[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 2 (Monday, January 6, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11-S15]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                       Unemployment Compensation

  Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, there is no doubt our employment 
situation in America is not good. Unemployment remains consistently 
high long after the administration has told us the recession is over. 
The growth that has been projected year after year has not been at the 
level the experts had projected. CBO has missed the growth levels. The 
Federal Reserve has missed the growth levels. We have come in below 
that consistently. Growth is not where we need it to be; there is no 
doubt about it. So we have a serious unemployment situation.
  Perhaps the most grim concept we need to be well aware of is that 
workforce participation; that is, the percentage of Americans in the 
working age group who are actually working is lower today than at any 
time since the 1970s. That is a stunning statistic. Not since women 
entered the workforce in large numbers have we seen such low workforce 
participation numbers.
  I believe, first and foremost, that an unemployment extension bill is 
treating the symptoms of the problem. It is an aspirin for a fever, but 
the fever has been raging for weeks now. Something is causing it, and 
we need to deal with the cause of it rather than continuing to treat 
the symptoms. I think that is so important for us to remember.
  Also, this Nation is struggling economically for a number of reasons.
  One of them clearly is the size of our debt. Our debt is so large--
$17-plus trillion--now that it is causing uncertainty in the economic 
markets. We have to get our spending under control. We have to do that. 
Every time we have a desire to do something good, we cannot continue to 
borrow the money to pay for it.
  The unemployment bill that is before us today makes no attempt 
whatsoever to find spending reductions in other areas of this 
monstrosity of a government but borrows every penny of it. They say it 
is $6 billion. Well, it is $6 billion for 90 days--3 months. It is $26 
billion over the full year. That is a huge sum of money.
  We just had a big dispute over cutting retirement pay that our 
military people have earned, and it was a dispute over $4 billion. That 
was over 10 years--$4 billion over 10 years. This is $6 billion over 3 
months. So this is a lot of money, and effort should have been made to 
try to find offsetting reductions in wasteful spending that occur 
throughout here before we go again to treat a symptom of a disease.
  But the tragedy is--the tragedy is--that the policies of this 
administration are driving this poor growth record. It just is. First 
and foremost, the proposals have been to tax, tax, tax--tax more. 
Taxing the private sector will not create growth, no matter whom you 
tax. It will not be a growth-producing idea to tax the economy. Experts 
tell us that. The Congressional Budget Office tells us that.
  So this is what we have been seeing every year. The budget that 
passed out of this Senate, the budget that was proposed by the 
President of the United States--the budget that passed the Senate with 
I think virtually every single Democratic Senator voting for it and all 
Republicans opposing it would have increased taxes $1 trillion and 
increased spending $1 trillion. The taxes were not used to reduce our 
deficit, as the balanced approach seems to suggest. ``We have a 
balanced approach to reduce our deficits. We are going to tax some and 
cut spending some.'' Oh, no, they did not cut spending at all. Their 
10-year budget plan called for raising taxes $1 trillion and raising 
spending $1 trillion. Tax and spend--that is what it was. It was on the 
floor of the Senate. There is no dispute about that. No one argues 
about it. But we have agreed to a certain level of spending here to try 
to bring our economy under control--the Budget Control Act--and we have 
acknowledged on both sides of the aisle, as have independent experts, 
that we need to reduce spending and we need to contain the growth of 
spending and we need to reduce the deficits that are adding to the 
weakness of our economy and the uncertainty in our economy and creating 
risks in our economy.
  So this bill borrows every penny of it--just a total violation of 
promised fiscal responsibility. It just is. I wish it were not so. I 
wish we could just do this and it would not cost anything. But it will 
cost, and it will hamper growth in our country.
  There are other problems. We need more American energy. Energy 
produced in America creates jobs in America. It creates wealth in 
America. It keeps us from exporting large amounts--billions and 
billions of dollars--to Venezuela and the Middle East and other places 
around the globe. We could be producing that energy here, creating jobs 
here, keeping that wealth at home, strengthening our economy, and 
creating growth. That is what we should be doing.
  The administration has blocked American energy. They have dragged 
their feet in every shape, form, and fashion, whether it is moratoriums 
in the gulf or blocking in Alaska, blocking the pipeline for our 
neighbors in Canada, or blocking production on public lands. This is 
not the way to create an economy.
  We need a tax system that is not always going up but is more growth-
oriented, simpler, more focused on creating growth. We need to 
eliminate every unnecessary regulation that burdens the American 
competitive marketplace and makes us less competitive globally instead 
of adding to them, and we have never seen anything like the plethora of 
new regulations being issued day after day, week after week, month 
after month, many of them challengeable constitutionally as being 
beyond the power of bureaucrats to issue because Congress did not pass 
the law to justify it. It is driving up the cost of energy, and it is 
driving up the cost of production in widgets in America, making us less 
able to compete with foreign competitors.
  We need to stand up for American workers and American manufacturing 
on the world stage. It is time to tell our trading partners: We are 
willing to trade with you, big boy, but you have to play by the rules. 
This idea that you can violate the rules and we are still going to 
treat you as a great trading partner has to be over. We need to stand 
up for the American worker on the world stage. It has to be done.
  Finally, at a time of high unemployment, should we not ask ourselves 
why the President of the United States and virtually every Democrat and 
a number of Republicans voted to double the number of workers who were 
coming to America under this comprehensive immigration bill? We admit a 
million a year legally. We believe in immigration, we support 
immigration, but at some point you are bringing in workers to take jobs 
from unemployed Americans. So now we are here trying to extend 
unemployment benefits to help unemployed Americans. Is there no common 
sense in this body? How can this possibly be? But that is the deal.
  I know Senator Reid and Senator Leahy were on the floor earlier 
today, and they said we have to pass this comprehensive immigration 
bill. It would not end the illegality. It would reduce it only by about 
40 percent, according to the Congressional Budget Office, but it would 
double the number of guest workers coming in. Guest workers, by 
definition, are people coming to take jobs.
  Why are wages down? One reason is--Professor Borjas at Harvard, who 
has studied this extensively; the Federal Reserve in Atlanta, which has 
examined this extensively; the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, which 
has examined it--what do they find? They find

[[Page S12]]

that for middle- and lower income workers, their wages are 
significantly adversely impacted by this unprecedented flow of 
immigrant labor into America.
  I do not have anything against people who want to come to America and 
work. They are good people. They want to have a job. I understand that. 
But any nation has to ask itself: What is the right amount? How many 
people can you absorb without causing millions of Americans to lose 
their jobs? And we now have to come to the floor of the Senate to ask 
what we can do to help them in this period of pain they are going 
through.

  So I just want to say a couple things. We can do something now for 
the unemployed, but we need to be paying for it. We need to be staying 
within the spending limits we have agreed to. We do not need to pass 
any more laws that increases the amount of money we borrow. We borrow 
enough. For heaven's sake, we borrow too much right now, and it 
threatens our financial future, as expert after expert has told us. 
They have told us we are running a high risk, and nothing could be 
worse--nothing could be worse--for working Americans than that we have 
some other new financial crisis to spring up in the months or years to 
come because we were irresponsible today. Wouldn't that be a disaster? 
It certainly would.
  So I will urge our colleagues to begin to focus on the underlying 
disease here; that is, the policies of an administration that has 
produced the slowest postrecession recovery maybe the Nation has ever 
had, except for the Great Depression, because it is tax more, regulate 
more, borrow more. That is all it is, and it will not work systemically 
to put us on the right path.
  I know this is a tough challenge for us, but I am convinced that if 
this Congress puts its mind to it, there are more than a few places we 
can find waste, fraud, and abuse to help pay for and to assist those 
who have been unemployed for a long time. I believe we can absolutely 
do better than we are today about that, and I hope we will do so. It is 
not right to just say the only people who care about American workers 
and care about those who are unemployed are those of us who are willing 
to forget our budget limitations, to forget our financial 
responsibilities, and just borrow more and spend more, and somehow this 
is going to fix the problem we are facing. It will not. It will not fix 
the problem. In fact, it is creating the very disease that is causing 
workers to be suffering today.
  Madam President, I appreciate the opportunity to share these remarks. 
I will repeat again, we are seeing very tough times for the American 
worker. Particularly, the lower income workers are having a difficult 
time, and there are many causes for that. But just taxing more, 
spending more, and borrowing more is one of the big causes of the 
problems we have today, and we are not going to fix that problem by 
even more of the same policies that got us into the situation we are in 
today.
  I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, I ask permission to speak for about 10 
minutes on the Yellen nomination.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, over the past 5 years the Federal 
Reserve has pursued unconventional and unprecedented monetary policy. 
As Vice chair of the Fed, Janet Yellen has been a strong proponent of 
these policies. As chair, she is likely to continue these same easy-
money policies with the same, if not more, vigor as her predecessor.
  I have deep concerns about the long-term effects of pursuing these 
policies. Historical evidence suggests that failing to rein in easy-
money policies on a timely basis risks fueling an economic bubble or 
even hyperinflation.
  It is true that one of the lessons learned from the Great Depression 
was that an overly tight monetary policy in a recession risks economic 
debilitating deflation. Thus, understandably, when the recession hit in 
2008 the Fed sought to avoid the mistakes of the past by lowering 
interest rates to encourage investment. However, this expansionary 
monetary policy cannot continue into perpetuity without causing real 
and lasting damage to our economy.
  Just as we should not repeat the mistakes of the Great Depression, we 
need to be careful not to repeat the mistakes that fueled our recent 
recession. Let us not forget that our current economic stagnation began 
with the bursting of the housing bubble in late 2007--a housing bubble 
fueled by rampant speculation that was driven, in part by historically 
low interest rates maintained by the Fed between 2001 and 2004.
  Yet once again we see the Fed embarking on a policy of sustained 
historically low interest rates. The Fed has now maintained the Federal 
funds rate essentially at zero for over 5 years. What may be the future 
consequences of this policy? What new bubble will arise? At this point, 
I do not think anyone can answer these questions definitively. But no 
one can deny that the risks are real and could be devastating.
  The Fed, though, has not just sought to maintain record-low interest 
rates. With its traditional monetary tool tapped out, the Fed has 
turned to a less conventional and more aggressive program in an attempt 
to jump-start our economy and lower unemployment.
  The Fed is now engaged in an open-ended policy it has termed 
quantitative easing. Essentially, this is a fancy way to say the Fed is 
flooding the economy with trillions of dollars through large purchases 
of mortgage-backed securities and longer-term Treasury securities. As a 
result of this program, the Fed has seen its balance sheet more than 
quadruple from around $800 billion to nearly $4 trillion. Vice Chairman 
Yellen has not presented a plan to Congress on how the Fed plans to 
deal with this issue.
  While I welcome the news from the Fed's December meeting that they 
intend to reduce the monthly purchases, I fear they may already be in 
too deep. It remains unclear how the Fed will be able to go about 
unwinding its nearly $4 trillion balance sheet without spooking 
investors.
  The stock market has become addicted to the Fed's easy-money 
policies. This has led one notable investment advisor to question 
whether the Fed will ever be able to end the quantitative easing 
program.
  While the stock market has become addicted to easy money, the benefit 
to Main Street has been questionable at best. Unemployment remains 
high, bank lending remains tight, and savers discouraged.
  While the benefits to Main Street remain unnoticeable, they most 
certainly will feel the pain should the Fed carry on their easy-money 
policy for too long.
  For an example of what Main Street could be in store for one need 
look no further than the late 1970s and early 1980s. The easy-money 
policies of the 1970s intended to spur employment resulted in 
stagflation, a period of hyperinflation and high unemployment. During 
this period unemployment topped 10 percent while inflation exceeded 14 
percent.
  The experience of the late 1970s and early 1980s made it clear that 
once you let the inflation genie out of the bottle it is very difficult 
to stamp it out. After suffering years of stagflation, Americans were 
then subject to the pain of unprecedented interest rates as high as 20 
percent just to get hyperinflation back under control.
  Statements by Ms. Yellen indicate she would be open to inflation 
exceeding the Fed target of 2 percent as a means to achieve full 
employment. While achieving full employment may be a noble goal, the 
Fed has a dismal record at being able to produce sustainable job 
creation through expansionary monetary policy.
  While inflation may aid employment in the very short term, our 
experience with stagflation in the 1970's shows this tradeoff falls 
apart quickly as people's expectations change. Sustainable job growth 
comes not from inflation, but price stability that promotes long-run 
economic growth. We need a chairman focused on a strong dollar and low 
inflation.
  My concerns about the Fed's easy-money policies and inflation led me 
to vote against Chairman Bernanke for his second term at the Fed. 
Because it appears that Ms. Yellen will continue to pursue these 
misguided policies, I cannot in good conscience vote in favor of her 
confirmation.
  Mr. CRAPO. Madam President, Dr. Yellen's nomination is an opportunity

[[Page S13]]

to review the unprecedented actions of the Federal Reserve over the 
last several years.
  Five years ago, the Fed began using unconventional monetary policy 
tools, aggressively pursuing quantitative easing and holding interest 
rates near or at zero percent.
  The Fed now has a balance sheet of $4 trillion, a level roughly equal 
to one-quarter of annual U.S. economic output.
  The Fed has accumulated this balance sheet by buying Treasuries and 
mortgage-backed securities at a pace of up to $85 billion each month.
  I have been a long-time critic of the Fed's quantitative easing 
purchases.
  Several noted economists have called into question the benefits of 
these purchases, suggesting they may be outweighed by risks.
  These policies, specifically purchasing billions in long-term bonds, 
can distort pricing in markets and lead to excessive risk taking, 
creating ``bubble-like'' conditions according to experts like Larry 
Fink at BlackRock.
  Bill Gross of PIMCO stated that ``all asset prices, whether it be 
bonds, stocks, or alternative assets are basically mispriced, 
artificially elevated'' as a result of the Fed's actions.
  I am concerned that the markets have become exceedingly reliant on 
quantitative easing, circumventing pure economic fundamentals in favor 
of government-stimulated economy.
  Although a reduction in the pace of asset purchases will finally 
begin this month, in her nomination hearing Dr. Yellen would not commit 
to a firm deadline for cutting off purchases.
  Even after the Fed stops adding to its balance sheet, the question of 
unwinding the balance sheet remains.
  Chairman Bernanke and others have suggested that the Fed might 
maintain the size of the balance sheet for some time, rather than 
reducing it to a normal level.
  This would mean that the money created to purchase those assets would 
remain in place.
  The President of the Richmond Federal Reserve Bank has called this 
``tinder on the books of the banking system.''
  He describes a process where banks begin to rapidly lend out those 
reserves, creating an increase in deposit growth that would put 
inflationary pressure on the economy.
  All of this unconventional monetary policy has failed to produce the 
benefits that were promised.
  A noted economist recently observed that over the last 4 years, the 
share of adults who are working has not increased and ``GDP has fallen 
further behind potential as we would have defined it in the fall of 
2009.''
  All that is to say that despite unprecedented amounts of monetary 
intervention, the economy has barely responded.
  I voted against a second term for Chairman Bernanke due to my 
concerns with the Fed's unconventional monetary policy.
  I voted against Dr. Yellen in 2010 for the position of Vice Chair for 
similar reasons.
  Since joining the Board as Vice Chair, Dr. Yellen continues to 
promote the policies that led me to vote against her initially.
  My position remains unchanged, and I will not vote in support of her 
nomination.
  In addition to unprecedented monetary policy, the next Fed Chair will 
finalize several key financial regulatory reform rules.
  These rules must balance the financial stability with the inherent 
need for markets to take on and accurately price risk.
  They must be done without putting the U.S. markets at an undue 
competitive disadvantage or harming consumers with unintended 
consequences.
  The Chair of the Federal Reserve must understand how different rules 
interact with each other, what impact they have on the affected 
entities and the economy at large.
  For example, a number of community banks were surprised by certain 
provisions in the recently adopted Volcker rule pertaining to their 
ownership of certain securitized products, including trust-preferred 
securities.
  Notwithstanding assurances by regulators that the final Volcker rule 
would not disrupt their business model, community banks may now 
potentially have to divest hundreds of millions of dollars in assets to 
comply with the rule.
  I am concerned that the rush to finalize the Volcker rule before 
year's end--for purely political reasons--was a cause of this 
carelessness by regulators with respect to community banks.
  It remains to be seen what other unintended consequences will result 
from the Volcker rule's adoption.
  Just as some worried that we did not have enough regulations on the 
books to prevent the economic crisis, some of us worry that the post-
crisis response will result in a regulatory regime that stifles growth 
and job creation.
  The Chair of the Federal Reserve must understand the need for that 
balance and how to carefully manage competing demands without harming 
the economy.
  I appreciate Dr. Yellen's comments about the need to monitor the 
risks to financial stability that current monetary policy creates.
  I also share her stated concerns about the need to avoid ``one-size-
fits-all'' regulations on different kinds of financial institutions, 
especially ensuring that community banks are subject to ``less 
onerous'' supervision and regulation.
  However, given my concerns about the Fed's monetary policy and Dr. 
Yellen's support of quantitative easing and excessively low interest 
rates, I will not vote in favor of her nomination.
  I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BROWN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BROWN. Madam President, for those who do not remember or those 
who do not choose to remember, 5 years ago our economy was at the brink 
of collapse after being rocked by a financial crisis because of 
incompetence, Wall Street greed, overreach in the financial sector, and 
more. Washington had let the financial system run wild through 
deregulation. Banks had overloaded on toxic mortgage securities that 
they used massive amounts of leverage to purchase. In many cases these 
Wall Street banks were so large, so complex, so opaque, so 
overleveraged, they were too big to fail.
  Increasingly, these banks are too big to manage and too big to 
regulate. I remember that time well. I was in Zanesville, OH, when I 
first got a call to discuss what we needed to do from Chairman Bernanke 
and President Bush's Secretary of the Treasury Paulson. Five years 
since the collapse of the markets, 3 years after the passage of the 
Wall Street reform law, we still cannot say that the Dodd-Frank 
legislation ended this problem.
  In July of last year, Chairman Bernanke said:

       I wouldn't be saying the truth if I said that the problem 
     is gone. It is not gone.

  That is the Chairman of the Federal Reserve.
  At her nomination hearing before the Senate Banking Committee, 
Governor Yellen, then the Vice Chair--still the Vice Chair of the 
Federal Reserve--said that ending ``too Big to Fail'' is ``among the 
most important goals of the post-crisis period.''
  That is one of the many reasons I rise today to support and argue for 
Janet Yellen's confirmation as the Chair of the Federal Reserve. In 
today's complex financial system, it is more important than ever that 
we have strong regulators such as Governor Yellen who can recognize 
emerging threats to economic stability and who are not afraid to act 
when they find abuses that put American consumers and workers at risk.
  Throughout her distinguished career at the Fed of more than a decade, 
Governor Yellen has shown she understands how risky financial practices 
deep inside the largest Wall Street banks can have a terrible and 
terrifying impact on American families. She was, 8 or 9 years ago, 
among the first to recognize the housing bubble that wiped out 
trillions in wealth and led to the biggest recession since the Great 
Depression.
  In the years since the crash, Governor Yellen has been a voice on the

[[Page S14]]

need for strong, sensible regulation to protect American workers and 
small businesses instead of the too-big-to-fail banks. While there are 
many failures that led the economy to the brink of collapse, one of the 
biggest mistakes on the Federal level was not keeping the average 
American's financial interest in mind. There is far too much bias in 
this institution toward Wall Street instead of Main Street.
  Most people in my home State of Ohio, in the Presiding Officer's home 
State of Hawaii, are not millionaires. They are automakers in 
Lordstown, steelworkers in Cleveland, they are farmers in Darke County, 
they are hairdressers in Toledo, they are police officers in Columbus. 
They are the people who make the products we depend on every day.
  My State produces more than any but two States in the United States. 
They are the people who make these products, who teach our children, 
who protect our communities. They are the average hard-working 
Americans trying to create a better life for their children. And they, 
along with millions of other Americans, deserve better than the crisis 
that we allowed to happen.
  Over the years, Washington, the Fed in particular, has too often 
lacked an important connection to Americans whose lives are so affected 
by the decisions it makes. Few have been able to keep a perspective 
where they understand what is happening in middle America, among 
working-class Americans, among middle-class Americans.
  When President Lincoln was in office, he would go out and meet 
regularly with ordinary Americans either in the White House or outside 
the White House. While his staff implored him to stay in the White 
House and win the war and free the slaves and save the Union, President 
Lincoln said: I need to go out and get my public opinion bath.
  We have also seen the new pope, Francis I, exhort his parish priests 
to ``smell like the flock''--to get among them, to understand their 
lives as much as possible, to drink the water they drink, to be among 
them, to learn from them and to listen to them. We must know those whom 
we serve.
  In a speech last year before the AFL-CIO, Janet Yellen described the 
real-world implications of unemployment and noted that the unemployed 
are not just statistics. She took stock of the work ahead for the Fed, 
notably ensuring that Dodd-Frank is fully implemented in ending ``too 
big to fail.'' I think she will break out of the beltway bubble. I 
think she will get out in the country far more than any of her 
predecessors have done and consider the lives and work to understand 
the lives of those people affected by these Federal Central Bank 
decisions.
  As Chair of the Fed Subcommittee on Communications, she has played a 
strong role in monetary policy and its efforts to put people back to 
work, despite Congress's unwillingness--this body's unwillingness--to 
help. Whether it is extending unemployment benefits, which we should be 
doing today, whether it is raising the minimum wage, it means engaging 
in the lives and helping people in this country who may not be as 
privileged as those of us who have the opportunity to serve in the 
Senate.
  Janet Yellen is qualified to take the helm of the Fed and make 
history in becoming the first woman to run the Central Bank.
  In confirming Ms. Yellen, we can look forward to a new era of 
recovery and growth. I look forward to working with Janet Yellen and 
her staff.
  I urge my colleagues to confirm Janet Yellen to be Chair of the 
Federal Reserve.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time has expired.
  The question is, Will the Senate advise and consent to the nomination 
of Janet L. Yellen, of California, to be Chairman of the Board of 
Governors of the Federal Reserve System?
  Mr. COBURN. I ask for the ayes and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. REID. I announce that the Senator from Wisconsin (Ms. Baldwin), 
the Senator from Alaska (Mr. Begich), the Senator from Illinois (Mr. 
Durbin), the Senator from Iowa (Mr. Harkin), the Senator from North 
Dakota (Ms. Heitkamp), the Senator from Maine (Mr. King), the Senator 
from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. 
Sanders), the Senator from New Hampshire (Mrs. Shaheen) and the Senator 
from Massachusetts (Ms. Warren) are necessarily absent.
  I further announce that, if present and voting, the Senator from 
Wisconsin (Ms. Baldwin), the Senator from Alaska (Mr. Begich), the 
Senator from Illinois (Mr. Durbin), the Senator from Iowa (Mr. Harkin), 
the Senator from North Dakota (Ms. Heitkamp), the Senator from 
Massachusetts (Mr. Markey), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), the 
Senator from New Hampshire (Mrs. Shaheen) and the Senator from 
Massachusetts (Ms. Warren) would each vote ``yea.''
  Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the 
Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), the Senator from Utah (Mr. 
Hatch), the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain), the Senator from 
Kentucky (Mr. McConnell), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Moran), the 
Senator from Ohio (Mr. Portman), the Senator from South Dakota (Mr. 
Thune), and the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Paul).
  Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Utah (Mr. Hatch) 
would have voted ``yea.''
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Donnelly). Are there any other Senators in 
the Chamber desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 56, nays 26, as follows:

                       [Rollcall Vote No. 1 Ex.]

                                YEAS--56

     Alexander
     Ayotte
     Baucus
     Bennet
     Blumenthal
     Booker
     Boxer
     Brown
     Burr
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Chambliss
     Coats
     Coburn
     Collins
     Coons
     Corker
     Donnelly
     Feinstein
     Flake
     Franken
     Gillibrand
     Hagan
     Heinrich
     Hirono
     Johnson (SD)
     Kaine
     Kirk
     Klobuchar
     Landrieu
     Leahy
     Levin
     Manchin
     McCaskill
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Mikulski
     Murkowski
     Murphy
     Murray
     Nelson
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Rockefeller
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Warner
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                                NAYS--26

     Barrasso
     Blunt
     Boozman
     Cochran
     Cornyn
     Crapo
     Cruz
     Enzi
     Fischer
     Grassley
     Heller
     Hoeven
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Johanns
     Johnson (WI)
     Lee
     Risch
     Roberts
     Rubio
     Scott
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Toomey
     Vitter
     Wicker

                             NOT VOTING--18

     Baldwin
     Begich
     Durbin
     Graham
     Harkin
     Hatch
     Heitkamp
     King
     Markey
     McCain
     McConnell
     Moran
     Paul
     Portman
     Sanders
     Shaheen
     Thune
     Warren
  The nomination was confirmed.
 Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, extreme weather throughout the 
Midwest created travel delays that prevented me from being in 
Washington today for the vote to confirm Janet Yellen as Chairwoman of 
the Federal Reserve. She is an excellent candidate, given her long 
history of service at the Fed and her vast amount of expertise, and had 
I been here, I would have cast an aye vote in support of her 
nomination, just as I did on the vote to invoke cloture on her 
nomination.
  Dr. Yellen most currently serves as vice chair of the Board of 
Governors of the Federal Reserve. Over the span of the last nearly four 
decades, she has served as a member of the Board of Governors, the 
chair of President Clinton's Council of Economic Advisors, and as the 
president and CEO of the 12th District Federal Reserve Bank in San 
Francisco. She's also spent a good part of her career in the academic 
world, currently as a professor at Berkeley's Haas School of Business.
  The worst financial crisis since the Great Depression sent our 
economy into a hole that it is still climbing out of today. The good 
news is that it is emerging from that dark place, thanks in part to the 
role of the Federal Reserve, led by current Chairman Ben Bernanke. 
Since the depths of the crisis, the Fed has taken on a more creative 
role in restoring our economy and stabilizing our financial system, 
using unconventional tools and setting specific goals for growth.

[[Page S15]]

  What makes Dr. Yellen a particularly strong nominee is the attention 
she has paid to connecting the labor market to monetary policy. Much of 
her career has been devoted to these subjects. In October 2009, our 
unemployment rate reached 10 percent. Today, with the help of the Fed's 
actions, it stands at 7 percent. In my home State of Illinois, 
unemployment stood at 10.7 percent in 2009, and is down to 8.7 percent 
today. Though this is far from good enough, it shows real progress.
  Our next Fed chair should be able to take on the challenges our 
economy still faces--lowering the unemployment rate even further and 
meeting inflationary goals. The focus that Dr. Yellen brings to the 
labor market gives me confidence that she can help our Nation reach new 
highs when it comes to creating jobs and getting Americans back to 
work.
  The Wall Street Journal recently prepared an interesting analysis 
examining more than 700 predictions made by 14 Fed policymakers. That 
analysis found Dr. Yellen to be the most accurate of the 14. That did 
not surprise me. Dr. Yellen could not be more deserving of this 
nomination given her experience and precise economic judgment. She has 
the know-how to make the decisions that a Fed chair needs to make about 
how to move our economy further forward successfully and transparently.
  I support Dr. Yellen's nomination and look forward to working with 
her as she becomes our Nation's first Chairwoman of the Federal 
Reserve.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the motion to 
reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table and that the 
President be immediately notified of the Senate's action.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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