[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Pages 11873-11877]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




       SMALL BUSINESS LENDING FUND ACT OF 2010--MOTION TO PROCEED

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will 
resume consideration of the motion to proceed to H.R. 5297, which the 
clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       Motion to proceed to the consideration of H.R. 5297, a bill 
     to create the Small Business Lending Fund Program to direct 
     the Secretary of the Treasury to make capital investments in 
     eligible institutions in order to increase the availability 
     of credit for small businesses, to amend the Internal Revenue 
     Code of 1986 to provide tax incentives for small business job 
     creation, and for other purposes.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana is recognized.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, as we continue the important work of the 
Senate this week on a number of important bills, one of them being the 
small business package that is before this body now, we are always 
mindful, as we come to the floor with the beautiful flowers on Senator 
Byrd's desk, of the great loss we are all experiencing. His colleagues 
here and in his home State of West Virginia, the Nation and, as you 
know, many people around the world are mourning the death of a great 
Senator, a very well-known Senator, a very well-respected Senator, and 
a very historic figure.
  So as we all do our work today, it is with heavy hearts that we work. 
I told my staff today walking into the building, it seems so empty and 
particularly quiet, and it is because of the great respect this Senator 
enjoyed in his life and now enjoys in his death.
  But as even Senator Byrd would say if he were here, the work of the 
Senate, which he loved very much, needs to go on because it is the work 
of the people in a very special way. It is in that spirit that I come 
to the floor to briefly talk about a bill we are attempting to move to.
  It is a major piece of legislation. It has three distinct components. 
It has been in shape and in the works for many months now. A part of 
this bill has come out of the Small Business Committee. I am extremely 
proud, as the chair of that committee, that the package we have 
contributed has been built on strong, solid bipartisan support. In 
fact, many of the provisions came out of our committee 17 to 0 or 17 to 
1 or 18 to 0. We have had tremendous cooperation on the part of my 
ranking member, Senator Snowe, who has been to the floor several times 
in the last couple of weeks, joining me in talking about the importance 
of focusing the congressional efforts and Congress's efforts on small 
business, on Main Street.
  We have spent a lot of the last year and a half dealing with the big 
companies, the big companies on Wall Street,

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the big banks, the big insurance companies, the big health care 
companies. We have had to deal with it because it has been in a state 
of crisis where Wall Street was going to collapse, the financial 
structures were collapsing. We had to act quickly. The health care 
tragedies or stresses were clearly visible, and we had to work our way 
through that. But now it is time for this Congress, at this time, this 
summer, to focus on small business, because these are the businesses on 
the front line of the battle against this recession. And this is a 
battle. It is a battle to end this recession, to fight and win our way 
back to prosperity. Much of this can be accomplished if we would focus 
on the businesses in our neighborhoods, on Main Street, on the farm-to-
market road, the small business owners driving those pickup trucks, 
delivering supplies and equipment all over America, in urban areas and 
in rural areas.
  We would be very much helped if we could get our minds and our hearts 
on them, because they are going to be the ones that lead us out of this 
recession. Small firms created 65 percent of all new jobs from 1993 to 
2009. It was true in the early 1990s. It was probably true if you would 
go back to the 1980s, probably true in the 1970s. It is true today. Job 
creation is not going to come 1,000 jobs at a time. It comes one at a 
time, two at a time, or three new jobs in small businesses all over 
America.
  What we do here on tax policy, on strengthening the Small Business 
Administration, on freeing up capital for them, is going to make the 
difference between whether this recession comes to an end. So I am 
pleased about the work that has been done.
  A portion of our bill has come through the Small Business Committee. 
A portion of the bill has come through the Finance Committee. I have to 
take my hat off to the Senator from Montana, Max Baucus, and his 
ranking member, Senator Grassley, former Chairman Grassley, from Iowa. 
They have worked nonstop and overtime on a number of bills that have to 
do with our Tax Code. But they have set aside this special time for 
their committee to work on tax relief, tax extensions, tax relief for 
small businesses to add to this package.
  So it is a portion of tax cuts and tax relief for small businesses 
that is so important, to strengthen the Small Business Administration 
programs that we know have been effective, not just throwing money at 
government programs but targeting the government programs that we know 
work because we have studied them, and we have gotten reports from not 
just the government bureaucrats--and there are many good ones here--but 
we have been hearing from businesses: Senator, this works for me. Can 
you get us more of it? That is what this bill is about.
  Then finally there is a piece that has come from the leadership, from 
the President himself, from the White House, through the Treasury 
Department, to say: What can we do to leverage some assets of the 
Federal Treasury to create a $30 billion lending pool, not for the big 
banks--they have gotten enough of our money and enough of our 
attention, as far as I am concerned--but the small banks on Main 
Street. There are 8,000 of them. They are the ones that need a little 
help, a little financing to help them, not on their bottom lines in 
terms of their stability because they are quite stable. I am extremely 
proud of our small banks around this country that did not go belly up. 
They are strong. They have money to lend. We want to give them some 
additional funding to lend.
  I am proud that the Independent Bankers Association has sent us a 
letter, which I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

 ICBA and 28 State Community Bank Associations Urge Prompt Passage of 
                    Small Business Lending Fund Bill

       Washington, DC, (June 15, 2010).--The Independent Community 
     Bankers of America (ICBA) and 28 affiliated state 
     associations sent a letter to House Banking Committee 
     Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Ranking Member Spencer 
     Bachus (R-Ala.) today urging prompt passage of the proposed 
     Small Business Lending Fund Act of 2010 (H.R. 5297). ICBA 
     said that the $30 billion in capital provided by the Small 
     Business Lending Fund (SBLF) could help community banks 
     provide as much as $300 billion in additional small business 
     lending.
       ``On behalf of ICBA's nearly 5,000 members and our state 
     partner community banking associations, we strongly support 
     the proposed Small Business Lending Fund and urge prompt 
     passage of this important legislation,'' said Camden R. Fine, 
     ICBA president and CEO. ``The nation's 8,000 community banks 
     are well-positioned because of their established 
     relationships with small businesses in their communities to 
     use the fund to get credit flowing.''
       Under H.R. 5297, interested banks with less than $1 billion 
     in assets could receive capital investments up to 5 percent 
     of their risk-weighted assets, and those with between $1 
     billion and $10 billion in assets could receive up to 3 
     percent. The SBLF has important incentives to encourage 
     greater small business lending by reducing the dividend rate 
     community banks pay on the capital as they increase their 
     lending.
       ``ICBA firmly supports the central purpose of the program 
     to spur further lending to small businesses by means of 
     community banks,'' said Jim MacPhee, ICBA Chairman and CEO of 
     Kalamazoo County State Bank, Schoolcraft, Mich. ``We applaud 
     the new program's focus on getting funds to Main Street small 
     businesses using Main Street community banks. We urge all 
     members of Congress to vote for H.R. 5297.''

  Ms. LANDRIEU. The Independent Community Bankers Association has sent 
to Senator Snowe and me a strong recommendation. They say: On behalf of 
5,000 members and our State partner community banking associations, we 
strongly support the proposed Small Business Lending Fund, and urge 
prompt passage of this important legislation. The nation's 8,000 
community bankers are well positioned because of their established 
relationships with small businesses in their communities to use the 
funds to get credit flowing.
  Under the proposal that is being brought to the floor today, banks 
with less than $1 billion in assets could receive capital investments 
up to 5 percent of their risk-weighted assets, and those with between 
$1 billion and $10 billion in assets could receive up to 3 percent.
  We know community banks are the ones that small businesses do go to, 
some with more success than others, and that is a speech for another 
day. But I do know there are a number of bankers who say: Senator 
Landrieu, Senator Snowe, we want to lend to our small businesses, and 
if you can help us with a few things, we could do a better job.
  In addition, we also know that small businesses use their credit 
cards for capital. We also know our small businesses go to family 
members. They dig into their own savings to find the money needed to 
initiate or support their business. We also know they go to their 
uncles and aunts. Financing through family members has been a 
traditional way that small business owners use, and credit unions.
  So everything we can do now--we cannot have a relief to the great 
uncle and aunt bill. That is a little bit out of our reach. But we can 
help our small banks, our small business agencies. We can look hard on 
credit card companies and their practices and make sure they are doing 
right by businesses. We are trying to do all of that one step at a 
time.
  Let me take a minute or two to explain a few pieces of this bill. 
This is one of the most important components. This chart is startling. 
Two of the most important programs that SBA operates are the 7(a) and 
504 loan programs. These are the loan programs that all of the Federal 
Government--these are the programs that focus most directly on small 
business loans in America. They allow a 90-percent guarantee and allow 
the waiver of fees.
  We did this, when the recession started, so a small business could go 
into a bank and say: I have got a great idea. I want to expand; even 
though my neighborhood is a little bit in the doldrums, and even though 
my product is not in great demand today, I think it will be in the 
future. Can I have a loan? And the bank officer says: Well, we do not 
quite have money for you. But let me look in the 7(a) program. They can 
get a 90-percent loan backed up by the Federal Government, and these 
loans can be made without fees.
  This is how low we were in 2008. We were only down to $200 million in 
loans back in 2008. You can see through the

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recession how low this was. When we acted, we acted back here in 2009 
and started doing some increased guarantees, reducing the fees. It 
worked. We spiked the number of loans up to almost $1.2 billion.
  But as you can see, Congress's actions have a direct effect on this 
lending to small business. Look here. Now we are down below where we 
were 2 years ago. This bill will move this number back up, and this 
bill will help this number stay up. This represents thousands of loans 
to small businesses, without which they cannot create the jobs that we 
need and the country needs to get us out of the recession. This is a 
very important component of our bill. I am very proud of that 
component.
  One more chart we will show. This is a startling chart. I have used 
this several times. I hope people understand the potential for growth. 
There is real potential here.
  Right now in America, 1 percent of small businesses export. Think 
about that. We are only 4 percent of the world's population, so 96 
percent of everybody else lives somewhere else. The market is very big 
outside of America, although we are a very important market. So we can 
help our small businesses learn to be better exporters. With the 
Internet, now it becomes so possible for them to export products, with 
first day, short delivery times, all on-time delivery from airplanes, 
trains, trucks that can deliver products everywhere. Plus, there are so 
many ideas now with services. The small business here that has a great 
idea on the Internet, it becomes a great idea in Vietnam or in Korea or 
a country in Africa. They can sell those products. So this bill does a 
great deal, with Senator Snowe's help, where she did pioneering work in 
this area to help us give technical assistance to more small businesses 
and help them become experts on exporting so they can keep the money, 
the profits, and the jobs right here at home.
  My colleague has been good about waiting, but I wanted to share a few 
of the aspects of this important bill. We are going to be voting I hope 
today at about 2 o'clock or so. We hope to get the 60 votes necessary 
to move to this package.
  As a manager of this package, I can say Senator Baucus as well, we 
are open to amendments people might want to have to perfect it. But we 
believe this is a very good, solid package to bring up. It is time that 
we focus on the small businesses of America. They deserve our best 
efforts between now and the end of the year or as long as it takes. 
They have not gotten the attention they deserve. So if we can get 60 
votes, we may not be able to get all our work done this week, but we 
believe in the next couple of weeks we can get the work done on this 
bill.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida is recognized.


                             Gulf Oilspill

  Mr. LeMIEUX. Mr. President, yesterday I had the opportunity to be in 
Pensacola, FL, to look at the impact the oilspill is having on my home 
State of Florida. I went out in the morning and walked on the beach and 
saw, unfortunately, the oil that has spewed across our beautiful beach 
in Pensacola, one of the most beautiful beaches in the world. Not only 
did I see the scattering of droplets of oil across the beach first 
thing in the morning, I also saw what I will call not just tar balls 
but tar rocks--rocks the size of grapefruit that had emulsified, almost 
petrified, and found their way to the shore.
  Later in the day, I also took another trip to the beach to the place 
where we get naturally occurring tidal pools just a few feet from where 
the ocean meets the coastline. In those pools, I could see oil that had 
seeped into the sand. Now we are to the point where the oil is seeping 
into the sand faster than it can be cleaned up. The fear is, as the 
sand washes over that oil, it will be buried and we will continue to 
discover it for months and perhaps years on end. What effect it will 
have on the beaches and our ecosystem is unknown.
  This spill has been going on for 71 days. Throughout this time, I 
have been calling upon greater Federal response to this tragedy in the 
gulf--most importantly, the need to have more skimmers off of our 
shoreline. Amazingly, we have not deployed the full panoply of assets 
we have in this country to protect our beaches, to protect our coastal 
waterways, to protect our estuaries. One would think every skimmer in 
the United States would be in the Gulf of Mexico. One would think every 
foreign skimmer that has offered assistance would be deployed off our 
shores. But one would be incorrect in thinking that because it is not 
the case.
  When I met with the President 2 weeks ago today in Pensacola, I urged 
him to bring more skimmers to the gulf coast. At that time, we had 
about 32 skimmers off the coast of Florida. That number fell to 24 
shortly thereafter. It is now, according to the State of Florida, up to 
89, according to the incident report today. That is an improvement. The 
Feds say there are 130. The State number and the Fed number have never 
matched, so somewhere between 89 and 130 skimmers are off the coast of 
Florida.
  We believe there are about 400 skimmers in the Gulf of Mexico alone. 
That number may sound like a lot, but when one thinks of an area going 
all the way from Louisiana to Panama City, FL, we look out on the 
beach, and we don't see a single one.
  How many skimmers are available to be deployed? We found out last 
week there are skimmers remaining. As of June 21, in the United States, 
there were 2,000 skimmers remaining. It sounds as if that is in 
addition to the 400 in the gulf right now. From Texas, district 8, 
through the Florida, Georgia, South Carolina district, which is 
district 7, there are 850 skimmers in whole or in part not being 
deployed. That makes absolutely no sense.
  I have been calling for weeks now for this government, this 
administration to sign an Executive order releasing all skimmers in the 
United States to come to the Gulf of Mexico to clean up the oilspill.
  When I talked about this issue with the President, I said to him: We 
need to get all these skimmers now. If there are 2,000, they need to be 
in the gulf. They need to be steaming toward the gulf now. There should 
be an armada of skimmers off the beaches of Florida, Mississippi, 
Alabama, and Louisiana.
  The response I got was: Some of these skimmers have to stay in place 
in case there is an oilspill.
  That is like saying: We can't send a firetruck to your house because 
there may be a fire burning someplace else. That is not much solace to 
you if your house is burning down.
  There is some good news. We have found out that as of yesterday, the 
Department of Homeland Security and the Coast Guard, along with the 
Environmental Protection Agency, have issued an emergency order. The 
order is signed by Admiral Papp from the Coast Guard and Lisa Jackson, 
Administrator of EPA. It is a temporary suspension of certain oilspill 
response time requirements to support the Deepwater Horizon oilspill, 
the urgently needed immediate relocation of nationwide oilspill 
response resources to the Gulf of Mexico. It also calls upon the Navy, 
with which I met earlier last week, to release assets it has.
  There are legal restrictions that require these skimmers to be in 
certain places around the country if there is a certain amount of 
traffic--for example, commercial traffic, the ports, or whatever. We 
need to keep skimmers in place. This order, which we have been calling 
on for weeks, releases those skimmers. It says it is done because there 
is an urgent need. It is not so urgent when we do it on day 70. It is 
welcomed, but it wasn't done urgently. It says, on page 9 of this 
order, that this was done in response to a memorandum Admiral Watson of 
the Coast Guard did on June 16 saying there was an urgent need to 
reallocate skimmers. I am glad to see that because that is the day 
after I met with the President in Pensacola. I am glad the President 
got the word out to the Coast Guard and got them to start working on 
this order. We got it done. So we hope we will now see skimmers from 
around the country making their way to the gulf.
  I have a list today of these 2,000 skimmers and where they are 
located. I

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am going to come to the floor every day we are here and track these 
skimmers to make sure they are getting where they need to go. It is 
only through efforts by myself and others in the Senate who have called 
this out, who have said: Where are these skimmers, that we have gotten 
the sense of urgency to get them there, albeit not so urgently when it 
has taken 70 days. That is the issue of the domestic skimmers. Help is 
on the way. The rule has been signed. We are appreciative of that. We 
will see if those skimmers make it there anytime soon. We need them 
there because the oil is washing up on the shores. It is not only oil 
washing up, it is failure. It is failure because these skimmers were 
not in place earlier.
  I wish to talk about a second topic, which is international 
assistance. I came to the floor last week with a picture of this 
vessel, the Swan. It was offered on May 6 to the United States from a 
Dutch company, Dockwise. It had the capacity of soaking up 20,000 tons 
of oil a day, nearly 6 million gallons of oil a day. The Federal 
Government never got back to this Dutch company. Instead, an American 
ship was used. We are glad to see that. We want American ships used. 
But that ship only had one-twentieth the capability of this ship. My 
response is, use all of them. Use every one we can. Our country in our 
goodness is the first to respond when there is a disaster someplace 
else. Whether it is a typhoon, an earthquake, America, through the 
goodness of the hearts of our people, goes forward and gives help. When 
other countries are offering us assistance, even when we have to pay 
for it, we should be taking it. This ship never got used. How much oil 
would have been sucked up by the Swan if it was in the gulf doing its 
job? How much oil would have been off the beaches of Florida, Alabama, 
Mississippi, and Louisiana if this ship was doing its job? This is an 
emblem of an opportunity missed. Now this ship is no longer available.
  There were something like 56 offers of assistance from foreign 
countries and associations, and only 6 were accepted by the government. 
They tell us the Jones Act--a law that prohibits foreign flag ships--is 
not the reason we are not getting these ships in. They tell us the 
Jones Act only applies to 3 miles in, coastal waterways. Therefore, it 
is no prohibition to bringing these ships in. One, that is not what 
these folks think because they didn't get their ship in, and two, I 
don't care what the reason is, whether it is the Jones Act or some 
other law, these ships should be here. This is not a Republican issue 
or a Democratic issue; this is an issue of competence. These ships 
should be there.
  Let me show you the next ship we have a chance at, and hopefully we 
won't mess this up. The Swan was a very big ship. This ship is aptly 
named ``A Whale.'' It is the world's largest skimmer, if reports are 
correct. It is making its way from Virginia to the Gulf of Mexico. The 
skimming capacity of this ship is at least 250 times that of the 
modified fishing boats currently attempting to skim the gulf. This one 
ship can skim as much as 250 of the skimmers that are in the gulf now 
in a single day. The vessel's capacity is sufficient to draw in as much 
as 500,000 barrels of oil. The Swan could do 20,000 barrels. This is 
500,000 barrels of oil per 8- to 10-hour cycle. This is the mother of 
all skimmers. It is like the size of an aircraft carrier. We do not 
know yet whether this ship is going to be allowed in the gulf to skim 
up oil. It is beyond belief, it is beyond comprehension that we would 
not use this ship and ships like it to get the job done.
  I will be doing everything I can to make sure A Whale or any other 
ship of this size can be in the Gulf of Mexico to help us. We want the 
domestic assets. We want the small skimmers we have now. The ones 
coming from the Navy can fit on the back of a truck or fit in a plane 
or on a railcar. They are small. We are happy to have them, but they 
pale in comparison to the size of A Whale, reportedly the world's 
largest skimmer. I ask the President, why aren't we letting this ship 
in the gulf to skim up the oil? It is beyond belief. It is beyond 
comprehension.
  I will continue to come to the Chamber every day we are here to talk 
about this issue, about foreign ships that can help, about domestic 
ships being deployed, until we stop the oil from spilling on the bottom 
of the gulf, until we clean up all the oil that is in the gulf right 
now. It is impacting the lives of Floridians. When I was in Pensacola 
yesterday and talked to everyday Floridians, I could see the anguish in 
their eyes. I could see the stress and hear it in their voices. People 
move to Florida because they love the water. Ninety percent of 
Floridians live within 10 miles of the water. They have more 
recreational boaters than any State in the Union, more coastline than 
any State in the continental United States. It is part of our way of 
life. Every resource available should be used to keep this oil from 
coming ashore.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware is recognized.
  Mr. KAUFMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in 
morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (The remarks of Mr. Kaufman are printed in today's Record under 
``Morning Business.'')


  In Praise of Eileen Harrington, Lois Greisman, Allen Hile, Stephen 
          Warren, Carolyn Shanoff, and Lawrence DeMille-Wagman

  Mr. KAUFMAN. Mr. President, I wish to talk about some other great 
Federal employees. Many of the great achievements I have hailed from 
this desk concern grand challenges relating to our national security, 
domestic tranquility, or our economic recovery. Today, I wish to 
recognize a team of highly skilled, highly motivated Federal employees 
whose achievement has positively affected the daily lives of average 
Americans.
  In 2003, six outstanding employees of the Federal Trade Commission 
worked together to implement the National Do Not Call Registry. 
Americans used to be plagued--I can remember it always seemed to happen 
around dinnertime--by telemarketer solicitations, which always seemed 
to come just when you least wanted them. The six men and women I am 
honoring today brought relief to families across the country by 
implementing the Do Not Call Registry. Led by Eileen Harrington, the 
team consisted of Lois Greisman, Allen Hile, Stephen Warren, Carolyn 
Shanoff, and Lawrence DeMille-Wagman. They all brought to the table a 
strong background in a number of fields, including law, marketing, and 
business.
  The FTC's Do Not Call Registry launched 7 years ago this week quickly 
became a hit. Within the first 4 days, 10 million Americans registered 
their phone numbers. Just a year after it launched, a poll found--this 
is incredible--91 percent of adults had heard of the registry and--can 
you believe it--over half had already signed up. When Eileen and her 
team won the 2004 Service to America medal for citizen services, the 
registry had nearly 60 million numbers. That was in 2004. Today, that 
has risen to over 150 million.
  To turn a good idea into a great program, the team spent several 
months designing and implementing the Do Not Call Registry as part of 
the FTC's rulemaking process. It required the participation of many at 
the Consumer Protection Bureau, the Economic Bureau, and the General 
Counsel's Office. Information system experts and legal minds worked 
closely together with senior executives, and they were joined by 
financial analysts and congressional relations staff. Once the policy 
had been crafted, there was a period of public comment, which saw over 
64,000 suggestions on how to improve the registry, many of which were 
adopted in the final program.
  In the 7 years since the Do Not Call Registry was launched, it has 
become one of the most successful government programs in terms of the 
number of Americans it has affected positively in such an incredibly 
short period of time.
  I am also proud to share with my colleagues that all of the members 
of the FTC's ``do not call'' team are still serving in the Federal 
Government.
  Eileen Harrington remained at the FTC for a few years and in 2009 was 
appointed as the Chief Operating Officer for the Small Business 
Administration.

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  Stephen Warren served as Chief Information Officer at the FTC until 
2007, when he moved over to the Department of Veterans Affairs as 
Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Information Technology.
  Lois Greisman leads the FTC's Division of Marketing Practices within 
the Consumer Protection Bureau, and her responsibilities include 
enforcing the rules against telemarketing fraud and online investment 
schemes.
  Also with the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection is Carolyn Shanoff, 
who today serves as the Associate Director for Consumer and Business 
Education. In this role, she has been instrumental in the fight against 
identity theft.
  Allen Hile and Lawrence DeMille-Wagman are also still at the FTC. 
Allen serves as Assistant Director, and Lawrence works as an attorney.
  We are all very fortunate that accomplished men and women such as 
these choose to stay in government and continue working on behalf of 
the American people. I hope my colleagues will join me in recognizing 
the great work of the FTC ``do not call'' team and thanking them on 
behalf of all Americans for their important work. They are all truly 
great Federal employees.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming is recognized.
  Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I thank the Presiding Officer, and I thank 
the Senator from Delaware for those comments in his weekly update on 
Federal employees and the great job they are doing. In the Health, 
Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, we know quite a few of them 
who are doing outstanding work, even something that would surprise 
America; that is, cooperation between agencies that is outstanding. So 
I thank the Senator for his efforts.

                          ____________________