[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 8]
[Senate]
[Pages 11536-11556]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           EXECUTIVE SESSION

                                 ______
                                 

  NOMINATION OF FRED P. HOCHBERG TO BE PRESIDENT OF THE EXPORT-IMPORT 
                       BANK OF THE UNITED STATES

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the 
Senate will proceed to executive session to consider the following 
nomination which the clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read the nomination of Fred P. 
Hochberg, of New York, to be President of the Export-Import Bank of the 
United States.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the time 
until 10 a.m. will be equally divided and controlled between the two 
leaders or their designees.
  Mr. REID. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Murphy). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                             Cloture Motion

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, pursuant to rule 
XXII, the Chair lays before the Senate the pending cloture motion, 
which the clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

                             Cloture Motion

       We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the 
     provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, 
     hereby move to bring to a close debate on the nomination of 
     Fred P. Hochberg, of New York, to be President of the Export-
     Import Bank of the United States.
         Harry Reid, Tim Johnson, Benjamin L. Cardin, Christopher 
           A. Coons, Patrick J. Leahy, Charles E. Schumer, Ron 
           Wyden, Patty Murray, Heidi Heitkamp, Tom Udall, Martin 
           Heinrich, Jack Reed, Sheldon Whitehouse, Elizabeth 
           Warren, Richard J. Durbin, Kirsten E. Gillibrand, 
           Robert Menendez

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum 
call has been waived.
  The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on the 
nomination of Fred P. Hochberg, of New York, to be President of the 
Export-Import Bank of the United States for a term expiring January 20, 
2017, shall be brought to a close?
  The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 82, nays 18, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 175 Ex.]

                                YEAS--82

     Alexander
     Ayotte
     Baldwin
     Baucus
     Begich
     Bennet
     Blumenthal
     Blunt
     Boozman
     Boxer
     Brown
     Burr
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Chiesa
     Coats
     Cochran
     Collins
     Coons
     Corker
     Crapo
     Donnelly
     Durbin
     Feinstein
     Fischer
     Flake
     Franken
     Gillibrand
     Graham
     Hagan
     Harkin
     Hatch
     Heinrich
     Heitkamp
     Heller
     Hirono
     Hoeven
     Isakson
     Johanns
     Johnson (SD)
     Kaine
     King
     Kirk
     Klobuchar
     Landrieu
     Leahy
     Levin
     Manchin
     Markey
     McCain
     McCaskill
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Mikulski
     Murkowski
     Murphy
     Murray
     Nelson
     Portman
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Rockefeller
     Sanders
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Scott
     Sessions
     Shaheen
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Thune
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Vitter
     Warner
     Warren
     Whitehouse
     Wicker
     Wyden

                                NAYS--18

     Barrasso
     Chambliss
     Coburn
     Cornyn
     Cruz
     Enzi
     Grassley
     Inhofe
     Johnson (WI)
     Lee
     McConnell
     Moran
     Paul
     Risch
     Roberts
     Rubio
     Shelby
     Toomey
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Heitkamp). On this vote, the yeas are 82, 
the nays are 18. Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn 
having voted in the affirmative, the motion is agreed to.
  Pursuant to S. Res. 15 of the 113th Congress, there is now 8 hours of 
postcloture debate equally divided in the usual form.
  Who yields time?
  If no one yields, the time will be equally divided.
  The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. TOOMEY. Madam President, I rise to speak for a few moments about 
the cloture vote we just had and the confirmation vote that is 
upcoming.
  First of all, let me start by saying I think Mr. Hochberg is a good, 
capable, and competent person. The point I am making is that the 
candidate for President of the Ex-Im Bank, for whom we just granted 
cloture and are likely to confirm, is a capable individual.
  I voted against cloture, and I am going to vote against this 
confirmation. It is not about him. I wish to explain what this is about 
for me and why I think this is a lost opportunity. Precisely, it is 
this: By invoking cloture, as we have just done, and confirming Mr. 
Hochberg, as we are no doubt about to do, I think we are going to miss 
a big opportunity to insist on some modest reforms that are necessary 
at the Ex-Im Bank and we are going to miss an opportunity to pressure 
the administration and the Ex-Im Bank to follow existing law in ways 
that are not currently being followed. I wish to touch on a couple of 
these.
  First of all, just by way of background, a reminder about the Ex-Im 
Bank: This is a taxpayer risk. This is a bank that makes taxpayer-
backed loans and guarantees to countries and companies that buy 
American products. In 2012 we reauthorized the ongoing existence of the 
Ex-Im Bank and increased its lending authority to $140 billion. Now, 
not only are taxpayers taking a risk every time a loan is made by the 
Ex-Im Bank, but the taxpayers are systematically being undercompensated 
for that loan. The pricing on these loans is necessarily not reflective 
of the full risk to the taxpayer. How do we know that? Because if they 
were fully pricing in the risk, then the Ex-Im Bank wouldn't have a 
competitive advantage over other private banks. They would be more than 
happy to finance exports. In fact, the export bank exists for the 
purpose of subsidizing these exports, and they do it in the form of 
consciously and intentionally underpricing the loans so that the 
taxpayers do not get an adequate compensation and certainly not a 
market compensation for the risk they take. That is just the reality. 
That is the nature of the Ex-Im Bank.
  I would also point out that Ex-Im Bank's inspector general issued a 
report in September about some of the issues they discovered in the 
management of the Ex-Im Bank. They recommended that the Ex-Im Bank 
undergo stress testing. We require this of all of the big private 
financial institutions. They require that they go through all kinds of 
analyses about what would happen to their institutions under different 
economic and market circumstances that could occur, and then we 
evaluate how well they hold up to the stress of changes in interest 
rates, changes in economic conditions, and so on. The Ex-Im Bank has 
promised they will do this, but we haven't seen any results.

[[Page 11537]]

  The inspector general also suggested some at least soft limits on 
concentration because the Ex-Im Bank is massively concentrated in a 
single industry. Almost all of the financing it provides is in a single 
industry, and that creates a risk to the taxpayers, of course, if there 
is a problem in that industry. The Ex-Im Bank has rejected considering 
any concentration limits.
  The third thing I would point out is that the inspector general's 
report suggested that the board have more oversight authority. The Ex-
Im Bank has not agreed to increase the board's oversight authority.
  There is another problem with the Ex-Im Bank, it seems to me; that 
is, by its very nature it picks winners and losers in ways that are 
inappropriate. I will give a few examples. Because it is a government 
entity, it is ultimately controlled by the political class and its 
activities ultimately get politicized. It has already happened. For 
instance, in an entity that is supposed to be all about subsidizing 
exports for job creation purposes, there are mandates that a certain 
amount of their business has to be green activity. It has to be what 
some people think is acceptable or preferable in the energy space. That 
is a judgment which has nothing to do with maximizing overall exports. 
It is a political decision that is imposed on the Ex-Im Bank because 
politicians can. There is also a mandate on small business, which is to 
favor one sector over another.
  There was an amendment when we were considering this bill. One of our 
colleagues offered an amendment that would force the Ex-Im Bank to make 
sure a certain amount of their business was subsidized loans to African 
companies and countries. I am sure this Senator has a very sincere 
interest in supporting Africa in various ways. That is fine if he has 
that interest, but is the Ex-Im Bank the vehicle we are supposed to use 
to do that? Let's keep in mind that when we establish a minimum 
statutory lending hurdle for some geographical area and Ex-Im is not 
there, they have to lower their standards to reach that goal, so it 
increases taxpayer risk for this political goal.
  My point is that it is inevitable, it is guaranteed, it is already 
happening that this process becomes politicized, and that is not a good 
idea.
  There is another problem with the activity of the Ex-Im Bank, which 
is that taxpayer-backed loans and guarantees also inevitably help some 
American companies at the expense of others. That is the nature of 
this, and that is a problem. One clear example is commercial air 
carriers. We have American companies that are airlines, they are 
commercial carriers, and then there are foreign companies that do this 
as well, and they compete directly against American carriers. Well, if 
you are a foreign airline, you get the Ex-Im Bank subsidy loan to buy 
your aircraft, and if you are an American airline, you don't. This 
happens. It happened recently. Air India got a $3.4 billion loan 
subsidy from Ex-Im Bank so they can buy their aircraft, and Air India 
competes directly with American companies that are not eligible for the 
loans because it is not considered an export.
  These are the sorts of unintended consequences that occur when the 
government creates these mechanisms for meddling in the markets.
  By the way, under current law the Ex-Im Bank is required to provide 
an analysis and make the analysis public about any adverse impact on 
American companies when they engage in this sort of activity, and we 
haven't seen that analysis. In fact, we have a court decision that 
criticizes the Ex-Im Bank. The court of appeals found that they had, in 
fact, failed to comply with this law about assessing the negative 
financial impact on U.S. companies; nevertheless, they are continuing 
to make these loan guarantees in this context.
  All of these problems have been discussed in the past. We have had 
this debate before. One of the very constructive things we did in the 
2012 reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank was that we said: What 
is the reason--why do we do all of this? The proponents always give the 
same argument--it is always the same--and it is that other countries 
around the world do this to subsidize their exports, and if we don't 
subsidize ours we will be at a competitive disadvantage and we can't 
have that.
  That is the justification we always get. One can question the wisdom 
of that justification. We could have a big debate about that. But let's 
put that aside for a second because there is a potential solution to 
that problem. It is that in global trade talks and bilateral and 
multilateral trade talks, we, the United States--the world's biggest 
trading country, the world's biggest economy--could insist on a process 
by which we have a mutual wind-down of this economically unhealthy 
activity. The countries of the world that have these export-subsidizing 
banks could mutually agree to phase them out. Then we wouldn't have to 
do it because they do it, taxpayers wouldn't have this risk, and we 
wouldn't be unfairly benefiting some companies at the expense of 
others. We could phase this out.
  In fact, that is exactly what the 2012 authorization bill requires. 
It requires the administration to begin negotiating with our trading 
partners for a mutual phaseout of all export subsidies. I believe that 
is the right solution to this admittedly difficult problem. Let's all 
agree we are going to phase out this activity.
  Well, despite the fact that this mandate is in the reauthorization 
bill we passed a year ago--it is the law of the land--it is not 
happening. It is just not happening. There are no such discussions 
under way. There are no such negotiations. This is certainly not a 
priority of the administration's trading activity. I am not sure it 
exists at all as a priority. This is the main reason I came to the 
floor this morning and voted against cloture.
  Cloture--the requirement to get the 60 votes to cut off debate to 
then consider the vote on the underlying nominee--is a very important 
tool. If we had held 41 votes, 41 Senators who refused to agree to cut 
off debate, the administration would have been in a little bit of a 
pickle because by the end of this month, in the absence of a newly 
confirmed President, the Ex-Im Bank couldn't do any business. So what 
would have happened? Would the Ex-Im Bank have just shut down? No. That 
wasn't ever going to happen. But what might have happened is we might 
have had a discussion: Can we get the administration to actually begin 
the negotiating they are supposed to do under existing law? Could they 
please begin to observe the law? Could the Ex-Im Bank actually begin to 
respond to the inspector general's reports? And in the pressure, 
frankly, of this moment, I think we would have had progress. Instead, 
we have voted for cloture. I think later today we are going to vote to 
confirm the nominee, who, as I said, is a very capable, very competent 
individual. So none of this is going to happen. What we are going to do 
is confirm the status quo, continue business as usual, business as it 
has been.
  This, of course, occurs in a context, right? It occurs in the context 
of this argument we have been having about whether Republicans have 
been obstructing nominees, and I think, frankly, it infects the 
judgment about how Senators might consider voting on something such as 
a cloture measure. I would just remind everybody that going into this 
discussion earlier this week, the Senate had confirmed 1,560 of the 
President's nominees and was blocking 4--1,560 to 4. Some are 
suggesting that is an outrageous activity on our part because it denies 
the President the opportunity to assemble his team. Really? He has 
1,560 confirmed, and there are 4 we are holding. That works out to 99.7 
percent of the President's nominees confirmed, and we are portrayed as 
preventing the President from assembling his team. I completely reject 
that characterization. I think the President has enjoyed a tremendous 
opportunity and reality of getting his team in place, getting them 
confirmed.
  We ought not relinquish the power the Constitution gives to the 
Senate to advise and consent. Remember, the Constitution doesn't just 
say that the Senate shall advise, it says advise and consent. 
``Consent'' has a very specific

[[Page 11538]]

meaning. If we do this automatically and routinely and we think that--I 
guess those who object to our approving 1,560 and objecting to 4--it 
seems to me the implication is that we are supposed to simply routinely 
rubberstamp everyone, there can't be any objections ever, whatsoever. 
That is not what the Constitution calls for. As a matter of 
constitutional principle, that is a very flawed analysis.
  I wanted to speak this morning because this is a very real, specific 
case of where, had we exercised more fully, in my judgment, our 
opportunity to deny cloture, we would have made a little bit of 
progress in better observation of existing law, further reducing risk 
the taxpayers take, and getting the Ex-Im Bank to comply with some of 
the recommendations in the inspector general's report. I wanted to 
share that.
  I know how this vote is going to go. I know Mr. Hochberg is going to 
be confirmed. I hope we will be able to make progress anyway, but I am 
sure we would have had a better chance of making meaningful progress if 
we had used this moment.
  As we consider future nominees, I hope we will remember that this is 
a fundamental and important role for the Senate to play--to use 
confirmation as a moment to focus the attention of the administration 
on what is important to our constituents, to our taxpayers, and I hope 
we won't relinquish that opportunity.
  I yield the floor.


                               ObamaCare

  Mr. LEE. Madam President, 2 weeks ago, while most Americans were busy 
getting ready for the Fourth of July holiday, the Obama administration 
made a stunning announcement about the President's signature 
legislative accomplishment, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care 
Act.
  The President admitted to the American people that because ObamaCare 
was so poorly crafted, he was delaying the enforcement of the employer 
mandate and would not assess fines and penalties to big companies that 
refused to provide insurance to their employees. The President 
explained that businesses could not handle ``the complexity of the 
requirements,'' and government bureaucrats would spend the next year 
simplifying the reporting rules so companies could comply.
  I expected that in the next paragraph he would acknowledge that 
American families also deserve relief because, as polls consistently 
reflect, they have very big problems with the requirements as well. 
They have concerns about the government-run health care scheme known as 
the exchanges.
  Henry Chao, the chief technical officer in charge of implementing the 
ObamaCare exchanges, has said:

       I'm pretty nervous. . . . Let's just make sure it's not a 
     third-world experience.

  American families also have very grave concerns about how much 
ObamaCare is going to add to our national debt. The Congressional 
Budget Office now estimates that the cost to taxpayers over the next 10 
years will be $1.8 trillion. Young Americans are particularly concerned 
about ObamaCare because it is becoming clear that they will see the 
highest increases in health care premiums.
  One study published in the magazine of the American Academy of 
Actuaries shows that middle- and low-income single adults between 21 
and 29 years of age will see their premiums rise by 46 percent even 
after they take the ObamaCare subsidy.
  A joint report by Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce, 
Senate Finance, and Senate HELP Committees that looked at over 30 
different studies concluded that:

       Recent college graduates with entry-level jobs who are 
     struggling to pay off student loan debt could see their 
     premiums increase on average between 145 and 189 percent. 
     Some studies estimate young adults could experience premium 
     increases as high as 203 percent.

  In my State, the State of Utah, premiums for young people will jump 
anywhere from 56 to 90 percent. As I read this statement from the 
Treasury Department, I was shocked to find no mention of these people. 
Parents, families, students, employees, taxpayers, hard-working 
Americans in general were totally left out, along with their concerns 
about the complexity of the requirements imposed by ObamaCare.
  A senior adviser to the President took to the White House blog to 
spin the administration's announcement before long. She said:

       In our ongoing discussions with businesses, we have heard 
     that you need time to get this right.

  But why aren't American families part of these same ongoing 
discussions? Isn't the White House obligated to get this right for them 
too, before assessing fines and penalties and forcing them into a 
government-run third-world experience?
  We knew ObamaCare would be unaffordable, but now we know it is also 
going to be unfair. It is fundamentally unfair for the President to 
exempt businesses from the onerous burdens of his law while forcing 
American families and individuals into ObamaCare's unsound and unstable 
system. It is unfair to protect the bottom lines of big business while 
making hard-working Americans pay the price through higher premiums, 
stiff penalties, cutbacks in worker hours, and job losses.
  It is unfair to give businesses more time to figure out complex 
regulations but force everyone else to figure out equally complex 
mandates and requirements applicable to individuals. This 
administration has chosen to put its own political preferences and the 
interests of various government cronies ahead of those of the American 
people.
  Republicans in Congress must now stand up for the individuals and 
families who do not have the money, who do not have the lobbyists, who 
do not have the connections to get this administration's attention on 
this important issue. We should do so using one of the few 
constitutional powers that Congress still carefully guards: its power 
of the purse.
  As long as President Obama selectively enforces ObamaCare, no annual 
appropriations bill and no continuing resolution should fund further 
implementation of this law. In other words, if the President will not 
follow it, the American people should not fund it.
  Last week's admission by the administration means that after more 
than 3 years of preparation and trial and error, the best case scenario 
for ObamaCare will be rampant dysfunction, waste, and injustice to 
taxpayers and working families. Even the President himself is now 
admitting that ObamaCare will not work. It is unaffordable and unfair.
  If he will not follow it, we should not fund it. The only reasonable 
choice now is to protect the country from ObamaCare's looming disaster, 
start over, and finally begin work on real health care reform that 
works for everyone.
  I would like to shift topics and speak briefly in opposition to the 
confirmation of Fred Hochberg to continue as Chairman and President of 
the Export-Import Bank. By confirming Mr. Hochberg, we would perpetuate 
the existence of an organization whose sole purpose is to dispense 
corporate welfare and political privileges to well-connected special 
interests.
  The Export-Import Bank, or Ex-Im as it is commonly known, is an 
example of everything that is wrong with Washington today. It is big 
government serving the interests of big corporations at the expense of 
individuals, families, and small businesses throughout America.
  I am, of course, not alone in this view. I have good company. In 
2008, while campaigning for the office of President of the United 
States, then-Senator Barack Obama referred to Ex-Im as ``little more 
than a fund for corporate welfare.'' So it is. After all, in fiscal 
year 2012, $12.2 billion of Ex-Im's $14.7 billion in loan guarantees 
went to a single company--one company. Our free enterprise system may 
not be perfect, but it is fair. Crony capitalism which is promoted by 
the Export-Import Bank is neither.
  Abraham Lincoln once said that the leading object of government was 
to ``lift artificial weights from all shoulders, to clear the paths of 
laudable pursuit for all, to afford all an unfettered start and a fair 
chance in the race of life.''

[[Page 11539]]

  Crony capitalism is the opposite of this noble vision. It lays on 
artificial waste, obstructs paths of laudable pursuit, and makes the 
race of life fettered and unfair. We may have honest disagreements 
about when and whether and to what extent and under what circumstances 
it is a good idea for the government to redistribute wealth from the 
rich and give it to the poor, but can't we all agree it is always a bad 
idea to redistribute wealth from the poor and the middle class and give 
it to large corporations?
  The saddest part is it is not even clear the bank actually helps U.S. 
firms to outperform their foreign competitors. Ex-Im's convoluted 
financing has been accused of pricing at least one U.S. airline out of 
being able to compete with foreign firms, and at least one court has 
agreed.
  Cronyism is a cancer. It undermines public trust in our economy and 
in our political system. Ordinary Americans who have the gnawing sense 
that the game seems rigged against them unfortunately have good reason 
to feel that way. It is not the free market that serves the middle men 
at the expense of the middle class. It is the crony cartels of big 
government, big business, and big special interests conspiring against 
the American dream, helping each other to American taxpayers' money. 
The Ex-Im Bank is part of this graft.
  I urge all of my colleagues to join me in opposing this nominee and 
the crony capitalist organization that he leads.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
  Ms. CANTWELL. Madam President, I rise to speak in support of Fred 
Hochberg and his nomination to the second term as Chairman of the 
Export-Import Bank. I have heard now two speeches on the other side of 
the aisle from my colleagues who not only seem to take exception with 
Mr. Hochberg's nomination but the Export-Import Bank in and of itself.
  I think they are wrong. I think they are wrong because they do not 
understand Washington's need to focus on the fact that we have an 
export economy. We want U.S. products to be bought and sold in 
countries and markets all over the world. We are here today to talk 
about a critical vote to support 225,000 jobs that are part of our 
export economy. If we fail to confirm Fred Hochberg for a second term 
as Chairman of the Export-Import Bank, businesses across the United 
States will lose a key tool in job creation.
  This is because his term expires, runs out, on July 20.
  What would that mean? It would mean the Export-Import Bank, which 
needs at least three of its five board members to have a quorum, would 
not have a quorum and would not be able to issue any new loans. This 
means the transactions that U.S. companies depend on, the guarantees 
and the transactions to finance the sale of U.S. products and services 
overseas, would not be able to move forward.
  If we don't confirm Mr. Hochberg this week, the bank cannot approve 
loans and it would take away a job-creating tool that American 
innovators and businesses count on. This is why I am calling on my 
colleagues, in a bipartisan fashion, to confirm Mr. Hochberg as the 
Export-Import Bank Chairman for a second term.
  His nomination is supported by the Chamber of Commerce and by the 
National Association of Manufacturers. He has proven to be a solid 
leader in his organization by listening, implementing, innovating, and 
administering a very critical job-creation tool.
  When I visited businesses across my State in 2012 to talk about the 
Export-Import Bank, I heard the American people wanted us to focus on 
job creation and supporting business. The Export-Import Bank helps 
American-made products to be shipped all around the world.
  I saw a company in my State, Yakima, WA, the Manhasset music stand 
company, use the Export-Import Bank to make sure sales go all around 
the globe, including China.
  I saw a grain silo manufacturer called SCAFCO in Spokane, which also 
would testify to the fact that they have been able to sell their grain 
to many countries around the globe because of the financing the Export-
Import Bank guarantees.
  Airline cockpit hardware made by the Esterline Corporation factory in 
Everett, WA, also testified to the same effect; that when you are 
looking around the globe to secure financing of U.S. products into more 
developing countries, it is hard to get the financing to work.
  The United States can be left at the starting line or the United 
States can use this vital tool that I call a tactic for small business 
to get access to make sure their products get a final sale.
  The Export-Import Bank supports 83,000 jobs in my State alone, which 
benefits from the finance mechanism. Over the last 5 years, it has 
supported many jobs throughout the United States. Overall, it 
supported, as I said, 225,000 jobs and more than 3,000 businesses in 
2012.
  In the small business area, 2,500 of those are small businesses. The 
notion that this is somehow crony capitalism--and maybe he is talking 
about the shenanigans that happened on Wall Street, but he is certainly 
not talking about the Export-Import Bank.
  I am advocating that we keep the very positive results of this bank, 
keep Mr. Hochberg, and make sure we continue to sell our products from 
Everett, WA, or Auburn, KY, all over the globe.
  Ninety-five percent of the world's consumers live outside our 
borders. The question is: are we going to make sure that U.S. products 
get into the hands of the growing middle class around the globe? In 
2030, China's middle class will be 1 billion people, 1 billion middle-
class people in China, up from 150 million today. India's middle class 
will grow 80 percent, from 50 million to 475 million.
  We need our businesses, large and small, to have the tools to reach 
this new, growing tool of consumers. Not only does this help 
businesses, the Ex-Im Bank also helps taxpayers.
  I don't know where the idea that this is crony capitalism comes from, 
but this program is a very good deal for the U.S. Department of the 
Treasury. In fact, it returned nearly $1.6 billion to the U.S. Treasury 
since 2005. It actually is helping us return money to the Treasury and 
it helps our businesses continue to grow in export markets.
  As we speak, there are almost $4 billion in transactions awaiting 
approval for the bank; that is, if we don't approve the chairman, these 
deals might not go through. There are many American businesses counting 
on their transaction so they can compete in an international market.
  The international competitor is not going to wait until we approve 
Mr. Hochberg if we delay this. They are going to go ahead, cash in on 
the business deals, and our competitors will win.
  I think the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said it best in a 2011 letter to 
congressional leaders: The Export-Import Bank enables U.S. companies, 
large and small, to turn export opportunities into real sales that help 
create real jobs in the United States of America.
  I was proud that Mr. Hochberg came to Seattle last year for the 
opening of a regional Ex-Im office, focusing on small businesses to 
make sure they can get the financing for end products to get to these 
markets. We should be moving more toward policies to help businesses, 
the small businesses, grow with confidence into these international 
markets.
  I ask my colleagues to do the right thing, follow through, and 
confirm this chairman.
  Since its creation in 1934, the Export-Import Bank was approved by 
unanimous consent or voice vote 24 times. For 24 times no one called 
this crony capitalism. No, they were supporting it. The last time we 
authorized it, it had 78 votes. It ended up in the House of 
Representatives with 330 votes.
  I am pointing this out because all of the delay in Mr. Hochberg's 
confirmation hurts business in the end, when the majority of my 
colleagues do agree this is a vital tool to help boost products made in 
America.
  In the last reauthorization we did make improvements to strengthen 
the

[[Page 11540]]

Ex-Im Bank. Quarterly reports are delivered on the default rates, which 
now can't go above 2 percent.
  The Government Accountability Office also is required to work with 
risk management structures to make sure loans and businesses are not 
too risky. Transactions above a certain dollar amount receive public 
comment, and they deliver a yearly report on those transactions.
  I know my colleagues have mentioned this issue about aviation, and I 
can guarantee, as the chair of the Aviation Subcommittee, I want U.S. 
airline industries to be competitive in international markets. 
Certainly, the world community on financing of airplane sales is 
working together to make sure those are closer to market-based rates 
and working on the same page so these financing schemes work together.
  The 2011 Aircraft Sector Understanding sets out the terms and 
conditions on how airlines can finance aircraft purchases using 
Government-backed financing. The Understanding requires a closer 
alignment with commercial market borrowing rates. This agreement covers 
all major trading partners except China.
  All of these improvements we continue to make in the Ex-Im Bank are 
important. As I said, Mr. Hochberg has been open to many discussions as 
to how we move ahead. Let us not deny the fact that in developing 
markets, a financial tool such as the Export-Import Bank, that actually 
delivers on helping job creation in the United States by getting the 
sales of many different products into these developing countries and 
growing middle class, is very good for the United States. The fact that 
it returns to the taxpayer is very positive.
  Let's not let this slip another moment. Let's get Mr. Hochberg back 
to the task at hand, which is approving these transactions so U.S. 
companies can continue to grow jobs here by accessing new markets 
overseas.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CORNYN. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum 
call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, this last Monday night we had a 
remarkable occurrence in the Senate. Democrats and Republicans actually 
met together, as the Presiding Officer knows, in the Old Senate 
Chamber, a historic location where the Senate used to meet before we 
became so large and expanded to 100 Members. What was so good about 
that, from my perspective, was that we actually had some communication 
going on and we learned there were a lot of Senators who were actually 
frustrated by the way the Senate has been operating. It gave us all an 
opportunity, there in a confidential setting, to speak our mind and to 
share our frustrations.
  But I think one of the things we have forgotten--maybe not forgotten, 
but need to be reminded of from time to time--is what makes the Senate 
unique, not just here in America and our form of government but 
throughout the world. Sometimes the Senate is referred to as the 
world's greatest deliberative body. As we all know, it has become less 
so in recent years. But we all remember the story of the constitutional 
convention in Philadelphia when they were at loggerheads in trying to 
figure out how to create the legislative branch. There were some who 
wanted a single unicameral legislative body, and there were discussions 
then about whether there actually needed to be a Senate in addition to 
the House of Representatives, which, of course, would literally be 
representative of the people based on their numbers as opposed to 
representing the respective States, which is the function of the 
Senate.
  Late in the convention there was a compromise proposed by the Senator 
from Connecticut, Roger Sherman, on behalf of the small States. Of 
course, the small States were worried the big States would gang up on 
them. Ironically, under this compromise, it is now the small States 
that gang up on the big States, but that is another story for another 
day.
  Under this Connecticut Compromise, the Senate came to be comprised of 
two Senators representing each State, no matter how big or how small 
the State. My State of 26 million people only gets two Senators. The 
Presiding Officer's State, a smaller State, also gets two Senators. 
That was part of the Connecticut Compromise back when the country was 
founded.
  The Constitution could not have been ratified without this 
compromise. It initially failed, but Benjamin Franklin later found a 
better time to reintroduce it and it passed. But here is the real 
function of the Senate, and it comes from a story told of a 
conversation between Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. Of course, 
Washington had presided over the constitutional convention. Jefferson 
was in Paris. When he returned, he asked Washington why he allowed the 
Senate to be formed, because Jefferson had considered it unnecessary. 
One body based on proportional representation, Jefferson thought, 
should be enough. Washington then asked Jefferson if he cooled his tea 
by first pouring it in the saucer, which was the custom of the day. 
Sure, responded Jefferson. And Washington said: So it is that the 
Senate must cool tempers and prevent hasty legislation by making sure 
it is well thought out and fully debated.
  I mention that story and recite a little bit of history to remind us 
the Senate was created not just to be another House of Representatives 
but for another purpose altogether. That is the other reason why 
Senators are elected for 6-year terms from a whole State as opposed to 
just a congressional district where our colleagues across the Capitol 
run every 2 years from smaller areas. Of course, they are supposed to 
be much more closely tied to their constituents. We are supposedly 
given a little more flexibility to take the long view and not the 
short-term view in how we decide matters.
  That is the reason why so many of us were concerned at the threat of 
the majority leader to invoke the so-called nuclear option. I know for 
most Americans this is not something that is at the top of their list 
to be concerned with, but from an institutional and constitutional 
perspective it is absolutely critical the Senate remain true to the 
design of the Founders of our country as framed in our Constitution.
  As a rationale to invoking the so-called nuclear option and turning 
the Senate into a purely majority-vote institution, there were claims 
this side of the aisle had been obstructing too many of President 
Obama's nominations. But the facts tell a far different story. Thus 
far, the President has nominated more than 1,560 people for various 
positions, and only 4--only 4--of them have been rejected by the 
Senate.
  Since 2009, this Chamber has confirmed 199 of President Obama's 
article III judicial nominees and rejected 2 of them, and 80 of those 
nominees were confirmed by voice vote, which is essentially a unanimous 
vote. Another 64 were confirmed by unanimous rollcall votes. Does that 
sound like a crisis? Does that sound like obstructionism? I think not.
  I would like to suggest it is another problem that has caused the 
Senate to become, in a way, a nondeliberative body and quite 
dysfunctional. For example, during Senator Reid's tenure as majority 
leader, an unprecedented number of bills have come to the floor 
directly from the majority leader's office. Any of us who remember our 
high school civics lessons know that, ordinarily, committees of the 
Congress are supposed to write legislation. Then once the committees 
vote that legislation out, it comes to the Senate floor. Obviously, the 
purpose for that is to give everyone in the committees an opportunity 
to vent their concerns, to offer amendments, to debate them, and then 
to mark up a bill before it comes to the Senate floor so we do a better 
job and deal with all of the unintended consequences and the like. But 
during the tenure of the current majority leader an unprecedented 
number of bills have simply sprung to life out of the majority leader's 
office.
  Many of my colleagues, including Members of Senator Reid's own party,

[[Page 11541]]

have been left wondering why it is the committees actually even exist 
in a world where bills simply come to the Senate floor under rule XIV 
without the sort of deliberation and consideration they should get in 
committees before arriving here. When legislation arrives on the floor, 
Senators are routinely denied an opportunity to offer the amendments 
they see fit and to have debate and votes on those amendments.
  To give some perspective--and I know some people will say the 
American people are not interested in the process, they are interested 
more in the policy, but this demonstrates why the process is so 
important to getting the right policies embraced--during the 109th 
Congress, when this side of the aisle, Republicans, controlled this 
Chamber, Senate Democrats offered more than 1,000 separate amendments--
1,043 separate amendments--to legislation. During the 112th Congress, 
when our Democratic colleagues were in charge, Republicans were only 
allowed to offer 400 amendments--1,043 to 400, a big difference.
  During the 109th Congress, when Republicans controlled this Chamber, 
there were 428 recorded votes on Senate amendments--428. In the 112th 
Congress, there were 224--a little more than half of the number.
  Since becoming majority leader, Senator Reid has blocked amendments 
on bills on the floor no fewer than 70 times. In the language of Senate 
procedure, we call that filling the amendment tree, but what it means 
is the minority is effectively shut out of the ability to shape 
legislation by offering amendments on the Senate floor. And that is no 
small thing. Again, I represent 26 million people in the State of 
Texas. Being a Member of the minority, when Senator Reid blocks any 
amendment I wish to offer to a bill, he has effectively shut out of the 
process 26 million Texans. And it is not just my State, it is every 
State represented by the minority.
  As a comparison, the previous Senate majority leader, Senator Bill 
Frist of Tennessee, a Republican, filled the amendment tree only 12 
times in 4 years. So 70 times under Senator Reid, 12 times for Senator 
Frist. And before him, Majority Leader Tom Daschle, a Democrat, filled 
the tree only once in 1\1/2\ years--once in 1\1/2\ years. When Trent 
Lott was the majority leader, a Republican, he did it 10 times in 5 
years. George Mitchell, a Democratic majority leader, did it three 
times in 6 years. Majority Leader Robert C. Byrd, who was an 
institution unto himself here in the Senate, did it three times in 2 
years. And finally, Senator Bob Dole of Kansas, the majority leader, a 
Republican, did it seven times in 3\1/2\ years.
  My point is not to bore people with statistics but to point out the 
Senate has changed dramatically under the tenure of the current 
majority leader in a way where Members of the Senate are blocked from 
offering amendments to legislation in the interest of their 
constituents. As majority leader, Senator Reid has denied those rights 
to the minority and the rights of the people we represent. When he 
refuses to let us offer amendments and debate those amendments, he 
refuses to let us have real debate and he is effectively gagging 
millions of our constituents.
  One more time I would like to remind Senator Reid of what he promised 
6 years ago. He said: As majority leader, I intend to run the Senate 
with respect for the rules and for the minority the rules protect. The 
Senate was established to make sure that minorities are protected. 
Majorities can always protect themselves but minorities cannot. That is 
what the Senate is all about.
  I would also like to remind our colleagues what President Obama said 
in April of 2005, when he was in the Senate. He said: If the majority 
chooses to end the filibuster, if they choose to change the rules and 
put an end to democratic debate, then the fighting, the bitterness, and 
the gridlock will only get worse.
  My point is to say the Senate has been transformed in recent years 
into an image of an institution the Founders of our country would 
hardly recognize, nor would previously serving Senators who operated in 
an environment where every Senator had an opportunity to offer 
amendments to legislation and to get a vote on those amendments; where 
the minority's rights were protected by denying the majority the right 
to simply shut out the minority, denying them an opportunity to offer 
or debate important pieces of legislation.
  That is what has happened under the current majority leader, and that 
is why I believe those meetings, such as the one we had in the Old 
Senate Chamber this past Monday night, are so important. But we do have 
to rely on the facts. Facts can be stubborn, but I think our debate 
ought to be based on the facts and on a rational discussion of what the 
Framers intended when they created the Senate and its unique role--
unique not just here in America but to all legislative bodies in the 
world.


                              Health Care

  Madam President, I would like to turn to another topic. Now that we 
have gotten past the nuclear option, at least for a time, I think it is 
important we return to important issues that actually affect the lives 
of the American people in very direct ways, and health care is one of 
them.
  During the Fourth of July recess, the administration unilaterally 
delayed several provisions of the so-called Affordable Care Act, 
otherwise sometimes known as ObamaCare. What they did specifically is 
they delayed enactment of the employer mandate.
  It was an implicit acknowledgement by the administration that 
ObamaCare is actually stifling job creation and prompting many 
businesses to turn from full-time employment to part time. In fact, 
there are now 8.2 million Americans working part-time jobs for economic 
reasons when they would like to work full time. That number is up from 
7.6 to 8.2 million since March. And a new survey has found that 74 
percent of small businesses are going to reduce hiring, reduce worker 
hours, or replace full-time employees with part-time employees in part 
in response to ObamaCare.
  The House of Representatives has drafted a bill that would codify the 
employer mandate delay that the administration announced earlier this 
month. In other words, they want to uphold the rule of law. Yet the 
President is now threatening to veto the very legislation that enacts 
the policy that he himself announced, which is truly surreal. The House 
bill on the employer mandate would do exactly what the President has 
already announced he would do unilaterally. There is no conceivable 
reason that I can think of for the administration to oppose this 
legislation--unless, of course, President Obama thinks he can pick and 
choose which laws to enforce for the sake of his own convenience. I am 
afraid he does believe that, and the evidence goes well beyond 
ObamaCare.
  Yesterday afternoon I listed several examples of the administration's 
persistent contempt for the rule of law.
  I mentioned the government-run Chrysler bankruptcy process in which 
the company-secured bondholders received far less for their loans than 
the United Auto Workers pension funds.
  I mentioned the subsequent Solyndra bankruptcy in which the 
administration violated the law by making taxpayers subordinate to 
private lenders.
  I mentioned the President's unconstitutional appointments to the 
National Labor Relations Board and the Consumer Financial Protection 
Bureau. You don't have to take my word for it; that is the decision of 
the court of appeals. The case has now been taken up by the U.S. 
Supreme Court to define what the President's powers are to make so-
called recess appointments. But one thing that is absolutely clear is 
that the President--the executive branch--can't dictate to the Senate 
when we are in recess, thus empowering the President to make those 
appointments without the advice and consent function contained in the 
Constitution; otherwise, the executive branch will have no checks and 
no balances on its power, and there will be no power on the part of the 
Senate to do the appropriate oversight and to confirm the President's 
nominees.

[[Page 11542]]

  In addition to his recess appointments, I mentioned yesterday his 
decision to unilaterally waive key requirements in both the 1996 
welfare reform law and the 2002 No Child Left Behind Act, and I also 
mentioned his refusal to enforce certain immigration laws.
  What the House of Representatives is trying to do with its employer 
mandate bill is to make sure that the same rules apply to everyone and 
that the executive branch and the White House in particular don't just 
pick winners and losers when it comes to the Affordable Care Act, 
Obamacare.
  If this President or any President is allowed to selectively enforce 
the law based on political expediency, our democracy and adherence to 
the rule of law will be severely weakened.
  The principle at stake is far more important than the particular 
legislation we are talking about. It is about the constitutional 
separation of powers between the executive and the legislative branches 
of government. By assuming to be able to unilaterally suspend laws that 
prove inconvenient, the President is showing disdain for those checks 
and balances on executive authority as well as his oath, where he 
pledges to faithfully execute the laws of the United States.
  Those of us who support repealing ObamaCare in its entirety and then 
replacing it with real health care reforms that reduce costs and expand 
patient choice and access to quality care, while protecting Americans 
with preexisting conditions and saving programs such as Medicaid and 
Medicare, believe ObamaCare ought to be repealed in its entirety and 
replaced with commonsense reforms that will actually bring down the 
costs, increase the quality, and preserve the patient-doctor 
relationship when it comes to making health care choices.
  Our preference would be to repeal the entire law, but we would like 
to work with the President and our friends across the aisle now that it 
appears, according to the administration's own actions, that they 
actually believe ObamaCare is not turning out as it was originally 
intended in 2010. Indeed, one of the principal architects in the 
Senate, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Senator Max 
Baucus of Montana, has told Secretary Kathleen Sebelius of Health and 
Human Services that the implementation of ObamaCare is turning out to 
be a train wreck. And indeed it is.
  Unfortunately, the President is still refusing to acknowledge the 
growing evidence that ObamaCare cannot perform as was originally 
promised. We know that the promise that if you like the health care 
coverage you have, you can keep it that the President so famously 
made--that is not true. Seven million Americans have lost their health 
care coverage as ObamaCare is being implemented and many more as 
employers are incentivized to drop their employer-provided coverage, 
leaving American families to find their health insurance elsewhere. The 
promise the President made that the average cost of health care 
insurance for a family of four would go down by $2,400--we know it has 
gone up by $2,400 since then.
  Unfortunately, it appears the wheels are coming off of ObamaCare, and 
the people who will suffer the most are hard-working American families 
we are pledged to protect and help. What we ought to be doing rather 
than denying the obvious is working together to try to enact 
commonsense reforms.
  It is not an answer for the President to discard the politically 
inconvenient portions of ObamaCare and kick off implementation until 
after the next election. To me, that is one of the most amazing things 
about the way ObamaCare has been implemented. It passed in 2010, but 
very little of it actually kicked in before the Presidential election 
of 2012. So there is no real political accountability, no real 
opportunity for the voters to voice their objection once it had been 
implemented, if it had been implemented on a timely basis. And now, 
because it has proven to be politically inconvenient, the President has 
proposed to kick off implementation of the employer mandate until after 
the 2014 midterm congressional elections. That is no way to have 
accountability for the decisions we make here. That is the opposite.
  We are simply urging the President to support the rule of law and to 
make sure the same rules apply to everyone--apply to Members of 
Congress and apply to everyone in this great country of ours. But when 
the administration chooses to selectively enforce or not enforce 
provisions of the law or issue waivers for the favored few and the rest 
of us end up with the harsh reality of this law that is not working out 
as originally intended, it undermines the rule of law and the public's 
confidence that the same rules will apply to everyone. That shouldn't 
be too much to ask.
  Madam President, 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. RUBIO. 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. RUBIO. Madam President, there has been a lot of news over the 
last 24 hours about the nuclear option and how that has been averted 
here in the Senate and what good news that is for the institution. I do 
value the Senate, and I do value the ability of individual Senators--
and particularly the minority, which I hope I won't be a part of 
forever--and of the minority to speak and to be heard. That is one of 
the things that make this institution unique.
  But I think we have to answer a fundamental question about why we 
have these rules in place and in particular why we have these rules in 
place when we are dealing with nominees, people who are nominated to 
the Cabinet and other executive positions. It is because the 
Constitution gives the Senate the power to advise and consent, to 
basically review these nominees and find out information about them and 
then decide whether they should be confirmed.
  There are two different standards with regard to that. The first 
standard is whether the nominee should be able to go forward, and that 
requires a supermajority vote--60 votes--to continue debate. It is kind 
of arcane and I don't want to do a tutorial on the Senate, but let me 
say that if you can't get those 60 votes, then you have to continue to 
debate that nominee. That is an important tool--not to obstruct but 
should be used judiciously. It is a tool that should be used to make 
sure that this process is being respected and that people are answering 
critical and valid questions. It is an important tool to use. It needs 
to be used judiciously. It needs to be used in a limited way. You can't 
do that on everybody. You shouldn't do that on everybody. Quite 
frankly, the minority has not done it on everybody, nor have I. I have 
been very careful in its use and have tried to ensure that when we do 
use it and when I do use it, I use it for reasons that are valid.
  It is with that in mind that I am very concerned about a nominee who 
will be before this body as early as today on a 60-vote threshold about 
whether to cut off debate on this individual and proceed to final 
confirmation, and that is this nominee for the Secretary to head the 
Labor Department, which is a significant agency of our government that, 
quite frankly, has a direct impact on the ability of businesses to grow 
and hire people and so forth. This is an important nomination and one 
that I think deserves careful scrutiny.
  Now, let me be frank and up-front. I have significant objections to 
this nomination on the basis of public policy, and I have stated that 
in the past. I believe this individual, Thomas Perez, who is currently 
an Assistant Attorney General, is a liberal activist who has used his 
position--not just in the Department of Justice but in other roles he 
has played--to advance a liberal agenda that, quite frankly, is out of 
touch with a majority of Americans and that I believe would be bad for 
our economy, hence the reason I don't think it is a good idea for him 
to head the Labor Department. But the President has a right to his 
nominees.
  So that is a reason to vote against this nomination. That in and of 
itself

[[Page 11543]]

may not always be a reason to block a nomination from moving forward. 
Where I do think there is a valid reason to block someone's nomination 
from moving forward is when that individual has refused to cooperate 
with the process that is in place to review their nomination.
  When you are nominated to serve in the Cabinet or in the executive 
branch, you get asked questions about things you have done in the past, 
things you have said in the past, and you are expected to answer those 
fully and truthfully so that the Members of this body can make a 
decision about your nomination based on the facts. I don't know of 
anyone here who would dispute that, including people in the majority. 
Irrespective of how you feel about the nominee, every single Senator 
here--and through us, the American people--has a right to fully know 
who it is we are confirming, whether it is to the bench or to the 
Cabinet or to some other executive position. That is a right that is 
critically important.
  When a nominee refuses to cooperate with that process, I believe that 
is a valid reason to stand in the way of their confirmation and to 
block it from moving forward until those questions are fully and 
truthfully answered. I do believe that is a reason not to vote for what 
they call cloture around here. I think that is a case in point when it 
comes to this Labor nominee, Mr. Perez, and I want to take a few 
moments to argue to my colleagues why it is a bad idea for both 
Democrats and Republicans to allow this nomination to move forward 
until this nominee answers the questions he has been asked by the 
Congress. Let me give the background.
  There was a case filed by the City of St. Paul in Minnesota, and this 
case had to do with a legal theory called disparate impact. It is not 
really on point per se, but it basically says that you look at how some 
policy is impacting people, and even if there wasn't the intent to 
discriminate against people, if the practical impact of it was that it 
was discriminating against people--let's say a bank was giving out 
loans, and although the loan officer wasn't looking to deny loans to 
minorities, if the way they had structured the program meant that fewer 
minorities were getting loans than should be under a percentage basis, 
then under this theory you would be allowed to go after whatever 
institution did that. That is the theory which is out there in law.
  The City of St. Paul had a challenge to that in court that chose to 
define exactly what that meant, and it got all the way to the Supreme 
Court. It was on the Supreme Court's docket. At the same time, the 
Justice Department was being asked to intervene in a whistleblower case 
regarding Housing and Urban Development. Again, it would take too long 
to describe exactly why that is important, but the bottom line is that 
the case against the City of St. Paul, the separate case--the 
whistleblower case--because of the way the law is written, they 
couldn't move forward on that case unless the Department of Justice 
intervened. And that is where the nominee, Mr. Perez, stepped in. He is 
an enormous fan of the disparate impact theory. In fact, he had used it 
to go after banks, of all things, in his time at the Department of 
Justice.
  At some point in the future I will come to the floor and detail why I 
object to his nomination, appointment, and confirmation, but today I am 
just making the argument as to why it is a bad idea to move forward on 
this nomination until certain questions are answered.
  This is where Mr. Perez steps in. What he did is he basically went to 
the City of St. Paul and said: Look, if you drop your Supreme Court 
case, we will not intervene in the whistleblower case. It is what is 
known in Latin as a quid pro quo--you do this for me, I will do that 
for you. In essence, City of St. Paul, drop your Supreme Court case and 
I will not intervene on behalf of the Department of Justice.
  He argues reasons why he did that were based--he told the House 
committee the reason why I did that is because I thought it was a bad 
case, I had bad facts and I didn't want to move forward on the HUD 
whistleblower case anyway. He claimed that. But, in fact, a subsequent 
investigation found that a career attorney in the Department of Justice 
actually did not feel that way at all. A career attorney who was 
involved in this case believed it was a good case and, in fact, at a 
meeting about the case he expressed concern that this looked like we 
were ``buying off'' the City of St. Paul.
  Right away the nominee had, frankly, misled the congressional 
committee when he argued it was a bad case, everybody agreed that the 
facts were bad. In fact, that is not true. The career prosecutor who 
was looking at this case wanted to move forward and was concerned that 
the way this looked was that it was a buy-off.
  Then the nominee was asked: By the way, did you use your personal e-
mail to conduct this deal? Did you e-mail with people about it? We 
understand your Federal account, we have access to that, but did you 
use your personal accounts?
  You know, we all have business accounts and we all have personal 
accounts. The question was did you use your personal accounts to cut 
this deal or negotiate this deal or even talk about it with anybody? 
His answer was he could not recall, he had no recollection of that.
  Subsequently, however, it was discovered that, in fact, on at least 
one occasion initially, he had used his e-mail to discuss something 
with someone at the City of St. Paul. That is when the House oversight 
committee stepped in and it asked him voluntarily and the Justice 
Department voluntarily to produce any e-mails from his private account 
that had to do with his official capacity.
  Understand the request. It wasn't: Send us e-mails between you and 
your children or between you and your family or about you planning your 
vacation. What they asked for were any e-mails from your private 
accounts that have to do with your official capacity.
  The Justice Department responded to that request by saying: We have 
found 1,200 instances of the use of his personal e-mails for official 
business. We found at least--the number at least was 34, but then 35--
instances where it violated the open records laws of the Federal 
Government. So he was voluntarily asked to produce these e-mails to the 
House. He refused.
  The House then subpoenaed these records, a subpoena which has the 
power of Congress behind it basically compelling you: You must produce 
it now. Again, he refuses to produce these e-mails.
  What we have before the Senate today is a nominee to head the Labor 
Department of the United States of America who refuses to comply with a 
congressional subpoena on his e-mail records regarding his official 
business conduct. He refuses to comply; will not even answer; ignores 
it.
  Here is what I will say to you. How can we possibly vote to confirm 
somebody if they refuse to produce relevant information about their 
official conduct? Think about that. This is an invitation for any 
official in the executive branch to basically conduct all their 
business in their private accounts because they know they will never 
have to produce it, they can ignore the Congress.
  The nominee, Mr. Perez, hides behind the Department of Justice and 
says: They are handling this for me. But the problem is the Department 
of Justice doesn't possess these e-mails. These are his e-mails from 
his personal account that he refuses to produce.
  If, in fact, there is nothing to worry about--and I am not claiming--
I have not seen the e-mails. I don't know what is in them. None of us 
do. That is the point. The fact is we are now being asked to vote to 
confirm someone--not just to confirm someone, to give him 60 votes to 
cut off debate on the nomination of someone who is in open contempt of 
a congressional subpoena and repeated requests, including a bipartisan 
request. I have it here with me, a bipartisan request signed by Mr. 
Issa of California and Mr. Cummings, the ranking minority member, dated 
May 8, 2013:

       We write to request you produce all documents responsive to 
     the subpoena issued to

[[Page 11544]]

     you by the committee on April 10, 2013, regarding your use of 
     a non-official e-mail account to conduct official Department 
     of Justice business. The Department [Justice Department] has 
     represented to the Committee that roughly 1,200 responsive e-
     mails exist. To allow the Committee to fully examine these e-
     mails, please produce all responsive documents in unredacted 
     form to the Committee no later than Friday, May 20, 2013.

  The answer: Nothing, silence, crickets.
  This is wrong. How can we possibly move forward on a nominee--I don't 
care what deal has been cut--how can we possibly move forward on 
someone until we have information that they have been asked for by a 
congressional committee? This is outrageous. If ever there was an 
instance where someone's nomination should not move forward, this is a 
perfect example of it.
  I am not standing here saying deny this nominee 60 votes because I 
think he is a liberal activist--I do, and I think that is the reason 
why he should not be confirmed. What I am saying to my Republican 
colleagues is: I don't care what deal you cut, how can you possibly 
agree to move forward on the nomination when the nominee refuses to 
comply with a congressional subpoena to turn over records about 
official business at the Justice Department?
  By the way, we are not confirming him to an Ambassador post in some 
obscure country halfway around the world. This is the Labor Department. 
This is the Labor Department.
  I am shocked that there are members of my own conference who would be 
willing to go forward, go ahead on a nomination like this, who are 
willing to give 60 votes on a nomination like this on a nominee who 
has, frankly, flat out refused to comply with a congressional subpoena 
and answer questions that are legitimate and important. We are about to 
make someone the head of one of the most powerful agencies in America, 
impacting the ability of businesses to grow and create jobs at a time, 
frankly, when our economy is not doing very well, we are about to 
confirm someone to chair that agency, head up that agency when that 
individual has refused to comply with a legitimate request. How can we 
possibly go along with that?
  I understand how important it is to protect the rights of minorities 
here. I understand how important it is to protect the right of the 
minority party to speak out and block efforts to move forward. But, my 
goodness, what is the point of even having the 60-vote threshold if you 
cannot use it for legitimate reasons? This is not me saying I am going 
to block this nominee until I get something I want. This is a nominee 
who refuses to cooperate, who flat out has ignored Congress and told 
them to go pound sand. And you are going to vote for this individual 
and move forward before this question is answered?
  I implore my colleagues, frankly on both sides of the aisle--because 
this sets a precedent. There will not be a Democratic President forever 
and there will not be a Senate Democratic majority forever. At some 
point in the future you will have a Republican President and they are 
going to nominate people and those people may refuse to comply with a 
records request. You are not going to want those records? In fact, you 
have in the past blocked people for that very purpose.
  So I ask my colleagues again, how can you possibly move forward a 
nominee who refuses to comply with giving us the information we need to 
fully vet that nomination? This is a serious constitutional obligation 
we have. Do we have an obligation to the Senate and to this 
institution, being a unique legislative body? Absolutely. But we have 
an even more important obligation to our Constitution and to the role 
the Senate plays in reviewing nominations and the information behind 
that nomination, and we are being blatantly denied relevant 
information. We have colleagues of mine who say it doesn't matter, move 
forward. This is wrong. It is not just wrong, it is outrageous.
  Again, I do not think that we should use--nor do I think we have, by 
the way, used the 60-vote threshold as a way to routinely block 
nominees from moving forward. You look at the record. This President 
has done very well with his nominations, across the board--judiciary, 
Cabinet, executive branch. But, my goodness, can we at least agree that 
I have a right as a Senator from Florida--as all of you have a right as 
Senators from your States--to have all the relevant information on 
these nominees before we move forward?
  I am telling you, if you are going to concede that point, then what 
is the point of having the 60-vote threshold if you can never use it 
for legitimate purposes?
  I would argue to my colleagues today, let's not have this vote today. 
Let's not give 60 votes on this nominee until he produces these e-mails 
and we have time to review them so we can fully understand what was 
behind not just this quid pro quo deal but behind his public service at 
the Justice Department as an assistant attorney general, frankly 
confirmed by this Senate with the support of Republicans.
  This is not an unreasonable request. For us to surrender the right to 
ask these questions is a dereliction of duty and it is wrong. If ever 
there was a case in point for why the 60-vote threshold matters, this 
is an example of one. I am telling you, if this moves forward, there is 
no reason why any future nominee would not decide to give us the same 
answer; that is, you get nothing. I tell you nothing. I will tell you 
what I want you to know. Then we are forced to vote up or down on 
someone on whom we do not have information. And that is wrong.
  There is still time to change our minds. I think this is a legitimate 
exercise--not forever. Let him produce these e-mails. Let us review 
these e-mails. Then bring him up for a vote and then you can vote on 
him, whether you like it or not based on all the information. But to 
allow someone to move forward who is basically telling an oversight 
committee of Congress: I don't have to answer your questions, I don't 
have to respond to your letters, I ignore you?
  I want you to think about the precedent you are setting. I want you 
to think about how that undermines the constitutional--not just the 
right, the constitutional obligation of this body to produce advice and 
consent on Presidential nominees, and I think this is especially 
important when someone is going to be a member of the Cabinet and 
overseeing an agency with the scope and the power of the Labor 
Department.
  I still hope there is time to convince as many of my colleagues as 
possible. I do not hold great hopes that I will convince a lot of my 
Democratic colleagues, but I hope I can convince a majority of my 
Republican colleagues to refuse to give the 60 votes to cut off debate 
on this nominee until Chairman Issa and the oversight committee get 
answers to their questions that frankly we would want to know. They 
take leadership on asking these questions but we are the ones who have 
to vote on the nominee. They are doing us a favor asking these 
questions. We should, at a minimum, stand here and demand that these be 
answered before we move forward.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Baldwin). The Republican leader.


                               Obamacare

  Mr. McCONNELL. As I mentioned yesterday, I am glad the majority saw 
the light and stepped back from committing a tragic mistake. It is good 
news for our country and good news for our democracy. Now that that is 
behind us, we can get back to debating the issues our constituents are 
the most concerned about, and for a lot of my constituents they are 
concerned about ObamaCare.
  This is a law that was basically passed against their will and it is 
a law that is now being imposed upon them by a distant bureaucracy 
headquartered here in Washington. If the folks in DC are to be 
believed, its implementation is going just swimmingly. The Democratic 
leader in the House of Representatives called it ``fabulous.'' The 
President said the law is ``working the way it's supposed to.'' And my 
friend the majority leader said the other day that ``ObamaCare has been 
wonderful for America.''

[[Page 11545]]

  Fabulous? Wonderful? These are not the kinds of words one normally 
associates with a deeply unpopular law, or one that media reports 
suggest is already having a very painful impact on Americans we 
represent. Which sets up an important question for Senators to 
consider: Just who are we prepared to believe here when it comes to 
ObamaCare: the politicians who have developed it or the people who are 
reacting to it?
  The politicians in Washington who forced this law on the country say 
everything is fantastic. They spent millions on slick ads with smiling 
actors and sunny-sounding scripts that blissfully--I am being kind 
here--blissfully dismiss what the reality of this law will actually 
look like to so many Americans, or what the reality of the law has 
already become for some of them. That is why the people have taken an 
entirely different view. They are the ones worried about losing the 
coverage they like and want to keep, which is understandable given the 
growing number of news stories about insurance companies pulling out of 
States and markets altogether. They are the ones worried about their 
jobs and pay checks.
  Each anecdote we hear about a college cutting hours for its employees 
or a restaurant freezing hiring or a small business already taking the 
ax to its workforce at such an early stage--each of them is a testament 
to just how well this law has been working out for the people we were 
sent to represent.
  According to the chamber of commerce's small business survey released 
just yesterday, anxiety about the requirements of ObamaCare now surpass 
economic uncertainty as the top worry for small business. The impact of 
ObamaCare now surpasses economic uncertainty as the top worry for small 
business owners.
  Here is another thing: When even cheerleaders for the law start to 
become its critics, that is when we know there is something to this 
train wreck everybody keeps talking about.
  Unions are livid--even though they helped pass the law--because they 
see their members losing care and becoming less competitive as a result 
of it. That is why they fired off an angry letter to Congress just this 
week.
  The California Insurance Commissioner is troubled too--even though he 
has been one of ObamaCare's biggest boosters. He is so worried about 
fraud that he warned we might ``have a real disaster on our hands.'' 
Well, it is hard to argue with him.
  The President was so worried about some of this law turning into a 
disaster that he selectively delayed a big chunk of it, but he only did 
that for businesses. He just delayed it for businesses.
  A constituent of mine was recently interviewed by a TV station in 
Paducah, and here is what she said about the President's decision: ``It 
ain't right.'' Well, she is not alone.
  We can argue about whether the President even had the power to do 
what he did, but here is the point today: If businesses deserve a 
reprieve because the law is a disaster, then families and workers do 
too. If this law isn't working the way it is supposed to, then it is a 
terrible law. If it is not working as planned, then it is not right to 
foist it on the middle class while exempting business.
  That is why the House will vote this week to at least try to remedy 
that. It is an important first step to giving all Americans and all 
businesses what they need, which is not a temporary delay for some but 
a permanent delay for everyone.
  The politicians pushing ObamaCare might not like that, but they are 
not the ones who are having to live with this thing the same way most 
Americans will have to live with it.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Baldwin). The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. INHOFE. 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. INHOFE. I ask unanimous consent that I be recognized as if in 
morning business for such time as I may consume.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                            EPA Regulations

  Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, last Wednesday I came to the floor and 
spoke about the President's global warming speech and all that the 
White House is doing to help frame the debate with his talking points 
memo which we happened to intercept, and it is very interesting.
  They also had a secret meeting that took place with alarmist 
Senators. That is the term used over the past 12 years of those 
individuals who say the world is coming to an end with global warming.
  First, they changed the name from global warming because it was not 
acceptable. Then they tried climate change. The most recent is carbon 
pollution. One of these days they will find something that sells, but 
so far they haven't.
  The first thing they don't want to talk about is cost. We have had 
several global warming and cap-and-trade bills over the past 12 years. 
When the first bills came out and the Republicans were in the majority, 
I was the chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee and 
had responsibility for defeating them, and we did.
  In the beginning, with the Kyoto treaty 12 years ago, and when Al 
Gore came back from Rio de Janeiro, a lot of people believed this was 
taking place. Then a group out of the Wharton School did a study and 
said if we regulate emissions from organizations emitting 25,000 tons 
or more of CO2 a year, the cost would be between $300 
billion and $400 billion a year. As a conservative, I get the most 
recent information I can from my State of Oklahoma in terms of the 
number of people filing Federal tax returns and I do the math. At that 
time, it meant it would cost each person about $3,000 a year if we had 
cap-and-trade.
  This kept going throughout the years. The most recent one was 
authored by now-Senator Markey, who up until yesterday was Congressman 
Markey. I have a great deal of respect for him, but he had the last 
cap-and-trade bill regulating those with emissions of 25,000 tons a 
year or more.
  The cost has never been debated much, because Charles River 
Associates later came out and said it would be between $300 billion and 
$400 billion a year and MIT said about the same. So we know that cost 
is there.
  To my knowledge, while no one has actually calculated this, keep in 
mind the President is trying to pass a cap-and-trade policy for 
Americans through regulation because he was not able to pass it through 
legislation. If you do it through regulation, it has to be under the 
Clean Air Act.
  The Clean Air Act requires us to regulate any source that puts the 
emissions at over 250 tons. So instead of 25,000 tons being regulated, 
it would be 250 tons. That would mean every hospital, apartment 
building, school, oil and gas well, and every farm would come under 
this. No one knows exactly what it would cost the economy, but it would 
be staggering.
  To pull this off, the EPA alone would have to spend $21 billion and 
hire an additional 23,000 bureaucrats. Those are not my figures; those 
are their figures. So you have to stop and think, if the cap-and-trade 
bills cost $400 billion regulating the emitters of 25,000 tons a year 
or more, imagine what it would be when you drop it down to 250 tons.
  The second thing the President doesn't want to talk about is the fact 
that it is a unilateral effort. If you pass a regulation in the United 
States of America, it is going to only affect the United States of 
America.
  I have always had a lot of respect for Lisa Jackson. Lisa Jackson was 
the Administrator of the EPA under the Obama administration. While she 
is liberal and I am conservative, she was always honest in her answers.
  I asked her this question: If we pass, by either legislation or any 
other way, cap-and-trade in the United States, is that going to reduce 
worldwide CO2 emissions? Her answer was: No. Because if you 
do that, you are doing it just on the brightest sectors of our

[[Page 11546]]

economy. Without China, without Mexico, without India and the rest of 
the world doing it, then U.S. manufacturers could have the reverse 
effect, because they could end up going to other countries where there 
are not restrictions on emissions, and so they would actually be 
emitting more. So there goes our jobs, overseas, seeking energy in 
areas where they are able to afford it.
  Lisa Jackson's quote exactly: ``I believe . . . that U.S. action 
alone will not impact CO2 levels.''
  What the President doesn't want to talk about in his lust for 
overregulation in this country is, one, the fact it is going to cost a 
lot of money and would be the largest tax increase in the history of 
America, without question. The second is even if you do it, it doesn't 
lower emissions.
  A lot of people say, Why do they want to do it? And I lose a lot of 
people when I make this statement, but there are a lot of liberals who 
believe the government should control our lives more. I had this 
observation back when I was first elected in the House. One of the 
differences between liberals and conservatives is that liberals have a 
basic philosophy that government can run our lives better than people 
can.
  Dr. Richard Lindzen with MIT, one of the most outstanding and 
recognized scientists in this country and considered to be maybe the 
greatest source in terms of scientific knowledge, said, ``Controlling 
carbon is a bureaucrat's dream. If you control carbon, you control 
life.''
  Tomorrow the Environment and Public Works Committee is going to 
conduct a hearing on climate change--or whatever they call it. I think 
they are starting out with global warming and may call it carbon 
pollution. That is the new word because that is more sellable. A lot 
around here is done with wordsmithing. Republicans and Democrats both 
do it. Global warming didn't work, climate change didn't work, so now 
it is CO2 pollution. They are going to have a hearing, and 
the chairman of the committee, Barbara Boxer, is going to have people 
come in and talk about the world coming to an end. However, the 
interesting thing is that the administration is sending alarmists to 
talk about how bad global warming is and how we are going to die, but 
they are not taking the process seriously enough to send any real 
official. We have no government officials as witnesses. This is highly 
unusual. This doesn't happen very often, but that is what we are going 
to be having.
  It is important for Members to understand that greenhouse gas 
regulations are not the only EPA regulations that are threatening our 
economy. Again, it is all the regulations by government getting 
involved in our lives.
  If you look at this chart, these are the ones they are actually 
working on right now in either the Environment and Public Works 
Committee or the Environmental Protection Agency:
  Utility MACT. MACT means maximum achievable control technology. So 
where is our technology right now? How much can we control? The problem 
we are having is they are putting the emissions requirements at a level 
that is below where we have technology to make it happen. So utility 
MACT would cost $100 billion and 1.56 million jobs. That is in the law 
already. There are a lot of coal plants being shut down right now.
  But, you might ask, how can they do that when right now we are 
reliant upon coal for 50 percent of the power it takes to run this 
machine called America?
  Boiler MACT. Again, maximum achievable control technology. Every 
manufacturer has a boiler, so this controls all manufacturers. That is 
estimated to cost $63.3 billion and 800,000 jobs.
  The NAAQS legislation would put a lot of counties out of attainment. 
When I was the mayor of Tulsa County and we were out of attainment, we 
were not able to do a lot of the things in order to recruit industry. 
So this would put 2,800 counties out of attainment, including all 77 
counties in my State of Oklahoma. That causes emissions to increase, 
and then the company would be required to find an offset.
  We are kind of in the weeds here, but the simple outcome would be 
that no new businesses would be able to come to an out-of-attainment 
area, and existing businesses wouldn't be allowed to expand.
  The President is also issuing a new tier 3 standard that applies to 
refineries as they manufacture gasoline. This rule would cause gasoline 
to rise by 9 cents a gallon.
  The EPA is also working tirelessly to tie groundwater contamination 
to the hydraulic fracturing process so they and the Federal Government 
can regulate this. They have tried that in Wyoming in the Pavilion 
case, they tried it in Pennsylvania in the Dimock case, and in Texas 
they tried several times.
  I know something about that, because hydraulic fracturing started in 
the State of Oklahoma in 1949. Since then, there have been more than 1 
million applications for hydraulic fracturing. Hydraulic fracturing is 
a way of getting oil and gas out of tight formations. There has never 
been a confirmed case of groundwater contamination, but they still want 
to have this regulated by the Federal Government and the Department of 
Interior is pressing ahead with regulations which would apply to 
Federal lands.
  President Obama has had a war on fossil fuels now for longer than he 
has been President of the United States. If they could stop hydraulic 
fracturing and regulate that at the Federal level, then they can stop 
this boom that is going on in the country. We have had a 40-percent 
increase in the last 4 years in our production of oil and gas, but that 
is all on private and State land. We have actually had a reduction in 
our production on Federal lands.
  The EPA has been developing a guidance document for the waters of the 
United States which would impose the Clean Water Restoration Act on the 
country. They tried to introduce and pass it 2 years ago. Senator 
Feingold from Wisconsin and Congressman Oberstar were the authors. Not 
only was it defeated, but they were both defeated in their next 
election. That effort is something the President is again trying to do, 
which they were not able to do through regulations.
  What it means is this: We have rules saying that the Federal 
Government is in charge of water runoff in this country only to the 
extent it is navigable. That is the word written into the law. If you 
take the ``navigable'' out, then if you have standing water after a 
rain, that would be regulated by the Federal Government. That is a 
major problem that our farmers have--not just the Oklahoma Farm Bureau 
but farm bureaus throughout America. The Water Restoration Act and the 
cap-and-trade are the two major issues they are concerned with.
  A lot of what the EPA has done is done through enforcement. About a 
year ago, one of our staff persons discovered that a guy named Al 
Armendariz, who was a regional EPA administrator, talking to a bunch of 
people in Texas, said:

       We need to ``crucify'' the oil and gas industry. Just like 
     when the Romans conquered the villages . . . in Turkish towns 
     and they'd find the first five guys they saw and crucify them 
     . . .

  . . . just to show who was in charge.
  This is a perspective not just of Armendariz but the entire EPA to 
the fossil fuel industry.
  By the way, Armendariz is no longer there. He is with one of the 
environmental groups I know, and I am sure he is a lot happier there.
  The EPA is also dramatically expanding the number of permits they are 
required to obtain under the Clean Air Act by counting multiple well 
sites as though they were one site, even though they may be spread out 
in as many as 42 square miles.
  All of this is so they can regulate more of what goes on at the wells 
and underscores how adversarial they have been to us having the fuel we 
need to run this country. The EPA was eventually sued and lost the case 
over this issue, the issue of what they are doing right now throughout 
America to try to force all the multiple well sites into one site as 
they did. They lost in the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. But 
everyplace outside of the Sixth Circuit

[[Page 11547]]

the EPA is still using their own regulation. This is one we have been 
talking to them about.
  The EPA is also targeting the agricultural community. We talked about 
what their top concerns are, but in addition to that, the EPA recently 
released the private sensitive data of pork producers and the 
concentrated animal feeding operations, that is CAFOs, to environmental 
groups. The environmental groups hate CAFOs and the EPA knows this, so 
by doing this the EPA has enabled the environmental groups to target 
CAFOs and put them out of business.
  Those are our farmers. It seems to me when people come into my office 
and they talk about the abuses of this overregulation, all these 
things, it seems the ones who keep getting hit worse and worse are the 
farmers. I can remember when they tried to treat propane as a hazardous 
waste. We had a hearing. This was some years ago. I was at that time 
the chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee. I can 
remember when they said this only costs the average farmer in Oklahoma 
another $600 or $700 a year. We went through this thing and were able 
to defeat that.
  Farmers have been hit hard, but they are not alone. All these 
regulations have been devastating to the entire economy and they are 
preventing us from achieving our economic recovery. The President is 
engaged in all-out war on fossil fuels, and he is intent on completing 
this until his assault on the free enterprise system is completed. The 
business community knows how bad the regulations are. They have been 
fighting them tooth and nail since the beginning of Obama's first term.
  This chart shows the rules that were approved during the President's 
first term. This is what he did. If you look at it, take some time--
these will be printed in the Record so you need to be looking them up 
and realizing how serious it is. The greenhouse gas, we talked about 
that, the EPA, on the diesel engines. All of these regulations are 
costing fortunes.
  The second chart--those are the ones that were approved during the 
President's first administration. The second is more alarming because 
it shows several of the major rules the President began developing 
during his first term but delayed their finalization until after the 
election. They waited until after the election, knowing the American 
people would realize how costly this was and that could cost his 
campaign. He is gaming the system using his administration to advance a 
critical agenda but hiding the truth from the American people and he is 
doing it with secret talking points and doing it with the secrecy that 
shrouds bad rules.
  These are the rules that were delayed until after the election. You 
can get a good idea of the cost. We take down the cost of each one. It 
is just an incredible amount.
  The third chart is--that is what he is doing right now with no 
accountability to the electorate because he can do anything he wants to 
right now. Groups are on record opposing this. We have all these groups 
that are on record opposing this: U.S. Chamber of Commerce, National 
Association of Manufacturers, NFIB, American Railroads--all the way 
down through all the agricultural groups and including a lot of labor 
unions. Historically, the labor unions go right along with the 
Democrats and with the liberals, but they realize this is a jobs bill 
and consequently we have the United Mine Workers and others who are 
being affected by this and are trying to do something about 
overregulation. All these groups have opposed the rules being put out 
by the EPA.
  Even the unions have opposed the rules because they kill all kinds of 
jobs, union and nonunion jobs alike. Cecil Roberts, the president of 
the United Mine Workers, said his organization supported my 
Congressional Review Act.
  Let me explain what that was. You may have noticed in the first chart 
we had the first MACT bill that was passed. That would put coal out of 
business. What we have in this body is a rule that nobody uses very 
often--it has not been used very successfully--but it says if a 
regulator passes something that is not in the best interests of the 
people, if you get past the Congressional Review Act with just 30 
cosponsors in the Senate, get a simple majority, you can stop that from 
going into effect.
  I had a CRA on that Utility MACT, and Cecil Roberts, president of the 
United Mine Workers, said his organization supported my CRA to overturn 
the Utility MACT rule because the rule poses loss of jobs to United 
Mine Workers Association members.
  We also had something recently about Jimmy Hoffa that came out.
  These are jobs. These are important. The national unemployment rate 
is 7.6, but guess what. In Oklahoma we are at full employment. All 
throughout America, people used to think of the oil belt being west of 
the Mississippi. That is not true anymore. With the Marcellus chain 
going through--you have New York, Pennsylvania--in Pennsylvania I 
understand it is the second largest employer up there. If we were able 
to do throughout America what we do in Oklahoma, we would solve the 
problem we have right now. But the Obama rules are there and Obama 
wants to pursue more that are even worse.
  I mention this. We are going to have a very fine lady, Gina McCarthy, 
who has been the Assistant Director of EPA in charge of air regulations 
for about 4 years. While we get along very well, she is the one who 
promotes these regulations. I will not be able to support her 
nomination. I understand the votes are all there, and we will be having 
a good working relationship.
  But I think it is a wake-up call to the American people. They are 
going to have to realize the cost. The total cost of these regulations 
is well over $600 billion annually, which will cost us as many as 9 
million jobs. The EPA is the reason our Nation has not returned to full 
employment. All of this is done intentionally by the Obama 
administration to cater to their extreme base--right now moveon.org, 
George Soros, Michael Moore, and that crowd from the far left 
environmentalists, Hollywood and their friends.
  This is going to have to change through a major education endeavor. 
We have a country to save.
  I know there is a lot of partisan politics going on. In this case, 
the least known destructive force in our country now is overregulation 
and all of these organizations that are going to pose it are going to 
have to pay for it. It is going to be paid for in American dollars and 
American jobs.
  I see my colleague from Iowa is on the floor.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Heinrich). The Senator from Iowa.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I will take a few minutes to talk about 
the President's nominee for Secretary of Labor Tom Perez. I have 
already spoken about Mr. Perez over the last few weeks. I will not 
repeat everything I said, but it is important for my colleagues to 
understand the basis of my opposition. We have had a lot of debate 
around here over the last few days about what grounds are appropriate 
to oppose an executive branch nominee. Many of my colleagues have 
suggested that Senators should not vote against such a nominee based on 
disagreement over policy. That may or may not be the appropriate view, 
but I am not going to get into that debate today.
  I am quite sure I would disagree with Mr. Perez on a host of policy 
issues, but I wish to make clear to my colleagues those policy 
differences are not the reason I am vigorously opposed to this nominee. 
I am opposed to Mr. Perez because the record he has established of 
government service demonstrates that he is willing to use the levers of 
government power to manipulate the law in order to advance a political 
agenda.
  Several of my colleagues cited examples of his track record in this 
regard, but in my view perhaps the most alarming example of Mr. Perez's 
willingness to manipulate the rule of law is his involvement in the 
quid pro quo between the City of St. Paul and the Department of 
Justice. In this deal that the Department of Justice cut with the

[[Page 11548]]

City of St. Paul, the Department agreed not to join two False Claims 
Act cases in exchange for the City of St. Paul withdrawing its case 
before the Supreme Court in a case called Magner v. Gallagher.
  Mr. Perez's actions in this case are extremely troubling for a number 
of reasons. At this point, no one disputes the fact that Mr. Perez 
actually orchestrated this entire arrangement. He manipulated the 
Supreme Court docket so that his favored legal theory, called disparate 
impact theory, would evade review by the High Court. In the process, 
Mr. Perez left a whistleblower twisting in the wind. Those are the 
facts and even Mr. Perez doesn't dispute them.
  The fact that Mr. Perez struck a deal that potentially squandered up 
to 200 million taxpayer dollars in order to preserve a disparate impact 
theory that he favored is, of course, extremely troubling in and of 
itself. But in addition to that underlying quid pro quo, the evidence 
uncovered in my investigation revealed Mr. Perez sought to cover up the 
facts that the exchange ever took place.
  Finally, and let me emphasize that this should concern all of my 
colleagues, when Mr. Perez testified under oath about the case, both to 
congressional investigators and during confirmation hearings, in those 
two instances, Mr. Perez told a different story. The fact is that the 
story Mr. Perez told is simply not supported by the evidence.
  Let me begin by reviewing briefly the underlying quid pro quo. In the 
fall of 2011, the Department of Justice was poised to join a False 
Claims Act lawsuit against the City of St. Paul. That is where the $200 
million comes in. That is what was expected to be recovered. The career 
lawyers in the U.S. Attorney's Office in Minnesota were recommending 
that the Department of Justice join the case. The career lawyers in the 
Civil Division of the Department of Justice were recommending the 
Department join the case. And the career lawyers in the Department of 
Housing and Urban Development were recommending that Justice join the 
case. At that point, all of the relevant components of government 
believed this case was a very good case. They considered the case on 
the merits, and they supported moving forward, or as one of the line 
attorneys wrote in an e-mail in October, 2011: ``Looks like everyone is 
on board.'' But of course this was all before Mr. Perez got involved.
  At about the same time, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case 
called Magner v. Gallagher.
  In Magner, the City of St. Paul was challenging the use of the 
disparate impact theory under the Fair Housing Act. The disparate 
impact theory is a mechanism Mr. Perez and the Civil Rights Division 
were using in lawsuits against banks for their lending practices. For 
instance, during this time period Mr. Perez and the Justice Department 
were suing Countrywide for its lending practices based upon disparate 
impact analysis. In fact, in December 2011 the Department announced it 
reached a $355 million settlement with Countrywide. Again, in July 2012 
the Department of Justice announced a $175 million settlement with 
Wells Fargo addressing fair lending claims based upon that same 
disparate impact analysis. Of course, there are a string of additional 
examples, but I don't need to recite them here.
  What is clear is that if that theory were undermined by the Supreme 
Court, it would likely spell trouble for Mr. Perez's lawsuits against 
the banks. Mr. Perez approached the lawyers handling the Magner case, 
and, quite simply, he cut a deal. The Department of Justice agreed not 
to join two False Claims Act cases in exchange for the City of St. Paul 
withdrawing Magner from the Supreme Court. Now we have an interference 
in the agenda of the Supreme Court at the same time that a deal is 
going to cut the taxpayers out of winning back $200 million under the 
False Claims Act.
  In early February 2012 Mr. Perez flew to St. Paul, and he flew there 
solely to finalize the deal. The next week the Justice Department 
declined to join the first False Claims Act, called the Newell case. 
The next day the City of St. Paul kept their end of the bargain and 
withdrew the Magner case from the Supreme Court.
  There are a couple of aspects of this deal that I wish to emphasize 
for my colleagues. First, as I mentioned, the evidence makes clear that 
Mr. Perez took steps to cover up the fact he had bartered away the 
False Claims Act cases and the $200 million.
  On January 10, 2012, Mr. Perez called the line attorney in the U.S. 
Attorney's Office regarding the memo in the Newell case. Newell was the 
case that these same career attorneys I referred to and quoted 
previously were strongly recommending the United States join before Mr. 
Perez got involved. Mr. Perez called the line attorney and instructed 
him not to discuss the Magner case in the memo that he prepared 
outlining the reasons for the decisions not to join the case. Here is 
what Mr. Perez said on that call:

       Hey, Greg. This is Tom Perez calling you at--excuse me, 
     calling you at 9 o'clock on Tuesday. I got your message. The 
     main thing I want to ask you, I spoke to some folks in the 
     Civil Division yesterday and wanted to make sure that the 
     declination memo that you sent to the Civil Division--and I 
     am sure it probably already does this--but it doesn't make 
     any mention of the Magner case. It is just a memo on the 
     merits of the two cases that are under review in the qui tam 
     context.

  It is pretty clear they didn't want anything in writing that led 
people to believe there was any deal being made.
  After that telephone message was left, approximately 1 hour later Mr. 
Perez sent Mr. Brooker a followup e-mail, writing:

       I left a detailed voicemail. Call me if you can after you 
     have a chance to review [the] voicemail.

  Several hours later Mr. Perez sent another followup e-mail, writing:

       Were you able to listen to my message?

  Mr. Perez's voicemail was quite clear and obvious. It told Mr. 
Brooker to ``make sure that the declination memo . . . doesn't make any 
mention of the Magner case. It is just a memo on the merits of the two 
cases.'' It is so very clear. In fact, it couldn't be more clear that 
this was an effort--that there was no paper trail that there was ever 
any deal made.
  Yet, when congressional investigators asked Mr. Perez why he left the 
voicemail, he told an entirely different story. Here is what he told 
investigators:

       What I meant to communicate was, it is time to bring this 
     to closure, and if the only issue that is standing in the way 
     is how you talk about Magner, then don't talk about it.

  Anyone who actually listens to the voicemail knows this is plainly 
not what he said in that voicemail. He didn't say anything about being 
concerned with the delay. He said: Make sure you don't mention Magner. 
It is just a memo on the merits. His intent was crystal clear.
  Mr. Perez also testified that Mr. Brooker called him back the next 
day and refused to omit the discussion of Magner. Let's applaud that 
civil servant because he chose not to play that game. According to Mr. 
Perez, he told Mr. Brooker during this call to follow the normal 
process. Again, this story is not supported by the evidence.
  One month later, after Mr. Perez flew to Minnesota to personally seal 
the deal with the city, a line attorney in the Civil Division e-mailed 
his superior to outline the ``additional facts'' about the deal.
  Before I begin the quote, I want to give the definition of ``USA-
MN,'' which stands for ``U.S. Attorney, Minnesota.''
  Point 6 reads as follows:

       USA-MN considers it non-negotiable that its office will 
     include a discussion of the Supreme Court case and the policy 
     issues in its declination memo.

  If Mr. Perez's story were true and the issue was resolved on January 
11, why 1 month later would the U.S. Attorney's Office need to 
emphatically state that it would not hide the fact that the exchange 
took place?
  As I just mentioned, Mr. Perez flew to Minneapolis to finalize the 
deal on February 3. You would think, wouldn't you, that a deal of this 
magnitude would be written down so the parties

[[Page 11549]]

understood exactly what each side agreed to. But was this agreement 
written down? No, it wasn't. After Mr. Perez finalized the deal, the 
career attorneys asked if there was going to be a written agreement. 
What was Mr. Perez's response? He said: ``No, just oral discussions; 
word was your bond.''
  So let me just review. At this point Mr. Perez had just orchestrated 
a deal where the United States declined to join a case worth up to $200 
million of taxpayers' money in exchange for the City of St. Paul 
withdrawing a case from the Supreme Court. When the career lawyers 
asked if this deal will be written down, he said: ``No . . . [your] 
word was your bond.''
  Of course, the reason you make agreements like this in writing is so 
that there is no disagreement down the road about what the parties 
agreed to. As it turns out, there was, in fact, a disagreement about 
the terms of this unwritten deal.
  The lawyer for the city, Mr. Lillehaug, told congressional 
investigators that on January 9, approximately 1 month before the deal 
was finalized, Mr. Perez had assured him that ``HUD would be helpful'' 
if the Newell case proceeded after the Department of Justice declined 
to intervene. Mr. Lillehaug also told investigators that on February 4, 
the day after they finalized the deal, Mr. Perez told him that HUD had 
begun assembling information to assist the city in a motion to dismiss 
the Newell complaint on ``original source'' grounds. According to Mr. 
Lillehaug, this assistance disappeared after the lawyers in the Civil 
Division learned of it.
  Why is that significant? Mr. Perez represents the United States. He 
represents the American people. Mr. Newell, the whistleblower, is 
bringing a case on behalf of the United States and indirectly the 
people. Mr. Perez is talking to the lawyers on the other side, and he 
tells the people, in essence: After the United States declines to join 
the case, we will give you information to help you defeat Mr. Newell, 
who is bringing the case on behalf of the United States.
  Let me say that a different way. In effect, Mr. Perez is offering to 
give the other side information to help defeat his own client. Is that 
the way you represent the American people? Mr. Perez was asked about 
this under oath. Mr. Perez told congressional investigators, ``No, I 
don't recall ever suggesting that.''
  So on the one hand, we have Mr. Lillehaug, who says Mr. Perez made 
this offer first in January and then again on February 4 but the 
assistance disappeared after the lawyers in the Civil Division caught 
wind of it. On the other hand, it was Mr. Perez who testified under 
oath: ``I don't recall'' ever making such an offer. Whom should we 
believe? The documents support Mr. Lillehaug's version of the event.
  On February 7, a line attorney sent an e-mail to the director of the 
Civil Fraud Section and relayed a conversation a line attorney in 
Minnesota had with Mr. Lillehaug. The line attorney wrote that Mr. 
Lillehaug stated that there were two additional items that were part of 
the deal. One of the two items was this:

       HUD will provide material to the City in support of their 
     motion to dismiss on original source grounds.

  Internal e-mails show that when the career lawyers learned of this 
promise, they strongly disagreed with it, and they conveyed their 
concern to Tony West, head of the Civil Division. During his 
transcribed interviews, Mr. West testified that it would have been 
``inappropriate'' to provide this material outside of the normal 
discovery channels. Mr. West said:

       I just know that that wasn't going to happen, and it didn't 
     happen.

  In other words, when the lawyers at the Civil Division learned of 
this offer, they shut it down.
  Again, why is this important? It is important because it demonstrates 
that the documentary evidence shows the events transpired exactly as 
Mr. Lillehaug said they did.
  Mr. Perez offered to provide the other side with information that 
would help them defeat Mr. Newell in this case on behalf of the United 
States. In my opinion, this is simply stunning. Mr. Perez represents 
the United States. Any lawyer would say it is highly inappropriate to 
offer to help the other side defeat their own client.
  This brings me to my final two points that I wish to highlight for my 
colleagues. Even though the Department traded away Mr. Newell's case 
and $200 million, Mr. Perez has defended his actions, in part by 
claiming that Mr. Newell still had his ``day in court.'' What Mr. Perez 
omits from his story is that Mr. Newell's case was dismissed precisely 
because the United States would not continue to be a party and would 
not be a party.
  After the United States declined to join the case, the judge 
dismissed Mr. Newell's case based upon the ``public disclosure bar,'' 
finding that he was not the original source of information to the 
government.
  I will remind my colleagues, we amended the False Claims Act several 
years ago precisely to prevent an outcome such as this. Specifically, 
the amendments made clear that the Justice Department can contest the 
``original source'' dismissal even if it fails to intervene, as it did 
in this case.
  So the Department didn't merely decline to intervene, which is bad 
enough, but, in fact, it affirmatively chose to leave Mr. Newell all 
alone in this case. And, of course, that was the whole point. That is 
why it was so important for the City of St. Paul to make sure the 
United States did not join the case. That is why the city was willing 
to trade away a strong case before the Supreme Court, and when the 
Newell case didn't go forward, they cut the taxpayers out of $200 
million. The city knew if the United States joined the action the case 
would almost certainly go forward. Conversely, the city knew if the 
United States did not join the case and chose not to contest the 
original source, it would likely get dismissed.
  The Department traded away a case worth millions of taxpayers' 
dollars. They did it precisely because of the impact the decision would 
have on the litigation. They knew as a result of their decision, the 
whole whistleblower case would get dismissed based upon ``original 
source'' grounds since the Department didn't contest it. Not only that, 
Mr. Perez went so far as to offer to provide documents to the other 
side that would help them defeat Mr. Newell in his case on behalf of 
Mr. Perez's client, the United States.
  That is really looking out for the taxpayers. How would a person like 
to have a lawyer such as Mr. Perez defending them in some death penalty 
case? Yet when the Congress started asking questions, they had the guts 
to say: ``We didn't do anything improper because Mr. Newell still had 
his day in court.'' Well, Mr. Newell didn't have his day in court 
because the success of that $200 million case was dependent upon the 
United States staying in it.
  Now, this brings me to my last point on the substance of this matter, 
and that has to do with the strength of the case. Throughout our 
investigation, the Department has tried to defend Mr. Perez's action by 
claiming the case was marginal and weak. Once again, however, the 
documents tell a far different story.
  Before Mr. Perez got involved, the career lawyers at the Department 
wrote a memo recommending intervention in the case. In that memo, they 
described St. Paul's actions as ``a particularly egregious example of 
false certifications.''
  In fact, the career lawyers in Minnesota felt so strongly about the 
case they took the unusual step of flying to Washington, DC, to meet 
with officials in the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The 
Department of Housing and Urban Development, of course, agreed the 
United States should intervene in this false claims case. But, of 
course, that was all before Mr. Perez got involved.
  The documents make clear that career lawyers considered it a strong 
case, but the Department has claimed that Mike Hertz--the Department's 
expert on the False Claims Act--considered it a weak case. In fact, 
during his confirmation hearing, Mr. Perez testified before my 
colleagues on the Senate HELP Committee that Mr. Hertz ``had a very 
immediate and visceral reaction that it was a weak case.''

[[Page 11550]]

  Once again, the documents tell a much different story than was told 
to Members of the Senate. Mr. Hertz knew about the case in November of 
2011. Two months later, a Department official took notes of a meeting 
where the quid pro quo was discussed. The official wrote down Mr. 
Hertz's reaction. She wrote:
  Mike--odd--Looks like buying off St. Paul. Should be whether there 
are legit reasons to decline as to past practice.
  The next day, the same official e-mailed the associate attorney 
general and said:

       Mike Hertz brought up the St. Paul disparate impact case in 
     which the Solicitor General just filed an amicus brief in the 
     Supreme Court. He's concerned about the recommendation that 
     we decline to intervene in two qui tam cases against St. 
     Paul.

  These documents appear to show that Mr. Hertz's primary concern was 
not the strength of the case, as Mr. Perez led my Senate colleagues to 
believe. Mr. Hertz was concerned the quid pro quo Mr. Perez ultimately 
arranged was improper. Again, in his words, it ``looks like buying off 
St. Paul.'' Yet, Mr. Perez led my colleagues on the HELP Committee to 
believe that Mr. Hertz believed it was a bad case on the merits.
  Let me make one final point regarding process and why it is premature 
to even be having this debate. As of today, when we vote on Mr. Perez's 
nomination, we will be voting on a nominee who, to date, has not 
complied with a congressional subpoena compelling him to turn over 
certain documents to Congress. I am referring to the fact that the 
House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform subpoenaed e-mails 
from Mr. Perez.
  During the course of our investigation, we learned that Mr. Perez was 
routinely using his private e-mail account to conduct government 
business, including business related to the quid pro quo. In fact, the 
Department of Justice admitted that Mr. Perez had used his private e-
mail account approximately 1,200 times to conduct government business. 
After Mr. Perez refused to turn those documents over voluntarily, then 
the House oversight committee was forced to issue a subpoena. Yet, 
today, Mr. Perez has refused to comply with the subpoena.
  Here we have a person in the Justice Department doing all of these 
bad things. People want him to be Secretary of Labor, and we are 
supposed to confirm somebody who will not respond to a subpoena for 
information to which Congress is constitutionally entitled. We have 
people come before Congress who say, yes, they will respond to letters 
from Congress; they will come up and testify; they are going to 
cooperate in the spirit of checks and balances, and then we have 
somebody before the Senate who will not even respond to a subpoena.
  So I find it quite troubling that this body would take this step and 
move forward with a nomination when the nominee simply refuses to 
comply with an outstanding subpoena. Can any of my colleagues recall an 
instance in the past when we were asked to confirm a nominee who had 
flatly refused to comply with a congressional subpoena? Why would we 
want somebody in the Cabinet thumbing their nose at the elected 
representatives of the people of this country who have the 
constitutional responsibility of checks and balances to make sure the 
laws are faithfully executed? That is what they take an oath to do. It 
is quite extraordinary and should concern all of my colleagues, not 
just Republicans.
  My colleagues are well aware of how I feel about the Whistleblower 
Protection Act, and my colleagues know how I feel about protecting 
whistleblowers who have the courage to step forward, often at great 
risk to their careers. But this is about much more than the 
whistleblower who was left dangling by Mr. Perez. This is about the 
fact that Mr. Perez manipulated the rule of law in order to get a case 
removed from the Supreme Court docket. And this is about the fact that 
when Congress started asking questions about this case, and when Mr. 
Perez was called upon to offer his testimony under oath, he chose to 
tell a different story.
  The unavoidable conclusion is that the story he told is not supported 
by the facts. This is also about the fact that we are about to confirm 
a nominee who, even as of today, is still thumbing his nose at Congress 
by refusing to comply with a congressional subpoena.
  I began by saying that although I disagree with Mr. Perez on a host 
of policy issues, those disagreements are not the primary reason my 
colleagues should reject this nomination. We should reject this 
nomination because Mr. Perez manipulated the levers of power available 
to few people in order to save a legal theory from Supreme Court 
review.
  Perhaps more importantly, when Mr. Perez was called upon to answer 
questions about his actions under oath, I do not believe he gave us a 
straight story.
  Finally, we should reject this nomination because Mr. Perez failed--
and refuses still--to comply with a congressional subpoena.
  For these reasons, I strongly oppose the nomination, and I urge my 
colleagues to do the same.
  Mr. President, I have completed my statement and I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I have listened very carefully to my 
friend from Iowa, and I couldn't disagree with him more. I know he has 
very strong views about the nomination of Tom Perez, but let me go 
through the record.
  I wish to spend a little bit of time speaking first about Tom Perez. 
I know him very well. We have served together in government in 
Maryland. He served on the county council of Montgomery County. I will 
mention that he was the first Latino to serve on the county council of 
Montgomery County. Montgomery County, which is very close to here, is 
larger than some of our States. It is a large government. It has very 
complex problems. He served with great distinction on the county 
council.
  As the Presiding Officer knows, it is a very difficult responsibility 
to serve local government. One has to deal with the day-to-day problems 
of the people in the community. He served with such distinction that he 
was selected to be the president of the county council, the head of the 
county council of Montgomery County.
  He then went on to become the Secretary of the Department of Labor, 
Licensing and Regulation under Governor O'Malley in the State of 
Maryland, which is a very comparable position to which President Obama 
has appointed him as Secretary of Labor in his Cabinet.
  It is very interesting that as Secretary of Labor, Licensing and 
Regulation, he had to deal with very difficult issues--issues that can 
divide groups. But, instead, he brought labor and business together and 
resolved many issues.
  It is very interesting, in his confirmation process, business leaders 
and labor leaders came forward to say this is the right person at the 
right time to serve as Secretary of Labor in the Obama administration.
  I held a press briefing with the former head of the Republican party 
in Maryland and he was very quick to point out that Tom Perez and he 
did not agree on a lot of policy issues, but he is a professional, he 
listens, and tries to make the right judgment. That is why he should be 
confirmed as Secretary of Labor. That was the former head of the 
Republican party in Maryland who made those statements a few months 
ago.
  Tom Perez has a long history of public service. He served originally 
in the Department of Justice in many different capacities. He started 
in the Department of Justice. He served in the Civil Rights Division 
and, of course, later became the head of the Civil Rights Division. He 
helped us in the Senate, serving as a staff person for Senator Kennedy.
  I think the greatest testimony of his effectiveness is how he has 
taken the Civil Rights Division from a division that had lost a lot of 
its glamour, a lot of its objectivity under the previous 
administration, and is returning the Department of Justice to that 
great institution to protect the rights of all Americans.

[[Page 11551]]

  Look at his record in the Department of Justice: Enforcement of the 
Shepard-Byrd Hate Crimes Prevention Act. The division convicted 141 
defendants on hate crimes charges in 4 years. That is a 74-percent 
increase over the previous 4 years. The division brought 194 human 
trafficking cases. That is a 40-percent increase.
  You could talk a good deal about what happened between 2004 and 2008 
with Countrywide Financial Corporation, one of the Nation's largest 
residential mortgage lenders, engaging in systematic discrimination 
against African-American and Latino borrowers by steering them into 
subprime loans or requiring them to pay more for their mortgages. I 
know the pain that caused. I met with families who should have been in 
traditional mortgages who were steered into subprime loans, and they 
lost their homes. Tom Perez represented them in one of the largest 
recoveries ever. The division's settlement in 2011 required Bank of 
America--now the owner of Countrywide--to provide $335 million in 
monetary relief to the more than 230,000 victims of discriminatory 
lending--the largest fair lending settlement in history.
  That is the record of Tom Perez as the head of the Civil Rights 
Division.
  The division investigated Wells Fargo Bank, the largest residential 
home mortgage lender in the United States, alleging that the bank 
engaged in a nationwide pattern or practice of discrimination against 
minority borrowers placed, again, in subprime loans. The division's 
settlement--the largest per-victim recovery ever reached in a division 
lending discrimination case--required Wells Fargo to pay more than $184 
million to compensate discrimination victims and to make a $50 million 
investment in a home buyer assistance program.
  I could go on and on and on about the record Tom Perez has in his 
public service--at the county level, at the State level, and at the 
Federal level. He has devoted his career to public service and has 
gotten the praise of conservatives and progressives, Democrats and 
liberals, and business leaders and labor leaders. That is the person we 
need to head the Department of Labor.
  So let my spend a few minutes talking about Senator Grassley's two 
points that he raises as to why we should deny confirmation of the 
nomination of Tom Perez, the President's choice for his Cabinet.
  He talked about the fact that Tom Perez has not answered all the 
information Senator Grassley would like to see from a House committee--
a partisan effort in the House of Representatives. It is not the only 
case. There is hardly a day or a week that goes by that there is not 
another partisan investigation in the House of Representatives. That is 
the matter the Senator from Iowa was talking about--not an effort that 
we try to do in this body, in the Senate, to work bipartisanly when we 
are doing investigations. This has been a partisan investigation.
  Thousands of pages of documents have been made available to 
congressional committees by the Department of Justice. So let's get the 
record straight as to compliance. The Department of Justice, Tom Perez, 
has complied with the reasonable requests of the Congress of the United 
States and spent a lot of time doing that. It is our responsibility for 
oversight, and we have carried out our responsibility for oversight. 
Any balanced review of the work done by the Department of Justice Civil 
Rights Division will give the highest marks to Tom Perez on restoring 
the integrity of that very important division in the Department of 
Justice.
  Let me talk about the second matter Senator Grassley brings up, and 
that deals with the City of St. Paul case--one case. It dealt with the 
city of St. Paul in the Supreme Court Magner case.
  Senator Grassley points out, and correctly so, this is a disparate 
impact case. It not only affects the individual case that is before the 
Court, it will have an impact on these types of cases generally. When 
you are deciding whether to litigate one of these cases, you have to 
make a judgment as to whether this is the case you want to present to 
the Court to make a point that will affect not only justice for the 
litigant but for many other litigants. You have to decide the risk of 
litigation versus the benefit of litigation. You have to make some 
tough choices as to whether the risk is worth the benefit.
  In this case, the decision was made, not by Tom Perez, not by one 
person. Career attorneys were brought into the mix, and career 
attorneys--career attorneys--advised against the Department of Justice 
interceding in this case. HUD lawyers thought this was not a good case 
for the United States to intercede.
  Senator Grassley says: Well, this was a situation where there was a 
quid pro quo. It was not. There was a request that the United States 
intercede and dismiss. Tom Perez said: No, we are not going to do that. 
The litigation went forward. So a professional decision was made based 
upon the best advice, gotten by career attorneys--attorneys from the 
agency that was directly affected by the case that was before the 
Court--and a decision was made that most objective observers will tell 
you was a professional judgment that is hard to question. It made sense 
at the time.
  I understand Senator Grassley has a concern about the case. People 
can come to different conclusions. But look at the entire record of Tom 
Perez. I think he made the right decision in that case. But I know he 
has a proud record of leadership on behalf of the rights of all 
Americans, and that is the type of person we should have as Secretary 
of Labor.
  Tom Perez has been through confirmation before. He was confirmed by 
the Judiciary Committee to serve as the head of the Civil Rights 
Division of the Department of Justice. Thorough vetting was done at 
that time. Questions were asked, debate was held on the floor of the 
Senate, and by a very comfortable margin he was confirmed to be the 
head of the Civil Rights Division.
  Now the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee has held a 
hearing on Tom Perez to be Secretary of Labor. They held a vote several 
months ago and reported him favorably to the floor. It is time for us 
to have an up-or-down vote on the President's nomination for Secretary 
of Labor. I hope all my colleagues would vote to allow this nomination 
to be voted up or down.
  I was listening to my distinguished friend from Iowa. I heard nothing 
that would deny us the right to have a vote on a Presidential 
nomination. That is the first vote we are going to have on whether we 
are going to filibuster a Cabinet position for the President of the 
United States and a person whose record is distinguished with a long 
record of public service--and a proven record.
  Then the second vote is on confirmation, and Senators may disagree. I 
respect every Senator to do what he or she thinks is in the best 
interests. But I would certainly hope on this first vote, when we are 
dealing with whether we are going to filibuster a President's 
nomination for Secretary of Labor, that we would get the overwhelming 
support of our colleagues to allow an up-or-down vote on Tom Perez to 
be the next Secretary of Labor.
  I started by saying I have known Tom Perez for a long time, and I 
have. I know he is a good person, a person who is in public service for 
the right reasons, a person who believes each individual should be 
protected under our system, and that as Secretary of Labor he will use 
that position to bring the type of balance we need in our commercial 
communities to protect working people and businesses so the American 
economy can grow and everyone can benefit from our great economy.
  I urge my colleagues to support this nomination and certainly to 
support moving forward on an up-or-down vote on the nomination to be 
Secretary of Labor.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, let me begin by concurring with the 
remarks of Senator Cardin. Tom Perez will

[[Page 11552]]

make an excellent Secretary of Labor, and I strongly support his 
nomination.


                             Global Warming

  Mr. President, it is no great secret that the Congress is currently 
held in very low esteem by the American people, and there are a lot of 
reasons for that. But I think the major reason, perhaps, is, in the 
midst of so many serious problems facing our country, the American 
people perceive that we are not addressing those issues, and they are 
right.
  Regardless of what your political point of view may be, we are 
looking at a middle class that is disappearing. Are we addressing that 
issue? No. Poverty is extraordinarily high. Are we moving aggressively 
to address that? No, we are not. We have the most expensive health care 
system in the world, enormously bureaucratic and wasteful. Are we 
addressing that? No, we are not. But the issue I want to talk about 
today--maybe more clearly than any other issue in terms of our 
neglect--is the issue of global warming.
  At a time when virtually the entire scientific community--the people 
who spend their lives studying climate change--tells us that global 
warming is real, that it is significantly caused by human activity, and 
that it is already doing great damage, it is beyond comprehension that 
this Senate, this Congress, is not even discussing that enormously 
important issue on the floor of the Senate. Where is the debate? Where 
is the legislation on what might be considered the most significant 
planetary crisis we face? I fear very much that our children and our 
grandchildren--who will reap the pain from our neglect--will never 
forgive us for not moving in the way we should be moving.
  I understand that some of my colleagues, including my good friend Jim 
Inhofe from Oklahoma--whom I like very much--that some of my Republican 
friends, especially, believe global warming is a hoax. They believe 
global warming is a hoax perpetrated by Al Gore, the United Nations, 
the Hollywood elite. This is what people such as Jim Inhofe actually 
believe.
  Well, I have to say to my good friend Mr. Inhofe that he is dead 
wrong. Global warming is not just a crisis that will impact us in years 
to come, it is impacting us right now, and it is a crisis we must 
address. In fact, global warming is the most serious environmental 
crisis facing not just the United States of America but our entire 
planet, and we cannot continue to ignore that reality.
  Science News reports that cities in America matched or broke at least 
29,000 high-temperature records last year.
  According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 
2012 was the warmest year ever recorded for the contiguous United 
States. It was the hottest year ever recorded in New York, in 
Washington, DC, in Louisville, KY, and in my hometown of Burlington, 
VT, and other cities across the Nation.
  Our oceans also are warming quickly and catastrophically. A new study 
found that North Atlantic waters last summer were the warmest in 159 
years of record-keeping. The United Nations World Meteorological 
Organization in May issued a warning about ``the loss of Arctic sea ice 
and extreme weather that is increasingly shaped by climate change.''
  Scientists are now warning that the Arctic may experience entirely 
ice-free summers within 2 years. Let me repeat that. The Arctic may 
experience entirely ice-free summers within 2 years. Scientists are 
also reporting that carbon dioxide levels have reached a dangerous 
milestone level of 400 parts per million, a level not seen on the 
planet Earth for millions of years.
  In fact, the world's leading scientists unequivocally agree. A recent 
review of the scientific literature found that more than 98 percent of 
peer-reviewed scientific studies on climate change support the 
conclusion that human activity is causing climate change. The American 
Association for the Advancement of Science, one of the most important 
and prestigious scientific organizations in our country and the world, 
this is what they say:

       Among scientists, there is now overwhelming agreement based 
     on multiple lines of scientific evidence that global climate 
     change is real. It is happening right now. It will have broad 
     impacts on society.

  That is from the American Association for the Advancement of Science. 
We are not into speculation. We are not into debate. The conclusion is 
there. Global warming is real. It is happening right now. It is 
impacting the United States of America and the world right now. It will 
only get worse if we do not act.
  The examples of that are so numerous that one can go on hour after 
hour. But let me give you just a few. Extreme weather events are now 
occurring with increased frequency and increased intensity; that is, 
extreme weather disturbances. In 2011 and 2012, the United States 
experienced an extraordinary 25 billion-dollar disasters--25 separate 
billion-dollar disasters, so called because they each caused more than 
$1 billion worth of damage.
  That is unprecedented. NOAA's Climate Extreme Index, which is a 
system for assessing a wide range of extreme weather that includes 
extreme temperatures, extreme drought, extreme precipitation, tropical 
storms--NOAA's Climate Extreme Index tells us that 2012 was 
characterized by the second most extreme climate conditions ever 
recorded.
  A number of colleagues make the point--they come up and say: Senator 
Sanders and others, dealing with climate change is going to be 
expensive. Transforming our energy system away from fossil fuels is 
going to be expensive. They are right. It is going to be expensive.
  But the question we have to ask is, compared to what? Compared to 
doing nothing? Compared to conducting business as usual? Compared to 
allowing a significant increase in drought, in floods, in extreme 
weather disturbances? Compared to that, acting now and acting boldly is 
cost-effective. Yes, it will be expensive. But it will be a lot less 
expensive, cause a lot less human pain and less human deaths than 
allowing global warming to continue unmitigated.
  The cost--and this is an interesting point, especially for my 
conservative friends who look to the business community for information 
and for analysis. The cost of catastrophe and extreme weather events 
has been trending upward for 30 years. This is very much a budget and 
economic issue. Munich Re, the largest reinsurance company in the 
world, the company that insures the insurance companies, has already 
documented a fivefold increase in extreme weather events in North 
America since 1980.
  They keep track of this stuff pretty closely because for them this is 
a dollars-and-cents issue. They are the ones who help others pay out 
the benefits when there is extreme damage as a result of storms and 
floods, et cetera. Munich Re calculated that the economic cost of 
damages due to natural catastrophes in the United States exceeded $139 
billion in 2012 alone.
  So when you talk about money and you talk about expense and you talk 
about cost, let's understand that we already are racking up 
recordbreaking costs in terms of dealing with the extreme weather 
disturbances we have seen in recent years.
  The Allianz insurance company noted bluntly last fall, ``Climate 
change represents a threat to our business.'' That is an insurance 
company. But it is not just the insurance companies; it is the 
businesses that are seeing insurance become unaffordable when they are 
hit with floods and other disasters. That comes right out of their 
bottom line.
  Global warming, of course, is closely tied to drought and fire as 
well. Last year's drought affecting two-thirds of the United States was 
the worst in half a century. But the United States is not the only 
country on Earth being impacted.
  We obviously pay attention to what is happening within our borders. 
But global warming is having huge impacts all over this planet. Brazil 
is experiencing its worst drought in 50 years. It is directly affecting 
over 10 million people in that country. Because of impacts to wheat 
farms, the price of flour rose over 700 percent.

[[Page 11553]]

  Australia just experienced a 4-month heat wave with severe wildfires, 
record-setting temperatures and torrential rains and flooding causing 
over $2 billion in damage in that country.
  In recent years, other parts of the world--Russia, China, Southern 
Europe and Eastern Europe--have also suffered severe heat waves and 
droughts, with substantial impacts to agricultural communities and 
their economic well-being.
  Just weeks ago, as everybody in America knows, we watched as fires 
raged across parts of the Western United States, including the massive 
and dangerously explosive West Fork fire in southwestern Colorado. Let 
me take a moment now to acknowledge the deaths of 19 unbelievably brave 
firefighters from Prescott, AZ, who lost their lives trying to protect 
their neighbors and property near Phoenix.
  Wildfires such as these appear to be increasingly common. In fact, 
the Chief of the U.S. Forest Service Thomas Tidwell reported to 
Congress that America's wildfire season lasts 2 months longer than it 
did 40 years ago and burns twice as much land as it did then because of 
the hotter, drier conditions from climate change.
  Last year's extraordinary wildfires burned more than 9 million acres 
of land, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. Chief 
Tidwell also warned of the increasing frequency of monster fires. When 
we are talking about drought, it is not just some kind of abstraction. 
When drought occurs, agriculture suffers. When agriculture suffers, the 
cost of food goes up. In parts of the world where people have very 
little money, this is catastrophic.
  That is one of the points made by the CIA, the Department of Defense, 
many of our intelligence agencies. When they talk about national 
security issues, they often put at the top of the list or close to the 
top of the list global warming because they understand that drought and 
floods mean people do not have the food they need, people do not have 
the water they need, people are going to migrate from one area to 
another. It is going to cause tension. It is going to cause conflict. 
So global warming is also a major national security issue.
  One of the issues we do not talk enough about--I know Senator 
Whitehouse of Rhode Island does talk about it--is the impact that 
global warming is having on our oceans that is driving fish to deeper, 
cooler waters, threatening the fishing industry and food security. In 
the Pacific Northwest, for example, according to NOAA and as reported 
by USA Today, just this spring shellfish farmers on the west coast are 
increasingly experiencing collapses in both hatcheries and natural 
ecosystems.
  Extreme weather and rising sea levels also threaten people across the 
planet. More than 31 million people fled their homes just last year 
because of disasters related to floods and storms tied to climate 
change. According to a number of sources, climate change will create, 
in years to come, even larger numbers of what we call climate refugees 
as low-lying countries lose land mass to rising seas and to 
desertification, consuming once-fertile territory.
  In northern India, nearly 6,000 people are dead or missing from 
devastating floods and landslides just last month. Closer to home, 
Hurricane Sandy alone displaced three-quarters of a million people in 
the United States and is costing us up to 60 billion Federal dollars in 
helping those communities rebuild.
  Permanent displacement is already occurring in the United States. In 
other words, people are permanently losing their residences. The Army 
Corps of Engineers predicted that the entire village of Newtok, AK, 
could be underwater by 2017, and more than 180 additional Native 
Alaskan villages are at risk. Parts of Alaska are literally vanishing.
  Scientists believe that entire U.S. cities or parts of coastal cities 
are in danger of being flooded as well. In fact, experts are telling us 
that cities such as Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, New York, New Orleans, and 
others will face a growing threat of partial submersion within just a 
few decades as sea levels and storm surge levels continue to climb and 
that entire countries--small island nations such as Micronesia and the 
Maldives and large nations such as Indonesia face similar risk.
  Ironically, rising sea levels are even threatening key oil industry 
infrastructure. For example, scientists at NOAA are estimating that 
portions of the Louisiana State Highway 1 will be inundated by rising 
high tides 30 times per year. Highway 1 provides the only access to a 
port servicing nearly one out of every five barrels of the U.S. oil 
supply.
  What is my point? My point is that we are facing a horrendous 
planetary crisis. We cannot continue to ignore it. We must act, and we 
must act now.
  In my view, the first thing we must do is we must not make a terribly 
dangerous situation--i.e., global warming and greenhouse gas 
emissions--even worse than it is right now. We must break our 
dependence on fossil fuels, not expand it. We must modernize our grid 
and transform our energy system to one based on sustainable energy 
sources, and we must move aggressively toward energy efficiency.
  In that process, we must reject the Keystone XL Pipeline proposal, 
which would dramatically increase carbon dioxide emissions, according 
to the EPA, by the equivalent of 18.7 million metric tons per year, 
releasing as much as 935 million metric tons over 50 years. In other 
words, the planet faces a crisis right now. Why would we think for one 
second about making that crisis even worse?
  Further, Congress needs to end wasteful subsidies for the industries 
that are causing climate change. According to a report by DBL 
Investors, between 1918 and 2009, the oil and gas industry received 
government subsidies to the tune of $446 billion, to say nothing of 
State subsidies which have benefited from decades' worth of backroom 
political deals. In other words, why are we continuing to subsidize 
those industries that are helping to bring devastating damage to our 
planet.
  Thirdly, even though fossil fuels are the most expensive fuels on 
Earth, the fossil fuel industry for too long has shifted these enormous 
costs onto the public, walking away with billions in profits while the 
American people have to bear the real costs of rising seas, monster 
storms, devastating droughts, heat waves, and other extreme weather. 
When people tell you that coal or oil is cheap, what they are 
forgetting about are the social costs in terms of infrastructure damage 
and in terms of human health. These fuels are not cheap.
  As we transform our energy system away from fossil fuels, we must 
finally begin pricing carbon pollution emissions so the polluters 
themselves begin carrying the costs instead of passing them on to our 
children and grandchildren.
  I am proud to have joined with Senator Barbara Boxer, the chairperson 
of the Environment Committee in the Senate, to introduce the Climate 
Protection Act earlier this year. Our bill establishes a fee on carbon 
pollution emissions, an approach endorsed by people all across the 
political spectrum, including conservatives such as George Shultz, 
Nobel Laureate economist Gary Becker, Mitt Romney's former economic 
adviser Gregory Mankiw, former Reagan adviser Art Laffer, former 
Republican Congressman Bob Inglis, and others.
  Our bill does a number of things. One of the things it does is return 
60 percent of the revenue raised directly back to taxpayers in order to 
address increased fuel costs. It puts money, substantial sums of money, 
into supporting sustainable energy research, weatherizing homes, job 
creation, and helping manufacturing businesses save money through 
energy efficiency and deficit reduction.
  This begins the process of transforming our energy system by imposing 
a fee on carbon. It deincentivizes fossil fuel by putting money into 
energy efficiency and sustainable energy. It helps us move in a very 
different and healthier direction.
  Let me conclude by going back to the point that I made when we 
started. The American people are shaking their heads at what goes on in 
Washington.

[[Page 11554]]

  This country is facing enormous problems, economic problems, social 
problems, and I would argue that in global warming we face a planetary 
crisis. The American people want us to act. It is incomprehensible that 
week after week, month after month, year after year, we are not 
addressing the issue of global warming.
  I hope sooner rather than later we will bring serious legislation to 
the floor of the Senate, that we have that debate, and we do what the 
planetary crisis requires; that is, transform our energy system, move 
away from fossil fuel, and move to energy efficiency and sustainable 
energy.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Murphy). The Senator from Texas.


                            Perez Nomination

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I rise to express my deep concerns over 
the President's nomination of Thomas Perez to be Secretary of the 
Department of Labor.
  When executing its advice-and-consent role, which, of course, is 
ensconced within the Constitution itself, it is the duty of the Senate 
to ensure that the people the President appoints to positions of power 
are of the highest caliber. It is our duty to examine their record and 
to determine whether each nominee ought to be granted the public trust.
  While no one can deny that Mr. Perez has spent his career in public 
service, I am afraid his record raises serious concerns over his 
ability to fairly and impartially lead the Department of Labor. Mr. 
Perez has a documented record of acting with political motivation and 
being a partisan, selective enforcer of the law. He has been misleading 
in his sworn testimony and ethically questionable in some of his 
actions.
  For example, during his tenure at the Department of Justice, Mr. 
Perez has been in charge of the Civil Rights Division, which includes 
the voting rights section. One would hope that if any part of the 
Department of Justice would be apolitical, it would be the Civil Rights 
Division. But under Mr. Perez's watch, the voting rights section has 
compiled a disturbing record of political discrimination and selective 
enforcement of the law.
  You don't have to take my word for it. All you have to do is take a 
look at the 258-page report issued by the Department of Justice 
inspector general earlier this year.
  The report cites a ``deep ideological polarization'' of the voting 
rights section under Mr. Perez. It goes on to say this polarization 
``has at times been a significant impediment to the operation of the 
Section and has exacerbated the potential appearance of politicized 
decisionmaking.''
  Instead of upholding and enforcing all laws equally, Mr. Perez 
launched politically motivated campaigns against commonsense 
constitutional provisions such as voter ID both in Texas and in South 
Carolina.
  The Supreme Court of the United States, in an opinion written by John 
Paul Stevens, who was, by all accounts, an independent member of the 
Supreme Court, the Supreme Court of the United States held that 
commonsense voter identification requirements are not an undue burden 
on the right to cast one's ballot and, indeed, are a reasonable means 
by which voter fraud is combated and protection of the integrity of the 
ballot is ensured.
  Yet Thomas Perez, working at the Department of Justice, targeted the 
voter ID requirement passed by the Texas Legislature and blocked it 
effectively, and the same thing in South Carolina, based on nothing but 
politics--certainly not based on U.S. Supreme Court precedent that 
states it was not an undue burden on the right to vote, and it was a 
legitimate means to protect the integrity of the ballot and to combat 
fraud.
  The inspector general goes on to describe misleading testimony that 
Mr. Perez gave before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in 2010 about 
a prominent voting rights case, stating that it ``did not reflect the 
entire story regarding the involvement of political appointees.'' This 
is why, when you are sworn in as a witness in court, you are asked to 
tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. When what 
you say is the truth but you leave out other information, it can, in 
effect, by its context, not be truthful. This is part of the problem 
with the testimony Mr. Perez gave before the U.S. Commission on Civil 
Rights.
  Going further back, we can see Mr. Perez's ideological roots started 
as a local official in Montgomery County, MD. During his tenure on the 
county council, he consistently opposed the proper enforcement of our 
immigration laws. In fact, he went so far as to testify against 
enforcement measures that were being considered by the Maryland State 
Legislature.
  Finally, there is the matter of Mr. Perez's quid pro quo dealings 
with the City of St. Paul, MN. Of course, I am referring to the well-
publicized decision of Mr. Perez to withhold Department of Justice 
support for a lawsuit against the City of St. Paul. He did so in 
exchange for the city withdrawing a case that it had before the Supreme 
Court, a case that many would have believed would have resulted in the 
Court rejecting an aggressive interpretation of the Fair Housing Act 
that guided Mr. Perez and the Department of Justice.
  In fact, that is the reason he did it. He was afraid the Supreme 
Court would rebuke the Department of Justice's aggressive 
interpretation of the Fair Housing Act. While this may not have been a 
direct violation of any laws, it is, at best, ethically dubious.
  In summation, we have a nominee for the Department of Labor who has a 
record of ideological, polarizing leadership; giving incomplete and 
thereby misleading testimony before official tribunals; and of 
enforcing the law in a partisan and selective manner--in essence, a 
``you scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours'' way of going about the 
public's business.
  As citizens we should ask, Is this the type of person we would want 
to serve in the President's Cabinet? As Senators, we ought to ask, Is 
this the best we can do for the Secretary of the Department of Labor?
  I believe Mr. Perez's record disqualifies him from running this or 
any other executive agency of the Federal Government. I fear his 
leadership would needlessly politicize the Department and impose top-
down ideological litmus tests. For all these reasons, I oppose his 
nomination and encourage my colleagues to do the same.
  Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, I rise today in strong support of the 
nomination of Fred Hochberg to be the President and Chairman of the 
Export-Import Bank of the United States.
  Despite taking the helm of the Bank in the midst of the worst 
financial crisis since the Great Depression, Mr. Hochberg's leadership 
expanded financing for American exporters when private financing was 
nearly impossible to acquire. In 2012, the Export-Import Bank helped to 
support an estimated 255,000 American jobs at 3,400 companies, and 85 
percent of Export-Import Bank transactions directly benefited small 
businesses.
  The Export-Import Bank is self-sustaining, charging fees to cover its 
expenses and creating no cost to U.S. taxpayers. Furthermore, since 
2008, the Bank has been able to send nearly $1.6 billion in profits to 
the U.S. Treasury.
  Mr. Hochberg was first nominated to be President and Chairman of the 
Export-Import Bank on April 20, 2009, and he was confirmed unanimously 
by this body on May 14, 2009. Mr. Hochberg was renominated by President 
Obama on March 21, 2013, and he was approved 20-2 in the Senate Banking 
Committee on June 6, 2013. I urge my colleagues to once again confirm 
Mr. Hochberg without delay.
  If we fail to confirm Mr. Hochberg before July 20, we run the risk of 
leaving the Bank without a quorum to act on many of the transactions 
before it--creating an uneven playing field for American workers and 
exporters.
  Mr. Hochberg's nomination is supported by both labor and business 
groups. These two groups understand the importance of the United States 
not unilaterally disarming against our global competitors. The Bank 
plays a very important part in this country's efforts to expand exports 
and create

[[Page 11555]]

good, high-paying jobs in America. Mr. Hochberg has been instrumental 
in this effort and should be confirmed.
  I urge all my colleagues to support President Hochberg's nomination 
today.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the vote on the 
confirmation of the Hochberg nomination occur at 3:40 p.m. today; that 
if the nomination is confirmed, the motion to reconsider be considered 
made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate; that 
no further motions be in order; that any related statements be printed 
in the Record; and that President Obama be immediately notified of the 
Senate's action.
  What time is it right now?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. It is 3:33 p.m.
  Mr. REID. I wish to modify my request to reflect a voting time of 
3:35.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the request?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. REID. Senators should expect two votes; the vote on confirmation 
of the Hochberg nomination to the Ex-Im Bank and the vote on the motion 
to invoke cloture on the Perez nomination.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the question is, 
Will the Senate advise and consent to the nomination of Fred P. 
Hochberg to be president of the Export-Import Bank of the United 
States?
  Mr. REID. I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from West Virginia (Mr. 
Rockefeller) is necessarily absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Brown). Are there any other Senators in 
the Chamber desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 82, nays 17, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 176 Ex.]

                                YEAS--82

     Alexander
     Ayotte
     Baldwin
     Baucus
     Begich
     Bennet
     Blumenthal
     Blunt
     Boozman
     Boxer
     Brown
     Burr
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Chiesa
     Coats
     Cochran
     Collins
     Coons
     Corker
     Crapo
     Donnelly
     Durbin
     Feinstein
     Fischer
     Franken
     Gillibrand
     Graham
     Hagan
     Harkin
     Heinrich
     Heitkamp
     Heller
     Hirono
     Hoeven
     Isakson
     Johanns
     Johnson (SD)
     Kaine
     King
     Kirk
     Klobuchar
     Landrieu
     Leahy
     Levin
     Manchin
     Markey
     McCain
     McCaskill
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Mikulski
     Moran
     Murkowski
     Murphy
     Murray
     Nelson
     Portman
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Roberts
     Sanders
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Scott
     Sessions
     Shaheen
     Shelby
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Thune
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Vitter
     Warner
     Warren
     Whitehouse
     Wicker
     Wyden

                                NAYS--17

     Barrasso
     Chambliss
     Coburn
     Cornyn
     Cruz
     Enzi
     Flake
     Grassley
     Hatch
     Inhofe
     Johnson (WI)
     Lee
     McConnell
     Paul
     Risch
     Rubio
     Toomey

                             NOT VOTING--1

       
     Rockefeller
       
  The nomination was confirmed.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the motion to 
reconsider is considered made and laid upon the table. The President 
will be immediately notified of the Senate's action.


                             cloture motion

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Chair directs 
the clerk to read the motion.
  The bill clerk read as follows:

                             Cloture Motion

       We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the 
     provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, 
     hereby move to bring to a close debate on the nomination of 
     Thomas Edward Perez, of Maryland, to be Secretary of Labor.
         Harry Reid, Tom Harkin, Patrick J. Leahy, Bill Nelson, 
           Christopher A. Coons, Amy Klobuchar, Tim Kaine, Jack 
           Reed, Barbara A. Mikulski, Sheldon Whitehouse, Sherrod 
           Brown, Benjamin L. Cardin, Robert P. Casey Jr., Bernard 
           Sanders, Al Franken, Robert Menendez, Barbara Boxer.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum 
call has been waived.
  The Senate will be in order.
  The Senator from Florida.
  Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 1 minute so 
that I may be able to read a letter with regard to the upcoming vote.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? The Senate will be in 
order.
  The Senator from Iowa is recognized.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, is there a unanimous consent request 
pending?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is a unanimous consent request pending. 
The Senator from Florida has asked unanimous consent for a minute to 
read a letter with regard to the nomination.
  Mr. HARKIN. Then I ask for 1 minute following the Senator from 
Florida.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the request of the 
Senator from Florida? Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Florida is recognized.
  Mr. RUBIO. Before we vote on this, especially to my colleagues on the 
Republican side, we are about to give 60 votes to a nominee who is not 
in compliance with a congressional subpoena.
  I have in my hand a letter sent to me moments ago by Darrell Issa, 
the chairman of the Oversight Committee in the House, where he writes 
in part that ``Mr. Perez has not produced a single document responsive 
to the Committee's subpoena. I am extremely disappointed that Mr. Perez 
continues to willfully disregard a lawful subpoena issued by a standing 
Committee of the United States House of Representatives. . . . This 
continued noncompliance contravenes fundamental principles of 
separation of powers and the rule of law. Until Mr. Perez produces all 
responsive documents, he will continue to be noncompliant with the 
Committee's subpoena. Thank you for your attention to this matter.''
  He goes on to note, by the way, that Mr. Perez has not produced a 
single document to the committee; therefore, he remains noncompliant.
  Members, you are about to vote to give 60 votes to cut off debate on 
a nominee who has ignored a congressional subpoena from the House on 
information relevant to his background and to his qualifications for 
this office.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator has expired.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. The Senate is not in order.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa is recognized.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, the contentions made by the Senator are 
absolutely wrong. We had a hearing on this. We explored it in our 
committee. Instead of the 1,200 e-mails they cite, we are talking about 
that over a 3\1/2\-year period there were 35 e-mails located on his 
personal emails that touched Department of Justice business and were 
not forwarded to the Department of Justice, and those have been looked 
at, and none of them demonstrate that he acted improperly or 
unethically. When they were discovered, the e-mails were immediately 
forwarded to the DOJ server and are now part of the DOJ record 
retention system.
  I might add that the 35 e-mails were made available to the House 
Oversight Committee staff prior to Mr. Perez's confirmation hearing, 
and the Senate HELP Committee staff have also been offered access to 
review all of those e-mails.
  The contentions made by the Senator from Florida are just absolutely 
wrong.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate 
that debate on the nomination of Thomas Edward Perez, of Maryland, to 
be Secretary of Labor shall be brought to a close?
  The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.

[[Page 11556]]

  The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk called the roll.
  The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 60, nays 40, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 177 Ex.]

                                YEAS--60

     Alexander
     Baldwin
     Baucus
     Begich
     Bennet
     Blumenthal
     Boxer
     Brown
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Collins
     Coons
     Corker
     Donnelly
     Durbin
     Feinstein
     Franken
     Gillibrand
     Hagan
     Harkin
     Heinrich
     Heitkamp
     Hirono
     Johnson (SD)
     Kaine
     King
     Kirk
     Klobuchar
     Landrieu
     Leahy
     Levin
     Manchin
     Markey
     McCain
     McCaskill
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Mikulski
     Murkowski
     Murphy
     Murray
     Nelson
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Rockefeller
     Sanders
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Warner
     Warren
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                                NAYS--40

     Ayotte
     Barrasso
     Blunt
     Boozman
     Burr
     Chambliss
     Chiesa
     Coats
     Coburn
     Cochran
     Cornyn
     Crapo
     Cruz
     Enzi
     Fischer
     Flake
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hatch
     Heller
     Hoeven
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Johanns
     Johnson (WI)
     Lee
     McConnell
     Moran
     Paul
     Portman
     Risch
     Roberts
     Rubio
     Scott
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Thune
     Toomey
     Vitter
     Wicker
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 60, the nays are 
40. Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn having voted in 
the affirmative, the motion is agreed to.

                          ____________________