000 enhancement grant to restore windows,
doors, bricks, and shutters. This grant will not only help to
restore the facade of the historical lighthouse, but also
carry on the legendary ghosts of the haunted lighthouse.
Unfortunately, ``phantom'' officer Frank will not be able to
protect Ohio drivers from the 6,598 bridges that are either
structurally deficient or functionally obsolete.
Critter Crossing--The Monkton, Vermont Conservation
Commission received $150,000 in federal grant money to build
a--critter crossing, to save the lives of thousands of
migrating salamanders and other amphibians that would
otherwise be slaughtered by vehicle traffic on a major
roadway. Thousands of blue- and yellow-spotted salamanders,
frogs, and other amphibians spend the winter months in the
rocky uplands near Monkton, but must return to low-lying
wetlands in order to reproduce. To travel between these two
areas, the salamanders must cross the heavily-traveled
Monkton-Vergennes Road. While some conservationists have
celebrated the project, others remain skeptical. ``I
certainly respect all species. However, I don't see the need
to pay $150,000 for a salamander crossing'', read one email
reportedly sent to the Burlington [Vermont] Free Press
newspaper. ``I realize there are a lot of other stupid things
my tax dollars go toward, but this one is near the top of the
list.'' Maybe the local communities will prevent the critters
from crossing one of the 861 bridges that are either
structurally deficient or functionally obsolete.

[[Page S5615]]

North Carolina Transportation Museum Spencer, North
Carolina--The North Carolina Transportation Museum has
received over 11 million to renovate and showcase steam
locomotive artifacts. As of 2010, North Carolina has nearly
5000 bridges that are either structurally deficient or
functionally obsolete.
Massachusetts bike and pedestrian allotted millions, but
remain unspent--Massachusetts has received $135 million in
federal funds for bike and pedestrian projects since 1991, of
which it has spent little more than $51 million, according to
The Boston Globe. That means nearly two-thirds of the funds
provided in the last two decades by Congress to the state for
such projects remain unspent. Perhaps Massachusetts would
like to use their unspent funds to work on their 2,548
bridges that are either structurally deficient or
functionally obsolete.
Nevada spending millions of federal transportation dollars
to make Vegas highways beautiful--In 2008, Nevada received
its transportation enhancement allotment of $6,287,466. They
decided to spend it in a variety of ways, a few million went
to biking facilities and trails, a few million went to
welcome centers and interpretive centers. $498,750 even went
for ``decorative rocks, native plants, some pavement
graphics, a few walls, and some great big granite boulders''
to beautify an interchange to Las Vegas' 215 Beltway.
A couple miles down the highway, N-DOT beautified another
interchange with ``striping in the rocks and some native
plants.'' That project has cost $319,163 so far this year.
The people of Nevada might have been able to think of some
better things to spend that money on. One local who uses the
interchange frequently was not impressed by the expensive
beautification project. ``I'm busy watching where I'm going.
I'm not looking at landscape improvements and stamped
concrete.''
Unfortunately, there is little that local officials can do
to re-direct the money to better uses. ``We applied for the
federal enhancement dollars and those federal enhancement
dollars can only be used for landscaping and pedestrian type
improvements,'' explains the top civil engineer at the Clark
County Public Works Traffic Management Division.
The N-DOT deputy director for southern Nevada is just as
frustrated as many citizens that federal restrictions
prohibit states from directing money where it is really
needed. ``It's really getting out of hand to where these pots
of money have these constraints associated with them and you
can't spend money where you want to.'' These restrictions
sometimes leave states no choice but to spend money on
frivolous projects or lose it entirely. The deputy director
notes, ``if N-DOT doesn't spend that money and employ workers
in Nevada, another state is gonna have that money up for
grabs.''
Washington, DC receives Transportation Enhancement grants
for murals and valet bikes--Washington, DC received nearly $2
million in transportation enhancement grants in Fiscal Year
2010, ranging from $50,000 to $579,000. These grants include
items such as the stabilization of historic murals and a
grant for bicycle parking and valet services, along with the
creation of a ``Room to Breathe'' poster. The $2 million
allotment would be much better used for bridge repair, as 158
of the 244 bridges in the District are either structurally
deficient or functionally obsolete.
Railroad Caboose Relocation and Renovation--The Princeton
Railroad Museum received a $78,280 transportation enhancement
grant to help pay for the relocation of a historic train
caboose to be displayed and restored.
Texas Highway Rest Stops--The Texas Department of
Transportation uses a substantial amount of their required
transportation enhancement spending to build highway rest
areas. Texas plans to spend $262 million to build or overhaul
roadside stops along its highways, with a majority of the
funds coming from enhancement grants. However, some residents
question the construction of rest stops in such close
proximity to other commercial areas, leading one local
resident to surmise about the $10 million Salado rest area,
``I think $10 million would have made a nice third lane in a
lot of spots . . . It's pretty spectacular for a rest area,
for, I guess, $2 million worth . . . $10 million? That's a
lot of money.'' Additionally, the Texas Department of
Transportation spent $16.2 million in enhancement funding on
a Battleship Texas restoration project.
California Sculpture Competition--Federal transportation
enhancement dollars were used as prize money for an art
competition to find a sculpture fitting to place in a parking
lot for a Laguna Beach, California Friday Film Series event.
Merchant and Drovers Tavern Museum--The Merchants and
Drovers Tavern Museum in Union County, New Jersey received a
$210,790 transportation enhancement grant to create a museum
on the second floor of the recently renovated building. The
Merchants and Drovers Tavern Museum touts its amenities by
letting visitors ``experience the hospitality of the 1820s''
and ``quench his thirst in the taproom, sit for a while in
the parlor or, perhaps, try a bed for size at this `hands-on'
museum.'' Meanwhile, visitors should also be wary of driving
over any New Jersey bridges on the way to the museum, as 35
percent of them are either structurally deficient or
functionally obsolete.
Museum uses transportation funds for its Heating and Air
Conditioning system--The Sayre Historical Society Museum in
Bradford County, Pennsylvania received a transportation
enhancement grant of $74,704 for the ``Sayre Historical
Society RR Museum Heating and AC project.'' You read that
correctly, American gas taxes are being directed towards
heating and air installation.
War of 1812, Bladensburg, Maryland excavation--Enhancement
funding was used to excavate several historical buildings in
Bladensburg, Maryland to study the ``transportation history''
of the area. Bladensburg was used for troop movements during
the War of 1812, as well as being a transportation hub during
early America.
Funding for a Transportation Exhibit--$300,000 in federal
money will pay for a new exhibit on the history of
transportation at a local museum in Missouri. The fresh
display at the St. Charles County Heritage museum will
explain the influence of rivers, railroads, roads, and trails
in the region over the years. The grant application
highlights how ``The County and its residents have had to
rely on multiple forms of transportation and as technology
changed, the area had to adapt to the changing transportation
methods/patterns.''
Not everyone in the community agrees the federal government
should fund this type of project. A county executive said,
``It's the kind of thing the federal government can't afford
to do.'' Other officials however have a different perspective
on the federal funding. The county parks director explained
how ``the $300,000 grant is `a pretty insignificant amount of
money compared to that total pool' of federal transportation
spending.'' Maybe a more significant number should be 7,021,
the number of Missouri bridges that are either structurally
deficient or functionally obsolete.
Iowa town receives new entrance sign--Fairfield, Iowa used
$40,800 in transportation enhancement funds to upgrade its
``Welcome to Fairfield'' sign. It is likely that Iowans would
welcome their transportation funds upgrading their bridges,
as Iowa ranks 3rd in bridge deficiency rates in America.
Michigan Receives Transportation funds to plant flowers and
rehabilitate an engine house--In 2010, the Michigan awarded
$5 million in federal transportation enhancement grants to
various projects including reconstructing cobblestone roads,
purchasing and installing bicycle racks, and
``streetscaping'' a downtown street in Bridgetown, Michigan
with ``decorative sidewalk treatments, street trees,
perennial flowers and other decorative plantings, planters,
and ornamental street lighting.'' One grant awarded $336,490
to rehabilitate the historic Quincy and Torch Lake Railroad
Engine House while another grant awarded $1,490,280 to the
Detroit Science Center to construct an exhibit depicting
``how roads, tunnels and bridges are constructed.''
Transportation Funding used to replace unaesthetic fencing
around Oklahoma Capitol Oil Derricks--The Oklahoma Department
of Central Services, the controller of Capitol Grounds,
received $216,000 in transportation enhancement funding to
replace fencing around active oil wells on Lincoln Boulevard
with a more aesthetically pleasing form of fencing.
Unfortunately while Capitol Complex may look better, Oklahoma
bridge deficiency rates remain 2nd in the United States.
Over $150,000 in Gasoline Taxes directed towards making
brochures--Over the last 10 years, federal transportation
enhancement grants have been used to produce brochures for
various purposes including monuments paths, scenic trails,
and bicycle safety. The State of Kansas even received a
federal grant to install and replace their brochure display
cases at SRA.
Enhancement funds used to help construct replica of
historical schooner--In 2001, Burlington, Vermont received a
$20,000 grant to subsidize the building a full scale replica
of the 1862-class sailing canal boat, the Louis McClure.
Crandall Farm Restoration project--Washington County, Rhode
Island received a $120,000 transportation enhancement grant
for renovation of Crandall Farm. The project consisted of
renovating the 1870 house on the farm into a welcome center
and educational tool for the traveling public.
South Carolina uses gas taxes to purchase $15,000 ``Welcome
Signs''--Orangeburg County, South Carolina received a $34,965
transportation enhancement grant o help purchase three signs
at a cost of $44,500, or $14,833 per sign. Unfortunately,
South Carolina bridges are not as welcoming, as 22 percent of
them are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete.
The State of Michigan receives nearly $100,000 to celebrate
mysterious centennial--In 2004, Michigan received a $99,540
transportation enhancement grant for publications, historical
commemorative items, and displays for a ``centennial
celebration.'' The only thing more puzzling than how these
activities are related to transportation is that the
centennial for Michigan Statehood occurred in 1937.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, today I rise to offer my support for
the President's request for immediate supplemental assistance for the
Federal Emergency Management Agency. This funding will enable FEMA to
continue to provide critical aid to victims left in the wake of Irene's
deadly

[[Page S5616]]

path, and victims of other natural disasters that have struck
throughout the country.
My home State of Rhode Island has experienced two major disasters in
the last couple of years, so I know firsthand how hard homeowners,
businesses, and municipalities have struggled to recover, even with
Federal assistance programs.
This is not the time to play politics. If Congress fails to provide
this emergency funding between now and September 30, we run the risk of
completely running out of disaster funds. Our fellow Americans need
this funding to recover from catastrophic disasters. Mother Nature does
not distinguish between blue and reds States, and both Democratic and
Republican Governors--and in Rhode Island's case an Independent
Governor--have asked for immediate disaster aid.
This supplemental funding will help replenish FEMA's Disaster Relief
Fund, which pays for Federal disaster response and recovery activities.
The fund has been running dangerously low as a result of the
devastating tornado in Missouri, tornados in Alabama, major flooding in
the Midwest and South, wildfires in Texas, and the historic flooding
caused by Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee.
This year's disasters have been particularly destructive and I urge
my colleagues to remain committed to all the victims as they struggle
to become whole again. We should approve this disaster aid to ensure
that communities aren't left in ruins.
The shortfall in funding has already forced the administration to put
certain disaster recovery activities on hold. My State, like many
others, sustained a federally declared disaster last month as a result
of Hurricane and Tropical Storm Irene. In order for FEMA to ensure it
had the resources to provide immediate relief for new disasters such as
Hurricane Irene, the agency had to freeze long-term recovery and
mitigation projects.
This funding conundrum really hits home because in Rhode Island
communities are still reeling from the historic flooding that occurred
in the spring of 2010. Rhode Island saw more rain during that disaster
than any month on record, and the devastation wrought by those storms
exceeded anything in living memory.
I was on the ground during the flooding last year and have been
intimately involved in the recovery process. I know how important
FEMA's long-term recovery and mitigation programs are for revitalizing
damaged communities, especially in States like mine that were already
hurting from the difficult economic environment.
I urge my colleagues across the aisle to let us pass this critical
legislation to provide supplemental funding for FEMA. Not only will it
go a long way toward providing peace of mind should another disaster
strike, it will also ensure that communities across the country that
are still recovering from past disasters can continue to move forward
in their recovery. This will make us a stronger and more resilient
nation.
Mr. BAUCUS. Madam President, Nelson Mandela once said, ``There is no
easy walk to freedom anywhere.''
The walk to freedom for the Burmese people has certainly not been
easy, and it is far from complete.
The military-controlled government that rules Burma continues to
maintain its tight grip over the Burmese people through fear,
intimidation, and violence.
According to the State Department, over the last year the Burmese
regime has ``severely restricted and frequently violated freedoms of
assembly, expression, association, movement, and religion.''
And in furthering its hold over Burmese society, the regime has
committed crimes of murder, abduction, rape, torture, recruitment of
child soldiers, and forced labor--all with impunity.
In recent months however, we have seen some encouraging steps.
Last November, the Burmese regime released Aung San Suu Kyi, the
Burmese democracy leader and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, after a
long and unjustified incarceration. And the regime has made some modest
movement towards dialogue with the opposition.
But it is far too soon to think that the walk to freedom has
succeeded. Just 2 months after releasing Aung San Suu Kyi, the regime
dissolved the National League for Democracy, which has sought to bring
democracy to Burma for more than 20 years.
And the regime keeps more than 2,000 political prisoners in
detention.
As Aung San Suu Kyi herself has said, ``If my people are not free,
how can you say I'm free? We are none of us free.''
In order to help the Burmese people on their march to freedom, I urge
my colleagues to extend our sanctions against Burmese imports for
another year.
Several of our trading partners--including the European Union,
Canada, and Australia--have joined us in imposing trade and investment
sanctions against Burma. And these sanctions have put significant
pressure on the Burmese leadership.
So let us extend the import sanctions on Burma for another year. Let
us do our part to help the Burmese people complete their long walk to
freedom.
Madam 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.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Whitehouse). The Senator from Wyoming.
Mr. ENZI. I would ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum
call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

____________________