Congressional Record, Volume 160 Issue 52 (Tuesday, April 1, 2014)

[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 52 (Tuesday, April 1, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1897-S1912]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

PROTECTING VOLUNTEER FIREFIGHTERS AND EMERGENCY RESPONDERS ACT OF 2014

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will
resume consideration of H.R. 3979, which the clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:

A bill (H.R. 3979) to amend the Internal Revenue Code of
1986 to ensure that emergency services volunteers are not
taken into account as employees under the shared
responsibility requirements contained in the Patient
Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Pending:

Reid (for Reed) amendment No. 2874, of a perfecting nature.
Reid amendment No. 2875 (to amendment No. 2874), to change
the enactment date.
Reid amendment No. 2876 (to amendment No. 2875), of a
perfecting nature.
Reid amendment No. 2877 (to the language proposed to be
stricken by amendment No. 2874), to change the enactment
date.
Reid amendment No. 2878 (to amendment No. 2877), of a
perfecting nature.
Reid motion to commit the bill to the Committee on Finance,
with instructions, Reid amendment No. 2879, to change the
enactment date.
Reid amendment No. 2880 (to (the instructions) amendment
No. 2879), of a perfecting nature.
Reid amendment No. 2881 (to amendment No. 2880), of a
perfecting nature.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I rise to talk about a whole series of
issues--including unemployment insurance and the minimum wage--that are
designed to help Americans attain economic mobility and get a fair shot
to move up in the way our economy is designed to work.
This morning the Budget Committee had a hearing entitled
``Opportunity, Mobility, and Inequality in Today's Economy.'' We heard
from three very strong witnesses, including Nobel laureate Joseph
Stiglitz. We talked about important topics central to understanding the
long-held American dream: If you work hard and play by the rules, you
should be able to support your family, provide an opportunity for your
kids, and have a fair retirement. But for too many--as the Presiding
Officer knows--opportunity and mobility are especially hard to find and
income inequality is growing.
I am an optimist. I know the solutions are here if we work to find
them, and I want to take a couple of minutes to talk about some of the
solutions. First, let's try to put a human face on the problem of
inequality in our economy.
Income inequality in the United States is at a record level. It is
higher in the United States than virtually any other developed country.
President Obama has called income equality the central challenge of our
times. The Presiding Officer and I share a Roman Catholic background.
Last week the President was talking to Pope Francis in the Vatican, and
they talked about how this is not just an American challenge but a
global challenge.
According to the CBO, the average income of a household in the
richest 1 percent in this country was nearly 180 percent higher in 2010
than it was in 1979 in real dollars. By comparison, the average income
for a household in the middle 20 percent of the income distribution had
only grown by about 25 percent--about one in seven--of what the
households in the highest income levels had grown.
Since 1979, the top 1 percent of our population's share of national
income grew from 8.9 percent to 14.9 percent. So 1 percent has 15
percent of the national income by 2010, but at the same time the bottom
80 percent of our American population saw their share of national
income significantly shrink.
For me the issue is not just inequality because there will always be
some inequality. Fate, luck, and health will produce some unequal
outcomes. But what I think is great about this country is that while we
can see inequality and tolerate some degree of it, what we will not
tolerate is people being locked into unequal situations.
We want to have a society where people may be born poor or may have
an accident or a fate that will have them in a lower economic status
but they can still raise their ceiling and achieve all they can. But in
the case of social mobility, the United States is now one

[[Page S1898]]

of the poorest performing of the developed countries.
Today a child born into the bottom quintile in the American economic
life only has a 7.5-percent chance of ever being in the top quintile.
In a country such as Denmark in Europe--and we think of Europe as a
more stratified society--that number is nearly double what the number
is in the United States.
It is not just inequality, it is mobility. We are not giving people a
fair shot, to use the words of the great American singer Curtis
Mayfield, ``to move on up'' to their destination and that place where
their dreams can take them if they work hard enough.
What we need to do is embrace strategies that let people move on up
and have a fair shot to achieve. We don't only need to embrace
strategies for success, we have to eliminate structures and eliminate
barriers that lock people out of economic opportunities that they
should be able to achieve similar to anyone else.
One solution is the minimum wage bill that we will start to talk
about soon. It is about working Americans who are earning minimum wage
or just above minimum wage and how this will affect them.
I think I can safely say the vast majority of Virginians would agree
with this proposition: No one who works full time--8 hours a day, 40
hours a week, 52 weeks a year--should live in poverty. But today
someone making the minimum wage earns about $15,000 a year, which is
$3,000 below the poverty level for a family of three. If you are a
single mom with a couple of kids--and so many people are raising
children on their own--and work full time at the minimum wage, you are
below the poverty level.
The minimum wage today is at a historic low. The minimum wage has
lost 33 percent of its buying power since its peak in 1968. If the
minimum wage in 1968 had just kept pace with inflation, it would be
$10.71 per hour today and not in the $7 range.
Workers who regularly receive tips are treated even worse. They get
paid a subminimum wage--what is called a tipped minimum wage--of $2.13
an hour. As long as you make $30 in tips a month, your company can pay
you $2.13 an hour. Overwhelmingly these workers work in restaurants but
not exclusively, and similar to other minimum wage workers they are
predominately women.
Twenty-eight million Americans will receive an increase in pay if we
raise the minimum wage under the bill that is currently before the
Senate. It has been reported out of the HELP Committee, and we will
take it up soon. More than half of those who will receive a raise are
women. The vast majority are adult workers. Over 14 million American
children have a parent who will receive a raise if we increase the
minimum wage.
The Minimum Wage Fairness Act will boost the minimum wage to about
$21,000, lifting families above the poverty line. In total--get this--
the bill we will hopefully debate and vote on soon is estimated to lift
nearly 7 million Americans out of poverty and above the poverty level.
What could we do, as we debate, that would have more effect on people's
lives than lifting 7 million people above the poverty level, which we
would do if we pass the bill.
Increasing the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour will increase GDP by
nearly $22 billion as workers spend their raises in local businesses
and communities. In Virginia about 744,000 of my fellow citizens will
receive a raise. For this reason, business owners whom I talk to--not
all but a huge number and especially small business owners--know that
the minimum wage increase makes good business sense.
Yesterday I visited a supermarket just across the Potomac in
Alexandria. It is called MOM's Organic Market. They have 11 locations
in the DC metropolitan area and Philadelphia. They are contemplating
opening another store in New York City. I met with the owner Scott
Nash, and I talked to his employees. I asked the employees: How long
have you worked here? The answer I got back was 7 years, 8 years, 10
years. They made it their practice to pay their employees a $10 minimum
wage now, and they are going to increase it. They fully support the
bill currently pending before the Senate to increase the minimum wage.
Scott Nash is not alone. We are celebrating a very important
centennial this year. It is a centennial of one of the smartest things
an American employer ever did. I will read a quote.
After the success of the moving assembly line, Henry Ford had another
transformative idea. In January of 1914, he startled the world by
announcing that the Ford Motor Company would pay $5 a day to its
workers. The pay increase would be accompanied with a shorter workday--
from 9 to 8 hours. While this rate did not automatically apply to every
worker, it more than doubled the average autoworker's wage. While
Henry's primary objective was to reduce worker attrition, newspapers
from all over the world reported the story as an extraordinary gesture
of good will.
Here is the important part:

Henry Ford had reasoned that since it was now possible to
build inexpensive cars in volume, more of them could be sold
if employees could afford to buy them. The $5 day helped
better the lot of all American workers and contributed to the
emergence of the American middle class. In the process, Henry
Ford had changed manufacturing forever.

This quote is not from some Democratic talking point. This quote is
from the Web site of the Ford Motor Company--a press release they
issued in January to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Henry Ford's
novel decision.

There was an employer who knew the American economy was based on
consumer demand and if workers could be paid more, they would buy more,
it would help his company, and it would help America. The Senate can
take action in this way, and the Senate can take action in other ways
to give people a fair shot to move on up in American society.
In fact, we have already acted on a couple of bills I hope the House
will pick up. We acted on immigration reform, which strengthens border
security, creates a pathway to legal status and citizenship for
millions of undocumented immigrants, and helps businesses and families.
This eliminates a barrier that keeps people from moving up, and the CBO
estimates it will significantly improve the American economy.
Immigration reform is about a fair shot. Immigration reform is about
moving up.
We also acted on ENDA, legislation to end discrimination in the
workplace against folks based on sexual orientation. A person can't
move on up and achieve their economic dreams if folks can fire someone
at will if they don't like the kind of person someone is or who they
love. So ENDA, which awaits action in the House, is also a bill about
making sure people have a fair shot and can move on up.
We can act this week. We are now on the bill to provide unemployment
insurance to those who are still struggling in the economy. Soon we
will consider paycheck fairness for women. A person can't achieve all
they can if they are going to be paid significantly less than their
colleagues just because of gender.
In coming weeks we will also consider jobs skills and education
legislation, which are real keys to economic opportunity for so many.
What we need to do is pretty simple. What the Presiding Officer did
and what so many others in this Chamber did when we were Governors was
to try to give individuals the tools to create their own opportunity,
to create their own mobility, as well as to take the steps we could
when there were barriers or structures in the way to move those out of
the way so people had a fair shot to succeed.
With that, I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.

National Sexual Assault Awareness Month

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, today marks the beginning of National
Sexual Assault Awareness Month. It comes at a time when Congress is
about ready to take up reauthorization of the Justice For All Act--a
law that has improved public safety, strengthened victims' rights, and
delivered justice all across this country. I am proud to be the lead
Republican sponsor of this bill, and I am even prouder of what it has
accomplished and what it will continue to accomplish.
Thanks to the Justice For All Act and similar initiatives, law
enforcement agencies across America now have greater resources to
reduce the

[[Page S1899]]

rape kit backlog. I might just explain. A rape kit is, as it sounds, a
forensic collection of evidence collected at the scene of a sexual
assault. Much to our chagrin, we have learned over time that many of
these rape kits--this forensic evidence--is not forwarded to a lab for
testing and, thus, the DNA of the assailant is not identified. So we
realized that local jurisdictions needed more resources and more
guidance and more expertise when it came to testing these untested rape
kits because of the incredible evidence it provides, both to acquit
people who have been falsely accused of crimes, as well as to identify,
indict, and convict serial sexual assailants.
This is sort of unique in many ways because people who commit rape
don't just do it one time. Many times they will do it time and time
again until they are caught. Worse yet, this is a crime of opportunity.
Many times it involves children as well, as we know. So now we know
that thanks to the Justice For All Act and similar initiatives which
have allowed these rape kits to be taken off the evidence locker shelf
and tested, that what has been a national scandal, which has allowed
violent criminals to remain on the streets, is now being addressed more
and more.
I am not here to suggest that everything that can be done has been
done, but it is important for us to make sure these rape kits are
tested and to get these serial sexual assailants off the streets and
brought before a court of law and justice.
Even a relatively small reduction in the backlog can lead to major
gains in public safety and peace of mind. In the city of Detroit, for
example, the processing of 1,600 old sexual assault kits, including
some from the 1980s, allowed authorities to identify 100 different
serial rapists, ten of whom were convicted rapists already. So this is
powerful evidence. Incredibly, police sometimes keep this forensic
evidence for 20 or 30 years, and it is still susceptible to being
tested, and for the rapist to be identified and to be taken out of
circulation.
In the city of Houston, meanwhile, a backlog that once reached 6,600
untested rape kits is now in the process of being completely
eliminated--thanks, in large part, to the support provided by this
legislation.
I wish to take a second to highlight the SAFER Act, which was
included in the Violence Against Women Act and which passed just this
last year, and the fact that it funded a provision of the Justice For
All Act known as the Debbie Smith Act. I have had the pleasure of
meeting Debbie Smith for whom this legislation was named, and she has
become a tireless advocate for the sorts of reforms and improved
funding that are contained in the SAFER Act and in the Justice For All
reauthorization.
The SAFER Act mandated that more of the money the Federal Government
granted must be used to actually test old rape kits as well as dedicate
a portion of that money to inventory--evidence that had been sitting on
police evidence locker shelves or had been sent to laboratories but had
not yet been tested. This law, passed in 2013, has already played a
crucial role in making Federal support available for tackling the rape
kit backlog.
I was proud to introduce that legislation and I am proud to sponsor
reauthorization of the Justice For All Act. As I said a moment ago, I
am enormously gratified and proud of what these laws have helped us
accomplish. Upholding victims' rights and keeping dangerous predators
off the street are two of the most solemn obligations the government
has, and we should never forget it.
With hundreds of thousands of rape kits still untested, we have a
long way to go; there is no question about it. It is encouraging to see
the progress that has been made. Hopefully, this will encourage us to
take even further steps to make sure these untested rape kits are
tested and the people who are innocent are vindicated from any charges.
But the people who commit serial sexual assault, both against other
adults and minors, should be and will be brought to justice.

The Economy

Shifting gears to the economy, I wish to repeat a call I made
yesterday and once again urge the majority leader in the context of the
legislation we are currently considering to allow Republican ideas for
economic growth and job creation to come to the floor for a vote.
I realize President Obama has stubbornly chosen to stick with the
same policies that have given us the weakest economic recovery
following a recession since World War II. It is also the highest--the
longest period of high unemployment since the Great Depression. Indeed,
after promoting the same fiscal and economic strategy for the last 5
years--a strategy that involves higher taxes, more Federal spending,
and more debt--the President and his allies seem to see no reason to
change course. His proposed budget for 2015, for example, would
increase Federal spending by $791 billion. It would also increase taxes
by $1.8 trillion over 10 years, and increase our national debt by $8.3
trillion. That is on top of the $17 trillion already--about $56,000 for
every man, woman, and child in America.
For those keeping score, the President has already raised taxes by
$1.7 trillion during his presidency and increased our national debt by
four times that much. In other words, if more taxes and more spending
were the path to prosperity for this great Nation, America would be
booming, unemployment would be at zero, and our economy would be
chugging along, creating new jobs right and left. Instead, the evidence
is in. We are experiencing stagnation and mass unemployment. It is said
that insanity is defined as doing the same thing over and over but
somehow expecting a different result. If that is the definition of
insanity, then maintaining the current policies of spending, tax, and
debt are the definition of insanity.
There has to be a better way, and there is, if only the majority
leader would allow the Senate to do what it is supposed to do. This
body used to once be known as the world's greatest deliberative body,
where we had the great debates on the issues of the time, and then we
had a vote, and we all accepted the majority vote in those instances.
But now, the new tactic by the majority leader seems to be to bring a
bill to the floor without going through a committee where members of
that legislative committee are allowed to offer amendments and to get
votes on those amendments to help shape the committee product. We don't
even do that anymore, and we didn't do that on this underlying
unemployment insurance extension bill we will be voting on this week.
So Members of the Republican Conference--the Republican Members of
the Senate--have offered 45 amendments, all of which are designed to
improve the underlying piece of legislation and not just kick the can
down the road. I would think the majority leader and the President of
the United States would welcome our efforts to try to improve the
underlying legislation--but apparently not.
For example, can't we do a better job, let's say, of directing
Federal dollars for workforce training efforts in places such as West
Virginia and Texas so that for the good jobs that do exist, we could
match the skills of these people who have been unemployed for a long
time to those good jobs that pay very well and do exist in abundance.
So we have 45 different suggestions and ideas we would like to offer in
the spirit of cooperation and trying to do our jobs as Members of the
Senate. However, so far, the majority leader has steadfastly and, I
might add, stubbornly, pushed for another extension of unemployment
insurance without anything else attached that would actually improve
workforce training and programs that would upgrade stale skills for
people who have been unemployed for a long period of time so they can
qualify to do the good-paying jobs that exist.
One of the favorite parlor games here in Washington, DC, is to spin
various narratives to explain what is happening in Washington.
Sometimes I have heard the majority leader and others say the
Republican Party is the party of no. Well, that is a false narrative.
We have 45 different amendments that would improve this underlying
legislation. We have been shut out and, more importantly, the 26
million people I represent in the State of Texas have been shut out of
this debate and this discussion and this effort to come forward with a
better product. Isn't that what we are here for?

[[Page S1900]]

I mentioned some of these ideas that have been proposed yesterday.
For example, I mentioned a bill, sponsored in different forms, by the
senior Senator from Maine and the junior Senator from South Carolina
that would relieve the burden of ObamaCare, which has been complained
about mightily by organized labor and others, that has compelled--or
induced, I should say--employers to take 40-hour workweeks and shrink
them to 30 hours or less in order to avoid ObamaCare penalties. So this
amendment would relieve that burden on workers and businesses by
restoring the traditional 40-hour work week. Why wouldn't that be a
subject worthy of debate and a vote in the Senate?
I mentioned a separate bill introduced by the junior Senator from
South Carolina that would modernize workforce training and eliminate
duplicative governmental programs. There are more than 40 different
government programs that purport to train people to improve their job
skills all across the country.
I have had the chance to visit some of those locations in Texas, and
they do a very good job. But rather than have 40-plus different
programs, why don't we have 1 or 2 and use the extra money from all
that duplication in order to put more money into these programs so they
can train more people and get them back to work faster? That is another
of the amendments that have been shut out of this process so far.
I also mention legislation sponsored by the senior Senator from Utah
and the junior Senator from Kentucky respectively that would eliminate
ObamaCare's job-killing tax on medical innovation--something that I
believe, if allowed to come for a vote, would receive an overwhelming
majority vote on a bipartisan basis in the Senate.
Also, the junior Senator from Kentucky has a piece of legislation
that would make it easier for Congress to block major regulations that
cannot pass a simple cost-benefit analysis.
Meanwhile, the junior Senator from Wyoming and the senior Senator
from North Dakota, whom I see on the floor, have a bill that would
expedite the approval of natural gas exports to our NATO partners in
Europe and to Ukraine and help relieve that stranglehold Vladimir Putin
and Russia have on Europe because they control most of their energy
supply. It would also approve the Keystone XL Pipeline, thereby
creating thousands of well-paying American jobs and would transport
North Dakota oil and Canadian oil all the way down to Texas, where it
would be refined into gasoline and jet fuel and create thousands of
jobs in the process.
In addition, another amendment that has been offered on this
underlying legislation that would help the economy grow and help get
people back to work and rein in excessive Federal regulation that is
killing jobs--the senior Senator from Oklahoma has a bill that would
stop new EPA regulations until--until--the Agency could tell us exactly
what the impact of those regulations would be on jobs and the economy.
So most of the ideas I have listed have been submitted as one of
these 45 amendments to the underlying unemployment insurance bill. Yet
the majority leader, who is the traffic cop on the Senate floor--the
rules of the Senate give him complete, 100-percent discretion to decide
which amendments are going to get a vote and which will not--the
majority leader seems determined to prevent any votes on any of these
ideas.
If we are truly serious about job creation and if we are truly
serious about doing everything possible to get America back to work--
because of the dignity work provides and the means it provides people
to provide for their own families and to pursue their dreams--why on
Earth would we deny Members a chance to vote on these job-creating
pieces of legislation? Well, unfortunately, I think we got a little bit
of a peek into the majority leader's playbook last week when he and
others had a press conference upstairs and talked about this agenda
they had for the time from the present through the election. And they
were pretty candid about it. This is an agenda they dreamed up in
conjunction with the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. The
majority leader said as much in his announcement. In other words, this
is a political plan by the political arm of the Democratic Senators'
campaign committee. So this is not about finding solutions or else the
majority leader would welcome these suggestions we have offered.
I would say to the majority leader, do not allow votes on these
amendments simply to placate me and others of my political party. Do
not do it for us. Do it for the 3.8 million people who have been
unemployed for more than 6 months. Do it for them. Do it for the untold
numbers of people who have simply given up looking for work. Our labor
participation rate--the percentage of Americans actually in the
workforce--is at a 40-year low. So it is not only the tragedy of the
unemployment numbers that we see reported, it is people who are not
reflected in those unemployment numbers because those statistics do not
count people who have given up. And that is what the low labor
participation rate indicates. These are the people who need our help,
and they are the ones who deserve a vote on these constructive
suggestions to the underlying piece of legislation. I hope the majority
leader will reconsider.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.

Gun Violence

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, in January of this year, I came to the
floor to talk about and honor one of my constituents, Javier Martinez,
who was killed on December 28 of last year, just as 2013 was ending. He
was shot while walking to a friend's house in New Haven. He was 18
years old.
In the aftermath of that tragedy, I have spoken with Javier's family
and his friends about his life and legacy. As I said on the Senate
floor a few months ago, Javier was a kind and intelligent young man,
well on his way to becoming a leader in his community. He cared a lot
about the environment. He worked with the Nature Conservancy and the
New Haven Urban Resources Initiative to plant trees and protect
endangered species. His classmates at the Common Ground High School in
New Haven would like to plant a tree at the site of his death and
dedicate a garden in his honor because of his interest in the outdoors
and the natural resources that enhance the beauty of our world, which
he loved so much.
Yesterday morning I visited some of Javier's classmates at the Common
Ground High School in New Haven. I spoke to a group of young people who
were serious about ending gun violence because it is such a serious
cause of heartbreak, grief, loss, and sacrifice--not just in New Haven,
not just in Sandy Hook, but throughout our country in big and small
towns, rural and urban neighborhoods, people from all backgrounds and
different walks of life. I spoke to the Common Ground AP U.S.
Government class, where the students and their teacher, Brian Kelahan,
were kind enough to welcome me and share with me some of their views on
gun violence and the justice system in this country. I told them what I
firmly believe: that I have a duty to listen to them and to all people
who live in Connecticut because they have a unique insight and a depth
of understanding and perspective that should be shared here in
Washington, DC, in this body and around the country.
It is my job to bring that perspective, those insights back to
Washington. So I want to begin by showing my colleagues a picture of
those Common Ground students who were Javier's classmates. This
photograph was taken at the top of East Rock. Unfortunately, it is
somewhat indistinct as to who is pictured here. But it is overlooking a
scene that Javier knew well with people who were his friends. They are
dedicated to ending gun violence in this country because they know
firsthand the toll it takes. They have been no stranger to gun violence
in their neighborhoods. Many of them have to travel long distances to
come to this school--the Common Ground High School in New Haven--from
neighborhoods that are afflicted with gun violence, and they suffer the
traumatic, emotional, sometimes physical threats that come with that
exposure to violence.
Connecticut also has been no stranger to gun violence over the last
year and a half, and I have come to the floor many times with my
colleague Senator Murphy to commemorate the courageous and strong
people of New Town

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and in particular the families who suffered the loss of 20 beautiful
children and 6 great educators.
What the students who met with me yesterday morning wanted me to hear
bears telling and repeating here. They were speaking truth to power.
What they wanted all of my colleagues to hear and what I strongly
believe is that as tragic as the mass slayings are in this country, no
less tragic, no less horrific, no less important is the shooting of one
innocent 18-year-old young man like Javier while walking to a friend's
house. It may not make the national news. It rarely does anymore
because we have come to regard gun violence, in a way, like the
background noise of our society. It may not feature prominently in the
headlines. Individual gun violence is a plague, still, that affects all
of us as it affects any one of us. We cannot let these shootings
continue in our urban communities. Many of them are committed with
handguns. Many are the result of illegal gun trafficking and straw
purchases. Far too many are ignored by the news media--simply
disregarded background noise.
Gun violence affects all of us wherever we live in Connecticut and
the country. If anything positive is to come of these tragedies in New
Town and New Haven--and in the 30,000 other deaths that have happened
since New Town--as a result of gun violence, it should be the uniting
and bringing together of all who have been touched by gun violence,
which is all of us. That goal is one that will drive me, and I am sure
others here, to seek an end to gun violence with commonsense, sensible
measures, such as the ones we considered--background checks, mental
health initiatives, school safety.
The Presiding Officer helped to craft a very sensible and commonsense
approach to background checks. We prohibit felons, criminals, mentally
deranged people, and addicts from having these firearms, but we have no
universal background check system to make sure they do not purchase
them. How effective can enforcement be if there is no real way of
checking who is buying these firearms?
A young woman who is a senior at Common Ground, in fact, asked me
what laws can be effective when people are willing to break them, buy
firearms even though they are prohibited from doing so. That is an
important question. The answer is that no law is perfect, none can be
absolutely perfectly enforced, but regulations and restrictions on
dangerous people having firearms can reduce the level of gun violence
in our society, reduce the number of criminals buying weapons.
Background checks especially have been shown--there is empirical
evidence--to reduce the number of guns that get into the wrong hands.
Students and teachers asked me about the way our country deals with
criminal justice. Systematic disparities continue to plague our justice
system, resulting in severely disproportionate rates of incarceration
for young men and women of color. They spoke about the overlapping
cultures of law enforcement and school discipline and about the need to
reduce prison populations and bring about much needed reform in the way
sentences are calculated, not only as a matter of fairness but also to
reduce the cost in our society of incarceration.
These young people are thinking about where our society should be
going. What is our plan and our strategy for making our neighborhoods
and communities better places and safer places to live?
I made a commitment to those students pictured here in this picture
that I would come back again. And I will. I made a commitment that I
would tell their story, which is really Javier's story--a story of hope
and promise, dreams and aspirations, cut short by gun violence because
he was in the wrong place at the wrong time and murdered.
That investigation may be ongoing, but we already know the answer to
the fundamental question: Can we do something to reduce gun violence?
The answer is yes, in his name, in the name of 30,000 people who have
perished along with him from gun violence, needless and senseless
deaths that are all our responsibility.
I respect the Second Amendment, as I know the Presiding Officer does.
I respect the right of people under the Constitution and the Second
Amendment to own and possess firearms and use them for hunting, for
recreation, target practice. I will continue to honor the memory of
Javier Martinez and the lives and aspirations and homes of the students
at Common Ground, and work not only to build that garden but to make
the neighborhood around it safer and the community around it a more
nurturing and better place to live.
I have made no secret of the fact that I believe this body has a
responsibility to act, and its failure to do so is shameful and
disgraceful. The students of Common Ground agree. If their aspirations
include organizing to make more people aware of the need for this
action, I commend them. In fact, I urge them to participate in this
effort.
I wish to close with the words from a card they sent me with this
photograph. The card read:

Senator Blumenthal, we are so grateful for your help in
remembering Javier Martinez, supporting our Common Ground
community and taking action to stop gun violence. It means so
much to have you by our side as we recover and make meaning
in this incredibly difficult time. Know that we will stay
with you in the struggle to build a safe and peaceful
community.

I know it sounds more like rhetoric than reality. But I will tell my
colleagues in the Senate that as long as the young people of Common
Ground and others like them are at our side, we will prevail in
commonsense measures to reduce gun violence, and we will prevail in the
fight to make America a better, safer place to live.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
Mr. HOEVEN. Mr. President, I rise to offer an amendment to the
unemployment insurance legislation we are currently considering. While
we all want to help those who are unemployed, the real solution is to
get them a job, is to create a growing economy and more jobs. We need
to get this economy going. One way we can do it is by empowering our
energy sector.
That does not mean spending more government money. What it means is
taking the shackles off billions in private investment that is ready to
go into energy development in this country. In 2011, the U.S. Chamber
of Commerce commissioned a study. The study took a look at the energy
projects that are stalled in this country due to government bureaucracy
and redtape.
That study found there are more than 350 energy projects, projects
that will both produce renewable energy as well as projects that will
produce traditional energy that are stalled at a cost of $1.1 trillion
to the American economy, at a cost of almost 2 million jobs for the
American people.
I want to take a minute to read from that report:

In aggregate, planning and construction of the subject
projects would generate $577 billion in direct investments,
calculated in current dollars. The indirect and induced
effect, where we apply the multiplier, would generate an
approximate $1.1 trillion increase in U.S. Gross Domestic
Product, GDP, including $352 billion in employment earnings
based on present discounted value over an average
construction period of 7 years.
Furthermore, we estimate that as many as 1.9 million jobs
would be required during each year of construction.

Two million jobs. Many of these projects are still blocked by
government redtape and the permitting process. That is why I have
introduced a States First All-of-the Above Energy Plan for our country
to get these projects going. If you think about it, it just makes
sense. The States, after all, are the laboratories of democracy. Let's
make them the laboratories of energy for our country.
The right energy plan is about much more than just energy. It means
economic growth, it means national security, and it means jobs--jobs
for those who are currently unemployed and jobs at a good wage. Today I
am offering amendments to the unemployment insurance legislation that
will do all of those things.
The first one I wish to talk about for a minute is the Energy
Security Act. I am pleased to join with the senior Senator from Wyoming
Mr. Barrasso and also our ranking member on the Energy Committee,
Senator Lisa Murkowski from Alaska, as well as other cosponsors on the
legislation, Senator John Cornyn of Texas, obviously a big energy-
producing State, Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, and Senator David
Vitter of Louisiana.

[[Page S1902]]

What the Energy Security Act does, quite simply, is first it approves
the Keystone XL project. This is a more than $5 billion pipeline that
has been in the permitting process now for more than 5 years. We are
now in the sixth year of the permitting process trying to get a permit
from the administration. We have thousands of pipelines all across this
country, millions of miles of pipeline, and here is a project that for
6 years the administration has held in limbo.
The latest greatest technology moves Canadian oil, our closest ally,
Canada, moves oil from Canada as well as oil from my State, North
Dakota, and Montana to refineries across the United States. We import
50 percent of our oil. Do Americans want to get that from the Middle
East or do they want to produce it here in our country and get it from
our closest friend and ally, Canada? That is an obvious answer. That is
why in poll after poll, 3 to 1, Americans want this project approved.
But it remains in limbo, now in its sixth year of the permitting
process on the part of the administration.
So when I talk about those 350 projects, when I talk about $1.1
trillion in GDP, when we talk about almost 2 million American jobs that
study performed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce identified, you can see
what they are talking about when you talk about this project that has
been held up now into the sixth year.
The legislation, the Energy Security Act, would approve that project,
but it would also approve the 24 pending applications that would allow
us to export LNG, liquefied natural gas, to our allies who need that
help. Right now in this country we produce 30 trillion cubic feet of
natural gas a year. We consume about 26 trillion cubic feet of natural
gas. That is growing rapidly. Believe me, I know. We are flaring off
natural gas in our State that we want to get to market. We need a
market for that product. But right now we are not allowed to export
liquefied natural gas to countries such as the NATO countries.
Look what is going on in Eastern Europe, such as what Russia is doing
in Ukraine. What is next? One of the reasons Russia is able to take
that kind of action and the European Union is reluctant to put
sanctions in place as a response is because Europe, Ukraine, are
dependent on Russia for natural gas for energy. Over one-third of the
supply of the EU's energy comes from Russia.
So we have an opportunity here. We can create economic activity. We
can create jobs. We can use that natural gas we produce beyond what we
need here at home to help our allies and at the same time stand up to
Russian aggression. That is why I say this is about jobs. This is about
getting our economy growing. But this is also very much about national
security, our national security here at home, energy security for our
country, but also security working with our allies to stand up against
the kind of aggression we see from Russia and from President Putin
right now.
In terms of jobs, the Obama administration's State Department, their
own State Department, has estimated the Keystone XL Pipeline during the
construction phase will create more than 40,000 jobs. That is just that
one project, more than 40,000 jobs. If you look at some of the studies,
very conservative studies on job creation that will occur by approving
these LNG applications, the National Economic Research Associates
identifies more than 45,000 jobs that would be created by expediting
approval of those permits.
Let me give you two examples so you understand the magnitude of what
we are dealing with here. Cheniere Energy wants to invest $11 billion
in an export facility at Corpus Cristi, TX. That is not one penny of
government spending--not one penny. We have a huge deficit and we have
a huge debt. We have got to get on top of it. That means controlling
our spending, but that means we have to have economic growth.
So here are companies willing to invest and create jobs and create
economic growth and create tax revenues--not raising taxes, creating
tax revenue. Why in the world do we hold them up? How does that make
sense? How is that common sense? Here we are on an unemployment
insurance bill where we are going to spend more government money to pay
people who remain unemployed when we could approve these projects and
put them back to work at good-paying jobs. Instead of growing the
deficit, we could actually create tax revenues from a growing economy--
again, not higher taxes, from a growing economy that helps reduce our
deficit and debt.
So the Cheniere Energy project, $1 billion investment facility in
Corpus Christi, creates a market for some of the natural gas that is
now being flared off, according to the Perryman Group, 3,000 direct
construction jobs, far more indirect jobs during the construction
phase. Here is another project. Exxon wants to build the Golden Pass
LNG facility at Sabine, TX, which is on the border between Texas and
Louisiana. That is a $10 billion investment. Perryman Group estimates
that between both the direct construction jobs and indirect jobs, on
the order of 45,000 jobs for that project during construction, almost
4,000 permanent jobs.
So you can see when we talk about NERA, the National Economic
Research Associates, saying, hey, there are going to be 45,000 jobs for
these projects, that is a very conservative estimate. It creates so
much more--not just good-paying jobs but also a growing economy, cash
revenues to help with the deficit and national security, and security
working with our allies at a critical time, a critical time in Eastern
Europe.
In addition, I have offered other legislation I filed, that I am now
offering as an amendment to this unemployment insurance bill--again,
legislation that will create jobs and help people get back to work.
The second one I want to mention is the Empower States Act. The
Empower States Act gives primary regulatory responsibility to the
States when it comes to regulating hydraulic fracturing. The reality
is, a Federal one-size-fits-all approach does not work for hydraulic
fracturing, because the way hydraulic fracturing is done across this
country is different in different States. The way they hydraulically
fracture in States, for example, in West Virginia, where they are going
after natural gas is very different than the way they do it in North
Dakota where we are going after oil. We drill down 2 miles, 2 miles
vertical drill bore to reach the oil, and then we drill out for miles
at that level.
We produce primarily oil and natural gas--huge amounts of natural gas
and gas liquids as a byproduct--but we are miles away from any potable
water, which is much closer to the surface, so it is very safe. The
water that is produced--both the frack water as well as the water that
comes up with that oil and natural gas--we put back downhole through
saltwater disposal wells, in essence recycling the water. Anything that
can't be reused goes back downhole and that creates a recycling
process.
That is different than the way it is done in the Marcellus shale in
places such as New York, Pennsylvania, and it is different than the way
it is done in West Virginia and different than the way it is done in
the Utica shale in Ohio. There are some similarities with the way it is
done in Texas in the Eagle Ford, where they also drill for oil.
But the point is, the way this is done, the technologies that are
used, even the product we are going after--and certainly the formations
are different across the country.
When we put a Federal one-size-fits-all approach in place, it doesn't
work. Not only does it not do the job in terms of making sure we have
the right kind of regulation, it holds up projects. It prevents job
creation. It doesn't allow our economy to grow. It doesn't empower us
to produce the energy that could be produced across this country with
the right approach, with the right energy plan.
As far as job creation, our State is now the fastest growing State.
We have the lowest unemployment, and we have the fastest growing
economy, 7.6 percent in the most recent statistic versus a 2.6-percent
average for the other States. Again, this is about creating a growing
economy. It is about creating jobs.
Also, I am offering the Domestic Energy and Jobs Act legislation I
filed as an amendment to this bill. DEJA is a series of bills that has
already passed the House. This is all legislation that has already
passed the House. So we know if we can get a vote in the Senate, the
legislation we can pass in the

[[Page S1903]]

Senate has already gone through the House. We are already a huge
distance on the journey to getting this done.
What does the Domestic Energy and Jobs Act do? It does exactly what
the title says. It reduces the regulatory burden, it sets goals, it
helps us produce more energy and create jobs.
For example, we establish an American energy development plan for
Federal lands. We have all of these Federal lands--millions and
millions of acres of Federal land both onshore and offshore. The
Department of Interior should have a plan to develop energy on those
public lands, and they should set goals to do so. This legislation
would require them to do just that.
We freeze and study the impact of EPA rules on gasoline regulations.
That benefits all Americans at the pump, not only small businesses that
are looking to hire people but families, all consumers.
We provide onshore oil and gas leasing certainty, meaning that the
Department of Interior has to approve the permits within a stipulated,
reasonable period of time. It advances offshore wind production. This
is about producing renewable energy as well as traditional energy. It
streamlines the permitting process. It provides access to the National
Petroleum Reserve for development in Alaska. It requires the BLM to
hold live Internet auctions. Let's use this new technology to encourage
investment in job creation and energy development in new and creative
ways.
It establishes rules on surface mining that make sense, commonsense
rules. It increases States' revenue sharing for Outer Continental Shelf
drilling, offshore drilling, and it also offers lease sales off the
Virginia coast.
Clearly, developing these new areas creates revenue for the States,
creates revenues for the Federal Government, creates more energy for
our country, and creates more jobs--not spending Federal money,
investing hundreds of billions of private dollars that are currently
sidelined in these new and exciting projects.
Finally, I am offering the stream buffer rule legislation that I
filed as a stand-alone bill. I am offering that as an amendment as well
to this UI bill. The Department of Interior wants to implement a
Federal one-size-fits-all rule for stream buffer zones, meaning mining
proximity to rivers and streams. Again, a one-size-fits-all, one-size
Federal approach for every situation does not work. Allow the States to
take the primary role in regulating the stream buffer zones and let
them do what makes sense.
With all of this legislation, we can empower hundreds of billions in
private investment. We can put that investment in good old-fashioned
American ingenuity into getting our country going, getting our economy
growing, and getting our people back to work.
We can do it. The way we can get started is simply by voting. That is
what we do in the Senate. That is what we do in this Senate forum. Let
us put forward our ideas and let's have a vote. If it passes, we can do
these things. But why in the world wouldn't we get a vote? That is what
this body is all about. Let's have the debate. Come to the floor and
let's have a debate. Let's debate each one of these and a lot more.
That is what we do. Then let's vote. That is how we will decide. That
is what the American people expect us to do. They sent us to the Senate
to do just that.
The question I have is why aren't we voting on these amendments and a
lot more if we are serious about getting people back to work? If
somebody wants to come down and refute this, come on down, do it, and
then let's vote.
With that, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
Ms. MURKOWSKI. I commend my colleague, the Senator from North Dakota,
not only for his leadership on so many energy initiatives, but for the
proposal he has put forth this afternoon.
I am pleased to be able to join him in support of those various
measures--measures that, as he has outlined, will not only as a nation
allow us to move forward and take that leadership role, which we so
rightly have and should use as something to benefit not only ourselves
and our economy, jobs within the Nation, but to benefit other nations.
The proposal he has advanced--again, that I am pleased to join him on--
is one that allows for incredible jobs and opportunities with the
construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline, provisions that will allow
for expedited processing of our LNG exports.
It recognizes, again, that when we produce more in this country--when
we produce more of a resource that not only allows us to be more energy
secure, but that also helps our friends and allies around the world, it
also helps to truly effectively reduce the cost of that energy to
American consumers.
How can this possibly be a negative? How can this possibly be bad
when it adds to jobs, when it strengthens our economy, and when it
makes us more secure as a nation.
There are many win/wins that we see in these energy proposals we have
in front of us that Senator Hoeven has offered. But, again, if we only
have an opportunity to kind of talk aloud about them but never actually
have the chance to move them forward through a legislative process so
they can actually become law so we can actually see those benefits play
out, it doesn't do us much good.
I appreciate what my colleague has outlined this afternoon through
his proposals. I know we will have an opportunity to speak further to
them tomorrow, and I look forward to doing that as well.

King Cove

I want to take 5 minutes in this late afternoon to continue to
educate not only my colleagues but folks within this administration and
around the country about an injustice that continues to unfold in a
small corner of my State, a very remote part of my State in
southwestern Alaska for the small community of King Cove. There are
about 950 people who live in King Cove.
I have been fighting since I came to the Senate, and before I came my
father took up this fight, in an effort to get a small connector road,
a small 10-mile, one-lane gravel, noncommercial-use road that will
allow the people of King Cove access to an all-weather airport so they
can get out in the event of medical emergencies.
We had another one last night. I had an email saying the weather had
completely taken over in the gulf in King Cove, and there was an
emergency call that went out. It was for a 58-year-old fisherman who
had been injured. He had been out on a Seattle-based processor called
the M/V Golden Alaska.
This fisherman happened to live in Seattle, and he was onboard this
boat. They were out near Unimak Island, which is out toward the chain
in the North Pacific, when this fisherman was accidentally sprayed with
a high-pressure hose and it severely injured his eye. It was 1 a.m.
when this incident happened.
We have this big vessel, a big processing vessel of 305 feet, heading
from Dutch Harbor to Seattle when the accident happened. I don't have a
map with me, but if we can envision, there is a lot of big, wide-open
ocean, and medical care is a long way away. This fisherman couldn't
wait for that medical care. The closest deepwater port was King Cove.
King Cove got the word that they had an injured fisherman onboard and
they said: Look, our clinic can't handle somebody who has critical
needs. See if you can take the boat over to Cold Bay so that not
necessarily he can get medical care, he could get on an aircraft out of
Cold Bay that could fly him the 600 miles or thereabouts to Anchorage
for the medical care he needed. But the problem they faced was they had
wind gusts of up to 60 miles per hour. They had rough seas, very rough
seas.
The ship's captain said: I am not going into Cold Bay. I am not going
to try to hoist a man who has been severely injured in his eye--I am
not going to try to hoist him up a 20-foot ladder at the Cold Bay dock.
We are not going to do that.
So they went into King Cove, a safer, more protected cove, and they
were able to get the gentleman there at 11:30 a.m. The physician's
assistant--we don't have a doctor in King Cove, we have a PA, somebody
who basically does a good job in stabilizing folks. She contacted the
emergency room in Anchorage.
The ER folks said: Look, you have to get this guy to an
ophthalmologist as

[[Page S1904]]

soon as you possibly can in order to preserve as much of his eyesight
as possible.
As I mentioned, not only does King Cove not have a doctor, they don't
have any kind of a eye specialist. The nearest ophthalmologist is in
Anchorage, more than 600 miles away.
The PA, Katie Eby, did what health professionals at the clinic always
do in an emergency like this. She calls for help to our Coast Guard.
She begs the Coast Guard to come. The Coast Guard says they will come,
but they can't come now. They can't chance the weather to get in there.
They are not going to risk a pilot and his crew to get into this
situation where we unnecessarily put even more lives at risk. They
said: Look, we are going to have to wait until the conditions improve
and the winds die down. So the physician's assistant tries to stabilize
the fisherman, manage his pain as best she can and basically she waits,
holding the hand of a man and telling him the Coast Guard will come.
The Coast Guard did finally make it in around 3 in the afternoon the
next day. So this injured fisherman waited 13 hours for the winds to
settle.
The problem with this story, of course, is there were other
alternatives for this fisherman who had been injured, who had to wait
in pain wondering if he was going to go blind, if he was going to
completely lose his eyesight while he was waiting for the Coast Guard
helicopter to come in, to pluck him out, to fly him over to Cold Bay,
and have a flight take him to Anchorage. The other alternative--the
safe, reliable, affordable way out is a 10-mile, one-lane, gravel,
noncommercial-use road. If that fisherman could have been put in an
ambulance and taken across that road, a dozen hours could have been
spared.
Yesterday's medevac marks the fifth medevac by the Coast Guard in
this current year. In 2014, we have had five Coast Guard medevacs. Keep
in mind, each one of these medevacs costs around $210,000 per flight.
So for those who are saying we can't have a road in King Cove because
it is going to cost the taxpayers money, it is costing the taxpayers
money because we are footing the bill for the Coast Guard.
Thank goodness the Coast Guard is there. But we are also putting the
lives of these men and women--our fine coasties--at risk when we are
doing this. If we had a road, who is building the road? It is the State
of Alaska. Who is maintaining the road? It is the Aleutians East
Borough. This is not the U.S. taxpayer who is paying for this, again,
10-mile, one-lane, gravel, noncommercial-use road.
There are options here. But the Secretary of the Interior has
determined she wants to look at other options. She wants to find other
alternatives. The fact of the matter is we have been looking at
alternatives for a long time now, and those alternatives have been
tried and failed or studied and reviewed and discarded.
But the one thing we are pretty sure of is that this fisherman from
Seattle who was injured and had to wait 13 hours to get out--we are
pretty sure we could have put him on an ambulance across that road--if
one existed--and he would not have had to wait for 12 hours.
We are pretty sure that the 63-year-old woman who suffered heart
issues on Valentine's Day and had to wait hours and hours for the Coast
Guard to pluck her out of King Cove before she was able to safely make
it to the hospital in Anchorage, we are pretty sure she could have been
spared some of that agony.
We are pretty sure that a couple of weeks ago when a father who had
been crushed by a 600-pound crab pot--his pelvis crushed and his legs
broken--that for hours and hours and hours he waited in the King Cove
clinic to get medevaced out, and of the fact that his infant son, a 1-
month old baby named Wyatt who was there in respiratory distress also
had to be medevaced out on the same day, only that baby had to make it
through the night in the arms of the physician's assistant, and the PA
knowing and feeling the infant was in distress and actually feeling him
stop breathing.
If we had a road in place, with the agony of not only the individuals
who have been injured but the loved ones who care about them, there are
better alternatives, and, it is very clear to me, alternatives that
work for the people who live there and the people who are in the area--
the fishermen.
Maybe I am taking this a little too personally because my oldest son
crabbed in the Bering Sea this winter. He was out in those waters. He
was out in that foul weather. He was working in a very dangerous
industry. Anybody who has ever watched ``Deadliest Catch'' knows what I
am talking about. Both my sons fish in these areas. They go through the
Gulf of Alaska. They go through Nunivak Pass every year as fishermen.
If something should happen to them or to somebody else on their crew,
and the closest deepwater port for them happened to be King Cove but
the weather was to the ground, I want a road for them.
I want a road for the people in King Cove. I want a road for the
Seattle fisherman who is transiting back. It is a lifeline. It is a way
to get to help. Right now, the one thing keeping these people from
getting help is the Secretary of the Interior because she has concluded
that we cannot build a 10-mile, one-lane, gravel, noncommercial-use
road without disturbing the waterfowl, the black brant, and the geese
that go through the Izembek.
We have all heard my story on this many times before. We know we can
build this small road and have it coexist peacefully with the birds
that go through there. We know the people who live there will continue
to care for the waterfowl and the wildlife just as they have for
thousands of years.
I don't want to keep coming to the floor and ranting about why we
need this road. I don't want to make it appear we are sensationalizing
the injuries of men, women, and children for the purpose of winning
this fight. But I am not going to have somebody die out there when we
could have found a safer and saner path forward.
So I am going to keep coming to the floor. I hope the Secretary of
the Interior is listening, that folks in the administration are
listening, and that they understand we in Alaska can be responsible for
the lands where we live, and we can provide for the health and safety
of those who are out there and those who are transiting through. But we
need this Secretary to do the right thing for the people of the State
of Alaska and provide for a life-saving road.
Mr. President, I yield the floor and 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. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from South Carolina.
Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I ask to be recognized for a few minutes,
if I could, as if in morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection.

Iran U.N. Ambassador

Mr. GRAHAM. There is an issue facing this country that needs to be
addressed firmly and decisively. I am encouraged there is a bipartisan
effort to deal with this issue, and the issue is very simple. The
person who has been nominated to be the U.N. Ambassador for Iran is a
gentleman who participated in the takeover of our Embassy in Tehran,
holding hostage 52 U.S. personnel for 444 days.
This is a slap in the face by the Iranian Government to the American
people, to the hostages, and it should not be allowed to stand. Senator
Cruz, I believe, will be offering a unanimous consent request
potentially dealing with this issue, but I just wanted to rise for a
few minutes and speak in support of what he is trying to accomplish in
the Senate. I am somewhat encouraged that there is a bipartisan effort
forming among our intel folks to deal with this affront to the American
people, to all those held hostage, and basically to human dignity. The
idea that the Iranians would be appointing someone connected in such an
apparently direct way with the Embassy takeover back in 1979 to
represent their nation in the U.N. tells us all we need to know about
Iran.
This hardline-moderate divide doesn't exist. This is all a game.
President Ruhani, when he was the nuclear negotiator for Iran, bragged
about how much progress they made when the heat was off. If he were
truly moderate

[[Page S1905]]

he wouldn't have been on the ballot and wouldn't be serving today at
the pleasure of the Ayatollah. Nobody serves in a high position in Iran
without the blessing of the Supreme Leader.
So the idea of making this gentleman--I don't want to butcher his
name--the Ambassador to the United Nations from Iran when he has
actively participated in violating every diplomatic principle involved,
the idea of invading a consulate or embassy and taking hostages runs
afoul of every principle of international law and diplomatic behavior.
It would be different if in the last 30 or so years the Iranian
regime had changed. We have relationships with people today who are
some of our strongest allies who used to be our enemies. There is
nothing changing in Iran since the Embassy takeover that would place
Iran in the column of a friend of America. This regime has been
actively involved in worldwide terrorism plots. They have provided
equipment to those who were fighting in Iraq to kill our soldiers. They
support Hamas and Hezbollah, terrorist organizations. They have been
designated by the State Department as a state sponsor of terrorism.
They are trying to build a nuclear weapon, not a powerplant. So they
have actually been no good for a very long time. I hope this body will
send a signal to the Iranians that we will not accept on U.S. soil the
person who has been designated, because this person was actively
engaged in holding 52 Americans hostage for 444 days, in contravention
of every law on the books and human decency. If Iran wants a new
relationship with the United States, this is not a good way to start
it.
I think there will be a lot of bipartisan objection to allowing this
person to come to New York. We have provisions in our laws that give us
the right as the host nation to exclude people who have been involved
in acts of terrorism against the United States or their neighbors and
any security threat. Again, the idea of doing business with former
enemies is the way of life. The idea of accepting that the Ambassador
to the United Nations from Iran as one of the people intricately
involved in the takeover of our Embassy and holding Americans hostage
for 444 days is an affront to us as a people and to the United Nations
as a whole. He has served in other posts in Europe. That is not the
issue. It is our Embassy that was taken over; it was our people who
were held hostage, and the surviving hostages are very upset, as they
should be. We don't want to reward people for doing bad things. This
would be the ultimate reward for somebody who did a very bad thing.
It would be a mistake to engage Iran in this way and not push back.
If there is to be a better relationship with Iran, it is worth fighting
for. We are going to have to stand up to these people because they will
take advantage of us if we allow it.
I look forward to supporting Senator Cruz and others who want to join
in the effort to stop this appointment because it is wrong.
With that, I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Warren). The Senator from Texas.
Mr. CRUZ. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(The remarks of Mr. Cruz pertaining to the introduction of S. 2195
are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills
and Joint Resolutions.'')
Mr. CRUZ. Madam President, I note the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Baldwin). Without objection, it is so
ordered.

DEA'S Final Rule

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, I rise today to urge the Drug
Enforcement Administration to issue the final rule necessary to
implement the Secure and Responsible Drug Disposal Act of 2010. I note
that year--2010--because that is the year this bipartisan bill was
passed.
What it does is it provides consumers with safe and responsible ways
to dispose of unused prescription medications and controlled
substances.
I thank Senator Cornyn, who was the lead cosponsor on the Republican
side of this legislation, as well as Senator Grassley and Senator
Brown, for working with me on the legislation.
The important law expands safe disposal options for individuals and
for long-item care facilities, and it promotes the development and
expansion of prescription drug take-back programs.
As the Presiding Officer knows, this simply means that when you get
prescription drugs and you do not use all of them--or your doctor
prescribes something else--you do not just leave them in your medicine
cabinet, where someone else might be taking them. Instead, you find a
safe place to dispose of them, so someone else does not start taking
them and potentially get hooked on the drug.
Why did I mention 2010? Well, 2010 was the year President Obama
signed this bill into law. It has now been 4 years--4 years--as we have
awaited the rules. I will describe why, but I think it is time to put
this law into action.
The DEA issued a proposed rule in December 2012. Unfortunately, that
took 2 years. There were some comments then about making sure the rules
worked for our long-term care facilities--you can imagine, there are a
lot of prescription drugs at long-term facilities--and the Departments
of Defense and Veterans Affairs. But these issues should be addressed
in the final rule. It is time now to get this rule done so we have more
options to easily and safely dispose of our prescription drugs.
I know the final rule is now at the Office of Management and Budget
for their approval. I have spoken to them about this rule. I am also
aware they have only had the rule for 35 days. So they are not really
the ones who have been holding this up. They have 90 days to get this
out, and they have pledged that they hope to get that done.
We need to get the rule done, and let me tell you why. As a former
prosecutor, I have seen firsthand the devastating impact that drug
addiction has on families and communities. During my 8 years as chief
prosecutor in Hennepin County--the largest county in our State--drug
cases made up about one-third of the caseload.
Most Americans know that we have a problem with serious drugs. But
what most Americans may not know is that one of our most serious drug
problems is, in fact, drugs that are in the medicine cabinet--drugs
that are prescribed legally.
Within those cabinets are some of the most addictive prescription
drugs out there--like pain killers and beta blockers. Prescription
drugs such as these are some of the most commonly abused drugs--and
people are surprised by this, but they are ahead of cocaine, heroin,
and methamphetamines in many States.
Teenagers now abuse prescription drugs more than almost any other
drug, and the majority of teens who abuse these drugs get them for
free. They get them in that medicine cabinet or, more likely, a friend
of theirs gets them from their mom's or dad's medicine cabinet--often
without the knowledge of the person who has it.
I think we all know that many leftover drugs are lying around. You go
to see the dentist for surgery, and they prescribe you something for
pain. You feel OK. You only take 1 or 2, and then you have 10 left, and
they are just sitting in the medicine cabinet.
We used to tell people to flush these drugs down the toilet. This is
not a good idea for our water supply, and I think most people know
that. Some people will tell you that the proper way to dispose of your
drugs is to crush up your extra pills, then mix them with--and this is
what they say--kitty litter or coffee grounds.
We need to do all we can to keep these dangerous drugs out of the
hands of teens, but I am just not sure--especially if someone does not
have a cat--that kitty litter is a realistic solution. Not everyone
these days makes their own coffee nor has coffee grounds. We are
dealing here with a very serious

[[Page S1906]]

problem, and all we are hearing about is kitty litter and coffee
grounds. That is why we passed this bill.
One option parents have is to dispose of leftover drugs at a National
Take-Back Day. Listen to this. Over 3 million pounds of prescription
medications have been removed from circulation through seven National
Take-Back Days that have been held since 2010. I participated in one of
those days in Brooklyn Park, MN, last fall.
While these events have been incredibly successful, one-day events
that are held a few times each year do not fully address the problem of
how we are going to dispose of our drugs safely.
For instance, let's say you heard about a Take-Back Day right after
you had your dental surgery. Great, you can bring over those pills and
safely dispose of them, but then you remember your kid has a soccer
tournament, and you cannot make it that day to dispose of the drugs. It
looks like those pills are going to stay sitting right where they are
in the medicine cabinet. I doubt many people have the time right then
and there to call and ask when the next Tack-Back Day might be and put
it on their calendar in a red pen.
We have to be realistic. These Take-Back Days are great. In my State,
especially in the metropolitan area, under the leadership of our
sheriff Rich Stanek we actually have some permanent facilities in
places where they can be brought permanently--the drugs--in the
libraries and places like that, but we really have gone the extra step.
The reason our law enforcement is such a big fan of this law is they
know we could take so many more drugs in if, for instance, long-term
care facilities were able to simply bring the drugs to one location
each and every day.
If, for instance--and some of our drug stores have been open to this,
some of these national chains--imagine how good this would be if they
would just be willing to take these back and then they bring them
somewhere. But to do that they need certain legal protections. They
need protections about how they transport them. That is why we have
been awaiting these rules.
Given the Food and Drug Administration's recent approval of some very
powerful drugs, I think it is even more important that we make sure
when these drugs are out there that they are able to be disposed of.
Offering more ways for people to dispose of their unneeded
prescription drugs is also a crucial component of stopping the recent
rise we have seen in heroin. Now, that might seem counterintuitive. You
might say: Why would that help with heroin? That is not a prescription
drug. How could that reduce the amount of heroin out there when we know
we have seen huge increases in the amount of heroin. We have seen it in
our State.
The heroin epidemic in Minnesota and all across the country is
deadly. In the first half of 2013, 91 people died of opiate-related
overdoses in the Twin Cities--in Hennepin and Ramsey Counties--compared
to 129 for all of 2012--just to give you a sense of 6 months compared
to a year. Hospital emergency department visits for heroin nearly
tripled from 2004 to 2011.
In the 7,000-person community of St. Francis, MN, three young people
have died of opiate overdoses since May. Another three young people
have been hospitalized for heroin overdoses. One was only 15 years old.
Experts blame this rise in heroin use to, first of all, some pure
heroin coming from Mexico, but, secondly, an increased use of
prescription drugs like OxyContin and Vicodin. That is because,
according to the Office of National Drug Control Policy, as many as 4
out of 5 heroin users got their start by abusing prescription drugs.
That is a pretty phenomenal number.
I think people think of heroin like from the 1970s and people
shooting up. Well, it is not like that anymore. They can take it by
pills. They can take it different ways. What happens is, when they
start with these prescription drugs, and they have access to them, they
get hooked, they get addicted; and then, when they cannot get the
prescription drugs--which does happen--then they turn to heroin, and
heroin right now is much easier to obtain.
So the answer here--because those drugs are similar in how they make
them feel--the answer is to stop them from getting addicted in the
first place. I think often times, when people just see a drug in the
medicine cabinet or know that it is OK to take one of these types of
drugs--OxyContin and other things for pain--they actually do not intend
to get addicted. These are many of the people I just had a roundtable
with at Hazelden, one of the Nation's premier drug treatment centers,
talking about this. A lot of times the people who end up dying from a
heroin overdose actually may even be casual heroin users. They are not
doing it every single day. But that is because the heroin was a
replacement for the prescription drugs they started getting addicted to
when they got them out of a medicine cabinet or maybe they were
prescribed them.
We know this is not going to fix everything. But certainly making it
easier and empowering people to dispose of these drugs will, No. 1,
clearly cut down on the use of these prescription drugs, and then, we
believe, lead to less heroin use in the long term.
Americans all across the country--in cities, suburbs, and small
towns--need options to get rid of leftover pills before they fuel
addictions and claim the lives of their loved ones.
The Secure and Responsible Drug Disposal Act provides these options.
But we cannot take these crucial steps in the fight against drug abuse
until the DEA issues its final rule.
After 4 years, it is time to make these rules official--4 years that
families and long-term facilities have lost out on safe and easy
options to get rid of unused prescription drugs; 4 years that those
plastic amber bottles have piled up in medicine cabinets across
America; 4 years that dangerous pills have been left vulnerable to
misuse, potentially falling into the hands of our loved ones fighting
addiction or criminals or being accidentally consumed by an innocent
child.
We need the final rules. We must get them done right. But with so
much at stake, we must get them done now.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.
Mr. MORAN. Madam President, it is April Fools' Day, but it sure feels
more like ``Groundhog Day'' because we are once again here considering
an extension of unemployment benefits for the millions of Americans who
have been out of work for months, and some of them even for years.
While assistance to those without work serves an important purpose in
helping Americans transition, we are failing to address the underlying
and more important issue: How do we grow the economy and create jobs
for all of our citizens?
A growing economy creates new opportunities for Americans to find
meaningful work, and with meaningful work comes an opportunity for
Americans to improve their economic security and advance up that
economic ladder.
It is one of the reasons Senator Wyden and I started the Economic
Mobility Caucus. We wanted to study the facts and explore policy
improvements that can make a difference to increase the likelihood that
all Americans can do just that--improve their standard of living and
move up that economic ladder to a better life.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, their monthly report
indicates that 10.5 million Americans are unemployed; 7.2 million
Americans are working part time because they cannot find full-time
work; 2.4 million Americans want to work but have stopped searching.
What a sad circumstance that is for those folks.
Our labor participation rate is hovering around its 35-year low at 63
percent. While those statistics and the lives these numbers represent
are pretty discouraging, I want to talk about a piece of good news. We
know we can create jobs and we can create a growing economy, and we
know from the facts, from the studies, that entrepreneurship, starting
a business, giving Americans a chance to pursue the American dream, is
the key.
The Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City has studied entrepreneurship.
They make clear that most new jobs come from young companies created by
entrepreneurs. In fact, since 1980, nearly all of the net new jobs that
have been created in our country have been created by companies less
than 5 years old. It kind of makes sense. Big businesses often are
looking for ways to

[[Page S1907]]

cut costs, reduce their workforce. New businesses wanting to succeed
increase their workforce. In fact, these new businesses create, on
average, 3 million jobs each year.
Unfortunately, the number of new business startups, those business
formed each year, are around their lowest total since the Bureau of
Labor Statistics began keeping track over 40 years ago. So while we
know that startup companies have a great opportunity to create jobs, we
are creating the fewest number of startup businesses in nearly 40
years.
A couple of authors, John Dearie and Courtney Geduldig--they are
authors of a book called ``Where the Jobs Are''--point out in that book
that ``the vital signs of America's job-creating entrepreneurial
economy are flashing red alert.'' John and Courtney spent an entire
summer traveling the United States. They met with more than 200
entrepreneurs in dozens of cities to learn about the challenges those
entrepreneurs are facing.
What they found is no surprise to anybody in this Chamber. They are
the same issues I hear when I am back in Kansas. Those who start a
business struggle with access to money, to capital to start that
business; a lack of skilled talent; a complex Tax Code; a regulatory
burden; and, boy, a lot of uncertainty, most of it, much of it,
resulting from the action or lack of action here in Washington, DC.
A few years back I set out with a bipartisan group of Senators to
address the challenges entrepreneurs face. Together we developed
legislation that is now called Startup Act 3.0 to help create a better
environment for those whose dream it is to start a new business. The
Senate majority leader is frequently talking about allowing votes on
legislation that has bipartisan support. This bill, Startup 3.0, is
such a bill.
I spent time working with Senator Warner and Senator Coons, Senator
King and Senator Klobuchar, as well as Senator Blunt and Senator Rubio.
We introduced what I would say is a very commonsense approach to
addressing factors that influence an entrepreneur's chance of success:
taxes, regulations, access to capital, access to talent.
This legislation has been introduced as an amendment to the
unemployment insurance extension bill the Senate is now considering.
Unfortunately, at least so far, we have been denied having a vote on
what is clearly a job-creating measure. I have offered this as an
amendment to other bills on the Senate floor, but if the past is any
example of what will happen on this bill, the chances of us being able
to offer the amendment, have it considered and voted on, do not look
very probable.
Startup 3.0 makes changes to the Tax Code to encourage investment in
startups and provides more capital for those who are ready to grow and
hire. To address burdensome government regulations, this legislation,
now this amendment, requires Federal agencies to determine whether the
cost of new regulations outweighs the benefits, and it encourages
Federal agencies to give special consideration of the impact proposed
regulations would have on a startup business.
As any entrepreneur knows, a good idea is essential to starting a
successful business. So Startup 3.0, an amendment now to this bill,
improves the process by which information that is funded by Federal
research, information that is garnered by Federal research, is more
readily available to those who want to start a business, so that tax-
funded innovations can be turned into companies that spur economic
growth.
Finally, Startup 3.0 provides new opportunities for highly educated
entrepreneurial immigrants to stay in the United States where their
talent and new ideas can fuel economic growth and create jobs in
America.
For more than 2 years, Startup Act 3.0 has earned praise from
business owners, from chambers of commerce, from economic development
officials, from entrepreneurs, from economists, and elected officials.
Recently, the California State Senate passed a resolution calling on
Congress to pass Startup Act 3.0. The President's Council on Jobs and
Competitiveness, when it was in existence, had voiced strong support
for several of the bill's provisions.
Unfortunately, none of that support from across the country has
progressed in the Halls of Congress to see this legislation seriously
considered. I can tell you that the reason Congress has not been able
to address our economic challenges is not for lack of good ideas. In my
view, it is a lack of leadership in the Senate and within the
administration, within Washington, DC, to address the challenges
Americans face.
There are plenty of good ideas that can provide immediate relief to
Americans, many ideas in addition to Startup 3.0. Some of those
examples are a 40-hour workweek. The House is poised to pass
legislation. Some of my colleagues are proposing amendments here in the
Senate to change full-time employment from 30 hours, as outlined in the
Affordable Care Act, back to 40 hours.
Small businesses, restaurants, school districts, and community
colleges across Kansas and around the country are already cutting hours
to comply with the employer mandate of the Affordable Care Act. By
fixing this provision, we can make certain that hard-working Americans
have the opportunity to work more hours, earn a bigger paycheck, or
find full-time employment.
Many of us believe--in fact, a large majority of the Senate in a
bipartisan way believes--that approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline will
help us in two ways: reduce energy costs in the United States, a very
important factor in new jobs and expanding the economy, as well as
increasing employment during the construction of that pipeline.
A recent poll by Washington Post and ABC News shows that Americans
support this 3 to 1. Again 80-some Senators voted in moving forward
with the Keystone Pipeline. Yet it has not happened. The President has
not made a decision in regard to Keystone Pipeline, has stalled this
issue. Nothing in the Senate would suggest the leadership of the Senate
is ready to move this ball forward.

The President talks about trade promotion authority, spoke about it
in one of his State of the Union Addresses. Yet that is another issue
that has not been considered by the Senate. The President apparently
has backed off of this issue out of deference to politics. Yet we
know--we certainly know this in Kansas--that the airplanes we make in
south central Kansas, the wheat we grow in western Kansas, the cattle
we grow in our State, that we raise in our State, clearly much of the
economic activity that comes from those activities occurs because we
are able to sell those agricultural commodities, those manufactured
goods around the globe.
Millions of Americans can be better off if there is greater
opportunity for what we manufacture, the agricultural products we grow,
if they have a wider market. The President and this Congress,
particularly the Senate--not this Congress, the Democratic majority
here--have focused much of their attention on, for example, the bill we
are on, extending the unemployment insurance timeframe, apparently in
the near future increasing minimum wage.
Consider these facts. There are 3.6 million Americans at or below the
minimum wage level. Minimum wage workers make up 2.5 percent of all
workers, and 55 percent are 25 years old or younger. So it is a
relatively small portion of the workforce and a young portion of the
workforce. I am certainly willing, happy to have a debate about the
need to increase the minimum wage, to extend unemployment benefits, in
part because I want the Senate to operate.
One of my greatest complaints since my arrival in the Senate is the
Senate no longer functions as it has historically, in which issues of
importance to the country, whether they are Republican issues,
Democratic issues, American issues, middle of the road--this place
takes up those issues very rarely. I am willing to have a debate about
what is proposed here.
But what I am thinking we are doing is we are missing the real issues
if we only deal with those. The minimum wage and extension of
unemployment benefits is a symptom of a larger problem. It is that
Americans want and need jobs. In my view, this Senate and this
President have done nothing to increase the chances that Americans have
a better shot at finding a better job.
We have to grow the economy. By growing the economy--I think that

[[Page S1908]]

sounds like something that is far removed from the everyday lives of
Americans. But growing the economy simply means we are creating greater
opportunities for American men and women, for husbands and wives, for
sons and daughters, for families to have the opportunity to pursue a
career they feel comfortable in, that is satisfactory to their economic
needs, and gives them the hope they can improve their lives
financially.
So growing the economy is about creating a greater opportunity for
every American to pursue what we all have grown up calling the American
dream. Unfortunately, the facts, if you believe the Congressional
Budget Office, indicate that raising the minimum wage will increase
unemployment. In fact, the numbers I saw--this was not the CBO score,
but a Texas university study indicated that raising the minimum wage to
$10 an hour or more would reduce jobs in my home State by 27,300 jobs.
I doubt that voters care much about CBO reports or about a Texas
university study, but they are acutely aware--they see it every day in
their own lives--of the lack of opportunity, the dearth of jobs, the
reduction in hours, the reduction in opportunity. These reports make
clear they are happening because of failed policies and the refusal of
the Senate and the President to address the broader issue of what can
we do to create jobs for Americans.
I thought the message of the 2010 election, the election where I was
brought to the Senate on behalf of Kansans--I thought the message that
we all would have, should have received, the message of the election,
was the desire for every American to have the chance to improve their
lives through a job, through a better job, and through a secure job. In
my view, it is time for us to focus on growing the opportunities for
all workers everywhere.
With a willing Congress, including leaders who understand these
challenges and are willing to address them, I am certain we can create
greater opportunities for millions of Americans, including those who no
longer or who currently have no meaningful work. The lack of a job is
terrible. I think there is a certain moral component, a sense of well-
being, a sense of who we are as human beings when we have a job that
not only fulfills us financially but gives us a sense of purpose in our
daily lives.
As the Senate considers a short-term extension of unemployment
insurance, we must not lose sight of that longer term goal of creating
an environment for job creation. Again, I would offer Startup Act 3.0,
a bipartisan amendment, a bipartisan piece of legislation offered as an
amendment, as an opportunity to do that, as part of the consideration
of the extension of unemployment benefits. There is no better way to
create jobs than to support entrepreneurs and to foster the development
of new businesses.
Small business is, as we always say, the backbone of American jobs.
So let's stop having this ``groundhog day'' moment every few months and
let's start tackling the challenges that entrepreneurs across the
country are telling us about, that Americans are telling us about, that
we learned in the 2010 election mean so much to every American.
Unfortunately, this President and this Senate have done nothing to
improve the chances that every American has a better job and a brighter
future. Please, this is so important. There is so much we can do. Too
many times we focus on what we are unable to agree upon. But there is
so much we can agree upon, so many things we can do. The American dream
depends upon us doing so and doing so now.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.

Climate Change

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I am on the floor for the 63rd
consecutive week we have been in session to ask my colleagues to
finally wake up to the threat of climate change. The evidence mounts of
unprecedented and dangerous changes, from the latest Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change report to the recent warning from the American
Association for the Advancement of Science.
The American people demand action in ever-greater numbers. Yet
Congress continues to sleepwalk, lulled by special interest influence
and polluter propaganda. The influence and propaganda are spread
through an apparatus of denial. This apparatus is big and artfully
constructed--phony-baloney organizations designed to look and sound as
if they are real, messages honed by public relations experts to sound
as if they are truthful, payroll scientists whom polluters can trot out
when they need them. The whole thing is big and complicated enough that
when we see its parts, we could be fooled into thinking it is not all
connected. But it is just like the mythological Hydra: many heads, same
beast. And this denial beast pollutes our democracy just as surely as
its sponsors pollute our atmosphere and oceans. Some editorial pages
spread the polluter party line so consistently that it appears they
have gone over and actually joined the apparatus.
The climate denial network controls the political arm of the
multinational corporations, the so-called U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Polluter-funded super PACs target officials who don't fall in line--
interestingly, often Republicans, in an effort to purify the party in a
coal-fired crucible.
The whole deniers' castle can look pretty daunting, but it is based
on rejecting science and ignoring empirical evidence. That is a weak
foundation. It won't stand. The castle is built on sand and its fall is
inevitable. Remember from Apocrypha: ``But above all things Truth
beareth away the victory.'' And it will.
There are cracks in the foundation already. Some leading news sources
have begun to put climate denial into their policy against printing
misinformation and discredited theories. They just won't print that
nonsense. Many executives recognize the significance of climate change
and are distancing their companies from the policies and politics of
climate denial. They don't want any part of that nonsense. Many local
officials are doing all they can to protect their communities from the
effects of climate change. They know climate denial is nonsense.
It has been wrong that the climate change denial campaign has been so
ignored by major media outlets. Media Matters found that all the major
network Sunday TV talk shows in all of 2013 discussed climate change
for a grand total, all combined, of 27 minutes. NBC News's ``Meet the
Press'' mentioned climate change once. When several of the Sunday shows
discussed climate change on February 16 of this year for a grand total
of 46 minutes combined, it was more climate coverage than in the past 3
years.
It has been wrong that polluters so often got their way on the
editorial page. Whether through a desire to appear fair and balanced or
a willful effort to help polluters, newspapers still publish editorials
or letters to the editor that dispute consensus science, disparage
scientists or journalists who report the truth about climate change,
and exaggerate the costs of taking action to stop it. Often, their
authors have direct ties to coal and oil interests, and rarely is the
connection disclosed.
As we can see from this chart, some papers do it more than others.
The denier champ is the Wall Street Journal editorial page, with eight
denier letters in the first 10 months of 2013. That is one every 5
weeks. I think they have actually joined the denier apparatus and are
now a part of the scheme, but they are on the wrong side of history.
On the right side is the Los Angeles Times, whose editorial page last
year released a note from editor Paul Thornton announcing they would no
longer print climate denial letters.
Thornton's note read:

I do my best to keep errors of fact off the letters page;
when one does run, a correction is published. Saying
``there's no sign humans have caused climate change'' is not
stating an opinion; it's asserting a factual inaccuracy.

Reddit is one of the Internet's most popular social and news Web
sites, ``the front page of the Internet.'' According to the Pew
Research Center, 1 in every 17 American adults uses Reddit. Reddit
science has 4 million subscribers. That is about twice the circulation
of the New York Times. Reddit Science has banned posts on climate
denial because, as its moderator, Dr. Nathan Allen, explained, ``We
require submissions to [Reddit Science] to be related

[[Page S1909]]

to recent publications in reputable peer-reviewed journals, which
effectively excludes any climate denial.''
The L.A. Times and Reddit Science are not alone in seeing that the
climate denier castle is built on lies. More and more American
corporations are responding to the facts, understanding that they are
ultimately responsible to their shareholders and customers. Major
utilities--for example, PG&E, the Public Service Company of New Mexico,
and Exelon--all quit the U.S. Chamber of Commerce after a chamber
official called for putting climate science on trial like the Scopes
Monkey Trial of 1925. The chamber may have been infiltrated and
captured by the polluters, but major corporations get it: Coke and
Pepsi, UPS and FedEx, GM and Ford, Google and Apple, Walmart--we can go
on and on. The denier castle is crumbling.

Many of the businesses getting serious about reducing carbon
pollution are actually based in States that are represented in Congress
by Members who won't take the problem seriously at all. Coca-Cola,
headquartered in Georgia, says:

We recognize climate change is a critical challenge facing
our planet, with potential impacts on biodiversity, water
resources, public health and agriculture. . . . Beyond the
effects on the communities we serve, we view climate change
as a potential business risk, understanding that it could
likely have direct and indirect effects on our business.

Texas- and Maryland-based Lockheed Martin states:

From 2007 through 2011, Lockheed Martin reduced its
absolute carbon emissions by 30 percent, and continues to
focus on carbon emission reductions by championing energy
conservation and efficiency measures in our facilities.

Sprint, the mobile carrier headquartered in Kansas, gets it.

We understand that climate change is a critical issue and
that reducing greenhouse gas emissions is an important goal.
Because Sprint is a large corporation with thousands of
locations, millions of customers and billions of dollars in
operating costs, we have many opportunities to reduce global
greenhouse gas emissions.

The denier castle is crumbling at the local level too. Scores of
locally elected officials are fighting to slow climate change and
protect their residents, even if in Congress their Congressman won't
listen. One of those local leaders is Mayor Frank Cownie of Des Moines,
whom I met on my recent trip to Iowa. Iowans are taking climate change
seriously, and Mayor Cownie is one of over 1,000 mayors represented on
this map all across the country who have signed the U.S. Conference of
Mayors Climate Protection Agreement. Their pledge is to meet or beat
the Kyoto Protocol emission reduction targets in their own cities and
press their State governments and the Federal Government to enact
meaningful greenhouse gas reduction policies.
Seventy-eight current and former mayors from Florida have signed on.
With over 1,000 miles of coastline, Florida is at serious risk from
sea-level rise. According to the World Resources Institute, of all the
people and all the housing in America threatened by sea-level rise, 40
percent is in Florida.
Thirty-one former and current mayors from Texas have also signed on
to the climate agreement. Texans are waking up to the threat of climate
change. A recent poll showed that roughly 55 percent of Texans say the
United States should reduce greenhouse gas emissions regardless of
whether other countries do the same.
Kansas Governor Sam Brownback, our former Republican colleague from
this Chamber, understands the benefits of cleaner energy. He fought to
keep in Kansas his State's renewable portfolio standard, which
encourages utilities to ramp up generation of renewable electricity.
The standard has already helped create thousands of Kansas jobs.
Governor Steve Beshear of Kentucky, a coal-producing State, has taken
a commonsense stance on climate change that defends the well-being of
his State. He said:

[W]e have to acknowledge our commitment to address
greenhouse gas emissions, while stressing the need for a
rational, flexible regulatory approach.

I have to say I agree with him. I stand ready and many of us stand
ready on this side to work with coal-State colleagues to ease their
transition away from a polluting fossil fuel economy.
When we think of what the costs are going to be to all of us of
failing to address this problem, the cost of easing the transition for
those who will suffer from it is easily worth undertaking. But to do
any of that, we first have to break through the barricade of lies built
around Congress in Washington. We can't keep pretending this isn't
real. That is why once a week for over 60 weeks I have come to the
floor to press this point. It is real. It is happening. It is not going
to go away if we ignore it.
There is one thing and one thing only that prevents our action, and
that one thing is the politics of the Republican Party. There is one
thing and one thing only that makes this the politics of the Republican
Party, and that one thing is the special influence of the polluters.
But against the relentless facts and science, against Mother Nature's
relentless truth, that castle is built on sand and will fall. But above
all things, truth beareth away victory.
For the sake of our democracy, for the sake of our future, for the
sake of our honor, it is time for us to wake up.
I yield the floor, and 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. SESSIONS. 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. SESSIONS. Madam President, we are in the midst of a debate about
extending unemployment insurance for millions of Americans who are
unemployed, some of whom have been out of work for some time. It is a
problem for the country.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of Americans
who want to work but who have stopped looking for a job is 3.1 million.
Over 91 million Americans are outside the labor force entirely.
According to a recent report in CNN Money:

Only about 63 percent of Americans over the age of 16
participate in the job market, meaning they either have a job
or are just looking for one. That is nearly the lowest level
since 1978, driven partly by baby boomers retiring but also
by workers who had simply given up hope after long and
fruitless job searches.

As a matter of fact, we saw at our budget hearing this morning a
chart which showed the decline in workers by age group, and it was
interesting. The younger workers had the biggest decline in percentage
working, and the older, 62 and above, are working at a greater rate
than they were in previous years. So that is an interesting statistic.
But we do have a problem, particularly among a lot of our younger
people finding work.
At the same time we are having these difficulties, this
administration has engaged in a systematic dismantling of the
protections our immigration laws provide for American workers,
producing for them--our workers--lower wages and higher unemployment.
That is just a fact. Why are wages down? And wages are down, as we
heard from all witnesses, Republican and Democratic, in the Budget
Committee this morning. Wages have declined significantly in the last 5
years. They have been declining, just at a lesser rate, since 1999.
In fact, our review of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
published statistics for 2013 reveals that under the guise of setting
priorities for enforcement of our laws, this administration has
determined that almost anyone in the world who can enter the United
States then becomes free to illegally live, work, and claim benefits
here as long as they are not caught committing some felony or serious
crime.
Based on what the President has said, and what the Vice President has
said, it would appear an individual could come to America on a work
visa, and 1 day after the visa has expired just continue to stay in
America and be able to work and could be confident that they will not
be deported because the policy of this government is not to deport
people unless they catch them at the border entering illegally or they
have committed a serious crime.
A recent report this week shows that even the serious crime issue is
cloudy. An independent report earlier this week said one-third of
those--68,000--who had been involved in criminal activity in some way
are not being deported. So this applies not only to

[[Page S1910]]

those who unlawfully enter our borders but also those who enter on a
legal visa and don't leave when that visa expires.
The President and Members of Congress are arguing, it appears, based
on the bill that cleared the Senate, for a historic surge in the amount
of legal immigration into our country at a time of high unemployment.
The White House has preposterously claimed, amazingly, that an influx
of new, mostly lower skilled workers will raise wages. This is a
conclusion not supported by any credible academic evidence or even the
Congressional Budget Office's own report analyzing the massive Senate
immigration bill. The CBO concluded the bill would add 46 million
mostly lesser skilled legal immigrants by 2033 and that average wages
would fall for one dozen years if it were to become law and
unemployment would increase and per capita GDP--growth in America--
would decline, I think for 20 years.
And, apparently the House of Representatives is considering proposals
to bring in hundreds of thousands of guest workers at a time when we
are talking about extending unemployment for Americans who can't get
jobs.
Dr. George Borjas at Harvard has found that high immigration levels
from 1980 to 2000 resulted in an 8-percent drop in wages for American
workers without a high school degree. Let me repeat that. This is
Professor Borjas at Harvard, raised in Cuba and immigrated to America.
He is perhaps the most authoritative academic in the world on
immigration and its effect on wages and the labor force. He found that
high immigration levels from 1980 to 2000--and he studied that
carefully, using census and other data--resulted in an 8-percent drop
in wages for American workers without a high school degree. Eight
percent is a lot. It is several hundred dollars a month for a person
who didn't graduate from high school. Actually, it is about $250 a
month. So there is a reason workers who are earning $30,000 and less
support a reduction in net immigration levels by a 3-to-1 margin.
Working people know what is happening out there. They know their wages
are going down. They know particularly lower skilled people, some young
people who didn't get to graduate from high school or who got in
trouble, are not having much success at all.
Average household income has fallen steadily since 1999, and only 59
percent of U.S. adults are now working. African-American youth looking
for work cannot find jobs. We don't have a shortage of workers in this
country--we do not have a shortage of workers in this country. We have
a shortage of jobs. That is a fact.
Some might ask: How can you be so sure of that, Senator? I believe in
the free market, and I tell the chamber of commerce and the big hotel
magnates, if we have a shortage of workers, why aren't wages going up?
Wages are going down. We don't have a tight labor market. We have a
loose labor market, and it is impacting adversely American workers.
The idea that we ought to double the number of guest workers who come
into the country legally when the President of the United States is not
going to enforce immigration laws and we will not use comprehensively
the E-Verify system indicates we are going to see a decline in wages
for average Americans out looking for jobs.

The President's own economic adviser, Gene Sperling, former Director
of the National Economic Council, recognized this, saying recently that
``our economy still has three people looking for every job,'' three
people for every job. Majority Leader Reid has cited that statistic on
the Senate floor as well.
So this Senate passes a comprehensive immigration bill that doubles
the number of guest workers. Don't think these are workers who are
going to work seasonal jobs in agriculture. They will be able to move
throughout this country and take jobs from wherever, providing
businesses with a ready source, a new source of additional labor that
helps keep the labor market loose.
My amendment, the Accountability through Electronic Verification Act,
is a proven way to help out-of-work Americans. This legislation was
introduced in this Congress by Senator Grassley and cosponsored by
myself and Senators Boozman, Corker, Enzi, Fischer, Hatch, Johanns,
Lee, Vitter, and Wicker. So we have offered legislation to deal with
this, and I have offered it as an amendment to this unemployment
insurance legislation, but I have been told it will be blocked. We will
not get a vote. The leader has filled the tree.
What this proposal would do is it would create some jobs for
Americans who are out of work. It absolutely would. It would work, and
it would immediately help create jobs. That is why the establishment
doesn't want to see it happen, if you want to know the truth.
The legislation would permanently authorize and expand the E-Verify
Program. That is a simple Web-based tool that allows employers to
maintain a legal workforce by verifying the work eligibility of
employees. E-Verify works by checking data against records maintained
by the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security
Administration. It is quick and easy. An employer simply puts in a
Social Security number, it runs against the Social Security database,
and an employer receives an answer as to whether this person is a
lawful applicant for a job.
Although in 1986 Congress made it unlawful--in 1986--for an employer
to knowingly hire or employ illegal aliens, these laws have never been
effectively enforced. They just have not. They have gotten comfortable
with this, not having it enforced. Under current law, if the documents
provided by an applicant for a job to an employer reasonably appeared
to be genuine, then the employer has met its obligation.
Incidentally, shortly after the 1986 amnesty law was passed, when it
was promised amnesty would not be granted again, the now-assistant to
President Obama and the Director of the Domestic Policy Council,
Cecilia Munoz, who was then a senior policy analyst of La Raza, led the
charge to undo these enforcement provisions. So the person chosen by
President Obama to be the Director of the Domestic Policy Council and
who has been given the responsibility to deal with immigration, use to
work for La Raza where she sought to undo enforcement.
Ms. Munoz authored a report for La Raza entitled ``Unfinished
Business: The Immigration Reform & Control Act of 1986.'' In that
report she argued that Congress had a moral obligation to ``repeal
employer sanctions'' and that workplace enforcement is ``inherently
discriminatory.''
Now think about that. The person the President has chosen, who is
supposed to be helping us create a lawful system of immigration in the
United States, has as her prior effort written a paper that says
basically it is a moral requirement of America to repeal any employer
sanctions. This is the mentality running our government today; that it
is morally wrong to say to employers they should only hire people
lawfully in our country. She went on to say that any kind of workplace
enforcement--apparently in which our employers would be disciplined or
punished if they violate the law--is inherently discriminatory.
Because identity theft and counterfeit documents became a thriving
industry after the 1986 amnesty, Congress created an E-Verify program
in 1996.
In 1996, after realizing this was turning into a joke--nobody was
following the intent of Congress and anybody could produce false
documents--Congress passed a law which said we would end this game and
create a system that would work. Employers required to use E-Verify
today include the Federal government, certain Federal contractors and
employers of certain immigrant students. The program for other
employers is voluntary and free for them to use, and it has been very
successful throughout the country by any who use it.
According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, in fiscal
year 2012, 98 percent of queries resulted in a confirmation of work
eligibility immediately or within 24 hours. So most of them
overwhelmingly immediately access the computer system, put in a Social
Security number and other data they require, hit the computer button,
and it quickly comes back. On a few occasions there is a question and
it may take up to 24 hours.
It is not slowing down employment, it is not a big burden on
employers, and it protects them from being accused of deliberately
hiring illegal

[[Page S1911]]

aliens if the report comes back that the Social Security number
matches. According to a January 2013 USCIS customer satisfaction
survey, E-Verify received an 86 out of 100 in the American customer
satisfaction index scale--19 points higher than the customer
satisfaction rating for the overall Federal Government.
There is no objection to this. The only objection to it is by certain
business lobbyist groups and certain activist immigration groups who
don't want it to work, and they want to keep other businesses from
using it because it does in fact identify people in the country who are
not allowed to take jobs and it would keep them from receiving these
jobs.
This legislation would make the program mandatory for all employers
within 1 year of enactment of the law. This legislation would also
increase penalties for employers who do not use the system when it is
mandated or continue to illegally hire undocumented workers.
Employers would be required to check the status of current
employees--but within 3 years--and would be permitted to run a check
prior to offering someone a job. In other words, they can run a check
before they actually offered a job and determine whether the person was
lawfully able to take the job. This could help them a lot.
Employers would also be required to recheck those workers whose
authorization is about to expire, such as those who come to the United
States on temporary work visas.
This legislation would require employers to terminate the employment
of those found unauthorized to work due to a check through E-Verify,
and would reduce employers' potential liability for wrongful
terminations if they participated in E-Verify.
The legislation would establish a demonstration project in a rural
area or an area without substantial Internet capabilities--although
there are not many left--to assist small businesses in complying.
The legislation also addresses identify theft concerns by ensuring
that the Social Security Administration catches multiple uses of Social
Security numbers--different people using the same social number to get
jobs with a fake document and a false Social Security number.
And for victims of identity theft, this legislation would amend the
Federal criminal code to clarify that identity fraud is punishable
regardless of whether the defendant had knowledge of the victim. So
this provision addresses a 2009 Supreme Court decision holding that
identity theft requires proof that the individual knew the number being
used belonged to an actual person.
E-Verify has been proven to deter employers from hiring illegal
workers and will help put Americans back on the payrolls.
Since I have seen legislation move through Congress--comprehensive
reform legislation that is going to fix our immigration policies--one
of the things I have observed is that whatever works is what gets
objected to. If someone offers a bill which appears to work but doesn't
work, that will pass. E-Verify has been proven and will work to deter
employers from hiring illegal workers, and will help put Americans back
to work. That is why we apparently don't have any ability to get it up
for a vote. A number of States have enacted E-Verify laws, and it is
working in those States with great results.
According to a 2013 Bloomberg government study entitled ``Early
Evidence Suggests E-Verify Laws Deter Hiring of Unauthorized Workers'':

Soon after E-Verify laws were signed in Arizona,
Mississippi, Alabama, and South Carolina, unauthorized
workers in specific industries appeared to drop off employer
payrolls. This prompted employers in many cases to fill
positions with authorized workers, American workers who are
here lawfully, maybe a young 22-year-old African American who
needs a job, would like to get married, maybe raise a family.

With respect to my State of Alabama, the Bloomberg study says:

Employment trended lower immediately after the law was
enacted. Employers then added more crop production workers in
the months before [the law] took effect, when compared with
the same period the year before. That growth in production
jobs was among the largest in the nation. This study
hypothesizes that authorized hires probably filled the jobs
of unauthorized workers who had left the state.

Isn't that what we would like to see? Wouldn't we ask people to come
to the country lawfully? We admit 1 million people a year for permanent
residence on a guaranteed path to citizenship absent serious criminal
activity. We are generous about immigration. Make no mistake about it.
But we do need to make sure that people who don't follow the law, don't
wait their turn, don't meet the requirements of American immigration
law--they shouldn't be able to come unlawfully and take jobs when
Americans are out of work in record numbers.
Regarding South Carolina's law, the study found this:

The number of crop production workers fell. . . . And then
hiring surged as the law took effect in 2012. Farmers say
they added workers because their normal labor supply
vanished.

The study also found that:

[t]he state's commercial bakery industry had been losing
workers, then gained them as E-Verify took effect.

So people who were unlawfully there couldn't get past E-Verify. It
exposed them as being unlawful, and the businesses lost workers. But
then they hired people back, and the people they hired back were lawful
workers--either here as immigrants lawfully or native born.
The study, which is based on research from the Pew Hispanic Center,
goes on to say this:

[t]he abrupt shifts in employment across multiple
industries convey a similar narrative: soon after E-Verify
laws are adopted, workers drop off employer payrolls and, in
a number of industries, new hires fill those vacant
positions. The robustness of this effect reinforces the
likelihood that this phenomenon is due to something other
than chance.

Our goal must be to help struggling Americans move from dependency to
independence, to help them find steady jobs with rising pay, not
falling pay. Making E-Verify permanent and requiring all employers to
use it is one simple thing we can do to work towards that goal.
Let me just say, the E-Verify system is already established. The
system is in place. It can accommodate the increase in inquiries. It is
all a computer system. It is all done virtually instantly. It is not as
if we have to create a new system or add tens of thousands of people to
make it work. The system is already working and it can handle larger
numbers.
Our policy cannot be to simply relegate more and more of our citizens
to dependence on the government for assistance while importing a steady
stream of foreign workers to fill available jobs. That is not in the
interest of this country or our people.
I would just like to add that Senators Grassley, Lee, Vitter, Enzi,
Boozman, and Hatch are cosponsors of this amendment. We know what is
being said out there. We are being told that Americans won't work, they
are not looking for jobs, and that businesses can't hire. The Bloomberg
study on how the E-Verify system has been implemented indicates quite
different.
According to a report on Syracuse.com on January 8, 2014:

In Syracuse [New York], thousands showed up for the Destiny
USA job fair on June 14, 2012. More than 50 employers
interviewed candidates for roughly 1,600 jobs.

On January 29, 2013, a Fox affiliate in Atlanta reported:

Northside Hospital held a job fair Wednesday, but had to
call it off early due to the overwhelming number of people
that showed up looking for work. The hospital was hoping to
fill 500 jobs.

On May 17, 2013, news outlets in Philadelphia reported:

More than 3,700 job seekers overwhelmed the Municipal
Services Building in Center City for a job fair Friday
morning intended for ex-offenders. . . . The city anticipated
a big crowd and therefore doubled the staff to handle the
responses, but the crowd was still too big to handle, forcing
the event to be cancelled and leaving hundreds on the plaza
outside.

We need to help ex-offenders find jobs. I am aware of a major
corporation in Alabama, in talking to a Federal judge recently, which
said they will start taking a chance on former offenders. Properly
examined and picking the right ones, they found out they are doing
fine. We shouldn't be denying young people--particularly young men--who
may have gotten in trouble at a younger age ever being able to have a
job. One of the goals this country has to have is to help our ex-
offenders in employment.

[[Page S1912]]

On May 20, 2013, the New York Times reported in an article entitled,
``Camping out for five days, in hopes of a union job,'' the following:

The men began arriving last Wednesday, first a trickle,
then dozens. By Friday there were hundreds of them, along
with a few women. They set up their tents and mattresses on
the sidewalk in Long Island City, Queens . . . and settled in
to wait as long as five days and nights for a slender chance
at a union job as an elevator mechanic. . . . There were more
than 800 by sun-up Monday. . . . The union accepts 750
applications for the 150 to 200 spots in its four-year
apprenticeship program.

There are more examples, and I could go on. But I do believe this
idea that Americans won't work is not correct. If we take a person who
has been unemployed for a while and place them in a position where the
labor is physical, it takes a while to get in shape. If you are going
to play ball, it takes a while to get in physical condition. People
going into the Army are not expected to meet the physical fitness test
the first week. They build up to it.
Businesses have to participate in this effort, too. Businesses need
to understand they are not entitled and cannot expect--for the
government of the United States to produce perfectly fit, well-trained
people for every single job they would like to fill. Sometimes they
have to hire people, train them on the job, let them work into it and
learn the skills on the job. It is some new idea, apparently, that
businesses have to have so much training. We certainly need to use the
job-training programs in this country to more effectively train workers
for real jobs out there. It is a valid criticism of our trade schools
and some of our community colleges that they are not focusing on
reality. But my State has done a great job--a far better job than in
most States--and I saw a report recently about how Mississippi is doing
an excellent job. I believe our program is at least as effective, if
not better. So we are doing better. But businesses have always had to
bring people into their workplaces and train them to handle the
physical challenges that some jobs require.

Madam President, I thank the Chair for an opportunity to share these
remarks. I am disappointed that when we are talking about unemployment
in America, we have a Congress and a Senate refusing to even allow this
amendment to come up for a vote. Without a doubt it would work, be
fair, and would simply make it more difficult for people who are not
here lawfully, who shouldn't be able to get jobs in America--would make
it more difficult for them to get that job, freeing that position up
for unemployed Americans who need to get in the workforce and off the
welfare rolls. That is the goal.
We have a huge number of welfare programs. We spend $750 billion a
year on means-tested programs to help people who are lower income, and
that is 50 percent more than the defense budget, more than Social
Security, and more than Medicare. Those programs are not working well.
They need to come together in a coherent whole with a unified vision.
The vision should be to help people who are in stressful circumstances;
help them aggressively, in a practical, realistic way; put them in a
job-training program that would allow them to take a job. We could
easily do that with the money we are spending now. We would have more
Americans working and off the welfare rolls. We would save billions of
dollars at the same time. They would make more money, be more
fulfilled, have more self-respect, and reduce the budget deficit at the
same time.
I thank the Chair and yield the floor. I note 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 (Mr. Donnelly). Without objection, it is so
ordered.

____________________