Congressional Record, Volume 158 Issue 71 (Thursday, May 17, 2012)

[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 71 (Thursday, May 17, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3252-S3271]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

THE FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION SAFETY AND INNOVATION ACT--MOTION TO
PROCEED--Continued

Mr. REID. Madam President, what is the pending business?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The motion to proceed to S. 3187.

Cloture Motion

Mr. REID. Madam President, I have a cloture motion at the desk.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The cloture motion having been presented under
rule XXII, the Chair directs the clerk to read the motion.
The legislative 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 the debate on the motion to
proceed to calendar No. 400, S. 3187, the Food and Drug
Administration Safety and Innovation Act.
Harry Reid, Jeff Bingaman, Joseph I. Lieberman, Amy
Klobuchar, Patty Murray, Mark Begich, Richard
Blumenthal, Ben Nelson, Patrick J. Leahy, Kent Conrad,
Tim Johnson, Sherrod Brown, Benjamin L. Cardin, Sheldon
Whitehouse, John F. Kerry, Daniel K. Akaka, Tom Harkin.

Mr. REID. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the mandatory
quorum under rule XXII be waived.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. REID. Madam President, I have spoken before about the importance
of the FDA bill. It is something we have to get done. Literally,
people's lives depend upon it. It addresses so many things with the FDA
to make it a better organization. We have to get this done. As I said
before, if my Republican colleagues don't like the bill, offer an
amendment--offer an amendment. Take that out. Put something in if you
don't like it. But I hope we don't have to go through voting on cloture
on this Monday night. We should be legislating on this on Monday. So I
am stunned that once again, on a motion to proceed, when there has been
an agreement that we would proceed to this with relevant amendments--
everybody says that is what they want to do. It is not germane
amendments, which is very narrow, it is relevant amendments. It gives
people a lot of opportunity to change this legislation in many
different ways. So I hope we do not have to have that cloture vote
Monday night.

Unanimous Consent Request--H.R. 1905

Mr. REID. Madam President, I now ask unanimous consent that the
Foreign Relations Committee be discharged from further consideration of
H.R. 1905, the Iran Threat Reduction Act, and that the Senate proceed
to its consideration; that the Reid-Johnson(SD)-Shelby substitute
amendment, which is at the desk and is the text of Calendar No. 320,
the Iran Sanctions, Accountability and Human Rights Act, as reported by
the Banking Committee, be considered; that a Reid-Johnson(SD)-Shelby
amendment, which is at the desk, be agreed to; that the substitute
amendment, as amended, be agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be read
a third time and passed; that the motions to reconsider be laid upon
the table; that there be no intervening action or debate; and that any
statements related to this matter be printed in the Record at the
appropriate place.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. KYL. Madam President, reserving the right to object, I would just
note that this is a matter--and I appreciate the majority leader's
desire to bring this to conclusion. It has been worked on now for quite
some time. Unfortunately, the language that has just been presented to
our side has not been widely shared. I have not actually read it yet.
It was apparently brought over at 10:38 this morning. When I came to
the floor, it was described to me. As described, it would be weaker
than President Obama's policy.
Given the fact that this is a matter on which Democrats and
Republicans and the administration and the Senate have been in pretty
close accord in dealing with the country of Iran and its nuclear
ambitions, I would hope we could ensure that the language is agreed to
by all. There seems to be an important piece missing, and we certainly
need the time to talk to folks to see why that is so, whether it can be
put back in or, if it cannot, then to be able to discuss it because we
certainly do not want something that is weaker than the
administration's current policy.
So I would hope we could have some time over the weekend and perhaps
on Monday, when enough of the Members can be apprised of what has
actually been proposed here, and see if our colleagues on the other
side would be willing to make the accommodation that we may need to
have made here.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.
Mr. BLUNT. Madam President, reserving the right to object, I
appreciate the leader's desire to get this done. I would like to get it
done too. In fact, the original Iran sanctions language was drafted in
my office when I was in the other body.
This is an issue I have been involved in for a long time. This
morning I have had a chance to look at it only within the last half
hour. I suppose I could have been here at 10:38, but even 10:38, for an
issue such as this--and my view also is that it is not as strong as the
Presidents's policy. It is not as strong as any other resolution on
this topic we have ever passed. And the question that would logically
be asked is, Why not? I would like to think that is an oversight in
drafting, that we can work this out over the weekend and make this
reflective of our national policy and the President's policy. But I
would be very concerned about moving to this language today and would
hope that we could work with the leader to have language that we could
bring up as early as Monday and pass and send the message to the world
that the Senate supports the stated policy of our government on this
critical issue. Nobody wants Iran to be able to move forward and attain
nuclear capacity, and I would be very concerned about moving forward on
this language as it currently appears to me to be stated.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, is there an objection by either Senator Kyl
or Senator Blunt?
Mr. KYL. Mr. President, for the reasons noted, I would hope we could
work with our colleagues to fix the problem. Until we do, I would have
to object.

[[Page S3253]]

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Manchin.) Objection is heard.
Mr. REID. This is such an interesting conversation here on the floor
this afternoon. I did not have the papers. Now, I do not blame my
friend from Arizona for not having the documents. I do not blame my
friend from Missouri for only having a half hour to look at this. This
was given to the Republican leader yesterday, midday. The language they
are objecting to was in the base bill, so unless they did not read the
base bill, they have a problem here. Now, they said they want to get it
done--strange way of showing they want to get it done.
This has been a classic example of rope-a-dope. I try to be a patient
man. I have been very patient with my staff working with Senator Kirk's
staff, the minority leader's staff. I have tried to be as patient as I
can be.
Mr. McCONNELL. Would my friend yield?
Mr. REID. No, not right now. This is absolutely untoward, what is
happening here. We have tried to get this done every day. Oh, it is
just we have to do a little bit more. We have this agreement that was
agreed to by all of the parties, but, of course, now there is no
agreement.
I am deeply disappointed that my Republican colleagues are preventing
the Senate from passing additional critical sanctions against Iran. If
they want to embarrass the President, this is a strange way to do it.
Two months ago I came to the Senate floor and said we needed to pass
these sanctions immediately. The fastest way forward was to pass the
bipartisan bill sponsored by Senators Johnson and Shelby, which passed
out of the Banking Committee unanimously. But Republicans then said no,
as they are saying today. Republicans said they wanted to include ideas
from Senator Kirk, Senator Paul, and wished to move forward with S.
Res. 380 on containment.
We heard their objections. We have tried mightily to address them,
with the goal of getting this bill passed and protecting our own
national security and that of our ally Israel. This deal includes a
bipartisan managers' package sponsored by Senators Shelby and Johnson,
with items of importance to Senators Menendez, Kirk, Paul, and Johnson.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee has expressed strong
support for this package to Senator McConnell and to me. In a letter
today, AIPAC urged us to move forward with this package as quickly as
possible. I ask unanimous consent that letter be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
The American Israel

Public Affairs Committee,

Washington, DC, May 17, 2012.
Hon. Harry Reid,
Majority Leader, U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Hon. Mitch McConnell,
Minority Leader, U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Dear Senators Reid and McConnell: We understand that you
are bringing the Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Human
Rights Act of 2012 (S. 2101) to the floor for consideration.
On behalf of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, we
would like to express our support for this critically
important bipartisan legislation. We also want to take this
opportunity to thank you for your ongoing strong efforts to
thwart Iran's nuclear program, and for your overall
leadership on behalf of a vibrant U.S.-Israel relationship.
In our view, this legislation has been further strengthened
in important ways by a managers' amendment that reflects the
views of a number of senators. We appreciate your leadership,
together with that of Senators Johnson, Shelby, Menendez and
Kirk in enabling this legislation to move forward to the
floor and ultimately to conference with the House.
We understand that Senators Menendez and Kirk have
additional valuable ideas to improve the bill being
considered by the Senate but have graciously agreed to defer
their amendments at this time to enable the bill to move
forward as rapidly as possible. We applaud their efforts and,
like them, want to see the strongest possible legislation
enacted. We believe that their amendments fall within the
scope of the conference committee, and urge you to ensure
that they will be given appropriate consideration during the
course of the conference deliberations.
We are deeply appreciative of the role played by the Senate
under your leadership to do everything possible to stop Iran
from using its nuclear program to further destabilize the
Middle East. By its legislation and oversight, Congress has
kept this issue in the forefront and forced Iran's leaders to
face the choice between compliance with its international
obligations and international opprobrium.
We look forward to working in support of your efforts.
Sincerely,
Howard Kohr,
Executive Director.
Marvin Feuer,
Director, Policy & Government Affairs.
Brad Gordon,
Director, Policy & Government Affairs.

Mr. REID. Mr. President, Democrats are ready to move forward and vote
on an amended S. Res. 380, the bipartisan Graham-Casey-Lieberman
legislation. This amendment would put the Senate on record, along with
President Obama, ruling out a policy of containment on Iran. Yet
Republicans have objected again. We cannot afford to delay these
sanctions and slow them down any longer. On May 23 there is a round of
international negotiations taking place with the Iranians on subjects
related to this resolution we have.
Democrats are ready to move forward. We are ready to pass both the
Iran sanctions bill and the containment resolution now--not later, now.
We cannot afford any more delays. Sanctions are a key tool in our work
to stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, threatening Israel, and
jeopardizing the national security of the United States.
I am to the end of my patience. I usually never raise my voice with a
Senator. I apologize to my friend from Arizona. I did a few minutes
ago. The conversation was between him and me. But I am really upset
about this. I feel that I have been jerked around--that is a pretty
good understanding of the language people have--because we can never
quite get there. The Republicans have kept us from moving forward on
this for 2 months. We should have done what Shelby and Johnson told us
to do. So I hope something will happen on this in the near future, but
I have to be honest with you, I do not have much faith that it will.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Republican leader.
Mr. McCONNELL. Do I have the floor now?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. You do.
Mr. McCONNELL. I would say to my good friend the majority leader,
this is an outrage I do not understand. My staff tells me we did not
receive the draft amendment until late last night, and this morning we
were told it was final. We got the draft late last night, and this
morning we were told it was final.
Now, look, we have debates around here about a lot of things, but one
of the things we have typically not been unable to reach an agreement
on is the Iran issue. I do not know what the problem is here. A little
communication ought to be able to bring us together behind something we
can speak to unanimously, with a goal that I think we all have in this
body--virtually everyone--which is to do everything we can to prevent
Iran from becoming a nuclear-armed country.
So there is no reason in the world why we cannot resolve whatever
minor differences we have and move forward. We certainly do not want to
take a step backward. And there are Members on my side of the aisle who
are concerned that the way the measure is currently crafted could
actually be a step in the wrong direction. It could have been a
drafting error. But what is wrong with sitting down on a bipartisan
basis, looking at the language, and making sure we get it right and
achieve the goals that I think virtually everybody in the room would
like to achieve? There is nothing to get angry about. A proper response
would be to work out our differences and to go forward.

Timeliness is an issue. We need to do this quickly. We can all agree
to that on both sides of the aisle. I say to my friend, I don't think
there is anything to be outraged about. Why don't we work out the
differences and pass the resolution?
Mr. REID. Mr. President, when my friend indicates, why is there any
problem, and that they agree--it is just like the issue of student
loans when they

[[Page S3254]]

say they agree, except they will not let us legislate on that bill.
They think this is a great thing to do, but we cannot do it. They say
they need more communication. How about 2 months? How much more do they
need?
I will not get into getting anyone in trouble, but the Republicans
were given this in mid-afternoon. Maybe they were busy, but that
doesn't matter. The point is we have tried to get something done, and
we cannot get it done.
I think it is too bad for this institution. I am not outraged; I am
upset because I feel I have been used as a tool to try to adversely
affect the President in some way. I will continue to keep an open mind,
but I have to say that I am terribly disappointed. It looks as though
we are going to arrive at May 23--and the Iranians have people around
who are watching this. They are laughing at us. We cannot even come up
with a simple resolution. It has no force of law--I should not say
that; it does have some. But they are laughing at us.
Here is the U.S. Senate quibbling over a sentence that has been in
this resolution since it was drafted.
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, most people in America work 5 days a
week. It is 1 o'clock on a Thursday. What is the problem? We have broad
bipartisan agreement about the approach we ought to take with regard to
the Iran sanctions issue. The leaders on my side are all standing on
the floor of the Senate and are anxious to be involved in working out
the language.
I say to my friend, he said it is a sentence in the resolution. A
sentence can sometimes change the entire meaning. How this is crafted
is not irrelevant. Rather than us standing out here on the Senate floor
pointing fingers, it is only 1 p.m. on a Thursday afternoon; let's sit
down and work out the differences and pass something we can agree on
and try to make a difference.
Mr. REID. No matter how many times you say it, the language we are
told they are complaining about was in the initial bill.
Mr. President, I appreciate my friend saying most people work 5 days
a week. I work more than 5 days a week, and I have been working the
last 2 months trying to get this done. Every time we tried to do it in
the last few weeks--and Senator Kirk is ill, and I gave him every
benefit of the doubt. Let's try to do what Senator Kirk thinks is a
good idea. If we can agree, we will do it.
Mr. President, we have been trying to get this done for a long time.
It is not just today at 1 o'clock; I wanted to move forward on this a
long time ago. They say: Let's just give it another day or so and we
will take care of this. But that is not how it has worked.
I yield to the Senator from New Jersey.
Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I thank the leader for yielding. I want
to applaud him for asking to bring the legislation that passed
unanimously out of the Banking Committee to the floor because there is
no one in this Chamber who has been stronger on pursuing sanctions on
Iran and trying to defer Iran from achieving nuclear weapons. I support
and am on Senator Lieberman's resolution.
But time is of the essence. We must send to the Iranians a clear
message that they cannot just forestall negotiations and have
negotiations thinking that they are buying time. We must show them that
notwithstanding their intentions to buy time, there are consequences.
The consequences of those sanctions on the Central Bank of Iran that
are already moving forward and that the administration is fully seeking
to enforce, and the continued perfecting sanctions that the Banking
Committee sent out unanimously is incredibly important to send the
Iranians a message.
I look at what the legislation will do in part. It, in essence,
closes loopholes that the Iranians have figured out. It creates
sanctions on the national Iranian oil company and the national Iranian
tanker company, making them agents of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard
and imposes sanctions on financial institutions that would facilitate
transactions.
This is important. The Iranians are using this as a way to get around
it. It has sanctions on satellite companies that impose human rights
sanctions on those companies that provide satellite services to the
Iranian regime but fail to prevent jamming by Iran of transmissions by
others of the same satellite service company. It has sanctions on
financial messaging services, and even though Swift, the largest of
them, already pulled the plug on the Iranians, we don't want any other
messaging service to fill that void. We want to make sure that noose is
as tight as possible.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, if my friend will yield, I want to make sure
the record is clear. When I talked about it having no force of law, we
were talking about the containment resolution.
I ask this question to my friend from New Jersey: What does he think
the Iranians are doing watching this performance today? How does he
think they are feeling about what we are doing today--that we cannot
pass this resolution?
Mr. MENENDEZ. Originally, when we sent a 100-to-0 vote out of here,
they said: We are in trouble. But now they are saying to themselves:
Well, buying time seems to succeed.
We cannot allow the Iranians to believe, as they head into these
negotiations next week, that there is anything but a foot on the head
of the snake and that we will continue to do that and drive every
possible sanction and close every possible loophole, which is largely
what the legislation the leader was seeking to pass accomplishes. That
is why it passed unanimously out of the Banking Committee.
Even as we talk about the resolution, there is no reason to stop the
very essence of what would send a message to the Iranians--that it will
hurt them in their economy and undermine their ability to continue in
Iran as a government, and that it is going to be the very strongest set
of sanctions we can levy from one government to another. It will have a
multilateral effect, which is when sanctions take place the best.

I am beside myself. Are there amendments that I might want to offer?
Of course. But I find it far more important to move now and get passage
and send this strong set of sanctions so that the Iranians will get the
message rather than to linger and ultimately have those negotiations
take place and not send a message.
I appreciate the majority leader's efforts. I applaud them. I am
certainly for Senator Lieberman's resolution. I don't believe in
containment as a policy, but moving the set of sanctions to ensure that
the Iranians don't do anything but come to the table and say they are
ready to follow a course of disarmament in terms of their nuclear
production is incredibly important.
Sometimes things can wait. This is not one of those times in which
waiting produces the desired result. On the contrary, it produces a
negative result because they believe we will not continue to pursue
tightening the noose and closing every loophole and being of one mind.
I hope we can achieve that before we leave.
Mr. REID. Before my friend leaves, I direct a question to him. Is it
true that he is a member of the Banking Committee?
Mr. MENENDEZ. Yes.
Mr. REID. It is true that this resolution came from the Banking
Committee?
Mr. MENENDEZ. Yes, the legislation came from the Banking Committee.
Mr. REID. The matter about which we talk, the Iranian sanctions
legislation, came from the Banking Committee. It was reported
unanimously from the committee, right?
Mr. MENENDEZ. That is correct.
Mr. REID. During the last 2 months, the Senator from New Jersey and
his staff have been heavily involved in what is going on during the
negotiations that have taken place; is that fair?
Mr. MENENDEZ. It is.
Mr. REID. Jessica Lewis, who is seated by me, my foreign policy
adviser--is it true that she worked for the Senator from New Jersey?
Mr. MENENDEZ. She did until the majority leader took her from me.
Mr. REID. And it is true that we have worked over this period of
time--our staffs, working with Republicans--very hard to try to get
something done. I say to my friend, is it true that each time we were
there, were not there the next few minutes, the next day--it has taken
forever, 2 months, right?
Mr. MENENDEZ. We have thought at various times that we would be on
the Senate floor and have it passed, and

[[Page S3255]]

there has always been an additional desire or objection. I just think
what we have before us, especially in timing, doesn't mean we cannot
continue to perfect it as we move to the future, as we are doing in
this legislation.
But this legislation, now passed unanimously out of committee, is
supported by the major advocates of those who share our vision that we
cannot have a nuclear-powered Iran and an Iran with nuclear weapons,
and believe that it is important to move now so we can achieve that
goal and send a message to the Iranians.
So I think time, in this case, is of the essence. That is why I came
to the floor to support the leader's efforts.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, this is a classic moment--
unfortunately, too typical--where we all agree on the goal, but we want
to pass another tier of sanctions against the Iranians to deter them
from developing nuclear weapons. Our goal has been to get this done
before the P5+1--five permanent members of the Security Council of the
U.N., plus Germany--meet again with Iran in Baghdad this time, which is
next Tuesday.
I understand the frustration of the majority leader. First, nobody
has been more consistent and steadfast and sincere in their effort than
the majority leader to have this body make very clear to everybody in
the world--particularly the Iranians--that we will not accept them
becoming a nuclear power, and we are prepared to use economic sanctions
and, if necessary, certainly now the credible threat of force.
I also know the majority leader has been pushed and pulled back and
forth over the last several weeks to get to a point where we can get
this done before May 23. So I understand his frustration at this
moment.
I hear my Republican colleagues, and I have looked at the language
they are concerned about. They are concerned that in listing the
economic sanctions as one way that can be used to stop Iran from
developing nuclear weapons and not listing the credible threat, the
option of military force, as President Obama and others have said, that
somehow we are sending a message of weakness.
Frankly, my original hope was that the more important thing to do is
to get this done and passed in the Senate by next Tuesday when all
parties come to Baghdad. But the difference is not only small, it is
nonexistent. We all agree we ought to try the sanctions, that we ought
to make them tough, that they ought not be watered down before the
Iranians agree to stop their nuclear weapons program. And we all agree
we have to have the credible threat of force being used against the
Iranian nuclear program if there is any real hope of the sanctions
working.
I know the majority leader has to leave the Senate floor. Ideally, I
wish we could agree on that sentence and get it done and passed today
by consent, if we can. If we can't, I hope we can do it by Monday so we
do send a message of unity, which we have, but the words, the
procedures, the mood is standing in the way of us sending a unified
message from the Senate to the rest of the world, and particularly to
the Islamic Republic of Iran in Tehran, that we mean business. Right
now we are not speaking with one voice.

I appeal to my colleagues. Let us step back, take a breath. Can we do
it this afternoon? Maybe. I hope so. If we can't, let us get it done
over the weekend and adopt it by Monday.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.
Mr. GRAHAM. I wish to echo what my friend from Connecticut, Senator
Lieberman, has said. I wish to get this done so we can vote and send
the appropriate signal. It is not so much we act before Tuesday, even
though that is important, but that we let the Iranians and the world
know what we mean when we speak.
I hope they are watching in Tehran. I don't know if they get C SPAN.
They will probably find it odd that Lindsey Graham is now being easy on
Iran. Trust me, I am not. Senator Menendez has been a champion, along
with Senator Kirk, of creating legislation we could all buy into 100 to
0. We can't agree we should take Sunday off 100 to 0. But what they
achieved was remarkable.
I understand Senator Reid has been pulled and torn. I appreciate it.
I enjoy working with him. He thinks maybe somebody is doing him wrong.
We are not. He should ask himself this question: Why would Senator
Graham be on the floor concerned about what we say if he genuinely did
not believe we are making a mistake? I don't want to embarrass the
President. I would say to the President: Keep it up with Iran. I hope
sanctions work. And if you need to use military force to protect this
Nation, if sanctions fail, I will be your strongest advocate.
But a couple of things have been said that need to be corrected. The
managers' amendment is not what was in the base bill or we wouldn't
need a managers' amendment. Section 102 in the base bill is
approximately three paragraphs. Section 102 here is approximately 10
pages. The bottom line for me is that this section was added in the
managers' amendment that didn't exist in the base bill:

Nothing in this act or this amendment or the amendments
made by this act shall be construed as a declaration of war
or an authorization of the use of force against Iran or
Syria.

That wasn't in the base bill. Where the hell did that come from? This
is not a declaration of war. But when this sentence is in there, and
the new amendment doesn't say one thing about the use of force to
control the Iranian behavior--the President's own words are ``all
options on the table.'' And the reason I am exercised is we are now
producing a product that backs away from where the President has been
regarding all options on the table. We end the new managers' package
with the statement ``nothing here authorizes the use of force against
Iran or Syria.''
It is all about sanctions in the bill, and the only time we mention
force is to say we won't do it or we won't authorize it. All I am
asking is what Senator Lieberman mentioned. These sanctions are great.
I hope they will change Iranian behavior. They haven't yet, and I don't
think they ever will, but I am willing to go down this road. All I am
asking is when we include in the legislation ideas or concepts that
will change Iranian behavior that we include ``all options are on the
table'' in the bill. Because this would be the first piece of
legislation where that is ominously omitted.
To end, the whole concept of what we are trying to do with the
declarative statement ``this is not a declaration of war or the use of
force against Iran or Syria'' would make the Iranians believe, quite
frankly, we are all about sanctions and that is it. I am all for
sanctions, but if you are listening, Tehran, I want more on the table
to make you change your behavior.
This summer is going to be tough for the world. The Iranians talk and
enrich. There is nothing credible I have seen to make me believe they
are not pursuing a nuclear weapons capability. I hope the talks next
Tuesday will change their behavior.
I appreciate what Senator Menendez has done, along with his
colleagues on the Banking Committee, to give this President more tools,
to make them even tougher than they are today. But the worst thing we
could do before next Tuesday is to leave any doubt to anybody who is
watching this debate that there is nothing more on the table than just
sanctions; that on the table--and we hope to God we never have to use
it to stop the Iranian nuclear program--is the use of force, if that is
required.
That is all I want to say. I hope we never get there.
I agree with this last statement--I am not asking for a declaration
of war against Tehran or Syria--but I will not vote for a document at
this critical time in our Nation's history, with the existential threat
we are facing from a rogue regime that denies the right of Israel to
exist, that has killed over 2,000 Americans in Iraq, that has been a
proxy for evil throughout the planet, whose own President doesn't
believe the Holocaust existed. And to my friends at APACS, whom I agree
with most of the time, if they think this is the right answer, I
couldn't disagree with you more.
Add one simple line, that in addition to all the fine work of the
Banking Committee, and my dear friend Senator Menendez, that we in the
Senate recognize what the President has been saying for months--that
military force is also an option.

[[Page S3256]]

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
Mr. CORKER. First of all, we have two things on the floor that are
being discussed right now, and I know this is confusing probably to the
people in Tehran, but the fact is I agree that Senator Menendez and
Senator Kirk have done a great job. I am on the Banking Committee, and
we voted this out unanimously. I do hope, with this managers' package
being added, that we can work out the details here.
My sense, by the way, is that we will do that. My sense is we will do
that by the end of the day. So on the sanctions bill, I hope it goes
forward.
Now I wish to move to something called a resolution. As we saw a
minute ago, Senator Reid talked about something not having the force of
law. We are not talking about the sanctions bill. It has the force of
law and, hopefully, will become law soon. What doesn't have the force
of law is S. Res. 380, and I ask unanimous consent to engage in a
colloquy, if I may, Mr. President, with the Senator from Connecticut
and the Senator from South Carolina.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. CORKER. Sometimes what happens around here, Mr. President--and it
happened in Libya, when we passed a resolution at 9 o'clock one night
by unanimous consent and somebody over at the State Department decided
that was an authorization for force. That was not the intent of that
resolution. Again, we are talking now about the resolution, not about
the sanctions bill.
I wish to engage in a colloquy with the cosponsors of S. Res. 380,
because there is a clause 6 in here that says:

. . . strongly supports United States policy to prevent the
government of the Islamic Republic of Iran from acquiring
nuclear weapons capability.

There are some wise people over at the State Department who could use
that statement as a declaration of war, and I think they acknowledge
that. But I don't think the authors of this resolution want that to be
the case. So I wish to clarify that in the resolution--not in the
sanctions bill--none of the language included in S. Res. 380 may be
interpreted as congressional support for military operations in Iran.
I hope that should the administration decide kinetic activities are
the only avenue available--we all hope that doesn't happen, but believe
it can--that if kinetic activities are the only option available to
achieve our policy objectives, they will come to Congress for
authorization. This is not intended as an authorization of war.
I think these two cosponsors of the resolution agree, and if the
President does want to go to war with Iran, it is his responsibility to
come to Congress. Is that the agreement, I ask my colleagues?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I am pleased to respond to my friend
from Tennessee. I am actually very glad he raises the question, because
I know at least one other Member of the Senate has similar concerns.
The interpretation of my friend from Tennessee of our intention in
this resolution is exactly right, which is that there is nothing in
this resolution that is intended to be an authorization for the use of
military force in Iran by the President or government, military, of the
United States of America.
This resolution's main focus is to essentially back up with a
congressional statement the position President Obama has articulated;
that no matter what happens, containment of a nuclear Iran is not an
acceptable policy from the point of view of the security of the United
States; that our policy is to prevent the government of the Islamic
Republic of Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability. That is
exactly why clause 6 was put in there, to say we do not accept
containment; that our policy is prevention of the Islamic Republic of
Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability.
But I want to be clear there is nothing in that language that Senator
Graham or I or Senator Casey see as the authorization of the use of
military force. If at any point circumstances in Iran require, in the
judgment of the Commander in Chief, military action, then I expect--
particularly if it lasts a period of time that would bring it within
the purview of the war powers understandings--the President would come
to Congress seeking explicit authorization for the use of military
force.
This resolution supports the negotiations going on now between the
P5+1 and Iran. It expresses our hope that it succeed so that the option
of military force is not necessary. It is very significant in that it
essentially says--and I will paraphrase it--we ought not to dial down
the economic sanctions against Iran just because they have come to the
table and maybe accepted one part of what we want them to do. They have
got to show they have made a commitment for a verifiable end of their
nuclear weapons program before we lift the economic sanctions. That is
the real goal. And if they do not, they will face our policy of
prevention, not containment. But this is not the authorization of the
use of military force.
I thank my friend from Tennessee for raising the question and giving
us the opportunity to respond, and I hope it reassures anyone else in
the Senate who may have had that same concern.
With that, I yield for my friend from South Carolina.
Mr. GRAHAM. Senator Corker asked a very good question, and I will
answer it directly, as Senator Lieberman did. The resolution is not
designed to authorize the use of force where anybody in the State
Department administration could say, we have the green light to go into
Iran from Congress. That is not what we are intending to do. We are
intending to echo a policy statement made by President Obama that the
policy of the United States will be--if you are listening in Tehran--
not to contain Iran if they obtain a nuclear capability.
I want to lodge an objection to my own resolution by my colleague
Rand Paul, who could not be here, so I am going to object on his
behalf. He wants to strike two provisions of the resolution, although I
don't think we can get there from here.
But in response to Senator Corker, if he wanted to add a line into
this resolution that it is not an authorization to use force, I will
gladly do that so that nobody can mistake that. But here is what
Senator Paul suggested to me. What if they get a nuclear weapon. You
know, we don't want to contain them. That is our policy. But what if we
wake up one day and they explode a bomb out in the desert and they have
already got it? What would we do then? Does that mean we would go after
their nuclear program or would we try to contain them? It means, from
my point of view, we should go after their program. So we have a
difference.
If the Iranians think they can sneak through and get a nuclear
weapon, and then we are going to contain them, it doesn't work that
way. They need to know their regime survival is at stake if they go
down this road. If by some accident of our intelligence being wrong--if
that could be even conceivable, which I think it could be given this
closed environment--they need to know we are not going to allow a
nuclear-capable Iran, period.
But to this resolution not being an authorization to use force, I
would say to Senator Menendez that this last statement--which wasn't in
the base bill--I don't object to that. This is not a declaration of
war. I don't know why someone added Syria. We are not talking about
Syria, but there are some people out there who want to limit the
ability of the United States sometimes to defend itself. I want to put
a sentence in your sanctions bill that all options are on the table, as
they have been for months, if not years.
Mr. CORKER. To sort of end this colloquy--and I know Senator McCain
and Senator Menendez wish to speak--I fully support every comment that
has been made by the Senators from Connecticut and South Carolina. I am
not associating myself with the comments of the Senator from Kentucky,
which the Senator from South Carolina alluded to.
I would love for the Senator from South Carolina to insert that
language into it, regarding the fact this is not an authorization for
the use of force. But I want to say that is not because I don't support
exactly the sentiments being laid out here. I do. I just want us to
continue. I want the Senate to be a part of any action that might take
place. Hopefully it won't. But if we end

[[Page S3257]]

up with kinetic activity, I want us involved in that so as a Nation we
go forward--if that occurs--in a unified way. What I don't want is for
us to end up where we have in the past, having partisan disputes.
With that, I yield the floor.
Mr. McCAIN. Would the Senator yield for a question?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
Mr. McCAIN. Isn't it true that the President of the United States
said that it was ``unacceptable'' for the Iranians to have a nuclear
weapon?
I have a series of questions.
Mr. GRAHAM. Yes.
Mr. McCAIN. So doesn't that mean the United States of America would
reserve all options in case of an unacceptable situation where the
Iranians continued--and we have seen no deviation from that path--
toward the acquisition of a nuclear weapon?
Mr. GRAHAM. The Senator is correct.
Here is what President Obama said: All options are on the table when
it comes to the Iranian nuclear program. Israel, I have your back.
Containment is not an option.
I agree with the President. I think he has made the right statements,
and I am just trying to reinforce them.
Mr. McCAIN. So isn't it true that we are having this debate about
whether this amendment or this legislation could be construed as an
authorization or opening the door for military action; that the
administration's policy is already very clear that it is unacceptable
for Iran to have a nuclear weapon? And I am sure that, over time, the
three of us could talk for a long time about the implications for the
entire region of Iran, not just the threat to Israel but the entire
region of an Iranian government which is, quote, going to wipe Israel
off the map, which then, of course, would force other nations in the
region to develop nuclear weapons.
Isn't it true that it has been a matter of national policy--both
Republican and Democratic--that it is unacceptable? And that does not
mean we automatically would use military force, but it does mean we
would have to react to the development on the part of the Iranians of a
nuclear weapon.
So this resolution we are considering is no different in any way--in
fact, it is less specific than what the President of the United States
has said and what I believe most every Member of the U.S. Senate is on
record one way or the other saying: that the development of a nuclear
weapon by Iran would be an unacceptable situation.
Mr. GRAHAM. Well, let me try to answer that.
Senator Menendez and a group of us--Senators Lieberman and Casey and
Hoeven and myself--did the resolution in question today to echo the
President's statement that we are not going to have containment as a
policy.
There are some people--even Republicans, I might add, some very
prominent Republicans--who believe you could contain a nuclear-armed
Iran if you told them: If you ever use a nuclear weapon, we would wipe
you off the face of the Earth.
President Clinton gave a very good answer to that situation. He said
that the biggest fear he has is not that the Iranians would put a
nuclear weapon on the top of a missile and hit Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv.
That is a concern. His biggest fear is that they would share the
technology with a terrorist organization. So that is why you can't ever
let them get this capability.
So the resolution is basically echoing the statement of the President
that containment is not an option. And it has 78 cosponsors.
Senator Paul has the right to object, and he did. I don't think we
can get there from here. I think he has a different view of what we are
trying to do--honestly held, a good man, just an honest difference of
opinion.
Back to the sanctions bill. Senator Menendez did a great job, as he
always does on things like this. The reason I found out about this and
got so concerned is that section 603 is something that wasn't in the
base bill. Again, it says: Nothing in this act or the amendments made
by this act shall be construed as a declaration of war or an
authorization for use of force against Iran or Syria.
One, nothing in here has anything to do with Syria, and I am OK with
saying that. I don't want this to be a declaration of war or an
authorization to use force; I want it to be a good sanctions bill. But
if you don't have the other means available to stop the Iranian
programs--as the President has indicated, all options on the table--
that has to be said because we would be leaving a gap in our policy.
So to Senator Menendez and Senator Reid, all I am asking is that we
insert a provision that basically echoes what the policy of this
country is--all options are on the table, not just sanctions. And we
will get a lot of votes for this.

=========================== NOTE ===========================

On page S3257, May 17, 2012, the Record reads: . . . So to
Senator Menendez and Senator Reed, all I am . . .

The online Record has been corrected to read: . . . So to
Senator Menendez and Senator Reid, all I am . . .

========================= END NOTE =========================

Mr. McCAIN. I know our friend Senator Menendez is going to speak, but
this is not any change in American policy toward Iran, both Republican
and Democratic, and that is that there is an existential threat to the
State of Israel and other countries in the region, other Arab countries
in the region, that would be posed if the Iranians continued on their
development of nuclear weapons.
So this resolution is an important statement on the part of the
Senate and Congress, but to somehow say this is a major change in
policy of any kind obviously flies in the face of the record of this
President and previous Presidents as regards this issue.
I also would like to thank the Senator from New Jersey for his
continued contributions to these national security issues.
Mr. GRAHAM. I would just close and yield the floor to Senator
Menendez. The Senator is right about the resolution. We are not coming
up with a new idea; we are just reinforcing an idea put on the table by
our own President--we are not going to contain a nuclear-capable Iran
as a policy. It is not a declaration of war. It is not authorization of
force. It is restating the policy at a time when it may matter.
Mr. McCAIN. And if there were a need for military action, it is the
view of all of us that we would come back to the Congress of the United
States before any such action were contemplated.
Mr. GRAHAM. Well, here is my view about that. I think the President
would be wise to include the Congress.
I am a conservative who thinks the War Powers Act is
unconstitutional. I find it odd that our party for all of these years
has railed against the War Powers Act until President Obama is in
office, and all of a sudden we are great champions of the War Powers
Act.
But what I would say is that it would be wise for the President to
consult with the Congress and for us to be united. And if you do
believe in the War Powers Act, he has to, within a period of time, come
back to get our approval to continue. I think whatever the President
needs to do to defend us against a nuclear-capable Iran is best made by
the Commander in Chief consulting with the Congress. But you can't have
535 commanders in chief.
Back to the sanctions bill. The problem I have is that it is silent
on a concept on which we all agree, and I don't want to create a
document before the negotiations Tuesday that doesn't include something
beyond sanctions to change the Iranian behavior that we all want to
avoid. And this says: It is the sense of the Congress that the goal of
compelling Iran to abandon efforts to acquire nuclear weapons
capability and other threatening activities can be effectively achieved
through--it goes through 10 pages talking about sanctions, and not once
does it mention the possibility of military force, and that is what I
want to add, that concept.
With that, I will yield the floor. I hope we can work this out.
To the Senator from New Jersey, I think he is a great guy, and I am
sorry we are having this problem. But it is very important to me that
we get this part of it right.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I appreciate the comments of both my
colleague from South Carolina and my colleague from Arizona. They are
leaders in this regard in terms of the national defense. And if I ever
had a case, I would want Senator Graham to argue it for me because he
is a fine lawyer. I have seen that on the floor and I have seen it in
his role as a reservist in part of, as I understand, the Judge Advocate
General program. So he does a fantastic job.
Let me make some observations that I think are critically important.

[[Page S3258]]

No. 1 is that I share Senator Graham's and Senator Lieberman's
concern and the desire to have the Senate on record as saying we do not
and cannot accept an Iran that has nuclear power and nuclear weapons.
That is why I signed on to their resolution. And I think their
resolution moving exactly in tandem, parallel with the sanctions
legislation that I played a significant role with the chairman of the
Banking Committee, Chairman Johnson, and others to bring to the floor
is incredibly important.
But let me make some observations.
First of all, in the committee itself, when it passed unanimously,
all of our colleagues on both sides of the aisle had the opportunity to
offer an amendment and/or language that would have done exactly what
the Senator wants, and no one on either side of the aisle sought to do
it because the focus was on the jurisdiction of the committee, which is
economic sanctions--economic sanctions that have proven in their first
iteration to begin to have real consequences to the Iranians: devaluing
the rial by over 50 percent; creating challenges in their economy;
closing the financial institutions they can deal with in the world;
looking at their oil, having major discounts on their oil and finding
it increasingly difficult to sell. And we have the opportunity to
perfect that, to make it even stronger, even more viable before they
head into negotiations and think they can buy time.
Now, it was silent when it came out of the Banking Committee. And,
yes, in the managers' amendment there is that provision because, in
fact, in order to deal with one of the objections of our colleague on
the other side of the aisle, Senator Paul, provisions saying that this
was not a direct military authorization were included so that we could
ultimately find the opportunity to pass it on the floor with unanimous
consent--the same unanimity the Banking Committee had, the same
unanimity we had when we passed the sanctions on the Central Bank of
Iran. That unanimity sends an incredibly strong and powerful message to
the Iranians.
So it was in the process of accommodating that Senator Reid talked
about over the last 2 months to try to get us to a point that we could
pass legislation, that in the process of accommodating that, that
language comes forward.
The concern is ultimately taken care of by Senator Lieberman and
Senator Graham's resolution; that, in fact, the President has said, as
the Commander in Chief of the country, that a nuclear-armed Iran is not
an option; that containment of a nuclear-powered Iran is not an option.
This President has put all of the military assets that are necessary
that did not exist before in the Persian Gulf to both respond to any
incident or to initiate any action he thinks may be necessary.
Therefore, those actions more than any words have made it very clear to
the Iranians that is a real possibility if the national interests and
security of the United States are ultimately challenged.
So I really think that insisting on the sanctions part of the
legislation, that has the full force and effect of law and real
consequences to the Iranians in their economy--which is the most
significant way that we undermine their march toward nuclear weapons--
is important to move, while you move independently the legislation that
Senator Lieberman and Senator Graham have talked about, which is making
the intentions or amplifying the intentions of the President crystal
clear. But you should not hold hostage the sanctions legislation in
order to accomplish a goal that should be taken care of by the
Lieberman-Graham resolution, and you shouldn't hold it hostage when, in
fact, you have a powerful tool to exercise before the next round of
negotiations.
The Iranians must know that we are one of purpose, and that oneness
comes by passing the sanctions unanimously through this Chamber and
achieving, ultimately, their effects.
So that is the only point of disagreement with us. Don't hold the
sanctions legislation hostage. None of our colleagues sought to include
that language. And the language that is included is in response to a
colleague from the other side of the aisle in order to be able to move
the legislation. So you can't have your cake and eat it too. But we do
need to have our ability to move the sanction before the Senate
adjourns this week, and I think that will meet our collective interests
as a nation.
There is only one piece of turf we should be fighting for; that is,
the collective turf that is our country. That is what we can do by
passing the sanctions legislation.
I hope Senator Reid will have the opportunity to clear the way and to
move it by unanimous consent and in doing so send a very powerful
message on behalf of the Senate.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask consent the Senator from
Delaware, Senator Coons, and I could have a colloquy for up to 15
minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Student Immigration

Mr. ALEXANDER. The Senator from Delaware is not yet on the floor but
I know he is coming. Because I know other Senators wish to speak at 2
o'clock, I am going to go ahead with my remarks. When he comes I will
let him go ahead with his.
Each year, approximately 50,000 foreign students receive advanced
degrees from universities in this country in the areas of science,
technology, engineering, and mathematics. We call those in shorthand
STEM degrees--science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
Of those 50,000 students, at least 17,000 go home to other parts of
the world. These are some of the brightest men and women in the world.
They are attracted to the best universities in the world. I always say
our universities, our great research universities especially, are our
secret weapons for job growth. Since World War II, many estimates by
the National Academy of Sciences suggest that more than half of our new
jobs have come from increases in technology. It is very hard to think
of any important new innovation in biology or in the sciences that has
not had some sort of government-sponsored research over that time. So
our research universities are job factories and our advanced degree
holders are the ones who come up with the great ideas.
As a former president of the University of Tennessee, which is a fine
research university, I know that increasingly in the science,
technology, engineering, and math programs in those universities many
of the students are from other countries. These students line up in
India and compete, hoping they will get a chance to come to the United
States. They have done the same in China. They do this everywhere in
the world. About 17,000 of those 50,000 who come for advanced degrees
go home each year.
Yesterday, Senator Coons and I introduced legislation that would help
those 17,000 students, and we hope more who may come, to come to the
United States, get their advanced degrees in science, technology,
engineering, and math, and then stay here and create jobs in our
country instead of going home and creating them in other countries.
I will have to admit there is a value to students who go home. It is
probably our best foreign diplomacy, to have someone come from another
country, live here, learn our values, go home and explain those at
home. But we want the next Google to be created here, not in China. We
want the brightest people in the world. If we are going to attract them
here and provide education for them, we want to give them every
opportunity to come here. And today we make them go home because of our
immigration policy.
The legislation Senator Coons and I introduced yesterday now has the
support already of at least two other Senators, Senator Lugar and
Senator Isakson, who have asked to cosponsor. It would, No. 1, create a
new student visa for citizens of other nations who want to come here
and pursue a master's or doctoral degree in science, technology,
engineering, and math. No. 2, once they get that degree, the new visa
created in this bill would allow them to remain here for 12 months, to
look for a job. And, No. 3, once they are employed, the bill
establishes a procedure to allow students to change their immigration
status and to receive a green card. Finally, these new green cards
would not count toward any existing green card limit.

[[Page S3259]]

This idea is not new. It has as much support outside of the Senate
Chamber as any idea I know about--from companies such as Microsoft,
which tells us they have 2,600 jobs available that require computer
science degrees that start at $104,000 a year. They would like to have
these students work here and create jobs for us. We know from our own
experience the importance of these green-card holders.
The Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, TN, is probably the
greatest engineering laboratory in the world. Who runs it? Dr. Jeffrey
Wadsworth ran it. He had a green card from the United Kingdom. Dr. Thom
Mason, who is there now, had a green card from Canada. Thomas Zacharia,
the current Deputy Director at ORNL and the father of supercomputing,
has a green card from India.
We want them here, not in India, not in the United Kingdom, not in
Canada.
I greatly appreciate the leadership of Senator Coons of Delaware on
this issue. He has worked hard on it. He has been a leader on it.
I only have one more thing to say about it before I step aside and
let him talk about his ideas. In 2005, we began to work on something
called the America COMPETES Act in this body. In 2007 we passed it. It
was sponsored by the Democratic leader and the Republican leader. It
had 35 Democratic sponsors and 35 Republican sponsors. It passed the
House. It was reauthorized last year. We asked the best minds in our
Nation to tell us what would be the 20 things we could do as a Congress
to make sure we are competitive in the future so that we can keep this
high standard of living we have come to enjoy. It is a very high
standard of living. We have about 5 percent of all the people in the
world. We have about 25 percent of all the wealth in the world that we
produce each year. How can we keep doing that?
They gave us these 20 ideas and we passed many of them. It is one of
the great successes of our Congress over the last several years,
working together. One piece of unfinished business from the America
COMPETES Act of 2005 and 2007 was to pin a green card on the foreign
student who gets a graduate degree in science, math, technology,or
engineering.
The legislation Senator Coons and I offered yesterday would do that.
I greatly value his leadership and his approach. I hope we can work
with our colleagues on both sides of the aisle to take this idea, turn
it into a law, and give our country more of an opportunity to create
new jobs as we move forward.
I already asked permission for the next 15 minutes that Senator Coons
and I would be in a colloquy. I wish to defer to him for his comments
at this time.
Mr. COONS. I thank very much Senator Alexander. I cannot think of a
better person to partner with, to seek advice and guidance and
leadership from, on the issue of STEM immigration and education reform
than Senator Alexander, a national leader on education policy. Like me,
Senator Alexander is the son of a former classroom teacher, but also
served as the U.S. Secretary of Education and president of a prominent
university, the University of Tennessee. He knows firsthand of the
challenges, of the opportunity lost when tens of thousands of foreign
nationals, who come here and seek the opportunity to get STEM master's
and doctoral degrees in some of our best universities, are then forced
to return home to their nation of origin rather than being able to stay
here, if they choose, to create jobs, grow businesses, and contribute
to our country and our economy.
As someone who, before running for public office, worked with a
highly motivated materials-based science company that employed over
1,000 researchers, I too have a sense of what great contributions
immigrants have always made to this country, but particularly in these
areas of innovation and how they can contribute to our competitiveness.
Senator Alexander's closing comments about the America Competes Act
is where we start this conversation. I came to this Senate knowing that
my predecessor from Delaware, Senator Kaufman, had been a strong
supporter of the America Competes Act, one of the few engineers to
serve in the modern Senate. I was happy to take up the cause and press
for its reauthorization in the waning days of the 111th Congress.
I met with Senator Alexander last year and we talked about this as
one of the most promising unfinished pieces of business in that
critical report, ``Rising Above The Gathering Storm,'' and in that
vital piece of legislation, the America Competes Act. As Senator
Alexander had referenced, the America Competes Act was passed with
strong bipartisan support. That was the sort of thing that was focused
on moving America forward by identifying strong ideas that had support
across the whole country and a lot of different sectors and from both
parties. It is my hope this is the beginning of building a strong
bipartisan coalition on moving forward on immigration reform.
Let me talk for a minute, if I could, about our history and tradition
of immigrants contributing to our country, being a strong part of job
creation and growth here, and in particular immigrants who come to this
country to be educated in STEM disciplines--science, technology,
engineering, and math.
If you think about it, for most of the last century we had some of
the strongest universities in the world. For much of the last 50 years,
anyone who came here from a foreign land to get a doctorate in a STEM
discipline, if they chose to go home, was going home to a country that
wasn't a competitive environment. The United States--because of our
advances in workforce and infrastructure and our legal system, our
entrepreneurial culture, our capital markets--was the world leader in
innovation and competitiveness. This is no longer the case. We still
have the strongest universities in the world, 35 out of the top 50, but
today those 17,000 STEM doctoral and master's graduates that Senator
Alexander referred to, when we force them to go home to their country
of origin rather than allowing them to compete for those jobs here and
contribute to the American economy, are finding open arms in nations
such as India and China, which are vigorous competitors. They are
providing the capital markets, the infrastructure and the workforce,
the resources to take advantage of those opportunities. We need an
immigration system that responds to the modern economy and the
opportunities of a highly competitive modern world. Rather than
hemorrhaging these highly skilled folks and having them return home, we
should give them an opportunity to participate in being job creators
here.
The numbers bear this out. If you take a look at the Fortune 500
companies today, more than 40 percent of them were founded by
immigrants or their children. Folks who had come to this country
recently from other parts of the world have established companies that
employ more than 10 million people worldwide and have combined revenues
of more than $4 trillion, a figure greater than the GDP of every
country in the world except the United States, China, and Japan.
Immigrant-founded startup companies created 450,000 jobs in the United
States in the last decade, and collectively they have generated more
than $50 billion in sales in a single year.
Let me give one example that has meant a lot to me. I became friends
with the founder of Bloom Energy, KR Sridhar. In his native India he
got his undergraduate degree, but he came to the United States to get
his doctorate in mechanical engineering and then went on to be a
researcher at NASA's Ames Center and made a critical invention in solid
oxide fuel cells. He runs Bloom Energy, which has already created 1,000
jobs. Last week the Governor of Delaware and my senior Senator, Tom
Carper, joined others at the site of a former shuttered Chrysler plant
for the groundbreaking of a facility that Bloom Energy will make
possible.
Why would we want a capable, bright contributor to our economy like
KR to be forced to go home to his country of India, rather than
welcoming him here and giving him a chance to participate, to
contribute, and potentially become not just an American business leader
but an American citizen? We need to make it easier for the next
generation of inventors and innovators to create jobs here.
This bill, as Senator Alexander has laid out, is relatively simple.
It creates a new class of visas for foreign students to pursue STEM
master's and doctoral

[[Page S3260]]

degree programs, and allows us to continue a conversation about how do
we recognize the longstanding central contribution to our economy, our
culture, and our country of immigrants.
I believe there are other areas of immigration reform that have to be
on the table, that we have to move forward on. I am eager to move
forward on family-focused reform and on other areas as well, where I am
a cosponsor of other immigration bills, but my hope is this legislation
will get the attention it deserves, will get the broad support from
Members of both sides of the aisle it deserves, and that it will form
part of a compromise that will address the needs of all the
stakeholders in immigration reform in a responsible and balanced
manner.
This legislation is not the end of the road, but it is a critical
step forward in making sure we continue a bipartisan, thoughtful, and
constructive dialog on how do we deal with an immigration system that
is broken and that doesn't make America as competitive as it could be.
If I could, I want to close by thanking Senator Alexander for his
leadership, for allowing me to work with him and to produce a bill that
is streamlined, that is simple, that is accessible, and that I think
can contribute to making America a land that continues to welcome and
celebrate the real job creators, inventors, and innovators from all
parts of the world.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, Senator Coons is one of the most
eloquent speakers we have in the Senate. He did a beautiful job in
explaining the bill. I hope it attracts support from both Republicans
and Democrats. He mentioned the fact there are other immigration
issues--and there are. There are a number of ones I wish to work on and
get something done. I was here when we tried to get a comprehensive
immigration plan a few years ago. It had strong bipartisan support, but
one of the lessons we learned in that effort was that we do not do
comprehensive well here in the Senate. Sometimes it is better to go
step by step. That has been true for a long time.
We remember Henry Clay as the Great Compromiser, but Henry Clay's
greatest compromise was not passed by Henry Clay. He failed. It nearly
ruined his health and he went to Massachusetts to recover from it. A
Senator named Stephen A. Douglas, from Illinois, the home of our
assistant Democratic leader, came to the floor and introduced the Clay
compromise section by section and each section passed with a different
coalition, with Senator Sam Houston being the only Senator who voted
for each one of them. So my hope is that with the broad support we have
for this very simple idea--pin a green card on the lapel of a gifted
graduate of an advanced program in science, technology, engineering,
and math, and allow them to stay here and create jobs here instead of
forcing them to go home--I hope we have such strong support for this
idea that we can go ahead and pass it, and then we can follow that up
with the other necessary steps we need to take on immigration, and
hopefully we can do that with a coalition that represents Democrats and
Republicans as well. This is a great idea.

Somebody might say: Well, why don't they just do it the way we do it
now? Right now, it is H 1B visas. As everyone who is an employer knows,
they are complicated, burdensome, and there are not enough of them.
This is simple. It is a new visa. They get it if they are admitted, and
they get to stay 12 months while they look for a job. If they get a
job, they get a green card, and there is no cap on the number, and that
is the idea.
I thank Senator Coons for his leadership. I look forward to turning
this good idea, this piece of unfinished business in the bipartisan
America COMPETES Act, into law.
Mr. COONS. In closing, I will just say that the economics of this
legislation are simple, but, as Senator Alexander and I recognize, any
step toward immigration reform is complicated. Making it easier for
foreign-born, American-educated innovators to stay in the United States
is just one aspect of many of the urgently needed steps to reform our
outdated immigration system.
I see that Senator Durbin has come to the floor. I am proud to
cosponsor the Dream Act. I also support the Uniting American Families
Act. There are other pieces of legislation that are essential to allow
us to recognize and to strengthen the role immigrants play in the
fabric of our country. I think this opportunity today to move forward
on a bipartisan bill that focuses on this one area without caps, with a
new class of immigration visa, is an important contribution to moving
this discussion forward for all of us.
I thank Senator Alexander.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Thank you, Mr. President.
I yield the floor.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in
morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sanders). Without objection, it is so
ordered.

Postal Reform

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, today the Postmaster General announced
that the Postal Service would begin the process of consolidating about
140 processing facilities around the country. Despite the harsh
realities of this announcement from the Postmaster General, there are a
few bright spots in Illinois.
The processing facilities in Springfield and Fox Valley, which the
Postmaster General had originally slated for closure, will remain open.
Additionally, I am glad that the Postmaster General has heeded our
calls to keep Illinois jobs in Illinois and other jobs in the States
where the processing facilities currently exist. The Postmaster
General's original plan would have potentially sent over 500 Illinois
postal jobs to surrounding States, along with the mail they have
processed so efficiently for so many years.
Beyond the postal employees, the Postal Service supports tens of
thousands of private sector jobs in Illinois, which is the center of
the mailing and printing industry.
Certainly, today's announcements are difficult for my constituents
who live in Quincy and Rockford, Carbondale and Centralia, Bloomington
and Effingham. I have consistently insisted--and the Postmaster General
assured me--that we are going to avoid layoffs and that all of the
employees in these facilities will have the opportunity to pursue
another role in the Postal Service or to accept, if they wish, early
retirement incentives. I am told none of these facilities will close
before the end of the year.
As I said, today's news is disappointing and difficult for many in my
State, including postal customers, postal employees, and small
businesses. Still, I think it is important to note how far we have come
from the Postmaster General's original plan to where we are today.
Originally he sought closure of 250 processing facilities nationwide--
today's announcement, 140--and called for the closure of 3,700 mostly
rural post offices.
In Illinois, the Postal Service originally targeted 9 plants for
closure which employ over 1,800 people. After countless hours of
meetings and hard work and a great deal of floor debate, we have moved
off the potentially destructive path.
Let me say this too, Mr. President. You know this subject better than
any other Member in the Senate. We met in my office with the Postmaster
General--I believe in November or early December--sat down with him and
said that his proposal to reduce the number of post offices and
processing facilities could be the death knell of postal service as we
know it today.
You will remember that we challenged them. We said: Mr. Postmaster
General, do not make any of these changes until May 15. Give Congress
an opportunity to come up with a way to save money for the Postal
Service, to preserve the Postal Service, and to do it by way of
legislation, which is why we were elected.
He reluctantly said he didn't want to do it. Reluctantly he gave us a
letter and said: I won't do anything until May 15. I will give the
House and the Senate a chance to do their work.
If you will remember, Mr. President, I called Senator Lieberman,
chairman of the administration committee--the government operations
committee, and said to him: With this jurisdiction, we have to roll up
our sleeves and get to work.
He said: We are ready. Senator Collins and I and Senator Carper and
others will work together to pass a Senate bill that achieves Postal
Service reform in a fairer way.

[[Page S3261]]

And he did.
The same day, I called Chairman Darrell Issa, the California
Republican chairman of the House committee with the responsibility for
the Postal Service. I said to Chairman Issa: We now have until May 15
to do our job, to pass a bill in the House and the Senate and get it to
the President, and now the clock is running.
Mr. President, you will remember that we had a break over the
holiday, and when we came back we were anxious. We didn't want to waste
any time. Let the record show that at the end of the day, the Senate,
on a bipartisan basis, passed the postal reform bill. Thirteen
Republicans joined 49 on the Democratic side and passed a bipartisan
bill.
Well, what happened in the House? The answer is nothing happened in
the House. The House of Representatives failed to do their job. They
failed to pass Postal Service reform. To my knowledge, they didn't
bring a bill to the floor. And then May 15 came. The Postmaster General
kept his word and waited, and then he made this announcement.
If the Senate bill that we passed had become the law of the land,
today's announcement would have never taken place. We set up a process
for post offices and processing facilities to be evaluated in terms of
their efficiency and costs that I think was sensible, reasonable, and
would have saved money. We didn't get to that point because the House
failed to act. That is the harsh reality of why we face what we do
today.

Only the Speaker of the House and his majority can explain why they
didn't accept the challenge to legislate. My question to them is, If
you are not here to legislate, why are you here? An issue of such
national importance as the future of the Postal Service should have
been done, as it was in the Senate, on a bipartisan basis in the House
of Representatives. We did it here. We worked together. I cannot even
remember how many amendments we considered, but we labored through
every single one of them and got it done.
Now I look around my State and see six or seven major processing
facilities closed, and it breaks my heart because what we did in the
Senate would have avoided some of those. It would have at least put a
process in place that was a lot fairer.
Well, my last word to the Members of the House is that it is not too
late. It is not too late to accept the responsibility and to pass the
Senate bill if you can't pass one of your own. Call our bipartisan
Senate postal reform bill to the floor. At least give it a vote in the
House of Representatives.
If they can pass it, let's send it to the President, and perhaps
before the end of the year we can actually save some of these postal
facilities.
I don't want to create false hope because I couldn't believe that May
15 would come and go and the House wouldn't act, but that is what
happened. So let's hope that changes for the better.
I am going to continue to work with the Presiding Officer as well as
the President of the United States and all of the committee members.
The Postal Service is something special.
I will close by saying this. When they ask Americans what they think
of people who work in the Federal Government, they don't always have
the highest opinion--including Members of Congress. But when you ask
them about what branch of the Federal Government they have particularly
positive feelings about, it is the Postal Service. You know why, and I
do too. It is that letter carrier who is looking in the window and
waving at your mom to make sure she is OK each day, and she looks
expectantly for the delivery of the mail even if it is just some
circular. That is that visitor each day who keeps her in touch with the
world and our Nation in touch with itself. That is the Postal Service.
I just went into the Springfield post office, my local branch,
recently, and they couldn't have been kinder or more courteous, helping
all the people who were there. Our postal employees are some of the
best Federal employees in America, and I am proud of what they have
done. I am sorry they are going through this change. It is not
something we wanted to see happen.
We are going to do this in a way that is good for the future of the
Postal Service. I hope the House will join us in this bipartisan
effort.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.

Student Loan Interest Rates

Mr. REED. Mr. President, I am joined by my colleague, Senator Brown
of Ohio. We are extraordinarily apprehensive that in 45 days the
interest rate on subsidized student loans will double in the United
States. Young people and middle-aged people who are struggling to
educate themselves and reeducate themselves will be faced with a
tremendous increase in the cost of college and postsecondary education.
The interest rate will go from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent. This is
particularly ironic when the Federal Reserve routinely lends to large
banking institutions huge sums of money at less than 1 percent. So this
is a huge impact on middle-income Americans who are struggling with so
many challenges: housing costs, employment problems--the whole plethora
of issues they face.
It is estimated that more than 7 million students, including 43,000
in Rhode Island, will suffer because of this doubling that will take
place. A lot of our colleagues have said: Of course we don't want to
see this happen. I thought it was terribly ironic yesterday that they,
with very few exceptions, voted consistently for budgets that would, in
fact, double the student interest rate. In fact, one of the budgets
they voted for previously, the Ryan budget from the House, would also
eliminate the in-school interest subsidies for certain loans. So there
is this incongruity between, oh, we are all for keeping interest rate
low for students, but, of course, in our budget we double it.
There is another problem, and it has been reported in so many
different national and local newspapers. There is a huge problem with
student debt. We have reached the $1 trillion mark in student debt.
This could be the next big, huge bubble we face financially. It
certainly impairs the ability of young men and women when they graduate
to go and take the job they want, to buy the house they want, because
they are struggling with huge debts, and we are adding to that by
doubling the interest rate.
This is a policy issue, but it is also an intensely personal issue. I
received letters from many constituents about the potential impact, and
I know Senator Brown from Ohio has as well. I wonder if the Senator has
some comments at this point.
Mr. BROWN of Ohio. I appreciate the work of the Senator from Rhode
Island and Senator Harkin. Of course, Senator Reed has been working on
this issue for months and months. I am still amazed that the Senate
refuses time and again and the House refuses to do the right thing.
This started back in 2007. It was bipartisan with President Bush,
with the Democratic House and the Democratic Senate. The Presiding
Officer was involved, Senator Reed and others, and we passed it. We did
a 5-year freeze of interest rates. Now the bipartisanship seems to have
gone, and repeatedly this body has either failed to step up or actually
voted no or voted wrong in some cases to move forward on this.
As Senator Reed has said, I, too, have tens of thousands of people--
380,000 Ohioans--who are now in the Stafford subsidized loan program.
It will mean about $1,000--as it will in Rhode Island--per student, per
year if we fail to act by July 1.
I have been at four campuses just in the last month or so. I have
been at a community college in Cleveland, the University of Cincinnati
at the other end of the State, Wright State University in Dayton, and
Ohio State University in Columbus. I saw students--one was from the
Young Republicans on one of the campuses and others are Democrats--
trying to find a way to pay their bills. They are working-class kids,
middle-class kids, poor kids--kids who want to find a way to get ahead.
We hear the same stories over and over, but let me just share one. On
my Web site people sign up and come to the Web site and tell their
stories. I will just share one of them. I know Senator Reed has been
hearing from people in Providence and Warwick and all over his State
also.
This comes from Dorothy in Mount Sterling, OH. She wants to be a
special ed teacher. Dorothy says:

[[Page S3262]]

I never thought that student loans would have such a huge
impact on my life. I am studying to be a special ed teacher.
I really want to make a difference so that our youngest
generations have an equal opportunity to succeed in life.
I rely on student loans to pay for my education and assist
me in times of need in this harsh economic climate.
Higher interest rates mean that I will never be able to
afford a home, a reliable vehicle. I will never be able to
provide for my family, and I will always feel in debt for
trying to make myself a better person and trying to be a
better citizen for our country and the State of Ohio.
If given the chance for a better job opportunity outside my
area of expertise, I would surely take it into great
consideration. I know that in the years to come, I will
desperately be looking to relieve myself from the cost of my
college education.
I feel like I have been punished for wanting an education
and wanting to better myself so that I can better the lives
of others. I just wanted to make a difference and I am
fighting against those who do not even realize what it means
to truly struggle.
Please don't stop fighting for me.

We can hear the desperation. We can hear the focus she has on
community service and public service, but we can also hear the view
that she is being undercut by decisions we are making--or not making.
She also said something else that was pretty interesting. When we
saddle these young people with loans, the average 4-year graduate in
Ohio has about $27,000 in debt. When we pile more on Dorothy or
somebody in Rhode Island or Vermont, it means they are less likely to
buy a house, less likely to start a business, less likely to start a
family. It is morally wrong to stand in their way or make it harder.
Think what it does to the economy too. I want people such as Dorothy
to get an education without huge debt, to buy a home, to begin to
provide and prosper and lift the whole community; people who are
productive workers and who care about the community. We have no
business taking that away from Dorothy and people like her and adding
to her debt. That is why we have to do this first.
Mr. REED. Mr. President, if I could reclaim my time, the Senator has
been a tremendous leader on this issue because he leads from the front.
He is in Ohio. He is talking to students and families. He understands
the personal ramifications that are involved.
Let there be no mistake. This is a program that benefits middle and
lower middle-income Americans. Nearly 60 percent of the dependent
students who qualify for subsidized loans come from families with
incomes of less than $60,000. This is not a perk for the superwealthy.
Nearly 70 percent of independent students--that is the term of art for
those adults or older people who may have some previous training but
they have to go back to the community college to get a certificate and
are trying to transition from a job that was shipped overseas to one
they think they can get here.
Nearly 70 percent of independent students borrowing these loans have
incomes of less than $30,000 a year. So we are talking about people who
cannot afford a doubling of the interest rate.
But there is another issue too. It is not just, as Senator Brown
pointed out, to fulfill legitimate and, in fact, admirable personal
ambitions of establishing oneself in a community by buying a home or
raising a family; this is about our future, our productivity as a
nation, our ability to compete in an incredibly difficult
international, global economy.
We have looked at the statistics at universities such as Georgetown
University. Their Center for Education and the Workforce said over 60
percent of the jobs by 2018--a few years from now--will require some
postsecondary education--60 percent. But in 2010, only 38 percent,
roughly, of working adults held a 2-year or 4-year degree. So we have
this gap, a 20-percentage point gap, between the skills we need through
postsecondary education and the skills we have. We hear not just from
analytical papers that are done by think tanks; we hear it every time
we go back to either Ohio or Rhode Island because employers come up to
us and say: I have jobs to fill, but I can't find people with the
skills, the training that I need to give them a job.
Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. REED. I am happy to yield.
Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Senator Jack Reed from Rhode Island is one of the
few graduates from West Point in this body and served his country in so
many ways and still does. But I think about Jack Reed when I think
about what happened with the GI Bill after World War II. We want to
help individual people with keeping these interest rates from doubling,
but we know when we help lots of individual people we help society as a
whole.
After World War II, literally millions of young men and women
returned from fighting for our country, came back to the United States,
and the government was farsighted enough in 1944 under President
Roosevelt, who signed the GI Bill, to prepare for this huge wash of
young men and women coming back from the war. We as a nation were smart
enough back 65, 70 years ago to help millions of those young men and
women one at a time with their education.
But here is what else it did: Those millions of students who
benefited from the GI Bill gave so much to society. Perhaps our best
times economically as a nation in the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s
came out of the GI Bill because when government helps in partnership to
give opportunity to thousands or hundreds of thousands or millions of
people, it also helps the country as a whole, and that is part of our
philosophy in public service in many ways.
So what these Stafford loans, these subsidized loans do, as do Pell
grants--and we are seeing efforts to cut Pell grants by the House of
Representatives too, which is just the stupidest thing ever in my mind
because I don't understand the way some of them think--but when we
provide opportunities for Stafford loans, subsidized loans, or Pell
grants, it is helping people such as Dorothy and people in Rhode Island
and Vermont. It is helping people in Mansfield and Toledo and Cleveland
and Garfield Heights. I think it is one of those things that is hard to
understand why we would not do this.

I wanted to ask Senator Reed a question, if I could. He explained on
the Senate floor one day how Republicans have said they are for this
now, that they don't want to double the interest rate--although I am
not sure of that from some of their activities. The Senator from Rhode
Island has talked about the way we want to pay for this versus the way
they want to pay for this.
I know the Senator talked about closing tax loopholes, and they
talked about sort of playing college students against women needing
mammograms by cutting health care--if the Senator could explain that to
my colleagues.
Mr. REED. I would be happy to, reclaiming my time. First, let me echo
what Senator Brown said, how this is about being competitive. When he
talked about the Pell grants, I have to reference my colleague and
predecessor, Claiborne Pell, because he seized on the lesson of the GI
Bill and said: Let's extend it broadly to college students. So Pell
grants, Stafford loans, all of those vehicles were created. Frankly, I
think that is not only the reason we have led the world and the Nation
in creativity, but it is the reason America, as well as--and probably
better than any other place in the world, was able to proliferate
computers and technology, et cetera, because we have a literate, well-
educated citizenry who first could invent these devices and then could
use them properly. We are in danger, if we don't continue to support
education, of losing our innovative edge and losing our capacity as a
people to adopt innovation and technology and to continue to lead. For
all of these reasons, our economic future is linked to continuing to
support higher education.
There is another point I wish to make before I talk about the way we
have proposed to pay for this; that is, there have been some on the
other side who say the problem is that tuition is going out of sight,
and we are contributing to those tuition hikes. Well, under the
subsidized loan program, the maximum borrowing is $23,000. So this is
not the driving force. Colleges have to recognize they have to rein in
costs, but this is not the driving force. This is the way so many
families are able to make it through college and make it into the
economy and move up the economic ladder.
But what our colleagues have said is they are all for preventing this
doubling. Of course, yesterday they voted consistently, with very few
exceptions,

[[Page S3263]]

to double the interest on Stafford loans. So what they say and what
they do sometimes are different.
But then they said the real dispute is how to pay for it. They want
to pay for it by going after the money in the prevention fund, which is
part of health care reform. But this prevention fund is absolutely
critical. As Senator Brown indicated, people need diagnostic tests.
They need to be able to go to a medical facility and get advice,
assistance, and tests so they can avoid problems. That is not only
sensible for the individual; that is the only way we are going to get a
handle on the proliferation of costs in the health care sector.
One of the ironies of our current health care system, pending the, we
hope, implementation of the affordable care act, is that we have
millions and millions of Americans who have no real access to health
care, no access to preventive care, no access to simple things such as
cheap pharmaceuticals to control cholesterol until they get to be 65
years old. Then they go into the doctor's office, and they have
Medicare. But their problems are so much more expensive.
I was speaking to ophthalmologists in my office, and they said: You
are absolutely right. We see people come in for the first time with
health care under Medicare who have serious problems such as diabetes
and glaucoma. If we had seen them 10 years ago--if a physician had
treated them--through a prescription or another very inexpensive
therapy, they could have avoided these tremendous costs. That is what
they are going after.
By the way, that is, to me, another middle-class program because,
frankly, if one is well off and well situated financially, one will get
all the preventive care one needs. It is those people who are
struggling in the middle class and moving into the middle class who
need this prevention fund.
So what we have proposed--is not to attack another benefit, or a
smart, wise, cost-effective approach to health care that would benefit
middle-income Americans--instead we are going after a tax dodge, plain
and simple. This is a tax dodge that has been called out by the
Government Accountability Office as something that has been used to
avoid over $23 billion in taxes on wages in 2003 and 2004--a huge gulf.
In 2005, Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration called
this loophole a ``multibillion employment tax shelter.''
Let me tell my colleagues how it works. An individual who is a
professional--a lawyer, an accountant, a consultant, a lobbyist--and
the skills of that individual represent what he or she does as a
lawyer, an accountant, et cetera. They are personal skills. But instead
of being paid by an employer directly, they substitute a subchapter S
corporation so they are now an employee of the corporation. They take a
minimum a salary, if you will, from the corporation, but then at the
end of the year, the corporation gives the individual the surplus as a
dividend, which is taxed much cheaper, so the person can avoid payroll
taxes. It is legal, but it is a tax dodge. It is a loophole.
This loophole is so egregious that conservative columnist Bob Novak
called it out, Sean Hannity of Fox News called it out, and the Wall
Street Journal called it out saying it is a simple way to avoid paying
payroll taxes, Medicare taxes, as well as other employment taxes.
Closing this loophole is sound policy. We should do this anyway. But
when we do it in conjunction with this student lending, we actually are
able to help struggling families and close an egregious loophole.
What some of our opponents have suggested is that this is just
another tax increase. We have been very careful. We restrict these to
professional endeavors. We also restrict the impact to those making
over $200,000 a year. So this is not targeted at the mom-and-pop
stores. This is not targeted at the local laundry or the local dry
goods store or the local hardware store that is organized as a
subchapter S. In fact, Politifact, one of the agencies that does
independent analyses of various claims, clearly rejected this
characterization as a tax increase on the mom-and-pop stores and on the
small business companies and the job generators as false. So we have
not only a sensible, but a compelling way to pay for this.
So everyone agrees we can't let this happen on July 1. We have an
egregious loophole that should be closed anyway to pay for it, and I
suggest we move on. Just, procedurally, let's bring this to a vote. If
they want to put up the prevention fund for a vote, if they want to put
up any other means to pay for it, fine.
Let's have our vote, and let's avoid the doubling of student loan
interest rates on July 1.
I know the Senator from Ohio has some comments.
Mr. BROWN of Ohio. I thank the Senator.
I appreciate that explanation because this is a tax loophole that
almost anybody who is fair-minded about this sees as a giveaway to
some. They call it the Newt Gingrich-John Edwards tax loophole, to be
bipartisan, where each of them benefited by tens of thousands of
dollars. Again, they did not cheat; they did not break the law. They
just took advantage of a tax loophole I would think everybody here
would want to close because most people play it straight.
Their income is their income. They pay the Medicare tax on it. This
is a case where they do not. We, I thought, believed in some fairness
in taxation. But back to the individual people who will benefit from
this. That is why Senator Reed is involved. That is why the Presiding
Officer and Senator Sanders, I know, care about this issue.
Let me share, in closing, one last letter. This came from Courtney in
Galloway, OH:

I, like many other students, always had a college savings
account. I remember putting birthday and holiday money in it
every year, and I always assumed that it would pay my way
through college.
Before I even made it to high school, though, my
grandmother fell gravely ill and my family had no other
choice but to use my college savings to pay for her hospital
bills, and eventually, the funeral.
Since then, paying for college has been my own
responsibility.
All the loans are in my name, and it is a burden that is
constantly hanging over my head. I am less than a year from
graduating--likely with honors--from The Ohio State
University with a degree in Social Work, but instead of being
excited and looking toward my future, I am constantly worried
about my loan debt and the possibility of rising interest
rates.

If I could interrupt the letter for a second, think about that. She
is about to graduate. She wants to serve the country. She wants to
serve her community. She clearly grew up with the right values--putting
money aside, not spending it on things she wanted to do--when she was
mowing lawns or babysitting or whatever she did in her teens, putting
money aside and then spending it on her grandmother's medical expenses,
and now she is worried.
Upon graduation--a wonderful moment in her life--she is anxious about
what this all means. In the life of a social worker, she is not going
to make a lot of money, obviously. That is what she wants to do. Yet
she is going to be facing these bills for years to come.
She said:

I know that, as a future Social Worker, I will be not
making as much money as people in other professions, but
helping others is where my heart lies.
Unfortunately, I may be limited in the positions I can take
if my interest rates increase.
Maybe even unable to work within the populations I am truly
interested in helping--veterans, the homeless, and senior
citizens if the pay would render me unable to pay off my
student loans.
I am very passionate about my education, and hold no
grudges . . . for what needed to be done, but the threat of
rising student loan interest rates has affected me in a very
serious way, and I feel as though it is something that I have
no control over, which is a very heartbreaking feeling.

She may not be able to pursue the public service she wants to do as a
social worker because her loan debt is so heavy. How dare people in
this body make a decision by inaction or make a decision by doing
nothing to heap more burden, put more debt on Courtney's shoulders. How
dare they and how shameful it is that we simply cannot get bipartisan
agreement--which we had 5 years ago with President Bush--to move
forward on this and close a tax loophole to pay for it.
Do not put Courtney up against somebody who needs an immunization or
a breast cancer screening or a prostate cancer screening. Close the tax
loopholes, move forward on this, take the anxiety off of Courtney and
others

[[Page S3264]]

as much as we can and do the right thing.
I yield.
Mr. REED. Reclaiming my time, again, let me thank the Senator from
Ohio for his leadership, for his passion, for his commitment. We are
hearing from the other side that this is just about how to pay for this
necessary legislation to prevent the doubling of the interest rate. We
have offered a compelling way to pay for it in terms of closing this
egregious loophole. They have, as Senator Brown indicated, once again,
put on the chopping block, if you will, preventive services for
families across this country and potentially the most sensible way to
begin to reduce our health care costs over time.
They have--when they have wanted to--completely ignored paying for
things such as tax cuts. We have seen that. Just recently the House
passed the so-called Small Business Tax Cut Act with no offsets. So to
literally hold these students hostage to their unwillingness to bring
the bill to the floor, to debate it vigorously--to vote on their
proposal to pay for it and to vote on our proposal to pay for it--is, I
think, unfortunate, if not unconscionable.
We have 45 days left.
With that, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.

PDMRA Program

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I rise today to urge my colleagues to
join me in passing a critical bill that keeps the faith with the men
and women of our Reserve Forces.
Representative Kline, a Republican Congressman from Minnesota, has
led this effort in the House. I am leading it in the Senate. It affects
troops from all over the country, a promise that was made to them that
must be kept.
My home State of Minnesota has no large Active-Duty bases, but we
have a long and proud tradition of military service in our National
Guard and our Reserves.
Throughout every military engagement since the Civil War--including
the two wars we have fought over the past decade--Minnesota's National
Guard members and reservists have served with courage and honor to
defend our Nation overseas.
In fact, it was a ragtag group of workers and farmers who signed up
for the precursor of the National Guard during the Civil War, who went
to the Battle of Gettysburg and had the highest percentage of
casualties of any unit in the Civil War. There is a big monument for
them honoring the fact that they had that high rate of casualties. In
fact, they held the line for troops to come in in the Civil War.
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have highlighted the importance of
our brave citizen soldiers across the country and the unprecedented
sacrifice they have been called upon to make. The National Guard and
Reserves were not built to serve as an active-duty force for prolonged
periods. Yet at times as many as 40 percent of the American forces
fighting in these wars have been Guard and Reserve troops. I say to the
Presiding Officer, I know you know that, being from Vermont, where you
have many National Guard troops who have served our country.

Just last month, about 3,000 members of Minnesota's National Guard
First Brigade Combat Team--our Red Bulls--returned home from a year of
service in Kuwait assisting the drawdown in Iraq. Some of these men and
women were not serving for their first, second, or third time. I met
these soldiers. Some of them were serving for their fourth time, for
their fifth time, some even for their sixth time.
The repeated mobilizations and overseas deployments of Guard and
Reserve units have profoundly affected families and communities in
Minnesota and across the Nation. That is part of the reason we pushed
so hard to bring those troops home from Iraq. That is also why, in
2007, in recognition of the extraordinary sacrifices our servicemembers
and their families have made, the Department of Defense created the
Post Deployment/Mobilization Respite Absence--or PDMRA, as it is
called--Program.
The PDMRA Program awards extra leave days to servicemembers who
deploy beyond the standard rotation cycle. The motivation is simple:
Troops who serve multiple deployments above and beyond the call of
duty--who are basically being deployed as Active Duty even though they
are not; folks who have raised their hands and stepped forward time and
time again to volunteer and support our country--deserve leave time at
home with their families as some compensation.
When they signed up to serve, there was not a waiting line. When they
come home to the United States of America and they need a job or they
need health care or they need an education or they want some time with
their families, they should have that.
Well, one can imagine the concern the Red Bulls felt and I felt too
when we learned all of a sudden the leave benefits our troops were
promised under the program were being reduced as they were serving
overseas. They were promised one thing when they left, and the program
changed when they were gone.
Here is what happened. Until last fall, members of the Reserve
Component who served more than 1 year out of 6 could be awarded up to 4
extra PDMRA leave days for each extra month of service. Then on
September 30, 2011, the Defense Department changed the policy, reducing
the 4 days down to 1 or 2, depending on the location of service.
But here is the problem: Instead of grandfathering in the troops who
had been promised the 4 days of leave under the old policy, the Defense
Department implemented the change immediately, applying it to all
troops on the ground.
I can understand having a new policy, I really can. But do not do it
to the troops who have already been promised one thing. That meant in
the middle of their deployment, 49,000 reservists deployed around the
world, who had been promised up to 4 days of leave for their service
each month and who had earned that leave, were told, with little
warning, that the days they were promised under the PDMRA Program were
going to be cut, starting October 1, 2011.
Well, as you can imagine, this was a real setback for our troops, and
for many reasons. First of all, it means they would get less time at
home with their families, whom they have not seen--their kids, their
spouses, their parents.
Second, it means our troops and their families are forced to cope
with unexpected financial challenges as their leave benefits are cut
without warning.
Finally, the change has meant that our reservists--who, unlike the
Active Component, do not necessarily have a job to come back to when
they separate from duty--are faced with an increased and unexpected
urgency to find employment.
Well, our economy is on the mend, it is stable, but we are still
seeing, as the Presiding Officer knows, record numbers of unemployment
among our veterans of the past two wars. Now is not the time to cut the
leave benefits of people who have been promised the leave and push them
out to find their own way.
When the men and women of our armed services signed up, they did it
for the right reasons. They are patriotic. They put their lives on the
line for our country. The least we can do is keep the promises we made.
That is why my colleague in the House of Representatives, Congressman
John Kline--himself a decorated veteran--and I introduced legislation
that makes a simple fix to this program.
Our bill does not reverse the new policy change that the Department
heads made after careful review of the program. Our bill simply
grandfathers troops deployed under the old policy so they receive the
leave benefits they were promised.
I want to take a few moments to share just a few key points about
this bill.
First, it has bipartisan support in both the Senate and the House of
Representatives. In fact, it passed in the House on Tuesday night with
the support of all Representatives.
Second, the cost of this bill is fully offset. No new spending is
created in this bill.
Finally, this bill is now supported by Secretary Panetta himself. It
is supported by the Department of Defense, after they realized what the
effect of this policy would have if troops were not grandfathered in.
This is a country that believes in patriotism, and patriotism means
wrapping our arms around those who have served and sacrificed for our
country. I

[[Page S3265]]

think all of my colleagues here today agree that nobody needs and
deserves our support more than the men and women who have offered their
lives in defense of our Nation.
For 10 years, the men and women of our National Guard and Reserves
have done their duty. Now I believe it is for us in Congress to do our
own duty to make sure our troops receive the benefits they are due.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Shaheen). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, I have high hopes that in the days
immediately ahead the Senate will proceed to the consideration of the
Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act of 2012.
I am pleased to report to my colleagues that the Health, Education,
Labor, and Pensions Committee has produced an excellent bill, the
product of nearly a full year of bipartisan collaboration and good-
faith negotiation. The bill reauthorizes critically important FDA user-
fee agreements and systematically modernizes FDA's medical product
authority to help boost American innovation and ensure that patients
have access to the therapies they need.
In this era of often extreme partisanship and legislative gridlock,
this bill is truly a refreshing exception. That is why I am hopeful and
confident that there will be no objection on the Senate floor to moving
to this bill next week.
Frankly, all of us on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions
Committee are proud not only of the bill but of the remarkable
bipartisan process that produced it. I am especially grateful to the
committee's ranking member, Senator Mike Enzi, for his own insistence
on a bipartisan process, and for his leadership in moving this very
complex legislation forward.
This afternoon I will review the bipartisan process--at every step
marked by openness and transparency--that produced this legislation.
More than 1 year ago, beginning in early 2011 for some issues, my
office and the office of Ranking Member Enzi convened six bipartisan
HELP Committee working groups. Each working group was tasked with
developing consensus policy proposals on key issues, such as drug
shortages and the integrity of the drug supply chain.
These bipartisan working groups met weekly and, in many cases,
biweekly, over the whole course of 2011, discussing and developing
draft consensus proposals.
While this consensus process was ongoing, my staff would often meet
many times a week with staffers representing both Democratic and
Republican members of the HELP Committee.
As I said, every single working group was bipartisan, and staff from
my office worked closely with Senator Enzi's office to solicit
priorities from other members of the committee. In many cases, we
invited all HELP offices to join the groups.
We even invited staff of noncommittee Members who have been leaders
in a particular policy area to join the groups. For example, our
bipartisan drug shortage working group had staff members from 18 Senate
offices, including the staffers for two Senators who are not even
members of the committee.
While developing the consensus drafts, each of these bipartisan
working groups met with key stakeholders throughout the year to solicit
their input. For example, the drug supply chain integrity working group
met with more than 40 stakeholders over a period of 9 months.
In addition to the working group meetings, beginning in late 2011, my
staff met twice a week for almost 18 weeks with all Democratic HELP
offices to brief them on the reauthorization process and update them on
the progress of all of the policy proposals.
To further engage committee members, the administration,
stakeholders, and the public, we held a total of five full committee
hearings on the user-fee reauthorization over the last year. After our
first public hearing in July of 2011, we held three hearings on
distinct policy issues surrounding user fees, as well as a hearing on
the actual user-fee agreements.
As a result of the excellent work of these bipartisan working groups,
in March of this year my staff and Ranking Member Enzi's staff released
five bipartisan consensus drafts and solicited further stakeholder
input. Bipartisan staff conducted stakeholder briefings on the release
of each draft, and the drafts were available on the HELP Web site for
more than 3 weeks prior to markup.
In response to the five discussion drafts released to the public, our
staffs received more than 160 comments and held more than 30
stakeholder meetings on a bipartisan basis over 3\1/2\ weeks.
Bipartisan staff worked to incorporate stakeholder feedback into the
drafts, and then the committee publicly released a managers' package on
Wednesday, April 18, 1 week before markup.
On April 25 of this year, the committee met to consider the bill.
Committee members voted nearly unanimously, by voice vote, to send the
bill to the full Senate.
As I said, this entire process has been a model of bipartisanship,
openness, and transparency. Believe me, it was tough to achieve
consensus on many of the complex and controversial provisions in the
bill. At every step, it required difficult and sometimes painful
compromise. Even as the committee chair, I did not get some of my
highest priority proposals, since I could not get consensus among
members and stakeholders.
Compromise and sometimes sacrifice were essential. I was acutely
aware, as were other members of the committee, that it is imperative
that we pass the user-fee agreements in this bill. We were determined
not to allow partisanship to slow this package down or to jeopardize
our goal of consensus.
As I said, the end result is an excellent bill. In addition to
authorizing the critically important FDA user-fee agreements, this
legislation makes it possible for the FDA to keep pace with the ever-
changing biomedical landscape.
Here are some of the major provisions of the FDA Safety and
Innovation Act, which will be on the floor next week:
It authorizes key user-fee agreements to ensure timely approval of
medical products. It streamlines the device approval process, while
enhancing patient protections. It modernizes FDA's goal of drug supply
chain authority. We spur innovation and incentives for drug development
for life-threatening conditions. The bill reauthorizes and improves
incentives for pediatric trials. It helps prevent and mitigate drug
shortages. It increases FDA's accountability and transparency.
With this bipartisan bill, I think we have a bill, I hope, we can all
support and that we can move forward on expeditiously. Neither
Democrats nor Republicans got everything they wanted. On every issue,
we sought consensus. Where we could not achieve consensus, we didn't
allow our differences to deflect us from the critically important goal
of producing a bill that everybody could support. As a result, this is
a truly bipartisan bill, and it is broadly supported by the patient
groups and industry.

This is the chart showing over 100 different associations and groups,
patient groups, consumer groups, pharmaceutical groups, and research
organizations all over America that have come out in support of this
legislation. So everyone from the pharmaceutical industry, your
drugstores, research institutions, and consumer organizations have all
now supported this bill to reauthorize our user-fee agreements.
I am also very pleased that today the Obama administration issued an
official statement of administration policy asserting that ``the
administration strongly supports passage of S. 3187.''
Lastly, I will mention that the CBO scored the bill as fully paid for
and estimates that the legislation would reduce the deficit by $363
million over the next 10 years. Again, not only are we enhancing
patients' rights and protections, we are ensuring better integrity for
the drug supply chain. As we know, more than 80 percent of the products
that go into our drugs manufactured in this country come from

[[Page S3266]]

abroad. There have been many stories written, and many television
investigative stories included, on problems in that drug supply chain.
Well, this bill enhances our ability to ensure the integrity of that
drug supply chain from where they get the raw materials to where they
put it together in this country.
This bill, as I said, not only does good for our patients, we enhance
FDA's authority to streamline and make sure that we bring drugs to
market in more rapid order. We save $363 million over 10 years doing
it.
I look forward to bringing the FDA Safety and Innovation Act to the
floor in a few days. The House has had a similar bipartisan process,
and they are also scheduled to take up their version of the bill next
week. If the Senate acts quickly, I am confident we can go to
conference and get a final bill on the President's desk this summer.
To that end, I am hopeful and confident we can move without objection
to consideration of the bill. It is important that we do so. This is
absolutely must-pass legislation. It is critically important to the
FDA, to the industry, and to our patients to get this done.
I urge all of my colleagues to join in the bipartisan spirit of
cooperation we have engineered and witnessed in the HELP Committee over
the last year. Let us come together, Democrats and Republicans alike,
and get this legislation on the floor and pass it because of its
critical importance to the American people.
With that, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Global Warming

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I ask that I be recognized for up to 15
minutes as if in morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, today I want to expose a far-left
environmental agenda that is being imposed upon the Department of
Defense by President Obama and a lot of his allies, and it comes at the
same time that the Obama administration is focusing on dramatically
reduced cuts in the military.
As ranking member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public
Works, and as a senior member of the Armed Services Committee, stopping
the radical global warming agenda, as well as President Obama's
devastating cuts to our military, have been my top priorities, and that
is all I have been talking about for the last couple of months. I have
had a growing concern about how President Obama's global warming agenda
is harming our military, but the remarks recently made by Secretary
Panetta have led me to come and make a few statements.
First, let me say this about Secretary Panetta: I served with him for
5 years in the House, and a number of years ago he and I became very
close friends. In fact, I rejoiced when he was nominated and we
confirmed him as Secretary of Defense. So I was extremely disappointed
to see that he was wasting his valuable time perpetrating the
President's global warming fantasies and his war on affordable energy,
which occurred, no less, at a gathering of radical environmentalists.
That is where the statement was made. Secretary Panetta said:

In the 21st century, reality is that there are
environmental threats that constitute threats to our national
security.

He also vowed that the Pentagon would take a leading role in shifting
the way the United States uses its energy. Every talking point
Secretary Panetta used in his speech, from rising sea levels to severe
droughts to the so-called plight of the polar bear, all of these--I
will not go into them one at a time--these all came out of Al Gore's
science fiction movie, and they have all been totally rebuked.
In reality, it is President Obama's war on affordable energy that is
having a dramatic impact on our national security, a war that is
further depleting an already stretched military budget and putting our
troops at risk.
Secretary Panetta made another revealing statement in justifying the
President's green agenda. This was about two editions ago in the Hill
magazine:

As oil prices continue to skyrocket, the department `now
[faces] a shortfall exceeding $3 billion of higher-than-
expected fuel costs this year,' according to Panetta. In
order to dig its way out of that financial hole, DOD has no
choice but to look to alternative fuel technologies. Pentagon
officials plan to invest more than $1 billion into developing
those technologies in fiscal year 2013.

I might add, that is $1 billion that would otherwise be spent on
defending America. That is right, energy prices have skyrocketed, we
understand that--precisely because of the politics of this
administration. Remember, they have openly admitted this.
Secretary of Energy Steven Chu said:

[S]omehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of
gasoline to the levels in Europe.

We all know why he made that statement. That was way back in 2008.
It was Obama's statement that said under his cap and trade--which is
what they have been talking about--``electricity prices would
necessarily skyrocket.''
Now, because domestic energy prices have skyrocketed under his
administration, just as they wanted them to do, Secretary Panetta wants
the military to go green. Instead of spending scarce resources greening
the military, the commonsense solution is simple--to begin developing
our own vast supply of energy resources.
Secretary Panetta's comments came just 2 weeks before the Senate
Armed Services Committee is to begin the markup of this coming year's
Defense authorization bill. So I will be taking this opportunity to
work with my colleagues on the committee to put the spotlight on
President Obama's forcing his costly green agenda on the Department of
Defense while he is taking down the budget for the defense. I look
forward to introducing a number of amendments that will put a stop to
this nonsense and help ensure that Secretary Panetta has the tools he
needs. I can assure you--because I know him well--this is a script this
came off of.
As part of that effort, I am also releasing a document put together
by the Congressional Research Service that puts a pricetag on how much
the Federal Government provides global warming policies, and I will be
discussing this.
With President Obama running for reelection and pretending to be for
an ``all of the above'' energy approach, Secretary Panetta's comments
are surprising. But they are still also illuminating. President
Panetta's commitment of $1 billion for alternative fuels makes clear
that despite the President's recent change in rhetoric for his
reelection campaign, he remains fully determined to implement his all-
out attack on traditional American energy development, and the military
is one place where he can force that experiment. We are talking about a
green experiment using our military.
To show just how egregious this whole thing is, let me spend just a
second documenting how badly President Obama wants to take down the
military for the benefit of his green agenda. Over the past 4 years,
DOD has been forced to drastically cut its personnel, the number of
brigade combat teams, tactical fighters, and airlift capabilities. It
is eliminating or postponing programs such as the C 27, the Global Hawk
Block 30, the C 130 avionics modernization package, which we
desperately need, and the advancement of the F 35. These are programs
we have had on the drawing board, and it is very important we carry
these through to fruition.
Even more concerning, these cuts could go even deeper. Because the
subcommittee failed to report legislation last fall--and we all
remember this--that would have reduced the deficit by at least $1.2
trillion over the next 10 years, the Pentagon's budget could be cut by
an additional $495 billion between 2013 and 2021. That is very
interesting because during that period of time we are talking about two
things--not just degrading the military, but over the next 10 years
taking $\1/2\ trillion out. If sequestration should come in that would
be another $\1/2\ trillion, and everyone realizes that would be
devastating to the military.

Secretary Panetta has rightly warned us that such drastic cuts would
be a threat to national security. He said:

[[Page S3267]]

Unfortunately, while large cuts are being imposed, the
threats to national security would not be reduced. As a
result, we would have to formulate a new security strategy
that accepted substantial risk of not meeting our defense
needs. A sequestration budget is not one I could recommend.

That is a quote by Secretary Panetta.
General Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, weighed in
also and said:

The impact of the sequestration is not only in its
magnitude. It's in what it does . . . we lose control. And as
we lose control, we will become out of balance, and we will
not have the military this nation needs.

When they talk about accepting risk, we are talking about lives. That
is what that means; risk equals lives. What are you willing to do for
this green agenda?
The remarks by the top DOD officials make Panetta's recent global
warming speech at odds with solving our military's budget problems.
Even as Secretary Panetta expresses concern about the impact of these
cuts on national security, he is openly supporting President Obama's
forcing DOD to expend large amounts of scarce resources on expensive
alternative fuels. This doesn't make any sense, and that is why I
believe Secretary Panetta's global warming remarks were written by
someone in the White House to appease the radical left and not
Secretary Panetta. I am absolutely convinced of that. After seeing how
severe these cuts to DOD would be, how could anyone justify this so-
called greening of the military?
Consider, for example, the Navy's plan to sail its Green Fleet, a
strike group powered by alternative fuels, by 2016. The success of this
Green Fleet is predicated upon biofuel--much of it algae based--
becoming practical and affordable. So they are assuming that is going
to happen, which I don't think it is going to happen.
In 2009 the Department of the Navy paid $424 a gallon for 20,000
gallons of biodiesel made from algae, which would set a record for all-
time cost of fuel. That is per gallon--and that is when it was on the
market for $4 a gallon--and it is $424 a gallon.
In December 2011 the Navy purchased 450,000 gallons of biofuel for
$12 million, which works out to be about $26 a gallon. This purchase is
part of a larger deal in which the Navy has pledged taxpayer funds of
$170 million as their share of a $510 million effort to construct or
retrofit biofuel refineries in order to create a commercially viable
market. This biofuel will be mixed with conventional fuels by a 50 50
ratio to yield a blend that will cost roughly $15 a gallon--roughly
four times what we should have to be spending.
Keep in mind this is at the same time we are rejecting systems that
were in our plans, and have been for a long period. And as if the
services are not already stressed by serious budget cuts, the Secretary
of the Navy also directed the Navy and Marine Corps to produce or
consume one gigawatt of new renewable energy to power naval
installations across the country.
Everyone agrees energy efficiency in the military is a worthy goal.
In fact, I have been a strong supporter of the DOD's alternative energy
solutions that are affordable and make sense, including the initiatives
on nonalgae biofuels and natural gas. In fact, in my State of Oklahoma
we are working, through the major universities and the Noble Foundation
and others to take that leadership role. But forcing our military to
take money away from core programs in order to invest in unproven
technologies as part of a failed cap-and-trade agenda is not only
wrong, it is reckless.
I am not alone in saying this. My good friend, Senator McCain agrees
with me on this point. Just last month Senator McCain criticized
earmarks for alternative energy research in the Defense appropriations
bill which cost the taxpayers $120 million. Senator McCain said:

We're talking about cutting the Army by 100,000 people, the
Marines by 80,000 people, and yet we now have our armed
services in the business of advanced alternative energy
research? The role of the armed forces in the United States
is not to engage in energy research. The job of energy
research should be in the Energy Department, not taking it
out of Defense Department funds.

That is where it belongs, and I agree with Senator McCain's
statement.
The CRS report is significant. Largely due to my concern about green
spending in the military, I recently asked the CRS to figure out how
much money--how much of taxpayers' dollars--is actually being used to
advance the green agenda. The amount came out that since 2008, $68.4
billion has been used to advance a green agenda.
Just to name a few options, if we didn't do that, we could add $12.1
billion to maintain DOD procurement at fiscal levels of 2012 and allow
our military to continue to modernize its fleet of ships, its aircraft,
and its ground vehicles. We could avoid a delay in the Ohio-Class
Ballistic Missile Submarine Replacement Program, and it goes on and on,
which I will have as a part of the Record.
Instead of funding these priorities, the Department of Defense has
been forced to spend valuable resources on research relating to climate
change and renewable energy.
In the stimulus package, each branch of the Armed Services and the
Pentagon itself was given $75 million, for a total of $300 million, to
research, develop, test, and evaluate projects that advance energy-
efficiency programs. In total, since 2008, DOD has spent at least $4
billion on climate change and energy-efficient activities. The same $4
billion could have been used to purchase 30 brandnew F 35 Joint Strike
Fighters, 28 new F 22 Raptors, or completely pay for the C 130 Aviation
Modernization Program that we have been working on for a long period of
time.
Now, just for a minute I will turn to the argument that President
Obama and the far left have been using to justify this mission to go
green. They always say we need a transition away from fossil fuels. One
thing we do know--and it is a fact, and I don't think there is anyone
out there who is disagreeing or arguing with this--we have more
recoverable reserves in oil, gas, and coal than any other country in
the world. When you stop and think what we have been talking about on
this war that this administration has had on fossil fuels, it has been
that on domestic energy.

One thing, if people understand, there is not a person in this body
or anyone else I have found in America who did not learn back in
elementary school days about supply and demand. We have all this vast
supply but the government will not let us develop our own supply. It is
ludicrous. We are the only country in the world where that is a
problem.
In addition to the fact that we cannot use our resources, develop our
own resources, we keep hearing over and over what people are saying: If
we were to even open our public lands to development, to drilling and
to producing, it would take 10 years before that would reach the pump.
I know my time is real short here so I am having to shortcut this,
but I am talking to one of the top guys producing today, Harold Hamm.
He is from Oklahoma. He actually is up in North Dakota right now and he
is doing incredible things, developing shale and developing gas and oil
to run this country.
I asked him a question. I said: I am going to use your name in
quoting. How long would it take, if you were set up in New Mexico and
all of sudden they would lift the ban, in order for that to reach the
pump? Do you know what his answer was? He said: Seventy days. It would
take 2 months to get the first barrel of oil up and then 10 days to go
through the refining process and reach the pumps.
It is supply and demand. We have that. We should not be using our
military to advance the green agenda by this President.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.

Order of Procedure

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. May I interrupt for 1 moment?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I wanted to confirm the order of proceeding would be
Senator Franken is going to speak and then I will speak for a few
moments after Senator Franken. I know the Presiding Officer is to be
excused very shortly.
Mr. FRANKEN. The Senator wishes to speak now?
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I ask consent I follow Senator Franken. We will see
to it the Presiding Officer is relieved timely, at 4 o'clock.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

[[Page S3268]]

Student Loan Interest Rates

Mr. FRANKEN. Madam President, last week my colleagues on the other
side of the aisle blocked a vote that would have eased the burden of
debt for millions of college students in Minnesota and across the
country. My Republican friends disagreed with us about the best way to
pay for this legislation, so a minority of Senators kept us from
helping millions of families and taking a step toward keeping our
Nation's workforce globally competitive. But this debate is not just
about helping students pay for college. I want to talk a little bit
about the two competing proposals to pay for this critical legislation.
I wish to talk about our national priorities and our national values.
On one side, the Democratic proposal would close a loophole that
allows some of the wealthiest Americans to avoid paying taxes they
should owe to the Federal Government. This fix, our fix, would only
apply to Americans making over $250,000 a year and would not create any
new taxes on businesses or individuals. It would close a loophole that
allows high-income people to get out of paying taxes everyone else in
America is already expected to pay. This is what it is.
You see, some people making a lot of money talk to their accountants
and tax lawyers who have figured out that the law was written in such a
way that you could use an S corporation to get around paying some of
your payroll taxes. Payroll taxes are your Social Security taxes and
your Medicare taxes.
S corporations are basically a passthrough. Whatever profits your
company makes, you at the end of the year pass it through to you and
claim it as income--and you pay regular income taxes on it. It is
income. But although the law was never intended to allow this, this is
the loophole: You can pay yourself an artificially low amount of money
sometime earlier in the year and call that a salary, say, $40,000. Thus
you will pay enough to qualify for Social Security later when you
retire. You will only pay FICA on this amount. But then at the end of
the year you take the rest of the business's profits as income.
Remember, this is considered income--but you do not pay FICA taxes on
the amount. That is the loophole. You still pay income tax on it
because it is income but, because of an accident in the way the law is
written--this was not intended--you avoid paying FICA taxes on the part
you did not initially call salary.
All of the money you pocketed, both the so-called salary and the
profit at the end of the year, again, is income. It is income. It is
not capital gains so you should be paying, like everybody else,
Medicare taxes on all of it and Social Security taxes on income up to
$110,000, like everyone else. There is simply no excuse, no reason for
not paying taxes, paying your FICA taxes on the $110,000 Social
Security, and all the rest for Medicare, except for an anomaly that was
accidentally written into the Code.
This is exactly the type of loophole we should be closing. It is not
something that Congress created intentionally, for a reason--to help
people buy homes or to encourage investment in research and
development. There is no reason this loophole exists. There is no
purpose to it. There is no reason to keep it there.
The Democratic legislation would close that loophole for those
individuals making more than $250,000 in a year and we would use that
savings to prevent the doubling of interest that students pay on
Stafford subsidized loans.

By contrast, the Republican proposal which passed the House a few
weeks ago, would eliminate the Prevention and Public Health Fund, which
is our national investment in preventive health care. This proposal
would undermine the health of our Nation by cutting funding for cancer
screenings, child immunizations, and diabetes prevention, among others.
It would be fiscally irresponsible to boot, since according to a study
for the Trust for America's Health, every dollar invested in proven
community-based disease prevention programs yields a return of $5.60.
My home State of Minnesota leads the country when it comes to
providing high-quality low-cost health care. When I was elected to
represent the people of Minnesota, I put together a series of
roundtables with experts around Minnesota to learn more about our
health care system. I heard the same thing from leading national
experts at the Mayo Clinic, the University of Minnesota, from
providers, from doctors and people in public health and rural health,
insurance--everyone said the same thing: An ounce of prevention is
worth a pound of cure.
There is no question that if we catch cancer early the patient will
be much more likely to make a full recovery. If every child has access
to immunizations, we will prevent outbreaks of infectious diseases and
our kids will grow up stronger and healthier. And if we can prevent
someone from getting diabetes they will be healthier than if we wait
until they have it and then treat them for the rest of their lives.
Not only will people be healthier if we prevent disease but we will
save a lot of money too. That is why the health care law included the
Prevention and Public Health Fund. The fund already is investing in
community-based programs such as the diabetes prevention program, a
program that Dick Lugar and I fought to include in the health care law.
This program was pilot-tested by the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention in Saint Paul, MN, and in Indianapolis. It involves
structured nutrition classes for 16 weeks and 16 weeks of exercise at
community-based organizations such as the YMCA, with people who have
prediabetes.
Guess what. The program, the diabetes prevention program, has been
shown to reduce the likelihood that someone with prediabetes will be
diagnosed with full-blown type 2 diabetes by nearly 60 percent. Those
are pretty good odds.
The program doesn't just make people healthier, it also saves
everyone money. The diabetes prevention program, the program I just
described, costs about $300 per participant, as compared to treating
type 2 diabetes which costs more than $6,500 every single year.
That is why United Health, the largest private insurer in the
country--that happens to also be headquartered in Minnesota--is already
providing the program to its beneficiaries. In fact, the CEO of United
Health told me that for every dollar they invest in the diabetes
prevention program they save $4 in health care later on. The money in
the Prevention and Public Health Program in the affordable care act is
there to scale up this program around the country so everybody in the
country, every person who has prediabetes, can have availability to it.
It can be available to them.
This homegrown program is exactly what the Prevention and Public
Health Fund was designed to support. It is not the only one like it. In
Minnesota the fund has gone to support tobacco cessation programs. It
has helped prevent infectious diseases. It has expanded our desperately
needed primary care workforce. I think we can all agree these are
worthwhile investments.
Unfortunately, many of my friends on the other side of the aisle are
trying to end this important work, calling the Prevention and Public
Health Fund a waste of money or worse. Last week, one of my colleagues
on the floor inaccurately claimed that ``a health clinic was using the
fund to spay and neuter pets.''
Let me take this opportunity to set the record straight. That is not
true. The Department of Health my friend accused of using prevention
funds to pay to spay pets has not and will not spend prevention fund
money for this purpose. I ask that in these debates we confine
ourselves to facts.
This all comes down to priorities. My friends on the other side of
the aisle would rather cut the Prevention and Public Health fund than
close a tax loophole for wealthy Americans which serves absolutely no
purpose. In fact, they would rather keep us from voting on a bill to
ease the burden of debt for students across the country than close this
loophole. I hear them sometimes talking about closing loopholes so we
can bring the marginal rate down. If you cannot close this loophole
which has no purpose, I don't see any loophole we can possibly agree to
close.

I ask my friends on both sides of the aisle one favor: Talk to your
constituents. Talk to the people who have been saved from the
affliction of diabetes or who have quit smoking or who have

[[Page S3269]]

immunized their children because of the Prevention and Public Health
Fund. Talk to your State and local departments of health which are
working to prevent outbreaks of the next dangerous strain of flu thanks
to the infectious disease prevention fund. Stand with me in support of
the Prevention and Public Health Fund.
I thank the Chair.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Franken). The Senator from Rhode Island.

Climate Change

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, let me thank my colleague from
Minnesota for his courtesy in allowing this time for me when I would
otherwise be presiding.
I wanted to respond to the remarks that preceded Senator Franken's
remarks, remarks by Senator Inhofe of Oklahoma, suggesting that the
military's investment in green technologies was an unwelcome imposition
on them, and against their wishes, by outside political forces and on
the basis of outside political considerations.
I just held a hearing in the Environment and Public Works Committee
on the subject of our Defense Department's investment and interest in
alternative technologies. We had witnesses from all of the services,
and the testimony was pretty clear and diametrically opposed to the
point of view just expressed by the Senator from Oklahoma.
I can certainly appreciate the enthusiasm of my friend from Oklahoma
for fossil fuels since fossil fuels are a big home State industry in
Oklahoma. But the testimony at the hearing was that the military was
pursuing alternative fuels for reasons of its own, for reasons that
related to protecting the troops, to be more efficient and to protect
the strategic posture of the United States around the world.
Perhaps the most striking testimony they gave was that over 3,000
American soldiers gave their lives between 2003 and 2007 protecting our
fuel convoys in Iraq. When we get in theater and we have a heavily
fossil-fuel-based military presence, the price we pay for that is paid
in the blood of soldiers who die protecting the fuel convoys--3,000
young men and women between 2003 and 2007. So to the extent we can do
things like the Cooley company in Rhode Island and invest in tents that
have their own solar capture built right into the fabric so that the
cooling within the tent in the blazing heat of the Middle East can be
done without having to truck that fuel in and without having to cost
those soldiers their lives--that is not something that is being imposed
on the military; that is something they very much want to accomplish as
part of their core mission.
In Newport, RI, the Naval War College has a facility, and they are
building wind turbines there. They are building wind turbines there
because they have calculated that over time they will save money by
putting up those wind turbines compared to buying electricity. It is
not an imposition from outside. It is not some green agenda coming from
Washington or anyplace else. It is the Newport Naval Station saying we
save money for our budget by doing this. And when we save that money,
we can put it into these other uses such as fighter aircraft, tanks,
bullets, bandages, and boots.
The third piece of testimony had to do with the strategic posture of
the country internationally, which is something the military is
concerned with in a very deep and profound way. They made a couple of
points.
The first was that the less dependent the United States is on the
international oil market, the fewer vital interests we have to risk
shedding our blood and spending our treasure to protect. So it is in
our national strategic interest to get off of our fossil fuel
dependency and into a broader portfolio of energy sources.
The second is the emerging dangers of climate change, in which we are
immersed all around us if we look at the obvious evidence in front of
our faces, which creates profound risks for social and civil unrest and
violence in other parts of the world as things change, as estuaries
flood and are no longer productive agriculturally, as relatively dry
areas turn to desert and can no longer sustain life, as the great
glaciers in the high mountains dissipate and change the flow patterns
of rivers on which economic life for individuals depends.
All of those things create conflict and strife, and the American
military is aware that where there is conflict and strife abroad, very
often they are called in, and they feel the responsibility to try to
avoid that.
I take time every week to speak a little bit about climate change for
a number of reasons. As I said, there are a lot of folks in Washington
who would like to ignore this issue and it is presently being ignored,
which is unfortunate and, in fact, shameful. The messages about climate
change we are getting are coming through loudly and clearly and we
ignore them at our peril.
Every week for the past 15 months, as the Presiding Officer knows, I
have distributed in our weekly caucus an update on some of latest
climate science bulletins, the news that is fresh that week. This week
the stories are that the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric
Administration in the weather statistics for the month of April 2012
reported warmer-than-average temperatures engulfing much of the
contiguous United States during April with the nationally averaged
temperature at 55 degrees Fahrenheit, 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit above
average and the third warmest on record.
Warmer-than-average temperatures were present for a large portion of
the Nation for April. Six States in the central United States and three
States in the Northeast had April temperatures ranking among their 10
warmest in history.

Above-average temperatures were also present for the Southeast, upper
Midwest, and much of the West. No State in the contiguous United States
had April temperatures that were below average.
April 2012 came on the heels of the warmest March on record for the
lower 48. January to April 2012 was the warmest such period on record
for the contiguous United States with an average temperature of 45.5
degrees Fahrenheit, 5.4 degrees above the long-term average. Twenty-six
states, all east of the Rockies, were record warm for the 4-month
period, and an additional 17 States had temperatures for the period
among their 10 warmest.
These rising temperatures can lead to a number of concerns. For
instance, snowpack, and thus drinking water, could be drastically
reduced in California and surrounding western States. The Scripps
Institution of Oceanography presented a study to California's Energy
Commission last month explaining that the warming of 1.5 to 3 degrees
Fahrenheit between now and midcentury will reduce today's snowpack by
one-third. By 2100, at those temperatures snowpacks would be reduced by
two-thirds. That makes a big difference to the agricultural communities
that depend on that water downstream of those snowpacks.
Meanwhile, Science Daily reported yesterday that ozone and greenhouse
gas pollution such as black carbon are expanding the tropics at a rate
of .7 degrees per decade. Said the lead scientist, climatologist Robert
J. Allen, assistant professor at the University of California,
Riverside:

If the tropics are moving poleward, then the subtropics
will become even drier . . . impacting regional agriculture,
economy, and society.

People are noticing the changes around them. Outside of the Halls of
Congress--where we have blinders on to this obvious issue--regular
people see the changes, and they are concerned about them. The United
States Geological Survey recently polled more than 10,000 visitors to
the Nation's wildlife refuges, hunters, fishermen, and families alike,
and found that 71 percent of those polled said they were ``personally
concerned'' about climate change's effects on fish, wildlife, and
habitats. Seventy-four percent said that working to limit climate
change's effects on fish, wildlife, and habitats would benefit future
generations.
These special interests who deny that carbon pollution causes global
temperatures to increase--and who have such a profound and maligning
effect in this Chamber--deny that melting icecaps will raise our seas
to dangerous levels, denying that all of these visible changes are
taking place.
The myth that these special interests propagate in the face of so
much evidence is that the jury is still out on climate change caused by
carbon pollution so we don't have to worry about it

[[Page S3270]]

or even take precautions. This is false. It is plain wrong.
Virtually all of our most prestigious scientific and academic
institutions have stated that climate change is happening and that
human activities are the driving cause of this change. They say it in
powerful language, particularly for scientists who are specific about
what they say and guarded in the way they say it.
The letter said:

Observations throughout the world make it clear that
climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific research
demonstrates that the greenhouse gases emitted by human
activities are the primary driver. These conclusions are
based on multiple, independent lines of evidence--

And here is the final crescendo--

and contrary assertions are inconsistent with an objective
assessment of the vast body of peer-reviewed science.

That is an awfully nice way to say it, but in a nutshell they are
saying anybody who disagrees is making it up.
These are serious organizations: the American Association for the
Advancement of Science, the American Chemical Society, American
Geophysical Union, American Meteorological Society, American Society of
Agronomy, and on and on.
It is not just them. It is also the military services--as I mentioned
at the beginning of my remarks--it is also the intelligence
organizations of the country, it is also most of our electric
utilities, many of our biggest capitalists and investors, and of course
it is our insurance industry that has to pay for the damage that
ensues. A recent article said: The worldwide insurance is huge, three
times bigger than the oil industry.
Right now these companies are running scared. Some are threatening to
cancel coverage for homeowners within 2 miles of the coast where
hurricanes are on the increase, and in drying areas of the West where
wildfires have wreaked havoc. Marsh and McClennan, one of the largest
insurance brokers, called climate change ``one of the most significant
emerging risks facing the world today,'' while insurance giant AIG has
established an office of environment and climate change to assess the
risks to insure us in the years ahead. The industry's own scientists
are predicting that things could get a lot worse in the years ahead.

I am indebted to the Presiding Officer, the junior Senator from
Minnesota, for the following observation, which is that 97 percent of
the climate scientists who are most actively publishing accept that the
verdict is in on carbon pollution causing climate and oceanic changes.
The example he and I have discussed--and I can't help, since he is
presiding right now, referring to it again--we are being asked in this
body to ignore facts that 97 percent of scientists tell us are real.
Now, translate that into our personal lives. What if a child of ours
was sick and we went to a doctor and said: Is there something I need to
do about it? Is there a treatment that is necessary? What is the deal
here? And we got an opinion, and then we said: I am going to be a
cautious, prudent parent because a treatment might be expensive. I want
to make sure I am going down the right path, so I am going to get a
second opinion, and the parent gets a second opinion. Then the parent
got a third opinion. You are a really prudent parent, and you got a
third opinion. Let's say you kept going. You got a fourth opinion, a
fifth, a 15th, a 45th, a 75th, a 95th--you got 100 opinions. People
would think that was a little odd, but never mind. And then let's say
that 87 percent of those professional opinions came back saying: Yes,
your child is ill and needs this treatment. Would you then responsibly
say: The jury is still out on the question of why my child is sick.
Let's not take any action now. These 97 percent of the doctors might be
alarmists. We don't really want to go there, and, after all, it will
cost money to buy the medicine.
Would any responsible parent do that? No. It is a ludicrous
proposition, and that is just how ludicrous the proposition is that
climate change is not real.
The underlying facts are ancient ones. The guy who discovered that
climate change is caused by the release of carbon dioxide into the
atmosphere, John Tyndall, discovered this in 1863, at the time of the
Civil War, 150 years ago. This is not a novelty. This is old
established science, and it has become clear since then that there is a
change that is happening.
We pump out 7 to 8 gigatons a year. A gigaton is a billion--not a
million, a billion--metric tons. We pump out 7 to 8 billion metric tons
a year of carbon dioxide, and that adds to the carbon load in the
atmosphere. This isn't something that is a theory, it is something that
is a measurement now.
For 8,000 centuries mankind has existed in an atmospheric bandwidth
of 170 to 300 parts per million of carbon dioxide--170 to 300--for
8,000 centuries, 800,000 years. We have been an agricultural species
for about 10,000 years, to give my colleagues an idea. For 800,000
years we were picking things off of bushes. Our entire history as a
species falls essentially in that 800,000 years. All of our development
as a species has happened in the last probably 20,000 years. So it has
been a long run in that safe bandwidth of 170 to 300 parts per million.
We have shot out of it. We are at 390 parts per million and climbing.
The record in history as to what happens on this planet when we spike
out of that range is an ominous one. It is a bad trajectory. It takes
us back to massive ocean die-offs that are in the geologic record. So
this is something we need to be very careful about and we need to take
action.
The suggestion that it is not happening is false. The suggestion that
we can wait it out is imprudent, reckless, and ill-advised. And the
notion that our professional career military who have lost 3,000 men
and women defending fuel convoys in Iraq are engaged in trying to get
off fossil fuels because of some outside political agenda that they
don't share is a preposterous allegation to make about the men and
women who run our military, who make these decisions for our military,
and who are seeking to defend the soldiers out in the field against
these consequences.
With that, I yield the floor, once again thanking the distinguished
Presiding Officer for allowing me this time, and I would have otherwise
been sitting there and presiding. So with appreciation to Senator
Franken, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Whitehouse). Without objection, it is so
ordered.

Representation Fairness Restoration Act

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I apologize for keeping the Presiding
Officer and the rest of the staff here a little later than they might
want, but I have an important message that will be brief.
I introduced legislation not too long ago called the Representation
Fairness Restoration Act, S. 1843. It was a reaction to the NLRB's
decision in the specialty health care case, where a group of nurses
within specialty health care asked for permission to unionize and
organize within that unit. The NLRB granted that, and that became the
first microunion that has ever existed in the United States of America.
Today it is my understanding that the NLRB has approved the
following: the second floor designer shoes department and the fifth
floor contemporary shoes department at Bergdorf Goodman in New York--
the two combined have 45 employees out of 370. They have granted them
the right to organize.
This is a gigantic leap that differs from 75 years of settled labor
law. Microunions within any retail establishment, medical
establishment, or any other type of business prevents cross-training,
causes discord, and is a way to upset an organization that otherwise is
not upset.
Labor law in this country has been settled for a long time. Last year
70 percent of all the union calls in the United States of America
passed on their vote. There is not a problem with unions being able to
organize. But there is a huge problem if we continue to tear down the
firewalls that have had the playing field level.
Just recently the courts have twice thrown out rulings of the
National Labor Relations Board--one on ambush elections where they
tried to reduce the average period of time from 58 days

[[Page S3271]]

to 10, which is totally unrealistic, and, even more importantly, on the
posting rule where the employers were asked to post proorganization
posters within the break rooms in their companies. Both times the
courts threw them out and said the NLRB has reached too far.
It is my hope the same thing would happen here again. But in the
meantime, I want to encourage the Senate to allow us to bring S. 1843
to the floor and have this debate. In the free enterprise system, in
the tedious economy we have today in this country, the last thing we
need is to begin changing labor law and pitting organized labor against
management in an adversarial type of way.
This example at Bergdorf Goodman today is an example of the National
Labor Relations Board doing in regulation what we ought to be doing in
legislation on the floor of the Senate. My biggest concern is that now
it seems as if the administration's leadership in every Department has
determined if we can circumvent the legislative body and through
regulation do what we cannot do on the floor, we will forget about the
House, we will forget about the Senate, and it will be the executive
and judicial branches that run the United States of America. That is
not good for our country, and that is wrong.
So I am going to call on the Senate and ask our leadership to let us
bring this bill to the floor, to let us debate it and see if we want to
change 75 settled years of labor law and unbalance the playing field
between management and labor. I do not think we do.
I am sorry to rush to the floor after just hearing this information,
but I think it is so important we nip it in the bud; that we let the
playing field remain balanced, and we not turn over the operation of
settled labor law to an NLRB that, quite frankly, seems to have run
amok as far as I am concerned.
Mr. President, I appreciate the opportunity to speak and yield the
floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. 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.

____________________