[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 116 (Wednesday, July 23, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4728-S4756]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
LEGISLATIVE SESSION
______
BRING JOBS HOME ACT--MOTION TO PROCEED--Continued
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate will resume legislative session.
The Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. UDALL of New Mexico. Madam President, I am pleased that today we
were able to put aside the partisan politics and vote for what was
right for the American people. I hope my colleagues will also vote for
the final bill. We must protect American jobs and eliminate tax
loopholes for corporations that move jobs overseas. Creating and
supporting well-paying American jobs should be our top priority.
The debate about jobs in America and New Mexico is not about
politics; it is about people. This past weekend I visited with some New
Mexicans who are facing a very real and personal
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challenge as far as their future and their livelihood.
In Questa, NM, miners have worked for nearly a century. But that mine
is now closing--less than 2 weeks from today--and 300 people will lose
their jobs. For the workers, for their families, and for local
businesses, it is a hard time, with tough questions and uncertain
answers.
Just this past Sunday I met with the miners to talk with them and,
most importantly, to listen about what has happened in Questa and the
future of a great community.
This is about more than Chevron Corporation's decision to close the
mine; it is about workers who feel they were kept in the dark, who
worry that help will be too little and too late. My office is working
closely with the community for trade adjustment assistance to get the
training and help they will need.
Folks there are struggling, but they are committed to mapping out a
new future for Questa, a post-mining economy, including ecotourism and
renewable energy.
Families have lived and worked in Questa for generations. They know
hard work, grit, and determination. No one needs to tell them about
that. They helped build our country. They support their community, and
they follow the rules. They ask for one thing in return: a fair
chance--that is all, just a fair chance.
Let's be clear. For the Supreme Court, for those who seem to be
confused on this point, these miners are people, their families are
people. Corporations are not people. Super PACs buying our elections--
they are not people. They are special interests with a lot of money and
a lot of demands, such as special tax breaks--tax breaks that make no
sense to real people with real problems who are looking for real jobs.
We need to be doing all we can to create jobs, to keep building our
economy. The Bring Jobs Home Act would help--a tax policy that brings
jobs home, not one that rewards sending them away. Almost 2.5 million
jobs have gone over the past 10 years, shipped overseas and paid for by
the American taxpayers, by families such as those in Questa footing the
bill.
The Bring Jobs Home Act would do two important things: First, it
would end the tax loophole for outsourcing jobs. If corporations want
to send a job overseas, they can do so but at their own expense, not at
the expense of the American taxpayers. Second, it would create the
right incentives, giving a tax credit for companies that bring jobs
back home. This is a pretty simple idea. Let's reward what helps and
stop rewarding what doesn't.
The Bring Jobs Home Act will do something else too. For the middle
class in this country, for workers and families, it will say: We hear
you. Your voice matters too. And all the super PAC dollars can't change
that.
We can create jobs right here at home. We can keep growing our
economy and help communities with a tax policy that builds them up and
invests in the future. That is something to fight for. That is the kind
of fairness folks want and deserve in Questa, in my State and in our
country.
The mine will close in Questa. We can't change that. We can't bring
it back. Some folks say that it will feel like a death the day that
door closes, that it almost feels like a funeral, as if a part of them
dies with the mine. And I am sure it does. It has been the lifeblood of
the community for so many years and for so many generations of
families. But folks there said something else too: When bad things
happen, friends and family show up to do what they can to help.
We need to start showing up for the American worker, for the middle
class, for towns all across our Nation where the factory closed, where
the jobs went away. The Bring Jobs Home Act is a start to create jobs,
to build our economy here at home, and to help communities in a world
that is changing awfully fast. It is a step in the right direction, and
I urge my colleagues to support it.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
Mrs. SHAHEEN. Madam President, I thank my colleague from New Mexico
for his compelling remarks about the importance of passing the Bring
Jobs Home Act.
I am here to echo the need to pass this critical legislation, and I
am certainly pleased we had such a strong vote to end debate on this
legislation. I hope we can now come to some agreement and get the same
kind of support for moving the bill forward. I am an original cosponsor
of this commonsense bill.
As Senator Udall said, this legislation would end incentives for
companies to send American jobs overseas, and it would instead
encourage companies to move jobs back to the United States.
Believe it or not, when a company moves jobs offshore, it can write
off those expenses on its taxes. That doesn't make sense. The Bring
Jobs Home Act would stop forcing taxpayers to foot the bill for
companies when they ship jobs overseas. In addition, to encourage
companies to move production back to the United States, the bill
provides a tax credit for the costs associated with bringing jobs back
home.
Not only is this legislation the right thing to do, but it also comes
at a critical time as our economy struggles to recover. In New
Hampshire and across the country--as Senator Udall pointed out, in New
Mexico with the closing of the mine and in that community--we are still
feeling the effects of the great recession. Millions of Americans lost
their jobs, and too many middle-class families are still struggling to
make ends meet.
But sadly, even before the recession hit, the American middle class
was finding it hard to pay their bills, to pay their mortgage, to find
the good jobs that allowed them to have opportunities. A big reason for
that was the loss of so many good-paying American jobs that supported
the middle class. Too many of those jobs were shipped overseas. Over
the last decade, 2.4 million jobs were shipped overseas, and those 2.4
million families supported by those jobs had to find other ways to
support themselves, and often they were in jobs that didn't pay as
well.
Well, it doesn't have to be this way. In fact, many companies are now
looking to move jobs back to the United States. As production costs
rise overseas, these companies want the advantages provided by our
American workers--the most productive workers in the world--and the
ease of doing business in the United States.
I have heard from several companies that have already moved jobs back
to the United States, and there are many more that are hoping to bring
jobs back home if we have the right policies in place.
Let me give an example. Last year I met with Doug Clark, who is the
CEO of a footwear manufacturing company, New England Footwear. When we
think footwear manufacturing or shoe factory jobs, we don't think the
United States anymore because while there are still some very good
companies that manufacture footwear here, most of those jobs were sent
offshore a long time ago.
I know that story very well because my father was in shoe
manufacturing. The whole time I was growing up, I watched him struggle
with the loss of those shoe manufacturing jobs that were being sent
overseas and imports coming in to take the place of shoes made here in
America and the jobs that workers here in America held.
Today about 99 percent of shoes sold in the United States are made
abroad. But New England Footwear executives, who have years of
experience in the shoe industry, are looking to bring those jobs back
home--back to New Hampshire. The company currently manufactures in
China, but as costs rise there, Doug believes he can bring higher
paying jobs to the United States thanks to innovative technology that
reduces manufacturing costs.
New England Footwear isn't alone. A Boston Consulting Group survey
from last September showed that more than half of large U.S.-based
manufacturers are planning or considering right now bringing production
lines back to the United States from China. That is up 17 percent from
just 2 years ago--17 percent. That is a big increase, a lot of jobs.
The Boston Consulting Group projected that production reshored from
China and higher exports due to improved U.S. competitiveness in
manufacturing could create 2.5 to 5 million American factory and
related service jobs by 2020. So by 2020 we could replace more than the
jobs we lost in the
[[Page S4730]]
last decade. That is the kind of behavior we should be encouraging.
That is exactly what the bill before us does.
We know it will work because a 2012 MIT forum on supply chain
management found that providing tax credits for bringing American jobs
back to the United States would be one of the most effective ways to
accelerate that process, along with other commonsense measures such as
enacting tax reform, which we all agree we have to do, providing
research and development incentives, ensuring a highly educated
workforce, and improving American infrastructure. Again, these are all
challenges which I think the majority of us in this body understand
have to be done.
I am very glad the Senate moved to this bill because our priority in
Washington must be creating jobs and restoring the American middle
class. Over the past few decades too many Americans have seen their
jobs disappear or their incomes fall. The Bring Jobs Home Act is an
opportunity to support those families by creating good-paying jobs in
the United States and by helping our economy regain its competitive
edge.
I thank the Presiding Officer.
I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Baldwin). The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. CORNYN. 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 HUMANE Act
Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, in recent days I have come to the floor
several times to talk about the humanitarian crisis on our southwestern
border where a veritable flood of unaccompanied children, from Central
America mainly, is appearing on our border and turning themselves in to
the Border Patrol because they realize that ultimately they will be
released to a relative in the United States with a notice to appear at
a future court date. The vast majority of them will fail to appear for
that court date and successfully end up staying in the United States,
notwithstanding the fact that it does not comply with our law.
But in recent days a curious division has emerged from our colleagues
on the other side of the aisle on a fundamental issue that I want to
highlight. On the one hand, more and more Democrats are calling on
Congress to reform this 2008 law that inadvertently has become a magnet
for illegal immigration by Central American minors. On the other hand,
Senate Democratic leadership is refusing to consider any such reforms.
They just want the cash. They wanted the money the President has asked
for. So they are asking Congress to simply throw more money at the
problem. The figure they have now settled on is $2.7 billion. The
Associated Press has called this ``problematic.''
If you have a humanitarian crisis and you need more money to deal
with it, we all understand that. But if you are unwilling to take the
step to fix the basic problem that has created the crisis, that strikes
me as problematic, as the Associated Press says.
What is President Obama's position? Well, I am afraid the President
has shown a complete lack of leadership on something that he himself
has called a humanitarian crisis. But there have been prominent members
of his administration who have publicly expressed support for the type
of reforms contained in the HUMANE Act, which is a bipartisan,
bicameral piece of legislation I have introduced with my colleague
Henry Cuellar from Laredo, TX.
For example, you will see on this chart Secretary of Homeland
Security Jeh Johnson has said the administration wants to change the
2008 law at the center of the crisis so that U.S. authorities can
``treat unaccompanied kids from Central America the same way as it does
from a contiguous country''--in other words, from Mexico.
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest, you can see on this next
chart, has confirmed that the administration would support ``changing
the 2008 law'' if it is necessary to resolve the crisis, as Secretary
of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson says it is.
As tens of thousands of children continue to flood across our border,
such changes are absolutely necessary. In fact, the cartels, the
criminal organizations that are smuggling children into the United
States, discovered this flaw and they have changed their business model
to exploit it, because they are making money off of it.
The HUMANE Act, which we have offered as a solution is not the only
solution. If other people have good ideas, we would love to hear them,
but doing nothing is not an option.
The HUMANE Act would equalize the treatment of all unaccompanied
minor children, regardless of where they come from. Treat them all the
same. If it is good enough for children coming from Mexico unattended
by parents, then it ought to be good enough for others.
All of our colleagues essentially voted for that proposition in 2008
with that law. This proposal we have would also expedite the removal
process for those without a valid claim for legal status. In other
words, there are claims for legal status in the United States that some
of these children might qualify for. We do not touch any of those
preexisting laws. In other words, if you are a victim of human
trafficking, for example, you can qualify for something called a T visa
while you cooperate with a law enforcement investigation.
If you have a credible fear of persecution in your home country based
on certain other criteria, you could qualify for asylum or as a
refugee. But finally, we would end the policy of catch and release by
which these children or other immigrants are not detained pending a
hearing in front of a judge. We know from experience, given the surge
of Brazilians who came in 2005 and 2006, that additional detention and
speedy hearings and reprocessing back to the home country are essential
to deter people from coming in the first place.
The HUMANE ACT would bring order and clarity to a situation currently
marked by chaos and confusion. You would think that Members of
Congress, Democrats and Republicans alike, would want to bring some
clarity and end the chaos and confusion. But so far we have not seen
that sort of bipartisan desire to embrace a solution. So I am happy to
note that a number of Democrats do agree with us about the need to
reform the 2008 law and establish an expedited removal process.
For example, Senator McCaskill, the senior Senator from Missouri, has
reportedly said: I think we should have the same law on the books for
Central America as we have for Canada and Mexico.
That is precisely the point. She and I agree with each other 100
percent on that. That is what the HUMANE Act would do.
Meanwhile, the senior Senator from Delaware, Mr. Carper--the chairman
of the Homeland Security Committee, someone with a lot of knowledge
about this, and somebody who I know has been in close consultation with
Secretary Johnson--has argued that any supplemental funding should be
paired with significant policy changes, saying, ``the two should go
together.'' I agree with Senator Carper.
So if the administration agrees with prominent Senate Democrats, as
Jeh Johnson has said they do, and as Josh Earnest has said they do, if
the administration agrees with these prominent Senate Democrats about
the urgency of passing something like the HUMANE Act, and if plenty of
Senate Republicans agree as well, why are we not having a vote? What is
the holdup?
Well, as usual, the majority leader seems to be more concerned about
good politics than good policy. He, incredibly to most ears, certainly
to mine, declared that the border was ``secure'' a couple of days ago.
I was shocked to hear him say that. In the midst of a humanitarian
crisis, he says the border is ``secure.'' With 414,000 detained coming
across the border last year alone from 100 different countries, the
majority leader says the border is ``secure.''
Here is what he said on Monday. He said: We need to get resources to
our Border Patrol agents and others who are caring for these children.
This is at the same time he said the border is ``secure.'' I do not
quite understand that tension between his positions. But this is what
he said. He said: ``We need judges to hear those kids' cases and decide
whether they need protection or need to be sent back home.'' So here is
my confusion. The majority leader has said he understands what needs to
happen. The press
[[Page S4731]]
secretary for the President says he understands what needs to happen.
Secretary Johnson, the Secretary of Homeland Security, says he knows
what needs to happen. Prominent Democrats such as the Senator from
Missouri and the Senator from Delaware say they understand what needs
to happen. Yet nothing is happening.
The HUMANE Act, which would do everything the majority leader
mentioned, is a bipartisan, bicameral piece of legislation that would
alleviate a national emergency and a humanitarian crisis. It has
received support across the political and ideological spectrum.
I would add that some on the left and some on the right have
criticized it. Some have not bothered to read it or understand it. But
if you are being criticized on both sides of the extremes, then you
must be doing something that is actually doable and may be at least 80
percent part of the solution.
So I would urge the majority leader, the majority whip, the chairman
of the Judiciary Committee, to heed the message conveyed by Secretary
Johnson. I would urge all of us, particularly at a time of humanitarian
crisis, to forget the politics and let's solve the problem. We have an
opportunity to address a genuine crisis. I urge them to remember, as
Mr. Charles Lane of the Washington Post has written recently:
The rule of law is one of the benefits immigrants seek in
the United States. Step one in dealing with the border crisis
should be to reestablish it.
Those are wise words.
In contrast, if we simply write the administration a blank check for
$2.7 billion without fixing the problem, we will find ourselves back
here again and again as the numbers escalate from the 57,000 so far
since October to the projected 90,000 the administration says could
come across this year alone to the 145,000 who are projected to come
next year.
I am, frankly, flabbergasted. Why can't we do this? Why can't we do
it? Democrats agree with the need. Republicans agree there is a need.
There is an escalating crisis on the border that is not going to go
away with the change of the news cycle. We have the ability to deal
with it so we should.
I actually agree with this statement by Senator Reid: We need to get
the resources to our Border Patrol agents and others who are caring for
these children. We need judges to hear these kids' cases and decide
whether they need protection or need to be sent back home.
I agree with the majority leader when he said that. So let's do it.
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. BARRASSO. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Health Care
Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, I come to the floor today because
Democrats in Washington continue to put out misleading information
about the President's health care law.
Last week the Senator from Connecticut came to the floor and said
Republicans have, in his words, gone silent when it comes to talking
about the health care law. He claimed there was a quiet acceptance that
the law is working.
Well, I just want to correct the record and make it perfectly clear
Republicans have not gone quiet because the health care law is not
working.
The American people are not going quiet either. They are not going
quiet when it comes to talking about the devastating side effects they
are feeling from the health care law.
I hear it from people when I go home to Wyoming every weekend. I
heard it last weekend. I heard it last night on a telephone townhall
meeting, and when I travel I hear about it--even just passing through
the airport in Denver on the way home, which I do each week.
As chairman of the Republican policy committee, one of my
responsibilities is to study how policies that come out of Washington--
like the President's health care law--affect people all across America,
including States such as Colorado, where I change planes each week.
Last week the Denver Post had an op-ed written by Dr. Cyndi Tucker,
an obstetrician/gynecologist who practices medicine in Thornton, CO,
outside Denver. Her op-ed was published in the Denver Post, which is,
of course, the statewide newspaper in Colorado.
The headline on the column in the Denver Post was: ``Red tape isn't
health care reform.''
Now, remember the amount of regulations ObamaCare has created is a
redtape tower of paper over 7 feet tall. Dr. Cyndi Tucker, from one of
the suburbs of Colorado, wants us to know about the health care law
from her perspective as a practicing Colorado physician. What she has
to say is that the prognosis isn't good. She writes:
At my practice, I've found that the ACA disrupts the
doctor-patient relationship by drowning us both in paperwork.
ObamaCare authors--and the politicians . . . who voted for
it--promised that it would provide quality, affordable health
care to Coloradans. Yet it does exactly the opposite. For
doctors, it makes health care more and more complex, more
expensive, and increasingly more impersonal.
Not more personal, which is what we want as doctors, as somebody who
practiced medicine for 25 years. She says it makes it more impersonal.
And for patients, it makes finding a cheap health plan or
finding a doctor more difficult--not less difficult as the
President promised, not cheaper, but more difficult, as the
doctor points out. For me, that is a very damaging and maybe
even life-threatening side effect of the President's
health care law.
President Obama was in Colorado earlier this month. This week he is
doing the same thing in Seattle and California. Instead of meeting with
more campaign donors--which is what the President is doing--the
President should meet with doctors and patients--and, specifically,
doctors such as this obstetrician-gynecologist in Colorado. He should
sit down with some of the women who are patients of this doctor. I
think they would like to ask the President about these devastating side
effects of his health care law and explain to him about how it is
hurting them and hurting their families.
The disruptive impact the law is having on care is drowning patients
and doctors in red tape. But that is not the only side effect of the
law that is hurting American families. A recent Gallup poll earlier
this month found that only 8 percent of Americans are spending less
money on health care than they did a year ago.
President Obama promised the American people they would save $2,500 a
year per family under his health care law. Nancy Pelosi, the former
Speaker of the House, was on ``Meet the Press'' at one point and said
that everyone's rates would go down.
Well, Democrats in the Senate who voted for the law promised the same
thing, and it just didn't happen. People are paying more all across
America. People are paying more in Washington State and in California,
where the President is visiting. Why is he there? He is meeting with
campaign donors. He is collecting campaign money.
People are paying more all across the country. They are paying more
for health care insurance in Wyoming. People are paying more in
Colorado, where the doctor who wrote in the Denver Post is and where
she sees patients.
There is a recent study that found health insurance premiums for an
average 40-year-old woman in Colorado are 20 percent higher this year
than last year. That was before she was forced on to the ObamaCare
exchange.
President Obama says Democrats who voted for the law should
``forcefully defend and be proud'' of the health care law. When he was
in Colorado a couple of weeks ago, did President Obama forcefully
defend these premium increases because of the law? When he is traveling
this week, is the President going to forcefully defend patients and
doctors experiencing the exact opposite of what the Democrats promised?
Are Democrats in the Senate proud that only 8 percent of Americans are
spending less on health care this year than they did before? Costs are
going up so fast that last month State regulators in Colorado decided
to add another tax on every insurance policy in the State in order--get
this--to bail out the State ObamaCare exchange. They added an extra tax
on every insurance policy in the State in order to bail out the State
ObamaCare exchange.
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Now, that is not just on people buying the policy in the exchange.
They are charging this new tax on every person in Colorado who buys
health insurance just to cover those who buy it through the exchange.
Well, that is a very expensive side effect for the families of Colorado
as a result of the President's health care law.
So this health care law is bad for patients, bad for providers, the
nurses, and the doctors who take care of those patients, and it is
terrible for taxpayers. Every Democrat in the Senate voted for this
health care law. Where are the Democrats willing to forcefully defend
these costly and damaging side effects of their health care law?
People in Colorado and all across America received letters telling
them their plans were being cancelled because of the law. People lost
access to their doctors, like this OB/GYN physician who wrote her op-ed
editorial for the Denver Post.
She says she has had to stop seeing Medicare patients because of the
new redtape in the health care law. So people in Colorado lost their
right to choose the health plan that works for them and their families.
Republicans are not going to quietly accept the terrible side effects
of the President's health care law. We are going to keep coming to the
floor. We are going to keep standing for American families who are
being hurt by this law. We are going to keep offering new solutions--
real solutions--for better health care without all of these tragic side
effects.
That means patient-centered reforms that get people the care they
need from a doctor they choose at lower costs. It means giving people
choices, not Washington mandates. It means allowing people to buy
health insurance that works for them and their families because they
know what is best for them.
Democrats who voted for this health care law have failed to answer
the real concern of the American people, which was affordable quality
care.
American families will not go quiet about the harm Democrats have
done to them with this health care law.
Madam President, 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. CARPER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Tenth Anniversary of the 9/11 Commission
Mr. CARPER. Madam President, I rise to commemorate the 10th
anniversary of the final report of the National Commission on Terrorist
Attacks Upon the United States, also known as the
9/11 Commission Report.
As the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental
Affairs Committee--a committee on which I proudly serve with the
Presiding Officer--I can tell my colleagues that this report has been
and continues to be incredibly important to the work we do in the
committee that Dr. Coburn and I are privileged to lead in this
Congress.
Nearly 13 years ago, as we will recall, our Nation suffered the most
devastating attack on U.S. soil since Pearl Harbor. Almost every
American alive will remember where they were on the day the Twin Towers
collapsed, when the Pentagon was hit, and when they saw the wreckage in
the fields of Shanksville, PA.
We asked ourselves at that time, Why would anybody want to do this?
How did this happen? What could have been done to prevent this tragedy?
In the months after this horrific attack, Congress and the President
endeavored to answer these questions. Together they established an
entity we call the 9/11 Commission.
Led by former New Jersey Gov. Tom Kean--our neighbor across the
Delaware River--a Republican, and by former Indiana Congressman Lee
Hamilton, a Democrat--one of my mentors in the House of
Representatives--the Commission was charged with preparing a full and
complete accounting of the circumstances surrounding these horrific
attacks and recommending ways to make our Nation more secure.
This proved to be no small task. The Commission interviewed more than
1,200 people in 10 countries, including every single relevant senior
national security official from not one but two administrations, and
reviewed more than 2.5 million pages of documents. Despite the
political tensions and partisan climate that engulfed our Nation at the
time, the Commission put aside their own political differences and
issued their final report 10 years ago today.
The 592-page report contained a full accounting of what happened
before and after the attacks and included no less than 41
recommendations on how we could prevent another tragedy such as the one
visited upon us on September 11. The report went on to sell more than 1
million copies and it was at the top of the national best seller list--
numerous national best seller lists. Imagine that, a report--a Federal
report--a best seller. It was a remarkable achievement, not only
because of the depth and breadth of the Commissioners' findings but
because all 10 Commissioners--5 Democrats and 5 Republicans--came to
agreement on every single word of this report. Around here some days we
can't agree if it is Wednesday, much less agree on every single word of
a 592-page report.
In the months and years following the report's release, Democrats and
Republicans in Congress worked together with the Bush administration to
enact not one but two major laws to implement the report's
recommendations. These laws were championed in part by our good friends
Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Susan Collins of Maine, both of whom
served as chair and as ranking member of the committee I now chair.
Among other things, these two historic bills created a new Director
of National Intelligence to coordinate and oversee all information
sharing and intelligence activities. These laws implemented a passenger
prescreening system that has helped to ensure that terrorists aren't
able to fly on aircraft, while also establishing a fully staffed
Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board.
When we think about all of these accomplishments and more, I think it
is safe to say that the 9/11 Commission report has proven to be one of
the most important and influential efforts of its kind in recent
history. We as a nation owe a real debt of gratitude to the
Commissioners for their determined and clear-eyed approach to improving
the security of our Nation.
We might ask ourselves: How did they do this? The Commission's
leadership--Governor Kean and Congressman Hamilton--wrote in their own
words on the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks about why the
Commission was so special and so effective. Here is what they had to
say:
First, because of the great damage and trauma the 9/11
attacks produced, the American public demanded action and had
high expectations for measures and reforms that would improve
the nation's security.
Importantly, the statutory mandate for the Commission was
limited, precise, and clear--the Commission was authorized to
investigate the facts and circumstances surrounding the
attacks and to make recommendations to keep our country safe;
The Commission had an extraordinary non-partisan staff--
They truly did have an excellent staff--
the members of which possessed deep expertise and conducted
their work with thoroughness and professionalism; the
Commissioners--
Many of them I am privileged to know--
had deep experience in government and political credibility
with different constituencies;
The final report was unanimous and bipartisan; families of
the victims of 9/11 provided solid and sophisticated support
throughout the life of the Commission and in the years since;
and following the Commission, the Commissioners and staff
continued to work closely with Congress and the executive
branch to implement and monitor reform.
That is what they had to say.
In other words, they had the will to act. They had the authority and
the responsibility to act. They had the support of great staff and of
the Americans most directly affected by the tragedy; that is, the
families who were affected. They had extraordinary leadership from
Governor Kean and Congressman Hamilton, both of whom put aside partisan
differences and built a trusting relationship for the betterment of our
Nation.
Once, after having a hearing in Dirkson 342, where our committee
meets now and where they were testifying before us, the Chair and Vice
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Chair, Governor Kean and Congressman Hamilton, and I asked them: In a
day and age when it is hard for us to agree on much of anything around
here, how were you able to agree, the two of you and your Commission,
on the entire almost 600 pages of this report?
I will never forget what they both said.
They said: Well, we didn't really know each other, but we were thrust
into this and asked to serve in this capacity, and we got to know each
other.
They said: We got to know each other very well, and out of all the
time we spent together grew a trust that was almost without bounds and
a very strong friendship--a real bond.
Sometimes we think about why we are so dysfunctional here. That is,
in my judgment, a very big part of what is missing--a lack of trust and
understanding of one another and having those kinds of personal
friendships that go across all kinds of boundaries.
After 10 years, I still marvel at the trust developed between the
Commissioners, and especially the Chairman and Vice Chairman. Perhaps
most importantly, no other large-scale, 9/11-type attack on U.S. soil
has occurred over these past 13 years. The improvements made to our
intelligence, our law enforcement, and our security agencies as a
result of the 9/11 Commission's work have undoubtedly contributed to
that good fortune.
The response to the Boston Marathon bombing on April 15, 2013--just
last year--was a shining example of how the investments we have made as
a nation in training and equipment for our first responders have made
us more capable, more resilient, and more secure than ever. But that
attack itself showed us we cannot grow complacent. We must maintain our
resolve and our commitment to the security of our Nation.
The Boston bombing, new threats to aviation, foreign fighters in
Syria coming home--these are all stark reminders that we continue to
face persistent and evolving terrorist threats.
Of course, one of the biggest threats our country faces is in
cyberspace. That is why Dr. Coburn, our staffs, members of our
committee, and I worked so hard to move three bipartisan cyber bills
out of the committee this year and they now await action by the full
Senate in this Chamber. These are just a few of the challenges our
Nation continues to face.
We know there is still work to be done to fully implement the
Commission's recommendations. So today, as we commemorate the release
of this report, I think we would be wise to revisit and attempt to
recapture the spirit of unity that made this bipartisan achievement
possible by the 9/11 Commission.
As we seek to confront and to overcome the challenges before us on
this day, we would be wise to consider again the example set by
Governor Kean, Congressman Lee Hamilton, and the other eight
Commissioners, and we should be inspired by their example.
The people we are privileged to represent across the Nation are
pleading with us to set aside what separates us--pleading with us--
remembering what binds us together and do the hard work we need to do
to keep our homeland secure in an evermore turbulent world.
Let me close by thanking once again the 9/11 Commissioners not only
for their important work that they did all those years ago but for the
enduring example they set for us a decade ago. Let's be inspired by
them. Our country and its people are counting on us on so many
different fronts. Let's not let them down.
I note the absence of a quorum. Thanks so much.
Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Coons). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a unanimous
consent request.
Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. President, I would be happy to yield.
Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted
to speak immediately following the remarks of the distinguished Senator
from Pennsylvania.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. President, I would like to thank the Senator from
Utah because I got here late and I am intruding on his time, but he has
been kind enough to patiently wait for me to make a few points. So I
will try to be brief, but I think it is really important that we
address this issue, which is a very serious problem happening in
America.
We see increasing numbers of what we call corporate inversions--
American corporations establishing their headquarters overseas--
typically through the mechanism of purchasing a company overseas and
establishing that as the headquarters.
First of all, I just hate to see any American company choosing to not
be an American company. It is very offensive to me at a deep level,
most especially if it were to be a Pennsylvania company--but any
company. Secondly, whatever little shred of faith any Americans have in
our tax system is further undermined by seeing this. And, most
importantly over time, this dynamic that is happening, if unaddressed,
I think poses a very serious risk that we are going to lose jobs, we
are going to lose corporate headquarters and all of the very
substantial and good-paying jobs that are always associated with an
American corporate headquarters, from senior executives, to secretarial
folks, to the janitorial staff, and everyone in between. There are a
lot of jobs that go along with where people decide to establish their
corporate headquarters, and I want it to be in America. That is my
goal. That is my motivation.
So it is useful to start with posing the question: Why is this
happening, that American companies that have subsidiaries overseas are
deciding they had better be headquartered somewhere other than America?
I will tell you why it is happening. There is no mystery here. It is
happening because we have a Tax Code that is driving them to do this.
We have chosen to inflict on our workers and our businesses the highest
marginalized tax rate in the industrial world, so we are systematically
less competitive than any of our trading partners, the nations against
which we compete.
In addition to having such a high marginal rate, we have chosen,
quite foolishly, in my view, to adopt a system of taxation with respect
to overseas subsidiaries that no one else in the world--virtually no
one else in the world--adopts.
Let me drill down a little bit into this. Specifically, the
difference between a high marginal rate and a low rate is pretty
obvious. We have the highest. Other countries have much lower rates.
Increasingly, they are reducing their rates. We used to be in the
middle of the pack. Twenty years ago the American business tax rate was
about the same as most of our trading partners and competitors. Today
it is much higher. We stand pretty much alone with a very high rate.
That is obvious. That is pretty straightforward.
The other piece, though, is how we deal with the tax--with the income
of subsidiaries. That is very different. Here is what happens.
Basically imagine that an American company has a subsidiary in Ireland.
That subsidiary makes some profits. The profits are taxed by the Irish
Government. They happen to use a 12\1/2\-percent tax rate, because they
want to attract business. It is working, by the way, for them.
But be that as it may, the first layer of tax an American subsidiary
operating in Ireland pays is the tax to the Irish Government, 12\1/2\
percent. Then here is what we do in America: We say, now if you want to
bring that money home to America and invest it in America and build a
new factory in Pennsylvania or in Delaware and hire lots of workers, if
you want to bring the money home to do that, well, we have a punishment
in store for you. We are going to look at our rate, which is among the
very highest in the world at 35 percent. We will give you credit for
the 12\1/2\-percent that you paid to the Irish Government. We will soak
you for another 23 percent. That is the price we will charge you for
investing in America. That is what we do. That is what our current tax
system does.
Now what if this Irish company, this subsidiary operating in Ireland,
what if instead it was owned by a company that is headquartered in
Sweden or Switzerland or any other number of
[[Page S4734]]
European countries? Do you know what they do? What they do is say:
Well, after you have paid your tax to the Irish Government, if you then
want to bring it home to one of those countries, there is almost no
additional charge. There is a very nominal toll, if you will, on
bringing that money back to those countries.
What is the effect of this? The effect of this is that we put our
multinational companies at a huge competitive disadvantage. It is an
unsustainable competitive disadvantage. The other effect is that we end
up trapping money overseas that would be invested in America but is
not.
So what is the rational response of the corporate management and the
board of directors of a business which has this Irish subsidiary that
has made this money, it has paid its tax to the Irish Government?
Unfortunately, the response typically is: Well, I cannot defend to my
shareholders why I should bring that money home and get whacked another
23 percent. So instead, I would rather not do this, but I am forced to
look at investing somewhere else in the world where I will not have to
pay this tax. This is what I am being told--this is what is happening.
The way to avoid all of this is to be headquartered somewhere other
than America.
This is terrible. This is outrageous. We are doing this to ourselves.
It is madness.
I have to say, I am very disappointed with how we are responding in
this body. We know this is a problem. This is very real. It is growing.
We are not taking it seriously. What we are going to vote on later this
week, I think, or whenever the vote comes up, is not a serious attempt
to solve this problem. It is a completely political show vote, the
Walsh-Stabenow bill. It will do nothing to stop these ongoing
inversions. It does nothing about the fundamental underlying cause that
is driving these inversions. It does nothing to encourage the
repatriation of all of this money.
By the way, it is attached to a vehicle that is unconstitutional. We
cannot originate a tax bill in the Senate. The Constitution forbids
that. So if you are even pretending to be serious about tax reform, you
take up a House-passed vehicle so it is at least constitutionally
possible. Our Democratic friends chose not to even bother with that
formality, so blatant is the fact that this is not a serious
discussion. That is a shame. We ought to be having a serious discussion
about this.
There is a more serious alternative bill that some of our friends on
the other side are advocates for. That is a bill that basically would
make it harder for you to achieve the inversion a company is attempting
to achieve. It would require the number of foreign shareholders be
quite high at the end of the transaction in order to qualify for it. So
it sounds on the surface like: Oh, that might work and make it harder
to do this.
But the problem still goes to it does not deal with the underlying
fundamental driver of this problem, which is a Tax Code that makes it
uncompetitive to be American. So if the Levin bill, which is the one I
am referring to, were to be adopted, which I certainly hope it would
not be, it continues to make it untenable for shareholders of a
business to justify being headquartered in America. We will continue to
see increasing numbers of startups and spinoff and growth overseas
where the governments choose not to punish their businesses the way we
punish ours.
I think the answer is to deal with the underlying cause, not the
reaction to that underlying cause. I do not want to see any more of
these inversions.
We are going to do that by lowering the marginal corporate tax rates
so there is not a huge advantage in being anywhere else other than
America, and to adopt a territorial system, a system where once a
company pays the tax it owes to the country in which it is located, we
do not punish them for bringing that money home and investing it in
America. That is the answer. That is the solution. This is no great
mystery. The rest of the world has figured this out. They are ahead of
us on this.
If we would get serious about this very real problem and we made
these reforms, what would the net result be? Up to maybe over $1
trillion of money that is trapped overseas would be invested back in
America. Can you imagine what that would do to our economic growth
almost immediately--the surge in job creation, the surge in expansion
of existing businesses.
You know, we have this tremendous renaissance in manufacturing that
we are on the edge of, because we have such low-cost energy. It is an
enormous advantage we have. We could release this pent-up demand and
take advantage of this enormous opportunity if we had a Tax Code that
made it rational.
I am standing here very frustrated, because I am watching us eke out
this miserable sort of 1, maybe if we are lucky, 2-percent economic
growth. Employment levels are way too low. Workforce participation is
nowhere near where it should be. I know we could be booming. We could
be growing at 4 percent. We could be creating many hundreds of
thousands of new jobs every month. We could be bringing people back in
the workforce. We could have the kind of strong economic expansion we
have always had in the past after a severe recession.
But we are not getting there right now. It is partly because we have
a Tax Code that is hampering us. It is driving up transactions that
none of us want to see. So I hope after we get through the political
exercise we are going to go through this week, we will get serious
about solving the underlying problem: lowering the marginal rate so we
do not stand out as the worst place in the world to establish a
business, and moving to a territorial-based system so that we stop
punishing businesses that want to invest in America. That is my hope. I
hope we will get to this soon, because, unfortunately, we are seeing
the unfortunate consequences of this bad policy.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I am pleased to be in the same Senate with
this wonderful Senator from Pennsylvania who does a very good job on
the Senate Finance Committee and is, frankly, one of the brighter
lights in the Senate. I appreciate him. I appreciate his efforts. I
appreciate his leadership. I appreciate what he just got through
saying.
Mr. President, soon we will begin debate on the so-called Bring Jobs
Home Act. There are a number of serious problems facing our country.
For example, our national debt currently exceeds $17.5 trillion. That
is trillion with a T. Our economy continues to struggle. In fact, the
economy shrunk last quarter. We have an entitlement crisis that
threatens to swallow our government and take the country down with it.
Of course, as has been widely discussed, we are seeing a parade of
U.S. multinationals opting to move their legal domiciles to countries
outside of our country, outside of the United States. During these
difficult times what we are hearing from my friends on the other side
of the aisle is not very good.
What are we hearing from these friends on the other side of the
aisle? We are hearing talk about ``economic patriotism.'' I did not
make up that term. It is the latest catchphrase coming from the Obama
administration as they try to malign business models and investments
they do not like during an election year.
Last week I received a letter from the Treasury Secretary calling for
``a new sense of economic patriotism'' as the administration pushed for
legislation that would punitively and retroactively seek to limit
corporate inversions. The President has repeated the line in some of
his recent speeches. Of course, ``economic patriotism'' is not a new
catchphrase. It was trotted out by the President during the 2012
election campaign. Now it appears to be making a comeback. Not
surprisingly, this comeback is taking place in the midst of another
election year. Apparently, as part of this recycled campaign, we are
going to have to once again debate and vote on the Bring Jobs Home Act,
the same bill the Senate rejected during the last election cycle.
If enacted, this legislation would deny the deduction for ordinary
and necessary business expenses to the extent that such expenses were
incurred for offshore outsourcing. That is, to the extent an employer
incurred costs in relocating a business unit from somewhere inside the
United States to somewhere outside the United States,
[[Page S4735]]
the employer would be disallowed a deduction for any of the associated
business expenses. Wow. How antibusiness can you be? There are other
ways of solving this problem.
The bill would also create a new tax credit for insourcing. That is,
if a company relocated a business unit from outside the United States
to inside the United States, the business would be allowed a tax credit
equal to 20 percent of the costs associated with that relocation. As I
said, this is a recycled bill.
The political talking points surrounding the bill are also recycled.
This bill and the related talking points are based on the oft-repeated
lie that there are special incentives or loopholes in the Tax Code that
encourage businesses to move jobs overseas. No such loopholes exist.
As the Joint Committee on Taxation noted in its recent analysis of
this bill:
Under present law, there are no targeted tax credits or
disallowances of deductions related to relocating business
units inside or outside the United States. Deductions
generally are allowed for all ordinary and necessary expenses
paid or incurred by the taxpayer during the taxable year in
carrying on any trade or business. These ordinary and
necessary expenses may include expenditures for the
relocation of a business unit.
The truth could not be plainer. Yet the supporters of this bill still
talk as though this legislation will end some kind of special tax
treatment or deduction for companies that outsource. There is no
special treatment. Under our Tax Code, relocation expenses are treated
the same whether a company is relocating from a high-tax State in the
United States to a lower tax State or if a company relocates some
operations offshore.
As the nonpartisan congressional scorekeeper has made clear, there
are no targeted tax benefits related to relocating business units
outside of the United States. No credits. None. Zero.
As the Joint Committee on Taxation said:
There has always been a deduction allowed for a business's
ordinary and necessary expenses. Expenses associated with
moving have always been regarded as deductible business
expenses.
That being the case, allowing a deduction for these expenses is not
all that remarkable. It is the general rule. Disallowing or putting
exceptions on this deduction, on the other hand, would be an
extraordinary deviation from long-standing tax policy and would
needlessly add yet another level of complexity to our already overly
complex Tax Code.
Still, let's pretend for a moment this deviation is, in terms of tax
policy, justified. It is not, but there is no harm in pretending, I
guess. Even if we were justified, in terms of policy, the revenue
generated by this proposal is minuscule.
According to JCT, the Joint Committee on Taxation, preventing
businesses from deducting expenses relating to outsourcing would raise
about $140 million over 10 years. That is about $14 million a year--not
$14 billion with a ``b,'' but $14 million with an ``m.''
To put the puny amount of this proposal in context, we should compare
this revenue number against the volume of business U.S. companies
conduct overseas.
According to the latest available IRS statistics of income, in 2010
U.S. companies conducted about $1.085 trillion in business abroad, and
that is probably low, given the sluggishness of the economy at that
time. On an annualized basis, the Bring Jobs Home Act would curtail
deductions representing about $40 million in expenses.
That represents four-thousandths of 1 percent of all overseas
business conducted by American companies. Let me repeat that, four-
thousandths of 1 percent--hardly perceptible.
As I said, we are talking about minuscule sums here. We are also
talking about politics as usual in the Senate. Instead of facing these
problems and facing them realistically, some prefer to play politics
with it, and it is total BS.
Yet over the last few years we have heard countless claims from my
friends on the other side of the aisle that ``closing loopholes for
businesses that move jobs overseas'' will pay for all kinds of things.
Earlier this month, for example, President Obama claimed that part of
his infrastructure plan could be paid for by making sure corporations
shipping jobs overseas ``pay their fair share of taxes.''
Well, if this bill is representative of this particular effort, the
President doesn't plan on paying for very much. I would bet the $14
million wouldn't even be enough to pay for a single high-speed rail car
or a round of IRS bonuses. It is amazing to me what people will do for
political advantage that is shameless. They should be ashamed.
Of course, all of this discussion only focuses on one section of the
bill. When you add in the other part of the bill--the 20 percent credit
for expenses associated with insourcing--the Bring Jobs Home Act
actually loses revenue--loses revenue--adding $214 million to the
deficit over 10 years.
So why are we debating this bill? It is obviously not about raising
revenue to pay for anything. It is clearly not about impacting business
economic decisionmaking, and it is not about improving or simplifying
our Tax Code.
Instead, this bill is about politics, pure and simple. It was all
about politics the last time we debated this bill in 2012, and it is
about politics this time around.
I, for one, am getting sick of it. I am so sick of this body not
doing its job.
The Democrats, both in the Senate and the White House, think they
gain some traction by talking about ``economic patriotism'' and trying
to paint Republicans as the party of outsourcing. Give me a break. The
bill is yet another election-year gimmick, pure and simple, and they
ought to be ashamed.
Quite frankly, the American people are tired of gimmicks.
What they want are serious solutions to the problems ailing our
country. Sadly, they are not getting that from the Senate majority
leadership these days.
If we are serious about bringing jobs home, we should try working on
legislation that will actually make the United States a better place to
do business. Let's make our country more attractive to do business.
We should try working on legislation that will actually grow our
economy. But we don't do much of that in the Senate these days. In
fact, we don't do much of anything in the Senate these days other than
to continue to overbalance the Federal courts with this
administration's suggestions.
Yes, we don't do much of that in the Senate these days. Instead, what
we are seeing is an endless series of showboats designed to highlight
whatever Democratic campaign theme is popular that week.
We have seen votes designed to highlight the supposed ``war on
women.'' We have seen votes designed to make it appear the Republicans
are indifferent to the plight of the middle class. Give me a break. Now
we are seeing votes designed to demonize Republicans for their supposed
lack of ``economic patriotism.''
What a fraud. When does it end? From the looks of things, not any
time soon.
I suspect as we debate the so-called Bring Jobs Home Act, the
Republicans will offer a number of amendments that, unlike this bill,
will actually create jobs in the United States. I plan to offer some
amendments along those lines, and I am sure many of my colleagues will
do the same.
This will be an opportunity to show whether the Senate Democratic
leadership is serious about creating jobs and helping American workers
and businesses as they claim to be. If, in fact, that is the aim of
this legislation, then we should have a full and fair debate on it,
including an open amendment process that will allow the Senate to
explore alternative approaches and to discuss different ideas and how
best to create jobs in this country. But I wouldn't hold my breath,
watching how this Senate is being run these days.
Let's talk about actually fixing our Tax Code. Let's talk about
growing our economy. Let's talk about real solutions to the real
problems facing our Nation.
I hope that is the kind of conversation we will have on this bill. Of
course, I am not naive. I know how the Senate operates these days. I
have come to the floor numerous times--only yesterday, in fact--to
lament the deterioration of this body under the current leadership. I
am not under any illusions that things are simply going to change
overnight.
[[Page S4736]]
I might add that the Senate leadership--these are friends of mine. I
am just disappointed in the way they are running the place, and I think
my disappointments are correct and accurate. But make no mistake,
things need to change. For the good of our country, things need to be
done differently around here.
Like I said, the American people are tired of political gimmicks.
They are tired of the endless campaign. They want to see the Senate act
in a way that will produce results.
Sadly, with this legislation before us this week, it looks as if we
are in for yet another round of partisan gamesmanship.
We can do things differently and, once again, I hope we will. But as
I have said many times before, I am not going to hold my breath. I just
wish we could get together and work in the best interests of not only
this body but our country.
I don't see the leadership at the White House either, nor do I think
Secretary Lew's letter on this issue was a justifiable letter. In fact,
I think it was pathetic, and I am very disappointed in him as a person
and as a leader in this country for that letter.
Of course, I wrote one back to him, certainly, expressing my
viewpoint.
U.N. Disability Treaty
Yesterday the Foreign Relations Committee voted 12 to 6 again to
report the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
This was similar to the committee vote 2 years ago. On December 4,
2012, the Senate voted 61 to 38 on the treaty, less than the two-thirds
the Constitution requires for ratification.
I expect a similar result if the Senate takes up the treaty again.
Yesterday afternoon the senior Senator from Iowa--a friend of mine, and
a person for whom I have a lot of regard--spoke on the floor about the
treaty, and as he has done many times, urged its ratification. I don't
doubt his sincerity at all, and I admire him personally for the long
service he has given to this country.
He called the concern that this treaty would undermine American
sovereignty and self-government imaginary, hypothetical, and unreal. In
fact he said:
Anyone who is hiding behind that issue does not want to
vote for this treaty for some other reason. But it can't be
the reason of sovereignty.
I will not speculate about what the Senator from Iowa meant by some
other reason. He and I have worked hard together to promote the rights
and opportunities of all persons with disabilities. I feel deeply about
that issue. I feel as deeply as he does.
We were partners in the development and passage of both the original
Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990 and the ADA Amendments Act in
2008.
I take a back seat to no one when it comes to legislation to help
persons with disabilities.
But since I gave a speech on the floor 1 year ago explaining my
concerns about this treaty's effect on American sovereignty and self-
government, I have to respond to the charges by my friend from Iowa. I
can only speak for myself, of course, but I am not hiding behind
anything, including the sovereignty issue.
That issue is neither imaginary nor hypothetical, and it is certainly
not cover for some hidden, unexpressed reason for opposing this treaty.
As I explained on July 10, 2013, this is a treaty not with other
nations but instead with the United Nations itself. Ratifying it would
create obligations across at least 25 different areas of social,
economic, cultural and even political life. Article 8, for example,
would even regulate the United States to ``raise awareness throughout
society, including at the family level, regarding persons with
disabilities.''
If this is all the treaty did, if it simply stated obligations, I
might support it. It would then be generally similar to the treaty
regarding child labor the Senate ratified in 1999. That treaty states
that ratifying nations shall ``take immediate and effective measures to
secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child
labor.''
But these two treaties are radically different and the difference is
the very reason why the disability treaty threatens American
sovereignty and self-government and the child labor treaty does not.
The difference between these treaties is who has authority to
determine whether ratifying nations are in compliance. The child labor
treaty leaves that up to the ratifying nations themselves.
The disability treaty, however, gives authority to determine whether
ratifying nations were meeting their treaty obligations to the United
Nations. That is considerably different and very dangerous. Each nation
must submit compliance reports to a U.N. committee of experts which
uses its own criteria and standards to determine compliance and makes
whatever recommendations it chooses.
Treaty advocates say this U.N. committee will not have actual legal
authority to require changes to domestic laws and that even if it did,
we would not have to change a thing.
I have three responses to that. First, as I explained in my speech
last year, American sovereignty and self-government are not so narrow
they can only be undermined by the United Nations literally assuming
legal and political control of our country. America is a republic under
a written constitution, and in this system of government the people
must have the last word on everything because the people are sovereign
over everything.
The American people and their elected representatives, not a U.N.
committee, must have the last word not only on our laws and regulations
but also on our priorities, our values, and our standards.
Ratifying this treaty would endorse a formal, ongoing role for the
United Nations in evaluating virtually every aspect of American life.
It would say that the U.N.--not the American people--has the last word
about whether the United States is meeting its obligations in these
many areas.
That undermines American sovereignty and self-government. The United
Nations hardly needs a legally binding treaty to opine on aspects of
American life and public policy. It does so all the time. Ratifying
this treaty, however, would formally endorse the right of the United
Nations to do so and, even worse, subject ourselves to their
evaluation. That is serious. We should think twice before we allow
something like that to happen.
Second, we may already have the world's most expansive disability
laws and regulations--and I know because I helped bring them about--but
this treaty goes far beyond that.
The U.N. Web site says this treaty legally binds any nation ratifying
it to adhere to its principles, and the treaty spells out what that
adherence will require. Ratifying nations agree to enact, modify, or
abolish laws and regulations at all levels of government--federal,
state, and local--that are inconsistent with the treaty's principles,
but the treaty also requires evaluating and changing any social customs
and cultural practices that are inconsistent with those principles.
Anyone who has followed the United Nations knows that a U.N. committee
is not likely to look as favorably on American customs and practices as
it might on our laws and regulations.
Third, even though the U.N. disability treaty appears to have been
modeled after the Americans with Disabilities Act, it utilizes a very
different concept of disability.
For more than four decades, American laws in this area have defined a
disability as an impairment that substantially limits a major life
activity. The disability treaty, however, states that ``disability is
an evolving concept'' involving barriers that hinder ``full and
effective participation on an equal basis with others.'' In other
words, the U.N. committee would use a subjective fluid concept of
disability to evaluate compliance with the treaty of U.S. laws that
utilize an objective, functional definition of ``disability.''
I am pleased to note that, even without U.S. ratification, no less
than 34 nations have ratified the U.N. disability treaty since it was
sent to the Senate on May 17, 2012--15 of them since I last spoke here
on the treaty a year ago.
Yesterday the senior Senator from Iowa asked for someone to explain
to him why the disability treaty before us today raises concerns about
sovereignty but the 1999 child labor treaty did not. Well, I think I
have done that here today. The disability treaty gives
[[Page S4737]]
the last word on whether a nation is in compliance to the U.N.; the
child labor treaty leaves that entirely up to each nation.
I understand Senators have different understandings or concepts about
such things as American sovereignty and self-government, but it is
wrong to say that if I take a different view on that than the senior
Senator from Iowa, I must somehow be hiding my real reason for opposing
this treaty. In our system of government, legislation and treaties are
profoundly different ways of addressing public policy issues with
profoundly different effects on sovereignty and self-government.
I will continue to be a champion for disability legislation, but I
cannot support this disability treaty. I will support those who have
disabilities, who have difficult times, as I did back then.
Frankly, I still remember my great friend from Iowa and myself
walking off the floor to a whole reception room filled with persons
with disabilities, all of whom were crying and happy that we had done
this in America.
America leads the world in our quest toward disabilities issues. In
all honesty, I don't want to lose our sovereignty in this issue, nor do
I want to turn over our rights and our own self-interests to the United
Nations, as good as it may be from time to time. But I have also seen
where it hasn't been so good from time to time as well.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to talk about
the Bring Jobs Home Act, which is the bill that would stop big
corporations from getting a tax break for sending jobs overseas while
rewarding businesses that invest in bringing jobs here, back home.
I thank my colleagues Senator Walsh and Senator Stabenow for leading
the way on this important legislation, and I am glad we now have the
opportunity to debate it. I hope our Republican colleagues will take a
serious look at the Bring Jobs Home Act and work with us in the coming
weeks and months on other efforts to create jobs and long-term economic
growth.
Our economy has changed a lot over the last few decades. Prices have
risen for everything from college tuition to health care, and the
shifting realities of the global economy have really made it harder to
find the kinds of jobs on which workers used to raise their families.
As we all remember, for far too many families the financial crisis
and the recession that began in December of 2007 was the last straw. It
pulled the rug out from under workers and small businesses across the
country. We have come a long way since then, but it is clear there is
much more we need to do to create jobs and broad-based economic growth
so that hard-working families in our country get a fair shot.
At a time when too many families are still struggling to make ends
meet, there is absolutely no reason taxpayer dollars should go toward
helping big corporations send jobs overseas. That is why I was very
proud today to vote in support of the Bring Jobs Home Act.
I think most Americans would agree they don't want their taxpayer
dollars spent on helping corporations outsource jobs. It really should
be a no-brainer.
Unfortunately, over the last few years we have spent far too much
time avoiding crises rather than legislation like the Bring Jobs Home
Act that would help our workers and businesses. Government shutdowns,
default threats, and last-minute deals took up a lot of oxygen here in
Washington, DC, and made workers and families really question whether
their government could get anything done.
So when Chairman Ryan and I were able to reach a 2-year bipartisan
budget agreement, I was hopeful we would be able to move beyond the
cycle of governing by crisis, and I hoped we could build on that
bipartisan foundation established in that 2-year budget deal and work
across the aisle to create jobs and grow our economy. The Bring Jobs
Home Act is exactly the kind of legislation I wanted to see us debate
and work together on.
While we all know Republicans and Democrats have very different views
on the best ways to encourage economic growth, we have taken some
bipartisan steps that show we should be able to work together on this
and other job-creating legislation. The Workforce Innovation and
Opportunity Act, which Senator Isakson from Georgia and I were able to
work together to finish, is a great example. That bipartisan
legislation shows what is possible when Members from different parties
and different States and different Chambers come together to get things
done for the American economy. I have heard from countless businesses
and families in my home State of Washington who have told me how much
they rely on effective workforce programs. So I was really thrilled
yesterday to stand next to President Obama as he signed more than a
decade of hard work and negotiation into law when he signed that
legislation.
I am glad we were able to go beyond governing by crisis and reach a
bipartisan agreement to thoroughly and responsibly improve our
workforce development system. We need to do the same thing--go beyond
simply avoiding crises when it comes to commonsense steps such as the
Bring Jobs Home Act.
I would also note that this is true for the highway trust fund. I
hope we will be able to not only avoid a construction shutdown short-
term but that we will work together to strengthen our transportation
infrastructure in a comprehensive way.
Construction workers and businesses absolutely deserve the certainty
of knowing we are going to avoid the shortfall in the highway trust
fund and keep our critical transportation projects moving forward. But
they actually deserve more than that. They, along with every other
American family and business that uses our roads and bridges, deserve a
long-term solution--one that not only shores up the highway trust fund
but also provides a plan for smart investments throughout our entire
transportation system.
My colleagues Senator Wyden and Senator Boxer have been leading the
way on avoiding this unnecessary crisis and addressing our
transportation infrastructure challenges not just for next year but for
years to come, and I thank both of them for their efforts.
I know conventional wisdom is that Congress will not be able to get
anything done from now until November, but I don't see any reason at
all why that ought to be the case. Families and communities rightly
want us to solve problems. Just avoiding crises isn't enough.
I am very hopeful that in the coming weeks and months we can not only
avoid a construction shutdown but also lay the groundwork for smart
investments in our country's roads and bridges and waterways.
I am glad my Republican colleagues are making it clear that they
don't want another fight over keeping the government open. I think we
should build on that by working together to replace more of the harmful
sequestration cuts we are going to face in 2016.
Instead of simply avoiding self-inflicted wounds to jobs and the
economy, we should be taking important steps, such as the Bring Jobs
Home Act, that encourage our companies to invest and hire right here at
home.
Of course, there is much more to do as well, and I never meant to
suggest that any of this would be easy. As we all know, compromise is
not easy. But legislation such as the bipartisan Budget Act and the
Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act show us that when both sides
are ready to come to the table and make tough choices, we can make real
progress.
We have a lot of work to do over the next weeks and into the fall,
and I hope we will take the bipartisan path that leads us to real
solutions and goes beyond just simply avoiding the next crisis. That is
what our constituents rightly expect, it is what they deserve, and it
is what I hope we can all work together on to deliver.
Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a
quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Bennet). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Coons). The Senator from Vermont.
Mr. SANDERS. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum
call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Veterans' Affairs
Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, as chairman of the Senate Committee on
[[Page S4738]]
Veterans' Affairs, I want to take a few minutes to update Members of
the Senate as to where we are on some very important issues that impact
veterans all over this country.
The first point I want to make is some good news. The committee had a
hearing yesterday to hear testimony regarding the confirmation of
Robert McDonald to be the new Secretary of the VA. I think I can speak
for the whole committee in saying we were very impressed by what we
heard from Mr. McDonald both in terms of his passion for the needs of
veterans and also his administrative knowledge, his management skills,
as the former head of one of the large corporations in America. I think
he left us with a very strong impression. The result was that today, a
few hours ago, by a unanimous vote, the Senate committee voted to
confirm Robert McDonald as our new Secretary of the VA, and I hope very
much his nomination will get to the floor as soon as possible. I think
that is good news because the VA needs stable leadership. Sloan Gibson,
who has been Acting Secretary, is doing an excellent job. He has
already accomplished a lot. But it is important that we have a new
permanent Secretary on board, and I hope the Members here see fit to
confirm him as soon as we possibly can.
On an additional issue, I think as all Members of the Senate know,
about a month or so ago we voted by a vote of 93 to 3, almost
unanimously, to make sure the veterans of our country get quality
health care in a timely manner, that we bring a new level of
accountability to the VA, and I am very proud of the support that
legislation, which was introduced by me and Senator John McCain,
received. I thank again Senator McCain for his very strong efforts to
make that happen and for his continued support of the veterans
community.
Senator McCain made a statement the other day--I think it was
yesterday--published in CQ, which I personally could not agree with
more. He spoke in terms of the conference committee that we are in
right now trying to merge the Senate bill and the House bill and come
up with something that can pass in both bodies. He said and I quote:
``We've got to sit down and get this done, because we cannot go out for
recess in August without having acted on this bill.''
I think he is exactly right.
Let me, picking up on that theme, relay to my colleagues what the
VFW, which is having their annual convention in St. Louis, said:
The Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States is
demanding that Congress immediately pass a compromise bill to
help fix the Department Of Veterans Affairs before they
adjourn for five weeks at the end of the month. ``Pass a bill
or don't come back from recess,'' said VFW National Commander
William A. Thien of Georgetown, IN. ``America's veterans are
tired of waiting--on secret waiting lists at the VA and on
their elected officials to do their jobs.''
I could not agree with the VFW more on that issue.
There was a bill a month ago that passed here. The CBO said that bill
would cost $35 billion, and we voted for that for emergency funding
because the Members here understood that taking care of veterans is a
cost of war as much as spending money on tanks and guns and missiles--
$35 billion in emergency funding. The House passed its bill which was
later assessed by the CBO at $44 billion. But here is the good news--
and without divulging the kinds of negotiations we are having with
Chairman Miller in the House--and Chairman Miller is a serious man. I
think he wants to get a bill passed. I don't want to go into all the
details here, but I think it is fair to say the cost of that bill will
be significantly less than what the CBO originally estimated.
A few minutes ago I and others received a letter from the major
veterans organizations on an issue of important consequence. Again,
without going into great detail about the nature of the negotiations
which the House and Senate are having on the veterans bill, I think it
is fair to say one of the stumbling blocks is that I agree and the
House agrees it is imperative we pass funding to make sure that
veterans who are in long waiting lines right now get the quality care
they need now, and that means if the VA cannot accommodate them in a
timely manner, they will go out to private doctors, community health
centers, or whatever, and the VA will pay that bill. That is what we
have to do because it is unacceptable that veterans remain on long
waiting periods and not get health care. There is a general agreement
on that. There is debate about how much that is going to cost over a 2-
year period, but I think we can reach some resolution.
Here is where the difference of opinion lies--without divulging
anything, and this has been in the newspapers--Sloan Gibson, the Acting
Secretary, came before the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee last week
and he made it very clear that while we have to deal with the emergency
of long waiting periods and get people the contracted care they need,
simultaneously, we must make sure the VA has the doctors, the nurses,
the medical personnel, the IT, and the space they need in order to deal
with this crisis so that 2 years from now we are not back in the same
position we are, and he came forward with a proposal that, in fact,
costs $17.6 billion. I think we can lower that amount of money, because
some of that request is not going to be spent this year or even next
year.
But the issue here is we have to strengthen the VA, their capacity,
so that veterans do not remain on long waiting periods and that we can
get them the quality and timely care they need.
Now, what I wanted to mention was an hour or so ago I received and
Chairman Miller, who is chairman of the House Committee on Veterans'
Affairs, got the letter, Richard Burr, who is the ranking member on the
Senate committee, Mike Michaud, the ranking member at the House--we
received a letter from a variety of veterans organizations, virtually
every major veterans organization, and they are the Disabled American
Veterans, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the VFW, the Paralyzed Veterans
of America, the Vietnam Veterans of America, the Iraq and Afghanistan
Veterans of America, the Military Officers Association of America, the
U.S. Coast Guard Chief Petty Officers Association, and many other
organizations.
I want to take a moment to read what they say, because this is
terribly important. What they are saying in essence is yes, we need
emergency funding to make sure that veterans tomorrow get the health
care they need from the private sector or anyplace else, but we also
need to strengthen the VA so that over the years they can provide the
quality and timely care veterans are entitled to. I am going to read
this letter because it is important that Members of the Senate and the
House understand where the major veterans organizations are coming
from.
Last week Acting Secretary Sloan Gibson appeared before the
Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee to discuss the progress
made by the Department of Veterans Affairs over the past two
months to address the health care access crisis for thousands
of veterans. Secretary Gibson testified that after re-
examining VA's resource needs in light of the revelations
about secret waiting lists and hidden demand, VA required
supplemental resources totaling $17.6 billion for the
remainder of this fiscal year through the end of FY 2017.
As the leaders of organizations representing millions of
veterans, we agree with Secretary Gibson that there is a need
to provide VA with additional resources now to ensure that
veterans can access the health care they have earned either
from VA providers or through non-VA purchased care. We urge
Congress to expeditiously approve supplemental funding that
fully addresses the critical needs outlined by Secretary
Gibson either prior to, or at the same time as, any
compromise legislation that may be reported out of the House-
Senate Conference Committee. Whether it costs $17 billion or
$50 billion over the next three years, Congress has a sacred
obligation to provide VA with the funds it requires to meet
both immediate needs through non-VA care and future needs by
expanding VA's internal capacity.
And I continue. Again, this is a letter from almost every major
veterans organization:
Last month, we wrote to you--
They wrote to the chairmen of the House and Senate Veterans' Affairs
Committees--
we wrote to you to outline the principles and priorities
essential to addressing the access crisis, a copy of which is
attached. The first priority ``must be to ensure that all
veterans currently waiting for treatment must be provided
access to timely, convenient health care as quickly as
medically indicated.'' Second, when VA is unable to provide
that care directly, ``VA must be involved in the timely
coordination of and fully responsible for prompt payment for
all authorized non-VA care.'' Third, Congress must provide
supplemental funding for this year and additional
[[Page S4739]]
funding for next year to pay for the temporary expansion of
non-VA purchased care. Finally, whatever actions VA or
Congress takes to address the current access crisis must also
``protect, preserve and strengthen the VA health care system
so that it remains capable of providing a full continuum of
high-quality, timely health care to all enrolled veterans.''
I ask unanimous consent that this letter be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
July 23, 2014.
Chairman Bernie Sanders,
Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs, Washington, DC.
Ranking Member Richard Burr,
Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs, Washington, DC.
Chairman Jeff Miller,
House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, Washington, DC.
Ranking Member Mike Michaud,
House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, Washington, DC.
Chairman Sanders, Chairman Miller, Ranking Member Burr,
Ranking Member Michaud: Last week, Acting Secretary Sloan
Gibson appeared before the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee
to discuss the progress made by the Department of Veterans
Affairs (VA) over the past two months to address the health
care access crisis for thousands of veterans. Secretary
Gibson testified that after re-examining VA's resource needs
in light of the revelations about secret waiting lists and
hidden demand, VA required supplemental resources totaling
$17.6 billion for the remainder of this fiscal year through
the end of FY 2017.
As the leaders of organizations representing millions of
veterans, we agree with Secretary Gibson that there is a need
to provide VA with additional resources now to ensure that
veterans can access the health care they have earned, either
from VA providers or through non-VA purchased care. We urge
Congress to expeditiously approve supplemental funding that
fully addresses the critical needs outlined by Secretary
Gibson either prior to, or at the same time as, any
compromise legislation that may be reported out of the House-
Senate Conference Committee. Whether it costs $17 billion or
$50 billion over the next three years, Congress has a sacred
obligation to provide VA with the funds it requires to meet
both immediate needs through non-VA care and future needs by
expanding VA's internal capacity.
Last month, we wrote to you to outlining the principles and
priorities essential to addressing the access crisis, a copy
of which is attached. The first priority ``. . . must be to
ensure that all veterans currently waiting for treatment must
be provided access to timely, convenient health care as
quickly as medically indicated.'' Second, when VA is unable
to provide that care directly, ``. . . VA must be involved in
the timely coordination of and fully responsible for prompt
payment for all authorized non-VA care.'' Third, Congress
must provide supplemental funding for this year and
additional funding for next year to pay for the temporary
expansion of non-VA purchased care. Finally, whatever actions
VA or Congress takes to address the current access crisis
must also ``. . . protect, preserve and strengthen the VA
health care system so that it remains capable of providing a
full continuum of high-quality, timely health care to all
enrolled veterans.''
In his testimony to the Senate, Secretary Gibson stated
that the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) has already
reached out to over 160,000 veterans to get them off wait
lists and into clinics. He said that VHA accomplished this by
adding more clinic hours, aggressively recruiting to fill
physician vacancies, deploying mobile medical units, using
temporary staffing resources, and expanding the use of
private sector care. Gibson also testified that VHA made over
543,000 referrals for veterans to receive non-VA care in the
private sector--91,000 more than in the comparable period a
year ago. In a subsequent press release, VA stated that it
had reduced the New Enrollee Appointment Report (NEAR) from
its peak of 46,000 on June 1, 2014 to 2,000 as of July 1,
2014, and that there was also a reduction of over 17,000
veterans on the Electronic Waiting List since May 15, 2014.
We appreciate this progress, but more must be done to ensure
that every enrolled veteran has access to timely care.
The majority of the supplemental funding required by VA,
approximately $8.1 billion, would be used to expand access to
VA health care over the next three fiscal years by hiring up
to 10,000 new clinical staff, including 1,500 new doctors,
nurses and other direct care providers. That funding would
also be used to cover the cost of expanded non-VA purchased
care, with the focus shifting over the three years from non-
VA purchased care to VA-provided care as internal capacity
increased. The next biggest portion would be $6 billion for
VA's physical infrastructure, which according to Secretary
Gibson would include 77 lease projects for outpatient clinics
that would add about two million square feet, as well as
eight major construction projects and 700 minor construction
and non-recurring maintenance projects that together could
add roughly four million appointment slots at VA facilities.
The remainder of the funding would go to IT enhancements,
including scheduling, purchased care and project coordination
systems, as well as a modest increase of $400 million for
additional VBA staff to address the claims and appeals
backlogs.
In reviewing the additional resource requirements
identified by Secretary Gibson, the undersigned find them to
be commensurate with the historical funding shortfalls
identified in recent years by many of our organizations,
including The Independent Budget (IB), which is authored and
endorsed by many of our organizations. For example, in the
prior ten VA budgets, the amount of funding for medical care
requested by the Administration and ultimately provided to VA
by Congress was more than $7.8 billion less than what was
recommended by the IB. Over just the past five years, the IB
recommended $4 billion more than VA requested or Congress
approved and for next year, FY 2015, the IB has recommended
over $2 billion more than VA requested. Further corroboration
of the shortfall in VA's medical care funding came two weeks
ago from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which issued
a revised report on H.R. 3230 estimating that, ``. . . under
current law for 2015 and CBO's baseline projections for 2016,
VA's appropriations for health care are not projected to keep
pace with growth in the patient population or growth in per
capita spending for health care--meaning that waiting times
will tend to increase . . .''
Similarly, over the past decade the amount of funding
requested by VA for major and minor construction, and the
final amount appropriated by Congress, has been more than $9
billion less than what the IB estimated was needed to allow
VA sufficient space to deliver timely, high-quality care.
Over the past five years alone, that shortfall is more than
$6.6 billion and for next year the VA budget request is more
than $2.5 billion less than the IB recommendation. Funding
for nonrecurring maintenance (NRM) has also been woefully
inadequate. Importantly, the IB recommendations closely
mirror VA's Strategic Capital Investment Plan (SCIP), which
VA uses to determine infrastructure needs. According to SCIP,
VA should invest between $56 to $69 billion in facility
improvements over the next ten years, which would require
somewhere between $5 to $7 billion annually. However, the
Administration's budget requests over the past four years
have averaged less than $2 billion annually for major and
minor construction and for NRM, and Congress has not
significantly increased those funding requests in the final
appropriations.
Taking into account the progress achieved by VA over the
past two months, and considering the funding shortfalls our
organizations have identified over the past decade and in
next year's budget, the undersigned believe that Congress
must quickly approve supplemental funding that fully meets
the critical needs identified by Secretary Gibson, and which
fulfills the principles and priorities we laid out a month
ago. Such an approach would be a reasonable and practical way
to expand access now, while building internal capacity to
avoid future access crises in the future. In contrast to the
legislative proposals in the Conference Committee which would
require months to promulgate new regulations, establish new
procedures and set up new offices, the VA proposal could have
an immediate impact on increasing access to care for veterans
today by building upon VA's ongoing expanded access
initiatives and sustaining them over the next three years.
Furthermore, by investing in new staff and treatment space,
VA would be able to continue providing this expanded level of
care, even while increasing its use of purchased care when
and where it is needed.
In our jointly signed letter last month, we applauded both
the House and Senate for working expeditiously and in a
bipartisan manner to move legislation designed to address the
access crisis, and we understand you are continuing to work
towards a compromise bill. As leaders of the nation's major
veterans organization, we now ask that you work in the same
bipartisan spirit to provide VA supplemental funding
addressing the needs outlined by Secretary Gibson to the
floor as quickly as feasible, approve it and send it to the
President so that he can enact it to help ensure that no
veteran waits too long to get the care they earned through
their service. We look forward to your response.
Respectfully,
Garry J. Augustine, Executive Director, Washington
Headquarters, DAV (Disabled American Veterans); Homer
S. Townsend, Jr., Executive Director, Paralyzed
Veterans of America; Tom Tarantino, Chief Policy
Officer, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America;
Robert E. Wallace, Executive Director, Veterans of
Foreign Wars of the United States; Rick Weidman,
Executive Director for Policy and Government Affairs,
Vietnam Veterans of America; VADM Norbert R. Ryan, Jr.,
USN (Ret.), President, Military Officers Association of
America; Randy Reid, Executive Director, U.S. Coast
Guard Chief Petty Officers Association; James T.
Currie, Ph.D., Colonel, USA (Ret.), Executive Director,
Commissioned Officers Association of the U.S. Public
Health Service; Robert L. Frank, Chief Executive
Officer, Air Force Sergeants Association; VADM John
Totushek, USN (Ret.), Executive Director, Association
of the U.S. Navy (AUSN); Herb Rosenbleeth, National
Executive Director, Jewish War Veterans of the USA;
Heather L. Ansley,
[[Page S4740]]
Esq., MSW, Vice President, VetsFirst, a Program of
United Spinal Association; CW4 (Ret.) Jack Du Teil,
Executive Director, United States Army Warrant Officers
Association; John R. Davis, Director, Legislative
Programs, Fleet Reserve Association; Robert Certain,
Executive Director, Military Chaplain Association of
the United States; Michael A. Blum, National Executive
Director, Marine Corps League.
Mr. SANDERS. Essentially what the letter goes on to talk about is
that many of these organizations have been looking at this issue for
years, and in their independent budget have noted that the VA needs
more space, because you have many hospitals where there are not enough
examination rooms and that slows down the ability of doctors and nurses
to treat patients, and we need more doctors and nurses. So for many of
these organizations this is not new news. They have known it for years.
Here is where we are. The good news is that I think we can bring
forth a bill which deals with emergency contracted-out care for
veterans today on long waiting periods. I think we can deal with the
issue that Senator McCain feels very strongly about and that is making
sure that veterans who live 40 miles or more away from a VA facility
will be able to go to the private physician of their choice, and I
think we can also strengthen the VA in terms of doctors and nurses and
information technology and space so that we don't keep running into
this problem year after year. It is going to take the VA time in order
to bring in the doctors and nurses and do the construction. I don't
want to get into the details of the discussions we are having with the
House, but I did want to make veterans, and, in fact, Members of
Congress aware of where I believe we are at this moment.
With that, I will yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I rise to address the legislation we are
debating, the Bring Jobs Home Act, but before I do so, I wish to note
how much I appreciate the leadership of the Senator from Vermont in
fighting for quality care and quality programs for our U.S. veterans.
This is incredibly important. Our sons and daughters and husbands and
wives are coming home from Iraq and now from Afghanistan. They have
stood for us and we need to stand for them. Bernie Sanders is leading
that effort, and I appreciate him for doing so.
I wish to address the legislation we are debating, the Bring Jobs
Home Act. Earlier today the Senate voted on whether to debate this
legislation to help bring manufacturing jobs back to America--to
onshore these jobs. I was very heartened to see a 93-to-7 overwhelming
bipartisan majority say: Yes, let's turn to this bill and work on
increasing manufacturing jobs in America. This is a much better result
than we had just 2 years ago when some of my colleagues combined to
thwart the ability to close debate on the motion to proceed and we were
unable to get on to this bill.
We are in an economy where jobs have been returning, but quality
living-wage jobs remain elusive. Indeed, 60 percent of the jobs we lost
in 2008 and 2009 were living-wage jobs, and of the jobs we are getting
back, only 40 percent of those are living-wage jobs. The difference
between those two numbers means that millions of families who had a
strong foundation just a few years ago, while they may have employment
today, do not have a strong foundation because they are chasing part-
time jobs, minimum-wage jobs, near-minimum-wage jobs, and jobs with low
to no benefits, and that is not a foundation on which a family can
thrive.
This bill is important. The Bring Jobs Home Act does two simple
things: It closes tax loopholes that ask the American people--
currently--to subsidize the costs for corporations to ship jobs
overseas; second, it creates a new tax incentive to encourage companies
to bring jobs home with a tax credit that covers 20 percent of the
costs of relocating those jobs back to the United States.
I am an original cosponsor of this legislation because this is an
item of huge importance to my home State of Oregon. Manufacturing is a
tremendous driver of Oregon's economy. In fact, if we look across the
Nation and we look at what share of the State economy is driven by
manufacturing, Oregon is often first or second. Manufacturing matters a
great deal. When manufacturing thrives, the Oregon economy is going to
do well, and when it dies, the Oregon economy is not going to do well.
If we look at this from yet another perspective, we can see that
States have been losing manufacturing jobs over the last 10-plus years
in sizeable numbers. In the period of about 2001 to 2011, that 10-year
period, we lost approximately 5 million manufacturing jobs. To put it
differently, we lost 50,000 factories. Well, what would we do today to
have those 5 million living-wage, family-wage, good-paying jobs? One is
we should pass this bill and to quit subsidizing the export of our jobs
overseas.
These tax breaks, which were put through by powerful special
interests for the benefit of a few multinationals, have done enormous
damage to the United States of America and to our families, and this is
our chance to reverse that.
One study--the Economic Policy Institute study of 2012--looked at the
number of jobs that were created in this dynamic between additional
sales overseas versus additional imports. Those additional imports, of
course, reflected jobs lost. In their estimate, Oregon gained about
9,100 jobs from additional exports and we lost about 59,000 jobs. That
differential of 50,000 jobs has an enormous impact on the State of
Oregon. We can put it this way: It is about 2 to 3 percent of the
number of jobs in our State economy, so it is an issue which really
hits home.
I know Oregon is not alone. For every single State--West and East,
urban and rural, and, yes, Democrat and Republican--this has been the
story in which jobs lost have exceeded jobs gained. That is why I
strongly hope this body of folks--representing the West and East and
North and South and urban and rural, the blue and red--can come
together to get this job done for the American people.
Think about it this way for a moment. Under our current Tax Code, we
are asking working families who are paying income taxes to subsidize
the exportation of their own jobs. That makes no sense. If you went out
on the street in Eugene or Pendleton or Medford--cities across my
State--and asked people what they think about that, you would probably
hear a common theme. One person might say: That is absurd. Another
person might say: That goes against our own economic self-interest. A
third person might simply say: That is wrong and it hurts families. All
of them would be right. Let's right this wrong, this inflicted wound on
living-wage jobs and on our families.
Over the last few years we have started to see a bit of improvement
in that manufacturing jobs have started to grow. But we need to nurture
that trend. We need to encourage that direction. I know that for the
Oregon families who are at the heart of the manufacturing economy,
whether or not their jobs stay here in the United States of America
means everything. It will affect the quality of life they will have as
adults, and it also affects the quality they will bring to their jobs
as parents and raising their children to seize opportunities of the
future.
Let's continue to work together to keep jobs here in Oregon and here
in America. Let's take on this issue of offshoring that has deeply
affected millions of Americans. This is a problem that is within our
power to fix, and we are now on the bill that starts us down the path
of fixing it. Let's not get stalled. Let's make sure we have the
majority to close debate, to get to a final vote.
If anyone has anything to say and you don't feel you have had time to
say it, come and say it tonight, say it tomorrow, say it tomorrow
evening, but get down here and make your notions known so that you
don't have to say that you need more time when it comes time to shut
down debate and actually vote on this bill.
Paralysis has been the practice that has so hurt this Chamber's
ability to address major issues affecting America, and that is not
right.
I encourage my colleagues, whatever you have to say, come down here
and say it. Don't once again obstruct the ability of this Chamber to
take on a major issue affecting families across this land.
[[Page S4741]]
I thank the Presiding Officer for the time and opportunity to speak
on this bill. I know the Presiding Officer has been championing a whole
collection of bills designed to nurture manufacturing. That collection
of bills could do great work and would be a logical additional step as
we take on these provisions to stop offshoring and increase onshoring.
We should turn to some of the other bills the Senator from Delaware
has put together. One of the bills he has put together is a bill I
sponsored. It is called the Build Act. I have gone on a manufacturing
tour in my State of Oregon and visited a large number of manufacturers,
and the common issue I hear from those who are managing the factory
floor or from the CEOs is this: We need more folks coming out of high
schools and community colleges who have both the aptitude for using
tools and the desire to use tools.
It used to be, when I was growing up--this simply came because we had
a habit of building things in our garages. Our garages were full of
tools in a working-class community. My garage is still full of tools,
but I can tell you that my children are not likely to find themselves
out in the garage making things because that is not the culture today.
If they are going to learn the joy of making things, they are going to
have to have the opportunity of shop classes. It has a fancy name now--
``career technical education.'' I think ``shop classes'' gives a better
visual impression--metal shop and woodshop and bringing items home
where you can say, hey, I made this dustpan or this carving or this
mask.
I have been to some shop classes in Oregon where the students are not
making the simple things that I made. They are making some of the most
incredibly gorgeous furniture you have ever seen, with sophisticated
skills in using tools. We need more of those shop classes to help feed
and nurture the manufacturing economy. It is a win-win for our
children, it is a win-win for our economy, and it is a win-win in terms
of creating living-wage jobs that are a strong foundation for families
to thrive.
I thank the Presiding Officer.
I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. HOEVEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Order of Business
Under the previous order, the time until 4:30 p.m. will be controlled
by the Republicans.
LNG Export Approval
Mr. HOEVEN. Thank you, Mr. President.
I come to the floor to offer a compromise on the LNG export issue. I
will put up my first chart. I think this is both a solution and a
compromise to LNG exporting.
The reality is we need to be able to construct LNG export facilities.
There has been debate in this body as to how that approval process
should work. Some want to take the Department of Energy completely out
of the process and just allow companies to build LNG facilities--let
the market work--and that is actually an approach I advocate and I have
joined with others on that type of legislation. That legislation has
bipartisan support. I think we could get it to the floor and we would
have more than the 60 votes it needs to pass. Others have advocated a
more cautious approach, which is essentially continuing the current
state of play wherein DOE can take years before they make a decision on
these LNG export terminals. So what I offer today is the LNG Certainty
Act, which I believe is a compromise between those two points of view.
It would provide for an expedited process but would do it in a way
where we keep the Department of Energy in the equation.
Why is it so important that we act now? This is a bill that is very
much about jobs. Right now we are on a motion to go to a bill that
purportedly would create jobs. I don't think that bill will create
jobs; I think it will create more regulation and more costs for
companies that are trying to create jobs. So instead why don't we bring
up some of these energy bills that will not only create jobs but
accomplish much more as well, such as economic growth--economic growth
that will generate revenues to reduce the deficit and the debt without
raising taxes or increasing regulatory burdens? Why not pass some of
these energy bills that will provide better environmental stewardship?
LNG production certainly would provide job growth, economic growth but
also better environmental stewardship, and it will also help provide
national security--national security for us and for our allies. That is
a very big reason it is so important that we act now.
We have a President who is talking about what Vladimir Putin and
Russia should do and what they shouldn't do. He is talking about it,
but we need to go beyond talk to action. What is that action? We need
to impose stronger sanctions on Russia. I think there is broad
bipartisan support in this Senate to impose stronger sanctions on
Russia, but for those sanctions to be truly effective, we need the
European Union to join with us in imposing those sanctions. We can have
a meaningful impact on what Putin and Russia do, but we have to act and
we have to get the European Union to act with us.
So why aren't they acting with us? The reality is Vladimir Putin has
them over a barrel--literally. European countries are dependent on
Russia for their energy. So they are very reluctant to impose sanctions
when they have to get their energy from Russia.
Here is a graph that shows how much all of these different European
countries get in terms of their energy, their natural gas from Europe.
We can see in some cases it is 100 percent, 60 percent, 50 percent. For
some obviously it is less. But for many European countries, they are
dependent on Russia for this natural gas.
Here is the pipeline network coming in from Russia. Here we see
Russia and all of these pipelines coming into Europe through the
Ukraine supplying natural gas. Obviously, these countries are very
worried about imposing sanctions which, of course, would create
difficulty for them from an economic perspective as well as Russia, but
they are very concerned about energy supply. That is why we have to act
and we have to act now to make sure they have another supply of energy
so they can join with us in meaningful sanctions against Russia.
So how does the LNG Certainty Act work? Quite simply, it provides
that the Department of Energy must make a decision on whether to
approve an LNG export application within 45 days of that company
completing its preliminary application to the FERC--the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission. So understand, right now companies have to apply
to both the Department of Energy and to the FERC--the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission. They have to apply to both in order to get
approval to build an LNG facility.
When we talk to these companies we learn that the FERC has a fairly
rational process that they know they can step through in an orderly
fashion. It is pretty dependable, pretty certain. It takes a certain
amount of time, covers all the bases, but they know they can get
through it. The DOE--the Department of Energy--on the other hand,
doesn't have any specific timeframes or criteria on how or whether they
will give approval to these companies, so it creates uncertainty and it
creates real delay.
As I said, some people want to take the Department of Energy out of
the equation completely; others want to continue just as it is. That is
why this act truly is a compromise in that we keep the Department of
Energy in the mix, but we require that within 45 days after the
preliminary application to the FERC is approved, which takes about 6
months, up to as much as 1 year--within 45 days after that preliminary
application is filed with the FERC, the DOE then has 45 days to make a
decision. So we still have whatever safeguards some people feel need to
be in there, as far as the DOE. The DOE is still in there. They still
have that safeguard, but we have a reasonably expedited process and a
reasonably certain process for these companies that are applying to try
to get approval.
Right now we have on the order of 13 different companies--1 has
conditional approval but 13 different companies--
[[Page S4742]]
seeking approval to build LNG facilities. Many of these companies have
been waiting for over 1 year--some 1 to 2 years--and they are not even
through the Department of Energy process yet. So while we need to start
moving natural gas to Europe, since Europe needs that source of supply
so they can stand with us in sanctions against Russia, these
applications continue to sit in limbo. How does that possibly make
sense? Why aren't we acting? Why is it adequate or satisfactory for the
President to just talk about what should be done instead of doing
something? This is action we can and must take.
I will give my colleagues an example of a project showing what we are
talking about. I am showing my colleagues 13 different projects that
are in limbo.
Here is one right here where we take a specific example. This is the
Golden Pass project. It is a project ExxonMobil wants to build. They
are ready to invest $10 billion--$10 billion--today and save these
taxes to build an export facility that will move liquefied natural gas
from this country to Europe. Why would we want to sit and hold them up?
Here you see a timeline. They have been in this process already for
more than 1 year. It looks to me as though they do not even figure they
are halfway done yet, and there is no certainty from the Department of
Energy when they will be done. Yet here is a $10 billion project that
is sponsored by a company--ExxonMobil--that certainly has the ability
to build it, that will take LNG, liquefied natural gas, to Europe.
What is the rationale for holding them up, for just making them wait?
Aren't we moving to a so-called jobs bill? How many jobs do you think
will be created in building a $10 billion facility? A lot of jobs.
This is just 1 example of the more than 13 I just showed that are
sitting in limbo.
That is exactly why I have joined with Senator McCain, Senator
Murkowski, and Senator Barrasso and we proposed the North Atlantic
Energy Security Act. The whole focus of this act was to streamline oil
and gas production, to build the gathering systems we need, move it to
these LNG facilities, and give companies the approval and the authority
to build those LNG facilities so they can move that gas to our allies.
All of these steps create jobs. They all create jobs. We create jobs
in all of these steps: producing more gas, building the gathering
systems, and building the LNG facilities. But instead of doing this--in
this picture we have an oil well, which is flaring off gas, meaning
burning it off. This picture is an example in my State of North Dakota
where we are flaring off $1.5 million worth of gas a day. So instead of
just burning up that gas, we would actually have a market for it, so we
can capture it, move it to the LNG facilities, and export it to our
allies, not only strengthening our national security and their national
security but creating a market for our gas.
Right now we produce 30 trillion cubic feet of gas a year in this
country, and we use 26 trillion. So gas is flared off instead of
captured and sent to market.
If we want to talk about job creation, if we want to talk about
economic growth, if we want to talk about environmental stewardship, if
we want to talk about working with our allies to actually do something
in response to Russian aggression, do we want to actually do something
or just keep talking about it?
So while we are considering jobs bills, why don't we consider this
jobs bill? Why don't we consider the LNG Certainty Act. The reason I
have introduced this compromise bill is so we can do this: move natural
gas from the United States, through facilities, to our allies to deter
Russian aggression. It is that simple. That is what it is all about.
That is why, again, I joined with Senators McCain, Murkowski, and
Barrasso to introduce the North Atlantic Energy Security Act. But if
that is too heavy a lift--if that is too heavy a lift--then let's take
up the LNG Certainty Act and just approve the ability to build these
facilities. Let's at least take that first step.
There are other bills we can take up as well that are true job
creators, real job creators, where we empower companies across this
great Nation, large and small, to create jobs, to create more energy,
to create better environmental stewardship, and to strengthen national
security--energy bills that myself and others have introduced: the LNG
Certainty Act which I am talking about right now, the North Atlantic
Energy Security Act which I have referenced as well, Keystone--the
Keystone XL Pipeline. Why aren't we building that right now to make
sure, with Canada, we produce more oil than we consume so we can tell
the Middle East we do not need any oil, we have it covered or the
Domestic Energy and Jobs Act, which is a whole series of bills that
have been passed in the House that I have introduced in the Senate that
would cut the regulatory burden, increase the amount of energy we
produce in this country both onshore and offshore or the Empower States
Act, where we give States the ability to take a primary role in
regulating hydraulic fracturing so we have the certainty to continue
the investment that is producing an energy renaissance in this country.
All of these acts have been filed. All of these acts create jobs. Why
are they being held up so we can consider a bill that increases
regulation, increases taxes on companies in the country, and will have
the impact of reducing jobs and reducing economic growth rather than
accomplishing all of the things we are talking about--not just jobs,
not just economic growth but national security and actually working
with our allies to accomplish something instead of just talking about
it, making Putin tow the line rather than just telling him he should.
With that, I know my colleagues are here to propose additional job-
creating ideas as well, and at this time I yield for the outstanding
Senator from the State of Georgia.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.
Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from the Dakotas for
yielding the floor to me. Before he leaves, I wish to say something
about what the Senator just said. In fact, I was sitting here listening
to him. I am going to prove I was actually listening to his speech. I
don't think we always do--sometimes I think we don't--but I did that
because he was right on target.
But my thought process went back to the 1970s. In the 1970s, OPEC and
the Arab oil embargo basically held the United States of America
hostage. I remember lines where we would wait for an hour and a half to
get $10 worth of gasoline because we had a limited supply.
Now we sit here in a country, some 40 years later, that has unlimited
resources available to us if we will just take the political moves and
the regulatory moves and the practical moves to exhibit our power and
extract those resources.
For example, the Keystone Pipeline that the Senator talked about--not
a single molecule of carbon will be generated by bringing that
petroleum underground through a pipeline from Canada to Houston. We
will refine it more soundly and more environmentally than the Chinese
would or anybody else would, and then we will have an almost infinite
supply to take care of our own country internally and also use it as a
part of our soft power around the world.
The Senator is absolutely correct about Germany and about the Ukraine
and about Russia. If we become the surrogate and we replace Russia in
terms of supply of natural gas to that part of the world, we take away
the only asset Russia has. As Senator McCain has so often said, Russia
has relegated itself to being a gas station with a flag. If we become
the competitive gas station down the line, we can lower our price by
nine-tenths of a cent, we can sell more gas than they can, and we can
use the soft power of our natural resources to bring back what we need
in terms of peace and stability in that part of the world. The
byproduct of doing that is not just energy security, it is not just
better diplomatic and international policy, but it is jobs for
Americans--jobs to build the pipeline, jobs to operate the pipeline,
jobs to extract or frack the natural gas out of Haynesville and
Marcellus.
We are sitting on a ham sandwich, starving to death as a country with
our assets because governmental policy will not let us do some of what
we ought to do.
So I came to the floor to talk a little bit about job creating and
bringing
[[Page S4743]]
jobs home. The bringing jobs home bill is a $214 million bill, which is
a rounding error in terms of the way we do business around here, and
will do nothing except penalize companies for doing what they have to
do and offer a reward that is not a carrot at all to bring jobs back.
I thank the Senator from the Dakotas for his speech and for his
continuing and persistent emphasis on our energy and our energy power
and our energy independence. It is voices such as his that need to be
heard more and more in this Chamber so we can create jobs for the
American people and solve the economic problems we have.
I commend the Senator from South Dakota--thank you--from North
Dakota.
Mr. HOEVEN. Yes, sir.
Mr. ISAKSON. I apologize. I am a southerner, so I slipped up on that.
Mr. HOEVEN. I thank the good Senator and I appreciate it very much.
Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I rise to talk for a minute about the
issue of the day that is before us, the bring jobs home bill. I
appreciate any effort to bring jobs home and to create new jobs at
home, but I want to talk about how we are making a false promise and
giving idle hope to people about bringing jobs back because we are not
doing the things we should be doing.
If you ask me to make my choice, what should we do in the Senate, on
the floor of the Senate, in this body as legislators to create as many
jobs as we can as fast as we can, a tax credit for bringing jobs home
will not do it and a tax penalty for taking jobs overseas will not do
it, but approving the Keystone Pipeline will do it and giving the
President of the United States trade promotion authority will do it.
Both of those are pending on the floor of the Senate right now before
us. We could take them up tomorrow. If we did, we could make a massive
impact on job creation in America and further empower our economy.
I happen to be the ranking Republican on the Finance Committee's
subcommittee on trade. We have two major trade agreements pending in
the United States of America that we are a part of current
negotiations--one of them is the Trans-Pacific Partnership, one is the
Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, called TTIP.
Those two trade agreements are free-trade agreements with our biggest
trading partners--Asia and Europe and Scandinavia--but the Asians and
the Scandinavians both ask me, when I talk to them in meetings
discussing trade: When are you going to give your President trade
promotion authority? Because we know until the U.S. Congress gives the
President that authority, you are not serious about negotiating trade
deals.
I first came to the Congress of the United States in 1999, 1 year
after we gave President Bill Clinton trade promotion authority. Then we
had a plethora of free-trade agreements that passed at that time
because of the negotiation power we gave the President. Trade promotion
authority just means we give the President the authority to negotiate
the trade agreement, and then the Senate gets an up-or-down vote on the
agreement. But we do not get to vote on amendment after amendment after
amendment, we get a vote on the totality of the agreement. In other
words, we give sincerity to our foreign trading partners that what we
say is what we mean and that we are going to give our President the
authority to negotiate those deals, and we will make them subject to
our ratification in the Senate. Trade promotion authority is important
for America, for jobs, for our economy, and it is, quite frankly,
important for bringing jobs home to the United States of America.
The Keystone Pipeline, which I mentioned a minute ago in talking
about Senator Hoeven's remarks, is a job creator. The unions are for
it. Business is for it. Most Americans are for it. It only takes the
signature of the President to let it go. The State Department has
signed off on it. There is only one reason, I suppose, we are not
building the Keystone Pipeline; that is, because of environmental fear
of the Keystone Pipeline generating some kind of an environmental
problem.
Think about it for a second. If we do not put it in a pipe and bring
it underground, we can put it on a truck that burns gasoline or diesel
fuel and bring it to Texas and create a whole lot of carbon molecules.
We are trying to reduce carbon in the air, so building a pipeline is
environmentally friendly. It is safer than putting it on the roads or
railcars or trucks or tractors. It is the way to do it. I do not
understand why the President will not do it. But I think we need to
continue to talk about it because the energy independence Senator
Hoeven talked about is exactly what America is on the cusp of having.
We suffered when we were energy dependent in the 1970s and 1980s. We
paid a big price for it. We paid the price of inflation, reduced
authority around the world, and we lost our position and stature in
business. We now have a chance to secure it not just for this decade
but for this century in the United States of America, and I hope the
President will reconsider his unwillingness to sign the Keystone
Pipeline and do so.
On the jobs issue and on the inversion issue, which has brought about
this entire discussion--and for those who might be listening and
watching, inversion is where American corporations decide to acquire a
foreign company and invert to where their headquarters are in the
foreign country rather than in the United States of America to take
advantage of a better corporate tax rate.
We have now the highest corporate tax rate in the world--the highest
in the world. Japan, which used to be up there above us or right with
us, has now lowered theirs. Canada has lowered theirs. Ireland has
lowered theirs.
Jobs are going offshore because the cost of taxes is lower, because
it is a tax code that promotes growth, promotes business, and promotes
development.
We need a progrowth tax policy in the United States. We need a
simpler tax code. We need a fairer rate of taxation. We need to get rid
of corporate welfare. A lot of my friends on the other side are always
talking about corporate welfare. They are right. We did it on ethanol
subsidies when we were subsidizing people to make ethanol. That was an
intent, through a tax incentive, to cause something we thought would be
the right thing to happen for the environment, which did not work.
Those are the types of things we ought to stop doing--those types of
corporate welfare. But what we should do is give a progrowth tax code
to the American businesspeople, whether they are C corps or S corps--
and I am going to talk about that for a second--so they know what kind
of tax rate they can count on, they know it is simple, they know it is
fair, and they know it is predictable for the future.
I find it interesting, when the old Soviet Union fell, when the
Soviet satellite states such as Estonia and Latvia became independent
countries, if you go back and study that--and that was not too long
ago--if you go back and study what they did to separate themselves from
the Soviet Union--take Estonia, for example. The new President of
Estonia, after they became independent, did three things. He gave the
state-owned apartments to each person who rented them and let them own
them as a home and then created a housing market instantaneously.
That was No. 1. No. 2, they cut the tax rate from 50 percent to 25
percent and revenues went up and not down, because people thought 25
percent was a fair rate and they did not cheat--because there was a lot
of cheating going on under the 50-percent rate. Then on the corporate
taxes in Estonia, they went to businesses and said: We are not going to
tax your profits as long as you reinvest those profits in jobs or in
research and development. The rest of it will be taxes. So they
incentivized research and development. They incentivized employment.
They made corporate Estonia feel as though they had a fair tax system.
What happened? If you fly into a town in Estonia today, it is similar
to flying into Dallas or Atlanta. There are cranes everywhere. There is
economic development and improvement everywhere. Why? Because they have
what people perceive to be a fair code. They do not have a junk code.
They have a good tax code, and they incentivize people to do business
and make money.
You raise revenue in America by raising prosperity, not by raising
rates of taxation. We have proved that every time we have lowered the
capital gains tax. Every year following the lowering of the capital
gains tax, revenues from capital gains went up and not down.
[[Page S4744]]
Why? Because people who had a mature investment were incentivized to
pay the lower tax rate, sell the investment, and reinvest in a
maturing, developing investment rather than just hold onto it because
they did not want to pay what they considered was a confiscatory tax.
Tax policy drives economic decisions. There is not one of us in this
room who does not make decisions every single day on our own personal
finances where we do not consider--in some part or in whole--the tax
consequence of it.
That is why you have a tax code. But we all look at fair and
equitable corporate tax relief. We ought to do it for S corporations
and for C corporations. I want to talk about that part for just a
minute. C corporations are the major corporations and dividend-paying
companies in America. Their tax rate is 35 percent. S corporations are
corporations where they file as partners. The profits of the company
flow through on what is known as a K-1 statement. It flows through as
ordinary income.
Today the ordinary income tax rates for people making more than
$450,000 can go up to 39 percent. It is already higher than the 35
percent C corporations have. If we lower the C corporation rate from 35
to 28 percent through comprehensive tax reform, then there will be a
big disparity between the S corporations and the C corporations. The S
corporations employ a lot of Americans. They are the mom and pop Main
Street businesses. They are 72 percent of the jobs that are created in
America. So we ought to take the whole enchilada. We ought to reform
both the corporate tax rate, the C corporation rate, the S corporation
rate, and the individual tax rate and modernize them together and make
them fair, equitable, less complex, and more productive.
If we incentivized American business to invest and to grow, we will
raise revenues, we will raise prosperity, and we will raise hope. If we
continue to pass bills that say: If you doing something, we are going
to tax you or if you do something, we are going to give you a benefit--
if we think that is going to cause people to bring jobs back to the
United States of America, we are dead wrong.
What would cause them to bring jobs back to America is a fair tax
code and to take our strong investments and our strong assets, such as
petroleum and liquid natural gas, which we were talking about, and use
them to our advantage through the soft power of economic power. So my
message today is very simple. If you want to create jobs, build the
Keystone Pipeline and give the President Trade Promotion Authority and
do it now.
If you want to really stop corporate inversions, just modernize the
American Tax Code like every other country in the world has done. There
are a lot of people who are talking about offshore profits who are
stranded in the Cayman Islands in these secret bank accounts because
they do not come back to America. We created the Cayman Islands secret
bank accounts when we passed a tax code that was confiscatory in
nature.
When it is better off for your company and your stockholders to keep
the money you make offshore--somewhere else offshore--so it is not
subject the second time to taxes, we created those Cayman Islands tax
havens. We will do it again if we do not get our Tax Code fixed. So my
message is simple: Build Keystone, explore our natural resources, give
the President Trade Promotion Authority, and make a fair equitable
change in S corporations, our C corporations, and our individual rate.
Let's incentivize prosperity and hope and not penalize and punish
Americans for doing business.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
Lawful Ivory Protection Act
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I congratulate the Senator from Georgia
on his remarks. As usual, they are eloquent and elucidate the issue
beautifully. I am glad I had a chance to hear them.
I come to the floor to speak about an effort to expand regulations
that will have a damaging effect on thousands of Americans. For those
who are concerned this administration is trying to take away our guns,
this regulation could actually do that. If this regulation is approved,
when you decide to sell a gun, to sell a guitar or anything else that
contains African elephant ivory, the government would actually take
them away, even if you inherited the item or bought the item at a time
when the sale of ivory was not illegal.
In February the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced a plan to
prohibit the interstate commerce of African elephant ivory. This was
part of President Obama's National Strategy for Combating Wildlife
Trade. The plan is intended to stop the poaching of African elephants
and to help preserve that species. But the impact will be something
very different.
The impact of this plan will be to change a policy that has been in
place since 1990, which prevents the importation of ivory for
commercial purposes, with the exception of antiques. But it did not
restrict interstate or intrastate commerce of legal ivory.
Now, let me be clear. I support stopping poachers. I support the
preservation of these magnificent, regal animals, the elephant. I
strongly support stopping the trade of illegal ivory. But what I do not
support is treating Tennessee musicians, Tennessee antique shops, and
Tennessee firearms sellers like illegal ivory smugglers for selling
legal ivory products, many of which are decades old, if not over 100
years old.
Banning the buying and selling of products with ivory found in
legally produced guitars, legally produced pianos, legally produced
firearms, could prohibit musicians from buying or selling instruments
that contain ivory, prevent firearms and family heirlooms containing
ivory from being sold, and pose a significant threat to antique
businesses.
Even though the ban has not yet gone into effect, the confusion and
uncertainty created by the Fish and Wildlife Service's action to ban
the interstate commerce of ivory and any item that contains ivory are
already having a significant impact on businesses and families alike.
Let me give you the example of John Case, who owns and operates a small
antique family business with four employees in Knoxville, TN, near my
home. He says he could see his business devastated by this proposed
regulation. This is what John Case says:
The impact of President Obama's Executive Order expanding
the buying and selling of antique ivory and other endangered
species has been significant on our auction and appraisal
business. If one looks at the number of antique objects we
have sold and are selling at auction just for 2014, the total
exceeds $156,000. This amount is more than 11 percent of our
revenues for 2013 and does not include the number of antique
objects we turned away from selling because of these new
regulations and the loss of appraisals of those objects.
John Case continues:
This would easily total an additional $25,000 in revenues.
This total loss in revenues of $181,000 equates to one full
time salaried employee in addition to hours for part time
employees.
Here is one more example of a new regulation, which on a small
business will equate to the loss of a job of one full-time salaried
employee, in addition to hours for part-time employees. We wonder why
the economic recovery has been worse than the great recession? You
cannot be pro-jobs if you are antibusiness and if you keep dumping this
big wet blanket of regulations on every effort an entrepreneur has to
create a new job. Americans who create jobs--one told me the other day
in Tennessee: I'm sorry to say that I'm beginning to look at a new
employee as a liability instead of an asset. He said: I hate that. I
want the employee to be an asset. But when I look at the employee, I
think about what new costs does that employee bring to my business
because of government regulations, because of ObamaCare, because of
this or that. Now, in John Case's case, it is about legal ivory.
Mr. Case goes on to say:
Further, the loss of revenues for our business is
significant, as it encompasses a wide range of antique
objects, including 18th and 19th century American portraits
on ivory, music boxes and furniture with ivory inlay, silver
tea services with ivory insulators, weapons with ivory grips
and inlay. If these new regulations go into full effect, I
anticipate the reduction of staff and intern programs.
That is fewer jobs.
The impact of these new regulations has a significant
impact on our customers as well.
According to Mr. Case:
I just fielded calls this past week of two local consignors
who had holdings of antique
[[Page S4745]]
ivory with values exceeding $200,000. For one of those
consignors, his antique ivory was by far the most available
personal property he owned. It had been inherited from his
grandfather. For many of my consignors such as these
gentlemen, they will see a complete devaluing of one of their
greatest personal assets.
Mr. Case is not alone. The music industry--and we have a lot of that
in Tennessee, in Nashville and in Memphis and East Tennessee as well--
is concerned. The National Association of Music Manufacturers, whose
mission is to promote the pleasures and benefits of making music, says,
of the proposed regulation:
[The] Problem with the Fish and Wildlife Service's plan is
many post-1914 instruments containing ivory are still in use.
Many famous artists perform with vintage guitars, violin bows
or pianos which contain small amounts of ivory. It is worth
noting that the music products industry had generally stopped
using ivory by the mid-1970s. A ban on the interstate sale of
items containing ivory would prohibit musicians from buying
or selling instruments. Replacing ivory with other materials
could adversely affect the total quality of those
instruments.
Instruments are not bought because they contain ivory but because of
their playing characteristics. The proposed ban has already resulted in
anecdotal reports of Fish and Wildlife Service agents investigating
piano transportation companies to see if any instruments are containing
ivory--even though these companies do not own the instruments.
Here is another example from the National Rifle Association about the
proposed ban of legal ivory:
The effects of the ivory ban would be disastrous for
American firearms owners and sportsmen, as well as anyone
else who currently owns ivory. This means that shotguns that
have an ivory bead or inlay, handguns with ivory grips, or
even cleaning tools containing ivory, would be illegal to
sell.
My office has heard from businesses and individuals from all
different sectors of our economy. The examples go on and on about this
misguided policy. Let me repeat. I support stopping poachers. I support
preserving these magnificent, regal animals, the elephant. I strongly
support stopping the trade of illegal ivory. What I do not support is
treating Tennessee musicians, antique owners, and gun owners like
illegal ivory smugglers if they sell products that contain legal ivory.
I call on the Fish and Wildlife Service to abandon their current
efforts and take a more commonsense approach, an approach that will
preserve elephants, while not turning law-abiding citizens and
businesses into criminals. In the absence of a more commonsense
approach, I have introduced legislation, S. 2587, the Lawful Ivory
Protection Act of 2014, to stop this misguided policy from going
forward. My bill simply stops the Fish and Wildlife Service from
continuing down this unwise path.
It keeps in place the same regulation that prohibited the illegal
ivory trade regulation before February 25, which is the date the Fish
and Wildlife Service began rolling out new regulations to ban the
interstate commerce of ivory and any item that contains ivory. I urge
my colleagues to take a look at this issue, and cosponsor my bill, S.
2587, the Lawful Ivory Protection Act of 2014, to stop the
administration from taking away our legal guns, from taking away our
legal guitars, and from taking away our legal items which contain legal
ivory if we try to sell them.
I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Brown.) The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. HEINRICH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Refugee Crisis
Mr. HEINRICH. Mr. President, when Congress unanimously passed the
bipartisan William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection
Reauthorization Act back in 2008 to strengthen Federal trafficking laws
and ensure that unaccompanied and undocumented children receive humane
treatment, it was welcomed by the Bush administration as a priority
issue in preventing the trafficking of persons around the world.
At the time Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission
president Richard Land said that:
It shows a broad coalition all the way from the left to the
right and in between when it comes to significant human
rights issues.
The law itself was named for William Wilberforce, an evangelical
Christian who led the effort in Britain's Parliament to end the slave
trade in Britain in the 19th century. But now, 6 years later, too many
of my Republican colleagues are calling to roll back the very
protections that just a few years ago were rightfully lauded as a
tremendous victory for human rights.
Many of us believe the current Central American refugee crisis
requires an immediate and compassionate response. Yet the proposals put
forth by Senate Republicans have been to reverse critical child refugee
protections, and deport DREAMers who have absolutely nothing to do with
this current crisis.
The proposal introduced by my colleague from Texas, Senator Cornyn,
and similar proposals from my Republican colleagues would weaken the
2008 trafficking law and implement expedited deportation that denies
children the chance to go through an orderly process to determine if
they need protection--and it applies to all unaccompanied children who
cross the border. I believe we are a better nation than that.
My Republican colleagues keep saying they want a humane process, but
these proposals would trade the safety of children for expediency and
eliminate the very protections unanimously set forth by Congress back
in 2008.
As a father, I have to say I believe this debate can't just be about
the efficiency with which we can deport refugees. It should take into
account the situation these boys and girls are seeking to escape in the
first place.
Both the United Nations High Commission on Refugees and the Refugee
and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services in two separate
reviews recently found that approximately 60 percent of unaccompanied
children from Central America suffered or faced harms that indicated a
potential or actual need for international protection.
To understand how these proposals could adversely harm the children
involved, one can read a recent article in the New York Times by Julia
Preston. It tells the story of Andrea, a young woman from Honduras who
was forced by her own family--associates with the Mexican drug cartel--
into prostitution at age 13, if you can imagine that. After 2 years she
ran away, hoping to seek safety in the United States. She tried twice
to flee abuse, crossing the Rio Grande, and was apprehended by the
Border Patrol in both attempts.
When agents questioned her, Andrea did not tell them why she fled.
She said:
I was just trying to protect myself . . . I was just afraid
of everything, after all those things those guys had been
doing to my body.
Andrea, a victim of sex trafficking, was sent back into harm's way to
live with relatives in Mexico.
Andrea is not alone. Many more children could also be sent back into
a dangerous environment if proposals to overturn the 2008 Trafficking
Victims Protection Reauthorization Act are passed.
Unaccompanied children such as Andrea need a safe place to talk about
violence and abuse. A Border Patrol station holding cell is no place
for an interview that literally will impact the rest of their lives,
especially while they are still recovering from a dangerous journey.
Subjecting Central American children to this screening process would be
a retreat from our Nation's commitment as a humanitarian leader, and,
frankly, undercuts our American values of putting children ahead of
politics.
A coalition of more than 100 nongovernmental organizations--such as
First Focus, Women's Refugee Commission, and the American Immigration
Lawyers Association--all wrote a letter to President Obama earlier this
month to share their thoughts on this humanitarian crisis. They wrote:
Congress gave consideration to the unique circumstances of
children when it enacted the [Trafficking Victims Protection
Reauthorization Act].
Undermining due process and protection under the law is not the right
answer, and certainly will not appease the criticisms of those who have
been calling for more punitive and aggressive enforcement.
[[Page S4746]]
Yesterday, in an open letter to Congress, the Evangelical Immigration
Table warned against weakening the protections afforded by the
Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, stating that the
law:
. . . ensures that victims of trafficking are not only
identified and screened properly but that traffickers are
penalized and brought to justice.
I have also heard from the Southern Baptist Convention, the U.S.
Catholic Conference of Bishops, anti-trafficking groups, and children's
lawyers who have all sent the same message to us: Don't weaken this
anti-trafficking law. Congress should focus on strengthening safeguards
for children rather than weakening their protections.
Last week one of my colleagues from Texas proposed that the only way
to stop the rise of unaccompanied children is to punish DREAMers and
introduce legislation to defund the Deferred Action for Childhood
Arrivals Program--or DACA, as it is called. DACA has helped more than
550,000 undocumented students across the country who came to the United
States as children to have an opportunity to pursue a higher education.
DREAMers in the DACA Program are not the cause of the current Central
American refugee crisis. And the notion that any legislation to address
this issue must also end DACA is, frankly, out of touch. DREAMers are
bright, they are hard-working, and most of them don't know how to be
anything but an American.
I have met many DREAMers from New Mexico. I have heard their stories.
I have read their letters. They have never given up on this country,
and, frankly, I am not giving up on them.
Last year I had the pleasure of meeting a young woman named Laura in
Las Cruces, NM. She arrived in the United States from Mexico when she
was 7 years old. She learned English. She earned good grades in school.
It wasn't actually until she was 13 years old that she even found out
she was undocumented.
She said:
I couldn't believe it. All my dreams, all my hard work, it
felt like it was all for nothing. . . . Don't leave anyone
behind on the American dream.
Laura wants to be a doctor.
There is the story from a young woman named Yuri. Her family
immigrated to the United States from Mexico when she was 2 years old
back in 1996. While in high school in Albuquerque, NM, Yuri volunteered
in her community, graduated in the top 10 percent of her class. She
even received the 2013 Sandia Laboratory scholarship. Recently, she was
approved for DACA and is currently a student at the University of New
Mexico.
There are literally countless stories just like these of young people
who love this country and have only known it as their home. We are not
going to let Republicans use this current humanitarian crisis as an
opportunity to punish DREAMers.
I am happy to end President Obama's deferred action program, but we
will only do that by passing the DREAM Act as part of comprehensive
immigration reform.
If we really want to help solve this crisis and make our policies
crystal clear, it is all the more reason to pass the Senate's
bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform bill.
The reality is, our Nation is facing a refugee crisis at our southern
border. Children from Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala have fled to
the United States and to other neighboring Central American countries
to escape unimaginable violence, corruption, extreme poverty, and
instability in their home countries. In some cases, these children are
literally fleeing for their lives. Many of these children are turning
themselves in to Border Patrol agents.
This little boy's name is Alejandro. He is 8 years old. He traveled
alone from Honduras, with nothing but his birth certificate in his
pocket. I thought about that. I can't imagine my 7-year-old traveling
across Washington, DC, or Albuquerque, NM, or any major metropolitan
city in the United States by himself.
It took him 3 weeks to make that dangerous journey from Central
America to the banks of the Rio Grande. After being asked where his
parents were, Alejandro said they were in San Antonio. He came to the
United States because he wanted to reunite with his family. He didn't
run, he didn't hide when an agent approached him. Alejandro wanted to
turn himself in--just as many mothers and children have done over the
course of the last year. Yet we have heard this week calls from some
who would militarize our border and send in the National Guard.
I would say we need more resources for our Border Patrol agents. They
have been taxed. They have certainly been putting in long hours since
these numbers started to crest. But I don't think sending soldiers to
meet people like Alejandro is the right solution to this crisis. The
notion that lax border policies are somehow responsible for this latest
crisis is not just a myth, it is a willful misrepresentation driven by
politicians who would rather create a political issue than solve a real
problem.
In a recent interview when asked to discuss whether sending in the
National Guard would be an appropriate response to these problems at
the core of the current crisis, Steven Blum--who was the former Chief
of the National Guard Bureau under President George W. Bush--told the
Washington Post:
There may be many other organizations that might more
appropriately be called upon. If you're talking about search
and rescue, maintaining the rule of law or restoring
conditions back to normal after a natural disaster or
catastrophe, the Guard is superbly suited to that. I'm not so
sure that what we're dealing with in scope and causation
right now would make it the ideal choice.
That is a very polite statement. The fact is there are more Border
Patrol agents today and more technology and resources at the border
than any time in our Nation's entire history, and our Border Patrol is
better prepared to deal with this issue than the National Guard.
Border Patrol apprehensions are today less than one-third of what
they were at their peak, and this is because we have worked so hard and
so effectively to secure the border. Those of us who represent border
communities understand the challenges we face, but there are solutions
before us that are pragmatic and bipartisan; that uphold our American
values; that don't compromise them. Republican leaders should demand
that their colleagues in the House of Representatives act to fix our
broken immigration system. The Senate passed a bipartisan bill more
than a year ago now, and passing that bill would make our immigration
policies crystal clear to the world.
Additionally, passing the Senate's supplemental funding bill to
address this crisis sends a clear signal that we are aggressively
stemming the flow of children and families from Central America while
continuing to treat those refugee children humanely under the law. This
situation is an emergency and frankly we need emergency funding.
Passing the emergency supplemental would allow the Departments Of
Homeland Security and Justice to deploy additional enforcement
resources, including immigration judges, Immigration and Customs
Enforcement attorneys, asylum officers, as well as expand the use of
the alternatives to detention program. We are not arguing that every
child should stay. Many, in fact, will be returned, but it will be
after a Department of Justice judge has evaluated his or her case for
asylum.
The supplemental would also help governments in Central America
better control their borders and address the root causes of migration,
including criminal gangs causing and profiting from this refugee
crisis. A number of us today met with the Ambassadors from Honduras,
Guatemala, and El Salvador, and it was very clear what was driving
these issues. Without getting to those root causes, we won't be able to
solve this crisis permanently.
The supplemental would provide much needed resources for U.S. Health
and Human Services to ensure that these children receive medical
screenings, housing, and counseling. Yet, instead of supporting this
funding which seeks to meet these challenges head-on and protects these
children, Republicans want to use the crisis to eliminate crucial child
protection, punish some of our Nation's brightest students, and promote
their border-enforcement-only agenda.
Before I close and hand the floor off to some of my colleagues, I
would like to highlight some of the humanitarian work that is being
done in my home
[[Page S4747]]
State of New Mexico to address this crisis by telling the story of
Project Oak Tree volunteer Orlando Antonio Jimenez.
Project Oak Tree is a short-term-stay shelter for Central American
undocumented immigrants in Las Cruces run by the Catholic Diocese of
Las Cruces. The shelter opened earlier this month after DHS established
a temporary facility for undocumented parents and their children at
FLETC--the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center campus--in Artesia,
NM.
Orlando signed up to volunteer for Project Oak Tree on day one. He
said he saw the immediate need to assist families facing this
humanitarian crisis and he didn't think twice. He said his Christian
values and belief in doing the right thing drove him to volunteer.
Orlando gets the opportunity to speak to almost every single person
who arrives at Project Oak Tree and said that almost all of the stories
he hears from mothers have some element of fear for their safety if
they were to go back home. Orlando said he will never again say the
words ``I am starving'' when he is hungry because he knows now what
starving really means. He says that this experience has changed his
life forever and that he will continue to help as much as he can.
I am grateful for Orlando's work in our community and for the many
others in New Mexico who have stepped in and shown compassion and done
all they can to help. Now it is Congress's turn to help. It is our turn
to be part of the solution to this refugee crisis.
Thank you, Mr. President.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia is recognized.
Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I also rise on the floor together with my
colleagues from New Mexico and Florida to talk about the refugee crisis
at our Nation's border. I appreciate Senator Heinrich's leadership on
this issue and his comments, and I am looking forward to hearing from
Senator Nelson as well.
I would like to share a little bit of a personal story and amplify a
few comments I made on the floor last Thursday about this challenge. I
feel very personally connected to this issue and to the children who
are coming to the border, children such as Alejandro, whose picture was
such a stark reminder that we are dealing with little kids.
In 1980 and 1981, I was a student in law school, and I decided that I
didn't know what I wanted to do with my life and I needed to figure it
out. So what I did was I took a year off from law school and went to
work with Jesuit missionaries in the town of El Progreso, Honduras. El
Progreso, Honduras, was at that point a small community at the edge of
banana plantations in a large agricultural valley in that country. I
worked there as the principal of a school that taught kids to be
plumbers and carpenters. I was dealing with youngsters in that
neighborhood. Well, today El Progreso is in the epicenter of this
problem. There have been many hundreds of kids from El Progreso who
have come to the border this year.
San Pedro Sula--a nearby large city--is thought to be the murder
capital of Honduras, which is now the murder capital of the world.
When I was in Honduras in 1980 and 1981, it was not an overly violent
place. It was under military dictatorship. There were problems and
challenges, and there was poverty, but refugees were coming into
Honduras back then from El Salvador and Guatemala. They weren't leaving
because there wasn't the everyday violence we see today. Honduras was a
great ally of the United States, a great partner. Honduras was one of
the original countries to which we sent Peace Corps volunteers, and I
could see their influence all around the country.
But Honduras is a very different nation today. Honduras is now the
murder capital of the world, has the highest homicide rate, which is
about 40 times the homicide rate of the United States. This area, El
Progreso and San Pedro Sula, is the epicenter of that. The United
States had to pull Peace Corps volunteers out of the country a few
years ago because it got too violent. The friends I have stayed in
touch with over the years have informed me about what has been
happening in their neighborhoods as the violence has increased.
We had a hearing last week where we had witnesses before us in the
Foreign Relations Committee. We asked: Why are the kids leaving
Honduras? Is it because their parents don't love them?
I mean, you think about family members. What would it take for a
family to let a child take a trip of the kind Alejandro took? I can
tell you from living in Honduras that parents love their kids just as
much as people love their kids here in the United States. They are no
different. To send your child thousands of miles--you would only do it
for the most extreme reasons, and living in the murder capital of the
world is that extreme reason. These kids are fleeing to the border
because they are not safe.
What is the cause of the violence? I talked about this a little bit
last week. The violence in Honduras, which is the murder capital of the
world; El Salvador, which has the fourth highest homicide rate in the
world; and Guatemala, which has the fifth highest homicide rate in the
world--the violence is overwhelmingly driven by the drug trade. That
was the evidence from our hearing last week as well.
Drug cartels have moved into Honduras and into these Central American
countries. They get drugs from South America. They are shipping them to
the United States because of the U.S. demand for illegal drugs,
especially cocaine. The drug rate in Honduras is not about Hondurans
using drugs. Hondurans don't use drugs to any significant degree at
all. It is the illegal demand for drugs by people in the United States,
largely, and the dollars we are sending down to buy drugs that have
turned Honduras--that have turned San Pedro Sula and El Progreso into a
massive drug cartel area where the combination of dollars and violence
and fights between drug cartels puts little kids in harm's way. And
then the gangs want them to join--we want to be the most powerful gangs
because we want the money, and the way we do that is we recruit more
kids.
So the root of this problem--the root of these refugees--is violence
in their neighborhoods that is created by a drug trade that is driven
by, sadly, U.S. demand for illegal drugs. That is what is happening.
That is what is happening.
It has been heartbreaking to see a country that I care about and love
and people whom I care about and love live in what is now the murder
capital of the world largely because of the demand for illegal drugs
coming from this Nation. So we are going to blame these kids? We are
going to call them names or stand out in protest against them? Why?
Because they live in a violent neighborhood? Because they want a better
future? Because they look at the United States and think we may be a
better and safer place for them? We shouldn't be blaming them. We
shouldn't be blaming them because they are doing what any of us would
do if we lived in a neighborhood where the violence was this extreme.
If you have no other way to protect yourself, you are going to leave.
We leave neighborhoods and we leave situations that are this bad.
The good news is--and Senator Heinrich has laid this out--we don't
have to stand by and say there is nothing we can do. There are
solutions. We had a meeting with the three Ambassadors today, and the
Foreign Relations Committee is going to have a meeting with the three
Presidents of these Nations tomorrow, and we are going to talk about
solutions. Let me run through six things we can do, and I will talk
briefly about some of them. My colleagues have already dealt with some
of them, and Senator Nelson will, but first let's start off with, how
about not blaming the kids, No. 1. Let's not blame the kids. Let's not
pretend they are crooks or criminals. Might there be some who are
coming across the border who have criminal records? Sure. We can do a
criminal record check and we can figure that out, and if that is the
case, then we can deal with that. But these kids are leaving to stay
alive.
My wife is a juvenile court judge. She used to say: I sometimes put a
kid in jail to keep him alive.
The need to remain alive sometimes leads you to do extreme things,
even to travel thousands of miles to come to a country where you think
you might be more safe.
Let's begin by not blaming these kids. That is No. 1.
[[Page S4748]]
No. 2, we do need to implement the law. Senator Heinrich talked about
this law which was passed by a unanimous Congress, which was signed by
President Bush, which was named after William Wilberforce. Do you know
who William Wilberforce was? William Wilberforce was a great
abolitionist English preacher who had interaction with the slave trade
when he was in England and then came to realize that the slave trade
was wrong and that religions had promoted the slave trade. He turned
his life around and became a crusader against human trafficking, a
crusader against the slave trade. That is what this law is that was put
in place.
Let's not willy-nilly change the law. Let's implement the law. The
law was a good law. In order to implement the law, we do need funding.
Senator Heinrich talked about the supplemental request that would be
before the Senate. We have had some good discussions about it. I think
we have put it in a place where it is now solid. We do need to support
that supplemental request so that there will be ample services where
these children can be evaluated. If they qualify for asylum, they
should be able to stay, just as other refugees stay. If they have
committed criminal activities, they can be sent back in order to
enforce the law. It seems that is what folks are always saying around
here--we should enforce the immigration laws. Let's enforce the William
Wilberforce law and make sure there are funds in place to do it.
The third thing we should do is get our priorities right about how we
spend money. We are spending the money the wrong way in Central
America. It is kind of amazing what we are doing. You would think we
ought to be investing a little bit in the security of Central America
just as we invest in rebuilding infrastructure in Afghanistan, just as
we invest in things all around the world, and we should especially be
doing it in Central America because it is the U.S. demand for illegal
drugs that is creating the conditions of violence there. Doesn't that
create some obligation to take a little bit of responsibility for
helping Central American nations with security?
Well, we do spend money on the security in Central American nations,
but the money has been dwindling every year--dropping, dropping,
dropping. For 2015 the President's budget submission for the Central
American Regional Security Initiative was $130 million, which is about
$40 million each for the three countries. Compare that to what we will
spend on border security in 2015, which is $17 billion. So $130 million
for regional security in the nations these refugees are coming from and
we are spending $17 billion on the border.
Instead of having to catch all these kids as they are coming across
the border and spend time and expense on the legal processes, wouldn't
it be a little better to try to take some of that money and spend more
in Central America to help these three nations have stronger police
forces, stronger judiciary systems? If we could deal with and reduce
violence in the neighborhoods--and we have to do it in partnership with
these nations. They have responsibilities as well. If we could do that,
we could dramatically reduce the number of kids who are coming to the
border. We are spending money the wrong way.
I am happy this supplemental has some significant funding to increase
our security efforts in Central America. That is very critical. We have
to work with the Central American governments to prosecute the coyotes.
The coyotes are the smugglers who bring these kids to the border, and
they often perpetrate violence and tell these kids: Hey, look, we can
get you to the border, and you can stay forever. They will spin false
messages about American law, and they do it because they are making
money off these poor families.
Honduras is one of the poorest countries in the Western
Hemisphere. For a parent to pay $4,000 or $5,000 to one of these
smugglers for their kids to come here--that is usually more than their
combined assets. They have to gather up money from all kinds of places
to be able to do it. We need to prosecute the coyotes and these
smugglers in Central America, and our effort is going to help these
countries do that.
We need to make sure these countries spread the message that once the
kids get here, they are not going to come and stay automatically. That
work is being done, but more can be done.
I think probably the most important thing we can do here is to spend
more money helping to solve the cause of the violence and the drug
cartels in Central America. If we do that, we will see the number of
kids who are fleeing neighborhoods such as the ones I lived in
dramatically reduced.
The fourth thing we can do--and Senator Nelson is going to talk about
this, so I will not get into it--is interdict more drugs. If you want
to do something tough, why send the National Guard to the border? These
kids are not sneaking across the border. They are turning themselves in
to the first person they see. They know if they see someone with a U.S.
uniform on, they won't be killed. They feel safe. We don't need more
National Guard at the border because the kids are already turning
themselves in. But if you want to be tough, how about more funds for
the American military so they can interdict more drugs before they get
to Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador? Senator Nelson will go over
that.
Fifth, we need to do immigration reform, and Senator Heinrich
mentioned that. We passed immigration reform in this Chamber 13 months
ago. There were all kinds of stories about it. There has been no action
in the House--not even bills out of committee, much less from the House
floor--on immigration reform.
This morning the ambassadors told us the uncertain status of whether
there is going to be immigration reform is an issue. What is going to
happen? Something passed, but maybe it won't pass in the other House.
When there is uncertainty, it enables these coyotes to go in and kind
of market and say something is going to happen. They will say: We can
get you to the United States, and you can stay.
The faster we pass immigration reform and create certainty, the
easier it will be to deliver a message that everybody in Central
America will understand about what our rules are and what they are not
and who is allowed to come in and who is not.
Finally--and this is the hardest one of all--we have to figure out
better strategies to reduce the illegal use of drugs, especially
cocaine, in the United States. As long as there is this massive demand
for illegal drugs such as cocaine in countries such as Honduras that
have poor budgets, there will be powerful drug cartels that will use
them as staging grounds to try to supply the United States drug demand.
We sometimes hear people talk about drug and cocaine use as a
victimless crime. They say: It is a victimless crime; I am not hurting
anybody. I may use drugs, but I am not hurting anybody.
This is not a victimless crime. The ones who are using recreational,
illegal drugs transited through the Americas are the ones who are
creating victims. They are creating the murder capital of the world,
and they are the reason kids are fleeing their homes and trying to find
safety in the arms of a Border Patrol agent on the border of the United
States.
We need new strategies to tackle a huge and overwhelming demand for
illegal drugs in the United States. Two weeks ago the President's drug
control policy key administrator, Michael Botticelli, went to Roanoke,
VA, to roll out the national drug control strategy. He chose Roanoke
because Virginia, like a lot of States, has had significant problems--
whether it is heroin or prescription drugs. He also chose Roanoke
because it has been a place where there have been strong efforts to
come together to tackle illegal drug use.
Last Friday I went to Roanoke and spoke at a drug court graduation--
people who were addicted to drugs but worked with social workers and
folks from local courts to break the bonds of that addiction, the bonds
that, just as they are addicted to them, also put people in chains in
countries such as Honduras by turning their neighborhoods into violent
drug-controlled shooting galleries.
We have to be creative and strategic in dealing with the demands for
illegal drugs. It is sad that these kids are fleeing their country
because of the violence that in some ways has its roots here. The drug
demand in this country
[[Page S4749]]
is at the origin of the violence that is chasing these kids out of
their neighborhoods, and that gives us a moral responsibility to try
and tackle this problem and solve it.
I thank my colleagues for their strong support for the supplemental
appropriation we will take up. I look forward to working with them. We
can solve this problem. We can solve it if we do the right things.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Blumenthal). The Senator from Florida.
Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I say to my colleagues that this is a very
substantive discussion. This Senator is enormously impressed with the
quality of the commentary from the two who have preceded me and those
who will follow. We are addressing the treatment of this issue in a
comprehensive way.
I was so glad the Senator from Virginia mentioned the initial
legislation from years ago protecting children once they reached the
border is named after William Wilberforce, a Parliamentarian in England
in the late 1700s and early 1800s whose sole mission--it took him 20
years as a politician and a member of Parliament--changed the course of
history because he singlehandedly, through his legislative efforts,
abolished the English slave trade, and it changed the course of the
history of the world.
When we think of that kind of quality of parliamentary endeavor, it
is time for the Senate to rise to this occasion in what is considered a
humanitarian crisis but is so complicated as to the reason it is
causing hundreds and thousands of children to appear at our border.
Right off the bat this law says we are going to treat these children
in a humanitarian way. They are going to get medical treatment and a
safe place to stay.
When Senator Heinrich showed the picture of the little boy named
Alejandro--doesn't your heart go out to him? Taking care of a little
boy like that is at the heart of America. We don't want all of these
children coming to our border, begging for entrance.
Listen to these Senators as they dissect the problem of what we
should do to eliminate the problem in the first place.
I want to take one snippet of what Senator Kaine said. Why is
Honduras the murder capital of the world? Why are the other two Central
American countries--El Salvador and Guatemala--ranked so high as murder
capitals of the world? Why is it that next door in Nicaragua and Belize
their children are not coming to our border in great numbers? The same
thing is true with Costa Rica and Panama. Why those three countries?
Because the drug lords producing the drugs in South America are sending
huge shipments by boat--2 and 3 tons of cocaine per boat--through the
Caribbean to the East or the Pacific to the West. Where are they going?
They are going to those three countries.
Basically, most of those drug shipments are getting through. Once
they get to those Central American countries--since the economic power
is among the drug dealers and the drug lords--they can buy off
everybody else. If you don't do what they say, you are dead.
When a young man gets close to becoming a teenager, his parents are
confronted with a situation of either joining one of these criminal
gangs, which is interrelated with the drug lords, or they have to
accept the fact that they are going to be attending their child's
funeral because he will be killed if he doesn't join them.
The third choice they have comes from what they hear from these
coyotes when they say: You are going to have free entrance into the
United States.
What do you think a parent is going to do? Because the big shipments
of drugs--primarily by boat to the east and the west--has corrupted the
whole system in those three Central American countries, what should the
United States be doing?
We have had very successful drug interdiction programs in the past.
We have been very successful at it. We now have a four-star Marine
general--General Kelly, who is the head of the United States Southern
Command--who has a task force in Key West, the Joint Interagency Task
Force South, watching their radar and aerial surveillance but doesn't
have the assets to go after 75 percent of those drug shipments. If we
would give General Kelly and the joint task force the additional Navy
assets--that is Navy boats with helicopters or Coast Guard cutters with
helicopters--to interdict those shipments instead of letting 75 percent
of them go, we would get to the root cause of the whole problem of why
the children are showing up on our border.
The big shipments of drugs have completely corrupted the societies of
those three countries, leading to all of the ramifications of the
children and others going north.
Once those big shipments of 2 or 3 tons of cocaine in a boat land in
one of those Central American countries, they break them up into small
packages. It is then transported by individuals, and it is very hard to
interdict those drug shipments as they go north through the rest of
Central America, Mexico, and to the border. The place to get them is
when they are the large shipments. There are many more of these
shipments coming by boat than on airplanes. As a result, what we see is
this crisis.
I will close by saying my wife Grace and I have been involved through
a Christian charity in trying to help some of the poor villagers have
hope, particularly in Honduras in this case. I am not going to say the
name of the village because I don't want to alert the bad guys that
this is a little village where they are getting attention, an
education, nourishment, and some health care. More than that, they are
getting the love of Americans. So it is a painful personal picture for
us to see what has happened to that little country.
Finally, the President's request of over $3 billion does not include,
as we learned in an all-Senators meeting last week with three or four
cabinet secretaries and other agencies represented, funds for
additional Coast Guard cutters or Navy ships or the movement of those
Coast Guard cutters or Navy ships with their helicopters from other
places. I hope, by the effort Senator Heinrich has exerted today, with
many of us coming here and speaking about this, that we are going to
start to get this message through as to what needs to be done to
address this crisis.
Mr. President, it is a privilege for me to share my heart, and I
yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, I wish to thank my colleagues sitting here
before me, especially Senator Heinrich, who invited us to partner in
this dialogue today. I wish right now just to express my frustration.
We see on our television sets and we hear throughout the American
landscape rhetoric, posturing, and demagoguery that does not reflect
the truth of who we are as a nation, and it obscures the facts of what
is happening on our southern border right now as a country. We have
thousands upon thousands of children in the most vulnerable and
innocent stage of their lives showing up at our border. I hear ugly
rhetoric about just turning them around and sending them back--rhetoric
that does not reflect who we are as a nation, the history of our
communities or the laws of this land.
If I may, for a brief time I wish to speak just to reflect on the
fact of why these children are showing up. Why are they coming to our
borders? As the senior Senator from New Jersey has said clearly: This
is not a case of ordinary people seeking better economic opportunities.
If this was just about poverty, then we would see people coming from
all the nations in that area. To be specific, El Salvador's poverty
rate is 34.5 percent. Belize's poverty rate is actually higher at 41.3
percent. To make a journey from a country with a lower poverty rate to
a country with a higher poverty rate, because that is where many of
these refugees are going--to Belize--begs a closer examination of the
true drivers of this migration, because it is not poverty. It is not
people simplistically looking for economic opportunity. We are seeing
countries in addition to America facing the same problem: Children from
these three nations escaping severe persecution, sexual assault, rape,
violence, and murder are not just coming to the borders of the United
States to escape this persecution but going to other nations in that
area.
[[Page S4750]]
For example, combined, Mexico, Panama, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and
Belize documented a 435-percent increase in the number of asylum
applications logged by individuals from El Salvador, Honduras, and
Guatemala. In this area of our globe, where there is such violence and
persecution in these three countries, it is driving people out not just
to the United States, as some people allege because of the policy of
the Obama administration; these are people escaping persecution to
countries all throughout the region. This is about violence. This is
about heinous crimes. This is about a drug war. This is about cartels
carrying out the most egregious of human acts, evidencing the depravity
and the evil that so cuts at the conscience of humanity, so that people
are escaping to wherever they can go.
We in the United States have a long and noble history that when there
are places on our globe that face this level of crisis, we respond, and
we are a part of an international community where our peer nations have
shown that history as well. Here in North America, we know allies such
as Canada have done incredible deeds when there is crisis, violence,
war, and persecution--mass rapes going on. There have been responses
from our northern neighbor.
In 1972 when Uganda's President Idi Amin announced the Ugandan Asians
were to be expelled, Canada set up a refugee office and, by the end of
1973, more than 7,000 Uganda Asians arrived in Canada.
Germany, for example, right now currently is accepting 20,000 Syrian
refugees. As I speak right now, Jordan and Lebanon are host to over 2
million Syrian refugees, and we as a nation are encouraging our allies
in the Middle East to be there for those refugees when they come to
those borders. That is the international community. In America, we set
the standard. We are the leaders globally for compassion, for humanity,
for charity. I am proud that this tradition, which is two centuries old
in America, can continue under Democrats and Republicans. It has not
been a partisan football.
In 2008, under the Bush administration, in the face of Burma's
humanitarian crisis, this country, with the courage of its compassion,
resettled thousands of Burmese refugees, admitting as many as 18,000 of
them. President Bush signed the legislation to ease the restrictions
that prevented ethnic minorities involved in that struggle against the
Burmese regime--eased restrictions for them entering the United States.
President Bush spoke eloquently during that time about American
compassion. He spoke about American heritage and American tradition. He
said, quite poignantly, I thank those of you Americans and those around
the country--all of us--who have opened up our arms and said: ``Welcome
to America. How can we help you settle in?''
This is who we are as a nation. And when we have children--
innocents--escaping violence and terror and crimes against humanity,
where we as a nation are not even fully relieved of culpability for
what is going on and when our Nation's drug consumption is helping to
drive that violence, we have a responsibility. That is who we are. That
is our truth. We know this. We are a nation of people who came from
persecution, who came from famine, who came from religious war. We are
a nation settled by those who were yearning to be free.
Now, I know the Statue of Liberty well because New Jersey has its
back. When I travel around the State, I often get a great view of her
noble torch. I know it is not down along our southern border, but the
ideals of the Statue of Liberty still hold true:
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
I am grateful and support Senator Mikulski's leadership and the push
to address this crisis by stepping up as a nation, by following the
letter of the law and providing due process for these young people who
have come to our borders, so that we can evaluate them and see those
who have a justifiable claim for asylum and to see that we honor our
tradition and our law and give them a place in our country that is safe
and secure from the terror and the violence that is going on in those
three countries. It cannot be acceptable that we use our resources now
simply to expedite the return of thousands of children into that
conflict zone, which is more dangerous now than at the height of
civilian dangers during the Iraq war.
We must as Americans follow that great tradition. We must as
Americans now do the right thing by innocent children: evaluate them
with our resources, expedite the judicial process to understand clearly
who is meritorious of asylum. And we should invest our resources in
making sure the conflicts in those nations are abated so this crisis
ends.
I say clearly: In America we stand for something now as we have time
and time again. We must garner our resources and, most importantly, our
compassion, which is the truth of who we say we are, and make sure we
take care of these vulnerable children and make sure we don't turn them
around into a dangerous situation. It is time we show internationally
that when there is crisis, America stands and shows leadership and does
the right thing.
With that, I yield the floor for the senior Senator from New Jersey.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, first of all, let me say I am really
moved by Senator Booker's passion, Senator Nelson's clarity of thought,
and by my other colleagues who have joined us. I am compelled to join
them because we do have a crisis, but we also have, in my mind, a clear
moral and legal compass we need to follow.
We have a refugee crisis on our southern border, which I argue
requires an emergency response domestically and the urgent
recalibration of our foreign policy. Why do I say that? Because, as I
have argued for several years in the Foreign Relations Committee, the
continuous cuts we have had in the programs that are in our national
interests, in our national security, were going to bring us a day in
which we would rue the consequences of those cuts.
So here we are with Honduras having the No. 1 murder rate per capita
in the world, and the other two Central American countries from which
these children are fleeing in the top five in the world. As Senator
Nelson spoke so eloquently, there is the whole question of the
narcotics trafficking taking place, using this as a via to the United
States where the demand is, and the total inability of these countries
to deal with entities that have more money and very often have more
firepower than any of the national governments that are engaged. Then
add to that the dynamic and explosive growth of gangs. I am talking
about gangs armed and fueled with money in a symbiotic relationship
with the drug traffickers. That creates a challenge. In one of these
countries it went from 600 to 40,000 members of a gang. This isn't
about some far-off place; this is right here in our own front yard, in
our hemisphere, a very relatively short distance. Unless we deal with
the root causes of these problems, there will be no resources or any
change in law that is going to ultimately meet the challenge of those
who flee because to stay is to die.
So that is the challenge we have before us. We have to deal with that
challenge on our southern border, and our distinguished chair of the
Appropriations Committee has fashioned a package I think is balanced
and seeks to do that. But as we deal with this refugee crisis, in my
view, it is equally important that we not rush to change our laws in a
way that strips children of the very rights for which we have been
known as a country. I am not even talking about the 2008 law; I am
talking about the very essence of our immigration law for decades that
has asylum as a fundamental pillar.
It is imperative to understand this is a desperate effort by
desperate parents to do what any parent would do to protect their child
from violence and the threat of death. Imagine the circumstances a
parent must be in to send an 8-year-old on a treacherous journey of
2,000 miles where all things can happen to them in the hope--in the
hope--they can arrive and make a claim for asylum, but not knowing
whether their child will actually be able to arrive alive. That is some
dramatic choice,
[[Page S4751]]
but those are choices facing these parents.
These children are facing tremendous threats: towns and schools
controlled by narcotic traffickers, gangs threatening to kill them,
rapes and manufacturers.
In the Foreign Relations Committee recently, we held a hearing and I
noted a piece that was written in the New York Times by Pulitzer Prize-
winning author Sonia Nazario, who testified before the committee. This
was to give the Senate the sense of what we are talking about.
A young boy named Christian Omar Reyes, a sixth grader--his father
was murdered by gangs while working as a security guard. Three people
he knows have been murdered this year. Four others were gunned down on
a corner near his house in the first 2 weeks of this year. A girl his
age was beaten, had a hole cut in her throat, her body left in a ravine
across from his house. Christian said: It is time to flee.
Carlos Baquedana, a 14-year-old who worked in a dump picking scrap
metal when he was a boy, making a dollar or two a day, when he was 9
years old, barely escaped two drug traffickers who were trying to rape
him. When he was 10, the drug traffickers pressured him to try drugs
and join a gang or die. He has known eight people who were murdered--
three killed in front of him. In one case he watched as two hit-men
brazenly shot two young brothers execution style. Going to school is
even too dangerous for him now.
These stories are, unfortunately, not unique. They are tragic stories
of life-changing experiences that too many children face in Central
America every day--children such as Christian and Carlos whose stories
are unknown but no less tragic.
Let me take a moment to repeat that I strongly oppose changing
existing law. The answer is not to repeal the law that keeps these
children safe and gives them an opportunity--that is all the law gives
them, an opportunity--to determine whether their status here can be
adjusted under asylum. The answer is not to deny these children their
day in court and send them back to very probable death. But those who
want to repeal the 2008 law would be doing exactly that.
If we provide the funding the government needs, the administration
has the authority to deal with the crisis in a safe and humane way
without turning our back on the rule of law that we take pride in as a
nation.
Antitrafficking organizations have explained to me that this
trafficking law was designed by both Republicans and Democrats in broad
bipartisan efforts to give special protections to children who cannot
adequately represent themselves and who often do not self-identify as
victims of abuse, crime or human trafficking.
Congress sought to provide special protections for those who have
fled thousands of miles in recognition of the fact that a larger
percentage of these children may have very compelling and legitimate
claims.
Unfortunately, the Border Patrol's cursory review of Mexican
children's claims often results in a failure to identify children who
are at risk of persecution or trafficking, according to the U.N.
Commissioner for Refugees. Extending this type of superficial screening
to Central American children would certainly mean serious abuse or
death upon their return.
We can keep this important antitrafficking law and at the same time
address the situation on the border. Let me explain how the
administration already--already--has the authority to control this
crisis.
Critics have complained that the 2008 trafficking law requires
children to be released into the community, but what the law actually
says is that children need to be held in the manner that is in the
``best interests of the child.'' In this situation, where we are
dealing with an influx of thousands of children, it is clearly in the
best interests of these children to hold them in a safe and clean
shelter rather than returning them to face possible death or quickly
releasing them into the hands of a sponsor who may not be properly
vetted. Failure to properly screen these children could result in
children being returned to their very traffickers.
Critics have also complained that deportation hearings do not take
place for years after the children arrive and that this creates an
incentive for children to come to the United States. But the law allows
the Justice Department to hold hearings much more quickly--without
denying due process--by moving recently arriving children and families
to the front of the line for hearings before a judge.
As the Justice Department testified last week before the
Appropriations Committee hearing, that is exactly what they are doing--
surging resources and expediting full hearings.
This expedited process that still protects due process would send a
signal to the parents in Central America that children without valid
claims--and there will be a significant universe that will not have a
valid claim and will be deported--will not be able to stay in the
United States. But at the same time we protect the rights of legitimate
refugees and trafficking victims.
So while not every single child apprehended at the border will have a
valid claim to stay in the country, and many will be deported, we have
a moral and a legal obligation to keep them safe until their status is
resolved.
The answer is not to repeal the law that protects them but to enforce
it and to provide the administration with the resources it requested to
address both the domestic and international aspects of this crisis.
This problem was not created overnight, and it will not be solved
overnight. But the solution is not to abandon our values and the rule
of law that we uphold as an example to other nations so every child
will be safe wherever they may live. If we do this now, I can tell you,
I do not know how we will have any authority to look at any other
country in the world and say to them: You must accept refugees from
Syria, you must accept refugees from Congo, the Dominican Republic, you
must accept refugees from Haiti. The list goes on and on.
There is a reason this law was passed. It was passed to say if you
are fleeing 2,000 miles to try to come to the United States, there may
be a greater probability that you have a real case to be made for
asylum because you have a credible fear for the loss of your life.
As I hear those who advocate for the rule of law, I say you are
right. The rule of law means you do not undermine the law or change it
when you do not want to ultimately live under it. You obey it. You obey
it.
If you flee 2,000 miles because you were told by the gangs to join or
die or if you were raped and you flee 2,000 miles never to experience
that tragic and traumatic set of circumstances again, you have a very
compelling case.
So let me close by saying the fact is there are some who are
exploiting this issue for political gain, some who could not even see
their way to cast a vote or to allow a vote on the type of
comprehensive immigration reform the Senate passed on a broad,
bipartisan basis in which both border control and human trafficking and
all of these other issues we are now facing would have had the
resources and would be addressed.
I also find it incredible to see the Governor of Texas saying he is
going to send the National Guard to the border. What is the National
Guard going to do in what is otherwise a Federal law enforcement
obligation with Border Patrol agents who ultimately are obviously
interdicting these young people but they are actually turning
themselves over to them. What is the National Guard, with rifles, going
to do at the Texas border that the Border Patrol cannot do themselves?
This supplemental bill is almost entirely for enforcement of the law.
I know Republicans have been saying for years they want more money for
enforcement of immigration law. Well, folks, here it is. Here it is. I
cannot believe with the resources that are going to the very States
that say they face a challenge, there will be those who will vote
against it. I cannot believe that just because the President is
proposing it, they cannot ultimately find their way to vote for the
money that is going to go largely to the States that face the most
critical challenge at this time.
So that is what our immigration debate has come to. We began this
Congress with an overwhelming bipartisan vote in favor of commonsense
immigration reform, and here we are unwilling to even provide something
I have never
[[Page S4752]]
voted for but will--strictly enforcement funding. We have Republicans
calling for DREAMers to be deported as part of this bill in the House
of Representatives and a rollback of legislation to protect small
children from human trafficking. That is what we have come to.
Rolling back this law, which passed with broad bipartisan support in
both Houses of the Congress and was signed by a Republican President,
is not something I can personally accept, and I will use the procedures
of the Senate--I hope with others who feel the same--if that is the
choice that has to come before us, not to permit that to happen.
The President has the authority to control this crisis already. Let's
give him the resources to do the job, and let us, in the process of
doing that, not create a dark day in our Nation's history which we will
regret for years to come.
With that, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I rise as the chair of the
Appropriations Committee that will be proposing the emergency
supplemental bill. This bill will be introduced tonight, and I want to
briefly describe it.
First of all, what does the emergency supplemental bill do? It deals
with three crises; one, it will fight wildfires with additional
resources as to what is going on in our own country; second, it will
help Israel be able to continue to man its Iron Dome antiballistic
missile system, as has been under siege by Hamas rockets; and, third,
it will help be a downpayment on resolving the crisis of the children
arriving at the border.
To be specific, it will fight wildfires to the tune of $615 million.
Right now there are 127 wildfires burning in our Western States,
covering four or more States.
Second, it will strengthen Israel's Iron Dome and add $225 million to
replenish the antimissile defense system, saving lives by shooting down
Hamas rockets, helping our essential ally Israel.
Third, it will deal with the crisis of our children arriving at the
border, and that will be $2.7 billion--$1 billion less than what the
President asked for. It will care for the children. It will provide
food, shelter, and other needs. It will resolve children's asylum
status, and it will have enforcement money to break up organized crime
cartels, the traffickers, and the smugglers.
The total for all three of those will be $3.57 billion.
I agree with President Obama. This is an emergency supplemental.
These funds are designated as emergency spending because they meet the
criteria set in the Budget Control Act of 2011 that the needs must be
urgent, temporary, unforeseen, and prevent loss of life. That is
exactly what we are facing.
What does it mean to designate the funds as emergency spending? It
means no offsets. So we do not take existing funds where we are either
defending the Nation or helping America's families to pay for the
spending in this bill.
The needs are urgent.
Firefighting needs are needed now. The Forest Service will run out of
money in August. Fires are burning Oregon, Washington, and other
States. We need to be able to provide the support to fight those fires
and help our neighbors in our Western States.
Iron Dome. The funding is needed now to replenish a key part of the
missile defense system, replace Iron Dome artillery. Israel has already
used a great deal of its assets dealing with the more than 2,000 Hamas
rockets aimed at Israel. Israel has the right to self-defense. We are
helping them have what they need to intercept 90 percent of the
rockets.
Funds to deal with unaccompanied children crossing our border are
needed now. If we do not do this, the Department of Immigration and
Customs Enforcement will run out of money in August, and the Department
of Homeland Security Border Patrol will run out in early September. It
does not mean that our Border Patrol agents or ICE agents will stop
working, but it will mean the Department of Homeland Security will have
to take money from other Homeland Security needs to keep these agencies
doing their jobs.
Also, Health and Human Services will run out of money to house
children in August. It means that children will stay longer at the
border. They will be in inappropriate holding cells. It also means
Border Patrol agents will be taking care of them, rather than child
welfare social workers. If you want to use Border Patrol agents to take
care of children, that is one thing. I think they should be defending
our border and we should have social workers taking care of the
children.
Our approach is sensible. It meets human needs. While we acknowledge
a tight budget situation, we fund only that which is needed in calendar
year 2014. This is very important. It funds only what is needed in
calendar year 2014. It defers $1 billion of the President's request
until 2015, subject to Congressional action that the need be validated.
We hope by 2015 the surge will have diminished because of the
prevention and intervention issues we are dealing with. But make no
mistake, the funds we say we need we really do need.
This bill defers funds until next year, because I am deeply concerned
if we do not follow the Senate number, the House will make draconian
cuts that impact the care of the children, and also being penny wise
and pound foolish, they are going to stop our ability to go after the
smugglers and the coyotes. So we do not want to go after the children,
we want to go after those people who are exploiting the children and
trying to recruit them into despicable activities.
We also do not want radical riders that will weaken our refugee and
human trafficking laws or accelerate deportation of children without
due process under existing law. We do not want a backdoor version of
bad immigration reform.
This bill is only a money bill. It does not include immigration
legislation. How that will be addressed on the Senate floor will be
decided by the leadership on both sides. The challenges to this request
are many. We have made changes to the President's request. We have
included more money for immigration judges and more money for
additional legal representation for children so we can determine their
legal status and determine whether they have the right to seek asylum
status.
We also have robust enforcement against gangs and organized crime.
Seven organized crime syndicates are operating in these three Central
American countries now. We are talking about more guns at the border.
We need more law enforcement and the help of the United States going
after the real bums and scums, which is these drug dealers who recruit
these children, murder children before other children's eyes.
You know what. We also know that when we work in a crisis and we do
urgent supplemental efforts, we sometimes waste money. We can only look
at some of the other agencies where we have done this. This bill
includes strong oversight from the inspectors general to make sure the
taxpayers' money is well spent, to protect our border, protect the
children, and go after smugglers, coyotes, and human traffickers.
The best way to make sure the surge of children is slowed is not by
rewriting refugee and human trafficking laws, it is by making it harder
on these crooks and criminals.
I am going to conclude by saying this: We already have 60,000
children at the border. This crisis is not at our border, however. The
crisis is in their home countries: Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala.
These children are truly fleeing violence. I have been down to the
border. I have talked to these children, listened to children who faced
sexual assault, the recruitment into human trafficking, gang
intimidation, persecution, threats of grisly physical actions directed
against them.
What is happening in these countries? When you listen to the cries of
the children, I can tell you, in these countries there is a war on
children. We cannot turn our backs on these children who are seeking
refuge. We need to pass this supplemental and we need to deal with the
violence that is coming out of Central America; that if we do not deal
with it there, it is not that the children will come to our borders, it
is that the violence and the gangs will come to our borders.
[[Page S4753]]
I hope when the leader introduces the bill later on this evening we
can proceed and debate this with due diligence. I look forward to
chairing the committee as we go through this process.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee
Mr. CORKER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to enter into a
presentation and colloquy with my fellow Republican colleagues for up
to 25 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(The remarks of Mr. Corker, Mr. Graham, Mr. Rubio, and Mr. McCain
pertaining to the introduction of S. 2650 are printed in today's Record
under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')
Mr. CORKER. I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
Unanimous Consent Request--S. 2262
Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I come to the floor with a number of my
colleagues to ask unanimous consent that at a time to be determined by
the majority leader, after consultation with the Republican leader, the
Senate resume consideration of S. 2262, which is the Shaheen-Portman
energy efficiency bill; that the motion to commit be withdrawn; that
amendments Nos. 3023 and 3025 be withdrawn; that the pending substitute
amendment be agreed to; that there be no other amendments, points of
order, or motions in order to the bill other than budget points of
order and the applicable motions to waive; that there be up to 4 hours
of debate on the bill equally divided between the two leaders or their
designees; that upon the use or yielding back of time, the Senate
proceed to vote on passage of the bill, as amended; that the bill be
subject to a 60-affirmative-vote threshold; that if the bill is passed,
the Senate proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 371, S. 2282,
which is the passage of the Keystone Pipeline, at a time to be
determined by the majority leader, after consultation with the
Republican leader, but no later than Thursday, July 31, 2014; that
there be no amendments, points of order, or motions in order to the
bill other than budget points of order and the applicable motions to
waive; that there be up to 4 hours of debate on the bill equally
divided between the two leaders or their designees; that upon the use
or yielding back of time, the Senate proceed to vote on passage of the
bill; finally, that the bill be subject to a 60-affirmative-vote
threshold.
What I am basically asking is that we get a vote on Shaheen-Portman
and if that moves, that we then get a vote on the Keystone Pipeline--
something our colleagues on both sides of the aisle have been talking
about for months.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
The Senator from Texas.
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I would propose to the Senator from New
Hampshire an alternative. Before I do that, I would say the biggest
problem we have is the inability of the Senate to process amendments in
the normal order. I believe the Senator from New Hampshire is
sympathetic to that.
If we could just have an opportunity to offer and vote on amendments,
I have every confidence this piece of legislation would have been long
passed. But somehow we are stuck. And it is not just the minority party
that is limited on opportunities to offer ideas to help improve
legislation and to get votes. It is even our friends who are in the
majority. I can only imagine what it is like to feel like: I am in the
majority, and I can't even get votes on my amendments or my legislation
passed.
So I ask unanimous consent that the only amendments in order to S.
2262 be five amendments from the Republican side related to energy
policy, each with a 60-vote threshold on adoption of each amendment. I
further ask that following the disposition of these five amendments,
the bill be read a third time and the Senate proceed to vote on passage
of the bill, as amended, if amended.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection of the Senator from Rhode Island
is heard.
The Senator from West Virginia.
Mr. MANCHIN. Mr. President, I came to the floor to speak on these two
commonsense pieces of legislation.
My dear friends Senator Shaheen and Senator Portman--Democrat and
Republican--have worked so hard in a bipartisan way, which we don't
always see anymore on the floor here or over on the House side. It is a
shame. People tell me about how things used to be. I have been here not
quite 4 years, and I haven't seen it yet. I am still waiting for it to
happen. But we have a bill, the Shaheen-Portman bill. It is basically a
bill that creates jobs, saves money, makes significant strides toward a
more energy-efficient nation, which we should be.
I am from an energy-producing State, the great State of West
Virginia. My dear friend Senator Heitkamp is from the great State of
North Dakota, which is a tremendous energy-producing State. We believe
in energy policies. We believe we should be using everything we have to
make sure we have the economic engine so we can compete globally and in
a very competitive way.
With that being said, this is the low-hanging fruit. This is truly
low-hanging fruit. And we all agree--why shouldn't we pass a piece of
legislation that basically we all benefit--all 50 States will benefit.
The bill will put us on a path toward a more sustainable future. It has
broad support, as we can see. And our colleague Senator Cornyn from
Texas will tell you that if it got voted on, it would pass
overwhelmingly. Now, that is hard for me, coming from West Virginia
where there is a lot of common sense.
People say: Well, if it would pass, why don't you just vote on it and
pass it?
That is what I am saying. It is a shame that politics has trumped
good policy in this body and in this city, and we have to get back to
some order of common sense.
I am a tremendous supporter of this piece of legislation. I thank
Senator Shaheen for all the hard work she has done. She has not given
up. She will not give up. And that is what it takes--the tenacity to
make sure a good piece of legislation which not only helps the great
people of New Hampshire, it helps all of us. That is what I am looking
forward to.
Then we look at the Keystone Pipeline. I have never seen a piece of
legislation that makes more sense than this piece of legislation, the
Keystone Pipeline. When I first heard about this, people said: Senator
Manchin, what do you think about this?
The only thing I can say is that in West Virginia we would rather buy
from our friends than our enemies. So we are going to buy the oil. The
oil is going to be sold somewhere in the world. Why shouldn't we have
access to that? Why shouldn't we have control of that? Why shouldn't we
benefit from the jobs? We are talking 20,000 direct jobs during
construction, 118,000 indirect and spinoff jobs after construction,
contributing $20 billion of economic stimulus to the United States.
Every State, including my State of West Virginia--new Hampshire, North
Dakota, Rhode Island--we are all going to benefit.
It is something we find almost reprehensible, for us not to be able
to vote on legislation. And I understand the amendment process. I
understand all of that. But when we have very clearly defined pieces of
legislation that really create good policy for all of America, that is
something for which sometimes maybe we push the politics aside, we vote
on the policies and the contents of these other pieces of legislation,
which I know West Virginia would be happy for me to vote on, and I will
be in very much support of these two pieces.
With that, I thank Senator Shaheen for her hard work. I thank her for
her not-give-up attitude, that New Hampshire commitment she has. She is
going to work and fight. We are going to be right behind her and work
with our bipartisan friends on the other side. Senator Portman has
committed the same way. So we hope we can get something reasonably
done.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
Ms. HEITKAMP. Mr. President, I am standing with my good friend from
the
[[Page S4754]]
great State of West Virginia, certainly a tremendous legislator and
former Governor and someone who knows how to get things done, Senator
Shaheen.
I know what is happening. I think I have learned at least that much
since I have been here, about the rules and how things work. But I also
see this body through the eyes of an American citizen.
I see two pieces of legislation--one the Keystone Pipeline. The vast
majority of people in this country support moving forward with the
Keystone Pipeline. It is a critical piece of North American
infrastructure. It was critical in the last discussion we had about the
disruption and about the horrible conditions in the Middle East. If we
haven't learned the lesson, we need to build out our resources right
here among our friendly allies in the form of Canada and use our own
resources here and then have the ability to use that new energy
development for soft power, to actually begin to have a meaningful
geopolitical discussion that doesn't involve an addiction to foreign
oil.
So we think about Keystone Pipeline, and we think about the
relationship we have with Canada and the jobs that could be created,
but mainly we think about developing the infrastructure that is
absolutely essential to the development of our country and the
development of our energy resources.
We can talk about fuel sources--and that is what my great friend from
West Virginia just talked about, having a policy that truly includes
all of the above--all of the above, not picking and choosing. Let the
market decide. Let's make sure that it is diverse, that we have every
opportunity to develop everything we are going to develop. But we have
to move that energy, and the Keystone Pipeline is example 1.
A lot of the disagreement about the Keystone Pipeline has nothing to
do with the pipeline itself. It has to do with the oil sands
development up in Canada.
When we pick and choose winners and decide we are not going to vote
on something, the American people just shake their head and say this
makes so much sense, so why isn't the Congress voting.
Then let's take the second part of a solid energy policy--``all of
the above'' but also conservation, also energy efficiency, also making
the best use in a great American tradition, a conservative American
tradition of making sure we have the best energy efficiency in the
world and having a piece of legislation that guarantees that and
creates jobs as a result and saves money for schools and saves money
for businesses.
All of this makes so much sense, and the American public knows it
makes sense. Yet this body cannot find a way forward to take a vote.
How frustrating is that?
It is frustrating for us here in this body, but it is more
frustrating for the American public that watches this display of
inability to move forward on critical pieces of public policy that
would make a difference not only for our future but the future of the
young people here whom I see every day, the future of the young people
in my State, knowing that we need to absolutely have an energy policy
that works for the future, that is diverse, that recognizes the
importance of energy efficiency, and that moves energy.
We know we have a huge number of people in this body who support the
Keystone Pipeline. Do we have 60 votes? We will find out. Let's take a
vote. We know there is tremendous bipartisan support not only for
Keystone but for energy efficiency, for the Shaheen-Portman bill. Let's
take a vote. Let's actually demonstrate to the American public that we
can move forward on what are literally no-brainers, things that
absolutely make sense. And those of us who support the Keystone
Pipeline, we will find out. We will find out if we can pass it.
Think about this: We have a bill here that mandates we approve that
little bit of crossing into the United States of America, which is the
only way the Federal Government really gets involved in it, is because
it is coming from a foreign country--approves that. Maybe we win, maybe
we lose, but we will know where we are. The administration has taken 6
years to evaluate the Keystone Pipeline--longer than it took us to
fight World War II. There is something dramatically wrong with that. So
frustration builds. We know we need to move on the Keystone Pipeline.
We need to have a strong vote. Let's take that vote. Let's take the
vote on Shaheen-Portman.
It is a critical piece of legislation--well-thought-out--and comes
right out of committee where lots of amendments were offered, where
there was the ability to have a dialogue. It comes about the right way
with the bill sponsors standing on the floor answering questions and
debating what the bill does. Yet because of this impasse--because of
whatever happens behind closed doors that the American public doesn't
see--they only look at what they see happening in the debate here and
wonder why.
I support Senator Shaheen in her efforts to promote this bill. This
will not be the first time we have come and asked this. We will
continue to do everything we can to move a vote forward on Shaheen-
Portman, to move a vote forward on the Keystone Pipeline, and start
getting the work done for the American people.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
Mrs. SHAHEEN. Before my colleague leaves I wish to thank Senator
Heitkamp for her support, not just for Shaheen-Portman but for a
resolution to getting a vote on our energy efficiency legislation that
I have worked on for 3\1/2\ years with our colleague Senator Rob
Portman from Ohio but also for the impasse that would break around the
vote for the Keystone Pipeline as well. Pairing the two would allow us
to see where we stand on both of these issues.
I appreciate my colleague from West Virginia, Senator Manchin, coming
to the floor because he and Senator Heitkamp have talked about the fact
that we have to look at a variety of areas of energy if we are going to
address our future energy needs in this country. There is new urgency
to energy efficiency right now. A recent study just came out that shows
the United States ranks 13th out of the world's largest 16 economies in
energy efficiency. So that study analyzed the world's largest economies
that cover more than 81 percent of the global gross domestic product
and posts 71 percent of the global electricity. What it found is we are
severely lagging behind other countries in our use of energy
efficiency. This legislation, the Energy Efficiency and Industrial
Competitiveness Act, also known as Shaheen-Portman, is a way for us to
address the deficit we currently have in this country.
We have heard from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient
Economy that by 2030 this legislation would create 192,000 domestic
jobs. That is nothing to sneeze at, at a time when our economy is still
recovering from the recession. It would save consumers and businesses
$16 billion a year--again, real savings in a way that is important to
consumers and businesses. It would reduce carbon pollution at a time
when we know pollution is affecting our environment and we are seeing a
record number of disasters. It would be the equivalent of taking 22
million cars off the road. Our legislation does this without any
mandates, without raising the deficit. In fact, we see a very small
savings of about $12 million in the legislation.
It addresses the building sector where we use about 40 percent of our
energy. It addresses the industrial manufacturing sector that consumes
more energy than any other sector of our domestic economy, and it
addresses the Federal Government where we use more energy than any
other entity in our economy; 93 percent of the energy is used by our
military. Clearly, energy efficiency is something that would benefit
all of us.
There are 10 bipartisan amendments that have been incorporated into
this legislation. It is the product of 3\1/2\ years of work. It has
been endorsed by hundreds--literally hundreds and hundreds of business
groups, of businesses, organizations, everything from the Natural
Resources Defense Council to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and National
Association of Manufacturers, the International Union of Painters.
This is legislation that makes sense. We just heard Senator Cornyn on
the floor saying he thought there was support to get this legislation
done. I think we need to figure out how we can
[[Page S4755]]
come together. We don't have much time left before we go out in August
to go back to our home States. This would be a great bipartisan effort
to go out on at the end of July, to be able to go home and say to
people across this country that we worked out a deal that passed this
energy efficiency legislation, that we got a vote on the Keystone
Pipeline--let the chips fall where they may--that we addressed one of
the biggest challenges facing this country, which is energy, and what
we are going to do about our energy future.
I certainly hope that in the remaining time between now and the
beginning of August we can come together, find some sort of resolution
to address this issue and get this legislation done. We know the House
has said they are willing to take it up. They are interested in seeing
some action on energy efficiency. Now is an opportune time to do that.
I am disappointed by today's objections, but as Senator Heitkamp said
so well, we are not going to give up. We are going to continue to try
and move this issue and do what is in the best interests of the people
of this country.
I thank the Presiding Officer and I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise tonight to ask unanimous consent,
first of all, to speak as if in morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection.
Traumatic Brain Injury
Mr. CASEY. Thank you, Mr. President. I rise to highlight an important
piece of legislation that was just voted out of the Committee on
Health, Education, Labor and Pensions--known by the acronym HELP. We
voted out of committee today S. 2539, the Traumatic Brain Injury
Reauthorization Act of 2014. Senator Hatch and I introduced S. 2539 to
reauthorize existing programs to support States' efforts to help
individuals live with traumatic brain injury and of course to help
their families.
TBIs range from mild concussions to devastating life-altering
injuries that collectively represent a significant public health
challenge. It is the signature injury, unfortunately, of the conflicts
of the last decade, whether it is Iraq or Afghanistan.
It is also an injury that occurs approximately 2.5 million times in
the United States each year. Over 50,000 people die of traumatic brain
injuries every year. Traumatic brain injury is implicated in nearly
one-third of all injury-related deaths.
Children--just imagine this number--ages 0 to 4 and teens ages 15 to
19 are at the greatest risk for traumatic brain injury. Among all
children in an average year, 62,000 will sustain brain injuries that
require hospitalization and 564,000 will be seen in hospital emergency
rooms. Clearly, we must continue to improve our response to traumatic
brain injury, which includes prevention, timely and accurate diagnosis,
and treatment.
The bill passed today out of the HELP Committee would make modest but
important improvements to the TBI Act that is in place already. We ask
that the Department of Health and Human Services develop a traumatic
brain injury coordination plan to ensure that Federal activities at HHS
and other Federal agencies are being coordinated for maximum efficiency
and effectiveness.
We also ask for a review of the scientific evidence on brain injury
and in particular brain injury management in children, with a special
emphasis on evaluating scientific evidence behind the ``return to
school'' and ``return to play'' policies. This of course is very
important.
As public awareness of the seriousness of traumatic brain injuries
increases, parents, schools, and coaches are struggling to develop
appropriate responses. A lot of attention thus far has been focused on
the ``return to play'' policies, trying to ensure that children don't
return to sports until they have healed from a previous concussion, but
there is much less attention on the so-called return to school policies
and how we can take steps to ensure that children with a concussion or
a more serious brain injury can return to the classroom and continue
learning safely and effectively.
It is my hope that this bill, S. 2539, will help focus future
research efforts and guide Federal and State agencies looking to
develop policies in this area. Along with a lot of the members of the
HELP Committee, I am pleased the committee voted today to move forward
S. 2539, and I hope the rest of the Senate will join Senator Hatch and
me in passing this legislation as quickly as possible.
In conclusion, it has been a great honor to work with Senator Hatch
on this legislation as it is when we work together on a whole series of
important matters in the Senate.
2014 Kids Count Data Book
Mr. President, I have brief comments on an important set of data that
has just been released. I will highlight very briefly the 2014 Kids
Count Data Book, something a lot of child advocates and families are
aware of. This is an annual report, and I want to highlight the fact
that the 2014 report is now on the record.
This Kids Count Data Book was just published by the Annie E. Casey
Foundation for this year. The Kids Count Data Book looks at every State
to measure child well-being in States and across the country
considering factors such as economic well-being, health, education,
family, and community. Within each of these categories the report
highlights four important metrics and notes whether we have improved
from the year 2008 to 2012.
Nationally, 10 of the 16 metrics showed improvement. That is good
news. Five metrics worsened. Of course we don't like hearing that, but
it is important to measure when we are going in the wrong direction.
And one of the metrics remained unchanged. So we are happy the
improvement number is 16 metrics and the worsening metric number is 5,
but we still have a long way to go to improve in each of these areas.
The report also ranks States based upon their overall results.
Pennsylvania is ranked 16th in the Nation. I wish we were in the top
10. I wish we were in the top five and even No. 1. So we have some work
to do in Pennsylvania. In some areas Pennsylvania is doing well
compared to the national average. For example, we have a lower rate of
children without health insurance. That is certainly good news, with
still more to do on that. Teen birth rates in Pennsylvania continue to
be below the national average. Pennsylvania has a slightly higher
percentage of children attending preschool. That is good news. We have
a lot more to do on that, both in Pennsylvania and across the Nation.
Finally, Pennsylvania students continue to have higher proficiency
rates in reading and math skills when compared to the national rate,
but there is still more work to do there as well.
The report also highlights areas where we need to improve both in
Pennsylvania and nationally. Far too many children in the United States
of America are living in poverty with parents who often lack secure
employment. Too many teens are not in school and also not working,
which dramatically worsens their ability to grow into economically
self-sufficient adults.
I would encourage my colleagues to review the 2014 Kids Count Data
Book which is available on the Web site of the Annie E. Casey
Foundation. We should all consider what we can do in the Senate and in
the other body to improve our children's lives and our future.
Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I wish to speak about amendments I have
filed to the Bring Jobs Home Act.
My first amendment, the United States Job Creation and International
Tax Reform Act, would truly incentivize American companies to create
jobs in the United States, while at the same time leveling the playing
field for U.S. companies in the global marketplace. We can do this by
reforming the rules for taxing the global operations of American
companies and making America a more attractive location to base a
business that serves customers around the world.
Our current Tax Code does just the opposite, but the base bill we are
debating today wouldn't change that. Instead, it would discourage
global businesses from locating their headquarters in the United States
and make it harder for U.S.-based companies to expand.
Instead of messaging that we should bring jobs home, we need to
reform our
[[Page S4756]]
outdated international Tax Code. Let's just do it. Many of the United
States' major trading partners have moved to what are called
territorial tax systems. Those types of tax systems tax the income
generated within their borders and exempt foreign earnings from tax.
The United States, on the other hand, taxes the worldwide income of
U.S. companies and provides deferral of U.S. tax until the foreign
earnings are brought home. Deferring these taxes incentivizes companies
to leave their money abroad. Because the United States has one of the
highest corporate tax rates in the world, companies don't bring those
earnings back home and instead reinvest outside of the United States.
This is having a real impact on jobs. Thirty-six percent of the
Fortune Global 500 companies were headquartered in the United States in
2000; in 2009 that number dropped to 28 percent. Clearly, America is
losing ground, but the base bill we are considering won't change that.
My amendment would help to right the ship by pulling our
international tax rules into the 21st century. This bill would give
U.S. companies real incentives to create jobs in the United States in
order to win globally. I hope as we talk about jobs this week, we will
have a chance to consider the amendment.
My second amendment, the Small Business Fairness in Health Care Act,
would remove the ObamaCare disincentive for small businesses to add
jobs. Small businesses are the drivers of the economy in Wyoming and
across the Nation, but the bill before us is not focused on removing
the burdens that current laws have placed on our Main Street
businesses.
A recent survey by the National Small Business Association found that
because of the President's health care law 34 percent of small
businesses report holding off on hiring a new employee and another 12
percent report they had to lay off an employee in the last year.
My amendment is a great step to help address those issues. It would
remove the ObamaCare mandate that businesses with 50 employees provide
health insurance. This would allow small companies with 49 employees to
add jobs without the fear of the employer mandate. My amendment would
also clarify that 40 hours, not 30 hours, is full-time so that folks
who have jobs aren't limited to 29 hours of work per week.
These aren't the only ideas we should debate when we talk about
creating jobs in the United States. We should be fighting the
administration's war on coal, an industry that supported over 700,000
good-paying jobs in 2010. The EPA recently issued new regulations that
try to force a backdoor cap and tax proposal on Americans that Congress
has already rejected. We need to reject that idea again. Instead of
running from coal, America needs to run on coal.
We should debate the merits of the Keystone Pipeline and insist that
the President approve this project which has been pending for more than
5 years and would create more than 40,000 jobs. The State Department
has done five reviews of the project and determined that the pipeline
would cause no significant environmental impacts. So let's create those
jobs. What are we waiting for?
Mr. CASEY. 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. CASEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
____________________