[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 10]
[Senate]
[Pages 13353-13363]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




          AMERICAN JOBS AND CLOSING TAX LOOPHOLES ACT OF 2010

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will 
resume consideration of the House message to accompany H.R. 4213, which 
the clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       House message to accompany H.R. 4213, an act to amend the 
     Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to extend certain expiring 
     provisions, and for other purposes.

  Pending:

       Reid motion to concur in the amendment of the House to the 
     amendment of the Senate to the bill, with Reid amendment No. 
     4425 (to the amendment of the House to the amendment of the 
     Senate to the bill), in the nature of a substitute.
       Reid Amendment No. 4426 (to amendment No. 4425), to change 
     the enactment date.
       Reid motion to refer in the amendment of the House to the 
     amendment of the Senate to the bill to the Committee on 
     Finance, with instructions, Reid amendment No. 4427, to 
     provide for a study.
       Reid amendment No. 4428 (to the instructions (amendment No. 
     4427) of the motion to refer), of a perfecting nature.
       Reid amendment No. 4429 (to amendment No. 4428), of a 
     perfecting nature.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the time until 2:30 
will be equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their 
designees. That time has expired.


                             Cloture Motion

  The cloture motion having been presented under rule XXII, the Chair 
directs the clerk to read the motion.
  The assistant editor of the Daily Digest read as follows:

                             Cloture Motion

       We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the 
     provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, 
     hereby move to bring to a close debate on the motion to 
     concur in the House amendment to the Senate amendment to H.R. 
     4213, the American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act, with a 
     Reid amendment No. 4425.
         Harry Reid, Max Baucus, Jack Reed, Edward E. Kaufman, 
           John F. Kerry, Sheldon Whitehouse, Carl Levin, Roland 
           W. Burris, Richard J. Durbin, Jeff Merkley, Benjamin L. 
           Cardin, Christopher J. Dodd, John D. Rockefeller, IV, 
           Barbara Boxer, Patty Murray, Robert P. Casey, Jr., 
           Charles E. Schumer.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum 
call has been waived.
  The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on the 
motion to concur in the House amendment to the Senate amendment to H.R. 
4213, the American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act, with a Reid 
amendment No. 4425, shall be brought to a close?
  The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule. The clerk will call 
the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  The result was announced--yeas 60, nays 40, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 209 Leg.]

                                YEAS--60

     Akaka
     Baucus
     Bayh
     Begich
     Bennet
     Bingaman
     Boxer
     Brown (OH)
     Burris
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Collins
     Conrad
     Dodd
     Dorgan
     Durbin
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Franken
     Gillibrand
     Goodwin
     Hagan
     Harkin
     Inouye
     Johnson
     Kaufman
     Kerry
     Klobuchar
     Kohl
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lincoln
     McCaskill
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Mikulski
     Murray
     Nelson (FL)
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Rockefeller
     Sanders
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Snowe
     Specter
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Warner
     Webb
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                                NAYS--40

     Alexander
     Barrasso
     Bennett
     Bond
     Brown (MA)
     Brownback
     Bunning
     Burr
     Chambliss
     Coburn
     Cochran
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Crapo
     DeMint
     Ensign
     Enzi
     Graham
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hatch
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Johanns
     Kyl
     LeMieux
     Lugar
     McCain
     McConnell
     Murkowski
     Nelson (NE)
     Risch
     Roberts
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Thune
     Vitter
     Voinovich
     Wicker
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Upon the reconsideration of this vote, the 
yeas are 60, the nays are 40. Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen 
and sworn having voted in the affirmative, the motion is agreed to.
  Cloture having been invoked on the motion to concur with amendment in 
the House amendment, the motion to refer falls, as it is inconsistent 
with cloture.
  The Senator from Vermont.


             Unanimous Consent Request--Executive Calendar

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I see the Republican leadership and the 
distinguished Senator from Tennessee on the floor. I would note that I 
am hopeful the Senate Republican leadership would take the opportunity 
to enter into a time agreement on 1 of the more than 20 judicial 
nominees who have been stalled from Senate consideration. I am 
referring to the nomination of Jane Stranch of Tennessee. Her 
nomination was reported by a bipartisan majority of the Senate 
Judiciary Committee last November, 8 months ago.
  A native of Nashville, Mississippi, Ms. Stranch has practiced law in 
that community for 32 years, and has often appealed before the Sixth 
Circuit--the court to which she is now nominated. She has decades of 
experience in labor and employment law, an expertise she put to good 
use when she taught a class on labor law at Nashville's Belmont 
University. Ms. Stranch also has an active appellate practice, as well 
as significant experience with alternative forms of dispute resolution, 
such as mediation and arbitration. She is a leader in her community who 
dedicates significant time to pro bono work, civic matters, and her 
church. She also has impressive academic credentials, having earned 
both her J.D., Order of the Coif, and her B.A., summa cum laude and Phi 
Beta Kappa, from Vanderbilt University.
  Since this nomination was reported last November, all Democratic 
Senators have been prepared to debate and vote on her nomination. I had 
given my friend, the distinguished senior Senator from Tennessee, my 
assurance about that. I, myself, have spoken about this nomination a 
number of times because it is one of the oldest on the calendar.
  I know the senior Senator from Tennessee has expressed his 
frustration to me about the fact that this nomination has not been 
voted on in the last 8 months. So I went to him last week and said I 
was going to make a unanimous consent request for a time agreement to 
consider her nomination. The Senator asked me if I would wait until 
today, which I was glad to do. We have waited 8 months already.

[[Page 13354]]

  I, in no way, fault the senior Senator from Tennessee. He has been 
very clear to me he is ready to vote whenever this nomination comes 
forward. So seeing the Republican leader on the floor, I will now 
propound a unanimous consent request. I ask unanimous consent, as if in 
executive session, at a time to be determined by the majority leader, 
following consultation with the Republican leader, the Senate proceed 
to executive session and consider Calendar No. 552, the nomination of 
Jane B. Stranch, of Tennessee, to be a judge on the U.S. Court of 
Appeals for the Sixth Circuit; there be 3 hours of debate with respect 
to the nomination, with the time equally divided and controlled between 
the chairman and ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, myself and 
Senator Sessions, or our designees; that upon the use or yielding back 
of time, the Senate proceed to vote on the confirmation of the 
nomination; that upon confirmation, the motion to reconsider be 
considered made and laid upon the table; any statements related to the 
nomination be printed in the Record; the President be immediately 
notified of the Senate's action; the Senate then resume legislative 
session.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I thank 
the Senator from Vermont, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, for 
his request. Jane Stranch is a well-qualified nominee.
  It has long been my position, without going into the history in this 
body, that a President's judicial nominees deserve an up-or-down vote. 
She is President Obama's longest pending circuit court nominee yet to 
be confirmed. She was nominated last August. The committee reported her 
in November. She has my support, that of Senator Corker.
  I know it is difficult, with the amount of matters we have on the 
Senate floor, to schedule anything, including a circuit judge.
  But it would be my hope that the Republican leader and the majority 
leader could, before long, set a time certain for an up-or-down vote on 
Jane Stranch, the President's nominee for the Sixth Circuit Court of 
Appeals. I thank the Senator from Vermont for his request. I will not 
object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Gillibrand). The Republican leader.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Reserving the right to object, I know my good friend 
from Tennessee is interested in this nomination. There were, however, 
some no-votes on the nominee in committee. We will be running the traps 
on our side and seeing if we can work out both the debate time and a 
time to take up this nominee in the not too distant future. But for the 
short term, I must object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, I am terribly disappointed. With this 
objection, Senate Republicans have further ratcheted up the obstruction 
and partisanship that has become commonplace this Congress with regard 
to judicial nominees. I had honestly hoped that working with the 
respected senior Senator from Tennessee, we would be able to obtain a 
standard time agreement. I am not asking any Republican Senator to vote 
for the nominee, but simply to vote. I am not asking Republican 
Senators to vote before they have had a chance to debate the 
nomination, only to agree to a reasonable time for debate. If they do 
not think 3 hours reasonable, I wish they would indicate what time they 
think they need for such a debate. During the past 2 years, their 
demands for time have gone unused in debates on the nominations. Often, 
hours will be demanded in opposition without any of it being used for 
that purpose. If it were just a matter of the number, I would hope we 
could have worked that out and reached an agreement. Instead, this 
objection is like the Republican leader's objection last week to the 
request from the Senator from North Carolina to consider two nominees 
from that State to the Fourth Circuit. They were both reported by the 
Judiciary Committee last January, more than 6 months ago. One was 
reported by a vote of 18 to 1 and the other by a vote of 19 to 0; they 
are supported by both home State Senators, one a Republican and one a 
Democrat. Still the Republican leadership refuses to allow the Senate 
to consider them.
  I was disappointed to see my friend from Kentucky object last week. 
He did not speak about the nominees, or to their unquestioned 
qualifications, including their backgrounds in military service. It 
seemed as if his justification was along the lines of tit-for-tat. That 
is most unfortunate. I note that when I became chairman of the 
Judiciary Committee midway through President Bush's first tumultuous 
year in office, I worked very hard to make sure Senate Democrats did 
not perpetuate the judge wars as tit-for-tat. In fact, we did not. 
Despite that fact that Senate Republicans pocket filibustered more than 
60 of President Clinton's judicial nominations and refused to proceed 
on them, including one of the nominees from North Carolina now pending 
before us, again, during the 17 months I chaired the committee during 
President Bush's first 2 years in office, the Senate proceeded to 
confirm 100 of his judicial nominees. By contrast, during these first 2 
years of President Obama's term, Senate Republicans have allowed only 
36 Federal circuit and district court nominees to be considered by the 
Senate, 100 to 36.
  Ironically, the history of the Sixth Circuit and our efforts to turn 
away from the destructive practices that Republicans had followed 
during the Clinton years is detailed in my July 29, 2002, Senate 
statement in support of another Tennessee nominee, Judge Julia Gibbons. 
As chairman, I proceeded to a confirmation hearing for Judge Gibbons in 
April 2002; it was the first hearing for a Sixth Circuit nominee in 5 
years. Despite the well-qualified nominees of President Clinton, the 
Republican majority did not consider them. Republicans refused to 
consider the nominations of Judge Helene White, an experienced State 
court judge; Kathleen McCree Lewis, an accomplished attorney and the 
daughter of former Solicitor General of the United States and former 
Sixth Circuit Judge Wade McCree; and Kent Markus, a law professor and 
former Justice Department official who had the support of his 
Republican home State Senator. This was the partisan record Senate 
Democrats overcame when in the Senate majority. Republicans' pocket 
filibusters of President Clinton's nominees resulted in numerous Sixth 
Circuit vacancies. By proceeding with President Bush's nominations of 
Judge Julia Gibbons of Tennessee and then his nomination of Judge John 
Rogers of Kentucky, to the Sixth Circuit in 2002, the Democratic Senate 
majority did not engage in a tit-for-tat but acted to break the logjam 
the Republican obstruction had created.
  When I resumed the chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee in 2008, 
we were able to fill the last remaining vacancies on the Sixth Circuit 
when we confirmed President Bush's nominations of Judge Helene White 
and Judge Ray Kethledge of Michigan to the Sixth Circuit. Judge White 
had been one of President Clinton's nominations in 1997 who was pocket 
filibustered after having waited in vain for a hearing for more than 
1,450 days. During the Bush years the Sixth Circuit went from half 
vacant to full.
  With respect to Senate Republican leadership's current practice of 
holding, delaying and obstructing Senate consideration of judicial 
nominees reported favorably by the Judiciary Committee, this is a 
tactic they reserve for nominees of Democratic Presidents. Indeed, when 
President Bush was in the White House, Senate Republicans took the 
position that it was unconstitutional and wholly inappropriate not to 
vote on nominees approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee. With a 
Democratic President, they have reverted to their secret holds that 
resulted in pocket filibusters during the Clinton years. Last year, 
Senate Republicans successfully stalled all but a dozen Federal circuit 
and district court nominees. That was the lowest total for judges 
confirmed in more than 50

[[Page 13355]]

years. They have continued that practice despite the fact that judicial 
vacancies continue to hover around 100, with more than 40 declared 
judicial emergencies.
  No one should be confused: The current obstruction and stalling by 
Senate Republicans is unprecedented. There is no systematic counterpart 
by Senate Democrats. In fact, during the first 2 years of the Bush 
administration, the 100 judges confirmed were considered by the Senate 
an average of 25 days from being reported by the Judiciary Committee. 
The average time for confirmed circuit court nominees was 26 days. The 
average time for the 36 Federal circuit and district and circuit court 
judges confirmed since President Obama took office is 82 days and the 
average time for circuit nominees is 126 days.
  Overall judicial vacancies were reduced during the Bush years from 
almost 10 percent to less than 4 percent. Federal judicial vacancies 
are now over 10 percent. During the Bush years, the Federal circuit 
court vacancies were reduced from a high of 32 down to single digits. 
That progress has not continued with President Obama. Instead, 
Republican obstruction is putting that progress at risk. During the 
Bush years, we reduced vacancies on nine circuits. Since then, 
vacancies on six circuits have risen. I note that during the Clinton 
years, Republican obstruction succeeded in virtually doubling Federal 
circuit vacancies.
  I trust that the Republican leader remembers how I treated and Senate 
Democrats treated judicial nominees from Kentucky. During the 17 months 
I chaired the Judiciary Committee during President Bush's first 2 
years, we proceeded to consider and confirm Judge John Rogers of 
Kentucky to the Sixth Circuit by voice vote before the end of the 
session in 2002, having already confirmed Judge Danny Reeves and Judge 
Karen Caldwell to the Eastern District of Kentucky, and of course, 
Judge David Bunning to the Eastern District of Kentucky by voice vote, 
as well. During the more than 4 years that Republicans were in the 
majority during the Bush Presidency, one other judge for the Eastern 
District of Kentucky was confirmed, Judge Gregory Van Tatenhove, a 
former aide to the senior Senator from Kentucky. The year I resumed the 
Judiciary Committee chairmanship, we proceeded to confirm Judge Amul 
Thapar to the Eastern District of Kentucky. Nominees the Republican 
leader supported for his home State's vacancies were very well treated.
  I am confident the senior Senator from Tennessee remembers how fairly 
we treated judicial nominees from his State. I was chair when we broke 
a longstanding logjam on the Sixth Circuit by confirming Judge Julia 
Gibbons of Tennessee in July 2002. During the first 2 years of the Bush 
administration we worked to see the Senate also confirm Samuel Mays, 
Jr., as a judge for the Western District of Tennessee and Judge Thomas 
Phillips as a judge for the Eastern District of Tennessee. When I 
resumed the chairmanship in 2008, we also facilitated the Senate 
confirmation of Judge Stanley Anderson to be a judge for the Western 
District of Tennessee. During the intervening years three other 
nominees were considered and confirmed to be Eastern District of 
Tennessee judges, Judge Thomas Vartan, Judge Ronnie Greet and Judge 
Harry Mattice, Jr. In addition Judge J. Daniel Breen was confirmed to 
be a judge in the Western District of Tennessee.
  There did come a time in the 108th Congress when President Bush and 
Senate Republicans were intent on packing the courts with ideologues 
and the Republican Chairman of the Judiciary Committee violated the 
rules and practices of the committee in support of this effort. They 
forced filibusters of 10 nominees, 6 of which were ultimately 
confirmed.
  I have not done what the Republican chairman did. I have respected 
and protected the rights of the minority. President Obama has not made 
nominations opposed by home State Senators but has instead reached out 
and worked with home State Senators from both parties. He has by and 
large nominated well-qualified moderates.
  I have tried to ratchet up the cooperation between parties and 
branches in my role as chairman. It is disappointing to see the Senate 
Republican leadership take the opposite approach. They are holding up 
consideration of nominees reported unanimously from the Judiciary 
Committee for weeks and months for no reason. Just last week, after a 
needless 3-month delay, the Senate confirmed a judge for the Northern 
District of Illinois unanimously. That is more evidence of the pattern 
of stall and obstruct. Earlier this year the majority leader had to 
file cloture to get to a vote on the nomination of Judge Barbara Keenan 
of Virginia to the Fourth Circuit. When the vote was held, she was 
confirmed unanimously.
  Republicans' sense of injury is misplaced in my view. Moreover, the 
disproportionateness of their response disserves the American people 
and our Federal justice system.
  Jane Stranch of Tennessee is just one example of the harm they are 
causing. Judge James Wynn of North Carolina is another example, as is 
Judge Albert Diaz, also of North Carolina. The list includes the 21 
judicial nominees currently stalled by Republican objection from final 
Senate consideration but also many of the 36 who were needlessly 
delayed. What is being perpetuated is a shame.
  I thank the distinguished senior Senator from Tennessee for his 
efforts in moving this forward. I am obviously disappointed, but I am 
not disappointed in the actions of the distinguished Senator from 
Tennessee. He did work very hard.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Republican leader


                   Tribute to Senator Paul Coverdell

  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, about 10 years ago, one of our dear 
friends, the Senator from Georgia, Paul Coverdell, was unexpectedly 
taken from us. He became ill and passed away. Here we are 10 years 
later, and we wish to commemorate his life and service. His good 
friends, the Senators from Georgia, Mr. Chambliss and Mr. Isakson, are 
both here. We all want to say a few words about our departed friend 
Paul Coverdell.
  Paul was a patriot. I admired him a great deal. Nobody worked harder 
than Paul Coverdell, and nobody wanted less credit for it. We were 
talking on the floor a few moments ago. Senator Lott, who was the 
Republican leader at the time, used to call him Mikey. What he meant by 
that was some character we believe was in a commercial named Mikey who 
always got the job done and didn't care where the credit ended up. That 
is exactly how Paul was. No matter how tough the task, no matter how 
thankless the job, Paul was ready to pitch in with good humor and 
credible persistence and see it through to completion.
  He had a distinguished career in the private sector before he entered 
public life. He spent a long time toiling in the Georgia State Senate 
before he came here. In fact, he used to joke that he knew all too well 
what it was like to be an underdog because he spent 15 years 
representing all five Republicans in the Georgia State Senate against 
51 Democrats. That gives one a certain humility, shall I say.
  Paul's deep understanding of the power of freedom is well known, and 
his efforts to promote and spread freedom are a big part of his legacy. 
As Director of the Peace Corps in the late 1980s, Paul sent the first 
Peace Corps volunteers into Eastern Europe to work with nations about 
to experience freedom for the very first time.
  In a speech he delivered shortly before his death, Paul said:

       I believe that in the 20th century, America has helped 
     plant the seeds of democracy and freedom around the world. I 
     hope that when the stories are written at the end of this new 
     century, it is said of this nation that we tended to liberty, 
     nurtured it around the world, and sustained freedom and 
     prosperity here in this Hemisphere.

  That was Paul shortly before his death.
  He served in this Chamber for nearly a decade, and those of us who 
served alongside him know he never, ever sought the spotlight. He was a 
decent hard-working guy who was dedicated to his wife Nancy, the people 
of Georgia,

[[Page 13356]]

the American people, and to promoting what he called the three pillars 
of freedom: economic liberty, security for persons and property, and a 
well-educated citizenry. Paul often said that an uneducated mind can 
never truly be free. It is an idea he shared with the men who founded 
our Nation. As Washington put it in his first annual address to 
Congress:

       Knowledge is, in every country, the surest basis of public 
     happiness.

  As with all the lessons Paul liked to share, he delivered it with a 
smile.
  Paul is deeply missed by all of us in this room, but his 
contributions are lasting. Ten years after his sudden passing, we 
continue to learn from the life and example of Paul Coverdell.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia is recognized.
  Mr. CHAMBLISS. Madam President, I rise, like my leader from Kentucky, 
to celebrate the life of Paul Douglas Coverdell. I thank the leader for 
his kind comments about a very personal friend to both Senator Isakson 
and me as well as to the leader.
  Paul Coverdell served in this body from 1993 until his untimely death 
on July 18, 2000. Paul was a longtime politician in our State, having 
first run for office in 1968. He lost the first election and then was 
elected to the State senate in 1970. He rose to the rank of minority 
leader in the Georgia State Senate and had a successful career there. 
He then decided to run for Congress and lost his first race for the 
House of Representatives.
  Paul did something that is so Coverdell-like in the summer of 1978. 
He was then the chairman of the Georgia Republican Party. He was on 
vacation in Maine. He knew, obviously, of the soon-to-be Vice 
President, George H.W. Bush, but he didn't know him and he wanted to 
get to know him. So he walked up to his house in Kennebunkport--didn't 
have to worry about the Secret Service back then--and knocked on his 
front door. President Bush came to the front door. He introduced 
himself. They became fast friends after that.
  When President Bush was elected, Paul Coverdell was very involved in 
his campaign. He wrote him a simple note. He said: If I can help you, I 
would like to. Well, the President took that to heart and appointed 
Paul to be the Director of the Peace Corps. Anything Paul undertook, he 
put his whole heart and soul into. When he became Director of the Peace 
Corps, he did exactly that. He also was a very good thinker. He created 
what was called World Wise Schools within the Peace Corps. Those 
schools all of a sudden cropped up all around the world under the 
sponsorship of Peace Corps volunteers and all under Paul's leadership. 
Paul led the first Peace Corps volunteers into Eastern Europe after the 
fall of the wall.
  I will never forget going to the Peace Corps building as a Member of 
the House after Paul's death when the Peace Corps building was named 
after Paul. To hear the many tributes of volunteers who had served for 
so long under Paul and the personal stories they had about the 
involvement of their leader and their affection for their leader was 
truly humbling and moving.
  When Paul was elected to the Senate in 1992, he actually had to be 
elected four times that year. He was in a primary which he won after a 
runoff. He then came in second in the general election in November, but 
because of the rules being what they are in Georgia, as I experienced 
myself in 2008, Paul was in a runoff with the incumbent because an 
independent third-party candidate got enough votes so that the 
incumbent did not get 50 percent plus one. Paul then won, after coming 
in second, the runoff election and, thus, his fourth election in 1992.
  In 1998, he became the first Georgia Republican to ever be reelected 
to the Senate. He was such a class guy here that he was respected and 
admired by folks on both sides of the aisle. I went back and looked at 
some of the comments Republicans and Democrats made on the floor of the 
Senate after Paul's death. It truly was, again, a very moving 
experience to read those comments.
  He created what is called the Coverdell ESA, or the Coverdell 
education savings accounts--they are really education IRAs--to allow 
families to set aside money on a tax-free basis to educate their 
children. Paul loved education. It was very near and dear to him. He 
was very proud of being able to establish those IRAs for future leaders 
of the country.
  A quick story about Paul. He was a very unique individual. He never 
wore anything but a dark suit, never wore anything but a long-sleeve 
white shirt. I remember one day I had an event down in the very 
southern part of my congressional district, down at the Okefenokee 
Swamp. It was in July or August, I don't remember which, but I do 
remember it was extremely hot. The humidity in south Georgia on a June 
or July or August day is extremely high. We were all there, and some 
other Members of Congress who were there were in shorts and golf 
shirts. Whatever we could put on to stay cool or somewhat cool, that is 
what we had on. Paul showed up. As always, Paul had on a dark suit and 
a white shirt. We finally did get him to take his tie and coat off 
because we were going to ride out into the swamp. I used to kid Paul 
about that really until the time of his death.
  The leader is right, Senator Lott had a term for Paul Coverdell. He 
called him Mikey because anytime Trent needed to get something done, he 
would go to Mikey. Paul just had a way of making sure that whatever the 
challenge was, it got done and got done in a very efficient way.
  The photograph I cherish most of all my political photographs is a 
black-and-white photo. It is a picture of Paul and myself sitting in 
his office at one of our weekly meetings that took place while I was in 
the House and he was in the Senate, the two of us just sitting there 
talking. The expression on Paul's face is so classic Coverdell. It 
always makes me feel good and is a great reminder of Paul.
  Paul's wife Nancy has always been a dear friend. She was such a great 
asset to him. She has chaired my military academy appointment committee 
in all of my years in the Senate. She is a wonderful lady. Again, we 
have some very fond conversations together about Paul from time to 
time.
  Paul Coverdell was not just a great Georgian; he was a great 
American. He certainly loved our State and our country as much as 
anybody who has ever served in this body. It is a sad day but yet a 
very good day from the standpoint of having the opportunity to remember 
the strong and positive leadership of Senator Paul Coverdell.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.
  Mr. ISAKSON. Madam President, I am honored and privileged to join 
Leader McConnell and Senator Chambliss to take a few minutes to talk 
about one of my great friends, Paul Coverdell, and his lovely wife 
Nancy. Mitch McConnell has done some great recollections of Paul's 
service in the Senate. Senator Chambliss told some great stories of his 
relationship with Senator Coverdell. I wish to share some of mine to 
certify and document that everything they have said is absolutely 
correct.
  I met Paul Coverdell in 1972, 2 years after he was elected to the 
Georgia State Senate as the fifth Republican to serve there. I was 
running for the Georgia House of Representatives. Although I lost in 
1974, I won in 1976. A few years later, I became the leader of the 
Republicans in the Georgia House of Representatives, and Paul was the 
senate leader. The senate had their caucus elections every January 
after elections. I always loved the senate election. They had five 
caucus officers and five Republican Senators. So instead of having an 
election, they drew straws. They drew straws and they drew Paul 
Coverdell, to which he was forever reelected as leader of Republicans 
in the Georgia State Senate.
  Paul was the most organized guy I have ever known and was the most 
goal-oriented guy I have ever known.
  His goal--when we were outnumbered 10 to 1 in the senate, Democrat to 
Republican, and 8 to 1, Democrat to Republican, in the house--he 
dreamed of the day when we were in the majority. As the Republican 
leader of the house, he would summon me, by kind invitation, on every 
Monday morning, to the

[[Page 13357]]

Buckhead Waffle House or the Buckhead IHOP where we would have coffee 
and talk about how one day we were going to be the majority party in 
Georgia.
  Now, I am an optimist. I was a salesman all my life. I believed we 
could get there too. But Paul had a step-by-step plan--a plan that in 
1976 seemed tantamount to impossible but a plan that was realized with 
his election to the Senate in 1992, a congressional majority for 
Republicans in Georgia in 1994 and, ultimately, the first Republican 
Governor in the history of our State Post-Reconstruction, in 2002.
  Paul meticulously was a partisan, but he was, above that, an 
American. Paul Coverdell was also a man of ideas. Folks have talked 
about the Coverdell education savings accounts, which he authored in 
the Senate and are now law. But I remember, in Georgia, in the 1970s 
and 1980s, when he championed the mandatory seatbelt law. Believe me, 
in a State such as Georgia where you have a lot of pickup trucks and a 
lot of rural communities, wearing a seatbelt was not the most popular 
thing in the world. But Paul knew it was good for saving lives. He knew 
it was good for lowering insurance rates because he was an insurance 
man. He fought against a majority that did not want it, but he 
prevailed and he won, and today many lives have been saved because of 
the efforts of Paul Coverdell in the Georgia Legislature.
  Senator Chambliss told his story of Paul in his dark suit and his red 
tie and his white shirt. I want to tell mine.
  Back in 1982, I was on the beach at Jekyll Island, GA, following a 
joint house Republican-senate Republican conference. The late Haskew 
Brantley--then a Georgia State senator--and I were on the beach under 
an umbrella enjoying the beautiful coast of Georgia on our great 
island, Jekyll Island. In the distance we could see this figure coming 
toward us that looked from a distance as having on a suit, walking on 
the beach with his shoes in his hand and his pant legs rolled up. The 
closer he got, the more Haskew and I realized: That is Paul Coverdell.
  Paul came in his red tie, his buttoned-down white shirt, his dark 
pin-striped suit but with his shoes in his hand. He sat in the sand 
with us, talked, got up, walked back to the parking lot, and drove to 
Atlanta. In fact, I am not sure I ever saw Paul when he did not have on 
the dark suit, the red tie, and the white shirt.
  He was always dressed to the nines, and he was always ready for 
whatever challenge came. His wife Nancy, who is a beautiful lady I saw 
just a few weeks ago on the coast of Georgia, actually had her real 
estate license in my company. So not only did I know Paul, but I knew 
Nancy, and for 35 years they were as close of friends as I have ever 
had. But for 35 years they served Georgia day in and day out in 
whatever capacity they could to make it a better State.
  I think it is a great tribute to tell this story: When Paul was 
elected to the Georgia State Senate as the fifth Republican in history 
in 1970, for somebody to think a Republican majority could ever have 
taken place, they would have laughed. But shortly after Paul's death, 
the legislative office building where every member of the Georgia House 
and Senate in downtown Atlanta has an office was named the Paul D. 
Coverdell Legislative Office Building. He went from the bottom in terms 
of numbers, and he went to the top, but he climbed it one step at a 
time; he climbed it one commitment at a time, and he never lost sight 
of the fact that he was an American first and a Republican second but 
always committed to the values of Georgia and the values and the 
conservative principles we shared.
  So on this day, just 10 years after his passing, we rise to pay 
tribute to a great American, a great Member of the Senate, and a leader 
who made it possible for people such as Senator Chambliss and myself to 
follow in his footsteps and one day, ultimately, serve in the greatest 
deliberative body in the world, the U.S. Senate.
  I pay tribute to Paul Coverdell and his legacy and his beautiful wife 
Nancy.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in 
morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. MERKLEY. Thank you, Madam President.


                            Oil Independence

  Madam President, today I come to this Chamber to speak about oil 
independence for a stronger America. Many folks across America are 
continuously talking about the downside of our addiction to overseas 
oil. Today I am going to be presenting a plan embodying a bill with 
that name: Oil Independence for a Stronger America.
  One of the big issues of our dependence on foreign oil is national 
security. We send $1 billion a day overseas to governments that often 
don't share our core American values; governments in the Middle East, 
in Nigeria, in Venezuela. Sometimes those dollars end up directly in 
the hands of terrorists. As some national security analysts have noted, 
in our current wars we are sometimes funding both sides of the battle, 
and that is not a good place to be.
  In addition, to maintain our access to that overseas oil, we have to 
maintain a significant national security military force. Some analysts 
have estimated the cost of that additional security, that additional 
access to guarantee oil for America, has a value or a cost of up to $5 
per gallon. So those aren't dollars we pay at the pump, but we 
certainly pay them in terms of our national security overhead.
  In addition to national security, our addiction to overseas oil is 
terrible for our economy. We are sending $1 billion a day overseas. Two 
years ago, when the cost of a barrel of oil surged upwards, we were 
sending $2 billion a day overseas. It will be that again. It will go 
higher, because the world's demand for oil is only increasing. As the 
economies of Asia, and particularly the economy of China, are growing, 
the demand for oil is growing as well, and with it we will be paying 
more.
  Take that $1 billion a day. That is $3 for every man, woman, and 
child in America. I have a family of four: $12 a day for my family. A 
significant sum, hundreds of dollars a month for my family, goes 
overseas. When those dollars go overseas, they create jobs overseas 
instead of creating jobs here in America. Try to picture the difference 
between spending $1 billion a day overseas and spending $1 billion a 
day on red, white, and blue American-made energy. That is the 
difference between families who have jobs, a stronger economy, or a 
weaker economy.
  Oil addiction makes us weaker as a nation. Oil independence makes us 
stronger as a nation. Isn't it time to choose strength over weakness?
  I wish to take a look at the numbers demonstrating the challenge 
before us. The estimate for the amount of oil we will be importing as a 
nation 20 years from now is between 6 million to 7 million barrels per 
day, as indicated by this column. If we were to put together a plan 
that would reduce our consumption of oil by more than 6 million to 7 
million barrels per day, then we would have a plan that equates to 
independence from oil so that we would be able to eliminate the 
requirement, the need to import oil from overseas.
  The good news is that the tools are at hand to have such a strategy. 
What we have lacked is the will, the political will to move forward; 
the will to say, yes, we are going to have a plan and we are going to 
stay on that plan over the course of time, the two decades necessary to 
implement it.
  So what are the major strategies through which we can end our 
addiction to overseas oil? The first strategy I wish to talk about is 
changing the consumption of gasoline in passenger vehicles. Right now 
we have a number of hybrid cars that consume a lot less

[[Page 13358]]

oil. We have coming on the market next year the Nissan LEAF, the 
Chevrolet Volt. We have the Tesla sedan. We are going to have numerous 
options for customers in America to be able to satisfy their domestic 
transportation needs in ways that consume vastly less gasoline, and 
that means less overseas oil. So the question is whether we promote 
adoption of these strategies. There is a tremendous amount to gain by 
promoting adoption of these strategies.
  I wish to thank Senator Byron Dorgan and Senator Lamar Alexander who 
partnered with me, the three of us together, on the Electric Vehicle 
Deployment Act. This is an act that will take a half dozen or so 
communities across this country and create deployment communities to 
test drive, if you will; building the infrastructure necessary for 
electric vehicles in partnership with the deployment of electric 
vehicles, because the two have to work together. From what we learn 
from those deployment communities, we can develop an accelerated 
strategy to shift to electricity from gasoline across this Nation. The 
potential savings are 3.2 million barrels per day.
  The second strategy is to have more efficient freight transportation. 
There is a lot to be gained in this area as well--up to 2 million 
barrels of oil per day. We have a group out in Oregon, a nonprofit 
called Cascade Sierra. Cascade Sierra works in partnership with the 
trucking community to make sure there is a one-stop shop to acquire 
different technologies designed to increase the efficiency of trucks. 
They deploy airfoils to make the trucks go down the highway more 
efficiently. They provide the technology for automatic tire inflation 
which makes a huge difference in mileage over time. Cascade Sierra 
makes available different types of generators so that a truck, instead 
of running its large diesel engine to provide electricity when it is 
stopped, can instead run a small generator. Now they are working to 
help develop charging stations where the trucks can actually plug in to 
power up their electric infrastructure on the truck rather than running 
their diesel engine.
  There are many ways to increase efficiency on trucks as well as 
increasing efficiency by shifting a percentage of our freight 
transportation from trucks to barges and rail. Rail and barges are 
incredibly efficient. I am constantly amazed at the statistic of how 
far you can take a ton of freight with one gallon of diesel. For all of 
my colleagues who may be wondering: Well, how far can you go? Can you 
go 50 miles? Can you take a ton of freight 50 miles with one gallon? 
Well, no, it is higher than that. Is it 100 miles? No, it is over 400 
miles, a ton of freight, with one gallon on rail or by barge. 
Significant savings are available in that area.
  The third section is smart metropolitan transportation options. 
Portland, OR, is a city that is working very hard to provide options to 
its citizens on how they commute back and forth to work. We have light 
rail not too dissimilar from what we have here in Washington, DC. Back 
home in Oregon, we also are building streetcars, and streetcars create 
a whole infrastructure around efficient electric transportation for 
neighborhoods. Then we are working on other strategies, including bike 
lanes, and so forth, that create a network of options for effective 
noncar transportation. Those types of strategies can do an enormous 
amount in reducing the amount of fuel we consume, not to mention 
reducing the congestion and, therefore, improving the quality of life 
for Americans throughout metropolitan areas. Potential savings: 1.7 
million barrels of oil per day.
  The fourth area is in alternative fuels. There have been natural gas 
forklifts since I was a little kid. Compressed natural gas is an 
effective fuel. Through recent developments in drilling technology, we 
have discovered we can produce a lot more natural gas in our Nation, 
which means a lot more potential to power up trucks with natural gas 
rather than diesel. So that is a technology that will have a big 
impact.
  A second area is advanced biofuels. Certainly I wish to see the 
forests of Oregon generating some advanced cellulosic ethanol for our 
truck fleet and to do so in a fashion which is environmentally 
sustainable so the power of plants, if you will, can be a significant 
factor in strengthening our domestic energy economy and creating more 
jobs here in America and reducing our oil imports from overseas.
  The fifth area is energy-efficient homes and buildings. In this case, 
the savings are more modest: 200,000 barrels of oil per day. They are 
more modest because most buildings are not heated by heating oil. But 
we should pay attention to those buildings that are heated by heating 
oil, because the savings, when you increase the energy characteristics 
of a building, are substantial. So that merits attention.
  If one combines these strategies, we are looking at savings of well 
over 8 million barrels per day, as compared to the estimate for imports 
20 years from now of 6 million to 7 million barrels per day. So it is 
unquestionable that we can end our oil addiction if we have the 
political will, if we have the determination to sustain a plan through 
every 4-year cycle over 20 years.
  Here in America, we tend to oscillate back and forth as Presidencies 
change, and that is why this bill, the Oil Independence for Stronger 
America Act, calls for a National Energy Security Council that will 
sustain the attention to the national plan as Presidents come and go, 
as Members of Congress come and go.
  There should be little question in any of our minds that America will 
be stronger as an oil-independent nation rather than an oil-addicted 
nation. There should be little question that creating jobs here, buying 
American-made energy at $1 billion a day is far preferable to sending 
billions of dollars a day overseas, where they are no longer in our 
retail stores and are no longer creating jobs.
  Certainly, many of these strategies will have a very positive 
influence on creating cleaner air and having American leadership and 
stewardship of our planet. So numerous positive factors go together. I 
want to be sure to thank my original cosponsors of the bill. Senator 
Tom Carper has done terrific work on CAFE and CLEAN TEA, which involves 
metropolitan transportation options. Tom Udall brought insights on 
freight, rail, natural gas, and biofuels. Senator Michael Bennet has a 
comprehensive understanding of energy issues that is of real value in 
the Senate Chamber.
  I will conclude with this: Let's choose a stronger oil-independent 
America over a weaker oil-addicted America.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kaufman). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak 
for up to 10 minutes as in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                               Hugo Boss

  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, last April a German clothing 
company, Hugo Boss, announced it was planning to close down its only 
North American manufacturing plant located in Brooklyn, OH, outside of 
Cleveland. Hugo Boss told us they were going to expand their American 
sales force but shut down all U.S. production. Despite the Cleveland 
plant being profitable--a plant that had been in existence for decades 
and decades prior to Hugo Boss purchasing it--Hugo Boss planned to move 
its Cleveland production to the country of Turkey.
  I recognize Hugo Boss's desire to expand their sales force by 
eliminating production in the United States and shipping it to Turkey--
a sad but all too common story in our Nation today--but it was a 
devastating announcement for the workers and for the community in 
Brooklyn, OH. Cleveland has a long and storied history of manufacturing 
clothes and apparel, in addition to chemicals and steel and autos and 
so much else. In Brooklyn, a suburb of

[[Page 13359]]

Cleveland, a factory is a source of pride and economic prosperity. Yet 
despite the shock and disappointment of the announcement, the community 
rallied behind the workers.
  In the ensuing months, Governor Strickland and I met Hugo Boss 
executives and workers. I talked to the Hugo Boss people in Germany by 
phone. I went to the plant and talked to workers, heard their stories--
often workers who had been there 10, 20, 30 years, husbands and wives 
working together at the plant making no more than $15 an hour. So these 
were not jobs that paid a lot of money or made a lot of people rich, 
but they were jobs that gave particularly immigrant workers a real 
opportunity in this country to work. They had decent health benefits, 
and they made a wage that they could at least make a go of it.
  Earlier this year, in February, when I traveled to meet with some of 
those 400 workers, I began to hear these stories. As I said, the 
workers make no more than $15 an hour, and many make less than that. 
They are paid decent benefits but barely enough to keep these working 
families in the middle class. These workers did everything they could 
to keep this plant profitable. Their work meant everything to the 
community.
  When the decision to close the factory was made, Joe Costigan, Sue 
Brown, Mark Milko, and Dallas Sells--all of Workers United--fought 
tirelessly on behalf of these workers. Mayor Richard Balbier rallied 
the community to help keep the plant open, recognizing a healthy 
manufacturing sector means a healthy and prosperous community. In the 
meantime, management, workers, elected officials, and community leaders 
all continued to work together to find a way to keep the factory open.
  Exactly a year later, in April 2010, an agreement was made that would 
keep workers in their jobs and would sustain that community's economy. 
These workers agreed to absorb wage cuts. Many of them went from $12 or 
$13 an hour down to $10 or $11 an hour.
  Yesterday, we celebrated what happens when we work together to save a 
plant and a community. Yesterday, Governor Strickland and I joined 200 
workers and Hugo Boss executives to celebrate the first suit off the 
line of this restarted manufacturing plant. Wanda Navarro and Sheila 
McVay were among those who spoke. Sheila McVay introduced the Governor, 
and Ms. Navarro introduced me. But before they did so, they spoke 
eloquently of what being back to work means. I am proud to have stood 
by Wanda and Sheila and those who fought for the classic American 
success story.
  I wear a suit. The suit I have on today was union made in Cleveland, 
OH, by these workers. One of these workers came up to me as I was 
standing there and she pointed to the vest pocket of the suit, saying: 
I make those vest pockets; I probably sewed that one. It makes me proud 
to have worked with Workers United and Hugo Boss to ensure that a 
premier global company continues to invest in this town, in this State, 
in American manufacturing.
  Yesterday marked a new chapter for this company's global 
competitiveness and for our community's economic prosperity. But that 
celebration yesterday must be viewed in the context of what is 
happening all too often in our country. The closing of a plant too 
often means moving it offshore. It looks like a good deal for the 
company's quarterly financial statement. That is initially what Hugo 
Boss thought when they were going to close this plant--a profitable 
plant--and move to it Turkey: manufacture more clothes, sell more 
clothes in Turkey, increase their U.S. sales force, and sell more of 
them back into the United States. We know that story can be told again 
and again, when U.S. trade law, U.S. tax laws, and companies think 
about the next quarter more than they do the next year or the next 
decade and outsource those jobs, then sell the products back into the 
United States.
  As an example, I was meeting with someone today who is working to 
push the Commerce Department to simply enforce U.S. trade law and 
enforce or stop some of the currency manipulation by the People's 
Republic of China. He told me that only 10 years ago we had 19 million 
manufacturing jobs in the United States. Today, we are down to about 11 
million. Yet China has some 100 million people working in 
manufacturing.
  For the last two decades, manufacturing has steadily declined, as 
financial services expanded. The Presiding Officer from Delaware has 
worked on and has talked about this. He understands this in terms of 
what has happened with manufacturing versus what has happened with 
financial services. Only 30 years ago, manufacturing made up more than 
a quarter of our Nation's GDP, our Nation's gross domestic product. 
Financial services was only 11 percent of our gross domestic product. 
Today, those numbers are almost reversed, where manufacturing is only 
about half of what it was as a percentage of GDP and financial services 
is double what it was. Look where that brought us as a nation. Look 
what happened to our jobs. Look what happened to the middle class.
  People at Hugo Boss and these other companies make things. People in 
this country who make things can provide a middle-class lifestyle for 
their loved ones and their families. If we stop relying on 
manufacturing as something that is important to us as a nation--not 
everything but something important to us as a nation--we will see the 
middle class continue to atrophy and decline.
  We need a national manufacturing strategy that ensures that trade 
agreements and tax laws come down on the side of workers and 
communities, not encourages investors to go overseas, make things in 
China and then send them back to the United States. We need a national 
manufacturing strategy that once again invests in American workers and 
incentivizes companies to promote manufacturing innovation. We need a 
national manufacturing strategy that recognizes manufacturing has been 
and always will be a ticket to the middle class for millions of 
Americans. That is what manufacturing means to workers at the Hugo Boss 
plant in Brooklyn, OH, a suburb of Cleveland. That is what it means to 
workers in communities in Toledo and Dayton and Cincinnati and Lima and 
Mansfield, OH, and that is what it means to the middle class all over 
this great country.
  Mr. 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. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that 
the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, what is our parliamentary 
position?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. We are in a period postcloture.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to 
speak as in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                           NASA Authorization

  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I wish to compliment a lot of 
Senators on both sides of the aisle for the extraordinary 
bipartisanship--no, the extraordinary nonpartisanship that occurred in 
coming together unanimously to pass the NASA authorization bill out of 
the full Commerce Committee last week.
  The budget for NASA was about to be blown apart by centrifugal 
force--having different elements, different interests all going off in 
different directions. Everybody seemed to have their own agenda. 
Geographical circumstances came into it as to whose States were being 
affected. The companies were at war with each other. There was a lack 
of cooperation that was going on between the legislative branch and the 
executive branch. All I can say is hallelujah, it all came together, 
and we passed the NASA bill out of the Commerce Committee last week 
unanimously, with all the Senators who spoke singing its praises.

[[Page 13360]]

  I am going to outline it in just a minute, but let me make note of 
another fact. We had unprecedented cooperation between the authorizers; 
that is, the authorizing committee, and the appropriators. As we speak, 
the Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, State, Justice, which 
includes the NASA appropriations--are preparing the markup. We will 
find out the result tomorrow afternoon. But I can tell you the 
cooperation was extensive and so was the communication, the likes of 
which we have not seen around here this year, particularly in this year 
when there is so much gridlock and we have so much difficulty getting 
anything done. That has not been the case with the NASA bill.
  There are a host of Senators, they all know who they are, to whom 
this Senator wants to express his appreciation for their coming 
together. As the Good Book says: ``Come, let us reason together,'' and 
it happened. As I said at the time we passed it, I think it was a near 
miracle, but I believe in miracles. Indeed, it happened.
  Let me tell you what is in the bill. A good part of what the 
President requested is there. That is why we had the verbal and the 
written support of the President of this consensus that developed, 
which we passed. We had the President's recommendations on the top line 
of the spending for NASA, about $19 billion for this next fiscal year 
starting in October.
  The President recommended the extension of the International Space 
Station to 2020, which was originally supposed to expire in 2015, which 
was absolutely ridiculous. We are just now getting it built and it is 
about a $100 billion investment. The President wants to start a 
commercial rocket industry, already under contract with NASA--two 
companies, SpaceX and Orbital Sciences--to deliver cargo to the 
International Space Station. Those contracts are already underway and 
the testing is beginning. We put in the President's recommendation on 
that commercial cargo in this bill, which was a recommendation for $300 
million.
  We agreed with the President to start the process of human-rating 
commercial rockets for the purpose of being, in effect, a taxi service 
to and from the International Space Station. Human rating of a rocket 
is no small measure, because when you strap in to a rocket, there has 
to be all kinds of redundancies in order to protect human life. Safety 
is one of our major watchwords. That was authorized as well--at a 
different level from what the President had originally recommended and 
over 6 years as opposed to 5 years that the President had recommended, 
but nevertheless it gets the project started.
  The main thing we did differently from the President's recommendation 
is this. When the President came to the Kennedy Space Center a few 
months ago and said he wanted to develop a new heavy-lift rocket that 
will ultimately take us out into the cosmos, the President set the 
goal--and I gave him great credit for this because you have to have a 
goal when you are developing cutting-edge technology--he set that goal 
of going to Mars by a flexible path. The first way station he pointed 
to, with a date 2025, is an asteroid. He said he wanted that heavy-lift 
rocket to start to be developed by 2015. That is a 5-year wait. Our 
committee did not want to wait that long. We want to get started now. 
In the authorization bill, in a congressional committee, we cannot 
design a rocket. But we can set policy guidelines to the executive 
branch of government and to the agency, in this case NASA, as to using 
shuttle-derived technology and building on that, making it, in the 
parlance of the space community, evolvable, and that is what we did in 
the authorization bill. We want to start it now instead of waiting 
until 2011.
  We also did another thing differently. Although the White House was 
contemplating this, by them embracing the consensus that we built, now 
they have supported it; that is, to fly an extra flight of the space 
shuttle. This is not a space shuttle that we have to go out and build 
the parts for. It is a space shuttle, a stack with the external tank 
and the two solid boosters as well as the orbiter we already have and 
ready to be on the pad as a rescue shuttle for the remaining two 
flights, one of which will come this November, the other next February. 
We wish to fly that third flight. It is likely to be the orbiter 
Atlantis. That would come a year from now, probably next June.
  There is a lot more stuff to take up to the space station. There is a 
lot more equipment, supplies, and, interestingly and importantly, there 
is a lot of stuff up there that you need the big volume of that cargo 
bay of the orbiter to be able to bring back to Earth. That third flight 
will supply that.
  We continue the President's recommendations on all the other parts of 
NASA--on the science part, on the aeronautics part, and on the 
acceleration of research and development for new technologies. We 
continue that. We focus some of that development of technologies in our 
authorization bill toward the building, the designing, and ultimately 
the flying of this heavy-lift vehicle, complete with a crew 
compartment, which more than likely will be in the form of what we 
thought of in the old days as the capsule.
  Therefore, at the beginning of the new fiscal year, which comes this 
October, assuming that we have the authorization in place--if that is 
the decision of the Appropriations Committee as well, and we can get 
that appropriation passed and signed into law by the President--then, 
come October 1, they will start on the development of that new heavy-
lift vehicle.
  This has been met with wide consensus. The research and development 
on new technologies will continue. They will be more focused and 
directed. They will be more immediate. The capability of having the 
commercial rockets be human rated, to be the trip to and from the space 
station, will be there, and it will start immediately.
  All this dissonance and argument and criticism, it all came together 
and it passed unanimously. I await very expectantly and very hopefully 
for the Appropriations Committee--they are acting as we speak--on 
seeing the results of their work.
  Let me say in conclusion, I could name a dozen Senators. They all 
know who they are. I have said it in press conferences, and so forth, 
singing their high praises. Somewhere down the line, if this Chamber is 
still in gridlock on so many other issues that we have and if we get to 
the point we are not able to pass appropriations bills and if we, in 
fact, have to go back in order to fund the government starting October 
1 on what is called a continuing resolution, which usually is a 
continuance of the previous year's funding--hopefully, we will have 
passed by the Senate Appropriations Committee their bill that is very 
similar to the authorization bill I have just described. In that case, 
if we are in gridlock, it would be my hope, it would be the hope of 
some dozen of us Senators that we would be able, then, to take that 
Appropriations Committee bill, passed by the Senate Appropriations 
Committee, if we have to go to a continuing resolution, and put that 
NASA appropriations bill in the continuing resolution.
  The alternative would be disaster. It would be appropriating on the 
basis of last year's bill that would completely blow apart the 
consensus I have just described. It would have the manned space program 
dead in its tracks by the funding at last year's levels without the 
policy direction.
  But, despite gridlock, I am an optimist. I believe what I have laid 
out is the mere expression of support of so many of our Senators on 
both sides of the aisle so that when it comes to this little $19 
billion agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the 
agency that carries the hopes and dreams of a lot of Americans, it is 
my hope that under those circumstances, as we get on into the fall, 
that that is how we can fund NASA with an appropriations bill, if we 
cannot pass the overall CJS appropriations bill in its entirety.
  I come as someone who 2 weeks ago didn't know where in the world we 
were going or how we were going to get the votes. But Senators came 
together, and I, for one, this Senator, hope for the sake of all those 
young people out

[[Page 13361]]

there whose hearts beat a little bit faster when they see that rocket 
as it climbs into the heavens, who had the dreams of understanding what 
is out there in that universe that we are exploring--for the sake of 
all those young people, for the sake of this country and its 
technological prowess, for the sake of this country and its people, for 
the technological spin-offs that come out of the research and 
development of the space program that absolutely pervades our everyday 
life to make our quality of life better, for the sake of the future of 
this country, that we stay on the cutting edge, inspiring our young 
people into math and science and technology and engineering so we can 
stay as the leader in this global marketplace, because we have the 
ingenuity, the creativity, the inventiveness.
  A lot of that inspiration comes out of our space program, both manned 
and unmanned. It is our destiny as a people to explore. It is our 
heritage as a people that we have explored. We have always had a 
frontier. When we developed this country, we expanded westward on the 
frontier. Now that frontier is upward. We can do no less than to 
continue the quest.
  I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Hagan). The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant editor of the Daily Digest proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, after months of obstruction, we have 
overcome a shameful effort by the Republican minority to block the 
extension of emergency unemployment benefits.
  Because of the obstructionism of those on the other side of the 
aisle, more than 2 and a half million unemployed Americans have seen 
their benefits terminated in recent weeks--49 days ago, to be exact. 
They are among the nearly 6.8 million Americans who have been out of 
work for more than half a year. That is the highest number of long-term 
unemployed we have had since we started keeping track in 1948. Again, 
this is the highest number of long-term unemployment we have had since 
1948.
  In recent weeks, I have come to the Senate floor several times to 
share the heartbreaking letters and e-mails I have received from long-
term unemployed workers in Iowa. These families are struggling to 
survive. These Iowans are trying their hardest, doing everything they 
can to find any kind of work. But the jobs just aren't there.
  Officially, there are five job seekers for every new job opening. 
Unofficially, and more accurately, there are more than eight job 
seekers for every opening. Here on the chart, it says that when you 
include the discouraged workers who aren't counted in the official 
numbers, unemployment has gone up to 26 million. Yet there are 3.2 
million job openings. So there is between five and eight unemployed 
workers for every job opening.
  I say to those desperate families in Iowa and across America that we 
have listened to you, we have heard you, and we have been fighting 
desperately over the last 49 days here to get an extension of 
unemployment insurance benefits. Every time we have tried it, we have 
been obstructed by the minority, the Republicans. So thanks, today, to 
the first vote cast by the new Senator from West Virginia, Mr. Carte 
Goodwin--by the way, I might say to Senator Goodwin, who was just sworn 
in at about 2 p.m. and then cast his first vote, he can be rightfully 
proud of the first vote he cast in the Senate--to help lift up people 
who, in many cases, have lost all hope, to make sure families get the 
necessary wherewithal to put food on the table and keep their families 
together. Thanks to the first vote of the new Senator from West 
Virginia, today we were able to get cloture and stop the filibuster.
  I also thank the two Republicans--Senator Snowe and Senator Collins--
who also voted with us today to make sure we were able to get this 
extension into law.
  Just remember, on three occasions this summer Republican Senators 
pulled out the stops to filibuster and kill efforts to extend 
unemployment benefits. During that time, we heard a rising chorus on 
talk radio and even from some Senators. They said that extending 
unemployment benefits would be a bad idea because, in so many words, 
people are lazy, and they are just relying on their benefits instead of 
looking for work.
  As the distinguished minority whip, the Senator from Arizona, Mr. 
Kyl, put it:

       . . . continuing to pay people unemployment compensation is 
     a disincentive for them to seek new work.

  I believe that is woefully out of touch with the reality of trying to 
survive on unemployment benefits. Let's look at the facts. While the 
numbers vary from State to State, the average weekly unemployment 
benefit nationwide is only about $300 a week. As this chart shows, $300 
a week in UI benefits adds up to about $15,000 a year. That is the 
average. The poverty line for a family of four is $22,000 a year. So is 
the Senator from Arizona saying someone who is getting $15,000 a year--
a family of four--would rather get that than find a job and make well 
over $22,000 a year, which would be the poverty line? Would they rather 
exist on $15,000 a year than, say, $45,000 a year or $55,000 or $60,000 
a year?
  It is incredible to think that someone would say that when there is 
one job for five to eight people out there looking. To say that somehow 
by giving them $15,000 a year--$300 a week--that will keep them from 
going to work is preposterous.
  This line of argument is not just absurd and factually wrong, it is 
shameful. It is shameful to say that about hard-working Americans, who, 
through no fault of their own, are out of a job. I keep saying every 
time I come to the Senate floor that we all have jobs here. Every time 
I come here and look around, I see fellow Senators and staff--we all 
have jobs. We are not worried about tomorrow. Think about your own 
family. What if you were out of work and have been out of work for a 
year and you are out there looking for work, and for every job there 
are eight other people out there looking for that job? You have to put 
yourself in the shoes of those kinds of families.
  It is shameful to say somehow that by giving people unemployment 
benefits, they are not going to go back to work because of that--I have 
more faith in the American people. The American people want to work. In 
fact, the figures show that we are still the most productive Nation on 
Earth. Does that somehow point to lazy Americans? No. Given the 
opportunity, Americans can outwork anybody anywhere in the world--if 
there is only a job.
  To say that somehow giving unemployment benefits encourages people to 
be lazy flies in the face of the facts about hard-working Americans--
how hard they work and how productive American workers are. Well, there 
is little question that the long-term unemployed would like nothing 
more than to pull themselves up by the bootstraps. But this economy 
right now is very short on bootstraps.
  Our Republican colleagues have trotted out another justification for 
stopping extending unemployment benefits. They say that extending the 
benefits will add to the deficit. They argue that we should cut off 
some of the most desperate people in our economy. We should take away 
their last meager lifeline out of a concern for the deficit.
  Yet these very same Senators today are demanding that the 2001 and 
2003 tax breaks for the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans be extended 
for another 10 years. Let me repeat that. These same Senators on the 
Republican side who are arguing that we can't extend the unemployment 
benefits because it would add to the deficit are some of the same 
Senators who are saying these tax breaks President George Bush and a 
Republican Congress gave to the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans in 
2001 and 2003 should be extended for another 10 years. And they are 
saying the cost of those tax breaks should not be offset, they should 
simply be added to the deficit.
  So let's be clear about what our Republican friends are saying. They 
are

[[Page 13362]]

saying the roughly $33 billion cost of extending unemployment benefits 
for some of the most desperate workers in our society is unacceptable 
if it adds to the deficit, but extending tax breaks for the most 
fortunate and privileged Americans, which would cost a whopping $670 
billion over the next decade, well, we can just add that to the 
deficit. So, again, $33 billion to help people who are out of work, who 
are desperate, to help them feed their children, stay in their homes, 
pay their mortgages, keep their families together, that $33 billion we 
can't spend because it adds to the deficit; however, we can extend 
these tax breaks that cost $670 billion for another 10 years. Oh, yes, 
we can add that to the deficit. That is what my Republican friends are 
saying. Well, this is breathtaking. It is breathtaking to hear this 
line of argument. It is nothing more than a return to the Bush years 
when the President, with a Republican majority here, dragged us into 
trillion dollar wars and turned major surpluses into historic 
deficits--historic deficits. Well, today, finally, the Senate said: No, 
we are not going to go any further on this. We drew the line. We had 
our vote. Shortly, we will vote on passage of the bill--49 days too 
late.
  Imagine, if you will, that you are one of those persons and you have 
a family. Maybe you have an illness in the family. Maybe you have a 
child who is sick or a child with a disability or maybe some other 
unfortunate things have happened to you. Maybe you have been out of 
work and you lost your unemployment benefits 49 days ago. What have you 
done for those 49 days? Think about it. Think about what you would do. 
Well, I am sorry. I apologize to all those Americans, on behalf of the 
Senate, that we didn't pass this 49 days ago. But the Republican 
minority would not let us do it because of a filibuster--because of a 
filibuster--which requires 60 votes. We didn't have 60 votes until 
today. So I am sorry people had to wait 49 days, but the unemployment 
extension we will pass today will be retroactive, so it will fill in 
those last 49 days. I hope and trust that many of the bills that piled 
up on those kitchen tables--maybe the mortgage payment that wasn't made 
or maybe the mortgage company is calling all the time and hounding you 
about it, maybe you have had to go out and get one of those awful 
payday loans with high interest rates to tide you over--I hope that 
will soon get taken care of, that you will get your unemployment 
benefits and be able to pay those off. These will be extended until the 
end of November. So we can now say to the people who are unemployed: 
You will get your unemployment benefits until the end of November. And 
I hope the programs we are working on will turn this economy around.
  Tomorrow, the President will sign into law the financial reform bill 
we passed here last week. This is going to go a long way toward 
reassuring the markets that we are going to have openness and 
transparency and that we are going to now deal openly and forthrightly 
with our financial institutions and demand of them that they deal 
openly and forthrightly with the American people. I am hopeful the 
economy will turn around, but the economists say things are still kind 
of dicey. Well, if that is the case, our obligation is to make sure we 
have a safety net, and the biggest safety net of all is unemployment 
insurance benefits.
  I am sorry we had to wait 49 days because of Republican intransigence 
and their raising the filibuster on this, but we finally got it done 
today, and pretty soon those checks will be going out to our American 
families. I just hope we don't have to keep extending it. I hope the 
economy turns around. But if it doesn't--if it doesn't--I say to my 
Republican friends right now, as we go into next year, these tax breaks 
they want to extend for the wealthiest 1 percent, I am sorry, that is 
going to have to take a backseat to the people who are unemployed in 
this country. We need to make sure we do everything possible to get 
them jobs, to get them back to work, and to make sure they get the 
unemployment benefits they need until such time as those jobs do 
return.
  Madam President, with that, I yield the floor, and I suggest the 
absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll. The assistant 
bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the 
quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Udall of Colorado). Without objection, it 
is so ordered.
  Mr. CARDIN. I ask unanimous consent I be permitted to speak as in 
morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                                  iran

  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I rise today to express my deep concerns 
over Iran's nuclear ambitions and to applaud new and tougher U.S. 
sanctions recently passed by Congress.
  With both of the sanctions imposed in U.N. Resolution 1929, and the 
Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act 
becoming law, we are finally poised to inflict real damage to Iran's 
nuclear program. But only a strong, unified, and forceful 
implementation of a sanctions regime will stop Iran from continuing on 
its current dangerous path.
  While Iran still clings to the myth that its recent Turkish-Brazilian 
compromise proposal is an antidote to the global and U.S. sanctions, we 
must not waste time pretending this is a sign they are halting their 
nuclear program. Under this proposal, Iran would ship only half of its 
low enriched uranium out of the country for further enrichment while 
continuing to violate a multitude of U.N. Security Council resolutions. 
The international community cannot afford to be fooled by Tehran into 
slowing the implementation of the sanctions and this is precisely why 
we should step up pressure on the regime.
  Make no mistake: Iran wants to become a world nuclear power, with the 
ability to threaten Israel, the United States, and the global 
community.
  Containing a nuclear Iran would be virtually impossible and this 
growing threat looms large in all international diplomacy. If they 
acquired this capability, it would be an unequivocal ``game changer'' 
in the Middle East and, indeed, throughout the world. An undeniable 
threat to Israel and the United States, a nuclear Iran cannot become a 
reality. We therefore must do all in our power to prevent Iran from 
acquiring nuclear capabilities.
  I am heartened to see the administration embrace both tough global, 
but more importantly, stringent Congressional sanctions. The enactment 
of powerful and effective economic sanctions against Iran--and the 
foreign companies that do business with Tehran--will go a long way in 
further isolating this rogue nation.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, millions of Americans all across the 
country, and hundreds of thousands in my State, have lost their jobs. 
To soften the blow of those job losses, we seek to extend the emergency 
unemployment insurance benefits that many of these Americans receive. 
Since the beginning of this crisis, we have extended these benefits 
several times, but more recently, a Republican filibuster has kept us 
from doing so.
  I hope we will finally clear the way to extend these benefits today, 
because the failure to do so has been deeply wrong. It has done great 
harm to millions of American families. Already coping with an economy 
that is not yet creating the jobs they need, these families must also 
cope with the fact that because of a Republican filibuster, Congress 
has failed to provide the help they need.
  The arguments offered in opposition to this extension aren't just a 
matter of differing opinions. They are fictions. And based on these 
fictions, the opponents seek not just to block an extension of 
unemployment benefits for millions of jobless Americans, but to stop us 
from even holding a vote.
  Some opponents tell us they oppose this extension because jobless 
benefits encourage workers to stay on unemployment instead of seeking 
work. In fact, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported just last week 
that in May of this year, there were about 3.2 million job openings in 
the United States. There were at the same time roughly 15

[[Page 13363]]

million unemployed Americans. With nearly five jobless workers for 
every job opening, desire to work on the part of the American people is 
definitely not the problem. Instead of disparaging the work ethic of 
Americans, these members should help us get desperately needed aid to 
workers who lack not the desire to work, but the opportunity.
  These opponents also tell us they oppose this extension because it 
will add to the deficit. This is an odd position to take after having 
supported proposals, such as the Bush tax cuts, that added far more to 
the deficit than this legislation would add. To account for this clear 
contradiction, they say that they do not believe those tax cuts added 
to the deficit. The Republican leader was quoted last week as saying, 
``There's no evidence whatsoever that the Bush tax cuts actually 
diminished revenue.'' He went on to say that this is ``the view of 
virtually every Republican.''
  Tax cuts decrease tax revenue. This is not debatable. The entire 
economic team from President Bush's White House will tell you so. Alan 
Viard, former chief economist of President' Bush's Council of Economic 
Advisers, has said, ``Federal revenue is lower today than it would have 
been without the tax cuts. There's really no dispute among economists 
about that.'' And according to the Congressional Budget Office, roughly 
half the increase in our deficits since 2001 is due to those tax cuts. 
By contrast, the unemployment extension would barely move the needle on 
our debt.
  And what is the consequence of making these inaccurate arguments? It 
is millions of Americans dealing with tragedy on top of tragedy. Not 
only have they lost the jobs that provided a decent living for 
themselves and their families, but the benefits that could help them 
keep food on the table and help clothe their children are held up by 
politicians who fail to see that their justifications are fictional.
  It is deeply frustrating and sad that so many of our colleagues do 
not see the need to help these families. It is disappointing that they 
justify their obstruction with clearly false arguments. And it is 
outrageous that they would oppose even our ability vote on this 
measure.
  Michigan families who need us to act should not have to wait 1 more 
day for the help they need. Voting to approve this cloture motion is 
the only justifiable course.
  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I rise today to thank my colleagues for 
voting to extend the emergency unemployment compensation program 
through November 30, 2010. This vote is long overdue. While we have 
been debating the issue, families across the country dealing with long-
term unemployment have been suffering. While we have been arguing about 
this extension, they have been struggling to survive. I am pleased that 
this body has finally taken action to ease the burden they face.
  Extension of the emergency unemployment compensation program provides 
additional weeks of unemployment benefits to out-of-work Americans once 
regular State unemployment benefits have been exhausted. The number of 
weeks of benefit is determined by a State's unemployment rate.
  The legislation also extends full Federal funding of the extended 
benefits program. This program provides 13 to 20 weeks of benefits to 
unemployed workers who have exhausted regular and emergency 
unemployment compensation benefits in States with threshold 
unemployment rates.
  Thanks in part to some of the actions of this Congress, including the 
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, we are beginning to see some 
upturn in what is considered the most severe economic recession this 
Nation has experienced since the Great Depression. The recovery, 
though, is not a quick and easy process.
  Even though job loss has slowed, unemployment remains high at 9.5 
percent. This translates into 14.6 million unemployed Americans. 
Further, an unprecedented number of Americans have been without jobs 
for more than 6 months. The average length of unemployment is now 
stretching to 35 weeks. To put it simply, there are more job seekers 
than jobs available. For every job, there are five applicants.
  Americans want to work and are willing to work but until the job 
market improves, many rely on unemployment compensation to support 
themselves and their families. That is why the passage of the extension 
of emergency unemployment insurance benefits is so crucial; many 
unemployed Americans quite literally can't survive without this 
support.
  More than 19,000 Marylanders have lost their benefits due to the 
delay in passing the legislation. The average benefit in Maryland is 
$312 a week. This isn't ``money in the bank.'' It is food on the table. 
It is gas in the car. It is medicine and other necessities.
  Unemployment checks contribute to the local economy as they are spent 
almost immediately on basic goods. For Maryland, the delay in passing 
the legislation dealt a 6 million dollar blow to the State's economy 
each week. Nationally, 2.5 million Americans have lost their benefits, 
costing the economy approximately $775 million a week.
  Again, I thank my colleagues for standing up for American workers and 
families. Workers like 57-year-old Cynthia Allen of Baltimore County, 
MD. Cynthia was laid off from her data management position in January 
2009. Outsourcing has made it difficult to find another job in that 
field. So, here she is, 19 months later, savings expended, credit cards 
maxed, and unemployment benefits exhausted. Until this point, 
throughout her work history she had never drawn unemployment. Still, 
Cynthia perseveres. She continues her job search and she hopes 
something will open up for her soon. Our thoughts go out to Cynthia and 
to the millions of Americans who are struggling to survive in these 
difficult times.
  It is time to finish the job of extending these desperately needed 
benefits to people like Cynthia Allen.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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