[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 22 (Thursday, February 9, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Pages S420-S423]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          LEGISLATIVE SESSION

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate resumes 
legislative session.

  MOVING AHEAD FOR PROGRESS IN THE 21ST CENTURY ACT--MOTION TO PROCEED


                             Cloture Motion

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The cloture motion having been presented under 
rule XXII, the Chair directs the clerk to read the motion.
  The assistant bill clerk read as follows:

                             Cloture Motion

       We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the 
     provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, 
     hereby move to bring to a close debate on the motion to 
     proceed to Calendar No. 311, S. 1813, a bill to reauthorize 
     Federal-aid highway and highway safety construction programs, 
     and for other purposes:
         Barbara Boxer, Max Baucus, Mark L. Pryor, John D. 
           Rockefeller IV, Benjamin L. Cardin, Al Franken, Jack 
           Reed (RI), Sheldon Whitehouse, Amy Klobuchar, Bernard 
           Sanders, Patrick J. Leahy, Tom Udall (NM), Frank R. 
           Lautenberg, Richard Blumenthal, Jeff Merkley, Richard 
           J. Durbin, Harry Reid.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent the mandatory quorum call 
has been waived.
  The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on the 
motion to proceed to S. 1813, a bill to reauthorize Federal-aid highway 
and highway safety construction programs, and for other purposes, shall 
be brought to a close?
  The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant bill clerk called the roll.
  Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator 
from Illinois (Mr. Kirk), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Roberts), the 
Senator from Kansas (Mr. Moran), and the Senator from Mississippi (Mr. 
Wicker).
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 85, nays 11, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 17 Leg.]

                                YEAS--85

     Akaka
     Alexander
     Ayotte
     Barrasso
     Baucus
     Bennet

[[Page S421]]


     Bingaman
     Blumenthal
     Blunt
     Boozman
     Boxer
     Brown (MA)
     Brown (OH)
     Burr
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Chambliss
     Coats
     Coburn
     Cochran
     Collins
     Conrad
     Coons
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Crapo
     Durbin
     Enzi
     Feinstein
     Franken
     Gillibrand
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hagan
     Harkin
     Heller
     Hoeven
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Inouye
     Isakson
     Johnson (SD)
     Kerry
     Klobuchar
     Kohl
     Kyl
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lugar
     Manchin
     McCain
     McCaskill
     McConnell
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Mikulski
     Murray
     Nelson (NE)
     Nelson (FL)
     Portman
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Rockefeller
     Sanders
     Schumer
     Sessions
     Shaheen
     Shelby
     Snowe
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Thune
     Toomey
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Vitter
     Warner
     Webb
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                                NAYS--11

     Begich
     Cantwell
     DeMint
     Hatch
     Johanns
     Johnson (WI)
     Lee
     Murkowski
     Paul
     Risch
     Rubio

                             NOT VOTING--4

     Kirk
     Moran
     Roberts
     Wicker
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 85, the nays are 
11. Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn having voted in 
the affirmative, the motion is agreed to.
  The Senator from California.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I wish to thank my colleagues. This is a 
tremendous vote here to move forward with one of the most important 
jobs bills we could do in this session, because we are talking about 
protecting 1.8 million jobs and the possibility of another 1 million 
jobs being created through an expanded TIFIA Program which leverages 
local funds at very little risk to the Federal Government. So this is a 
good vote.
  I wish to take this opportunity now to thank colleagues on both sides 
of the aisle, but also to thank the over 1,000 groups out there--
everyone ranging from left to right and everything in between; from 
workers organizations, to businesses, to the Chamber of Commerce, to 
the AFL-CIO. It is rare we can walk down the aisle together.
  But now the true test comes. We have a lot of work to do to complete 
this legislation, to make it real, to give that certainty out there, 
get those jobs going. We have a lot of work to do. We have the Banking 
Committee which, under the able leadership of Senators Johnson and 
Shelby, has a title we have to add. We have to add a title from the 
Finance Committee. We want to add the title from the Commerce 
Committee. Then we would have all four committees represented in this 
legislation. Then we can move to get a strong vote and get it to 
conference, and, I have to say, tell the House side that we have a 
truly bipartisan bill that deserves their consideration. But if we 
start seeing amendments that go to issues that are unrelated to this--
the hot-button issues of the day, the issues where we have the 
ideological divide--we are going to slow this down.
  I guess I wish to say to my colleagues on the Democratic side and the 
Republican side: Please do not mess up this bill and load this bill 
with extraneous matters. Senator Inhofe and I are very happy to look at 
germane amendments. We are ready to look at those. We have made an 
agreement that if we don't agree, we are going to oppose it. We are 
working together. But extraneous matters don't belong on this bill 
unless they have overwhelming support and they are not controversial. I 
am very hopeful, but I have seen bills come to the floor and get loaded 
down and at the end of the day the American people lose. We cannot 
afford to lose this bill.
  I want my colleagues to imagine 15 Super Bowl stadiums and imagine in 
your mind's eye what it looks like, and in all of those 15 Super Bowl 
stadiums every seat is filled, every seat is filled with a construction 
worker. That is how many construction workers are out of work--more 
than 1 million. So we cannot fail these workers. We cannot fail these 
businesses. These are good jobs. The housing crisis is not yet behind 
us. We have a long way to go. Construction has slowed down. So we need 
to make sure our construction workers are back on the job. We need to 
make sure we fix our bridges that are crumbling. We need to make sure 
we keep goods moving. This is a 21st century economy with an 
infrastructure that is not keeping up.
  I want to take a moment to thank again the members of the Environment 
and Public Works Committee. Senator Sanders, who is in the chair, is a 
very important member who is focused like a laser beam on jobs. He 
focuses on jobs, jobs, jobs. He knows, as I do, that we didn't get 
everything we wanted in this bill, not by a long shot. But we know 
there are times you have to put that aside for the good of the people 
so we get something done; and something done here is protecting 1.8 
million jobs and creating up to 1 million new jobs with our expanded 
TIFIA.

  So I thank the Presiding Officer for his hard work on getting us to 
this moment. I thank Senator Inhofe for his amazing cooperation; 
Senators Baucus and Vitter and all the members of the committee; 
Senators Johnson and Shelby of Banking; Senator Rockefeller, who worked 
so hard with Senator Hutchison, and we hope will resolve the 
outstanding issues in Commerce; Senator Baucus, who worked with Senator 
Hatch, and we did get a good Finance piece.
  We are so ready to go. We are going to wait to see whether our 
colleagues on the other side will insist upon 30 hours going 
postcloture or whether they will yield back that time and allow us to 
get started on the amendment process.
  So at this moment, I am going to put in a quorum call, note the 
absence of a quorum, and hope we can quickly move to amend this bill.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Shaheen). The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BEGICH. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                              The Economy

  Mr. BEGICH. Madam President, I come to the floor with a simple 
message about our economy. I know we are in the process of our 
Transportation bill, and the chairman of the committee may come out 
momentarily, so I will yield when that moment happens so we keep that 
process going because that bill is about creating jobs and 
infrastructure investment. But I just wanted to comment on the fact 
that we have made incredible progress, and we continue to make 
incredible progress, when we think about where we were 3 years ago and 
where we are today.
  I know some in Washington like to focus on scare tactics and talk how 
bad things are or how they could be worse if we continue on whatever 
path they think we are on. But the fact is we have to look at the 
recent notifications produced not by a bunch of politicians but by 
other people who are looking at the economy or investing in the economy 
or participating in the economy in a pretty direct way. One statistic 
is reflected on this incredible chart. When we look at it, it speaks 
for itself.
  Just prior to 2009 and a little after, we had about 8 million jobs 
that were lost. This chart shows we have now had 22 months of 
consecutive growth, but actually we have had 23 months of consecutive 
growth. This number, which says we have had 3.2 million new jobs, is 
actually closer to 3.7 million new jobs in our economy since the great 
recession started in late 2008, early 2009.
  I know people come down and say: Oh, it could be better. I don't know 
about you, but the way I see it, this was bad; this is better. Can we 
do better? We always strive to do better. That is the American way. We 
try to do better as we move on. But there is no question there is good 
news and job losses are diminishing and now gone with job gains. These 
are private sector job gains, which is important but, more important, 
the underlying issue of the job gains is small business.
  If we watched the data this last month--when the unemployment rate 
was estimated to be a little higher, but it actually came out at 8.3, 
lower than almost every economist thought--all we had to do was look 
underneath the data point and it was very clear that small businesses 
were hiring. They are the backbone of this economy. If they are hiring 
in December and January, in months when people expect--in January 
especially--the economy will start slowing down, the reason they are 
hiring is because they see the future and they see increasing sales and 
the potential.

[[Page S422]]

  Again, I know we hear people say: Oh, it is not as good as it could 
be. But 8.3 is better than what everybody figured it would be. Do I 
want it lower? Does the Presiding Officer want it lower? Of course, we 
do. But the trend lines are clear.
  We also had a 4-year low in U.S. jobless claims, again boosting 
spending in our economy. An article in CNN in late December noted 
``consumer confidence shoots higher again.'' Why is that important? The 
more consumers are confident about the economy, the more they engage in 
the economy.
  It is interesting to note how low refinancing rates are--3.75 
percent, 3.875 percent, unbelievably low. Yet people are still 
hesitant. But when we start looking at the data points from the last 
few weeks--especially one that came out yesterday--more and more people 
are refinancing--a 21-percent increase last month in refinancing. Why 
is that important? Again, consumers feel confident. The rates are 
strong for them so they can get a better rate on their home. Net 
result: More money in their pocket for themselves to spend on their 
families, on whatever they want to buy--vacations, a new remodel job 
they want to do, the kitchen they have been holding off fixing up or 
that fence that is tipping over a little bit. Now they will hire a 
small contractor to fix it. So consumer confidence is on the rise.
  Again, we will hear it is not good enough. Yes, but it doesn't mean 
we are done. We have a lot of work ahead of us, but we have done 
incredible things.
  In an AP article on February 3, just last week or so, we saw the 
headline ``Homebuilders See Stable Housing Market Ahead.'' Let me 
repeat that: stable housing market. Some people will say: It is not a 
growing housing market. No, but before it was diving, it was sinking, 
it was disappearing. So ``stable'' is good. Because when we go from 
stable and we move to the next level, that is growth.
  The automobile industry--GM. I know I talk about this one a lot. 
Three years ago, it was flat on its back. People said: It is not going 
to survive; let it go away. Today, GM, according to a January 19 
article in Forbes--not a very liberal magazine--``GM is No. 1 in the 
World Again in Auto Sales.'' No. 1. Why is that important? Because they 
are hiring more people, at all ranges in salaries. Their secondary 
facilitator, the suppliers are hiring more people. People who ship 
those cars are hiring more people; again, moving forward.
  In the Budget Committee a couple days ago, Fed Chairman Bernanke was 
surprised by this strong growth in manufacturing. Again, a few years 
ago, people said: Oh, manufacturing, we are never going to get back to 
the good old days. Again, we see growth. ``Industrial Suppliers Power 
Up Sales,'' says a Wall Street Journal article from January 21.
  Here is another headline--this one from CNBC on December 8: ``US 
State Tax Revenues return to Pre-recession Levels.'' Why is this 
important? That shows subeconomies within States and within communities 
are growing--again, a stronger economy.
  Back in my home State, we are making progress on the Chuckchi and 
Beaufort Seas, where we will see huge potential oil and gas 
development, with 26 billion barrels of known recoverable oil today. I 
think it is a lot higher, but that is what we know about. It could 
provide, once in production, 30,000 jobs and millions in payroll, not 
just throughout Alaska but throughout this country because that is U.S. 
oil for U.S. consumption and utilization or export, if we are in the 
business of selling it. But the point is, it is jobs for Alaskans, jobs 
for Americans.
  This month, Shell got a final air permit for its drillship, putting 
them one step closer to exploration. There is no question in my mind we 
are going to make that happen. Three years ago, people were saying: We 
are never going to do anything in Federal waters. We will never develop 
our resources in Alaska because it is in Federal hands, and the laws, 
the rules, the regulations don't allow it. I stand here to say that 
after just 3 years, National Petroleum Reserve, Chuckchi and Beaufort, 
billions of barrels of oil are in exploration and/or development. That 
has happened in just 3 years.

  People are right when they say in the last 30 years we have had a lot 
of sluggish opportunity in that field. But today it is moving forward. 
In 3 years, there is new activity. That is powerful for our country 
from a national security perspective but also from an economic security 
perspective.
  We know ConocoPhillips--again, I already mentioned National Petroleum 
Reserve-Alaska--has now received its permit to move forward, and they 
hope to start developing in 2013.
  In 2010, investments in Alaska's mining exploration totaled more than 
$264 million, a 47-percent increase, and one-third of the total spent 
on mining exploration in the United States overall was in Alaska. There 
is a new gold rush in Alaska with continued increasing in gold prices. 
Placer mining applications, generally submitted by small family-run 
operations, rose from 350 in 2005 to over 581 this year. Alaska even 
has a reality show called ``Gold Rush.''
  Exports to Alaska topped over $5 billion in 2011, and China is now 
our No. 1 top trading partner. There are liquefied natural gas 
opportunities in the Asian market that we are exploring. I can assure 
you Alaska and Alaska companies have a strong interest in moving 
forward.
  The good news is spreading across this country. But as I say, our 
work is not done. We must continue to build on this progress and secure 
a long-term economic stability that will protect our middle-class 
American families and support our small businesses moving forward. We 
must address the deficit. Unemployment is still too high. It is better, 
but it is still too high, and our housing market is still a little 
weak. Europe's economic situation remains uncertain, and we continue to 
depend on unstable sources of foreign oil.
  All of that is why we must move forward on an agenda that will 
continue to strengthen our economy, protect middle-class families, and 
support small businesses, including extending the payroll tax cuts and 
unemployment insurance, developing a true energy plan that includes 
domestic oil development, address tax reform to protect the middle 
class, rebuild this country's infrastructure, and strengthen our 
housing market.
  We can and must improve our economy and address long-term fiscal 
challenges at the same time. Even with hard work ahead, there is a lot 
of reason for optimism. We are moving in the right direction. We are 
creating jobs, and we are turning this economy around.
  I will end on this note. I spend time looking at every business 
publication and reading what is going on not just from a global 
perspective but from companies themselves, and I have been seeing 
headlines--again, from the Wall Street Journal--such as ``Jobs Power 
Market Rebound: Unemployment Rate Dips to 8.3% on Broad Gains,'' ``Dow 
at Highest Since May 2008.''
  Some people say: It is hard to gauge that based on the market. But if 
you are one of those people who put a little money aside for your 
retirement--in maybe a 401(k) or an IRA--or you have a little set-aside 
for the kids to go to college, then you know 2009 was a sad year. You 
were thinking you were going to have to work a lot longer just to make 
up some of that money. Today, the market is double what it was then. I 
would challenge people to take their 2009 March-April statements, if 
they have them--an education account for their kids or an IRA--and 
compare that to what it is today. It is better. Can it be even better 
than it is today? Absolutely. That is what we will continue to strive 
for.
  Again, I am going to continue to come to the floor and talk about 
this great economic news. I know people want to see the worst in things 
sometimes, but I think what has made this country great is that, 
generally, we see the best in things. We see what the opportunities are 
and we take advantage of them. We risk a little bit--as we did with the 
auto bailout and the cash for clunkers. We took a little risk and 
walked the road alone.
  Today, that is almost all paid off and, guess what. There is a 
thriving industry providing jobs all across the country. So we have a 
lot to be proud of and a lot to look forward to. We just have to keep 
on the path, take a little risk once in a while, push the envelope, and 
bank on the American people.
  I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Manchin). The clerk will call the roll.

[[Page S423]]

  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. REID. I now ask unanimous consent that all postcloture time be 
yielded back and that the motion to proceed be agreed to; that the 
committee-reported amendments be agreed to and that the bill, as 
amended, be considered original text for the purposes of further 
amendment; further, that it be in order for Senator Boxer or designee, 
on behalf of Senators Johnson and Shelby, the chairman and ranking 
member of the Banking Committee, to call amendment No. 1515, which is 
at the desk; finally, that following the reporting of the amendment, 
the Senate proceed to a period of morning business, with Senators 
permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Under the previous order, all postcloture time is yielded back and 
the motion to proceed is agreed to.

                          ____________________