[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 6]
[Senate]
[Pages 8164-8195]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




  SMALL BUSINESS ADDITIONAL TEMPORARY EXTENSION ACT OF 2011--Continued

  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator 
Sessions be recognized to speak for up to 20 minutes for debate only.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Brown of Ohio). Without objection, it is 
so ordered.
  The Senator from Alabama.


                               The Budget

  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, we had an unfortunate series of votes 
last night, in my opinion, because it was all arranged by our 
leadership in the Senate to have a series of votes to do nothing. That 
is unfortunate because the United States of America, and the Senate are 
proceeding with an idea that they do not have to have a budget. In 
fact, the majority leader, Senator Reid, said it would be foolish to 
pass a

[[Page 8165]]

budget. And as one of the staffers said, on background: Well, if we 
pass a budget, we will have to tell people how much we are going to 
raise their taxes and talk about spending reductions, and that will not 
be popular.
  What did they do? One of the most incredible things I have ever seen 
in the Senate. Did they express regret that they could not pass a 
budget, that they would not state for the American people a vision for 
spending and the financial future of America? No. What did they do? 
They have the majority in the Senate. They called up the budget passed 
by the House of Representatives, which is a really historic budget, an 
honest budget that deals fairly and objectively with the challenges we 
are facing, reduces spending, actually was able to reduce some taxes, 
and proposed, a decade out, that the Congress confront Medicare because 
it is going broke. So what did they do? They called up that budget. Did 
they call it up to amend it? Did they call it up to offer us a chance 
to debate it and offer amendments and fix anything anybody did not like 
about it? No. That was not what was done. They brought it up only with 
the most limited debate before all four votes. They stacked all four 
votes on four different budgets and projections and just voted them 
down. They voted down every budget that was offered.
  I have on my desk in my office the President's budget. It is four 
volumes, hundreds of pages, and it lays out a budget. Every President 
submits budgets. They have a 500-person Office of Management and Budget 
staff. Every year, they produce a budget. The law requires them to 
produce a budget. This is the Code, the United States Code Annotated, 
and in this is the law that says a President should submit a budget and 
the date by which he should do it. It says the U.S. Senate should 
commence markup in the Budget Committee by April 1 and the Congress 
should pass a budget by April 15. Last I heard, April 15 is long since 
passed.
  How do you get a budget out of committee and to the floor of the 
Senate? What are we supposed to do by April 1? The chairman is supposed 
to call a markup, and he is supposed to bring up the budget he 
proposes, offer it to the Budget Committee. It is open for amendment, 
change, and debate, then it is voted on. A budget should then come out 
of the committee to the floor of the Senate. It has expedited 
procedures, but you are allowed to offer amendments, and there is 50 
hours of debate--not too much. It does not require the normal 60 votes 
we have to have for legislation here; it only requires a majority, 50 
votes.
  That is basically designed, frankly--when the people wrote the Budget 
Act back in the 1970s--to allow the majority party to be able to pass a 
budget because there were too many filibusters of budgets and no 
budgets were getting passed. If you have the majority in the Senate, at 
least you should be able to produce a budget. So it provides the 
Democratic majority--the 53 Democratic Senators they have--the 
opportunity to produce a budget on a partisan basis if it cannot be 
done on a bipartisan basis. So the normal process is, you work with 
your colleagues on the other side of the aisle, and if you think a good 
agreement can be made in a bipartisan fashion, you do so and move a 
bipartisan budget.
  I remember last year when Senator Gregg, our Republican ranking 
member, talked about his conversation with Senator Conrad, and he said: 
He is not letting me see the budget. It is going to be produced the 
next morning. What that means is, he is going to produce a partisan 
budget. He does not want our opinion. He is not going to show us what 
is in his budget until the day of the mark-up.
  So this year, we wrote--all the Republican members; I am the ranking 
member now--we asked the Budget chairman to show us his mark 72 hours 
before the mark-up because he had not consulted with us and it appeared 
he was going to produce a partisan budget. Actually, he told me the 
date the hearing would commence to mark up his budget, but he did 
decline to give us any advance notice or opportunity to see what was in 
it.
  All I am saying is that the procedure is set up realistically under 
the Budget Act to allow the majority party to meet its responsibility 
to pass a budget. They do not need a single Republican vote to pass a 
budget. I think it is better if you can get a bipartisan agreement. 
Oftentimes in the past, there have been. But since budgets represent 
visions for America, oftentimes in recent years they have gone on 
pretty much a party line but not 100 percent. That is what I would say.
  So the President submitted his budget, and it was roundly criticized 
around the country, and I was a very severe critic of it. So we offered 
that budget last night. That was one of the four budgets that was 
offered. We brought it up. It is the only Democratic budget to be 
produced. I believe the Progressive Caucus produced one in the House, 
but, of course, it did not pass. It had a lot of tax increases, a lot 
of spending increases in it. It had no chance whatsoever of being 
passed. The American people sent us a message last year that they want 
us to get spending under control. They want us to reduce the size and 
scope of government. That is what they asked us to do.
  So the President's budget came up last night, and, 97 to 0, every 
Democrat voted against the President's budget. Well, they should 
because it was unacceptable. I have referred to it as the most 
irresponsible budget in the history of our country because we are in a 
deeper financial hole than we have ever been. That is just a fact, and 
it is not a short-term, little problem; it is a problem that is getting 
worse in the years to come.
  So the American people have come to the conclusion that we need to 
change the trajectory of debt that we are piling on year after year, 
month after month, day after day, by the billions--trillions, really.
  The President's budget, as scored by the Congressional Budget Office, 
would produce uncontrolled debt year after year after year, in amounts 
never before contemplated in our country, making the debt trajectory of 
our current baseline spending worse, not better.
  I was under the impression everybody understood we had to change and 
get better. I thought, when we came in with this Congress, the debate 
would be over how much to change in the right direction, how much could 
we do to reduce the deficits, put us on the right path. Not the 
President's budget, which made things worse.
  According to the Congressional Budget Office, which analyzed his 
budget and scored it, as we say, the lowest single deficit that budget 
would produce is $748 billion, the lowest deficit to be produced under 
his 10-year budget. President Bush was criticized for spending. The 
highest budget deficit he had was $450 billion. That was the highest 
President Bush had, and he was criticized for that by many of my 
Democratic colleagues quite vociferously.
  President Obama is now heading to his third trillion dollar budget 
deficit. This year, it is going to be $1.5 trillion, it looks like 
three times the size of President Bush's highest deficit. As I said, 
the lowest deficit they are projecting is $748 billion, and then it 
starts going back up again. In his 10th year, according to the 
Congressional Budget Office, the deficit will be $1.2 trillion.
  It is an indefensible, irresponsible budget. I am stunned that it was 
presented here. It has been widely criticized, as well it should be. So 
it was voted down last night.
  If you are going to vote down something, should you not offer 
something in its place? That is what the fiscal commission that 
President Obama appointed said. That was their rule. That is what they 
promoted publicly: If you oppose a budget, you should offer your own. 
And, in fact, after Congressman Ryan, who served on the fiscal 
commission with Mr. Bowles and Senator Simpson, the cochairmen, he 
produced a budget. They gave him great credit. They said it was honest 
and courageous, and it faced the challenges of America, and it deserved 
respect, and then said: Anybody who does not agree with that should 
show what they would do.

[[Page 8166]]

  So yesterday afternoon, we had the spectacle of Democratic Senators 
hammering and complaining about the Ryan budget, which in my opinion is 
the most historic and responsible budget to be produced in decades. No, 
it is not perfect. It is perfectly acceptable to believe that it ought 
to be amended. But it was a historic, honest attempt at dealing with 
the fiscal challenges we face, and would put us on a financial path to 
solvency and stability and eliminate the risk we are facing. We 
probably should do more to reduce spending than he proposed. But it was 
courageous and bold and honest and without gimmicks. I thought a very 
impressive document. I looked forward to debating parts of it in our 
Budget Committee.
  So what did we have last night? Yesterday? They just brought it up 
and every Democratic Member voted it down. And why? Because he had the 
gumption to actually suggest that for people 55 and younger, we should 
begin to create a Medicare system that would be solvent and effective 
and save Medicare, because the trustees have reduced the year again at 
which it goes insolvent. Senator Reid and Senator Schumer had cleverly 
thought up this theory and were explicit about it. Their theory was 
they would not bring up their own budget. They would not tell the 
American people how much they wanted to increase their taxes. They 
would not tell the American people they were going to cut anything, 
because they might make someone unhappy and be unpopular. They would 
just call up the Ryan budget and attack Republicans as wanting to kill 
Medicare, and produce nothing in response. They do not have any plan to 
fix the situation we are in.
  I am disappointed about that. It is unthinkable that we would be 
recessing and going home for a week without commencing markup hearings 
in the Budget Committee to produce a budget that we are required by law 
to produce. It is unthinkable we would do that.
  I will be presenting to the majority leader a letter today from 
Senators on our side of the aisle--large numbers of Senators have 
signed it, saying, we do not need to go home until we have confronted 
this problem, and you have shown us how we are going to move forward to 
meet our statutory responsibility to pass a budget.
  I think that is reasonable. That is what we are going to be asking 
today. I am not going to vote to go home without having met our duty. 
We call up our young men and women in uniform. We say: You will go to 
Iraq for a year. They say: Well, I would rather not go. It is in your 
contract. You signed up. You have to go. It is your duty. And they say, 
yes, sir, and they go.
  Many of them have lost lives and limbs and we ought to remember them 
this Memorial Day. But Do not we have a duty here? I think we do. I 
think we have a duty to the United States of America to produce a 
budget, whether or not it is law. But it is law in the United States 
Code. That is our duty. We do not need to be going home until we 
fulfill it, and we have a plan to go forward with it. I want to say 
this is not a little bitty matter with me. We are not going to have 
four votes--as we did yesterday--and then the majority leader is going 
to say, see, it is foolish to produce a budget. I told you we could not 
produce a budget. We are not going to fool with having a budget this 
year.
  It has been 757 days since the Senate has had a budget, because the 
majority leader did not bring up a budget last year either. Does 
anybody have any wonder about why we are going to have a $1.5 trillion 
deficit this year, why 40 cents of every dollar we spend is borrowed? 
We spend $3.7 trillion and we take in only $2.2 trillion.
  Experts and financial wizards all over the world are telling us, what 
are you doing in the United States? You are about to threaten the 
world's most prominent economy. It could have worldwide ramifications. 
Our debt to GDP compares with Portugal and Spain, almost as high as 
Greece. It will be 100 percent by September 30 of this year.
  And we are going away without a budget again. The people who have 
asked to be given a leadership responsibility in the Congress cannot 
even comply with the Budget Act. They refuse to stand before the 
American people and say what they want to tax, what they want to spend, 
what they want to cut--because it would not be popular. It would be 
foolish.
  I do not think so. It is not acceptable. You asked to be the leader 
of this Congress. You asked to be the President of the United States. 
You have a responsibility to submit a responsible budget, an honest 
budget, a fact-based budget, a budget the American people have an 
opportunity to understand, to read and study before we vote. And if the 
American people find we have cast a bad vote, they can cast a good vote 
to throw some people out of Congress.
  They threw some people out last fall. It does not look like we have 
gotten the message--Business as usual. We are in denial. We do not have 
to change. Oh, no, you cannot cut this spending program. What do you 
mean you cannot cut spending programs? Give me a break. The Alabama 
Governor, Dr. Bentley, had to announce a 15-percent reduction in 
discretionary spending. Why? He did not have the money. Is that 
something we have forgotten in Washington--when you do not have money, 
you should not spend it?
  Well, you say, it is all because of this economy, or something else. 
Look, under President Obama, nondefense discretionary spending in 2 
years went up 24 percent. We are going broke. We are increasing 
spending on all the government programs. On an average, in the last 2 
years that is 12 percent a year. You know, the value of your money will 
double in 10 years if your interest is 7 percent. At 12 percent, I 
guess the size of government would increase and double in 6 years.
  Great scott. No wonder people are upset with us. We have been 
spending incredibly recklessly. Also the 12 percent I mentioned--24 
percent in 2 years--that does not include the stimulus package, the 
almost $900 billion stimulus package that was thrown out the door with 
almost no oversight. It was just designed to spend. And do you 
remember, it was supposed to stimulate the economy.
  We probably have had the slowest ever rebound from a recession. It 
has been a very shaky recovery. They will say, well, we should have 
spent more. But Rogoff and Reinhart, the professors, tell us, when your 
debt gets as high as that of the United States, then you begin to show 
a decline in growth. One percent of GDP growth is reduced when your 
debt reaches 90 percent of GDP. We reached that this year, and we will 
go over 100 percent by September 30.
  This is the budget that the President has submitted to us. He has a 
large staff over there. They maintain it. A large number of them have 
been there for many years. The President submitted to us a budget. It 
was rejected yesterday 97 to 0. It confirms the fact that we do not 
have a legitimate budget before us. The President's budget has been 
rejected utterly. The Democrats have refused to produce one.
  They say: Why don't you have a mark-up and offer your budget? I 
cannot call a mark-up. The chairman calls the mark-up. The majority 
leaders confer and tell the chairmen when to call a mark-up. They 
decided not to call a budget mark-up. We do not have an opportunity to 
go to the Budget Committee and pass a budget.
  We had such tremendous interest, and a lot of the new people who got 
elected to the Senate last fall wanted to be on the Budget Committee. 
They traveled their States. They had heard from their people all over 
their States that they wanted us to control spending. They wanted to be 
on the committee. It was the committee which had more interest and more 
people pushing to be on it than any other committee. We finally 
selected a fabulous group of people to serve on the committee. And now 
we do not meet. Now we are not even going to mark up a budget. What a 
disappointment for those new Members coming here with vim and vigor and 
ready to do something about the future of the Republic.
  You know, one of the things that was interesting about the 
President's budget is how much praise it got from our

[[Page 8167]]

Democratic colleagues who voted it down last night when it came out. 
This is what Senator Schumer said about it: ``This is a responsible 
proposal. I believe this approach should have bipartisan support.'' 
Senator Bill Nelson: ``I personally think the President's budget is a 
step in the right direction.'' Senator Max Baucus: ``The President's 
budget strengthens our economy.'' Senator Ben Cardin: ``President Obama 
has given us a credible blueprint.'' Senator Tom Carper: ``The 
President's budget is an important step forward.'' Senator Frank 
Lautenberg: ``President Obama's budget presents a careful evaluation of 
what our Nation needs.''
  They all voted no last night. You know, with friends like that, you 
do not need enemies, as they like to say. But what about Mr. Erskine 
Bowles, the man President Obama chose to serve as chairman of the debt 
commission? Mr. Bowles talked about the budget. He was rather stunned 
actually when it came out. It came out I think on Friday. On Sunday, 
Mr. Bowles said: ``It comes nowhere close to where they will have to go 
to avoid a fiscal nightmare.''
  Can you imagine? This is the man President Obama chose to head the 
deficit commission, and he hammered this budget.
  He said it is nowhere close, and it is nowhere close to doing what we 
have to do. So I believe what we went through yesterday was a sham, a 
mockery, a joke, and had no meaning. It was nothing but politics, 
nothing but an avoidance of responsibility to help provide leadership.
  We all know some serious choices have to be made, and I will close 
with these thoughts. We are going to need a partnership in the Senate 
between our parties. There are going to be some tough choices which 
have to be made. In my view, we simply cannot continue at our rate of 
spending. It has to be reduced. But we have people in denial, who don't 
think it has to be reduced. But when your lowest deficit in 10 years is 
projected to be $740 billion, and this year's will be the highest in 
the history of the Republic, $1.5 trillion or more--how do we get 
there?
  We are going to have to make some choices. I have saluted the Gang of 
Six, who have tried. Apparently, they have fallen on hard times and the 
prospects aren't good for that. Now the Vice President is meeting. 
There is some excuse, they say, that we don't have to do our business 
openly and before the public and stand and be accounted for because 
that would not work. People are afraid to make tough choices and 
decisions in public.
  I believe the American people are not happy with us. I know they are 
not happy with us. Seventy percent of them believe this country is on 
the wrong track, and the biggest part of that, surely, is our fiscal 
management. They know this debt cannot be sustained. So we need to do 
something. The best way to do it is to follow the regular order, follow 
the legally constituted method of budget processing. Let's have a 
Budget Committee meeting, and if the Gang of Six has ideas, let's have 
them brought up in the Budget Committee and vote on them. If Vice 
President Biden wants to send something over, I am glad to hear it. If 
the President wants to send his people over to defend this budget that 
has been rejected 97 to zero, let them do it.
  I will tell you what he and his Budget Director, Mr. Lew, said--can 
you believe it? They said this budget will allow us to live within our 
means and not spend money we don't have. That is the way they promoted 
this budget. It was rejected last night. If it caused us to live within 
our means and allowed us to pay down our debt then I would vote for it. 
It did not come close to that. Yet the President talked about it all 
over the country, and his staff ran around saying this budget will 
allow us to live within our means. That is totally inaccurate, and that 
is irresponsible. What the President should have done, and what our 
Democratic leaders have to help us with, is go to the American people 
and, with clarity, without equivocation, say we cannot continue. We 
must tell them big changes have to be made, and we are so sorry this 
country has gotten in the shape we are in. We must say that we are 
going to make some changes, and we urge you to help us stick together 
and do it. We must do this to put the country on the right path.
  But what do we have? We have Congressman Ryan, in the Republican 
House, who had the temerity, the courage, the discipline, and the sense 
of duty sufficient to pass a budget that would actually do what needs 
to be done. They called it up and attacked it with everything they had, 
but they will not produce anything of their own.
  It cannot be denied that this is a failure of leadership. I believe 
the process and path we are on now is dangerous; it is not public, it 
is secret. They tried to produce a secret plan on comprehensive reform 
of immigration. The American people heard about it, and down it went. 
They tried to negotiate in secret this health care reform bill. They 
were able to hold their votes on a straight party-line vote--60 to 40--
but the American people were not happy with the process or results and 
a lot of people who participated in that spectacle didn't come back 
after this last election.
  That is not the path we are hearing from our constituents. Our 
constituents are saying: You work for us. We want to see you publicly 
stand and defend the values we believe in. If you don't do so, we are 
going to hold you accountable. I think that is democracy in America, 
and that is healthy. I don't think there is anything wrong with it. I 
respect the American people who are watching Congress and demanding 
that we change the trajectory we are on.
  I believe strongly that we need to do better. I believe strongly that 
this Congress should have in play and commit before we recess--or not 
recess--a plan to deal with the financial crisis our Nation faces. When 
we do that, we can feel like we are fulfilling our duty both in law and 
morally to the people who have given us the honor of serving in this 
body.
  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. KIRK. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                 Resignation of Dominique Strauss-Kahn

  Mr. KIRK. Mr. President, last week, I spoke on the floor regarding 
the resignation of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who is managing director of 
the International Monetary Fund, due to the serious criminal charges he 
is now facing in New York.
  Mr. Strauss-Kahn has since resigned, but it appears he will now 
receive at least a $250,000 taxpayer-funded severance pay package from 
the IMF and may be eligible for further undisclosed amounts in annual 
IMF retirement benefits.
  Since the United States is the largest contributor to the IMF, we now 
face the potential share scenario where the American taxpayer is partly 
underwriting severance payments and retirement packages to a man who is 
pending a criminal conviction as a felon.
  This is clearly unacceptable, and it is my hope that the U.S. 
executive director to the IMF, Meg Lundsager, advocates that no future 
benefits pass to Mr. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, if he is convicted of the 
crimes with which he is charged.
  As you know, the IMF is spearheading efforts to manage a very wide 
and deep European debt crisis. Despite my reservations about U.S. 
taxpayer bailouts for Greece, Ireland, and Portugal, the institution 
does play a very critical role in financial leadership. I think it 
needs to set an example, especially with regard to its now-disgraced 
leader.
  Mr. Strauss-Kahn has failed to live up to the expectations of his 
institution and what the American taxpayers support.


                             State Bailouts

  Mr. President, the U.S. Treasury is scheduled to borrow over $1.4 
trillion this year, and we have a scheduled interest payment of over 
$220 billion. We will pay more in interest this year than we do for the 
cost of the U.S.

[[Page 8168]]

Army. I am very concerned about this situation and also an 
underreported financial situation developing in American States. The 
situations in my home State of Illinois and the State of California are 
the most dire. I would regret any attempt by these States to seek a 
Federal bailout. To defend the full faith and credit of the United 
States, I think we should move forward with a resolution that I 
introduced with a number of other Senators, S. Res. 188, that expresses 
the sense of the Senate that we should have no Federal bailout for the 
States.
  This is an issue that has concerned the Senate once before. In the 
1840s, we faced a funding crisis of the States. The Senate wisely 
advised then-Secretary of the Treasury Daniel Webster to seek or report 
on any discussions that he might have had that could have led to 
guaranteeing State debt. It was the Senate's express resolution that 
prevented Treasury Secretary Webster from bailing out the State's debt. 
The crisis at the time was even reflected in Charles Dickens' famous 
book ``A Christmas Carol,'' in which Scrooge was described as someone 
who was less than wealthy because he had overinvested in what were 
called United States sovereigns. In fact, the phrase in the ``Christmas 
Carol'' is ``not worth a United States sovereign'' because of the 
spend-thrift policies of many State governments at the time.
  The Senate at that time took the correct action to prevent the spend-
thrift actions of several States from contaminating and ruining the 
credit rating of the United States itself.
  Our credit rating is already under stress with reports, especially by 
Standard & Poors, that we may face a loss in the AAA credit rating 
invented to symbolize the strength of the United States if we don't 
change the spending course soon. A way to accelerate the loss of a AAA 
credit rating is to guarantee or somehow bail out spend-thrift States 
such as Illinois or California.
  In Illinois, we have a very courageous State treasurer who just took 
office and made a clear statement. Treasurer Dan Rutherford has told 
the leaders of my own State they need to stop borrowing, they need to 
stop spending. He is seeking no Federal bailout for his State. The 
State situation is quite dire.
  By one estimate, the revenues and pensions of the State of Illinois 
are the worst funded in America. Less than 40 percent of the pensions, 
by one estimate, have been funded. With this type of track record, you 
could see a situation in which California or Illinois, in a crisis, 
would seek a bailout from the Senate and from the House. I think we 
should repeat the wise precedent set in the 1840s, the advice we sent 
to Treasury Secretary Daniel Webster to set a clear marker for our own 
Treasury Secretary to make sure there is no bailout for the States. To 
protect our credit rating, I think this action is necessary, especially 
to reassure the credit rating agencies.
  What would happen if we don't? Could we provide temporary benefits to 
Illinois and California? We could. Could we underwrite their policies 
of spend-thrift ways? We could. Would we accelerate a loss of the AAA 
credit rating of the United States? We could. We are already seeing an 
example of what happens when you drive your national economy off a 
cliff. Many of us originally hailed from our long-time ancestors who 
passed from Ireland, and recently the Irish Government finances 
collapsed as they lost their credit rating. Because interest rates 
spiked in that country so fast, 53 percent of mortgages in Ireland were 
foreclosed in a short space of time after the loss of their credit 
rating.
  We need to act to protect the people of the United States from such 
an economic fate. That is why we need to say no to any State bailouts, 
why we need to cut spending in Washington, and why we need to make sure 
that at all costs we defend the credit rating of the United States. It 
is our sacred duty to make sure that what is befalling the people of 
Greece and the people of Portugal and the people of Ireland, being 
misruled by governments that said yes to every special interest 
spending idea and no to their economic future, does not infect the 
credit rating of the United States.
  That is why this resolution is so needed, and that is why I am so 
proud to submit it today in the full and complete historic financial 
tradition of the Senate.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The senior Senator from Oklahoma is 
recognized.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in 
morning business for 10 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (The remarks of Mr. Inhofe pertaining to the introduction of S. 1085 
are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills 
and Joint Resolutions.'')


                             Cote D'Ivoire

  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I have made four speeches on the floor in 
the last month about the disaster, the catastrophe that is taking place 
in a country in west Africa called Cote d'Ivoire. Cote d'Ivoire is a 
country whose President, the legitimate President, I might add, is 
Laurent Gbagbo, with his wife Simone. Someone named Alassane Quattara, 
from the northern part of Cote d'Ivoire, with a rigged election, came 
in; it was certified. It was all set up before we knew what was going 
on.
  That individual's name is Quattara. His death squads today, this very 
moment as we speak, are roaming the streets of Abidjan in Cote 
d'Ivoire. He is murdering and he is raping. Right now they have in 
captivity Laurent Gbagbo, the legitimate President of Cote d'Ivoire. I 
think they are in the process of perhaps killing him right now. We 
don't know that. The State Department does not know it. No one knows 
it.
  We had a hearing. The State Department was totally without compassion 
or concern over what is happening in the streets of Abidjan. We saw, we 
witnessed on video, the helicopters coming through and destroying that 
city. We have friends there right now who tell us that even today the 
death squads of Alassane Quattara are roaming the streets murdering 
people. No one can say within 10,000 people how many people they 
murdered.
  My concern is it is too late to do anything about that. They rigged 
the election. I documented it. I sent the documentation to the State 
Department. They paid no attention to it. France was behind the whole 
thing. France wants to have as much control as they can of west Africa. 
They conned the United Nations into it and our State Department went 
along with it.
  What is happening right now is so inhumane. I wish I had the pictures 
I showed before. The beautiful First Lady, Simone Gbagbo, is a 
beautiful lady, and they took her into captivity, pulled her hair out 
by the roots, and ran through the streets of Abidjan, holding up her 
hair in their hands. They are murdering everyone who is a friend of 
that administration.
  Well, I have one plea right now. There are a lot of options on what 
they can do. They can murder the President and First Lady--and they are 
considering that now. They are trying to consider some way to make it 
look like suicide. I don't know what they are doing. The State 
Department doesn't know what they are doing. Unfortunately, the State 
Department doesn't even care what they are doing.
  One of the options would be to allow the President and the First Lady 
and some who are close to go to another country in Sub-Saharan Africa 
and be able to stay in that country. We have already located host 
countries to allow that to take place.
  So I am making an appeal right now. I can't get the Secretary of 
State to talk to me about it. I can't get anyone else but just a 
handful of people, but we need to do something and do something now--
today. If we wait until after this recess, I would almost say their 
blood will be on the hands of the State Department because we can do 
something about it now. All we have to do is encourage the new, 
illegitimately elected President of Cote d'Ivoire--Alassane Ouattara--
and his administration to give an opportunity for another state to host 
these two individuals. Quite frankly, I think that would

[[Page 8169]]

be a very smart thing politically for him to do because with the other 
two options, we all know what happens. We know what martyrs are, and 
that is what would happen.
  So this is, I guess, a final appeal to anyone who is sensitive to the 
torturing, raping, and murdering that is going on today to join me in 
encouraging the State Department, the United Nations, France, and 
Alassane Ouattara to turn over President and Mrs. Gbagbo to a host 
country for their asylum.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Hagan). The Senator from Florida.


                            Oil Speculation

  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Madam President, we have all heard the phrase 
``drill, baby, drill.'' Well, it is interesting that the pro-oil 
company folks think that all of our answers have to do with drilling 
because, lo and behold, we have actually increased our domestic 
production. Let me quote from a Reuters story from May 25:

       Crude oil production, especially in the deep waters of the 
     Gulf of Mexico, increased by 334,000 barrels per day between 
     2005 and 2010, which also cut into foreign oil purchases.

  As a matter of fact, the article goes on to say:

       Imports of crude and petroleum products accounted for 49.3 
     percent of the U.S. oil demand last year, down from the high 
     of 60.3 percent in 2005. It also marked the first time since 
     1997 that America's foreign oil addiction fell under the 50 
     percent threshold.

  Now, that is worth noting. That is really something because the trend 
is reversing. Maybe it is that we are getting more energy conscious. 
Maybe it is that we are expending less gasoline in our vehicles because 
of the higher miles-per-gallon standards. Maybe we are remembering to 
turn off the lights when we leave the room. Maybe we are being a lot 
more sensitive to how vulnerable we are because we depend--as we have 
in the past--on upwards of 60 to 70 percent of our daily consumption 
from foreign shores, places such as Nigeria and the Persian Gulf and 
Venezuela.
  Now, I have just named three very unstable parts of the world that 
could, at any moment, cut off that production. So maybe America is 
finally waking up to the fact that, lo and behold, we have to be 
concerned about our energy sources and not depend so much on foreign 
production.
  The mantra ``drill, baby, drill'' implies that if we just continue to 
drill--in places where we can drill domestically--that is going to 
solve our problem. But that ignores the fact that it takes about 10 
years to take an oilfield and get it into production. So that doesn't 
solve our problem now as we are facing these high gas prices. That is 
what I want to talk about, the high gas prices.
  We ought to drill where we should. A lot of people do not know that 
of the 37 million acres that are leased in the Gulf of Mexico only 7 
million are drilled. There are 37 million acres leased in the Gulf of 
Mexico, but only 7 million of those 37 million acres are drilled. So 
let's do drill, baby, drill. Let's drill on all those leases, those 30 
million acres in the gulf and elsewhere that are existing leases and 
that haven't been drilled.
  But it is not the world oil market and the U.S. consumption that is 
causing these gas prices to go up. There are other factors, and I want 
to talk about that as well. It is true there are new demands on oil 
consumption from burgeoning countries such as China and India, and that 
causes more oil to be consumed from the world marketplace. But remember 
what I just cited; that the United States is lowering its consumption 
of imported oil. So that is clearly not a factor affecting the price of 
oil worldwide or the price at the pump we pay for the refined gasoline.
  No, there is another reason. That reason happens to be the 
speculators who are out there running up the price on commodity 
exchanges for oil futures contracts. Those prices run up until they are 
ready to dump them, and then suddenly they go down.
  I want to call the attention of the Senate to a New York Times story 
from May 24--just a couple of days ago--entitled ``U.S. Suit Sees 
Manipulation of Oil Trades.'' Let me quote from the article.

       The suit says that in early 2008 they tried to hoard nearly 
     two-thirds of the available supply of a crucial American 
     market for crude oil, then abruptly dumped it and improperly 
     pocketed $50 million.

  So the Federal commodities regulators filed a civil lawsuit against 
two obscure traders in Australia and California and three American and 
international firms. This was in the context of 3 years ago, in 2008, 
when oil prices had surged past $100 a barrel. There were those 
suspicions then that traders had manipulated the market, and that 
ultimately has led to a number of commentaries and investigations.
  Well, the regulators at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission have 
now filed this suit, and they are looking into the fraud being utilized 
in these oil and gas markets, particularly the commodity futures 
markets.
  In the past months, I have come to the Senate floor several times to 
discuss the net result of all of this, which is what we pay at the 
pump, and how it directly links to these oil speculators and the game 
they play in running up the price of oil. Using the data from the 
Commodity Futures Trading Commission and price data from the Energy 
Information Administration, we have shown on this floor in speech after 
speech--until I am blue in the face--the direct link between the rising 
level of speculators and their speculation in our energy markets and 
the skyrocketing oil and gas prices.
  When the top executives of the five largest oil companies in the 
United States testified a week ago in our Senate Finance Committee on 
what role speculation played in the oil markets, I asked them to please 
explain why gas prices are remaining so high when oil prices have begun 
to fall. Madam President, you should have heard the mumbling around 
that followed. The truth is, speculators, whether they are active 
traders or passive investors, have hijacked our oil markets in recent 
years, and the American people are the ones who are suffering the 
consequences because the price of that gas goes up when we pump it into 
our cars.
  Oil prices are set in futures markets, such as those regulated by the 
Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Futures contracts--meaning we buy 
a contract of oil at a specified price to be delivered at a future 
date--allow oil producers to lock in prices on their future output. 
Those contracts also allow large consumers of fuel, such as airlines, 
to lock in a price as a hedge against inflation and that future price 
swinging way up.
  The futures markets were intended to bring actual producers and real 
consumers of oil together, and, in doing so, the supply would match the 
demand. Speculators then were allowed to play a limited role to ensure 
there was sufficient liquidity in the market. But then here is what 
happens--and this is what happened back in 2008 when the price of gas 
went so high. Speculators constitute now anywhere from two-thirds to 80 
percent of the market. They are no longer a bit player, they are the 
main player, and this is what we need to end.
  In last year's financial reform bill, we directed the Commodity 
Futures Trading Commission to set hard limits on the speculative 
positions. We gave them a deadline of last January 21. Now we are here 
months past the deadline, but the CFTC has not yet finalized a rule.
  Why should they do this? If you are a legitimate user of oil--say, an 
airline--you have every reason to want to hedge against the price of 
that oil going way up, so you buy a contract for delivery of oil at a 
specified price at a future date. But if you are a speculator--buying 
and selling oil futures contracts, having no intention to use the oil, 
having only to put as a downpayment a bare percentage of the total 
contract price--you can manipulate that price upwards by buying and 
selling those contracts. This is exactly what happened back in 2008. It 
is what is happening again, as we have seen the price of a barrel of 
oil go up and up.
  We passed the law last year. The Commission has the authority. We 
should not have to pass another law that requires them to do it, but if 
the CFTC cannot get the job done, then we are going to have to. That is 
the bottom line.

[[Page 8170]]

  The American people are outraged. Here America is lowering its 
consumption of oil, here America is lowering its imports of oil, here 
we are getting more energy conscious, and yet the price of gas keeps 
going up. It is time to put an end to this.
  I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Arizona is recognized.
  Mr. McCAIN. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. President, in a few minutes my colleague from Maryland, Senator 
Cardin, will be introducing a bill which I am a cosponsor of, along 
with a large bipartisan group of our colleagues. I wish to emphasize at 
the outset that some may characterize this legislation as anti-Russian. 
In fact, I believe it is pro-Russian. It is pro the people of Russia. 
It is pro the people who stand up for human rights and democracy in 
that country which, unfortunately, seems to be sadly deprived of.
  This legislation, as my colleague and friend Senator Cardin will 
describe, requires the Secretary of State, in consultation with the 
Secretary of the Treasury, to publish a list of each person whom our 
government has reason to believe was responsible for the detention, 
abuse, or death of Sergei Magnitsky; participated in efforts to conceal 
the legal liability for these crimes; committed those acts of fraud 
that Magnitsky uncovered; is responsible for extrajudicial killings, 
torture, or other gross violations of human rights committed against 
individuals seeking to expose illegal activities in Russia or exercise 
other universally recognized human rights.
  Second, the individuals on that list would become the target of an 
array of penalties, among them, ineligibility to receive a visa to 
travel. They would have their current visas revoked, their assets would 
be frozen that are under U.S. jurisdiction, and U.S. financial 
institutions would be required to audit themselves to ensure that none 
of these individuals are able to bank excess funds and move money in 
the U.S. financial system.
  I guess the first question many people will be asking is who was 
Sergei Magnitsky? Who was this individual who has aroused such outrage 
and anger throughout the world? He was a tax attorney. He was a tax 
attorney working for an international company called Hermitage Capital 
that had invested in Russia. He didn't spend his life as a human rights 
activist or an outspoken critic of the Russian Government. He was an 
ordinary man. But he became an extraordinary champion of justice, 
fairness, and the rule of law in Russia where those principles, 
frankly, have lost meaning.
  What Sergei Magnitsky did was he uncovered a collection of Russian 
Government officials and criminals who were associated with the Russian 
Government officials who colluded to defraud the Russian state of $230 
million. The Russian Government in turn blamed the crime on Heritage 
Capital and threw Magnitsky in prison in 2008.
  Magnitsky was detained for 11 months without trial. Russian 
officials, especially from the Interior Ministry, pressured Magnitsky 
to deny what he had uncovered--to lie and to recant. He refused. He was 
sickened by what his government had done and he refused to surrender 
principle to brute power.
  As a result, he was transferred to increasingly more severe and more 
horrific prison conditions. He was forced to eat unclean food and 
water. He was denied basic medical care as his health worsened. In 
fact, he was placed in even worse conditions until, on November 16, 
2009, having served 358 days in prison, Sergei Magnitsky died. He was 
37 years old.
  Sergei Magnitsky's torture and murder--let's call it what it really 
was--is an extreme example of a problem that is unfortunately all too 
common and widespread in Russia today: the flagrant violations of the 
rule of law and basic human rights committed by the Russian Government 
itself, along with its allies.
  I note the presence of my colleague and lead sponsor of this 
important legislation. I hope in his remarks perhaps my friend from 
Maryland would mention the latest in the last few days which was the 
affirmation of the incredible sentence on Mr. Mikhail Khodorkovsky and 
his associate which is, in many ways, tantamount to a death sentence; 
again, one of these blatant abuses of justice and an example of the 
corruption that exists at the highest level of government.
  I wish to say again I appreciate the advocacy of my colleague from 
Maryland and his steadfast efforts on behalf of human rights in Russia, 
Belarus, and other countries. It has been a great honor to work with 
him and for him in bringing this important resolution to the floor of 
the Senate.
  I ask unanimous consent that at the appropriate time, the Senator 
from Maryland and I be allowed to engage in a colloquy.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Maryland.
  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, let me thank Senator McCain, not just for 
taking time for this colloquy concerning Mr. Magnitsky but for his 
longstanding commitment to justice issues, human rights issues, and the 
values the United States represents internationally.
  We have had a long, proud, bipartisan, and, most importantly, 
successful record of promoting basic American values such as democratic 
governance and the rule of law around the world. Engaging the countries 
of the Eastern Bloc in matters such as respect for human rights was 
critical to winning the cold war. We will never know how many lives 
were improved and even saved due to instruments such as the Helsinki 
Final Act and the Jackson-Vanik amendment. These measures defined an 
era of human rights activism that ultimately pried open the Iron 
Curtain and brought down the Wall. Thankfully, the cold war is over and 
we have a stronger relationship, both at the governmental and societal 
levels, with countries in Eastern Europe. But, sadly, internationally 
recognized rights and freedoms continue to be trampled and, in many 
cases, with absolute impunity.
  With the possibility of Russia's accession to the World Trade 
Organization, and the Presidents of the United States and Russia 
meeting in France, ours is a timely discussion.
  Last week, I joined my distinguished colleague, the Senator from 
Arizona, and 14 other Senators from both parties to introduce the 
Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act--a broad bill to 
address what the respected watchdog Transparency International dubbed a 
``systematically corrupted country'' and to create consequences for 
those who are currently getting away with murder.
  Actions always speak louder than words. The diplomatic manner of 
dealing with human rights abuses has frequently been to condemn the 
abusers, often publicly, with the hope that these statements will be 
all they need to do. They say oh, yes, we are against these human 
rights violations. We are for the rule of law. We are for people being 
able to come forward and tell us about problems and be able to correct 
things. They condemn the abusers, but they take no action. They think 
their words will be enough. Well, we know differently. We know what is 
happening today in Russia.
  We know the tragedy of Sergei Magnitsky was not an isolated episode. 
This is not the only time this has happened. My colleague from Arizona 
mentioned the Mikhail Khodorkovsky case. Mr. Khodorkovsky is today in 
prison with even a longer sentence. Why? Because he had the courage to 
stand up and oppose the corrupt system in Russia and something should 
be done about it. That is why he is in prison, and that is wrong.
  So it is time we do something about this and that we make it clear 
that action is needed. For too long, the leaders in Russia have said we 
are going to investigate what happened to Sergei

[[Page 8171]]

Magnitsky. We think it is terrible he died in prison without getting 
adequate medical care. As Senator McCain pointed out, here is a person 
whose only crime was to bring to the proper attention of officials 
public corruption within Russia. As a result of his whistleblowing, he 
was arrested and thrown in jail and died in jail. He was tortured. That 
cannot be allowed, to just say, Oh, that is terrible. We know the 
people who were responsible. In some cases they have been promoted in 
their public positions. Well, it is time for us to take action. That is 
why we have introduced this legislation.
  While this bill goes far beyond the tragic experiences of Sergei 
Magnitsky, it does bear his name, so let me refresh everyone's 
recollection with some of the circumstances concerning his death. I 
mention this because some might say, why are we talking about one 
person? But as the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin said, ``One death is a 
tragedy; one million is a statistic.'' I rarely agree with Dictator 
Stalin, but we have to put a human face on the issue. People have to 
understand that these are real people and real lives that have been 
ruined forever as a result of the abuses within Russia.
  Sergei was a skilled tax lawyer who was well known in Moscow among 
many Western companies, large and small. In fact, he even did some 
accounting for the National Conference on Soviet Jewry. Working at the 
American law firm of Firestone Duncan, Sergei uncovered the largest 
known tax fraud in modern Russian history and blew the whistle on the 
swindling of his fellow citizens by corrupt officials. For that he was 
promptly arrested by the subordinates of those he implicated in the 
crime. He was held under torturous conditions in detention for nearly a 
year without trial or visits from family. He developed severe medical 
complications which went deliberately untreated, and he died on 
November 16, 2009, alone in an isolation cell while prison doctors 
waited outside his door. Sergei was 37 years old. He left behind a 
wife, two sons, a dependent mother, and so many friends.
  Shortly after his death, Philip Pan of the Washington Post wrote:

       Magnitsky's complaints, made public by his attorneys as he 
     composed them, went unanswered while he lived. But in a 
     nation where millions perished in the Soviet gulag, the words 
     of the 37-year-old tax lawyer struck a nerve after he died . 
     . . his descriptions of the squalid conditions he endured 
     have been splashed on the front pages of newspapers and 
     discussed on radio and television across the country, part of 
     an outcry even his supporters never expected.

  I think Senator McCain and I would agree, there is a thirst for 
democracy around the world. People in Russia want more. They want 
freedom. They want accountability. They want honest government 
officials. They are outraged by what happened to Sergei Magnitsky.
  I would point out just last week I met with a leader of the Russian 
business community who came here and traveled at some risk, I might 
say. Just visiting me was a risk. We have people from Russia who are 
being questioned because they come and talk to us. But he said to me 
that what happened here needs to be answered by the Russian 
authorities. He understands why we are introducing this legislation.
  A year after his death, and with no one held accountable, and some of 
those implicated even promoted and decorated, The Economist noted:

       At the time, few people outside the small world of Russian 
     investors and a few human-rights activists had heard of Mr. 
     Magnitsky. A year later, his death has become a symbol of the 
     mind-boggling corruption and injustice perpetrated by the 
     Russian system, and the inability of the Kremlin to change 
     it.

  Regrettably, we know Sergei's case, egregious as it is, is not 
isolated. Human rights abuses continue unpunished and often unknown 
across Russia today.
  To make this point more clear, let's look at another example far 
outside the financial districts of Moscow and St. Petersburg in the 
North Caucasus in southern Russia where Chechen leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, 
condones and oversees massive violations of human rights, including 
violations of religious freedom and the rights of women. His militia 
also violates international humanitarian laws. As of this April, the 
European Court of Human Rights has ruled against Russia in 186 cases 
concerning Chechnya, most involving civilians.
  So Sergei Magnitsky's case is not an isolated case of abuse by the 
Russian authorities. There has been a systematic effort made to deny 
people their basic human rights, including one individual, Natalia 
Estemirova, who personally visited my office at the Helsinki 
Commission. She was a courageous human rights defender who was brutally 
assassinated.
  So it is time for Russia to take action. But we cannot wait; we need 
to take action.
  Mr. McCAIN. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. CARDIN. I yield back to my colleague.
  Mr. McCAIN. First, I thank my colleague from Maryland for a very 
eloquent and, I think, very strong statement, to which I can add very 
little. But isn't it true, I ask my friend, that this Magnitsky case 
and the Khodorkovsky case, which I would like for us to talk a little 
bit more about, are not isolated incidents?
  In other words, this is the face of the problem in Russia today. As 
the Senator mentioned, in its annual index of perceptions of 
corruption, Transparency International ranked Russia 154th out of 178 
countries--perceived as more corrupt than Pakistan, Yemen, and 
Zimbabwe. The World Bank considers 122 countries to be better places to 
do business than Russia. One of those countries is Georgia, which the 
World Bank ranks as the 12th best country to do business.
  In other words, isn't it true in the Magnitsky case, it is what has 
been taking place all across Russia, including this incredible story of 
Khodorkovsky, who was one of the wealthiest men in Russia, one of the 
wealthiest oligarchs who rebelled against this corruption because he 
saw the long-term consequences of this kind of corruption and was 
brought to trial, convicted, and then, when his sentence was completed, 
they charged him again?
  Talk about a corrupt system, isn't it true that Vladimir Putin said 
he should ``sit in jail,'' and we now know that the whole trial was 
rigged, as revealed by people who were part of the whole trial? In 
other words, isn't it true, I would ask my friend from Maryland, that 
what we are talking about is one human tragedy, but it is a tragedy 
that is unfolding throughout Russia that we do not really have any 
knowledge of? And if we allow this kind of abuse to go on unresponded 
to, then, obviously, we are abrogating our responsibilities to the 
world; isn't that true?
  Mr. CARDIN. I say to Senator McCain, you are absolutely right. This 
is not isolated. Magnitsky is not an isolated case of a lawyer doing 
his job on behalf of a client and being abused by the authorities. We 
have a lot of examples of lawyers trying to do their jobs and being 
intimidated and their rights violated.
  But in Mr. Khodorkovsy's case, we have a business leader who was 
treated the same way just because he was a successful business leader. 
Even worse, he happened to be an opponent of the powers in the Kremlin.
  So we are now seeing, in Russia, where they want to quell opposition 
by arresting people who are just speaking their minds, doing their 
business legally, putting them in prison, trying them, and in the 
Khodorkovsky case actually increasing their sentences the more they 
speak out against the regime.
  That is how authoritarian they want to be and how oppressive they are 
to human rights. But I could go further. If one is a journalist in 
Russia, and they try to do any form of independent journalism, they are 
in danger of being beaten, being imprisoned, being murdered. It is very 
intimidating. The list goes on and on.
  Mr. McCAIN. Could I ask my colleague, what implications, if any, does 
the Senator from Maryland believe this should have on the Russian entry 
into the World Trade Organization?

[[Page 8172]]


  Mr. CARDIN. Well, it is very interesting, I say to Senator McCain. I 
just came from a Senate Finance Committee hearing, and we were talking 
about a free-trade agreement. I am for free-trade agreements. I think 
it makes sense. It is funny, when a country wants to do trade with the 
United States, they all of a sudden understand they have to look at 
their human rights issues.
  I think all of us would like to see Russia part of the international 
trade community. I would like to see Russia, which is already a member 
of a lot of international organizations, live up to the commitments 
they have made in joining these international organizations.
  But it is clear to me that Russia needs to reform. If we are going to 
have business leaders traveling to Russia in order to do business, I 
want to make sure they are safe in Russia. I want to make sure they are 
going to get the protection of the rule of law in Russia. I want to 
make sure there are basic rights that the businesspeople in Russia and 
the United States can depend upon.
  So, yes, I understand that Russia would like to get into the WTO. We 
have, of course, the Jackson-Vanik amendment that still applies. I 
understand the origin of that law, and I understand what needs to 
change in order for Russia to be able to join the World Trade 
Organization.
  But I will tell you this: The best thing that Russia can do in order 
to be able to enter the international trade regime is to clean up its 
abuses in its own country, to make clear it respects the rule of law; 
that businesspeople will be protected under the rule of law and 
certainly not imprisoned and tortured, as in the cases of Mr. 
Khodorkovsky and Mr. Magnitsky. We do not want to see that type of 
conduct.
  If Russia would do that, if they would reform their systems, then I 
think we would be a long way toward that type of integration and trade.
  Mr. McCAIN. I thank my colleague from Maryland for an eloquent 
statement about the situation as regards Russia. I thank him, and I can 
assure my colleague from Maryland that, as we speak, this will 
provide--and this legislation which he has introduced, will provide--
some encouragement to people who in Russia now, in some cases, have 
lost almost all hope because of the corruption of the judicial system, 
as well as other aspects of the Russian nation.
  We all know that no democracy can function without the rule of law; 
and if there are ever two examples of the corruption of the rule of 
law, it is the tragedy of Sergei Magnitsky and, of course, Mr. 
Khodorkovsky, who still languishes in prison; who, in his words, 
believes he--by the extension of his prison sentence--may have been 
given a death sentence.
  So I thank my colleague from Maryland.
  Mr. CARDIN. Will my colleague yield for just one final comment?
  I think the Senator is right on target as to what he has said. I 
appreciate the Senator bringing this to the attention of our colleagues 
in the Senate.
  I will respond to one other point because I am sure my colleague 
heard this. Some Russian officials say: Why are we concerned with the 
internal affairs of another country? I just want to remind these 
Russian officials, I want to remind my colleagues here, that Russia has 
signed on to the Helsinki Final Act. They did that in 1975, and they 
have agreed to the consensus document that was issued in Moscow in 1991 
and reaffirmed just last year with the heads of state meeting in 
Astana, Kazakhstan, just this past December. I am going to quote from 
that document:

       The participating States--

  Which Russia is a participating state--

     emphasize that issues relating to human rights, fundamental 
     freedoms, democracy and the rule of law are of international 
     concern, as respect for these rights and freedoms constitutes 
     one of the foundations of international order. They 
     categorically and irrevocably declared that the commitments 
     undertaken in the field of the human dimension are matters of 
     direct and legitimate concern to all participating States--

  The United States is a participating state--

     and do not belong exclusively to the internal affairs of the 
     State concerned.

  Mr. McCAIN. That was a statement by the Government of Russia?
  Mr. CARDIN. That was a statement made by the 56 states of the OSCE at 
a meeting of the Heads of State, which happens about every 10 years. It 
just happened to have happened last year. Russia participated in 
drafting this statement. Russia was there, signed on to it, and said: 
We agree on this. It is a reaffirmation as to what they agreed to in 
1991 in Moscow where we acknowledged that it is of international 
interest, and we have an obligation and right to question when a member 
state violates those basic human dimension commitments. Russia clearly 
has done that. We have not only the right but the obligation to raise 
that, and I just wanted to underscore that to my colleagues.
  I say to Senator McCain, your comments on the Senate floor are so 
much on point. I think people understand it. They understand the basic 
human aspect to this. But sometimes they ask: Well, why should America 
be concerned? Do we have a legitimate right to question this? Russia 
signed the document that acknowledges our right to challenge this and 
raise these issues.
  I thank my colleague for yielding.
  Mr. McCAIN. I thank my colleague from Maryland, and I hope we would 
get, very rapidly, another 98 cosponsors.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REED. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                               The Budget

  Mr. REED. Madam President, we have been engaged in a very important 
debate on our budget over the last few days, and this debate will 
continue over the next several weeks, indeed, for probably several 
months. It is not a new debate. Like past debates, at the heart of it 
are important programs to middle-income Americans, such as Medicare, 
Medicaid, and Social Security. In some quarters, they are under attack. 
This does not have to be the case.
  In the 1990s, Democratic majorities in the House and the Senate, with 
a Democratic President, were able to deal with this issue of deficits 
while preserving these programs and strengthening, indeed, in many 
cases, these programs. We were able to also provide the kind of 
economic growth that generated job creation, not just increased GDP or 
increased profits on Wall Street, but jobs on Main Street.
  Much of these efforts were, frankly, undone, beginning in 2000 with 
tax cuts that did not, as advertised, produce the kind of private 
employment growth that was necessary for our economy, that shifted the 
burden to middle-income taxpayers, while giving the wealthiest 
Americans extraordinary relief and unfunded entitlement programs, such 
as Medicare Part D and two major conflicts, none of which were paid 
for.
  So now we, once again, face a situation where we have a significant 
deficit, and we need to address it. President Obama has begun that 
process with the same commitment to maintaining Medicare, Medicaid, and 
Social Security, not without reforms and strengthening, but making sure 
that middle-income Americans and all Americans can have access to these 
vital programs.
  We have taken significant steps in the long run to reform our health 
care system with the Affordable Care Act.
  We hope that act is implemented efficiently and effectively so we can 
begin to realize long-term savings to bend the proverbial cost curve of 
our health programs, not just our Federal health care programs but our 
health care costs across the board that are borne by private insurers 
as well as private programs.
  In fact, ironically, it seems to me that one of the major 
accelerators of the Medicare Program is the fact that

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so many Americans--about 40 million--do not have access to consistent 
quality health care now. Yet, when they turn 65, by right they have 
access to a panoply of services. I have had discussions with doctors, 
and they will tell me that they say several times a day to their new 
Medicare patients: I wish I saw you 10 years ago because I would not 
have to apply the expensive diagnostic and treatment. I could have done 
something much easier, much less costly if you had coverage and access.
  So that is one of the long-term efforts we have underway, but we have 
to do a lot more to go ahead and deal with the issues before us.
  We have seen Republican budget proposals, but frankly I do not think 
they strengthen the middle class here in the United States, nor do they 
provide the kind of sensible investment that will lead to job creation 
and provide the opportunities that are necessary for succeeding 
generations in America. I think they are more dedicated to an 
ideological commitment to simply reduce taxes, and that is something 
that has to be tested and should be tested in the history of the last 
several years. That was the same argument that was made in 2001, that 
such tax cuts would generate huge growth in private employment, unleash 
huge economic forces here in the United States, and frankly, over the 
last 10 years, that has not been the case.
  So I think we have to be sensible. I think we have to address the tax 
reforms and tax reductions to middle-income Americans, not continue to 
favor the richest Americans, when it comes to tax proposals. So much of 
what the Republican budget seems to do is continue what they started in 
2001--huge relief for the wealthiest Americans. But it is increasingly 
putting the burden on Middle America. In fact, it has been estimated 
that under the Republican budget, individuals making over $1 million 
would receive an average tax cut of $125,000 a year. That is a huge cut 
relative to whatever a working, middle-income American might receive.
  One of the other aspects of this budget is the impact it would have 
on Medicare. Medicare is central to every family in the country. In 
fact, look around at not just someone who is earning a wage hour by 
hour, but look at the small businessperson, a man or a woman. Their 
retirement plan rests on the assumption that they will have access to 
Medicare. The Republican's proposal, as I understand it, essentially 
ends that for individuals who are about 55 years old or younger. Well, 
in the next 10-plus years or so, they are going to have to come up with 
a lot of money to pay for the Medicare they assumed they would receive 
automatically when they retire at 65. That is not just the wage earner, 
the hourly worker who goes in there; that is the small businessperson 
whose postretirement plan rests fundamentally on Medicare and them 
being able to buy a supplemental health care plan to that.
  So these are fundamental and, in fact, earth-shattering proposals, in 
my view.
  Currently, seniors on traditional Medicare pay approximately $1,700 
in annual premiums. They are charged a limited amount for every 
hospital stay, have a reasonable deductible for every major procedure 
and treatment, and pay copays for services and prescription drugs. They 
are even able to buy, as I alluded to, these Medigap plans so they can 
supplement what Medicare provides with additional resources, and these 
supplemental plans are very affordable. On average, Medicare then 
spends $11,762 on every senior, and that is just an average.
  But this would all change, and it would inject a huge amount of 
uncertainty if the budget that is proposed by Republicans, that is 
still being debated by the Republicans, that is still being supported 
in many cases by Republicans is in any way enacted.
  In the year 2022, under the proposal, if the Republican budget were 
enacted, every senior who becomes eligible for what we now call 
Medicare would be given $8,000 to address all their health care needs 
and then sent to the marketplace to buy health care private insurance.
  Now, I guess I have reached a point in my life where I can reflect 
and remember that as a youngster in the 1950s, there was, in 
practically every one of my friends' homes, a grandparent who was there 
because they didn't have access to Medicare or Medicaid.
  They were in a hospital bed in the living room or in some other room. 
They were being cared for by typically the mother, who was also trying 
to care for youngsters such as myself and my contemporaries. The reason 
was, regardless of how much money you have, at some point, insurance 
companies will not sell you insurance. You are old. You had health 
experiences prior to that. You are a bad risk, and they are not in the 
business of insuring bad risks. That was, as much as anything, the 
genesis of Medicare--the recognition that the private health care 
market would not, regardless of the ability to pay, provide adequate 
coverage. And I think we have forgotten that.
  When the Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan organization, 
looked at the proposal, they essentially concluded that with this 
$8,000 transfer to a senior in lieu of traditional Medicare, the senior 
would be on the hook for an additional $12,500 in health care costs. In 
fact, it would likely result in some seniors not even getting health 
care insurance at all, not being able to afford it or at some point, 
particularly as they aged, getting to the point where no one would 
write them health care insurance because of the obvious health risks 
they were.
  So this is a plan that I don't think comports with the reality of 
Americans who have already planned to have access to Medicare and also 
the reality that what is proposed--an $8,000 transfer payment to an 
insurance company--would be inadequate to provide the kind of minimum 
coverage we should be providing to our seniors.
  We have had examples before where particular Republicans would 
propose that they had a new, novel way to provide private health care 
insurance in lieu of traditional Medicare. When Medicare Advantage was 
established in 2003, seniors had the option of enrolling in private 
health insurance plans that were argued by their advocates as being 
cost-effective, as putting pressure on the public health care plan 
known as Medicaid. Madam President, 60,000 seniors in my State of Rhode 
Island enrolled. Private Medicare Advantage plans sell consumers on 
additional benefits and smaller copays. They went out--very 
selectively, I suspect--recruiting seniors in a way that they hoped 
attracted the healthiest seniors, not the sickest seniors, to lower 
their costs. However, in reality, most of these plans tended to cost 
more than traditional Medicare as the smaller copays were largely 
offset by higher monthly premiums.
  So there are those who are still seriously proposing this Republican 
approach to Medicare. I think it will be a mistake. I think it would 
reduce access to health care coverage for seniors. I do not think the 
private market will jump up with $8,000. I do not think you will see 
that Congresses in the future will escalate the cost of these vouchers 
or transfers to private insurance companies in any way that would be 
commensurate to the real cost seniors would face.
  As a result, I think this proposal will do serious harm to health 
care and particularly to the middle-income American who, regardless of 
whether they are running a small business or working for an hourly 
wage, will now face the prospect of the great uncertainty, the great 
unknown of no adequate health care coverage when they reach 65. We will 
go back in time to the period of my youth where, quite frankly, seniors 
did not have the kind of health care coverage they have today and I 
believe the kind of health care coverage they deserve.
  With respect to Medicaid, there are also proposals here and the 
thought that Medicaid is just a program for children and poor 
Americans. But, frankly, if you look at the statistics, there are 
26,000 seniors in my State who are on Medicaid, principally because of 
nursing home care. And we have to ask ourselves, if these plans to

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provide block grants to States are enacted under the Republican 
proposal, whether those seniors still can maintain themselves in these 
nursing facilities, whether the costs will be so great on the States 
that they will be unable to keep up the level of effort, the level of 
support they are today.
  What seems to be inherent in all of those proposals is not savings 
but shifting costs, not reforming the system to be more efficient and 
more effective but simply shifting the cost onto seniors, shifting the 
cost onto particularly middle-income Americans.
  So, I am pleased that we did not accept these Republican budget 
proposals, which are the wrong way to address our budget issues.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Coons). The Senator from Indiana.
  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I wish to thank the Senator from North 
Dakota for allowing me to go first. I will be relatively brief.
  I have spoken on the floor on a number of occasions regarding my 
frustration about the Senate not spending enough time debating what I 
think is the key, essential issue and challenge facing us, probably 
greater than any other challenge facing this body in a long time. My 
frustration only grew yesterday as we voted down four budget proposals.
  You know, it has been 757 days since we have passed a budget in this 
body, and so far, no budget has been proposed this year out of the 
Budget Committee for us to examine. The President offered up a budget 
earlier this year that would have spent more, taxed more and borrowed 
more. It was voted down last night in what I think probably was a 
historic vote. I did not go back and check the records, but I am not 
aware of any budget that has ever been presented by the executive 
branch to the Congress for approval that has not received at least some 
votes.
  The vote last evening was 97 to 0 against the President's budget. It 
is almost unthinkable that a President--the executive branch--would 
send a budget to the floor to be debated and voted upon and not achieve 
one vote. I think what it tells us is that, obviously, that budget was 
not designed to gain any kind of bipartisan support. But it didn't even 
obtain any partisan support.
  It was not taken seriously, at a time when we need to have in front 
of us a serious budget to debate and vote on. As I said, there have 
been 757 days without a budget before us. You cannot run a company, a 
family, or run anything, unless you prepare a budget and avoid going 
into debt. That is where we are today.
  Republicans did come forward with three proposals. Unfortunately, all 
of those were voted down. You can argue that none of those three were 
sufficient to garner enough support. All three received a significant 
level of support--particularly two of them. Yet there were not enough 
votes to pass this body. So while the House has passed a budget, which 
we voted on yesterday, but unfortunately fell short, these are the only 
proposals we have had in front of us to debate. These are the only 
proposals we have had to vote on and set the structure for how we are 
going to spend the taxpayers' money.
  So here we are now approaching the month of June, 5 months into the 
current calendar year, and 9 months into the fiscal year, and we still 
don't have a handle on how we are going to spend the taxpayers' money, 
what restrictions and restraints we will put on that, and how we can 
live within our means.
  This is the debate this Congress should undertake, and it has not 
been undertaken. Many of us have come to the floor in situations such 
as this where we have asked for some time to speak, but the issue 
itself has not been put before us. We know there are negotiations going 
on relative to how to put a plan into place, but we are a long way from 
that.
  I am here once again to try to urge my colleagues to work together 
and try to achieve a result--or at least a product on which we can have 
serious debate to determine the future of how we are going to spend the 
taxpayers' dollars in a responsible way. The most important factor we 
have to address is the need, in my opinion, to rein in Washington's 
excessive spending. The bottom line is that government spending is out 
of control. The public understands this. I think the response in 2010 
to those of us who were running in all the elections sent an 
unmistakable, long, loud, easily understood signal: We have too much 
government, we cannot afford the government we have, and we cannot 
continue to add even more government, which pushes us deeper into debt.
  Nearly $1.4 trillion of our spending is discretionary spending that 
requires us to borrow money. That borrowed money increases our debt 
obligation reinforcing the need to rein in our spending. This is 
something we should debate, something that is part of the 
responsibility of the Congress and Senate. When we are talking about 
addressing a national debt of over $14 trillion, we need to get 
serious. A little nick here, a little nick there in spending reductions 
will not solve the problem. We need to look at the larger picture. We 
are staring down $14.3 trillion in debt. Credit ratings by Standard & 
Poor's have downgraded the outlook for the U.S. debt, with a negative 
warning. Economic growth is sputtering across the country. Unemployment 
remains high, and States are dipping deeper into the red, zeroing in on 
billions--which is a lot of money, but it is only a minuscule amount 
compared to the trillions we are saddled with in debt that we ought to 
be addressing. It is time for Congress and the administration to stop 
ignoring the obvious. The rapid growth of mandatory spending is 
endangering our financial future.
  I point to this chart on my left. It simply points out the dramatic 
growth that has occurred and will continue to occur over the years in 
the future. It doesn't take a mathematician--although the math is 
pretty simple--when you spend $3.7 trillion a year and take in $2.2 
trillion, that leaves you with a big deficit. But it doesn't take a 
mathematician or anybody with any sophistication in economics to 
understand that if we stay on the current path, we are going to 
continue to see this line escalate. This red on here is red ink. It is 
net interest we will owe. What does that mean? It means that to 
continue borrowing in order to finance what we are doing, we are going 
to have to pay larger and larger rates of interest to the lenders 
because of the risks associated with our potential inability to pay 
back the loans we have taken.
  This flow of red ink, this red tide--if we don't address this, it is 
going to make it difficult for Americans to buy cars, pay their 
mortgages, purchase homes, and buy groceries. The prices of products 
will go higher because the interest rates will go higher. We are 
running ourselves into a desperate situation. I think everyone 
understands that. I think it has been made clear to the American 
people.
  We don't have to spin this whole message here in order to convince 
the American people we don't have a problem. We do, and they understand 
that. That is what 2010 was all about. We cannot continue to go forward 
in 2011 without providing any basis of a real solution to assure the 
financial world and the people that we are taking steps in order to 
address this.
  I think there is a consensus--and if anybody doesn't understand this, 
they haven't looked at the problem--that we could tax Americans to 
death, we can cut discretionary spending by massive amounts, and we 
won't begin to address the problem we have, unless we address the 
massive amount of spending on mandatory programs. We don't have control 
over mandatory programs in terms of budgeting; they are simply there, 
and if you are eligible, you get to draw from the program. All of that 
is fine, if you have money to do it. But we are running out of money to 
pay those recipients who are continuing to receive benefits from these 
entitlement programs. Unless we address those, we are not going to 
solve the problem.
  Let's take a couple of these, and let's look at Medicare. Everybody 
says this is a political nonstarter. If you dare talk about it, you are 
going to get zinged in the next election, and you

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will be characterized as taking away benefits from the elderly, when 
the plans that have been put forward don't do anything of the sort. 
Nevertheless, it is important to understand the dimensions of the 
problem we are facing from this one entitlement. Over the next 10 
years, Medicare spending--spending on this one entitlement--is expected 
to double.
  A few weeks ago, the Medicare trustees announced that the hospital 
trust fund would be exhausted by 2024--5 years earlier than estimated 
in last year's report. Who knows what next year's report is going to 
tell us.
  The bottom line is this program is going to go broke. Failing to 
restructure Medicare jeopardizes the medical benefits of present and 
future elderly Americans. So rather than terminating Medicare, as has 
been charged but is not true, rather than destroying Medicare, which 
has been charged but is not true, what we are trying to do is find a 
way to restructure it in a way that Medicare will be viable and solvent 
so benefits will be available for future retirees.
  When Medicare was first enacted in 1967, the program cost $2.5 
billion. At that time, Congress predicted that the program would cost 
$12 billion by 1990. That wasn't the case. We underestimated it just a 
bit--by $86 billion, which is more than just a bit. When it starts at 
$2.5 billion, and you project it will be $12 billion, and you ended up 
being off on that estimate by $86 billion, you have to start asking 
yourself some questions. You have to start thinking that maybe we got 
this formula wrong, or maybe our assumptions didn't turn out as we 
thought they were going to on the cost of Medicare.
  Today, Medicare is roughly $494 billion, with approximately $89.3 
trillion in total unfunded liabilities. These are staggering numbers. 
They are numbers beyond our ability to comprehend. These numbers are 
beyond our ability to sustain.
  There is no possible way on Earth, no matter how fast or how hard we 
grow, that we can reach solvency in the Medicare Program without any 
action. Why? Because after World War II, soldiers came home, and people 
had deferred having families, and the so-called baby boom generation 
was born. It has moved through our entire history, over the last 60 
years or so, like a pig moves through a python. Early on, there was a 
rush to provide housing for soldiers and their families. There was a 
massive infusion of money into baby cribs and the need for hospitals 
and doctors and nurses to deliver children.
  A few years later, all of a sudden, we had to build a massive number 
of new elementary schools. As this baby boom has moved through their 
lifespan, we have seen dramatic impacts on the economy--many of them 
positive. But the colleges that had to be expanded and built, and 
universities and training facilities, and the education that had to be 
provided, the employment that needed to be provided--all of this has 
had a dramatic impact on our economy. We have known for decades that 
eventually the pig moving through the python was going to reach the 
point of retirement, and when it reached the point of retirement, it 
was going to have an enormous impact on our finances.
  Instead of anticipating this coming and putting into place structural 
plans that would accommodate the needs, legitimate needs of those for 
retirement income and benefits, we have instead ignored this reality. 
We have pushed it down the road. Nobody wanted to touch it. Election 
after election, it was said we better postpone that debate for the next 
election because it is too hot to deal with now. Well, it is all coming 
undone. We are at the point almost of no return.
  The proposals that have been put forward--you may not agree with 
every portion of them, and I don't. But the House brought to us a 
budget plan. You have to give Paul Ryan a great deal of credit for the 
extraordinary amount of work and effort he put into it. Maybe you don't 
like all of it, but it is at least a plan to debate, modify, and 
adjust; it is something that gives us an opportunity to start down the 
path of paying off our debt, of maintaining solvency for the Medicare 
Program.
  That is what we ought to be debating instead of saying we are into 
another cycle of ``gotcha,'' and you have touched the third rail. You 
made the decision to put Medicare in play and go to the public and tell 
them we are going to take away their health care benefits when they 
retire. The opposite is true. We are trying to save that for those who 
are retiring. We are trying to look at ways to restructure the program 
so it doesn't break Medicare, or break our entire economy.
  Today, the average man is living into his 70s, and an average woman 
into her 80s, or even 90s. As a result, more elderly Americans are on 
Medicare than originally anticipated. The Federal Government can no 
longer continue with business as usual. It is time for some honesty for 
the American people. Washington is promising to deliver benefits it 
can't afford. We can no longer nickel and dime doctors and hospitals 
and force them to pay for the care Washington promised elderly 
Americans. More and more doctors are forced to turn away Medicare 
patients. The American Medical Association revealed that 17 percent of 
the more than 9,000 doctors surveyed are forced to limit the number of 
Medicare patients they accept. And among primary care physicians, this 
rate is 31 percent. Why? Because we don't have the money to reimburse 
them for the cost it takes to provide that care.
  The American Osteopathic Association said 15 percent of its members 
refused Medicare and 19 percent declined to accept new Medicare 
patients. Physicians and hospitals in my home State of Indiana are 
feeling the pain from the Congress's inaction as well. Hospitals such 
as Deaconess Clinic in Evansville, IN, say one-third of their patients 
are on Medicare. When hospitals and doctors are not receiving the 
necessary compensation for services conducted on one-third of their 
patients, it has a devastating impact on their businesses.
  If we don't reform Medicare, we lose Medicare. Let me repeat that. If 
we don't take steps to reform Medicare, we lose Medicare. If we don't 
restructure the program, more patients will lose the care they 
desperately need.
  Mr. President, a very prominent figure--a leader of this country--
made this statement:

       Almost all of the long-term deficit and debt that we face 
     relates to the exploding costs of Medicare and Medicaid. 
     Almost all of it. That is the single biggest driver of our 
     Federal debt. And if we don't get control over that we can't 
     get control over our Federal budget.

  That defines, in a very basic statement, exactly the challenge that 
is before us. It gives us the warning we need to heed, and it should 
spur us into action.
  Let me repeat that statement once again.

       Almost all of the long-term deficit and debt that we face 
     relates to the exploding costs of Medicare and Medicaid. 
     Almost all of it. That is the single biggest driver of our 
     Federal debt. And if we don't get control over that we can't 
     get control of our Federal budget.

  That statement was made by President Barack Obama. It was not made by 
a Republican. It was not made by an editorial piece in the Wall Street 
Journal. It was not made by a tea party leader or advocate. It was made 
by our current President. Our President has said we cannot sustain what 
we are doing, and we have to address it or it is going to take down our 
whole budget.
  I think that is true--it has been backed up by analysts who have 
looked at this whole situation, left, right, nonpolitical, political, 
whatever. Why then are we not going forward with addressing this very 
question? That is what people sent us here to do in 2010. That is what 
they are asking us to do now. Yet we are acting as if this statement by 
the President of the United States has nothing to do with what we need 
to do, that we can simply ignore this and go forward and just cut a 
little here and cut a little there but we can't touch the 
entitlements--we can't touch Medicare.
  The papers are full today with headlines saying that the results of 
the New York special congressional race was because the people have 
been scared--well, they didn't say ``scared,'' but that it was people 
saying ``don't cut our

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Medicare.'' What it should have said is, those people who are saying 
``don't cut our Medicare'' are basically saying ``keep mine going until 
this thing runs out. I am afraid I might live too long, and then I 
won't have benefits at the end.'' But for sure our kids won't have it, 
for sure our grandchildren won't have it because at its current rate, 
as the President of the United States has acknowledged, it is 
unsustainable.
  So we have two options here. We can continue with the status quo--we 
can quibble over how much to cut from our discretionary spending, or 
that portion of the budget which we have control of--and continue 
ignoring the entitlement programs or we can make a commitment and have 
the political will to fulfill that commitment by saving those programs 
through some sound restructuring. This does not mean current recipients 
of Medicare are going to be knee-capped or have their benefits dropped. 
This does not mean that even those nearing retirement are going to face 
that prospect. What it does mean is, if we don't put the structural 
reforms in now to address the future problems, we are going to lose the 
whole program. The gravest threat to Medicare is doing nothing. If we 
do nothing, not only will Medicare collapse but so will our fiscal 
house.
  In the papers today, a former President--another Democrat, Bill 
Clinton--has urged his fellow Democrats not to ``tippy-toe around'' 
Medicare. Continuing that quote, he said the program ``is part of a 
whole health-care system that has a toxic effect on inflation.'' He 
went on to say, ``We've got to deal with these things.''
  Mr. President, I am here not to criticize the Democrats for putting 
us in this situation. I think we all bear some responsibility. The 
country does not want us to point fingers at each other, and they do 
not want us to use this as a political advantage for the 2012 election. 
They want us to do the right thing, which they all know needs to be 
done, and I believe they will reward us and recognize us for at least 
having the courage to step forward and address a real problem that I 
think everyone now understands and recognizes.
  So whether it is the Paul Ryan plan coming out of the House, whether 
it is a Democratic budget plan coming out of the Budget Committee, 
whether it is some other plan coming out between the negotiations that 
are going on--or should go on--between the executive branch and the 
congressional branch, this is something we have to do. We have simply 
got to put aside our partisanship and concerns and worry about the 2012 
elections and rise above politics. We did that in 1983 when we 
restructured Social Security. We had a Republican President, a 
Democratic House leader, and members of the Democratic congressional 
committee and Senate committee--the political people--all stood 
together and said: This rises above the election. It is too important 
not to address it.
  We can just take this one issue and say: Let's take this out of 
politics. Let's stand together as Republicans and Democrats, along with 
the President, and do what is right for the country.
  The bottom line is that no matter what we do here, if the President 
doesn't support us in this effort, it will not succeed. He has the veto 
pen, and he has the ability to lead or not lead. So I guess, as I have 
before, I am calling on the President and saying this important issue 
can only be successful if he will engage and lead us and be part of 
this effort to solve a problem that affects every living American and 
those yet to be born in this country. It dramatically affects our 
future but sooner than any of us, I believe, think. It affects our 
economy and our ability to grow.
  All of this has to be coupled with pro-growth policies. We can't cut 
our way out of all this. We can help restructure, we can help make cuts 
where necessary, and we can help our economy grow by putting policies 
in place that will stimulate the economy. That combination, put 
together in a package, is what we need to support. And I am hoping we 
will put politics aside for this one issue that is so important to the 
future of our country.
  Mr. President, I have probably said more than I needed to say at this 
particular point in time. I appreciate the opportunity and again thank 
the Senator from North Dakota for agreeing to let me go forward here. 
As chairman of the Budget Committee, I know he is fully cognizant and 
aware of these issues and is working to try to address them also. I 
hope we can work together to find a solution to this very urgent 
problem.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
  Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I want to thank the Senator from Indiana 
for his thoughtful presentation. There are parts of it with which I 
disagree, but the overall theme of what he has said is undeniably true.
  I believe our country is in deep trouble. At the end of this year, we 
will have a debt that is 100 percent of the gross domestic product of 
the United States. We have had two of the leading economists in this 
country tell us, after a review of 200 years of economic history, that 
when a country reaches a gross debt of more than 90 percent of its GDP, 
its future economic prospects are diminished. And that is where we are. 
So I agree with the Senator from Indiana that this is the time. We must 
find a way to come together to craft a plan that deals with this debt 
threat.
  Five years ago, the ranking Republican on the Budget Committee, 
Senator Gregg, and I came up with the concept of a commission. That 
effort led to the commission that was in place last year, and it came 
up with a recommendation to reduce the debt $4 trillion over the next 
10 years, and 11 of 18 commissioners supported it. Senator Gregg and I 
both supported it. We had five Democrats, five Republicans, and one 
Independent. That is the only bipartisan plan that has emerged from 
anywhere. But we needed 14 of 18 to agree for it to come to a vote in 
Congress.
  There were many parts of that plan I didn't like. I would have gone 
further than that plan. I proposed to the commission that we have a $6 
trillion plan of debt reduction because we could balance the budget in 
10 years with that kind of plan. But it was a step in the right 
direction. It was a big step in the right direction. So I supported it, 
along with the other 10 commissioners who did.
  I want to say to the Senator from Indiana that I respect the 
presentation he just made because, in larger terms, it says what has to 
be said. We all have to be truth-tellers. However uncomfortable the 
truth is, we have to be truth-tellers. I believe the truth is that when 
the revenue is the lowest it has been in 60 years as a share of GDP and 
spending is the highest it has been in 60 years as a share of GDP, we 
have to work both sides of the equation. We are going to have to cut 
spending, and I believe we are going to have to raise revenue.
  None of it is very popular. If you ask the American people, they will 
say to you: Well, yes, get the deficit and debt under control, but 
don't touch Social Security, don't touch Medicare, and don't touch 
defense. And by the way, just those three are about 80 percent of 
Federal spending if you add up all the mandatory programs and add up 
defense. That is about 80 percent of Federal spending. And if you ask 
the American people, they say: Don't touch any of them. On the revenue 
side, they say: Don't touch that. Well, do you know what is left? 
Twenty percent of Federal spending.
  If you start asking them questions about the elements of that 20 
percent, they reject every one except one--foreign aid. They say: Yes, 
cut foreign aid. A majority supports that. The problem is that is only 
1 percent of the budget. Here we are borrowing 40 cents of every dollar 
we spend, and even if we eliminate all foreign aid, it does not make a 
material difference.
  The other thing the American people support by a majority--the only 
other thing--is taxing the wealthy. Let me just say that I believe the 
wealthy are going to have to pay somewhat more. But that won't solve 
our problem because to solve the problem, you would have to have a top 
rate of 70 to 80 percent on corporations and individuals.

[[Page 8177]]

What would that do to the competitive position of the United States?
  So I believe we all are going to have to be truth-tellers, and before 
we are done, we are going to have to find a way to come together. I was 
part of that effort on the commission. I was part of that effort in 
this group of six, which is now a group of five because one of our 
members left. And there is this other effort under way that is a 
leadership effort with the White House being involved. At the end of 
the day, the White House has to be at the table.
  What Senator Gregg and I had recommended was that the Secretary of 
the Treasury be the chairman of the commission and the head of OMB be 
one of the 18 members. That wasn't adopted by the Congress. We got 53 
votes in the Senate for our proposal, but 53 votes doesn't pass things 
around here. You have to have 60. You have to have a supermajority. So 
here we are.
  Let me just say again that I thank the Senator for his thoughtful 
presentation because that is what it is going to take. We are going to 
have to be brave. We are going to have to show some political courage 
here to do what is right for our country. So I appreciate the 
thoughtful remarks of the Senator from Indiana.
  Let me make a brief review in response to some of what I have heard 
this morning because I have heard some things with which I strenuously 
disagree that I believe require a response. We all agree we are on an 
unsustainable path. We are borrowing 40 cents of every dollar. That 
cannot be continued.
  As I indicated earlier, this is a 60-year look at the spending and 
revenue of the United States. We can see the spending line is the red 
line; the green line is the revenue line. The spending of the United 
States as a share of national income is the highest it has been in 60 
years. The revenue is the lowest it has been in 60 years.
  Some of our colleagues say it is just a spending problem. Factually, 
I reject that. The facts show it is not just a spending problem--
although it is clear we do have a spending problem. When spending is 
the highest it has been in 60 years, clearly we have a spending 
problem. But as this chart reveals, revenue is the lowest it has been 
in 60 years. So, clearly, we have a revenue problem as well.
  Yesterday we voted on the package that came from the House of 
Representatives. The package that came from the House Budget Committee 
was passed by the House of Representatives. Even though that package 
was defeated overwhelmingly and on a bipartisan basis here yesterday, 
again this morning we had colleagues come and talk about what a great 
package it was. I do not believe it was a great package. I think it was 
a terrible package, and here is why--and now I am quoting former 
economic adviser to President Reagan, one of President Reagan's 
economic advisers, Mr. Bartlett. He said, about the House Republican 
plan, the following:

       Distributionally, the Ryan plan is a monstrosity. The rich 
     would receive huge tax cuts while the social safety net would 
     be shredded to pay for them. Even as an opening bid to begin 
     budget negotiations with the Democrats, the Ryan plan cannot 
     be taken seriously. It is less of a wish list than a 
     fairytale utterly disconnected from the real world, backed up 
     by make-believe numbers and unreasonable assumptions. Ryan's 
     plan isn't even an act of courage; it's just pandering to the 
     tea party. A real act of courage would have been for him to 
     admit, as all serious budget analysts know, that revenues 
     will have to rise well above 19 percent of GDP to stabilize 
     the debt.

  This is a former economic adviser to President Reagan commenting on 
the House Republican plan that we rejected on a bipartisan basis here 
yesterday.
  Why does he say it is a monstrosity? He says it because even though 
revenue is the lowest it has been in 60 years, the first thing the 
Republican budget from the House did was cut taxes further, an 
overwhelming tax cut for the wealthiest among us after they already 
enjoyed very significant tax reductions over the last decade.
  In fact, the plan that came from the Republican House would have 
given those who have over $1 million of income a year on average a tax 
cut of over $192,000. For those who are as fortunate as to earn over 
$10 million a year, the plan they sent over here would have given them 
on average a tax cut of $1,450,000. That is a fact. That is just a 
fact.
  Does that make any sense at all when the revenue of this country is 
the lowest it has been in 60 years, that the first thing you do is dig 
the hole deeper, give another $1 trillion of tax cuts going to the 
wealthiest among us? It makes no sense.
  It did not end there because the plan from the House also would 
permit a scam that is occurring to continue. The scam I am referring to 
relates to this little building down in the Cayman Islands, Ugland 
House. This little five-story building down in the Cayman Islands 
claims to be the home of 18,857 companies. Really, 18,000 companies are 
doing business out of this little five-story building down in the 
Cayman Islands? Please. Mr. President, 18,000 companies are not doing 
business out of this little five-story building down in the Cayman 
Islands. The only business that is going on is monkey business, and the 
monkey business that is going on is avoiding the taxes they 
legitimately owe to the United States.
  You wonder why big companies making billions of dollars a year can 
announce they owed no taxes to the United States--none? It is because 
they are operating out of Ugland House down in the Cayman Islands where 
there are no taxes, and they show their profits in their companies down 
in the Cayman Islands.
  When I was tax commissioner in my State I found a company that 
reported all of their earnings down in the Cayman Islands. They did 
business all across the country, but amazingly enough none of those 
companies showed any profits in the United States. They showed all 
their profits in the Cayman Islands where, happily, there are no taxes.
  The Republican budget plan said: That is fine. Keep doing it.
  That is not fine. It is not fair. We know from our own Permanent 
Committee on Investigations in the Senate that these offshore tax 
havens are proliferating. Here is a quote from our Senate Homeland 
Security and Governmental Affairs Permanent Subcommittee on 
Investigations:

       Experts have estimated that the total loss to the Treasury 
     from offshore tax evasion alone approaches $100 billion per 
     year, including $40 to $70 billion from individuals and 
     another $30 billion from corporations engaging in offshore 
     tax evasion. Abusive tax shelters add tens of billions of 
     dollars more.

  The Republican plan from the House says: No problem. Keep on doing 
it. In fact, we will go you one more. We will give you more tax cuts 
for the wealthiest among us.
  I tell you, that plan cannot stand scrutiny. At the same time it 
says: You know, because we have the lowest revenue in 60 years, and 
because we are going to give even more tax preferences, more tax 
credits, more tax schemes to the wealthiest among us, we are not going 
to be able to keep Medicare.
  I have heard colleagues say that these Draconian cuts to Medicare 
that are in the House plan are a way of saving Medicare. You don't save 
Medicare by destroying it. That is what the House plan does, make no 
mistake. It ends Medicare as we know it. Why do I say that? Let me just 
show you what it does.
  Right now, under traditional Medicare, the individual pays 25 percent 
of their health care costs. That is how it works today. You pay about 
25 percent. A senior citizen eligible for Medicare pays about 25 
percent of their costs. Under the House Republican budget plan that 
they passed and sent to the Senate that we defeated yesterday by a 
bipartisan vote, they would increase what the individual pays from 25 
percent to 68 percent, and they claim they are saving Medicare. It 
doesn't look to me like they are saving it. It looks to me like they 
are completely undoing it.
  When we add it all up, what is most striking is that the House 
Republican plan, although it gives massive tax cuts to the wealthiest 
among us, another $1 trillion of tax cuts, even though it shreds 
Medicare and completely undermines Medicaid, which

[[Page 8178]]

would mean another 34 million people do not have health care coverage 
in this country because they completely undo the coverage for health 
care passed last year so 34 million people are not going to have health 
care as a result of their plan--even with all of that and the other 
dramatic cuts--by the way, they cut support for energy programs to 
reduce our dependence on foreign energy, they cut that 57 percent; they 
cut education almost 20 percent--even after all that you would think at 
least they got the debt under control? No.
  Amazingly enough their plan, according to their own numbers, would 
add $8 trillion to the debt. Wow. They shred Medicare, they cut 
education dramatically, they cut almost 60 percent of the funding for 
energy to reduce our dependence on foreign energy--they cut that 57 
percent, and they still add $8 trillion to the debt. That is a good 
plan? I don't think so. I don't think that is a plan that can stand 
much scrutiny.
  We also heard a lot of complaints from the other side that we have 
not gone to markup on the budget in the Senate. That is true. The 
reason we have not is because something is going on in this town that 
is very unusual. There are high-level bipartisan talks going on with 
the White House on what the budget plan should be to deal with our 
debt. This is something I have encouraged for years.
  This year I have repeatedly called for a summit to deal with our 
debt, to get a plan in place to cut spending, and, yes, to raise 
revenue--hopefully without raising taxes but by eliminating tax 
expenditures, tax loopholes, this kind of scam we have just talked 
about of offshore tax havens and abusive tax shelters. That bipartisan 
leadership effort that is underway deserves a chance to succeed. If 
they reach a conclusion, they may need a budget resolution. They may 
need us to have a markup in the Budget Committee to implement their 
plan.
  Some do not want to wait, they do not want a bipartisan agreement. 
But we simply must have a bipartisan agreement if there is to be any 
chance for success.
  The House is controlled by the Republicans. The Senate is controlled 
by the Democrats. There is a Democrat in the White House. The only 
possible way that a plan is actually passed into law and implemented is 
if we work together. I did it for all last year on the President's 
commission. I have done it for months of this year with three 
Democrats, three Republicans, spending hundreds of hours trying to come 
up with a bipartisan plan to implement the recommendations of the 
committee. So I don't take a back seat to anybody with respect to being 
serious about trying to get a plan to get our debt under control 
because it is a fundamental threat to the economic security of the 
United States.
  But here is what the Republican leader himself said about the effort 
that is underway, the bipartisan leadership effort:

       [T]he discussions that can lead to a result between now and 
     August are the talks being led by Vice President Biden . . . 
     that's a process that could lead to a result, a measurable 
     result. . . . And in that meeting is the only Democrat who 
     can sign a bill into law; in fact, the only American out of 
     307 million of us who can sign a bill into law. He is in 
     those discussions. That will lead to a result. That is why we 
     have not gone to a budget markup, because we have the 
     patience to wait for the outcome of these bipartisan 
     leadership talks. The top Republicans are represented in the 
     Senate, the top Republicans in the House are represented, as 
     are the Democrats in the Senate and the House, led by the 
     White House.

  The Republican leader said this as well about the talks:

       We now have the most important Democrat in America at the 
     table. That's important. He is the only one of the 307 
     million of us who can actually sign a bill into law. And I 
     think that's a step in the right direction. And the Biden 
     group is the group that can actually reach a decision on a 
     bipartisan basis. And if it reaches a decision, obviously we 
     will be recommending it to our members.

  That is the point. Why would we go to a partisan budget markup and 
refuse to wait for the leadership negotiation that is underway to 
succeed, when we know if they do succeed in all likelihood they will 
need us to do a budget markup to implement what they decide?
  I have the patience. I have spent 5 years working, first, with 
Senator Gregg, the ranking Republican on the Budget Committee, then 
with all 18 members of the fiscal commission, now with the group of 
six--three Democrats and three Republicans--trying to put together a 
plan to implement what the commission recommended to get our debt under 
control.
  I have the patience to wait a few more weeks to see if the combined 
leadership of this country, Republican and Democrat, working with the 
President of the United States, can come up with a plan to get our debt 
under control. We should all have that patience. We should all hope 
they succeed. But we are not going to be sitting and waiting. While we 
are hoping for a successful outcome, this Senator will continue to work 
with Republicans and Democrats to come up with a bipartisan plan to 
meet our debt threat. All of us have that obligation. All of us have 
that responsibility.
  I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Would the Chair inform me when I have spoken for 5 
minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator will be notified.


                               Free Trade

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I have been a long-time supporter of 
free trade. I believe it is always a good thing when American 
businesses, manufacturers, and farmers have more market access for 
their products.
  I have also been a longtime supporter of specific free trade 
agreements that are waiting to be acted on by the Congress: the South 
Korea, Colombia, and Panama agreements. We have had too many years of 
talking about being long-time supporters of free trade agreements. Yet 
we have not had an opportunity to back up our talk with votes because 
we can't vote until the President presents them to Congress.
  The time to present these free trade agreements is long overdue. The 
administration needs to stop moving the goal posts every time we are 
about to kick the ball through.
  Take the Panama agreement as an example. The United States and Panama 
reached an agreement in principle in December of 2006. However, 
congressional Democrats expressed concern regarding certain labor 
issues that existed in Panama at the time. The Bush administration 
negotiated a deal with the congressional Democrats who had newly taken 
over the Congress in an agreement that was announced on May 10, 2007. 
As a result, then-President Bush addressed the labor issues in the 
trade agreement that the United States signed with Panama in late June 
of 2007.
  If there were a big news conference on May 10, 2007 that there has 
been an agreement reached, wouldn't one think these agreements would be 
passed by now? Not so 4 years later.
  Despite the fact that the demands made by congressional Democrats 
were incorporated in the signed trade deal, congressional Democrats 
would not allow a vote on the agreement. Instead, they moved the goal 
posts by demanding more changes be made by the Panamanian Government.
  After President Obama took office, the trade issue was sidelined. 
Along with others, I made a case that trade agreements needed to be a 
part of America's economic recovery effort. I got an opportunity to 
make the case directly to the President in December of 2009. Then in 
January 2010, the President said in a message to Congress that he 
wanted to double exports within the next 5 years. That is a very worthy 
goal.
  Well, it is pretty hard to double exports and help employers create 
jobs while ignoring these trade agreements. Supporters of free trade 
and the jobs supported by trade average about 15 percent above the 
national average. We are talking about good jobs, so there are reasons 
to keep the pressure on.
  Finally, after many months of waiting, the trade ambassador went back 
to work to get the Panamanian Government to agree to meet the 
additional demands set out by congressional Democrats in the Obama 
administration. The ambassador also set out to

[[Page 8179]]

gain further commitment from South Korea and Colombia.
  The Panamanian Government has addressed the additional demands by 
making the necessary amendments to their laws. The additional concerns 
the administration had with the South Korean and Colombian deals were 
addressed as well. Earlier this May, Ambassador Kirk indicated all 
three trade agreements were ready for Congress to consider. But the 
Obama administration decided to move the goal posts once again. Instead 
of moving these agreements forward for swift approval to help the 
economy move along and the swift approval which I believe they will 
receive when they get a vote, the administration now has another 
requirement: approval of trade adjustment assistance.
  While U.S. manufacturers and businesses and farmers risk losing more 
and more market share in these countries, Democrats keep coming up with 
reasons for holding up these trade agreements by moving the goal posts. 
There is simply no reason to keep on moving the goal posts. The 
administration has said these three trade agreements are ready. One of 
the best things we can do right now for U.S. businesses, farmers, and 
workers is to implement these trade agreements which will give a much-
needed boost to our economy.
  I am not suggesting we do nothing on trade adjustment assistance, 
because I support that 40-year-old program, but reaching an agreement 
on that program should not be used as another excuse for moving the 
goal posts. All three of the pending trade agreements need to be sent 
to Congress without further delay.
  I yield back the remainder of my time, and I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sanders). The Senator from Oregon.
  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, the Senate is preparing to pass another 4-
year extension of the USA PATRIOT Act. I have served on the 
Intelligence Committee for over a decade and I wish to deliver a 
warning this afternoon. When the American people find out how their 
government has secretly interpreted the PATRIOT Act, they are going to 
be stunned and they are going to be angry. They are going to ask 
Senators: Did you know what this law actually permits? Why didn't you 
know before you voted on it? The fact is anyone can read the plain text 
of the PATRIOT Act. Yet many Members of Congress have no idea how the 
law is being secretly interpreted by the executive branch because that 
interpretation is classified. It is almost as if there are two PATRIOT 
Acts, and many Members of Congress have not read the one that matters.
  Our constituents, of course, are totally in the dark. Members of the 
public have no access to the secret legal interpretations, so they have 
no idea what their government believes the law actually means.
  I am going to bring up several historical examples to try to 
demonstrate what this has meant over the years. Before I begin, I wish 
to be clear I am not claiming any of the specific activities I discuss 
today are happening now. I am bringing them up because I believe they 
are a reminder of how the American people react when they learn about 
domestic surveillance activities that are not consistent with what they 
believe the law allows. When Americans learn about intelligence 
activities that are consistent with their understanding of the law, 
they look to the news media, they follow these activities with 
interest, and often admiration. But when people learn about 
intelligence activities that are outside the lines of what is generally 
thought to be the law, the reaction can get negative and get negative 
in a hurry.
  Here is my first example. The CIA was established by the National 
Security Act of 1947 and the law stated that the agency was ``forbidden 
to have law enforcement powers or internal security functions.'' 
Members of the Congress and legal experts interpreted that language as 
a clear prohibition against any internal security function under any 
circumstances. A group of CIA officials had a different interpretation. 
They decided that the 1947 law contained legal gray areas that allowed 
the CIA to monitor American citizens for possible contact with foreign 
agents. They believed this meant they could secretly tap Americans' 
phones, open their mail, and plant listening devices in their homes, 
among other things. This secret legal interpretation led the CIA to 
maintain intelligence files on more than 10,000 American citizens, 
including reporters, Members of Congress, and a host of antiwar 
activists.
  This small group of CIA officials kept the program and their ``gray 
area'' justification to the program a secret from the American people 
and most of the government because, they argued, revealing it would 
violate the agency's responsibility to protect intelligence sources and 
methods from unauthorized disclosure. Did the program stay a secret? It 
didn't. On December 22, 1974, investigative reporter Seymour Hersh 
detailed the program on the front pages of the New York Times. The 
revelations and the huge public uproar that ensued led to the formation 
of the Church Committee. That committee spent nearly 2 years 
investigating questionable and illegal activity at the CIA. The Church 
Committee published 14 reports detailing various intelligence abuses 
which, in addition to illegal domestic surveillance, included programs 
designed to assassinate foreign leaders. The investigation led to 
Executive orders reining in the authority of the CIA and the creation 
of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees.
  In 1947, President Harry Truman and his top military and legal 
advisers secretly approved a program named PROJECT SHAMROCK. PROJECT 
SHAMROCK authorized the Armed Forces Security Agency and its successor, 
the NSA, to monitor telegraphs coming in and out of the United States. 
At the outset of the program, companies were told that government 
agents would only read ``those telegrams related to foreign 
intelligence targets,'' but as the program grew, more telegrams were 
sent and received by Americans and they were read. During the program's 
30-year run, the NSA analysts sometimes reviewed as many as 150,000 
telegrams a month.
  While the Ford administration said it made all pertinent information 
about PROJECT SHAMROCK available, the Senate Intelligence Committee and 
the Justice Department had kept the program secret from the public. 
They argued that public disclosure was both unjustified and dangerous 
to national security, and it avoided Congress's questions regarding the 
legality of the program by stating that the telegrams present somewhat 
different legal questions from those posed by domestic bugging and 
wiretapping. That program didn't stay secret either.
  The newly formed Senate Intelligence Committee ultimately disclosed 
the PROJECT SHAMROCK program on November 6, 1975, arguing that public 
disclosure was needed to build support--build support--for a law 
governing NSA operations. The resulting public uproar led to a 
congressional investigation. The NSA's termination of PROJECT SHAMROCK 
and the passage of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, 
which attempted to subject domestic surveillance to a process of 
warrants and judicial review.
  Years later, during the Reagan administration, senior members of the 
National Security Council secretly sold arms to Iran and used the funds 
to arm and train Contra militants to topple the Nicaraguan Government. 
Selling arms to Iran violated the official U.S. arms embargo against 
Iran and directly funding the Contras was illegal under the Boland 
amendment. That was the one Congress passed to limit U.S. Government 
assistance to the Contras.
  But the officials at the National Security Council were convinced 
they knew better. They were convinced that violating the embargo and 
illegally supporting the Contra rebels would help free American 
hostages and help fight communism in Nicaragua. Instead of engaging in 
a public debate and trying to convince the Congress and the public they 
were right, they secretly launched an arms program and

[[Page 8180]]

hid it from the Congress and the American people. How did that work out 
for them?
  The New York Times published a story of these activities on November 
25, 1987. A joint congressional committee was launched to investigate 
the Iran Contra affair with televised hearings for over a month. The 
House Foreign Affairs Committee and the House and Senate Intelligence 
Committees held their own hearings. The first Presidential commission 
investigating the National Security Council was launched. Multiple 
reports were published documenting the administration's illegal 
activities, and the Nicaraguan Government sued the United States. 
Dozens of court cases were filed and National Security Council 
officials--including two National Security Advisers--faced multiple 
indictments.
  Finally, following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, a 
handful of government officials made the unilateral judgment that 
following U.S. surveillance law, as it was commonly understood, would 
slow down the government's ability to track suspected terrorists. 
Instead of working with the Congress, instead of coming to the Congress 
and asking to revise or update the law, these officials secretly 
reinterpreted the law to justify a warrantless wiretapping program that 
they hid from virtually every Member of the Congress and the American 
people.
  It is not clear how long they thought they could hide a large, 
controversial national security program of this nature, but they kept 
it so secret that even when it yielded useful intelligence, 
classification restrictions sometimes prevented the information from 
being shared with officials who could have used it.
  I was a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee at this point--a 
relatively new member--but the program and the legal interpretations 
that supported it were kept secret from me and virtually all of my 
colleagues.
  Again, did that program stay secret? The answer is no. After several 
years, the New York Times published a story uncovering the program. The 
resulting public uproar led to a divisive congressional debate and a 
significant number of lawsuits. In my view, the disclosure also led to 
an erosion of public trust that made many private companies more 
reluctant to cooperate with government inquiries.
  As most of my colleagues will remember, Congress and the executive 
branch spent years trying to sort out the details of that particular 
program and the secret legal interpretation--the secret legal 
interpretation--that was used to justify it. In the process of doing 
so, Congress also attempted to address an actual surveillance issue. I 
think all my colleagues who were here for that debate would agree those 
issues could have been resolved far more easily, far less 
contentiously, if the Bush administration had simply come to the 
Congress in the first place and tried to work out a bipartisan solution 
to them rather than, in effect, trying to rewrite the law in secret.
  When laws are secretly reinterpreted this way, the results frequently 
fail to stand up to public scrutiny. It is not surprising, if you think 
about it. The American law-making process is often cumbersome, it is 
often frustrating, and it is certainly contentious. But over the long 
run, this process is a pretty good way to ensure that our laws have the 
support of the American people, since those that do not will actually 
get revised or repealed by elected lawmakers who follow the will of our 
constituents. On the other hand, when laws are secretly reinterpreted 
behind closed doors by a small number of government officials--and 
there is no public scrutiny, no public debate--you are certainly more 
likely to end up with interpretations of the law that go well beyond 
the boundaries of what the American people are willing to accept.
  Let me make clear that I think it is entirely legitimate for 
government agencies to keep some information secret. In a democratic 
society, of course, citizens rightly expect their government will not 
arbitrarily keep information from them, and throughout our Nation's 
history Americans have vigilantly guaranteed their right to know. But 
Americans do acknowledge certain limited exceptions to the principle of 
openness. We know, for example, that tax officials have information 
about all of us from our tax returns. But the government does not have 
the right or the need to share this information openly. This is 
essentially an exception to protect personal privacy.
  Another limited exception exists for the protection of national 
security. The U.S. Government has an inherent responsibility to protect 
our people from threats. To do this effectively, it almost always 
requires some measure of secrecy. I do not expect General Petraeus to 
publicly discuss the details of every troop movement in Afghanistan any 
more than early Americans expected George Washington to publish his 
strategy for the Battle of Yorktown. By the same token, American 
citizens recognize that their government may sometimes rely on secret 
intelligence collection methods in order to ensure national security, 
in order to ensure the safety of the American people, and they 
recognize that these methods can often be more effective when specifics 
are kept secret.
  But while Americans recognize that government agencies sometimes rely 
on secret sources and methods to collect intelligence information, 
Americans also expect these agencies will cooperate at all times within 
the boundaries of publicly understood law.
  I have served on the Senate Intelligence Committee for a decade, and 
I do not take a backseat to anybody when it comes to protecting what 
are essential sources and methods that are needed to keep the American 
people safe when intelligence is being gathered. But I do not believe 
the law should ever be kept secret. Voters have a right and a need to 
know what the law says and what their government thinks the text of the 
law means. That is essential so the American people can decide whether 
the law is appropriately written and they are in a position to ratify 
or reject the decisions their elected officials make on their behalf.
  When it comes to most government functions, the public can directly 
observe the government's actions and the typical citizens can decide 
for themselves whether they support or agree with the things their 
government is doing. Certainly, in my part of the world, American 
citizens can visit the national forests and decide whether they think 
the forests are appropriately managed. When they drive on the 
interstate, they can decide for themselves whether those highways have 
been properly laid out and adequately maintained. If they see someone 
punished, they can decide for themselves whether the sentence was 
appropriate, whether it was too harsh or too lenient.
  But Americans generally cannot decide for themselves whether 
intelligence agencies are operating within the law. That is why the 
U.S. intelligence community evolved over the past several decades. The 
Congress set up a number of watchdog and oversight mechanisms to ensure 
that the intelligence agencies follow the law rather than violate it. 
That is why the Senate and House each have a Select Intelligence 
Committee. It is also why the Congress created the Foreign Intelligence 
Surveillance Court. It is why Congress created a number of statutory 
inspectors general to act as independent watchdogs inside the 
intelligence agencies themselves. All these oversight entities were 
created at least in part to ensure that intelligence agencies carry out 
all their activities within the boundaries of publicly understood law.
  But the law itself must always be public. Government officials must 
not be allowed to fall into the trap of secretly reinterpreting the law 
in a way that creates a gap between what the public believes the law 
says and what the government secretly claims it says. Anytime that 
happens, it seems to me there is going to be a violation of the public 
trust. Furthermore, allowing a gap of this nature to develop is simply 
shortsighted. Both history and logic should make it clear--and that is 
why I brought these examples to the floor of the Senate--that secret 
interpretations of the law will not stay secret forever and, in fact, 
often come to light pretty quickly. When the public eventually

[[Page 8181]]

finds out that government agencies have been rewriting surveillance 
laws in secret, the result, as I have demonstrated, is invariably a 
backlash and an erosion of public confidence in these government 
agencies.
  I believe this is a big and growing problem.
  Our intelligence and national security agencies are staffed by many 
talented and dedicated men and women. The work they do is very 
important, and for the most part, they are extraordinarily 
professional. But when members of the public lose confidence in these 
agencies, it does not just undercut morale, it makes it harder for 
these agencies to do their jobs. If you ask the head of any 
intelligence agency, particularly an agency that is involved in 
domestic surveillance in any kind of way, he or she will tell you that 
public trust is the coin of the realm, it is a vital commodity, and 
voluntary cooperation from law-abiding Americans is critical to the 
effectiveness of our intelligence agencies.
  If members of the public lose confidence in these government agencies 
because they think government officials are rewriting surveillance laws 
in secret, it is going to make those agencies less effective. As a 
member of the Intelligence Committee, I do not want to see that happen.
  I wish to wrap up now with one last comment; that is, as you look at 
these statutes, and particularly the ones I have outlined--where you 
have so many hard-working lawyers and officials at these government 
agencies--I wish to make it clear I do not believe these officials have 
a malicious intent. They are working hard to protect intelligence 
sources and methods and for good reason. But sometimes they can lose 
sight of the differences between the sources and methods, which must be 
kept secret, and the law itself, which should not. Sometimes they even 
go so far as to argue that keeping their interpretation of the law 
secret is actually necessary because it prevents our Nation's 
adversaries from figuring out what our intelligence agencies are 
allowed to do.
  I can see how it might be tempting to latch onto this ``Alice in 
Wonderland'' logic. But if the U.S. Government were to actually adopt 
it, then all our surveillance laws would be kept secret because that 
would, obviously, be even more useful. When Congress passed the Foreign 
Intelligence Surveillance Act in 1978, it would have been useful to 
keep that law secret from the KGB so Soviet agents would not know 
whether the FBI was allowed to track them. But American laws should not 
be public only when government officials think it is convenient. They 
ought to be public and public all the time. The American people ought 
to be able to find out what their government thinks those laws mean.
  Earlier this week, I filed an amendment, along with my colleague from 
the Intelligence Committee, Senator Mark Udall, and that amendment 
would require the Attorney General to publicly disclose the U.S. 
Government's official interpretation of the USA PATRIOT Act. The 
amendment specifically states that the Attorney General should not 
describe any particular intelligence collection programs or activities 
but that there should be a full description of ``the legal 
interpretation and analysis necessary to understand the . . . 
Government's official interpretation'' of the law.
  This morning, Senator Mark Udall and I--and we had the help of 
several colleagues: Senator Merkley, Senator Tom Udall--reached an 
agreement with the chair of the Intelligence Committee, Senator 
Feinstein. She is going to be holding hearings on this issue next 
month.
  Senator Mark Udall and I, as members of the committee, will be in a 
position to go into those hearings and the subsequent deliberations to 
try to amend the intelligence authorization. If we do not get results 
inside the committee, because of the agreement today with the 
distinguished chair of the Intelligence Committee, Senator Feinstein, 
and the majority leader, Senator Reid, we will be in a position to come 
back to this floor and offer our original amendment this fall.
  We are going to keep fighting for openness and honesty. As of today, 
the government's official interpretation of the law is still secret--
still secret--and I believe there is a growing gap, as of this 
afternoon, between what the public believes that law says and the 
secret interpretation of the Justice Department.
  So I plan to vote no this afternoon on this legislation because I 
said some time ago that a long-term reauthorization of this legislation 
did require significant reforms. I believe when more Members of 
Congress and the American people come to understand how the PATRIOT Act 
has actually been interpreted in secret, I think the number of 
Americans who support significant reform and the end of secret law--the 
end of law that is kept secret from them by design--I think we will see 
Americans joining us in this cause to ensure that in the days ahead, as 
we protect our country from the dangerous threats we face, we are also 
doing a better job of being sensitive to individual liberty. Those 
philosophies, those critical principles are what this country is all 
about. And we are going to stay at it, Senator Udall and I and others, 
until those changes are secured.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.
  Mr. UDALL of Colorado. Mr. President, I rise today in conjunction 
with my colleague from Oregon to discuss what is before us here on the 
floor, which is the extension of the PATRIOT Act.
  I rise as well to express my opposition to the extension of the three 
most controversial provisions in the PATRIOT Act which are before us 
here today. The process by which we have considered these provisions 
has been rushed. I believe we have done a disservice to the American 
people by not having a fuller and more open debate about these 
provisions.
  Along with Senator Wyden, I want to acknowledge the difficult 
position the leader of the Senate, Senator Reid, has been in. I want to 
thank him for trying to find an agreement to vote on more amendments. 
We were very close to reaching that agreement, but even in that 
context, the debate we have had on this bill has been insufficient.
  If you look at what we are about to approve, it is a one-page bill 
which just changes the dates in the existing PATRIOT Act. This is a 
lost opportunity.
  As a member of the Intelligence Committee, I can tell you that what 
most people--including many Members of Congress--believe the PATRIOT 
Act allows the government to do--what it allows the government to do--
and what government officials privately believe the PATRIOT Act allows 
them to do are two different things. Senator Wyden has been making that 
case. I want to make it as well.
  I cannot support the extension of the provisions we are considering 
today without amendments to ensure there is a check on executive branch 
authority. I do not believe the Coloradans who sent me here to 
represent them would accept this extension either. Americans would be 
alarmed if they knew how this law is being carried out.
  I appreciate the Intelligence Committee chairwoman, Dianne Feinstein, 
working with us to hold hearings in the committee to examine how the 
administration is interpreting the law. I believe that is a critical 
step forward. However, that addresses only the overarching concern. I 
still have concerns about the individual provisions we are considering 
today.
  We just voted to invoke cloture to cut off debate on the 4-year 
extension of provisions that give the government wide-ranging authority 
to conduct wiretaps on groups and individuals or collect private 
citizens' records. I voted no because the debate should not be over 
without a real chance to improve these authorities. I recently 
supported a 3-month extension so the Senate could take time to debate 
and amend the PATRIOT Act. We were promised that debate, but that 
opportunity is literally slipping through our hands. I would like to 
stay here and continue making the case to the American people that this 
bill should and could be improved.

[[Page 8182]]

  While a number of PATRIOT Act provisions are permanent and remain in 
place to give our intelligence community important tools to fight 
terrorism, the three controversial provisions we are debating, commonly 
known as roving wiretap, ``lone wolf,'' and business records, are ripe 
for abuse and threaten Americans' constitutional freedoms.
  I know we must balance the principles of liberty and security. I 
firmly believe terrorism is a serious threat to the United States, and 
we must be sharply focused on protecting the American people. In fact, 
with my seats on the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Senate 
Intelligence Committee, much of my attention is centered on keeping 
Americans safe both here and abroad. I also recognize that despite 
Osama bin Laden's death, we still live in a world where terrorism is a 
serious threat to our country, our economy, and to American lives. Our 
government does need the appropriate surveillance and antiterrorism 
tools to achieve these important goals. However, we need to and we can 
strike a better balance between protecting our national security and 
the constitutional freedoms of our people. Let me give you an example. 
This debate has failed to recognize that the current surveillance 
programs need improved public oversight and accountability.
  I know Americans believe we ought to only use PATRIOT Act powers to 
investigate terrorists or espionage-related targets. Yet section 215 of 
the PATRIOT Act, the so-called business records provision, currently 
allows records to be collected on law-abiding Americans without any 
connection to terrorism or espionage. If we cannot limit investigations 
to terrorism or other nefarious activities, where do they end?
  Coloradans are demanding that in addition to the review of the 
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, we place commonsense limits on 
government investigations and link data collection to terrorist or 
espionage-related activities. If--or I should say when--Congress passes 
this bill to extend the PATRIOT Act until 2015, it will mean that for 4 
more years the Federal Government will have access to private 
information about Americans who have no connection to terrorism without 
sufficient accountability and without real public awareness about how 
these powers are used.
  Again, I underline that we all agree the intelligence community needs 
effective tools to combat terrorism, but we must provide these tools in 
a way that protects the constitutional freedoms of our people and lives 
up to the standard of transparency that democracy demands.
  Again, as a member of the Intelligence Committee, while I cannot say 
how this authority is being used, I believe it is ripe for potential 
abuse and must be improved to protect the constitutionally protected 
privacy rights of individual innocent American citizens. Toward that 
goal, I have worked with my colleagues to come up with commonsense 
fixes that can receive bipartisan support. For example, Senator Wyden 
and I filed an amendment that would require the Department of Justice 
to disclose the official legal interpretation of the provisions of the 
PATRIOT Act. This would make sure the Federal Government is only using 
those powers in ways the American people believe they are authorizing 
them to.
  While I believe our intelligence practices should be kept secret, I 
do not believe the government's official interpretation of these laws 
should be kept secret. This is an important part of our oversight 
duties, and I look forward to working with Chairwoman Feinstein in the 
Intelligence Committee to ensure this oversight occurs.
  I have also filed my own amendments to address some of the problems I 
see with the roving wiretap, ``lone wolf,'' and business record 
provisions. For example, I joined Senator Wyden in filing an amendment 
designed to narrow the scope of the business records materials that can 
be collected under section 215 of the PATRIOT Act. And I just 
highlighted some of the problems with that provision. Our amendment 
would still allow enforcement agencies to use the PATRIOT Act to obtain 
investigation records, but it would also require those entities to 
demonstrate that the records are in some way connected to terrorism or 
clandestine intelligence activities.
  Today, law enforcement currently can obtain any kind of records. In 
fact, the PATRIOT Act's only limitation states that such information 
has to be related to ``any tangible thing.'' That is right. As long as 
these business records are related to any tangible thing, the U.S. 
Government can require businesses to turn over information on their 
customers, whether or not there is a link to terrorism or espionage. I 
have to say that I just do not think it is unreasonable to ask that our 
law enforcement agencies identify a terrorism or espionage 
investigation before collecting the private information of law-abiding 
American citizens.
  These amendments represent but a few of the reform ideas we could 
have debated this week. But without further debate on these issues, 
this or any other administration, whether intentionally or 
unintentionally, can abuse the PATRIOT Act. And because of the need to 
keep classified material classified, Congress cannot publicly fulfill 
our oversight responsibilities on behalf of the American people.
  So, as I started out my remarks, I plan to vote against the 
reauthorization of these three expiring provisions because we fail to 
implement any reforms that would sensibly restrain these overbroad 
provisions. In the nearly 10 years since Congress passed the PATRIOT 
Act, there has been very little opportunity to improve this law, and I, 
for one, am very disappointed that we are once again being rushed into 
approving policies that threaten the privacy--which, under one 
definition, is the freedom to be left alone--of the American people. It 
is a fundamental element and principle of freedom.
  The bill that is before us today, in my opinion, does not live up to 
the balanced standard the Framers of our Constitution envisioned to 
protect both liberty and security, and I believe it seriously risks the 
constitutional freedoms of our people. By passing this unamended 
reauthorization, we are ensuring that Americans will live with the 
status quo for 4 more long years. I am disappointed and I know that 
many of our constituents would be disappointed if they were able to 
understand the implications of our inaction on these troubling issues.
  As I close, I just want to say there is a gravitational pull to 
secrecy that I think we all have as human beings. It is hard to resist 
it. And the whole point of the checks and balances our Founders put in 
place was to ensure that power couldn't be consolidated and that power 
abused, again whether intentionally or unintentionally. We would all 
like to be king for a day. We all have ideas about how we could make 
the world a better place. But we know the dangers in giving that much 
power to one person or one small group of people.
  Ben Franklin put it so well. I can't do justice to his remarks and 
the way he stated them, but to paraphrase him, he said that a society 
that would trade essential liberty for short-term security deserves 
neither. And our job as Senators is to ensure that we actually enjoy 
both of those precious qualities, security and liberty.
  This is an important vote today. This is an important undertaking. I 
know we can, through the leadership of Senator Wyden and many of us who 
care deeply about this, ensure that the PATRIOT Act keeps faith with 
the principles we hold dear.
  I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. McCaskill). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. REID. I appreciate everyone's patience. We are working toward the 
end, but we are not there yet.

[[Page 8183]]

  I ask unanimous consent that it be in order for Senator Paul to offer 
two amendments en bloc and no other amendments be in order: Amendment 
No. 363, firearm records, and amendment No. 365, suspicious activity 
reports; that there be 60 minutes of debate prior to votes in relation 
to the amendments, with the time equally divided between Senator Paul 
and the majority leader or their designees; that neither Paul amendment 
be divisible; that upon the use or yielding back of time, the majority 
leader or his designee be recognized for a motion to table; if there 
are not at least 60 votes in opposition to a motion to table the above 
amendments, the amendments be withdrawn; further, upon disposition of 
the two Paul amendments, amendment No. 348 be withdrawn; that all 
remaining time postcloture be yielded back and the Senate proceed to 
vote on adoption of the motion to concur in the House amendment to S. 
990 with amendment No. 347; that no points of order or motions be in 
order other than those listed in this agreement and budget points of 
order and applicable motions to waive.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The Senator from Vermont,
  Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, reserving the right to object, I ask 
unanimous consent that the agreement be modified to include the Leahy-
Paul amendment with the same time for debate and a vote under the usual 
procedures.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. REID. Madam President, I propounded this unanimous consent 
request: I would comment to my friend, the chairman of the Judiciary 
Committee, this amendment he has suggested has bipartisan support. He 
has worked very hard on this. It is an amendment that we hope sometime 
the content of which can be fully brought before the American people 
because it is something that is bipartisan and timely. I would hope we 
can get consent to include his amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The minority leader.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I object to the Leahy request.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Is there any remaining objection to the request of the leader?
  Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator does not have the floor. The 
leader has the floor.
  Mr. REID. I note the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REID. 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. REID. Madam President, I renew my request.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, reserving the right to object, I would 
first ask unanimous consent that an editorial in today's Washington 
Post in favor of my amendment be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                [From the Washington Post, May 25, 2011]

             A Chance to Put Protections in the Patriot Act

       Congress appears poised to renew important counterterrorism 
     provisions before they are to expire at the end of the week. 
     That much is welcome. But it is disappointing that lawmakers 
     may extend the Patriot Act measures without additional 
     protections meant to ensure that these robust tools are used 
     appropriately.
       The Patriot Act's lone-wolf provision allows law 
     enforcement agents to seek court approval to surveil a non-
     U.S. citizen believed to be involved in terrorism but who may 
     not have been identified as a member of a foreign group. A 
     second measure allows the government to use roving wiretaps 
     to keep tabs on a suspected foreign agent even if he 
     repeatedly switches cellphone numbers or communication 
     devices, relieving officers of the obligation of going back 
     for court approval every time the suspect changes his means 
     of communication. A third permits the government to obtain a 
     court order to seize ``any tangible item'' deemed relevant to 
     a national security investigation. All three are scheduled to 
     sunset by midnight Thursday.
       House and Senate leaders have struck a preliminary 
     agreement for an extension to June 2015 and may vote on the 
     matter as early as Thursday morning. This agreement was not 
     easy to come by. Several Republican senators originally 
     wanted permanent extensions--a proposition rebuffed by most 
     Democrats and civil liberties groups. In the House, 
     conservative Tea Party members, who worried about handing the 
     federal government too much power, earlier this year bucked a 
     move that would have kept the provisions alive until 
     December. Congressional leaders were forced to piece together 
     short-term approvals to keep the tools from lapsing.
       The compromise four-year extension is important because it 
     gives law enforcement agencies certainty about the tools' 
     availability. But the bill would be that much stronger if 
     oversight and auditing requirements originally included in 
     the version from Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) were permitted 
     to remain. Mr. Leahy's proposal, which won bipartisan 
     approval in the Senate Judiciary Committee, required the 
     attorney general and the Justice Department inspector general 
     to provide periodic reports to congressional overseers to 
     ensure that the tools are being used responsibly. Mr. Leahy 
     has crafted an amendment that includes these protections, but 
     it is unlikely that the Senate leadership will allow its 
     consideration.
       At this late hour, it is most important to ensure that the 
     provisions do not lapse, which could happen as a result of a 
     dispute between Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) 
     and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) over procedural issues. If time 
     runs out for consideration of the Leahy amendment, Mr. Leahy 
     should offer a stand-alone bill later to make the reporting 
     requirements the law.

  Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, further reserving the right to object, I 
find it extremely difficult--and I have great respect for Senator Paul 
as a cosponsor of my amendment--that one more time we have a case where 
we could have two amendments on the Republican side and we have one 
that is cosponsored by both Republicans and Democrats on this side, but 
we can't go forward with it. We have two amendments that have not 
gotten any committee hearings. We have one on this side that has been 
voted on by a bipartisan majority, Republicans and Democrats, twice out 
of committee, twice on the floor, and that can't go forward.
  It is my inclination to object further. I realize the difficulty that 
would put my friend from Nevada in, so I will not object. But I do feel 
this ruins the chances to make the PATRIOT Act one that could have had 
far greater bipartisan support, and we have lost a wonderful chance. 
But I understand we have to do what the Republicans want in this bill, 
so I will withdraw my objection.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, in this editorial to which the chairman of 
the Judiciary Committee refers, there are four very strong paragraphs 
indicating why his amendment is important and necessary. But in keeping 
with the kind of Senator we have in the senior Senator from Vermont--
the final paragraph is also quite meaningful and it is meaningful 
because that is the kind of Senator we have from Vermont by the name of 
Pat Leahy. This is the last paragraph:

       At this late hour, it is most important to ensure that the 
     provisions do not lapse, which would happen as a result of a 
     dispute between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senator 
     Rand Paul over procedural issues.

  Here is the final sentence, which demonstrates why Pat Leahy is a 
friend of the United States and is a legend in the Senate:

  If time runs out for consideration of the Leahy amendment, Mr. Leahy 
should offer a stand-alone bill later to make the reporting 
requirements the law.

  So I appreciate very much Senator Leahy being his usual team player.
  Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, if the Senator would yield for a moment, 
he referred to that last line that this should be offered as a 
freestanding bill. I assure the leader it will be offered as a 
freestanding bill and I hope it is one that, because of bipartisan 
support, could be brought up at some point for a vote.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, this is an extremely important plateau we

[[Page 8184]]

have reached. It has been very difficult for everyone. But now this 
bill can go to the President of the United States if these amendments 
are defeated, which I hope they are. It will go to the President 
tonight before the deadline of this bill, so this bill will not lapse. 
Even though the Senator from Kentucky, Mr. Paul, and I have had some 
differences, what we have done on this legislation has at least helped 
us understand each other, which I appreciate very much, and I 
appreciate his working with us. It has been most difficult for him and 
for me.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  The Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. PAUL. I am pleased today to come to the floor of the Senate to 
talk about the PATRIOT Act. I am pleased we have cracked open the door 
that will shed some light on the PATRIOT Act. I wish the door were open 
wider, the debate broader and more significant, but today we will talk 
a little bit about the constitutionality of the PATRIOT Act.
  I was a cosponsor of Senator Leahy's amendment, and I think it would 
have gone many great steps forward to make sure we have surveillance on 
what our government does. It would have authorized audits by the 
inspector general to continue to watch over and to make sure government 
is not invading the rights of private citizens, and I do support that 
wholeheartedly.
  Jefferson said if we had a government of angels, we wouldn't have to 
care or be concerned about the power that we give to government. 
Unfortunately, sometimes we don't have angels in charge of our 
government. Sometimes we can even get a government in charge that would 
use the power of government in a malicious or malevolent way, to look 
at the banking records of people they disagree with politically, to 
look at the religious practices of people they disagree with. So it is 
important that we are always vigilant, that we are eternally vigilant 
of the powers of government so they do not grow to such an extent that 
government could be looking into our private affairs for nefarious 
reasons.
  We have proposed two amendments that we will have votes on today. One 
of them concerns the second amendment. I think it is very important 
that we protect the rights of gun owners in our country, not only for 
hunting but for self-protection, and that the records of those in our 
country who own guns should be secret. I don't think the government, 
well intentioned or not well intentioned, should be sifting through 
millions of records of gun owners. Why? There have been times even in 
our history in which government has invaded our homes to take things 
from us. In the 1930s, government came into our households and said 
give us your gold. Gold was confiscated in this country in 1933. Could 
there conceivably be a time when government comes into our homes and 
says, We want your guns?
  People say that is absurd. That would never happen. I hope that day 
never comes. I am not accusing anybody of being in favor of that, but I 
am worried about a government that is sifting through millions of 
records without asking: Are you a suspect; without asking, are you in 
league with foreign terrorists? Are you plotting a violent overthrow of 
your government? By all means, if you are, let's look at your records. 
Let's put you in jail. Let's prosecute you. But let's not sift through 
hundreds of millions of gun records to find out whether you own a gun. 
Let's don't leave those data banks in the hands of government where 
someday those could be abused.
  What we are asking for are procedural protections. The Constitution 
gave us those protections. The second amendment gives us the right to 
keep and bear arms. The fourth amendment is equally important. It gives 
us the right to be free of unreasonable search. It gives us the right 
to say that government must have probable cause. There must be at least 
some suspicion that one is committing a crime before they come into 
one's house or before they go into one's records, wherever one's 
records are. The Constitution doesn't say that one only has protection 
of records that are in one's house. One should have protection of 
records that reside in other places. Just because one's Visa record 
resides with a Visa company doesn't make it any less private. If we 
look at a person's Visa bill, we can find out all kinds of things about 
them. If we look at a person's Visa bill, we can find out what doctors 
they go to; do they go to a psychiatrist; do they have mental illness; 
what type of medications do they take.
  If someone looked at my Visa bill, they could tell what type of books 
or magazines I read. One of the provisions of the PATRIOT Act is called 
the library provision. They can look at the books someone checks out in 
the library. People say, well, still, a judge has to sign these 
warrants. But we changed the standard. The standard of the fourth 
amendment was probable cause. They had to argue, or at least convince a 
judge, that you were a suspect, that you were doing something wrong. 
Now the cause or the standard has been changed to relevance. So it 
could be that you went to a party with someone who was from Palestine 
who gives money to some group in Palestine that may well be a terrorist 
group. But the thing is, because I went to a party with them, because I 
know that person, am I now somehow connected enough to be relevant? 
They would say, Well, your government would never do that. They would 
never go to investigate people. The problem is, this is all secret. So 
I do not know if I have been investigated. My Visa bill sometimes has 
been $5,000. Sometimes we pay for them over the phone, which is a wire 
transfer. Have I been investigated by my government? I do not know. It 
is secret.
  What I want is protection. I want to capture terrorists, sure. If 
terrorists are moving machine guns and weapons in our country, 
international terrorists, by all means, let's go after them. But the 
worst people, the people we want to lock up forever--the people all of 
us universally agree about: people who commit murder, people who commit 
rape--we want to lock them up and throw away the book, and I am all 
with you. But we still have the protections of the fourth amendment.
  If someone is running around in the streets of Washington tonight--at 
4 in the morning--and we think they may have murdered someone, we will 
call a judge, and we will get a warrant. Just because we believe in 
procedural protections, just because we believe in the Constitution 
does not mean we do not want to capture terrorists. We just want to 
have some rules.
  I will give you an analogy. Right now, you have been to the airport. 
Most of America has been to the airport at some point in time in the 
last year or two. Millions of people fly every day. But we are taking 
this shotgun approach. We think everyone is a terrorist, so everyone is 
being patted down, everyone is being strip-searched. We are putting our 
hands inside the pants of 6-year-old children. I mean, have we not gone 
too far? Are we so afraid that we are willing to give up all of our 
liberty in exchange for security? Franklin said: If you give up your 
liberty, you will have neither. If you give up your liberty in exchange 
for security, you may well wind up with neither.
  Because we take this shotgun approach, we take this approach that 
everyone is a potential terrorist, I think we actually are doing less 
of a good job in capturing terrorists because if we spent our time 
going after those who were committing terrorism, maybe we would spend 
less time on those who are living in this country, children and 
otherwise, frequent business travelers, who are not a threat to our 
country. Instead of wasting time on these people, we could spend more 
time on those who would attack us.
  I will give you an example--the Underwear Bomber. For goodness' 
sakes, his dad reported him. His dad called the U.S. Embassy and said: 
My son is a potential threat to your country. We did nothing. He was on 
a watch list. We still let him get on a plane. He had been to Nigeria. 
He had been to Yemen twice. For goodness' sakes, why don't we take half 
the people in the TSA who are patting down our children and let's have 
them look at the international

[[Page 8185]]

flight manifest of those traveling from certain countries who could be 
attacking us? For goodness' sakes, why don't we target whom we are 
looking at?
  My other amendment concerns banking records. Madam President, 8 
million banking records have been looked at in our country--not by the 
government. They have empowered your bank to spy on you. Every time you 
go into your bank, your bank is asked to spy on you. If you make a 
transaction of more than $5,000, the bank is encouraged to report you. 
If the bank does not report you, they get a large fine, to the tune of 
$100,000 or more. They could get 5 years in prison. They are 
overencouraged. The incentive is for the bank to report everyone. So 
once upon a time, these suspicious-activity reports were maybe 10,000 
in a year. There are now over 1 million of these suspicious-activity 
reports.
  Do I want to capture terrorists? Yes. Do I want to capture terrorists 
who are transferring large amounts of money? Yes. But you know what. 
When we are wasting time on 8 million transactions--the vast majority 
of these transactions being by law-abiding U.S. citizens--we are not 
targeting the people who would attack us.
  Let's do police work. If there are terrorist groups in the Middle 
East and we know who they are, let's investigate them. If they have 
money in the United States or they are transferring it between banks, 
by all means, let's investigate them. But let's have some 
constitutional protections. Let's have some protections that say you 
must ask a judge for a warrant.
  Some have said: How would we get these people? Would we capture those 
who are transferring weapons? We would investigate. We have all kinds 
of tools, and we have been using those tools.
  Others have said: Well, we have captured these people through the 
PATRIOT Act, and we never could have gotten them. The problem with that 
argument is that it is unprovable. You can tell me you captured people 
through the PATRIOT Act and I can believe you captured them and you 
have prosecuted them, but you cannot prove to me you would not have 
captured them had you asked for a judge.
  We have a special court. It is called the FISA Court. The FISA Court 
has been around since the late 1970s. Not one warrant was ever turned 
down before the PATRIOT Act. But they say: We need more power. We need 
more power given to these agencies, and we do not need any 
constitutional restraint anymore.
  But my question is, the fourth amendment said you had to have 
probable cause. You had to name the person and the place. Well, how do 
we change, get rid of probable cause and change it to a standard of 
relevance? How do we do that and amend the Constitution without 
actually amending the Constitution? These are important constitutional 
questions. But when the PATRIOT Act came up, we were so frightened by 
9/11 that it just flew through here. There were not enough copies to be 
read. There was one copy at the time. No Senator read the PATRIOT Act. 
It did not go through the standard procedure.
  Let's look at what is happening now. Ten years later, you would think 
the fear and hysteria would have gotten to such a level that we could 
go through the committee process. Senator Leahy's bill went to 
committee. It was deliberated upon. It was discussed. It was debated. 
It was passed out with bipartisan support. It came to the floor with 
bipartisan support. But do you know why it is not getting a vote now? 
Because they have backed us up against a deadline.
  There have been people who have implied in print that if I hold up 
the PATRIOT Act and they attack us tonight, then I am responsible for 
the attack. There have been people who have implied that if some 
terrorist gets a gun, then I am somehow responsible. It is sort of the 
analogy of saying that because I believe you should get a warrant 
before you go into a potential or alleged murderer's house, somehow I 
am in favor of murder.
  I am in favor of having constitutional protections. These arose out 
of hundreds of years of common law. They were codified in our 
Constitution because we were worried. We were incredibly concerned 
about what the King had done. We were concerned about what a far 
distant Parliament was doing to us without our approval. We were 
concerned about what James Otis called writs of assistance. Writs of 
assistance were pieces of paper that were warrants that were written by 
soldiers. They were telling us we had to house the British soldiers in 
our houses, and they were giving general warrants which meant: We are 
just going to search you willy-nilly. We are not going to name the 
person or the place. We are not going to name the crime you are accused 
of.
  If a government were comprised of angels, we would not need the 
fourth amendment. What I argue for here now is protections for us all 
should we get a despot, should we someday elect somebody who does not 
have respect for rights. We should obey rules and laws.
  Is this an isolated episode we are here talking about, the PATRIOT 
Act, and that there is an insufficient time, that it is a deadline: 
Hurry, hurry; we must act. It is not an isolated time.
  We have had no sufficient debate on the war with Libya. We are now 
encountered in a war in Libya, so we now have a war in which there has 
been no congressional debate and no congressional vote. But do you know 
what they argue. They say it is just a little war. But you know what. 
It is a big principle. It is the principle that we as a country elect 
people. It is a principle that we are restrained by the Constitution, 
that you are protected by the Constitution, and that if I ask the young 
men and women here today to go to war and say we are going to go to 
war, there darn well should be a debate in this body. We are abdicating 
those responsibilities.
  We are not debating the PATRIOT Act sufficiently. We are not having 
an open amendment process. It took me 3 days of sitting down here 
filibustering, but I am going to get two amendment votes. I am very 
happy and I am pleased we came together to do that. I wish we would do 
more. I wish Senator Leahy's bill was being voted on here on the floor. 
I wish there were a week's worth of debate.
  The thing is, we come here to Washington expecting these grand 
debates. I have been here 4 months. I expected that the important 
questions of the day would be debated back and forth. Instead, what 
happens so often is the votes are counted and recounted and laboriously 
counted. When they know they can beat me or when they know they can 
beat somebody else, then they allow the vote to come to the floor. But 
some, like Senator Leahy's bill--I am suspicious that it is not going 
to be voted on because they may not be able to beat it. I support it.
  So the question is, Should we have some more debate in our country? 
We have important issues pressing on us. I have been here for 4 months, 
and I am concerned about the future of our country because of the debt 
burden, because of this enormous debt we are accumulating. But are we 
debating it fully? Are we talking about ways we could come together, 
how Republicans and Democrats, right and left, could come together to 
figure out this crisis of debt? No. I think we are so afraid of debate 
but particularly with the PATRIOT Act.
  The thing with the PATRIOT Act is that it is so emotional because 
anyone who stands up, like myself, and says we need to have protections 
for our people, that we should not sift through the records of every 
gun owner in America, looking and just trolling through records--
interestingly, we have looked at 28 million electronic records, when 
the inspector general looked at this--28 million electronic records. We 
have looked at 1,600,000 texts. If you said to me: Well, they asked a 
judge, and they thought these were terrorists, I do not have a problem. 
The judge gives them a warrant, and they look at these text messages or 
electronic records. But do you want them trolling through your 
Facebook? Do you want them trolling through your e-mails? Do you want a 
government that is unrestrained by law?

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  This ultimately boils down to whether we believe in the rule of law. 
So often we give lipservice to it on our side and the other side, and 
everybody says: We believe in the Constitution and the rule of law. 
When you need to protect the rule of law is when it is most unpopular. 
When everybody tells you that you are unpatriotic or you are for 
terrorism because you believe in the Constitution, that is when it is 
most precious, that is when it is that you need to stand up and say no.
  We can fight. We can preserve our freedoms. We are who we are because 
of our freedoms and our individual liberty. If we give that up, we are 
no different from those whom we oppose. Those who wish to destroy our 
country want to see us dissolved from within. We dissolve from within 
when we give up our liberties. We need to stand and be proud of the 
fact that in our country it is none of your darn business what we are 
reading. It is none of your business where we go to see a doctor, what 
movie we see, or what our magazines are. It is nobody's business here 
in Washington what we are doing. If they think it is the business of 
law enforcement, get a warrant. Prove to somebody--at least have one 
step that says that person is doing something suspicious.
  The thing is, these suspicious-activity reports--8 million of them 
have been filed in the last 8 years. The government does not have to 
ask for this; it is sort of like they have deputized the banks. The 
banks have now become sort of like police agencies. The banks are 
expected to know what is in the Bank Secrecy Act. They are expected to 
know thousands of pages of regulations. But do you know what they tell 
your bank. If you do not report everybody, if you do not report these 
transactions, we will fine you, we will put you in jail, or we will put 
you out of business.
  That is a problem. It is a real problem that that is what has come of 
this. I think we need to have procedural protections.
  Madam President, if at this point there is a request from the Senator 
from Illinois to yield for a question or a comment, I would be happy 
to, if it is about the PATRIOT Act.
  OK. The amendments I will be proposing will be about two things, and 
we will have votes on them. We have been given the time to debate, 
which I am glad we fought for. We will basically be given a virtually 
insurmountable hurdle. This will be maybe the first time in recent 
history I remember seeing this, but they will move to table my 
amendments. In order for me to defeat the tabling motion, I will have 
to have 60 votes. It is similar to the votes we have when you have to 
overcome a cloture vote or you have to overcome a filibuster. But we 
really are not having any vote where there is a possibility of me 
winning. There is really a forgone conclusion. The votes are counted in 
advance.
  I am proud of the fact that I fought for, though, and we got some 
debate on the floor and that maybe in bringing this fight, the country 
will consider and reconsider the PATRIOT Act. But we need to have more 
debate. Senator Leahy's bill needs to be fully debated and needs to 
come out. Maybe when there is not a deadline, maybe it will come 
forward. Maybe we can have some discussion.
  But I guess most of my message is that we should not be fearful. We 
should not be fearful of freedom. We should not be fearful of 
individual liberty. And they are not mutually exclusive. You do not 
have to give up your liberty to catch criminals. You can catch 
criminals and terrorists and protect your liberty at the same time. 
There is a balancing act. But what we did in our hysteria after 9/11 
was we did not do any kind of balancing act. We just said: Come and get 
it. Here is our freedom, come and get it. We do not care whether there 
is review in Congress. We do not care whether there is to be an 
inspector general looking at this.
  One of my colleagues today reported: Well, there is no evidence those 
8 million banking investigations are bothering or doing anything to 
innocent people. Well, there is a reason for there being no evidence: 
They are secret. You are not told if your bank has been spying on you. 
If your bank has put in a suspicious-activity report, you are not 
informed of that.
  So the bottom line is, just because there is no complaint does not 
mean there have not been abuses. There is something called national 
security letters. These are written by officers of the law, by FBI 
agents. There is no review by judges. There have been 200,000 of these. 
There has been an explosion of these national security letters, and we 
do not know whether they are being abused because they are a secret.
  In fact, here is how deep the secret goes. When the PATRIOT Act was 
originally passed, you were not allowed to tell your lawyer. If the 
government came to you with an FBI agent's request, you could not even 
tell your lawyer. This, is very disturbing. They finally got around to 
changing that. But you know what. If I had an Internet service, if I am 
a server and they come to me with a policeman's request, and they say: 
Give us your records--if I tell anyone other than my attorney, I can go 
to jail for 5 years.
  What we have is a veil of secrecy. So even if the government is 
abusing the powers, we will never know. How much time remains?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 8 minutes remaining.
  Mr. PAUL. Does the Senator from Illinois wish to interject?
  Mr. DURBIN. I understand there is time on the other side as well.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is 28 minutes on the majority side.
  Mr. DURBIN. I would like to speak on the majority's time.
  Mr. PAUL. I will finish up then. As we go forward on these, I would 
hope there would be some deliberation and that the vote, as it goes 
forward, people will think about that we need to balance our freedoms 
with our security. I think we all want security. Nobody wants what 
happened on 9/11 to happen again.
  But I think we do not need to simplify the debate to such an extent 
that we simply say we have to give up our liberties. For example, I 
cannot tell you how many times people have come up to me in Washington, 
unelected officials, and said: We could have gotten Moussaoui, the 19th 
hijacker, if we had the PATRIOT Act.
  The truth is, we did not capture Moussaoui because we had poor police 
work. Ask yourself: Did we fire anybody after 9/11? We gave people gold 
medals. We gave them medals of honor for their intelligence work after 
9/11. To my knowledge, not one person was fired.
  Do you think we were doing a good job before 9/11? We had the 19th 
hijacker in prison, in custody for a month before 9/11. We had his 
computer. When they looked at Moussaoui's computer 4 days after 9/11 or 
the day after 9/11, they connected all of the dots to most of the 
hijackers and to people in Pakistan.
  Why did we not look at his computer? Was it because we did not have 
the prerogative? They did not ask. An FBI agent in Minnesota wrote 70 
letters to his superiors saying: Ask for a warrant. His superiors did 
not ask for a warrant. Do you think we should have done something about 
that after 9/11?
  We gave everybody in the FBI and the CIA medals. We gave the leaders 
medals for meritorious service, and no one blinked an eye. What did we 
do? We passed the PATRIOT Act and said: Come and take our liberties. 
Make us safe. But to make us safe, we should not give up our rights to 
protect what we read, to protect what we view, to protect where we go 
and who we associate with. We should not allow governments to troll 
willy-nilly through millions of records.
  You have heard of wireless wiretaps. A lot of these things are 
unknown because they are so secret that nobody knows. Even many of us 
do not even know the extent of these things. But I can tell you, there 
is a great deal of evidence that we were looking at millions of records 
and that millions of innocent U.S. citizens are having their records 
looked at.
  Now, are we doing anything? Are we imprisoning innocent folks? No, I 
do not think we are doing that. I think

[[Page 8187]]

they are good people. I think the people I have met in the FBI, the 
people I have met in our government want to do the right thing. But 
what I am fearful of is that there comes a time when we have given up 
these powers--for example, the constitutional discussion over war.
  If we say: Well, Libya is just a small war. We do not care. We say 
Congress has no say in this. What happens when we get a President who 
decides to send 1 million troops into war and we simply say: Who cares. 
You know, we let the President do whatever he has to do because he has 
unlimited powers.
  We fought a war, we fought long and hard to restrict--we wanted an 
Executive that was bound by the chains of the Constitution. We wanted a 
Presidency, an executive branch that was bound by the checks and 
balances. That is what our Constitution is about. It is about debate. 
Debate is important. Amendments are important. Bringing forward 
something from committee that would have reformed the PATRIOT Act is 
incredibly important, to have those debates on the floor of the Senate.
  That is why there is a certain amount of disappointment to having 
arrived in Washington and to see the fear of debate of the 
Constitution, and that we need to be debating these things. We need to 
have full amendments.
  Can there be any excuse why the inspector general should not be 
reviewing other agencies of government to find out if our rights are 
being trampled upon.
  So I would ask, in conclusion, as these amendments come forward, that 
people think about it. Think about our constitutional protections. But 
do not go out and say the Senator from Kentucky does not want to 
capture terrorists or the Senator from Kentucky wants people to have 
guns and to attack us because the thing is, we can have reasonable 
philosophical debates about this, but we need to be having an open 
debate process. We need to talk about the constitutional protections, 
the provisions that protect us all, and we need to be aware of that.
  I tell people: You cannot protect the second amendment if you do not 
believe in the fourth amendment. You cannot protect the second 
amendment if you do not believe in the first amendment. It is all 
incredibly important.
  I hope as we go forward on this vote, and even though I will likely 
fail, because of the way the rules are set up on the vote, I hope as we 
go forward that at least somebody will begin to discuss this, somebody 
will begin to discuss where we should have some constitutional 
restraint; that Senator Leahy will have a chance to bring his bill 
forward, and that there will be a full and open debate.
  I hope we have cracked the door open and I have been a small part of 
that.
  I yield back my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Klobuchar.) The Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, it is my understanding that we have a 
consent that will allow Senator Paul to offer two amendments, and then 
we will go to final passage on this reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct.
  Mr. DURBIN. I will oppose the amendments offered by Senator Paul, and 
then oppose the reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act. I would like to 
explain in my remarks why.
  I voted for the PATRIOT Act in the year 2001. In fact, there was only 
one Senator on the floor--who no longer serves--who voted against it. 
It was a moment of national crisis. We were told then by the Bush 
administration they needed new authorities to make certain that America 
would be safe and never attacked again.
  I want to salute Senator Patrick Leahy, as well as his counterparts 
on both sides of the aisle, who worked night and day to put together a 
bipartisan version of this PATRIOT Act and had the good sense to 
include in it a sunset. We knew we were writing a law with high emotion 
over what had happened to our country. We wanted to make sure it was a 
good law, but we made certain it would be temporary in nature, for the 
most part, and we would return and take another look at it. I cannot 
vote for an extension, a long-term extension, of the PATRIOT Act 
without additional protections included for the constitutional rights 
of our American citizens.
  It is worth taking a moment to review the history. The PATRIOT Act 
was passed 10 years ago--almost 10 years ago--while Ground Zero was 
still burning. Congress responded and passed it with an overwhelming 
bipartisan vote. It was a unique moment in our history. But even then 
we were concerned enough to put a sunset and to do our best to review 
it in the future to determine whether it went too far when it came to 
our freedoms. I voted for it, but I soon realized that it gave too much 
power to government without enough judicial and congressional 
oversight.
  So 2 years after the PATRIOT Act became law, I joined a bipartisan 
group of Senators in introducing the SAFE Act, legislation to reform 
the PATRIOT Act. The SAFE Act was supported by advocates from the left 
and right, from the ACLU to the American Conservatives Union. 
Progressive Democrats and very conservative Republicans came together 
across the partisan divide understanding Americans can be both safe and 
free.
  We wanted to retain the expanded powers of the PATRIOT Act but place 
some reasonable limits to protect constitutional rights. When he joined 
the Senate in 2005, Senator Barack Obama became a cosponsor of our SAFE 
Act. Here is what he said as a Senator:

       We don't have to settle for a PATRIOT Act that sacrifices 
     our liberties or our safety. We can have one that secures 
     both.

  I agree with then-Senator Obama. In 2006, the first time Congress 
reauthorized the PATRIOT Act, some reforms from the SAFE Act were 
included in the bill, and I supported it. However, many key protections 
from the SAFE Act were not included, so there are still significant 
problems.
  The FBI is still permitted to obtain a John Doe roving wiretap that 
does not identify the person or the phone that will be wiretapped. In 
other words, the FBI can obtain a wiretap without telling a court who 
they want to wiretap or where they want to wiretap.
  In garden variety criminal cases, the FBI is still permitted to 
conduct sneak-and-peak searches of a home without notifying the 
homeowner about the search until a later time. We now know the vast 
majority of sneak-and-peak searches take place in cases that do not 
involve terrorism in any way.
  A national security letter, or NSL, is a form of administrative 
subpoena issued by the FBI. We often hear NSLs compared to grand jury 
subpoenas. But unlike a grand jury subpoena, a national security letter 
is issued without the approval of a grand jury or even a prosecutor. 
And unlike the grand jury subpoena, the recipient of an NSL is 
subjected to a gag order at the FBI's discretion.
  The PATRIOT Act also greatly expanded the FBI's authority to issue 
NSLs. An NSL now allows the FBI to obtain sensitive personal 
information about innocent American citizens, including library 
records, medical records, gun records, and phone records even when 
there is no connection whatsoever to a suspected terrorist or spy.
  The Justice Department's inspector general concluded that this 
standard ``can be easily satisfied.'' This could lead to government 
fishing expeditions that target innocent people.
  For years we have been told there is no reason to be concerned about 
this broad grant of power to the FBI. In 2003, then-Attorney General 
Ashcroft testified to our committee that librarians raising concerns 
about the PATRIOT Act were ``hysterics'' and that ``the Department of 
Justice has neither the staffing, the time, nor the inclination to 
monitor the reading habits of Americans.'' But we now know the FBI has, 
in fact, issued national security letters for the library records of 
innocent people.
  For years we were told the FBI was not abusing this broad grant of 
power. But in 2007, the Justice Department's own inspector general has 
concluded

[[Page 8188]]

the FBI was guilty of ``widespread and serious misuse'' of the national 
security letter's authority and failed to report these abuses to 
Congress and the White House.
  The inspector general reported that the number of national security 
letter requests has increased exponentially from about 8,500 the year 
before enactment of the PATRIOT Act to an average of more than 47,000 
per year, and even these numbers were significantly understated.
  We can be safe and free. I think it is important that the measure 
that passed the Senate Judiciary Committee should have been on the 
Senate floor. It included an amendment which I offered with Senator 
Leahy and other provisions which I think are an improvement over the 
current bill before us.
  I will say one quick word about the amendment by Senator Paul. I do 
not believe it is in our Nation's best interests to exempt gun records 
from terrorist investigations. For goodness' sake, when we are dealing 
with people--terrorists using guns--searching the records to make 
certain that we know the source of those guns and whether there are any 
other threats to this Nation is reasonable to do.
  These should not be so sacred and sacrosanct that we do not ask the 
hard questions when our Nation's security is at risk. I would agree 
with him that we ought to make certain there is a connection between 
that request for gun record information and a suspected terrorist or 
spy. But to say these records cannot be asked for under the PATRIOT Act 
goes too far. That is why I will oppose his amendment.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia is recognized.
  Mr. CHAMBLISS. I rise to speak in opposition to Amendment No. 365, 
Senator Paul's amendment concerning suspicious activity reports, or 
what is referred to as SARS.
  This amendment would prevent the Department of Treasury from 
requiring any financial institution to submit a suspicious activity 
report unless law enforcement first requests the report. If this 
amendment should become law, it will effectively take away one of the 
government's main weapons in the battle against money laundering and 
other financial crimes.
  It will also negatively impact our efforts to detect and follow the 
flow of funds to and from international terrorists. It is important to 
remember that SARS are essentially tips from third-party financial 
institutions concerning suspicious transactions. Because law 
enforcement is not watching the financial transaction of every American 
on a daily basis 24/7, they often have no idea that a person is even 
engaged in a financial crime until they receive a suspicious activity 
notification from a financial institution. In a sense, SARs are not 
much different than the tips that law enforcement often receives from 
anonymous sources. These tips or leads can often form the basis for 
initiating investigations that can be used to neutralize criminal or 
terrorist activities.
  The problem with this amendment is that it would require the 
government to look into a crystal ball in order to figure out when they 
should request a SAR. With this logic, we should only allow law 
enforcement to act on an anonymous tip unless they ask for the tip to 
be reported first. If a law enforcement or intelligence officer doesn't 
get a tip about suspicious activity, how in the world is he going to 
know when it occurred in the first place? The answer here is simple: 
They will likely never know it occurred until the criminal activity has 
occurred, and maybe it will even go undetected.
  Look, for example, at the 9/11 hijackers. There was a minimum of 12 
to 13 of those individuals who came into and out of the United States 
over a period of time. Money was transferred to and from those 
individuals over a period of time. Under the requirements pre-PATRIOT 
Act, there was no suspicious activity detected. But after the enactment 
of the PATRIOT Act, there would be reason now for any financial 
institution to suspect the potential for suspicious activity from those 
transfers of moneys.
  That is exactly why we did what we did in the PATRIOT Act, and that 
is one of the reasons why we have not seen a subsequent direct attack 
on U.S. soil from individuals who had been in the United States and 
have received money through transfers, or whatever it may be. Let's 
don't forget that section 215 business records cannot be obtained in an 
arbitrary manner. There has to be, first of all, a determination that 
there is some international connection between the individual whose 
account has been deemed suspicious by the financial institution, and 
also there has to be some follow-on procedure to determine that there 
is reason for the government to get hold of the financial records of 
this individual.
  In my mind, this amendment would put law enforcement in an 
unacceptable and unreasonable position. At the same time we are asking 
them to pursue swindlers and money launderers more aggressively, we 
need to preserve the requirement that financial institutions report 
suspicious activities. We need to follow up on these leads not just 
from a criminal law enforcement perspective but from a national 
security perspective as well.
  Since 9/11, I have been involved with the Intelligence Committee all 
of those years. We do extensive oversight on this particular provision 
in the PATRIOT Act, as well as other provisions. We have hearings on 
this from time to time, and we require the law enforcement officials to 
come in and talk to us about what they are doing. To my knowledge, 
there has never been one complaint or abuse that has been shown from 
the use of this particular provision. This particular provision is 
working exactly the way we intended it to work. It is a valuable tool 
for our law enforcement.
  Let me speak also about amendment No. 363, which is Senator Paul's 
amendment concerning firearms records. Simply put, this amendment would 
make it more difficult for national security investigators to prevent 
an act of terrorism inside the United States. The amendment would 
prohibit the use of a FISA business records court order to obtain 
firearms records in the possession of a licensed firearms importer, 
manufacturer, or dealer. Instead, national security investigators could 
only obtain such records through a Federal grand jury subpoena during 
the course of a criminal investigation or with a search warrant issued 
by a Federal magistrate upon a showing of reasonable cause to believe 
that a violation of Federal firearms laws has occurred. That might not 
always be possible.
  For example, before MAJ Nidal Hasan began his deadly assault against 
innocent military and civilian personnel at Fort Hood, TX, in November 
2009, there was no evidence that he had violated any criminal or 
Federal firearms laws. Thus, the FBI could not have relied on title 18 
to obtain information about Hasan's purchase of the firearms used in 
the attack.
  As we have since learned, however, there was likely enough 
intelligence information to open a preliminary investigation on Hasan 
because of his contacts with a known al-Qaida member in Yemen, and seek 
a section 215 order for information about his gun purchases. I don't 
understand why we would take this tool away from national security 
investigators, especially, here again, where there has been no 
indication of any abuse of this authority with respect to firearms or 
other sensitive records.
  Congress has conducted extensive oversight of the PATRIOT Act and 
FISA authority, and there have been no reports of any widespread abuse 
or misuse, and no reports that the government has ever used these 
authorities to violate second amendment rights.
  Moreover, the protections detailed in section 215 ensure that second 
amendment rights are fully respected in the use of this authority. 
Unlike in criminal investigations where a Federal grand jury may issue 
a subpoena for firearms records, any request for records under section 
215 must first be approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance 
Court. As with all other section 215 records, the court must find that 
such records are relevant to an

[[Page 8189]]

authorized national security investigation. This means the FBI cannot 
use this authority in a domestic terrorism investigation, nor can the 
FBI randomly decide to see whether an ordinary citizen or even a vocal 
advocate of the second amendment owns a firearm.
  There are two additional oversight safeguards that are built into the 
section 215 process. First, each request for these sensitive records by 
the FBI can only be approved by one of three high-level FBI officials--
the Director, the Deputy Director, or the Executive Assistant Director 
for National Security.
  Second, there are also specific reporting requirements that are 
designed to keep Congress informed about the number of orders issued 
for these types of sensitive records.
  One of the big lessons we learned after the 9/11 terrorist attacks 
was that we needed to make sure national security investigators had 
access to investigative tools similar to those that have long been 
available to law enforcement. Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act addresses 
that need. It provides an alternative way to obtain business records, 
including firearms records, in situations where there may be a national 
security threat but not yet a criminal investigation or violation.
  I have long been a strong supporter of the second amendment. There is 
nobody in this body who has a better voting record on the second 
amendment than I do. Probably nobody here owns as many guns as I own, 
but I use them for legal and lawful purposes. I will work with the 
National Rifle Association and any citizen group to make sure that 
neither this law nor any Federal law is misused to infringe on the 
second amendment rights of any law-abiding citizen. But this particular 
amendment would harm legitimate national security investigations.
  I want to take a minute to read a letter I received from Chris Cox, 
executive director of the National Rifle Association:

       Dear Senator Chambliss: Thank you for asking about the 
     National Rifle Association's position on a motion to table 
     amendment No. 363 to the PATRIOT Act. The NRA takes a back 
     seat to no one when it comes to protecting gun owners' rights 
     against government abuse. Over the past three decades, we 
     fought successfully to block unnecessary and intrusive 
     compilation of firearms-related records by several Federal 
     agencies, and will continue to protect the privacy of our 
     members and all American gun owners.
       While well-intentioned, the language of this amendment, as 
     currently drafted, raises potential problems for gun owners, 
     in that it encourages the government to use provisions in 
     current law that allow access to firearms records without 
     reasonable cause, warrant, or judicial oversight of any kind. 
     Based on these concerns, and the fact that the NRA does not 
     ordinarily take positions on procedural votes, we have no 
     position on a motion to table amendment No. 363.

  For those reasons, I intend to vote against both of these amendments. 
While I appreciate the intent and the emotion with which my friend 
Senator Paul comes to the floor to advocate, we need to make sure we 
get these extensions in place immediately, so we have no gap in the 
coverage available to our intelligence community, and that we continue 
to give them the tools they need to protect America and protect 
Americans.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware is recognized.
  Mr. COONS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate 
proceed to the consideration of S. 1114, a short-term one-month PATRIOT 
Act sunset extension bill, which is currently at the desk; that the 
bill be read the third time, and passed; that the motion to reconsider 
be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. CHAMBLISS. I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Mr. COONS. I am disappointed my unanimous consent request was not 
agreed to. I wish to explain my action here today. The comments I am 
about to give are an explanation of a vote I intended to take later 
today.
  As Senator Chambliss said just before me, the powers of the PATRIOT 
Act are too important for us to risk their expiration as this body 
considers whether to amend them or revise them. I could not agree more.
  I offered a 1-month extension in order that this body may take the 
time that is needed and deserved to seriously debate and conduct 
oversight over the PATRIOT Act. This is a significant piece of national 
security legislation that I believe is worthy of further consideration 
and debate.
  Law enforcement agencies--Federal, State, and local--work day in and 
day out to protect all of us from real threats that go largely unknown 
and unnoticed by most Americans. I want law enforcement to have all the 
appropriate tools in their toolbox to accomplish this goal.
  Unfortunately, there are also, in my view, legitimate concerns about 
the legislation on which we are about to vote--concerns that my 
colleagues and I, including the occupant of the chair, on the Judiciary 
Committee, reviewed and addressed in detail, and in a bill ultimately 
passed, S. 193, which forms the core of the Leahy-Paul amendment of 
which I am a cosponsor. We put those provisions before this Chamber. I 
am disappointed we don't have consent to move forward in order to have 
time to debate these reforms to the PATRIOT Act. As Americans, the 
choice between liberty and safety is not one or the other. We expect 
and demand both. Balancing the two responsibly requires careful 
consideration to each.
  We must be cognizant of our Nation's very real enemies who intend to 
do us harm, just as they did on September 11. It was awareness of this 
danger in the world that motivated this Congress, as we have heard in 
previous speeches, to enact the PATRIOT Act, nearly 10 years ago now, 
in the wake of those attacks. A grave new threat called for bold new 
authorities. Though I was not then in the Senate, I likely too would 
have voted for its passage.
  But this body's passage of that act did not amount to a permanent 
choice of security over liberty. Because of the broad scope of the new 
authorities in the PATRIOT Act, the bipartisan drafters of the bill 
insisted upon placing key sunset provisions in the bill to ensure that 
Congress periodically reviewed how they were being used and assessed 
whether they were still essential to our security.
  Even in the unnerving weeks after 
9/11--an extraordinary time in the history of this Congress and this 
Nation--the authors of the PATRIOT Act knew that the powers they were 
granting needed to be monitored.
  Sunsets are critical to ensuring that the PATRIOT authorities are not 
abused by the government. They are critical.
  It's because of sunsets that every 4 years, the FBI must return to 
Congress and justify its use of the PATRIOT Act overall and three 
provisions in particular: the roving wiretap, the lone wolf authority, 
and Sec. 215 orders, which allow the government to demand virtually any 
document or other evidence pertaining to an individual from a third 
party.
  Sunsets only work, however, if we in Congress have the innate courage 
to ask the difficult questions when they arise. If, instead, Congress 
shies away from the tough debate and simply extends the sunsets for 
another 4 years, we surrender our responsibility to consider whether 
specific provisions should be amended, reauthorized, or allowed to 
expire.
  If the proposed 4-year extension passes without amendment, it will 
have been 9 years before Congress votes on reforms to PATRIOT--9 years.
  What is the point of having sunsets in this bill if we are going to 
ignore our oversight responsibilities?
  Regretfully, I cannot support any measure that extends controversial 
and searching PATRIOT authorities until 2015 if this body does not 
first consider whether the act is in need of amendment. And so I must.
  The Judiciary Committee did exactly what it is supposed to do and has 
worked for months on improving the PATRIOT Act ahead of this deadline. 
It was a difficult, bipartisan debate but the bill we produced is 
strong and deserved to be considered by the full body. Chairman Leahy 
deserves credit for crafting a set of commonsense, responsible 
amendments.
  In each of the last two Congresses, the Judiciary Committee reported 
a bipartisan PATRIOT reauthorization

[[Page 8190]]

bill. In each case, the bills would have made important revisions to 
PATRIOT without compromising national security. Also in each case, the 
bills were reported out in plenty of time for this full body to 
consider them. In each case, no floor action was taken until such a 
late hour that meaningful debate over the expiring provisions has been 
precluded.
  The Judiciary-reported bill, S. 193, which forms the basis of the 
Leahy-Paul amendment, deserves consideration. It deserves consideration 
because our serious consideration of reforms sends the strong message 
that the PATRIOT authorities are not a blank check, that we in Congress 
are watching closely to make sure that the use of PATRIOT is consistent 
with our shared national respect for individual liberty and freedom.
  The Leahy-Paul amendment also deserves consideration because the last 
5 years have shown us that substantive revisions to PATRIOT are called-
for and, indeed, necessary. I would like to speak briefly about just 
one necessary change, those to the national security letter program.
  National security letters, or NSLs are administrative subpoenas that 
allow the government to demand subscriber information from third 
parties without even having to go to a judge. These orders are also 
extraordinary in that they prohibit recipients from telling anyone of 
their existence.
  In 2007 and 2008, the Department of Justice inspector general found 
massive abuses in the NSL Program, with tens of thousands of NSLs 
issued for purposes that had nothing to do with national security. 
Further, in 2008, a court found that the gag order in each NSL was 
unconstitutional.
  Plainly, NSLs are in need of revision, both to bring them in line 
with the Constitution and to guard against abuses that have nothing to 
do with national security. I support legislation that would require 
that DOJ maintain sufficient internal guidelines to ensure that NSLs 
are only issued when the agents issuing them state facts that show 
relevance to national security. I also favor amending the gag order so 
that any recipient can immediately challenge it in court.
  These simple reforms as well as the others contained in the Leahy-
Paul amendment, do not make our Nation more vulnerable to attack. That 
is why, in 2010, the Attorney General and the Director of National 
Intelligence sent a letter to Congress expressing the view that 
legislation almost identical to Leahy-Paul ``strikes the right balance 
by both reauthorizing these essential national security tools and 
enhancing statutory protections for civil liberties and privacy in the 
exercise of these and related authorities.''
  These reforms make our Nation more secure because they strengthen our 
place in the world as the cradle of liberty.
  I don't want to repeal the PATRIOT Act, but at this moment we have a 
choice, and a chance--our last chance for 4 years--we can push forward 
with a bill that does nothing to improve PATRIOT--nothing to factor in 
everything that is changed in the last 5 years, or we can vote down 
this long-term extension, vote for a short-term extension and move to 
debate of the reforms that the Judiciary Committee has already worked 
up.
  The PATRIOT Act is important to our national security, but I cannot 
support the abdication of Congress's role in strengthening it.
  If I might, in summation, simply say this: If we were today to pass a 
4-year extension, without amendment or revision, it will have been 9 
years that Congress does not act in any substantive way on the 
amendments. I join Senator Leahy in intending to vote ``no'' today, not 
because I believe the PATRIOT Act is fundamentally flawed or because I 
believe the United States doesn't face real enemies, but because I 
think this Congress has not taken seriously its very real oversight 
responsibilities, its need to strike that balance. The Judiciary 
Committee did that hard work. For this Congress to not amend this bill 
with the simple balanced and reasonable amendment offered in the Leahy-
Paul amendment, I believe I am compelled to strike the balance between 
security and liberty on the side of liberty today, by saying this body 
has failed to act and to appropriately conduct thorough oversight of 
this bill before we send it 4 years into the future.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. LEVIN. Madam President, how much time is left?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is 5\1/2\ minutes.
  Mr. LEVIN. I thank the Chair.
  Madam President, I rise in opposition to the amendment of Senator 
Paul, No. 365. This amendment would effectively wipe out a critical 
tool used against terrorists and drug traffickers. I want to explain 
exactly what these suspicious activities reports are and why they are 
so essential to the FBI and other law enforcement people.
  First of all, who uses them? FBI, organized crime units, drug 
trafficking task forces, border security, Secret Service, State and 
local police, and the intelligence community all use these SARs. 
Second, what are they used for? There was a report from the GAO in 2009 
which said the following: How are SARs used? They gave a number of 
examples:
  The FBI includes SAR data in its Investigative Data Warehouse to 
identify:

     financial patterns associated with money laundering, bank 
     fraud, and other aberrant financial activities.

  Second, Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force's Fusion Center 
combines SAR data with other data to:

     produce comprehensive integrated intelligence products and 
     charts.

  Third, the IRS uses SARs to identify:

     financial crimes, including individual and corporate tax 
     frauds and terrorist activities.

  We received a letter just today from the Attorney General of the 
United States strongly opposing this amendment of Senator Paul, and 
this is what the Attorney General says:

       SARs are a critical tool for our national security and law 
     enforcement professionals. SARs are used to alert 
     intelligence and law enforcement personnel to issues that 
     warrant further investigation and scrutiny. The purpose of 
     the SAR regime is to require financial institutions to report 
     on suspicious activities based on information that is solely 
     within their possession. Prior to the filing of a SAR, our 
     law enforcement and intelligence analysts often are not aware 
     that a particular bank account or individual may be 
     associated with criminal activity or may be engaged in 
     activities that pose a threat to national security, such as 
     the funding of terrorist activities.

  Then the Attorney General goes on:

       Conditioning the filing of SARs upon a request from law 
     enforcement would undermine this purpose. By definition, SARs 
     are designed to alert law enforcement to information not 
     otherwise within its possession.

  The Paul amendment, No. 365, is very short, but what it does is say 
you must have a request of an appropriate law enforcement agency for 
the report before there is a requirement to file a suspicious activity 
report. As the Attorney General points out in his letter, that would 
totally undermine the purpose of the SAR requirement.
  Finally, the Attorney General points out the following:
  How much time do I have remaining, Madam President?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 2 minutes 12 seconds.
  Mr. LEVIN. I thank the Chair.
  The Attorney General further points out:

       It is also important to note that SARs themselves are 
     confidential under law (i.e., not available to the public) 
     and cannot be used as evidence. They contain information 
     that, if used by law enforcement personnel, must be further 
     investigated and proven before adverse action is taken. The 
     reports are only made available to law enforcement, 
     intelligence, and appropriate supervisory agencies under 
     applicable authorities and are subject to the protections of 
     Federal law.

  Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the 
Record a copy of the letter from the Attorney General.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                                     Office of the


                                             Attorney General,

                                     Washington, DC, May 26, 2011.
     Hon. Harry Reid,
     Hon. Mitch McConnell,
     U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.
       Dear Leaders Reid and McConnell: I understand that Senator 
     Paul may offer an

[[Page 8191]]

     amendment today to S. 990 which would modify Section 
     5318(g)(1) of Title 31, United States Code, to allow for the 
     issuance of Suspicious Activity Reports (``SARs'') by 
     financial institutions ``only upon request of an appropriate 
     law enforcement agency. . . .'' I write to express the 
     Department's serious concerns about such an amendment.
       SARs are a critical tool for our national security and law 
     enforcement professionals. SARs are used to alert 
     intelligence and law enforcement personnel to issues that 
     warrant further investigation and scrutiny. The purpose of 
     the SAR regime is to require financial institutions to report 
     on suspicious activities based on information that is solely 
     within their possession. Prior to the filing of a SAR, our 
     law enforcement and intelligence analysts often are not aware 
     that a particular bank account or individual may be 
     associated with criminal activity or may be engaged in 
     activities that pose a threat to national security, such as 
     the funding of terrorist activities.
       Conditioning the filing of SARs upon a request from law 
     enforcement would undermine this purpose. By definition, SARs 
     are designed to alert law enforcement to information not 
     otherwise within its possession. By placing the onus on law 
     enforcement to request information--about which it is 
     unaware--this amendment would take away from law enforcement 
     a critical building block of financial investigations and 
     terrorist financing intelligence. In this way, the proposed 
     amendment would severely undermine the usefulness of the SAR 
     regime, and eliminate an effective tool in the fight against 
     financial fraud and, critically, terrorism.
       It is also important to note that SARs themselves are 
     confidential under law (i.e., not available to the public) 
     and cannot be used as evidence. They contain information 
     that, if used by law enforcement personnel, must be further 
     investigated and proven before adverse action is taken. The 
     reports are only made available to law enforcement, 
     intelligence, and appropriate supervisory agencies under 
     applicable authorities and are subject to the protections of 
     Federal law.
       In sum, the current SARs regime is critical to our national 
     security and law enforcement activities, while also 
     respectful of the privacy interests of Americans.
       For these reasons, I urge that the amendment not be 
     adopted.
           Sincerely,
                                              Eric H. Holder, Jr.,
                                                 Attorney General.

  Mr. LEVIN. Madam President, the Paul amendment would throw out the 
window a legitimate and useful law enforcement tool. It has worked 
effectively. Three courts have said it is constitutional. I hope the 
Paul amendment is tabled, and I thank the Presiding Officer.
  Mr. JOHNSON of South Dakota. Madam President, suspicious activity 
reports, or SARs, are just what they seem--reports by banks and other 
financial institutions when they come across obviously suspicious 
activity by one of their customers. They have been, and continue to be, 
valuable lead information for law enforcement in investigating and 
prosecuting terrorism, major money laundering offenses, and other 
serious crimes.
  The Bank Secrecy Act authorizes Treasury to require financial 
institutions to report suspicious activity to law enforcement. In 
response, the Treasury Department has created an extensive and 
effective system for banks, casinos, securities firms, money service 
businesses, and other financial institutions to file SARs that are 
regularly reviewed by law enforcement.
  SARs are used by the FBI, organized crime units, drug trafficking 
task forces, border security, Secret Service, State and local police, 
and more. They have enabled the prosecution of a great number of 
serious crimes over the years.
  Law enforcement agencies use SAR data daily to fight terrorist 
financing, money laundering, drug trafficking, corruption, financial 
fraud, mortgage fraud, and illicit money flows of all types. A 2009 GAO 
report gave these examples of how SARs are used:

       FBI includes SAR data in its Investigative Data Warehouse 
     to identify ``financial patterns associated with money 
     laundering, bank fraud, and other aberrant financial 
     activities.'' It uses SAR data to investigate ``criminal, 
     terrorist, and intelligence networks.''
       The Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force's Fusion 
     Center combines SAR data with other data to ``produce 
     comprehensive integrated intelligence products and charts.''
       The IRS uses SARs to identify ``financial crimes, including 
     individual and corporate tax frauds, and terrorist 
     activity.''
       The Secret Service uses SAR data to ``map and track trends 
     in financial crimes.''

  Sharply restricting current law and longstanding practice, this 
amendment would only authorize the reporting of SARs after a law 
enforcement agency makes a specific request of a bank, money service 
business, or other entity, which would in turn require a demonstration 
that suspicious activity already exists, rendering a SARS filing moot.
  It would basically turn SARs reporting upside down by requiring law 
enforcement to establish the basis for an investigation before 
requesting a SAR, rather than relying upon a SAR to initiate or 
supplement an investigation that would then lead to a search warrant or 
subpoena.
  So instead of being used as leads, flagging drug or terrorism-related 
or money laundering activity for law enforcement, under the amendment 
SARSs would simply confirm suspicious activity. That would severely 
degrade their value, which is to make law enforcement aware of 
potential criminal activity.
  If the United States were to disable its SAR reporting system by 
requiring individual requests for SAR reports, it would invite the 
worst of criminals to misuse U.S. financial institutions for their 
schemes, knowing their activities would not automatically be reported 
to law enforcement. It makes no sense, especially in a context where 
there is no serious claim that these legal authorities have been 
misused.
  How does the system work now, as a practical matter? Let's say a drug 
dealer comes into a bank with $9,000 in cash and the cash reeks of 
marijuana. Under current law, the teller is trained to flag that 
transaction, and compliance officers in the bank's back office would 
assess it and likely file a SAR, to be examined by law enforcement.
  Let's say that the same person does this in four or five banks in 
town that same afternoon, with the same amounts, structured to be just 
below reporting limits, reeking of marijuana. Now he is effectively 
laundered almost $50,000 in one day. I would say we at least want to 
know about that, and the system now enables that. Under this amendment, 
that would all go by the boards.
  Let's say the person is a terrorist conspirator or arms proliferator. 
Same scenario, only this time with a twist--a series of large 
structured cash deposits in a series of banks here on the same day, 
that are then the next day wired to the same overseas account in 
Pakistan or Afghanistan or Iraq, withdrawn by a coconspirator there, 
and used to buy IEDs to hit U.S. troops.
  Would we not want those transactions at least flagged by responsible 
bank officials and assessed for patterns? I think so, and I think my 
colleagues will agree.
  If the thresholds in this amendment were implemented, very few SARs 
would be filed because there would be no reason for law enforcement to 
request that SARs be filed after identifying suspicious activity by 
other means. Law enforcement would instead obtain a search warrant to 
obtain all relevant information--i.e., the underlying bank records--
from the financial institution.
  The amendment would also cause the United States to be in 
noncompliance with international anti-money laundering and terrorist 
financing standards--for instance, the recommendations of the Financial 
Action Task Force, FATF, which require suspicious activity reporting 
when a financial institution has reasonable grounds to suspect criminal 
activity.
  This is a very serious problem. For years other countries have looked 
to us for guidance and best practices on these issues. This amendment 
would make the United States an outlier bank secrecy jurisdiction.
  SARs themselves do not unreasonably impinge on personal privacy. The 
reports are confidential and cannot be used as evidence. They contain 
allegations that must be further investigated and proven before adverse 
action is taken by law enforcement.
  The reports are only made available to law enforcement, intelligence, 
and appropriate supervisory agencies under applicable authorities and 
are subject to the protections of the Federal Privacy Act.

[[Page 8192]]

  I urge my colleagues to oppose this unwise and ill-conceived 
amendment.
  Mr. UDALL of New Mexico. Mr. President, today's vote to extend 
expiring provisions of the so-called PATRIOT Act is not the first time 
Congress has extended the sunset provisions, nor will it be the last. 
In 2006, the USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act was passed 
and, among other things, extended until December 2009 the three 
provisions we are discussing today. When those provisions were set to 
expire, a 3-month extension was included in the Department of Defense 
Appropriations Act. Three months later, Congress passed a 1-year 
extension until February 2011. As that deadline loomed, and without 
sufficient time to have a real debate, we passed the extension that 
expires at midnight tonight.
  Immediately after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, it may have been 
understandable that our emotions made it unlikely that we would have a 
rationale and deliberative debate about the PATRIOT Act. But at the 
time, as I voted against the bill, I said on the House floor that ``the 
saving grace here is that the sunset provision forces us to come back 
and to look at these issues again when heads are cooler and when we are 
not in the heat of battle.''
  But that hasn't happened. Each time a sunset date nears, we hear a 
lot of highly charged rhetoric from Members in both parties and in both 
Chambers of Congress about how devastating it will be to our national 
security if we let the PATRIOT Act expire. I find this to be deeply 
disturbing because it demonstrates that 10 years after the attacks on 
9/11 we are still using fear to prevent an open and honest debate.
  Let's put this rhetoric aside and discuss the facts. First, the 
PATRIOT Act is not about to expire. Three provisions of the law are set 
to expire, but the vast majority of the authorities contained in the 
law will remain unchanged.
  Two of the expiring provisions were enacted as part of the PATRIOT 
Act. Section 206 of the act amended FISA to permit multipoint, or 
``roving,'' wiretaps. Section 215 enlarged the scope of materials that 
could be sought under FISA to include ``any tangible thing.'' It also 
lowered the standard required before a court order may be issued to 
compel their production. The third provision was enacted in 2004 as 
part of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, IRTPA. 
This provision changed the rules regarding the types of individuals who 
may be targets of FISA-authorized searches. Also known as the ``lone 
wolf'' provision, it permits surveillance of non-U.S. persons engaged 
in international terrorism without requiring evidence linking those 
persons to an identifiable foreign power or terrorist organization.
  Let's also be clear about what would happen if these provisions did 
expire. The two provisions from the PATRIOT Act that amended FISA 
authorities would read as they did before the PATRIOT Act was passed in 
2001. That means they would not be revoked completely but instead would 
be more limited in scope. And what would happen if the ``lone wolf'' 
provision expired? Not much. In the 7 years since its enactment, it is 
never been used.
  Even if the provisions expire, they contain exceptions for ongoing 
investigations, and the government can continue to use those provisions 
beyond the sunset date. This is what a recent CRS report says about 
this:

       A grandfather clause applies to each of the three 
     provisions. The grandfather clauses authorize the continued 
     effect of the amendments with respect to investigations that 
     began, or potential offenses that took place, before the 
     provision's sunset date. Thus, for example, if a non-U.S. 
     person were engaged in international terrorism before the 
     sunset date of May 27, 2011, he would still be considered a 
     ``lone wolf'' for FISA court orders sought after the 
     provision has expired. Similarly, if an individual is engaged 
     in international terrorism before that date, he may be the 
     target of a roving wiretap under FISA even after authority 
     for new roving wiretaps has expired.

  Those are pretty broad exceptions, and I am fairly confident that our 
ability to protect the Nation would continue even if the three 
provisions expire. So let's put the hyperbole aside and not stoke 
irrational fears for political expediency.
  I am very disappointed that we couldn't have a candid debate and an 
opportunity to vote on several amendments. With a decade of hindsight, 
more voices from very different places on the political spectrum agree 
that the entire law bears scrutiny and debate. We should no longer 
neglect our duty to review the full scope of a law with such serious 
constitutional challenges before rushing to reauthorize it, again.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, I support a clean reauthorization of 
the expiring provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act and against Senator 
Paul's amendment on firearms records. Over the years, I have always 
supported and defended the second amendment. I have consistently voted 
to ensure that the Federal Government does not limit the constitutional 
rights of the millions of American gun owners. I cannot support the 
amendment offered today by Senator Paul because it will damage the 
prospects of ensuring that critical national security laws are not 
reauthorized and could potentially hurt the second amendment rights of 
American citizens. In fact, the National Rifle Association said today 
in a vote alert, ``While well-intentioned, the language of this 
amendment as currently drafted raises potential problems for gun 
owners, in that it encourages the government to use provisions in 
current law that allow access to firearms records without reasonable 
cause, warrant or judicial oversight of any kind.''
  Senator Paul's amendment actually removes protections from firearms 
owners. Currently, under the PATRIOT Act, in order to obtain firearms 
records, investigators must first go through a rigorous application 
process and then seek a Federal judge's approval. Senator Paul's 
amendment would remove this judicial review.
  If Senator Paul's amendment became law and removed judicial review, 
investigators would then use a grand jury subpoena in order to obtain 
the records. A grand jury subpoena is a process that has neither a 
rigorous approval process, nor judicial review. Thus, Senator Paul's 
amendment, while intending to protect second amendment rights, actually 
backfires in that effort.
  First, let's talk about the rigorous approval process that controls 
whether firearms records can be obtained under the PATRIOT Act. And 
remember, this process does not exist under criminal law when using a 
grand jury subpoena. To obtain gun records under the PATRIOT Act, a 
section 215 order is used. The use of section 215 orders has been 
reviewed by the Department of Justice Office of Inspector General, 
which issued a report in March 2007 that outlined the existing process; 
that is, the 10 layers of review before it is even sent to a Federal 
judge are as follows:
  No. 1, the FBI field agent.
  No. 2, the FBI field office supervisor.
  No. 3, the field office's Special Agent in Charge.
  No. 4, the field office's District Counsel.
  No. 5, it is then forwarded to FBI headquarters, where it is reviewed 
by a National Security Law Branch lawyer.
  No. 6, the National Security Law Branch Supervisor.
  No. 7, the request is then sent to the Department of Justice's Office 
of Intelligence for review by a lawyer.
  No. 8, if the request survives these seven approvals, the request is 
sent back to the field office for an accuracy review.
  No. 9, the request is then approved by an Office of Intelligence 
supervisor.
  No. 10, then one of the three highest ranking officials in the FBI 
must personally approve the request, either the Director, the Deputy 
Director, or the Executive Assistant Director for National Security.
  After approval by the field office, the FBI's National Security Law 
Branch, the DOJ's Office of Intelligence, the field office again, and 
finally by one of the three highest officials of the FBI, then an 
Office of Intelligence lawyer presents the application package to the 
court for approval.
  A federally appointed district judge, serving on the Foreign 
Intelligence Surveillance Court, FISA, reviews the request and holds a 
hearing. At this

[[Page 8193]]

hearing, the court can ask questions and make any changes the 
independent judge deems appropriate. If approved, the signed order is 
then returned to the FBI field office to be served by the agent.
  This is a very long process, and it takes, on average, over 140 days 
to get a section 215 order. It requires 11 separate approvals before 
any records could be obtained. Yet Senator Paul's amendment will 
completely eliminate this investigative tool. A section 215 order 
provides greater protections of second amendment rights than the 
alternative, which is a grand jury subpoena as part of a criminal 
investigation.
  The alternative method of obtaining firearms records is a grand jury 
subpoena. It is rarely used as an alternative in the national security 
context. First, investigators must have a criminal nexus before it can 
seek a grand jury subpoena. This means there must be either criminal 
activity or a Federal firearms violation. Sometimes, when investigating 
terrorism, no criminal nexus exists. Senator Paul's amendment would 
prevent obtaining gun records in foreign intelligence investigations 
that have no criminal nexus.
  More often, a suspected terrorist comes across our radar long before 
he ever does anything that would rise to the level of a criminal 
violation. Senator Paul's amendment would mean that the FBI could not 
get information that a suspected terrorist is legally buying firearms 
until after he actually takes the shot or does something else criminal. 
At this point, it is too late to prevent an act of terrorism from 
occurring.
  It does not make any sense to allow criminal investigators access to 
firearms records but prohibit terrorism investigators the same access. 
That scenario is why we in Congress acted to amend the law following 9/
11. This is simply another attempt to rebuild ``the wall'' between 
intelligence and criminal law that caused the failure connecting the 
dots prior to 9/11.
  Remember, these sorts of records are crucial to the early stages of a 
terror investigation. It allows the government to connect the dots. 
This authority can only be used with prior approval from a Senate-
confirmed, lifetime-appointed, independent, article 3, Federal district 
court judge. I am not sure how many more times I need to repeat the 
fact, that records are only provided after judicial review.
  Those who claim that there are no controls have not read or have not 
understood the law.
  I trust an independent judge who can, and will, say no if legal 
requirements are not met, if a request appears to over-reach, or if the 
law does not allow it.
  Judicial review is one very important safeguard in place every time a 
section 215 order is requested, which is the tool to request firearms 
records. This safeguard is over and above those that exist in criminal 
cases. A vote for the Paul amendment is a vote to take away this 
judicial review.
  No judge reviews a grand jury subpoena before it is issued. Yet, in 
more serious, national security cases, to obtain firearms records, a 
judge must approve the request and issue an order. That means it is 
more difficult to obtain records with a section 215 order in a national 
security case than it is in a less serious criminal case with a grand 
jury subpoena.
  I don't know why we insist on making it harder to investigate acts of 
terrorism than to investigate fraud and illegal drugs.
  Section 215 orders offer more protection than what the Constitution 
requires. The Supreme Court, in U.S. v. Miller, has held that business 
records, such as banking deposit slips or car rental records or 
firearms records, are not subject to fourth amendment protections 
because the customer has no reasonable expectation of privacy in 
documents that are in the possession of third parties.
  The constitutional argument that a section 215 order is an 
unreasonable search in violation of the fourth amendment is completely 
contrary to what the Supreme Court has been saying for over 35 years. 
Thus, section 215 orders offer greater protection than what the 
Constitution requires.
  There are no reported abuses of section 215 orders. And if this tool 
was being abused, people know that I would be eager to hold 
investigators accountable.
  In fact, I will pledge to work with all groups and supporters of the 
second amendment, such as the National Rifle Association, to ensure 
that PATRIOT Act authorities are not used to circumvent existing 
prohibitions on obtaining U.S. citizen gun records. I support the goal 
Senator Paul is trying to achieve, namely protecting the constitutional 
rights of all gun owners. However, his amendment goes too far.
  I urge my colleagues to oppose amendment 363 and support a clean 
extension of the expiring PATRIOT Act authorities.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, although the PATRIOT Act is not a perfect 
law, it provides our intelligence and law enforcement communities with 
crucial tools to keep our homeland safe and thwart terrorism. While I 
am disappointed we were not able to include any of the sensible 
oversight and civil liberties protections included in the bill reported 
by the Judiciary Committee with bipartisan support, I strongly support 
the Senate's effort to ensure that these important authorities do not 
expire.
  The raid that killed Osama bin Laden also yielded an enormous amount 
of new information that has spurred dozens of investigations yielding 
new leads every day. Without the PATRIOT Act, investigators would not 
have the tools they need to follow these new leads and disrupt 
terrorist plots, putting our national security at risk.
  Finally, we have worked expeditiously to pass this legislation to 
reauthorize these critical intelligence tools. If for some reason this 
bill is not enacted before May 27 and there is a brief lapse in the 
authorities, there should be no doubt that it is Congress's intent that 
this bill reauthorizes the authorities in their current form and does 
so until June 2015.
  How much time remains, Madam President?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is 1 minute 22 seconds.
  Mr. REID. Who controls that time?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time is controlled by the majority, and 
the Senator from Kentucky controls 2 minutes 22 seconds.
  Mr. PAUL. Madam President, I am happy to yield back the remainder of 
my time.
  Mr. REID. I yield back the majority time.


            Amendments Nos. 363 and 365 to Amendment No. 347

  Mr. REID. Madam President, I move to table the pending amendment, and 
I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendments en bloc.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Kentucky [Mr. Paul] proposes en bloc 
     amendments numbered 363 and 365.

  The amendments are as follows:


                           Amendment No. 363

(Purpose: To clarify that the authority to obtain information under the 
   USA PATRIOT Act and subsequent reauthorizations does not include 
             authority to obtain certain firearms records)

       At the appropriate place, insert the following:

     SEC. __. FIREARMS RECORDS.

       Nothing in the USA PATRIOT Act (Public Law 107-56; 115 
     Stat. 272), the USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization 
     Act of 2005 (Public Law 109-177; 120 Stat. 192), the USA 
     PATRIOT Act Additional Reauthorizing Amendments Act of 2006 
     (Public Law 109-178; 120 Stat. 278), or an amendment made by 
     any such Act shall authorize the investigation or procurement 
     of firearms records which is not authorized under chapter 44 
     of title 18, United States Code


                           Amendment No. 365

   (Purpose: To limit suspicious activity reporting requirements to 
    requests from law enforcement agencies, and for other purposes)

         At the appropriate place, insert the following:

     SEC. __. SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY REPORTS.

       Section 5318(g)(1) of title 31, United States Code, is 
     amended by inserting before the period at the end the 
     following: ``, but only upon request of an appropriate law 
     enforcement agency to such institution or person for such 
     report''.


[[Page 8194]]

  Mr. REID. Madam President, I move to table amendment No. 363 and ask 
for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  The question is on agreeing to the motion.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, I am not sure I was heard earlier. I ask 
unanimous consent that this vote be 15 minutes and the rest 10 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Connecticut (Mr. 
Blumenthal), the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez), and the 
Senator from New York (Mr. Schumer) are necessarily absent.
  I further announce that, if present and voting, the Senator from New 
Jersey (Mr. Menendez) and the Senator from New York (Mr. Schumer) would 
each vote ``yea.''
  Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator 
from Kansas (Mr. Roberts) and the Senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio).
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 85, nays 10, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 82 Leg.]

                                YEAS--85

     Akaka
     Alexander
     Ayotte
     Begich
     Bennet
     Bingaman
     Blunt
     Boozman
     Boxer
     Brown (MA)
     Brown (OH)
     Burr
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Chambliss
     Coats
     Coburn
     Cochran
     Collins
     Conrad
     Coons
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Crapo
     Durbin
     Feinstein
     Franken
     Gillibrand
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hagan
     Harkin
     Hatch
     Hoeven
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Inouye
     Isakson
     Johanns
     Johnson (SD)
     Johnson (WI)
     Kerry
     Kirk
     Klobuchar
     Kohl
     Kyl
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lugar
     Manchin
     McCain
     McCaskill
     McConnell
     Merkley
     Mikulski
     Murkowski
     Murray
     Nelson (NE)
     Nelson (FL)
     Portman
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Risch
     Rockefeller
     Sanders
     Sessions
     Shaheen
     Snowe
     Stabenow
     Thune
     Toomey
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Vitter
     Warner
     Webb
     Whitehouse
     Wicker
     Wyden

                                NAYS--10

     Barrasso
     Baucus
     DeMint
     Enzi
     Heller
     Lee
     Moran
     Paul
     Shelby
     Tester

                             NOT VOTING--5

     Blumenthal
     Menendez
     Roberts
     Rubio
     Schumer
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 85, the nays are 
10. Under the previous order, 60 votes not having been cast in 
opposition to the motion to table, the amendment is withdrawn.
  The majority leader.


                           Amendment No. 365

  Mr. REID. Is amendment No. 365 pending?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is the pending amendment.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, I move to table the pending Paul amendment 
No. 365, and I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  The question is on agreeing to the motion.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Connecticut (Mr. 
Blumenthal), the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez), and the 
Senator from New York (Mr. Schumer) are necessarily absent.
  I further announce that, if present and voting, the Senator from New 
Jersey (Mr. Menendez) and the Senator from New York (Mr. Schumer) would 
each vote ``yea.''
  Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator 
from Kansas (Mr. Roberts) and the Senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio).
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 91, nays 4, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 83 Leg.]

                                YEAS--91

     Akaka
     Alexander
     Ayotte
     Barrasso
     Baucus
     Begich
     Bennet
     Bingaman
     Blunt
     Boozman
     Boxer
     Brown (MA)
     Brown (OH)
     Burr
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Chambliss
     Coats
     Coburn
     Cochran
     Collins
     Conrad
     Coons
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Crapo
     Durbin
     Enzi
     Feinstein
     Franken
     Gillibrand
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hagan
     Harkin
     Hatch
     Hoeven
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Inouye
     Isakson
     Johanns
     Johnson (SD)
     Johnson (WI)
     Kerry
     Kirk
     Klobuchar
     Kohl
     Kyl
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lugar
     Manchin
     McCain
     McCaskill
     McConnell
     Merkley
     Mikulski
     Moran
     Murkowski
     Murray
     Nelson (NE)
     Nelson (FL)
     Portman
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Risch
     Rockefeller
     Sanders
     Sessions
     Shaheen
     Shelby
     Snowe
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Thune
     Toomey
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Vitter
     Warner
     Webb
     Whitehouse
     Wicker
     Wyden

                                NAYS--4

     DeMint
     Heller
     Lee
     Paul

                             NOT VOTING--5

     Blumenthal
     Menendez
     Roberts
     Rubio
     Schumer
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, 60 votes not having 
been cast in opposition to the motion to table, the amendment is 
withdrawn.
  Under the previous order, amendment No. 348 is withdrawn.
  All postcloture time is yielded back.
  The question is on agreeing to the motion to concur with amendment 
No. 347 to the House amendment to S. 990.
  The yeas and nays have been ordered, and the clerk will call the 
roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Connecticut (Mr. 
Blumenthal), the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez), and the 
Senator from New York (Mr. Schumer), are necessarily absent.
  I further announce that, if present and voting, the Senator from New 
Jersey (Mr. Menendez) and the Senator from New York (Mr. Schumer) would 
each vote ``yea.''
  Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator 
from Kansas (Mr. Roberts) and the senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio).
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Franken). Are there any Senators in the 
Chamber desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 72, nays 23, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 84 Leg.]

                                YEAS--72

     Alexander
     Ayotte
     Barrasso
     Bennet
     Blunt
     Boozman
     Boxer
     Brown (MA)
     Burr
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Chambliss
     Coats
     Coburn
     Cochran
     Collins
     Conrad
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Crapo
     DeMint
     Enzi
     Feinstein
     Gillibrand
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hagan
     Hatch
     Hoeven
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Inouye
     Isakson
     Johanns
     Johnson (SD)
     Johnson (WI)
     Kerry
     Kirk
     Klobuchar
     Kohl
     Kyl
     Landrieu
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lugar
     Manchin
     McCain
     McCaskill
     McConnell
     Mikulski
     Moran
     Nelson (NE)
     Nelson (FL)
     Portman
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Risch
     Rockefeller
     Sessions
     Shaheen
     Shelby
     Snowe
     Stabenow
     Thune
     Toomey
     Vitter
     Warner
     Webb
     Whitehouse
     Wicker

                                NAYS--23

     Akaka
     Baucus
     Begich
     Bingaman
     Brown (OH)
     Cantwell
     Coons
     Durbin
     Franken
     Harkin
     Heller
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Lee
     Merkley
     Murkowski
     Murray
     Paul
     Sanders
     Tester
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Wyden

                             NOT VOTING--5

     Blumenthal
     Menendez
     Roberts
     Rubio
     Schumer
  The motion was agreed to.


                            Vote Explanation

  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I was unavoidably detained for rollcall 
vote No. 82, a vote on the motion to table the Paul amendment No. 363 
related to firearm records. Had I been present, I would have voted 
``yea'' to the motion to table the amendment.
  Mr. President, I was also unavoidably detained for rollcall vote No. 
83, a vote

[[Page 8195]]

on the motion to table the Paul amendment No. 365 related to suspicious 
activity reports. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' to the 
motion to table the amendment.
  Mr. President, further I was unavoidably detained for rollcall vote 
No. 84, adoption of the motion to concur in the House amendment to S. 
990 with the Reid amendment #347, PATRIOT Act extension. Had I been 
present, I would have voted ``yea.''
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I was unavoidably absent during 
today's vote to extend three expiring provisions of the PATRIOT ACT, 
due to my son's college graduation. I voted to extend these provisions 
earlier this year when this legislation was before the Senate Judiciary 
Committee. Had I been able to attend today's vote, I would have voted 
again with the majority to extend these provisions.
  Additionally, I would have voted to table amendment No. 363, which 
would have prohibited the use of any PATRIOT Act authorities to 
investigate or procure records relating to firearms. I would also have 
voted to table amendment No. 365, which would have sharply curtailed 
existing rules that help the Treasury track the financial activities of 
terrorists.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, there will be no more votes today. That was 
the last vote for this week. We will have a vote on the Monday we get 
back in the evening at around 5 o'clock.

                          ____________________