[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Pages 12951-12971]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




PROMOTING ENERGY SAVINGS IN RESIDENTIAL BUILDINGS AND INDUSTRY--MOTION 
                         TO PROCEED--Continued


                  Expressing Gratitude for Cooperation

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, for this session, this work period, we have 
done a lot of work, and it has turned out quite well. None of us got 
what we wanted, but we all got something. I appreciate the cooperation 
of Democrats and Republicans this afternoon. It is always during the 
last few hours before a recess that problems come up, and this is an 
adjournment, so it is even more difficult. So I am grateful to everyone 
for their participation and their cooperation.
  As for Senator Grassley, he has left the floor, but I wish to express 
my appreciation to him. He had an issue that took us a while to work 
through, and it all worked out for the better for not only he and 
Senator Leahy but, most importantly, for our staff.
  Mr. FLAKE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to enter into a 
colloquy with Senator Stabenow.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

[[Page 12952]]




                             The Farm Bill

  Mr. FLAKE. Mr. President, as the two Chambers prepare to go to 
conference on the farm bill, I rise to request a commitment from the 
distinguished chairwoman of the Senate Agriculture Committee to protect 
the Senate farm bill's vital provision to end direct payments outright.
  While I commend the chairwoman for her leadership in facilitating the 
full and immediate elimination of direct payments in the Senate-passed 
farm bill, many of my colleagues may be surprised to learn that section 
1101 of the House-passed farm bill contains a carve-out that would 
actually continue direct payments to cotton farmers at a rate of 70 
percent in 2014 and a rate of 60 percent in 2015.
  According to the Congressional Budget Office, this House-passed 
extension of direct payments would cost taxpayers an estimated $823 
million.
  Already a poster child for Federal largesse, direct payments have 
more recently become synonymous with waste, fraud, and abuse. As the 
Washington Post put it, recent analyses of the program have found that 
it subsidizes people who aren't really farming: the idle, the urban, 
and, occasionally, the dead.
  Investigations have uncovered taxpayer-backed direct payments being 
paid to billionaires, to New York City condo dwellers, and to 
nonfarming homeowners who happen to live on former farmlands.
  Direct payments have also been the target of a series of scathing 
reports published by the GAO, the most recent of which went so far as 
to question the purpose and need for direct payments, stating that they 
did not ``align with principles significant to integrity, 
effectiveness, and efficiency in farm bill programs.'' The report went 
on to recommend that Congress consider eliminating direct payments 
outright.
  I ask the distinguished chairwoman, was the unsustainable cost and 
the pattern of waste, fraud, and abuse associated with direct payments 
the impetus for the chairwoman to ensure that this subsidy was fully 
and immediately eliminated in the most recent Senate-passed farm bill?
  Ms. STABENOW. I thank my colleague from Arizona for his passion on 
this issue.
  Yes, it has been my goal from the beginning of this farm bill process 
to end unnecessary subsidies and to clean up areas of waste, fraud, and 
abuse starting with the direct payment program. The program is 
indefensible in this current budget climate. It makes absolutely no 
sense to pay farmers when they don't suffer a loss and to pay people 
who aren't even farming.
  That is also why we included the strongest reforms to the commodity 
programs in the history of the farm bill, eliminating payments to 
people who are not farming and tightening the AGI requirements and the 
amount any single farmer can receive.
  We even have reformed the crop insurance program. The No. 1 thing we 
have heard from listening to farmers all across this country is that 
they need market-based risk management tools.
  Farming is an extremely risky business. Farmers plant seeds in the 
spring and hope that by the time the harvest rolls around there will 
have been enough rain and the right temperatures to give them a good 
crop. That is why we strengthened crop insurance and made that 
available to farmers growing different kinds of crops--because we want 
farmers to have skin in the game. As I have always said, that is about 
farmers paying a bill for crop insurance, not getting a check from the 
direct payment program.
  Mr. FLAKE. To the chairwoman's credit, the Committee on Agriculture, 
Nutrition, and Forestry has maintained a sustained effort to eliminate 
direct payments. In fact, between the 2012 and 2013 Senate farm bills 
and the majority's sequester replacement legislation, 76 current 
Members of the Senate--76 current Members of the Senate--have voted for 
the full and immediate elimination of direct payments.
  Does the chairwoman agree that even the limited $823 million 
extension of direct payments found in the House-passed bill would be at 
odds with the recorded votes of a supermajority of the Senate?
  Ms. STABENOW. My friend from Arizona is correct. The Senate has 
repeatedly voted to end direct payments.
  Mr. FLAKE. To that end, I respectfully request that the distinguished 
chairwoman make a commitment that she will protect the Senate's vital 
provision and work to ensure that any conference report brought before 
the Senate achieves a full and immediate elimination of direct 
payments.
  Ms. STABENOW. Yes, that is my intension. I strongly agree we should 
not be spending taxpayer dollars to fund these direct payment 
subsidies, and I will do everything I can to make sure the conference 
committee adopts the Senate version on this issue.
  I would also say to my friend from Arizona that if we do not get the 
farm bill signed into law by September 30, then direct payments are 
scheduled to continue. So I hope we can count on the Senator's support 
to make sure we can pass the farm bill in time and eliminate direct 
payments.
  Mr. FLAKE. I thank the chairwoman for her commitment. To be frank, I 
believe the Senate farm bill leaves much to be desired. In fact, to 
gain my support, the farm bill will need to undergo dramatic changes to 
reduce the taxpayer cost of Federal crop insurance, remove market-
distorting price supports, and limit the scope of the Federal 
Government in U.S. agriculture.
  That said, the chairwoman is right to point out that as uncertainty 
continues to surround the farm bill, Congress appears poised to pass 
yet another extension of the 2008 farm bill and, in turn, continue 
direct payments.
  With regard to direct payments, such an outcome would be a costly 
regression in light of the Senate's bipartisan efforts to eliminate 
this multibillion-dollar subsidy.
  After 17 years, three extensions, and more than $92 billion paid out, 
it is time for direct payments to come to a full and immediate end. On 
this point, the chairwoman and I are in full agreement.
  To that end, the chairwoman has my commitment to do everything I can 
to ensure that any legislation that should come before the Senate 
containing an extension of direct payments will be met with my fierce 
opposition.
  I thank the chairwoman again for her commitment and for her attention 
to these concerns.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I thank my colleagues who have been 
patiently waiting. I know there are many Members who wish to speak.
  I thank my colleague from Arizona.
  Mr. FLAKE. I thank my colleague as well.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.


               Unanimous Consent Request--H. Con. Res. 25

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate 
proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 33, H. Con. Res. 25; that 
the amendment which is at the desk, the text of S. Con. Res. 8, the 
budget resolution passed by the Senate, be inserted in lieu thereof; 
that H. Con. Res. 25, as amended, be agreed to; the motion to 
reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table; that the Senate 
insist on its amendment, request a conference with the House on the 
disagreeing votes of the two Houses; and the chair be authorized to 
appoint conferees on the part of the Senate; that following the 
authorization, two motions to instruct conferees be in order from each 
side: motion to instruct relative to the debt limit and motion to 
instruct relative to taxes/revenue; that there be 2 hours of debate 
equally divided between the two leaders or their designees prior to 
votes in relation to the motions; further, that no amendments be in 
order to either of the motions prior to the votes; all of the above 
occurring with no intervening action or debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The Senator from Florida.
  Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I would ask 
the Senator from Illinois if he would consent to a modification of his 
request that it not be in order for the Senate to consider a conference 
report that includes reconciliation instructions to raise the debt 
limit.

[[Page 12953]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator so modify his request?
  Mr. DURBIN. I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection to the modification has been heard.
  Is there objection to the original request?
  Mr. RUBIO. I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I am sorry we are ending this session and 
going home for August with this. This is an attempt to go to a 
conference committee with the House of Representatives to agree on how 
much money we as a government will spend next year.
  Each Chamber has passed a budget resolution. The Senate passed one. 
The House passed one. The basic constitutional approach to this is to 
bring the two together, work out our differences. This is, in fact, the 
18th time we have asked the Republicans for their consent to go to this 
conference committee to resolve the differences between the House and 
the Senate and the 18th time that a Republican Senator has stood and 
objected.
  We have heard speech after speech about how bad it was that the 
Senate never passed a budget resolution. I bet you heard it too. So we 
passed one. We did not get any help from the Republicans in passing it, 
but we passed it. Then, when it came time to try to work out our 
differences with the House of Representatives, Republican Senator after 
Republican Senator stood and said: No, we do not want to meet with the 
House of Representatives, even though it has a Republican majority.
  Well, what difference does it make if we agree on this number? Can 
life go on? It makes a big difference. You see, earlier this afternoon 
we had this bill on the floor, S. 1243. It is a bill for the 
Departments of Transportation and Housing and Urban Development. 
Senator Patty Murray of Washington chairs that appropriations 
subcommittee. Senator Susan Collins of Maine is her vice chairman on 
the Republican side. They worked long and hard on this bill.
  It is a $54 billion bill. It pays for the basics when it comes to 
transportation in America; TIGER grants so that communities can build 
the roads they need; money to rebuild bridges that are falling down; 
airports in Massachusetts, Illinois, and Florida. It has the Housing 
and Urban Development Program in it as well, housing for poor people, 
housing for veterans.
  Well, it came to a procedural vote today on the floor. It was a 
dramatic moment. The Senator from Maine, the Republican Senator who has 
worked on this for so long, stood and begged her colleagues on the 
Republican side to join her in moving this bill forward. She put in a 
lot of work, and she went through this long list of 85 different 
amendments that have been considered on this bill, how everybody has 
had their chance if they wanted to change it. Senator Murray of 
Washington said the same thing.
  Then the Republican leader Senator McConnell came to the floor and 
said: I am asking all the Republicans to vote no. Vote no because we 
have not reached an agreement on the budget resolution; we have not 
reached an agreement on the total amount of money we will spend next 
year.
  So they all voted no--all except Senator Collins. Every one of them 
voted no because we did not have an agreement on the budget resolution.
  So I just came to the floor and said: Why don't we sit down and try 
to reach an agreement on the budget resolution? And a Republican 
Senator said: No, I object to that.
  Where does that leave us? They will not pass the bills--
appropriations bills--for something as basic as transportation and 
infrastructure because we do not have an agreement on a budget 
resolution, and they will not give their consent for us to sit down and 
agree on a budget resolution.
  The games politicians play. When we had this press conference 
outside, there were people from the construction industry--iron 
workers, transportation workers, some of them in hard hats--and one of 
them got up to the microphone and said: I don't know what is going on 
inside those rooms with all that wrestling, but we need more jobs in 
America. Why can't you pass a bill to create more jobs in America?
  I think most Americans, wherever they live, would agree with that 
ironworker. Most of them would not understand what just happened 
today--how the Republicans, except for one, all voted against that bill 
for transportation, saying we had not reached an agreement on how much 
we were going to spend, and then they turned around and objected when 
we came forward and said: Then let's try to reach an agreement. They 
objected. You just heard it on the floor.
  I respect my colleague from Florida. And do you know the reason for 
the objection? He is afraid we may resolve the issue about our debt 
ceiling. Do you know what the debt ceiling is? The debt ceiling is 
America's mortgage. When we vote for spending bills, we have to borrow 
some money to cover what we are voting for.
  Many on the Republican side say: We want to vote for spending bills, 
but we do not want to be held responsible for the money you have to 
borrow to pay for it.
  If we fail to enact a debt ceiling at the end of this year, America 
will default on its debt for the first time in history. The economic 
recovery we are seeing now will disappear. Jobs will be lost. 
Businesses are going to contract, some will fail. It is totally 
irresponsible to say: I just hope we never extend that debt ceiling.
  We need to do that. We did it 16 times under President Ronald 
Reagan--16 different times under President Reagan. This is not a 
Democratic or Republican issue. It is an issue of responsibility and 
fiscal responsibility.
  I am saddened that we had such a good run for 2 weeks where we were 
working together and we end on such a sour note. I am saddened we could 
not pass this good, basic bill--a bill which had bipartisan support 
coming out of the committee. I am saddened that the Senator from Maine 
was the only Republican Senator who would vote for this bill today. And 
I am saddened that we will end this session with an objection to the 
House and Senate trying to sit down together and work out their 
differences.
  If you wonder why the approval rating of Congress is at rock bottom, 
I am afraid we have seen today in the proceedings of the Senate exactly 
why that is the case.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
  Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I rise this afternoon to discuss the 
Energy Savings and Industrial Competitiveness Act, which is also known 
as Shaheen-Portman. I am very pleased to be here with my cosponsor 
Senator Rob Portman. He has been a partner in developing this 
legislation. I thank him for being such a great partner and because he 
has to go catch a flight, I am going to defer, yield to him for his 
remarks, if I could. I will yield to him for a question so he can speak 
to this bill and get to his flight on time.
  Mr. PORTMAN. I thank the Senator for yielding. I appreciate that and 
I will yield back to her in a moment.
  First, I want to say that I appreciate her working with me over the 
last couple years on this legislation. This is the kind of legislation 
we ought to be doing around here because it has a lot of benefits. It 
reduces our trade deficit. It helps encourage job creation. It actually 
makes our environment cleaner. I think it can be helpful in a 
renaissance to our manufacturing in America. It is called the Energy 
Savings and Industrial Competitiveness Act.
  I also want to thank the ranking member and chair of the Senate 
Energy Committee--that is Senator Wyden and Senator Murkowski--for 
their consistent support of this legislation. We got it through the 
committee with a strong vote, and we need to get it to the floor when 
we come back in September with a strong vote.
  I am told this is going to be the first substantive Energy bill on 
the floor since 2007. It is about time. I hope it will have support 
from both sides of

[[Page 12954]]

the aisle, and I know it has support on both sides of the Capitol. It 
is going to help job creators all over the country. It is the right 
thing to do.
  On this side of the aisle, we focused a lot on an ``all of the 
above'' energy strategy. We believe we ought to be producing more 
energy, particularly domestic sources of energy in the ground in 
America, and I support that strongly. We also, though, talk about 
embracing smart, economically viable policies that let us use less 
energy. So it is producing more and using less. There is a lot of focus 
on producing more but less on this part about using less, and that is 
what this bill does.
  It is supported by more than 250 businesses, trade associations, 
advocacy groups--the National Association of Manufacturers, the Sierra 
Club, the Alliance to Save Energy, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce--so it 
is a group that does not normally come together to support legislation. 
They like this bill because, again, it has these benefits for the 
environment, but also benefits for the economy and for our energy 
policy in this country.
  It passed the Energy Committee with a strong bipartisan vote of 19 to 
3. Simply put, Senator Shaheen and I have a bill that I think makes 
good environmental sense. It makes good economic sense, and it makes 
good energy sense.
  I have visited with businesses and job creators all over Ohio, and 
they tell me pretty much the same thing. They are competing in a global 
marketplace. They are competing with companies in Indiana but also in 
India, and their ability to compete depends on their costs. They go up 
against companies and countries where the cost to produce goods tends 
to be lower. We are never going to compete on wages in developing 
countries, nor should we. We are not going to be able to reduce the 
quality of our goods, nor should we. We want to be sure we are not 
cutting corners.
  One thing we can do is reduce the costs to our manufacturers on 
energy because it is a big input, particularly with heavy 
manufacturing. This enables us to do that through energy efficiency 
technologies.
  What we can do as the Federal Government--through research, through 
disseminating best practices, through supporting skills training--is 
help the private sector develop the energy efficiency techniques of the 
future. We can make it easier for them to use efficiency tools to 
reduce their costs, which enables them to put those savings toward 
expanding their companies and hiring more people.
  The proposals contained in the bill are commonsense reforms we have 
needed for a long time. The bill has no mandates on anyone in the 
private sector. In fact, many of our proposals come as a direct result 
of our conversations we have had with people in the private sector 
about how the Federal Government can best help them to become more 
energy efficient, save money, and create more jobs by reinvesting in 
their businesses and communities.
  Here is a brief overview of what the legislation does.
  First, it helps manufacturers by reforming what is called the 
Advanced Manufacturing Office. This is an office at the Department of 
Energy. We need to provide clear guidance to this office that its 
responsibilities ought to include and ought to be prioritized to help 
manufacturers develop energy-saving technology for their businesses. 
Frankly, they have gotten a little bit off track and have focused more 
on helping manufacturers of clean energy, which other Departments and 
agencies do, including at DOE. This office ought to be focused on 
energy-saving technology.
  It also requires the Department of Energy to assist with on-site 
efficiency assessments for manufacturers. It facilitates the already 
existing efforts of companies around the country to implement cost-
saving energy efficiency policies by streamlining the way the 
government agencies in this area work together.
  It increases partnerships with National Labs--the National 
Laboratories, which are a great source of research and technology--and 
energy service and technology providers together to leverage private 
sector expertise toward energy efficiency goals.
  The legislation also strengthens model building codes, so that 
builders in States that choose to adopt them will have the most up-to-
date energy-efficient building codes that are available--again, no 
mandates, but best practices.
  It also establishes university-based building training and assessment 
centers, building on existing industrial assessment centers located 
around the country. We have one in Dayton, OH, that does a great job. 
We want to make sure they can also do energy efficiency work.
  These centers will help train the next generation of workers in 
energy-efficient commercial design and operations through this 
legislation. Not only will these programs save energy but they also 
help provide our students and unemployed workers with the skills they 
need to compete in what can be a growing field, which is the energy 
efficiency field.
  Again, this bill is not about forcing companies to become more energy 
efficient or imposing mandates, it is about giving these companies the 
help they are asking for. We can do that at no additional expense to 
the taxpayer because the cost of this legislation under our bill is 
fully offset.
  In fact, I believe this bill will save the American people a bunch of 
money. Why? Because the legislation takes on the largest user of energy 
in the world. That is the U.S. Government. The Federal Government needs 
to practice what it preaches. By requiring it in this bill to adopt 
energy-saving techniques that make its operations more efficient and 
less wasteful, we are doing just that.
  The bill directs DOE to issue recommendations that employ energy 
efficiency on everything from computer hardware to operation and 
maintenance processes, energy efficiency software, power management 
tools. It also takes commonsense steps toward allowing the General 
Services Administration to update building designs that are out. Some 
of them have been out there for years. They have developed these 
designs over time. They are going to be permitted finally to update 
these efficiency standards, again with the latest energy efficiency 
technology. The government has been looking for places to tighten its 
belt. This is certainly one. Energy efficiency is a darn good place to 
start.
  All this adds up to a piece of legislation that Americans across the 
spectrum can support. It is fully offset, contains no mandates on the 
private sector, and requires the Federal Government to become more 
efficient.
  According to a recent study of our legislation and its impact, by 
2020, using the tools of Shaheen-Portman, the private sector can create 
80,000 new jobs, lower CO2 emissions by the equivalent of 
taking 5 million cars off the road, and save consumers $4 billion a 
year in reduced energy costs. A vote on the Energy Savings and 
Industrial Competitiveness Act is one more step toward achieving the 
goal of a true ``all of the above'' energy policy that produces more 
energy at home while using less. I urge my colleagues to support it.
  Again, I commend my colleague from New Hampshire for working with us. 
I yield to her after having answered her.
  Mrs. SHAHEEN. I assume the question is, will this bill pass the 
Senate?
  Mr. PORTMAN. Will this bill pass the Senate is a question that I pose 
to my colleague from New Hampshire.
  Mrs. SHAHEEN. I would say absolutely it will pass the Senate. It will 
do that because it represents almost 3 years of meetings, negotiations, 
and broad stakeholder outreach in an effort to craft the most effective 
piece of legislation with the greatest chance of passing not only the 
Senate but the House as well so it can be signed into law.
  This bill, as has been explained so well, is a bipartisan effort that 
is designed to boost the use of energy efficient technologies. It will 
help create private sector jobs. It will save businesses and consumers 
money. It will reduce pollution. It will make our country more energy 
independent.
  This legislation will have a swift and measurable benefit to our 
economy and

[[Page 12955]]

our environment. As Senator Portman said, a study by experts at the 
American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy found that last year's 
version would have saved consumers $4 billion. This may be a little 
hard to read on the chart, but you can see it reduces energy costs. In 
doing so, it saves consumers $4 billion a year. It would create about 
80,000 jobs, if it were passed, by 2020. It would also be the 
equivalent of taking 5 million cars off the road.
  The United States needs a comprehensive national energy policy. We 
are too dependent on foreign oil. We are overly reliant on an outdated 
energy infrastructure. We need to utilize a wide range of energy 
sources, including natural gas, oil, nuclear, and renewable such as 
wind, biomass, and solar.
  But we cannot just focus on the supply side. We also need to think 
about how we consume the energy once we have it. Efficiency is the 
cheapest, fastest way to reduce our energy use. Energy-saving 
techniques and technologies lower costs, they free up capital that 
allows businesses to expand and create jobs and allows our economy to 
grow. We can start by improving our efficiency now by installing ready 
and proven technologies, things such as modern heating and cooling 
systems, smart meters, computer-controlled thermostats, and lower 
energy lighting, to name a few.
  There are substantial opportunities that exist across all sectors of 
our economy to conserve energy, to create good-paying private sector 
jobs. In fact, there are countless examples of energy efficiency 
success stories in the private sector that I have had the good fortune 
to see as I have traveled around New Hampshire.
  I visited small retail businesses, manufacturing companies, ski 
areas, apartment complexes, and municipal buildings throughout New 
Hampshire. They are all using energy-efficient technologies to lower 
costs, to improve working conditions and, most important, to stay 
competitive.
  Not long ago I had the opportunity to visit a company on the seacoast 
in New Hampshire called High Liner Foods. It is a seafood processing 
plant. It requires a lot of energy to operate. In fact, at one point 
the 180,000-square-foot facility consumed roughly 2 megawatts of power 
at any given time during normal operations. So next to the core costs 
of personnel and fish, because it is a fish processing plant, energy 
was their biggest expense. But by installing efficient lighting, new 
boilers, various demand-response techniques such as adjusting its 
lighting to dim when no employees are in the area, establishing HVAC 
setpoints, High Liner Foods is making great strides in reducing energy 
consumption. It has allowed them to expand their footprint in the State 
and to be more cost-effective in their production.
  This week I had the opportunity to visit the first LEED-certified 
auto dealership in New Hampshire. It is the first Toyota auto 
dealership that is LEED certified in New England, which I know the 
Presiding Officer will appreciate, being from the neighboring State of 
Massachusetts. They have implemented a number of effective energy-
efficient initiatives to cut their energy cost, including the 
installation of solar panels, efficient lighting, and an impressive 
energy dashboard to monitor energy use throughout their entire service. 
Their customers can come in, they can touch this interactive dashboard, 
they can see what is going on throughout the physical plant.
  I have also visited some great New Hampshire companies that also are 
producing energy-efficient technology. We have a company in New 
Hampshire called Warner Power, which has made the first breakthrough in 
transformers in over 100 years. Studies show that inefficiency in 
transformers results in a loss of about 5 percent of all electricity 
generated in the United States. With the wide-scale use of Warner 
Power's innovation, the Hexaformer, and their control system 
technology, the company estimates that 1.5 percent of all transformer 
energy losses could be eliminated. This would save the country 60 
terawatts of electricity a year. That is equal to about five times New 
Hampshire's entire annual electricity consumption. So energy efficiency 
is an excellent example of a bipartisan and affordable approach that 
can immediately grow our economy and improve our energy security.
  In addition to being affordable, efficiency is widely supported 
because its benefits are not confined to a certain fuel source or a 
particular region of the country. It is clearly one of those areas 
where we can all come to some common agreement, whether we support 
fossil fuels or whether we support alternatives such as wind and solar. 
So it is no wonder, as Senator Portman said, that this legislation 
enjoys such a broad, diverse coalition of support. It has received more 
than 250 endorsements from businesses, environmental groups, think 
tanks, and trade associations, from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and 
the National Association of Manufacturers to the National Resources 
Defense Council and the Painters Union. These are the types of 
nontraditional alliances that have helped us to get this bill to the 
floor.
  The legislation provides a roadmap to create and implement a national 
strategy to increase the use of energy efficiency technologies in the 
residential, commercial, and industrial sectors of our economy.
  It provides incentives and support, not mandates, for residential and 
commercial buildings in order to cut energy use. This is very important 
because buildings consume about 40 percent of all energy in the United 
States. The bill strengthens voluntary national model building codes--I 
would emphasize that these are voluntary--to make new homes and 
commercial buildings more energy efficient, while working with States 
and private industry to make the code-writing process more transparent.
  It also trains the next generation of workers in energy-efficient 
commercial building design and operation. The legislation also assists 
our industrial manufacturing sector, which consumes more energy than 
any other sector of the U.S. economy. It directs the Department of 
Energy to work closely with the private sector industrial partners to 
encourage research, development, and commercialization of innovative 
energy-efficient technology and processes for industrial applications.
  It helps businesses reduce energy costs and become more competitive 
by incentivizing the use of more energy-efficient electric motors and 
transformers. It establishes a voluntary program called SupplySTAR, 
which is modeled on the successful ENERGY STAR Program, to help make 
company supply chains more efficient.
  Finally, the legislation requires the Federal Government, the single 
largest user of energy in the country, to adopt more efficient building 
standards and smart metering technology. It requires the Federal 
Government to adopt energy-saving technologies and operations for 
computers. It allows Federal agencies to use existing funds to update 
plans for new Federal buildings using the most current building 
efficiency standards.
  The best part, as Senator Portman said, is the cost of this 
legislation is fully offset. It reallocates funding that has not been 
used from existing programs.
  I thank Chairman Ron Wyden and his ranking member Lisa Murkowski from 
the Energy and Natural Resources Committee for their great support in 
getting this bill to the floor. This is a bipartisan, affordable, and 
widely supported piece of legislation. Most importantly, it is an 
effective step in addressing our Nation's very real energy needs. I 
thank Senator Portman, Senator Wyden, and Senator Murkowski for all of 
their help with this bill. I look forward to debating the bill on the 
floor of the Senate, to listening to amendments, and to passing this 
bill out to the House and finally having it signed into law. I hope my 
colleagues will join me in this debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.


                           IRS Investigation

  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I wish to talk about the status of the 
ongoing Finance Committee investigation into the targeting scandal at 
the Internal Revenue Service.
  As you can tell, my voice is a bit hoarse this afternoon. I am 
feeling a

[[Page 12956]]

little bit under the weather. With the Senate about to go into recess, 
I thought it was important that I say a few words about this 
investigation, particularly with some of the statements we have heard 
coming from the administration this week.
  In May, when the news broke that the IRS had been targeting 
conservative organizations applying for tax-exempt status with 
additional scrutiny, President Obama promised his administration would 
fully cooperate with Congress in its investigations. He also stated he 
directed Treasury Secretary Lew to follow up on the IRS inspector 
general audit to get more information as to how this happened, who was 
responsible, to make sure the public understood all of the facts.
  I was encouraged by this initial response. As you recall, I worked to 
clear the way for Secretary Lew's confirmation in this Senate, even 
though many of my colleagues had expressed legitimate concerns about 
his nomination. I did so, in large part, because I believed him when he 
promised to be fully transparent and cooperative with Congress. When 
the President said he had ordered the Secretary to get to the bottom of 
this, I expected him to live up to his promises to do so and to work 
with us as we tried to do the same.
  Imagine my surprise then to hear both the President and Secretary Lew 
state over the past week, with our investigations into the IRS 
targeting, Congress was creating a ``phony scandal.''
  It started with the President who said:

       With this endless parade of distractions and political 
     posturing and phony scandals, Washington is taking its eye 
     off the ball. And I'm here to say, this needs to stop.

  That is what the President said.
  That was followed by Secretary Lew stating on last Sunday's shows 
this past weekend that ``there is no evidence that this went to any 
political official'' and that congressional investigators' efforts to 
find evidence is ``creating the kind of sense of a phony scandal.''
  In essence, they are saying our efforts to look into this mess are 
illegitimate and that the American people should simply ignore them. 
That is a far cry from the position the President and his 
administration took when this scandal was made public. As I said at 
that time, they were contrite. Officials were even apologizing for what 
went on at the IRS.
  Today, however, it is a ``phony scandal.'' It is not worthy of the 
public's attention, they say. I have to wonder what they are basing 
their dismissal on, certainly not a thorough review of all the relevant 
documents, that is for sure.
  In a letter to congressional leaders on June 4, Danny Werfel, the 
Acting IRS Commissioner, stated that the IRS had collected some 646 
gigabytes of raw, electronically stored information, which is equal to 
65 million pages' worth of documents relevant to this investigation.
  Let me repeat that. The man in charge, Danny Werfel, stated that the 
IRS had collected some 646 gigabytes of raw, electronically stored 
information, which is equal to 65 million pages' worth of documents 
relevant to this administration. However, to date, only about 21,500 
pages have been given to us--21,500 pages of documents. Those are the 
only documents produced to the Finance Committee to fulfill our 
comprehensive document request from May 20 of this year. The pace at 
which documents have been provided to our committee has been slow and 
often with long delays in between document productions.
  Despite their initial pledges to be cooperative and responsive, the 
Obama administration has been slow-walking the Senate Finance 
Committee. We aren't the only ones being slow-walked.
  Only last week, my colleagues on the Ways and Means Committee, 
chairman Dave Camp and ranking member Sander Levin, wrote to Danny 
Werfel, who is currently the principal Deputy IRS Commissioner, that at 
the rate the IRS is producing documents, a full and responsive 
production will take months. It is actually much worse than that.
  Let me refer to this pie chart. Look at the documents we received 
from the IRS, 6,000 pages of, guess what, training materials. Come on, 
give me a break. There were 500 pages of Steven Miller, Douglas 
Shulman, and William Wilkins, and 15,000 pages of nonpriority 
custodians. That is what we have gotten from them since May. It is 
pathetic.
  As that chart illustrates, given the intermittent document production 
and the very small number of priority documents we have received thus 
far, it could be 2016 before we ever would be able to draw any 
conclusions about what happened at the IRS. That is pathetic. I have a 
feeling that is exactly what this administration wants, and that is 
what I call slow-walking.
  Since the initial report confirming the inappropriate targeting 
released by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, or 
TIGTA, on May 14, this ``phony scandal'' has evolved from what the IRS 
first claimed was a couple of rogue employees in Cincinnati to direct 
IRS involvement from high-level officials in Washington, DC, including, 
at the very least, individuals in the IRS's Office of Chief Counsel.
  I should note that the IRS Chief Counsel is also an Assistant General 
Counsel in the Treasury Department, and he reports to the Treasury's 
General Counsel. Clearly, much more needs to be learned about who was 
involved, why decisions were made, and what motivated these decisions.
  This is why the Senate Finance Committee has been conducting a 
thorough, balanced, and fact-based bipartisan investigation that 
carefully examines every aspect of this in order to get to the truth.
  We are not interested----
  Mr. ROBERTS. Would the distinguished ranking member yield for one 
quick question? I know the Senator has prepared remarks, and I know he 
is not feeling well, but I am stunned by this. I am a member of the 
committee, as the Senator well knows.
  Mr. HATCH. Yes.
  Mr. ROBERTS. You have been promised full cooperation by the Deputy 
Commissioner, Mr. Werfel. I have been present when he has tried to 
inform the committee of full cooperation. Now we find out what full 
cooperation is, more especially as the President has indicated these 
scandals are so-called phony scandals and repeated by Mr. Lew.
  The Senator stated there are 65 million pages that should be 
available to the committee, which is stunning--stunning--in the job we 
would have to do. But out of those requested, only 21,500 documents 
have been presented. Of the 21,500, only 15,000--well, 15,000 pages, 
but those are nonpriority documents.
  Thereby, if you try to figure out when this would be done, it would 
be in 2016; is that correct?
  Mr. HATCH. That is right.
  Mr. ROBERTS. I am stunned by this.
  Mr. HATCH. It may be beyond that. It may actually go beyond that.
  Mr. ROBERTS. I would imagine, if you do the math--and if you know how 
much time we have to actually do this--but I am stunned. This isn't 
what we were promised. This wasn't the understanding of the full 
committee and the bipartisan effort.
  I don't know what we are going to have to do. We are going to have to 
do some drastic action if this is any indication of what we are taking.
  The Senator pointed out that we have been thorough, we have been 
bipartisan, and we have kept absolute integrity with this. The key word 
was ``painstaking.'' If we have this information, there is a lot of 
pain, but there is no take.
  Mr. HATCH. You got that right.
  Mr. ROBERTS. I am extremely upset about it. I thank my colleague for 
bringing this to the attention of the Senate.
  Mr. HATCH. I thank my colleague from Kansas. All I can say is: Look, 
we were promised full cooperation, and we are not getting it.
  I don't blame Mr. Werfel for this, although he is a very close friend 
of Mr. Lew's. I think he has wanted to be more cooperative. When I 
chatted with him today again, he indicated the attorneys are going over 
everything. Let me just say, are we going to get the

[[Page 12957]]

right papers? Are we going to get the truth?
  We are not interested in some perceptions of the truth based on 
limited documents and limited facts. We wish to know precisely what 
happened, and we are going to find out.
  Today, in addition to the small number of documents we have been able 
to review, the Finance Committee investigators have interviewed 14 
individuals from IRS offices in both Cincinnati and Washington, DC. So 
far those interviews have yielded more questions than answers. In fact, 
the list of additional questions keeps growing as the investigation 
wears on.
  After more than 2 months of investigation, here are just a few of the 
questions I have. I will not take too much of the Senate's time 
tonight, but I have a lot more questions than this, and I am going to 
ask these in a bipartisan manner.
  Why did IRS Commissioner Shulman visit the White House 157 times? 
That is the number we have been given. That is unheard of. It has never 
happened before.
  I admit ObamaCare has taken some time, but you can't justify 157 
times. It sounds to me as if there is something fishy going on.
  Why is it that the unions get tax-exempt status under 501(c)(5)? 
There was a surge in the 501(c)(5) applications in recent years. Why 
weren't they subject to some of the scrutiny?
  Did the IRS give extra scrutiny to union applications for tax-exempt 
status? The answer to that is, no, they didn't.
  I am not suggesting they should, but they certainly shouldn't have 
traded preelection of so-called conservative groups the way they 
treated them.
  Everybody knows that is a scandal. Yet they call this not a scandal?
  Once Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin learned from Inspector 
General Russell George of the TIGTA audit regarding IRS targeting of 
conservative groups on June 4, 2012, did he tell anyone else at the 
Treasury Department or the White House about his findings, including 
then-Treasury Secretary Geithner? Not that I can understand, because we 
don't know. They are not answering these questions.
  When did Assistant General Counsel for Treasury William Wilkins, who 
also holds the title of IRS Chief Counsel, first find out that the IRS 
was targeting conservative groups? When did he find that out? Why can't 
we get a simple answer on that?
  Whom did Mr. Wilkins inform about this targeting when he found out 
about it? What was the extent of the Treasury Department's role 
regarding Lois Lerner revealing, in response to a planted question, 
that the IRS had targeted conservative groups applying for tax-exempt 
status at an American Bar Association conference? When did any employee 
of the Treasury Department first have involvement regarding the IRS 
targeting of conservative groups' applications for tax-exempt status?
  What was first date that any White House official was informed about 
the IRS targeting of conservative applicants for tax-exempt status?
  It has been reported that ProPublica obtained private information 
from the IRS about conservative groups that had applied for tax-exempt 
status. In addition, it has been reported that the National 
Organization for Marriage alleges that the IRS illegally leaked 
information about its donors.
  What action, if any, has been taken by the IRS and the Department of 
Justice with respect to any IRS employee who may have illegally 
disclosed private taxpayer information in either of these cases? These 
are important questions.
  Are there other cases where a conservative group or its members have 
had their private taxpayer information unlawfully disclosed?
  It has been reported that the IRS attempted to impose gift taxes on 
donors to the conservative group Freedom's Watch. Did the IRS attempt 
to impose gift taxes on the donors of other tax-exempt groups? Has the 
IRS targeted individuals for an audit of their personal tax returns 
based on their membership in or donations to a conservative tax-exempt 
group?
  It has been reported that Lois Lerner communicated with an attorney 
at the Federal Election Commission regarding a case before the FEC.
  Did Lois Lerner violate section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code 
dealing with the protection of taxpayer privacy in her communications 
with the Federal Election Commission? She had a right to take the Fifth 
Amendment, but was that why she took it if she violated section 6103?
  These are questions that have to be answered. Why did Sarah Hall-
Ingram, who was in charge of the IRS's efforts in implementing 
ObamaCare, attend a meeting with then-IRS Commissioner Steve Miller in 
May 2012 regarding the IRS's targeting of conservative groups' 
applications for tax-exempt status?
  It has been reported in the media that Christine O'Donnell had a tax 
lien put on her property the day she declared her candidacy for the 
Senate.
  There is something wrong here. Anybody who is fair ought to be 
concerned about what is wrong here--not just this but in all these 
questions.
  As part of the IRS internal investigation the President charged 
Secretary Lew with conducting, has the IRS examined whether any 
political candidates were inappropriately targeted?
  Much has been made of the employees who have been ``relieved of 
duty'' and had ``administrative actions'' taken against them, allegedly 
in direct response to the inappropriate targeting. Once again, the 
facts do not add up, as the administrative actions discovered thus far 
were against low-level employees for actions that were not directly 
tied to the allegations of inappropriate targeting.
  So my question is, Who was relieved of duty? Lois Lerner supposedly 
was after she took the Fifth Amendment and refused to testify. But even 
she was able to log in to her computer after being allegedly relieved, 
and she is still being paid her full salary.
  Who else has been relieved of duty? What does Lois Lerner know that 
prompted her to invoke her Fifth Amendment right against self-
incrimination?
  Former IRS Commissioner Steve Miller and Doug Shulman were both aware 
of the targeting of conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status and 
the systematic practice of subjecting those conservative groups to 
intrusive and unwarranted scrutiny about their activities. Why did they 
both deceive the Senate by failing to inform us that these practices 
were going on? Why? I was disappointed in Commissioner Shulman because 
he came to my office long before this all came up and I was quite 
impressed. But I think he had an obligation to come clean.
  Why did the tea party cases sit for months at the IRS, through the 
2010 election cycle without activity? Why? Why did Lois Lerner direct 
the IRS Chief Counsel's Office--an office that was purportedly slow in 
its response to requests for assistance from other IRS components--to 
get involved in reviewing tea party cases? Why did the IRS demand that 
tea party organizations seeking tax-exempt status provide a list of 
their donors to the IRS when that was not required? Why?
  These types of inappropriate actions, as I said, are just some of the 
many questions we have about the IRS targeting scam. These questions 
will simply not go away, and our investigation will not stop until all 
of them are answered. And we are doing this in a bipartisan way.
  Just today we learned President Obama has selected a new nominee to 
serve as the next Commissioner of the IRS. I have to say I was a bit 
surprised, although perhaps I really shouldn't be. Given the dark cloud 
that currently hangs over the IRS, I would have thought the President 
would have taken the time to consult Congress before choosing the 
agency's next leader. Yet I am the ranking member of the appropriate 
committee with sole jurisdiction over the IRS, and today's announcement 
is the first I have heard of this decision, and it was only after the 
decision was made. I like the President. I think we are friends. But 
that was improper, and it was a slight that should not have happened.
  I asked Senator Baucus if he was informed by the President, and he 
said:

[[Page 12958]]

About 3 hours ago. And he sounded a little disgusted himself.
  I won't go into the merits of John Koskinen's nomination today. I 
have no intention of prejudging him. He will be fairly considered by 
the Finance Committee, and I have the reputation that he will be fairly 
considered. His record and qualifications will be thoroughly examined. 
But I want to assure my colleagues that I will demand significant 
answers from Mr. Koskinen when he comes before the committee, and I 
think other Republicans will as well.
  My purpose will be twofold. First, we need to get to the truth about 
what happened at the IRS and, perhaps just as important, we need to 
make sure the Obama administration is fully cooperating with our 
efforts rather than using phony statements about phony scandals.
  So today I want to call on President Obama and Secretary Lew to stop 
closing the door on this investigation that has just started and hasn't 
even been given a chance. If this is indeed a phony scandal, the burden 
is on them to prove it is. And just saying that it is isn't good 
enough. They should have the IRS produce all the requested documents 
and let the documents speak for themselves. There is no reason to hide 
these things, nor is there a reason to have a whole bunch of attorneys 
determining what can be released and what can't be released. Let them 
show how their partisan targeting began and why it continued for years. 
Let them show who was or was not involved and to what level within the 
IRS or elsewhere in government these activities were discussed and 
directed. Until then, this is certainly not a phony scandal. It is a 
legitimate bipartisan investigation being conducted in a fair and 
balanced way that seeks to let the facts dictate the outcome.
  I have a reputation around here for being fair and honest, and I 
resent the way the Finance Committee is being treated. I can't speak 
for the chairman, but I believe he feels pretty much the same way 
because we are being mistreated with regard to our requests for 
information. This isn't some itty-bitty phony scandal. This is big-time 
stuff that should get into why the IRS was doing this to begin with.
  People in this country are scared to death of the IRS, and with good 
reason. If they can do this to you, can you imagine what else they can 
do? And I have listed just a few things here today. I have a lot more I 
could say. This is an important investigation, and Senator Baucus and I 
intend to do it in a bipartisan way. But when we ask for documents, we 
want documents, and we don't want some bunch of partisan lawyers in the 
department stopping us from getting the documents they must provide. It 
sure looks as though they are deliberately trying to delay this as long 
as they can so they can say: Well, nobody cares about it. Well, I have 
to tell you, everybody in this country must care about it. If they can 
do this to these small, conservative tax-exempt organizations, then 
they can do it to every other organization when the time comes.
  This is an important investigation, and this administration ought to 
be at the forefront of trying to get to the bottom of it instead of 
pulling from behind, saying there is nothing here when they know there 
is a lot here. I would like these questions answered. They are 
important questions. This is an important investigation. We should not 
allow the IRS to run rampant like this. That is the beginning of 
tyranny--except it began before 2010--and we should get to the bottom 
of it so it never, ever happens again.
  I think there are a lot of people at the IRS who would like to see us 
get to the bottom of it because they are being besmirched by the bad 
things that have happened. There are a lot of decent, honorable people 
working at the IRS, and they have to be as concerned as I am about the 
mistreatment that occurred prior to the last election and after.
  Is it going to happen again? Are these agencies of government going 
to be used by partisan people in the way they has been used up until 
now? It is enough to scare the daylights out of anybody, and it is 
enough to think, are we moving toward a totalitarian system where the 
people in government can get away with anything they want to and 
especially an agency as powerful and scary as the IRS? I hope we can 
get the answers to these questions. If we can't, this isn't going to 
stop until we do. And these are just preliminary questions; I will come 
back with some more in the coming weeks.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Shaheen). The Senator from Kansas.
  Mr. ROBERTS. Madam President, I would like to again thank the 
distinguished ranking member of the Finance Committee for his 
presentation and asking very pertinent questions with what I thought 
was going to be not an easy task but at least a task where we would 
receive cooperation from the IRS and, for that matter, the 
administration.
  Nobody likes to be audited, and surely nobody likes to say they have 
been audited, as the distinguished ranking member pointed out about all 
the conservative groups. But let me point out that this has gone on not 
only with regard to them but to individuals as well. We are getting 
reports from the senatorial campaign committee indicating that people 
are hesitant to give, that people who have given in the past 
significantly to the Republican cause have been audited, and audited 
for the first time in their lives, to pro-Israel groups--and I can go 
on and on with a list of the organizations.
  This is a very serious situation. This really surprises me, that 
having said we were going to do this in a painstaking, bipartisan way, 
that this is simply not the case.
  I am going to be joining the distinguished ranking member. I am very 
interested in the further questions we feel we can boil down that 
simply have to be answered first, and then obviously there are many 
more.


                       Affordable Health Care Act

  This really goes to the subject I want to talk about. The American 
people now, as a result of this, do not trust the IRS, and they sure as 
heck do not trust the IRS to be in charge of their health care. That is 
the subject I want to touch on, and I will try to make it very brief.
  It has been more than 3 years since the Affordable Care Act--referred 
to by some or most in the press as ``ObamaCare''--was signed into law. 
At the time, I can recall, after months of markup in both the Health, 
Education, Labor and Pensions and Finance Committees, I had many 
concerns. I remember I was very frustrated with my amendments being 
defeated on partisan votes, most of them having dealt with rationing. I 
remember distinctly comparing this rush to government health care to a 
western or Kansas analogy of riding hell for leather into a box canyon 
to eventually finding the only alternative would be to turn around and 
ride back out to a more realistic market-oriented health care reform 
trade.
  As it turned out, we never even saw the bill before we voted on it. I 
voted no, and so did every other Republican Senator and Member of 
Congress. And I regret to say to my colleagues that I told you so. 
Premiums are going up. Taxes are going up. Overall health care costs 
continue to rise. Burdensome, costly, and, I might add, difficult-to-
understand regulations are confusing and confounding health care 
providers. Many of these folks will not even know about a particular 
regulation until they are fined by outside contractors. The results 
have been terribly counterproductive to any economic recovery. 
Regulations such as these have a way of dampening anything we are 
trying to do.
  The current and growing problems are so large and complicated with 
this government takeover of health care that it has been difficult, if 
not impossible, for the administration to get ObamaCare off the ground. 
I mentioned what happened 3 years ago at the beginning of my remarks. 
Let's now talk about what is coming down the pike in just a matter of 
weeks.
  October 1 is the deadline when, according to the Affordable Care Act, 
according to the law, according to promise, millions of Americans who 
do not

[[Page 12959]]

receive insurance through an employer will be forced to purchase health 
insurance in an exchange overseen by the States and the Federal 
Government--except for Georgia. Yesterday, Georgia was the first to 
announce that they will not be ready by the October 1 deadline and have 
asked for a delay.
  I am going to make a prediction that what Georgia did, others will 
do, including the Federal Government. In fact, as we all know, the 
administration--in a weekend blog, no less--announced they would delay 
the employer mandate due to take place January 1, 2014, by a year, to 
January of 2015. I might add, that just happens to be after the midterm 
elections. This just means another delay for businesses that complained 
about the redtape and costly burdens the mandate placed on their 
operations. Many are already laying off employees or moving them to 
part-time status to avoid the costly mandate. And all of this follows 
the thousands of waivers granted to corporations, unions, and other 
groups.
  Again, my question is, Where is the waiver for the average family in 
Kansas and around the Nation? Where is the permanent delay for the 
taxes that will affect individuals?
  As we warned, things are starting to crumble and get worse, which is 
why we need to sunset the exchanges and the individual mandate--
literally, a tax on families.
  This evening or tomorrow those of us privileged to serve in the 
Senate will leave Washington for the month of August, and we are going 
to get an earful regarding all of the problems associated with 
ObamaCare and the impending deadline. Will exchanges be ready? If they 
say they are ready, will they really be ready? Many Kansans who will be 
forced into a Federal exchange or see another last-minute delay--a 
Federal exchange, by the way, that doesn't exist as of my remarks--will 
ask how much the new plan will cost. They will say: What will it cover? 
Will they be able to see their family doctor? Will their personal 
health information remain private and safe or end up in a six-agency 
database? Some people call it seven agencies. Will they be losing the 
health insurance they like? Will the high costs force their employer to 
make them a part-time employee, change their plan, or just drop their 
coverage altogether?
  Right now Kansans and everyone else in the country cannot answer 
these questions--and neither can the administration. And when we get 
back, we will have only 4 weeks until the October 1 deadline. That 
means, really, if we are going to do something about this, we are only 
going to have 3 weeks in which something can be done to sunset, delay, 
defund, or repeal the law and replace it with real health care reform 
that works and to restore the all-important relationship between 
patients and doctors.
  Well, I do have an answer. Some time ago, when the ObamaCare storm 
clouds were first forming, I introduced legislation to sunset the 
exchanges and the individual mandate if they are not, as promised, up 
and running and ready to enroll by October 1 so that the exchanges can 
meet the requirements prescribed by law. Simply named the ``Exchange 
Sunset Act of 2013,'' S. 1272, my bill aims to make sure that if the 
exchanges are not ready, they go away and so does the mandate.
  I realize, as we travel down this road to the October 1 deadline at 
ever-increasing speed, there will be those who support continued 
advertising and encouraging thousands to sign up in the exchanges. The 
question is, Sign up for what? The chances of the exchanges, State and 
Federal, being ready--and I mean ready and accessible to all that the 
advertising is trying to bring in--are remote at best. Obviously, there 
will be some kind of a delay, and once again we will have the 
administration rewriting laws which they had a direct hand in writing 
and which were passed exclusively by the Democratic majority. I submit, 
changing the law by the Executive--the Office of the President--without 
approval by the Congress is unconstitutional.
  Three weeks, three weeks before the ObamaCare train wreck. When this 
body comes back, let's talk about it, and I urge immediate 
consideration and hopefully passage of S. 1272, the Exchange Sunset Act 
of 2013. It is a train wreck, folks, and we have to get America off the 
track.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.


                        Manipulating Tax Reform

  Mr. FLAKE. Madam President, I rise today to discuss the so-called 
grand bargain referenced yesterday by the President.
  On Tuesday, President Obama recycled a number of policy ideas that 
have lingered for months, if not years, and repackaged them as what he 
called ``a grand bargain.'' This proposal seems to be an attempt by the 
President to extend an olive branch to the Republican side of the aisle 
by offering corporate tax reform. In exchange, he is asking for 
additional stimulus spending.
  I am in favor of a grand bargain, but this is not even close to a 
grand bargain. It is not even a bargain. A grand bargain would involve 
reform to entitlement programs to make them sustainable over time. A 
grand bargain would involve a farsighted look at the outyears, not just 
a shortsighted attempt to score political points for the next election 
cycle.
  The administration has taken the taxpayer down the road of stimulus 
spending before, with the idea that we can stimulate job growth with 
so-called shovel-ready projects. Sadly, we have all seen what throwing 
taxpayer money at supposed shovel-readiness gets you and just how 
lackluster this economic recovery has been. Wasting hard-earned dollars 
on so-called investments doesn't create jobs. Businesses and the people 
who build them is what creates jobs.
  I think both sides of the aisle agree that our Tax Code is already 
far too complicated. In fact, a recent bipartisan letter from the 
chairman and ranking minority member of the Senate Finance Committee 
discussed the complexity, inefficiency, and unfairness of our Tax Code, 
which acts as a brake on our economy. But if we can't bring ourselves 
to do entitlement reform--or the so-called grand bargain--at least at 
this stage what we can do is perhaps a small bargain for businesses and 
the taxpayers just by simplifying both the individual and corporate 
codes to foster an environment that is hospitable to business 
expansion, to hiring, and to international competitiveness.
  Last week I shared publicly with the leadership of our tax-writing 
committee my goals and principles for tax reform. Chief among them is 
lowering the business income taxation for corporations and those 
businesses that file as individuals.
  With 95 percent of U.S. businesses structured as subchapter S 
corporations, limited partnerships, limited liability corporations, and 
other passthrough businesses, we can't ignore the fact that many of 
them pay a top rate of 39.6 percent in addition to several other layers 
of taxation. In my view, any substantive tax reform should include a 
reformed tax system that allows all U.S. businesses, including 
passthrough businesses, to thrive. Unfortunately, the proposed 
corporate taxation reforms the President included in his recent 
announcement will once again have the government picking winners and 
losers in the Tax Code.
  Here in the Senate, there are efforts to work in a bipartisan fashion 
to reform the Tax Code. This is a good-faith effort that should be 
encouraged. As I mentioned, it would be a bargain for taxpayers and 
businesses alike.
  If we can make progress on the small bargain, then perhaps some day 
we can return our attention to the grand bargain--a bargain that would 
include and involve entitlement reform and substantive tax reform in 
the same package.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Republican leader.


                  Unanimous Consent Request--H.R. 2668

  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate 
proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 145, H.R. 2668. 
I ask unanimous consent that the bill be read a third time and passed, 
without intervening action or debate, and the motion to reconsider be 
made and laid upon the table.

[[Page 12960]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. REID. Madam President, very briefly, reserving the right to 
object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. It comes as no surprise that the Republicans are once again 
trying to repeal the health care act. By one count, the House and 
Senate Republicans have tried to fight the same fight more than 70 
times.
  Albert Einstein was not insane. He was very smart. But he described 
insanity pretty clearly as doing the same thing over and over and 
expecting different results. That is where we are here. This is insane. 
It is clear Republicans liked it better when insurance companies could 
deny coverage when you had a preexisting condition; when insurance 
companies could cut off your health insurance when you got sick; when 
insurance companies could raise insurance rates without any review. 
They would say--I guess when they say what they are saying now, that 
they want to prevent enforcement of the health care reform, what they 
are really saying is they want to repeal free mammograms and preventive 
care, repeal the law that lets kids stay on their parents' health care 
until they are 26.
  Let's not fight the same fight over and over. It is time to stop 
fighting. It is time to work together.
  I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Texas.


                  Unanimous Consent Request--H.R. 2009

  Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that when the 
Senate receives from the House H.R. 2009, the Keep the IRS Off Your 
Health Care Act, the Senate proceed to its consideration; that the bill 
be read a third time and passed, without intervening action or debate, 
the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. REID. I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Republican leader.


                      Delay The Individual Mandate

  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, let me address the first consent I 
offered, which was objected to. Last month the administration announced 
it would delay ObamaCare's employer mandate on business. It is not hard 
to see why they wanted to do that. We keep reading about why businesses 
large and small will have little option but to cut employee hours and 
paychecks as ObamaCare comes on line, about how restaurants such as 
White Castle, for example, are considering hiring only part-time 
workers moving forward, about how small businesses are citing ObamaCare 
as a top worry.
  I think there are a lot of Members on this side who would question 
the legality of what the President did. But with midterm elections on 
the horizon, it is no mystery why the administration would want to 
delay the law for businesses, considering how many jobs it is likely to 
kill, how many paychecks it is likely to slash. Here is the thing, 
though: Don't families and individuals deserve the same kind of relief? 
I believe they do. I do not believe it is fair to give a break to 
business and leave Americans out in the cold.
  Recently we learned that Ohioans buying health insurance next year 
can expect about a 40-percent premium increase. Next door, in Indiana, 
costs could rise by more than 70 percent. Some Georgians could face a 
nearly 200-percent premium spike. In my home State of Kentucky, 
actuaries are predicting cost increases that could exceed 30 percent. 
Remember, the President said costs would go down, that ObamaCare was 
the Affordable Care Act.
  Millions face the prospect of losing the insurance they like and want 
to keep, which again is not what the President promised. That is why I 
have asked the Senate to pass H.R. 2668. This legislation passed the 
House on a strong bipartisan vote with nearly 2 dozen Democrats 
supporting it and it would delay some of ObamaCare's most burdensome 
mandates for everyone.
  Shortly after its passage in the House my colleagues and I called on 
the majority leader to bring it to the floor for a vote. Those calls 
were unheeded. So I am disappointed to hear that some of our friends on 
the other side have objected to this vote as well. I do not understand, 
frankly, why they would want to leave Americans out in the cold. I note 
that Members on this side are united in our belief that at the very 
least Americans deserve the same relief as businesses do. So we will 
all be supporting this commonsense bipartisan bill if we have a chance 
to vote on it.
  You would think this is a principle Members of the body would support 
unanimously. If it is OK for businesses, why not for individuals? 
Unfortunately, objection has been heard and we will not get an 
opportunity to have the same break for the average American citizen as 
the administration is giving through executive action to businesses. It 
is a shame, but that is where we are going into the August recess.
  I yield the floor.


     Honoring our Armed Forces PRIVATE FIRST CLASS DUSTIN P. NAPIER

  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, it is with sorrow that I rise to pay 
tribute to a young man from Kentucky who gave his life in service to 
our country. PFC Dustin P. Napier of London, KY, died on January 8, 
2012, in Zabul Province, Afghanistan while in support of Operation 
Enduring Freedom. The cause of death was injuries sustained from small-
arms fire. PFC Napier was 20 years old.
  For his service in uniform, PFC Napier received several awards, 
medals, and decorations, including the Bronze Star Medal, the Army 
Achievement Medal, the Army Good Conduct Medal, the National Defense 
Service Medal, the Afghanistan Campaign Medal with Bronze Service Star, 
the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, the Army Service Ribbon, the 
Overseas Service Ribbon, the NATO Medal, the Combat Infantryman Badge, 
and the Overseas Service Bar.
  Dustin's father Darrell Napier says of his son, ``He was born in an 
Army hospital, and I'm sure he ended up dying in an Army hospital. He 
was my hero. Please pray for us.''
  Dustin was born in an Army hospital because he followed his father's 
example of military service. Darrell Napier served in the U.S. Army 
from 1989 to 1994, and was stationed in Germany and Fort Polk, LA. 
Dustin, the youngest of Darrell's three sons, knew from an early age he 
wanted a military career.
  ``He'd been wanting to do that since he was a little boy, about when 
he was six years old,'' Darrell recalls. ``I encouraged him to do so. 
And he was a leader. He'd take the initiative to get things done. I've 
always raised my boys to do the right thing, no matter if the cause was 
popular or unpopular.''
  By the time he reached high school, Dustin was a top cadet in his 
Junior ROTC program. ``I remember him as a model student, very quiet 
and serious. You always knew where he stood,'' says Colonel Mark Jones 
of the Air Force Junior ROTC program at South Laurel High School, 
Dustin's alma mater.
  Dustin rose to be his Junior ROTC unit's corps commander and the most 
decorated cadet.
  News of PFC Napier's loss shook many who remembered him at South 
Laurel High, where Dustin graduated in 2010 and had many friends. 
``When I . . . heard he died, my legs almost collapsed. It was 
unbelievable. He was a good friend, a good mentor, and truly a good 
person,'' says Devan Burkhart, a South Laurel student.
  ``I learned from him. He was the one who would tell me, `Stick with 
it,' when I got frustrated with the program, and I did stick with it.''
  Steven Cheek, one of Dustin's best friends and a high-school 
classmate, recalls the fun he and Dustin had shooting rifles, going to 
ball games, watching movies, and listening to music. Dustin's favorite 
group was the Doors. Other friends remember Dustin loved to play the 
air guitar.
  After graduating from South Laurel High in May 2010, Dustin joined 
the U.S. Army in July and completed basic training at Fort Benning, GA. 
In April 2011, he was deployed to Afghanistan

[[Page 12961]]

with C Company, 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry 
Division, based out of Fort Wainwright, AK.
  Darrell Napier recalls that Dustin would call home from Afghanistan 
every now and then. ``He did miss home a lot,'' Darrell says. ``He 
loved to hang out with his friends very much. He missed his friends at 
Save-A-Lot, where he worked for almost four years. And if there was one 
meal Dustin really loved from his mother, it was her chicken and 
dumplings.''
  Dustin also found happiness thousands of feet in the air, while on 
R&R. It was in an airplane that he met Tabitha Sturgill Napier, who he 
married in October 2011.
  Remembering her husband, Tabitha says, ``You are my very best friend 
and I love you very, very, very much. You are an amazing husband.''
  A few days after his death, friends and classmates held a memorial 
service for Dustin at South Laurel High School. His friends from his 
old Junior ROTC unit thought it only fitting to hold the service where 
Dustin had served as such a fine example to past, present, and future 
cadets. Outside the school, the American flag stood at half-mast.
  ``Cadet Napier came here with a purpose from start to finish, from 
the first fall-in to the last fall-out,'' says CMSgt Randy Creech of 
Junior ROTC.
  We are thinking of PFC Napier's loved ones today, including his wife, 
Tabitha Sturgill Napier; his parents, Darrell and Marianne Napier; his 
brother, Darrell Dean Napier; his stepbrother, Christopher Bittner; his 
stepson, Lane Robison; his grandmother, Monika Paul; his grandfather, 
James Napier; and many other beloved friends and family members.
  I know that no words spoken in this chamber can take away the sadness 
and loss that Dustin's family must feel. But I do want them to know 
that this Nation, and this United States Senate, are deeply grateful 
for Private First Class Dustin P. Napier's service and sacrifice. And 
we are humbled to pay tribute to his life and legacy.


                                 Burma

  Madam President, today I rise to discuss U.S. policy toward the 
Southeast Asian nation of Burma.
  In a little over 2\1/2\ years, the world has witnessed dramatic 
change in Burma; change that would have been thought unimaginable not 
long ago. Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has been 
released from house arrest and now sits in parliament. Hundreds of 
political prisoners have been released from prison. A largely free and 
fair by-election was held in April 2012. Ceasefires have been signed 
between the central government and several ethnic minority groups.
  Yet, despite these welcome reforms, much work remains to be done. At 
the heart of Burma's existing problems is the need for constitutional 
reform. The current flawed constitution is not up to the task of 
supporting the country's democratic ambitions. Simply put, if Burma is 
to take the next big step toward economic and political reform and 
toward fully normalizing its relations with the United States, it needs 
to revise its constitution.
  And there has been some encouraging news on that front. Just last 
week the Burmese parliament announced it would establish a committee to 
examine amending the constitution. This provides a great opportunity 
for the Burmese leadership to follow through on its commitment to full 
democratization.
  As this parliamentary panel begins its efforts, I would highlight 
four areas of the constitution that are, in my view, in particular need 
of reform.
  The first area of reform is the need to bring the Burmese military, 
called the Tatmadaw, under civilian control. Civilian control of the 
military is a fundamental condition of a stable, modern democratic 
country. Many of the stubborn problems Burma still needs to address 
stem from the continued outsized role of the military in Burmese 
political life. For example, Burma continues to maintain military ties 
with North Korea. Indications are that elements within the Burmese 
military want to continue enjoying the financial benefits of continued 
relations with North Korea.
  The unfortunate result is that Burma's pro-reform president Thein 
Sein cannot formally rein in the Tatmadaw since, under the 
Constitution, the president is not head of the armed forces. A separate 
military Commander in Chief leads the armed forces and he is 
independent of the president.
  Another example of the problems stemming from the lack of civilian 
control of the military is the tense state of relations between the 
armed forces and the Kachin ethnic group. The Kachin in northern Burma 
share a proud history with the United States stemming from our close 
cooperation during World War II. Ending the conflict in Kachin state--
and all other ethnic conflicts for that matter--is essential to 
achieving lasting peace, reconciliation and security in Burma after 60 
years of civil war.
  In Europe recently, President Thein Sein predicted that a national 
ceasefire was right around the corner. And a peace process led by one 
of his close ministers has been ongoing. However, military clashes 
continue in northern Shan state as well as in Kachin state. The 
Tatmadaw has every right to protect itself, but, without transparency 
and civilian oversight, questions remain about the extent to which 
military operations have conformed with the President's guidance and 
intentions.
  Without ending its relationship with Pyongyang and without building 
peace with the Kachin and other ethnic nationalities, U.S.-Burmese 
relations will not become fully normalized. Without the military 
accepting civilian oversight and demonstrating a commitment to peace, 
our military relationship will likewise be limited. Such a result would 
be to the detriment of both countries.
  Having U.S. diplomats continue to urge Burma to amend its 
Constitution to bring the military under civilian control is important. 
But there are other policy tools that I believe can help reform the 
Tatmadaw. I believe that beginning a modest military-to-military 
relationship would serve this purpose. Just to be clear. I am not 
advocating rushing into lethal training of the Burmese military or arms 
sales. What I am talking about is the U.S. armed forces engaging with 
the Tatmadaw on compliance with the law of armed conflict, and other 
issues related to international standards of military professionalism.
  What better way is there to show the virtues of civilian control of 
the military than to have the most highly regarded armed forces in the 
world--the U.S. military--engaged with the Tatmadaw about respect for 
human rights, accountability and rule of law? I believe that a modest, 
targeted military-to-military relationship would work hand in glove 
with diplomatic efforts to convince the Burmese military that placing 
themselves under civilian control is good for the nation.
  Beginning a military-to-military relationship is common sense. Since 
before independence, the Burmese military has been a significant 
political institution in the country. And no lasting reform in Burma 
can take place without convincing the Tatmadaw that such a step is a 
positive development for the country.
  A second area of needed constitutional reform involves amending the 
constitution to permit the Burmese people to choose freely whom they 
want to serve as their leader. This is a fundamental democratic 
principle. Current restrictions include a requirement that no one in 
the President's immediate family can be a citizen born to parents who 
were not born in Burma. Just think about that. That's a remarkably 
narrow requirement. Why does the Burmese government have so little 
faith in the ability of its citizens to freely and responsibly choose 
their own leaders?
  These provisions, if left unamended, would cast a pall over the 
upcoming 2015 elections. And, those elections are viewed by many 
observers as the next high-profile step in Burma's reform efforts. If 
the 2015 elections are viewed as illegitimate, it will lead many to 
conclude that reform efforts have stalled in Burma and the country's 
stated commitment to democracy is hollow.

[[Page 12962]]

  I think having the 2015 elections turn out to be flawed would cloud 
the reformist legacy of the current national leadership.
  A third area of needed reform in this regard is judicial 
independence. Currently, the Burmese judiciary is not independent of 
the executive. As we ourselves have learned from experience in America, 
having judges who are not under the thumb of the other branches is not 
only a vital check on the other organs of government, but also a 
bulwark against violations of individual rights.
  Finally, there need to be constitutional assurances for ethnic 
minorities. Burma faces no greater challenge than peacefully 
integrating its various ethnic groups. These groups have long harbored 
mistrust of the central government and the Tatmadaw. Building 
protections for ethnic minorities into the Constitution would, I 
suspect, go a long way toward making the ethnic groups more receptive 
to the new government. Such provisions would also be underscored by an 
independent judiciary to help enforce these protections.
  As we know as Americans, amending a Constitution is not easy, nor 
should it be. But over the years, we in this country have amended our 
Constitution to make it more democratic and to provide greater 
protection of individual liberties.
  Reforming the Burmese Constitution in areas such as the four I just 
raised is a necessary next step in Burma's own journey toward democracy 
and peaceful, national reconciliation.
  There is still time for Burma to act ahead of the 2015 election and 
correct these problems. I urge the country's leadership to seize the 
moment, to take this vital step and to cement its reformist legacy.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.


                 Keep The IRS Off Your Health Care Act

  Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, turning to the matter upon which I asked 
unanimous consent and to which the majority leader objected, and that 
is to take up legislation that I have sponsored here in the Senate, 
which has been passed in the House, which is the Keep the IRS Off Your 
Health Care Act, with each passing day it seems as though more and more 
supporters of ObamaCare are having second thoughts. As I mentioned last 
week, three of America's most powerful labor leaders have declared the 
President's health care law is ``creating nightmare scenarios'' and 
threatening to ``hurt millions of Americans.'' Those are some pretty 
remarkable words from people who were some of the foremost advocates 
for the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as ObamaCare.
  Meanwhile, the union that represents IRS employees has announced it 
does not want its members to receive health insurance through ObamaCare 
exchanges. In fact, earlier today the IRS Commissioner himself said he 
wants to keep his current health care policy and does not want to sign 
up for ObamaCare, as millions of other Americans will be required to 
do.
  Speaking of the Internal Revenue Service, the agency's political 
targeting scandal continues to grow. I listened in my office to Senator 
Hatch, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, the one 
primarily responsible for Internal Revenue oversight in the Senate, and 
I hope the questions he posed will be answered by the bipartisan 
investigation we are conducting. We recently learned the Internal 
Revenue Service's Chief Counsel's Office, headed by an Obama 
administration appointee, was aware of the abuses. So much for a couple 
of rogue agents in Cincinnati, as was originally reported. We have also 
learned that IRS officials have been improperly targeted, not only 
conservative organizations but political candidates and donors as well.
  To make things worse, the same person who ran the IRS division that 
targeted conservative groups is now running the agency's ObamaCare 
office. I can't make this stuff up. Truth is stranger than fiction. 
Americans might be asking: What does the IRS have to do with ObamaCare?
  America's tax collection agency will be responsible for administering 
several of the law's most important provisions, including the 
individual and employer mandates, which we have heard so much about, 
and all of the subsidies. In other words, all of the tax dollars will 
go to fund the exchanges under ObamaCare. Those will be administered by 
the Internal Revenue Service under the current law.
  It is remarkable that at a time when public trust and the Internal 
Revenue Service has plummeted and IRS officials are complaining their 
staffers are overworked and overburdened, the Obama administration 
wants to use this tax agency to administer a massive new entitlement 
program affecting one-sixth of our national economy. To me, that sounds 
like another recipe for disaster.
  Back in May I sponsored legislation that would prevent the Internal 
Revenue Service from a role in implementing ObamaCare. Last week, I 
introduced it as an amendment to the Transportation, Housing and Urban 
Development appropriations bill that was pending before this Chamber.
  Congressman Tom Price of Georgia has introduced a similar bill in the 
House of Representatives. Unfortunately--and this is pretty amazing--
even before the House passed the House bill and before the Senate had a 
chance to take up the Senate bill, President Obama has already issued a 
veto threat were we to pass it. It sounds a little defensive to me. I 
understand ObamaCare is a deeply decisive issue in Washington, and I 
understand that while many have been compelled to defend the law 
previously, they are now feeling a little skittish about it 3 years 
later.
  I ask my colleagues: Given all we have learned about corruption and 
institutional abuse at the Internal Revenue Service, does anyone truly 
believe we should dramatically expand the agency's power to implement 
ObamaCare? Does anyone truly believe IRS agents should have access to 
even more personal financial information--not to mention medical 
information--about American citizens? If IRS officials conducted a 
systematic campaign of political targeting against conservative 
organizations, why should we have any more confidence that the agency 
will fairly and objectively implement the President's health care law?
  Remember, the IRS has already announced it will violate the text of 
the law and issue health care subsidies through Federal exchanges. 
Let's recall what happened. Many States said: We will pass on State-
based insurance exchanges upon which ObamaCare depends to be 
implemented in the States. So what the IRS has said is: We are going to 
paper over the fact that Congress never explicitly authorized tax 
dollars to subsidize the Federal exchanges, even though the law clearly 
states that those subsidies can be issued only through State exchanges. 
That is another example of lawlessness when it comes to ObamaCare.
  In other words, the agency has already shown utter contempt for the 
rule of law when it comes to implementing the President's most 
cherished legislative accomplishment. They have already shown that 
contempt, and they don't deserve, nor have they shown themselves worthy 
of, our confidence when it comes to implementing this health care law.
  In my view, the IRS has absolutely no business playing such a huge 
role in the American health care system. For that matter, I ask my 
friends on the other side of the aisle one final question: Do you still 
believe ObamaCare will reduce health care costs? After all, it is 
estimated that the law will cause a dramatic spike in individual 
insurance premiums across the country--from Maryland to Florida, to 
Indiana and Ohio, to Kentucky and Missouri, to Idaho and California.
  Earlier this week, for example, the Florida insurance commissioner 
predicted that because of ObamaCare, the cost of health insurance in 
the individual market and Florida will increase by 30 to 40 percent. 
The reason for that is because the provisions in ObamaCare mandate the 
guaranteed issuance of health insurance even after a person is sick. 
Someone compared it to waiting until your house is on fire

[[Page 12963]]

to buy insurance. It is not insurance anymore, and it drives up the 
cost, not to mention the fact that young people--such as those sitting 
in front of me--are going to have to pay the price of subsidizing 
health care for older Americans. The so-called age-banding requirements 
don't allow older citizens to pay any more than three times what young 
people pay for health insurance, even though the cost of their health 
care, given their age, will be higher.
  So this is what distorts the insurance markets, which is causing 
health insurance premiums to skyrocket across the States because of 
ObamaCare.
  Rather than make our individual health insurance markets even more 
distorted and more dysfunctional than they are today, we should 
dismantle ObamaCare and replace it with patient-centered reforms that 
create a genuine national marketplace for health insurance.
  I was just reading a story about an Oklahoma surgical center which 
publishes the price of common procedures for the public to read and 
which now has created--what markets always do--greater consumer 
awareness of what exactly these procedures cost. As we have seen in 
Medicare Part D, the prescription drug plan Congress passed a few years 
ago, when a market is created and vendors compete for consumers' 
business, prices go down and the quality of service goes up. That is 
what markets do. Ultimately, it benefits the consumer, and it would 
benefit taxpayers and patients as well.
  What do I mean by patient-centered reforms? I am talking about 
reforms that empower individual Americans by giving them more choices 
and flexibility in the health care markets--such as the example of the 
Oklahoma surgical care center--by giving people more transparent 
information about pricing and quality and by directly assisting people 
with preexisting conditions.
  I heard the majority leader earlier when Senator McConnell offered a 
unanimous consent to extend the moratorium on the individual mandate 
just as the President has unilaterally on the employer mandate. He said 
something to the effect of: Republicans want people to be subjected to 
preexisting condition exclusions that are not covered. That is simply 
false. We don't have to embrace 2,700 pages of ObamaCare just to take 
care of that problem or other problems we have agreement on. We should 
also work to protect the doctor-patient relationship.
  The last thing we ought to do on my list of things to do to reform 
the health care system is to save Medicare from bankruptcy. It is on an 
unsustainable path. Yet any time we try to suggest reforms that will 
strengthen and stabilize Medicare and make sure it is there for future 
generations, they are met with a ``stiff-arm.''
  If we want to reduce health care costs, if we want to expand quality 
insurance coverage and give Americans more choices and options, we 
should equalize the tax treatment for health insurance so it is treated 
the same whether it is provided by your employer or whether an 
individual buys it. We should let individuals and businesses form risk 
pools in the individual market, and we should let folks buy health 
insurance across State lines.
  Why shouldn't I be able to buy health insurance in New Hampshire or 
Alabama or somewhere else if it fits my needs? Right now that is not 
possible. It would create a market which would create competition, 
bring down costs, and make it more affordable. We should expand tax-
free health savings accounts so people can save their own money and 
spend it as they see fit on their health care. If they don't spend it 
there, it is available for their retirement, much like any other 
individual retirement account.
  We should curb frivolous medical malpractice lawsuits. According to 
one study, the annual cost of defensive medicine is a staggering $210 
billion. In my State, we have had a lot of success with medical 
malpractice reform. It stabilized the cost of medical malpractice 
insurance that physicians have to buy, and it created a huge surplus of 
physicians who want to move to Texas and practice their profession. 
They realize they will not lose everything they have in the litigation 
lottery. They can buy affordable coverage that will protect their 
family and their patients should they make mistakes.
  We should give each State much more flexibility to design a Medicaid 
Program that works best for their neediest residents. Medicaid is a 
wonderful program, but it is broken. This is designed to protect the 
most vulnerable people in our society and provide for their health care 
needs. But because of the broken Medicaid Program, only one out of 
every three doctors in my State will actually see a new Medicaid 
patient. Medicaid reimburses at about half of what private insurance 
reimburses, and as a result many doctors can't afford to see a new 
Medicaid patient. What we have is the appearance of coverage, but there 
is no real access to the doctor of their choice. So we need to fix 
Medicaid.
  Finally, we should establish greater provider competition in Medicare 
so the competition I mentioned a moment ago in the Medicare 
prescription drug program could also apply in other aspects of Medicare 
and help make it more affordable, shore it up, and guarantee its 
availability to generations yet to come.
  There is no reason why Americans have to accept an unworkable health 
care law administered by an agency such as the Internal Revenue Service 
that has grossly abused its power and demonstrated that its current job 
is way beyond its capacity to perform.
  I realize we will not be able to dismantle ObamaCare overnight--not 
with President Obama still in the White House and with a Democratic 
majority in the Senate. I realize many of these issues need to be 
debated further, but I hope we can all agree that the Internal Revenue 
Service, the IRS, should not be administering a law that affects one-
sixth of our national economy and which so dramatically affects the 
quality of life for 320 million Americans.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.
  Mr. SHELBY. Madam President, last week in Illinois President Obama 
attempted to blame opponents of the ObamaCare for the law's broken 
promises. He lashed out at what he called ``folks out there who are 
actively working to make this law fail.'' Those were his words. He 
further said: ``[A] politically motivated misinformation campaign'' is 
afoot. He strongly implied that fault rests not with those who 
conceived the law but those who have not, in his estimation, 
``committed themselves to making [it] work.''
  Think about it a minute. This flailing, of course, was nothing more 
than an effort by President Obama to dodge and deflect accountability 
for the law that bears his name. Let's be real. ObamaCare is not a 
failure because so many Americans reject it, rather so many Americans 
reject ObamaCare because it is a failure. I believe we should focus on 
what truly matters.
  Americans are growing increasingly anxious about how the law will 
affect them and their families. They wonder what it will mean for 
health insurance and tax bills. They wonder whether they will be able 
to get the care they need when they need it. They wonder whether the 
quality of American health care will remain the best in the world and, 
yes, they wonder how a government reorganization of one-sixth of the 
economy will impact a weak jobs market. Unfortunately, neither the 
outset nor the outlook provides consolation.
  President Obama has frequently sought to downplay the debacle 
surrounding the rollout of his health care law. He says ``that glitches 
and bumps'' are to be expected. But as the Wall Street Journal 
columnist Kimberly Strassel notes, the Democrats didn't ``count on the 
hiccups turning into cardiac arrest,'' and that is what happened.
  Since the enactment of ObamaCare, a laundry list of unworkable 
provisions has been repealed or delayed. But recently the 
administration announced two particularly notable delays.
  First, the administration will delay implementation of the law's 
employer

[[Page 12964]]

mandate until 2015 because workable reporting requirements are not yet 
in place. This provision requires all employers in this country with 
more than 50 employees to provide adequate health care coverage for 
full-time employees, defined as those employed at least 30 hours per 
week or pay a penalty. In anticipation of this mandate many employers 
are cutting back hours for current workers and holding off on hiring 
new ones.
  I welcome any relief from ObamaCare for anyone in this country, but 
why should such relief not apply to individuals and families as well as 
businesses? If the administration hasn't gotten its act together by 
now, what leads us to believe it ever will? Instead of temporarily 
delaying part of ObamaCare for some, I believe the best course would be 
to permanently delay all of it for everyone.
  The administration also recently announced postponement of a critical 
taxpayer protection under ObamaCare. Taxpayers were previously told the 
government would verify that applicants actually qualify for subsidies 
before receiving them. Now the administration says it is not ready to 
do that until 2015, although it will still go ahead with enrollment in 
the program in 2014. So for the coming year, the Obama administration 
will trust but not verify anything. The honor system, I believe, is no 
taxpayer protection.
  These are not run-of-the-mill glitches and bumps, as the President 
would say. These provisions are central to the legislation and may 
foreshadow major problems to come, as we find out every day. These 
provisions are unworkable or problematic not because people don't like 
them but because they were poorly designed. This isn't about a lack of 
commitment on behalf of those forced to comply with these mandates. 
Rather, it is about a lack of confidence on behalf of those who 
conceived and crafted these provisions.
  In light of the disastrous rollout of ObamaCare, Americans are also 
apprehensive about the cost--yes, the cost. How will all of this impact 
their health insurance premiums? What will be the tax burden? What will 
a new entitlement program do to our $17 trillion debt, which is 
growing?
  With respect to premiums, President Obama told the American people 
his health care overhaul ``could save families $2,500 in the coming 
years.'' Those were his words. But despite this bold claim, health 
insurance premiums for the average American family have increased over 
$3,000 since 2008, and this is according to the Kaiser Family 
Foundation Employer Health Benefit Survey, which is very well 
respected.
  Moreover, a recent Wall Street Journal analysis finds that premiums 
for healthy consumers could double or even triple under ObamaCare. Can 
we imagine that?
  Although ObamaCare has not decreased premiums, it has certainly 
increased taxes. According to the Congressional Budget Office--CBO--and 
the Joint Committee on Taxation, ObamaCare imposes a $1 trillion tax 
hike on the American economy over just the first 10 years--a $1 
trillion tax hike. Their analysis finds 21 tax hikes in ObamaCare due 
to the law's various mandates and restrictions. Among these, several 
affect individuals making less than $200,000 and married couples making 
less than $250,000--a clear violation of President Obama's often 
repeated campaign promise not to do so.
  Despite this massive tax hike, ObamaCare will still add $6.2 
trillion--yes, $6.2 trillion--to the debt in the years ahead. This is 
based on the Government Accountability Office projections. This clearly 
violates yet another promise by the President that he would ``not sign 
a plan that adds one dime to our deficit--either now or in the 
future.'' Goodness.
  I believe ObamaCare will not only fail to control costs but will also 
destroy the best quality health care in the world--ours. Why do I say 
this? In 2009, Dr. Martin Feldstein, Chairman of the Council of 
Economic Advisers under President Reagan and a Harvard professor, wrote 
an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal entitled ``ObamaCare Is All About 
Rationing.'' He backed up his statement by citing a report issued by 
President Obama's own Council of Economic Advisers which explained how 
the President would propose to reduce health spending by eliminating 
certain treatments--by rationing.
  Dr. Feldstein went on to compare the Obama strategy to that of the 
British national health service. He concluded the existence of such a 
program in the United States would not only deny lifesaving care but 
would also cast a pall over medical researchers who would fear that 
government experts might project their discoveries as ``too 
expensive.''
  Think of the implications of rationing health care. What does it mean 
for a patient sitting in the doctor's office when they get a life-
changing diagnosis? I know that feeling. I have been there. It 
reassured me to know we have the best health care in the world and that 
everything possible would be done to save my life. I want others who 
encounter that situation to have the same reassurance. But will they?
  Despite what President Obama may say, it is not just Republicans who 
have deep concerns about health care. This week, on the same Wall 
Street Journal opinion pages, Howard Dean, a former Democratic National 
Committee chairman and Governor, as well as a physician, concurred with 
Dr. Feldstein. Mr. Dean wrote that ObamaCare's independent payment 
advisory board--IPAB--``is essentially a health care rationing body.'' 
By setting doctor reimbursement rates for Medicare and determining 
which procedures and drugs will be covered and at what price, the IPAB 
will be able to stop certain treatments its members do not favor by 
simply setting rates to levels where no doctor or hospital will perform 
them. That was the plan.
  Mr. Dean went on to say, ``These kinds of schemes do not control 
costs. The medical system simply becomes more bureaucratic.''
  We all know now ObamaCare is a bureaucratic nightmare. With more than 
20,000 pages of new rules and regulations, the law expands government 
to an unprecedented level, creating 159 new boards, commissions, and 
government offices. Think of it.
  Adding to these concerns, Deloitte's 2013 Survey of U.S. Physicians 
finds that due to recent developments in health care, ``the future of 
the medical profession as we know it may be in jeopardy as it loses 
clinical autonomy and compensation.'' The survey by Deloitte also found 
that ``6 in 10 physicians''--6 in 10--``say it is likely that many 
physicians will retire earlier than planned in the next 1 to 3 years.''
  Again, sitting in that doctor's office, I remember breathing a little 
easier to know we have not only the most advanced treatments but also 
the most skilled and experienced physicians in the world. We don't want 
to jeopardize that, do we?
  In addition to concerns about the quality of care, the Obama 
administration has backtracked on still another of the President's 
promises. In 2009, he stated unambiguously: ``If you like your doctor, 
you will be able to keep your doctor. Period.'' The President's words.
  Despite this pledge, the Department of Health and Human Services, 
under the Obama administration, recently posted the following on 
healthcare.gov: ``Depending on the plan you choose in the marketplace, 
you may be able to keep your current doctor.'' It says ``may'' be able 
to keep your doctor. That is not what the President told the American 
people.
  A University of Chicago study underscores this finding that more than 
half of current individual insurance plans do not meet ObamaCare's 
standard to be sold on the exchanges. So much for that ironclad 
promise.
  But there is another area: ObamaCare is a job killer. How will 
ObamaCare affect jobs? In President Obama's recent Illinois speech I 
mentioned earlier, he made the following curious statement about 
Republicans and job creation: ``They'll bring up ObamaCare despite the 
fact that our businesses have created nearly twice as many jobs in this 
recovery as they had at the same point in the last recovery when there 
was no ObamaCare.''
  This is a non sequitur. At a minimum, President Obama implied that

[[Page 12965]]

ObamaCare has not hurt job creation. At worst, he implied it has 
helped.
  In stark contrast, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's second quarter 2013 
Small Business Survey in America finds that ``71 percent of small 
businesses--and that is the job creation machine in this country--say 
the health care law makes it harder to hire.'' The same survey finds 
that ``one-half of small businesses say that they will either cut hours 
to reduce full-time employees or replace full-time employees with part-
time workers to avoid the mandate.''
  In addition, Gallup finds that ``41 percent of small business owners 
say they have held off on hiring new employees'' in response to 
ObamaCare.
  The 1-year delay on ObamaCare's employer mandate provides momentary 
relief. But in light of sustained high unemployment in this country, I 
find it deeply troubling that perhaps the best thing President Obama 
has done for American business during his time in office is to provide 
only a brief reprieve from his own signature achievement.
  Notably, labor unions agree with businesses now, that ObamaCare will 
hurt the economy. Recently, in a scathing letter to Democratic leaders 
in Congress, the president of the Teamsters Union, the UFCW, and UNITE-
HERE, wrote that ``ObamaCare will shatter not only our hard-earned 
health benefits, but destroy the foundation of the 40-hour workweek 
that is the backbone of the American middle class.''
  This brings me full circle to where I began my remarks. President 
Obama conveniently blames Republican opposition for the stumbles and 
failures of ObamaCare, despite the fact that Americans across the 
political spectrum have spoken up about its many flaws.
  President Obama rammed his health care legislation through Congress 
without a single Republican vote. Why? Because he knew he did not need 
our votes to put the entire Nation under his health care plan. Yet now 
he claims that ObamaCare works for those who are ``committed to it.'' 
Committed to it?
  Republicans are committed to finding solutions that actually lower 
health costs, that do not tax and spend us into oblivion, that preserve 
the world's highest quality health care, and that foster economic 
growth. We have said all along that ObamaCare would fail on each of 
these counts.
  I believe opposition to ObamaCare is not responsible for its 
failures, and commitment to it will not negate its deep flaws. The only 
way to achieve the goals we all share is to begin by repealing this 
failed law so we can replace it with a plan that works. I hope we can.
  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. SESSIONS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                      The Economy and Immigration

  Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I would like to share some remarks 
about the economic condition of American workers, the immigration bill 
that passed here recently, and in general about where we are as a 
Nation and the difficulties we are facing.
  I think there is a growing acceptance by most experts that we have, 
indeed, seen a decline in the wages of the middle-class and working 
Americans relative to inflation since maybe as long ago as 1999--a 
steady erosion of their income relative to the price of products they 
buy. That is not a healthy trend.
  President Obama talked about it, our Democratic colleagues talked 
about it a lot when President Bush was President. But it has continued. 
I thought maybe it was an aberration, but I do not think so anymore. I 
think a lot of things are happening with robotics, ObamaCare, other 
things that are happening, that are making it more difficult for 
workers to find jobs--unemployment remains exceedingly high--and to 
have wage increases.
  One of the things I noticed this week from the Republican side of the 
aisle is that Congress received two letters--one from Republican 
donors, according to some, and another from CEOs--urging that Congress 
act on immigration. This is primarily to the House Members.
  Nearly 100 top Republican donors, they called themselves, and Bush 
administration officials sent a letter to the House Republicans on 
Tuesday urging lawmakers to pass a bill that legalizes illegal 
immigrants. The donor letter came the same day the U.S. Chamber of 
Commerce and 400 other businesses and umbrella groups fired off another 
letter to the House leaders of both parties urging them to pass 
something.
  One word was not mentioned in either one of those letters: Wages. Nor 
was any discussion of jobs and unemployment raised in those letters.
  Mr. Karl Rove--a man I know and like and a long-time friend--and 
these groups would have us believe this legislation is about the 
providing of amnesty to people who have been here a long time. That 
certainly is a large part of it. Businesses know that legalizing 
illegal workers will, indeed, expand the available labor pool for 
industries with the effect, I suggest, of bringing down wages, 
particularly in the areas where illegal workers might have previously 
not had access. So of the 11 million people, perhaps half, we 
understand, do not have fake documents, are not able to work in the 
labor force, effectively, and they take marginal jobs. If this bill 
were to pass, all would immediately be given Social Security Numbers, 
and they could apply to any job in America.
  That is both a good thing and a difficult thing. It is good that they 
would be able to work. It is not so good if you wanted one of the jobs 
that would be taken.
  But there is a phrase in the letter which has gotten too little 
attention and which explains what this is all about. Mr. Rove and the 
donors say, the legislation must ``provide a legal way for U.S.-based 
companies to hire the workers they need.''
  So we are supposed to pass a law that guarantees American companies 
the right to hire whoever they need, whoever they say they need, 
whoever they believe is best for them. That means the best worker at 
the lowest price. That is what free markets are all about. That is what 
the law of supply and demand is all about. It has not been repealed, by 
the way, the law of supply and demand.
  First and foremost, that cannot be the goal of an immigration policy 
of the United States of America. It cannot be the overriding policy of 
our system to provide and to make sure that whatever workers our 
companies want at whatever price, apparently, they are willing to pay 
or want to pay--that we allow workers to come in from abroad and take 
those jobs, regardless of the unemployment rate in America, regardless 
of the number of people who are on welfare, on unemployment 
compensation, who have not had a good paycheck in a number of years, 
perhaps.
  Our responsibility and our goal is to serve the people of this 
country and to try to create a climate, an economic agenda that allows 
them to prosper and to actually find jobs and actually get pay raises, 
not pay reductions.
  Of course, there is already a legal way for U.S.-based companies to 
hire workers they need. They can hire the people living here today who 
are unemployed. Or they can hire some of the million-plus immigrants 
whom we lawfully admit each year. We have a very generous immigration 
policy. No one is talking about ending that and not allowing 
immigration to continue. We allow about 1.1 million immigrants a year 
come to America lawfully, plus guest workers who come specifically to 
work. That is very generous. But this bill would double the number of 
guest workers and increase substantially the number of people who come 
through immigration to become permanent residents in our country, at a 
time of high unemployment--much higher unemployment than we had in 
2007. That bill would have allowed much fewer people to come into the 
country, and it was rejected by the American people.

[[Page 12966]]

  No one is saying these programs cannot and should not exist, and that 
they should not be improved. But I am afraid the businesses want the 
choicest pick of labor at the lowest cost they can get it. That is what 
businesses do. That is what businesses want every day. When they go out 
and interview people, they want the best person they can get at the 
least cost. That is what their stockholders demand. So they believe the 
immigration policy for the entire Nation should exist to create an 
abundance of low-cost labor. I do not agree with that.
  They, in their bubble they live in, think lower wages are good. You 
hear about it: There are concerns over rising wages. It might drive up 
prices, you hear the Wall Street Journal say.
  Well, maybe some politicians think that way too. They are not 
concerned with how the plan impacts workers, the immigrants themselves, 
public resources, the education system, or taxpayer dollars. They are 
not focused on the broader economic and social concerns that happen 
when someone is not able to get a job for years at a decent wage. The 
focus tends to be on the reduction of the cost of labor.
  But America has a larger concern. That concern is unemployment. It is 
workplace participation. It is wages. And it is the cost of social 
services to those in need. We all agree we must make America more 
competitive globally. Workers must be productive and competitive. But 
how do we close the income gap? How do we deal with that?
  The best way to do that is not to reduce our wages and workers' 
quality of life. The way to do that is with a less burdensome Tax Code, 
a less intrusive regulatory system, and a tougher, smarter, fair trade 
policy. These policies would make us more competitive and help wages 
and working conditions improve.
  So when these business voices and establishment figures say the GOP 
needs to support a comprehensive immigration bill, what they are really 
saying is the GOP and the Congress of both parties--which in the 
Senate, of course, a minority of Republicans voted for the bill, and 
every single Democrat voted for the bill. They would have done the 
things I am concerned about.
  Now they are worried about the Republican House and they are trying 
to put the pressure on them. What they are saying is, we need to 
increase low-skill immigration, when we do not have enough jobs now. 
The Senate bill, based on CBO analysis, would provide legal status to 
46 million people--mostly lower skilled immigrants--by 2033--46 
million. Here is what the National Review editorialized on the subject:

       By more than doubling the number of so-called guest workers 
     admitted each year, the bill would help create a permanent 
     underclass of foreign workers. The 2007 Bush-Kennedy proposal 
     was rejected in part because it would have added 125,000 new 
     guest workers. The Gang of Eight bill--The one we just passed 
     in the Senate--would add 1.6 million in the first year, and 
     about 600,000 a year after that and that is on top of a 50 
     percent or more increase in the total level of legal 
     immigration. The creation of a large population of second-
     class workers is undesirable from the point of view of the 
     American national interest, which should be our guiding force 
     in this matter. The United States is a nation with an 
     economy, not an economy with a nation.

  This Nation owes certain things to its citizens, the people who are 
here now. We have a lot--300 million--and many of them are hurting. We 
owe them the best opportunity--owe them the best opportunity--to be 
successful and have a decent job with increasing wages, not declining.
  Here is what conservative writer Yuval Levin wrote in a recent op-ed. 
I am saying this because these are conservative writers.

       The Left's economic policies (and the legacy of decades of 
     right-wing confusion about the difference between being pro-
     market and being pro-business too) are making the American 
     economy less and less like the vision of capitalism that 
     conservatives should want to defend. They should consider 
     what now would be best for the cause of growth and 
     prosperity--the cause of free markets and free people.
       Capitalism is fundamentally democratic, after all--we today 
     might say fundamentally populist and recovering this 
     understanding of conservative economics would help today's 
     Republicans see an enormous public need, and an enormous 
     political opportunity, they tend to miss, and to which 
     conservatism could be very usefully applied. It would point 
     to a conservative agenda to help working families better 
     afford life in the middle class, and to give more Americans a 
     chance to rise.
  So this is, I guess, directed--too late now to deal with the Senate. 
It passed the Senate, but not too late to deal with in the House, which 
does have a Republican majority. If Members of Congress want to broaden 
their appeal, the answer lies in speaking to the real and legitimate 
concerns of millions of hurting Americans whose wages have declined and 
whose job prospects have diminished.
  The New York Times talked about this in 2000. They forgot about all 
of this now. But in 2000, they editorialized against an amnesty bill, 
what they called a ``hasty call for amnesty'' and warned that ``between 
about 1980 and 1995 the gap between wages of high school dropouts and 
all other workers widened substantially.'' That is what the New York 
Times said then. It remains true.
  Professor George Borjas, himself an immigrant to America as a young 
man from Cuba, now at Harvard, perhaps the most effective and 
knowledgeable and respected scholar of wages and immigration in the 
world, certainly in the United States, estimates--get this--that 40 
percent, almost half, of the trend downward in wages today can be 
traced to immigration from unskilled workers. Businesses do not have to 
bid up salaries to get good workers if you constantly have a flow of 
people come in.
  That data he reported has been updated. High levels of low-skilled 
immigration between 1980 and 2000--and those levels would be greatly 
increased if this bill that passed the Senate were to become law--have 
already reduced wages of native workers without a high school diploma 
by 8 percent, according to Professor Borjas. He has analyzed Labor 
Department statistics, census data, and all kinds of data, according to 
the highest academic standards.
  Professor Borjas said their wages have fallen from 1980 to 2000 by 8 
percent in real dollars as a result of the current flow of immigration. 
So that is about $250 a month. You think that does not make a 
difference to working Americans and their families, to lose $250 a 
month?
  Oh, we do not want to talk about that. That is not a problem. The 
immigration bill will increase wages, we are told. Professor Borjas 
said it has already reduced wages enough to be very painful to people 
who are trying to take care of their families today. Wages continue to 
fall.
  This is not only an economic problem, but it is a social problem. The 
idea that dramatically increasing the number of foreign workers to take 
a limited number of American jobs will reduce unemployment and raise 
wages is so ridiculous it is hard to think it worth discussing. The 
very idea of this is beyond my comprehension. Yet we have the President 
out there today sending out documents claiming just the opposite--the 
President of the United States. The law of supply and demand has not 
been eliminated. Wages today are lower than in 1999. Median household 
income has declined 8 percent in that time. Some 47 million of our 
residents are on food stamps today, including 1 in 3 households in 
Detroit. According to the Associated Press, four out of five U.S. 
adults struggle with joblessness, near poverty, or reliance on welfare.
  There is no shortage of labor in the United States. There is a 
shortage of jobs in the United States. Our goal must be to help our 
struggling Americans move from dependency to being independent, to help 
them find steady jobs and rising pay, not declining pay. Our policy 
cannot be to simply relegate more and more of our citizens to 
dependence on the government while importing a steady stream of foreign 
workers to take the available jobs. That is not in the interest of our 
country or the people of this country.
  Some contend our unemployed do not have the needed skills. Well, 
let's train them. We now spend over $750 billion a year on means-tested 
welfare-assistance type programs. That is the largest item in the 
budget, bigger than Social

[[Page 12967]]

Security, bigger than defense, bigger than Medicare. Of that amount, 
for every $100 we spend on those programs, we only spend $1 on job 
training. So we need to wake up here. We need to quit paying people not 
to work, quit delivering money that creates dependence, and shift our 
policies in a way that puts people to work and gets them trained to 
take the jobs that are here today.
  As we leave for recess, my message to my colleagues in the House is 
this: Do the right thing. Make your priority restoring the rule of law, 
defending working Americans, and helping those struggling, immigrant 
and native born.
  People who immigrate here lawfully want to go to work here and see 
their wages rise too. Their wages are being pulled down if the flow of 
immigration is too large. It is amazing to me how the coalition has 
been put together. Some of the comments about it kind of take my breath 
away.
  Here is what the President said today in his paper, claiming that 
everything is going to be great with this huge increase of immigration 
that was in the bill he wants to see passed in the House. This is their 
report. The broader leisure and hospitality industry, one of the 
fastest growing sectors in the U.S. economy, also stands to benefit 
significantly from commonsense immigration reform.
  According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the leisure and 
hospitality industry has consistently added jobs over the last 3 years. 
These sectors remain a source of robust economic activity and continue 
to exceed expectations. Leaders of these industries have been long-time 
proponents of legislation that would legalize workers in the United 
States and facilitate the lawful employment of future foreign-born 
workers.
  The head of the American Hotel and Lodging Association this year 
applauded the Senate--I bet he did--on behalf of the lodging industry 
for its bipartisan commitment to immigration reform that ``creates 
jobs, boosts travel and tourism, preserves hoteliers' access to a 
strong seasonal workforce, and stimulates economic growth.''
  Well, sure. He would rather be able to have a large flow of workers 
from abroad take the jobs. What happens to the Americans who are not 
getting jobs? Are they on the food stamp rolls, the assistance rolls? 
Are they on unemployment compensation? Are they otherwise struggling to 
get by with government assistance? Would it not be better for our 
Americans to have those jobs?
  I mean, think about it, the President of the United States out here 
celebrating special interests, hotel magnates, casino magnates who want 
cheap foreign labor so they do not have to hire American workers who 
are unemployed. That is what we are talking about. I think it is time 
for the Republicans to stand up to the Republican 100 donors writing 
that letter. Give me a break. We need to reject their advice and the 
premise of their letter that the public policy of the United States 
should be based on giving U.S. companies a legal basis for hiring all 
the low-cost foreign workers they say they need.
  They are not entitled to demand that. We are supposed to set national 
policy here. We are supposed to set policy that serves the national 
interest. We do not work for those donors and special interests. So the 
national interest is to reduce unemployment, certainly, and to create 
rising wages. That is our responsibility in this body. Let's get on 
with it.
  I want to say how great it is to see my friend Senator Enzi. I am 
taking up his time. I hope I have not kept him too late. He works late 
anyway. But he has been a great principled supporter of immigration 
reform and is opposed to the bill that came before us. I thank the 
Senator for his work on so many of these issues but immigration reform 
is on my mind today. It is great to see the Senator.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. ENZI. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                           Health Care Reform

  Mr. ENZI. Madam President, a lot of Americans are worried right now 
about their health insurance. They know what is coming. Seniors have 
been turned down by their doctors for Medicare treatment because the 
doctors are not adequately compensated. If they have not been turned 
down, they know someone who has been turned down.
  Medicaid is uncertain and a stigma. On the one hand, advances in 
medical technology and the capabilities and knowledge of our health 
care providers mean we are living longer and have more tools at hand 
than ever before to address diseases and illnesses.
  However, on the other hand, this increasing life expectancy, coupled 
with the aging of our population and the steady increases in health 
care costs, means our health care system is on the verge of becoming 
completely unsustainable financially.
  All across the country health insurance rates are skyrocketing. 
Families are struggling to cope with the higher costs and less choice. 
Employees are losing coverage and they are losing working hours. 
Businesses are not hiring. At the center of this uncertainty is the 
President's health care law. A number of provisions have already gone 
into effect, but we will not experience the full force of the law until 
2014; that is, January.
  The Democrats' ``go it alone'' health care reform plan in 2009 was 
the first major piece of legislation to pass Congress without a 
bipartisan vote. Let me repeat that again. The Democratic ``go it 
alone'' health care reform plan in 2009 was the first major piece of 
legislation to pass Congress without a bipartisan vote. When you have a 
partisan bill you get partisan results.
  After 20,000 pages of regulations and still a lot more to come, they 
are a little behind on those, and after over 150 new bureaucratic 
boards, agencies, and programs, the Federal Government still cannot 
figure out how to make the law work and has had to delay it, in part.
  What I have seen to date is enough to convince me that we need a 
different path. I opposed the health care law initially and I support 
full repeal of the law. Fixing our health care system does not have to 
be divisive or partisan. There are clear differences in the approach to 
fixing health care from all across the political ideological spectrum. 
However, the least we have to do is to dismantle the worst parts of the 
law and replace them with reforms that actually work, reforms that 
lower cost and expand choice, reforms that do not bankrupt the country 
and every taxpayer.
  The Federal Government needs to support viable solutions when needed 
and refrain from handcuffing innovative private designs with the 
excessive regulations for narrowed political interests. We need more 
competition, not less.
  Unless we take concrete steps now, we will soon be unable to switch 
off the track toward government-run health care. When I first got here, 
I was warned that there were people who did not care who ran the train 
of health as long as it wrecked. Then we could have universal single-
pay, government-run health care. I am not sure that is not still the 
goal.
  One clear example of how convoluted this law is comes from the 
definition of who an employee is. I used to work in the shoe business, 
so I understand the difference between full-time work, which was 40 
hours a week, and part-time work, which was under 40 hours a week.
  However, under the health care law, there are now full-time employees 
and full-time equivalents. What this means is the law requires 
employers, and particularly small businesses, to determine how many of 
their part-time employees it takes to equal a full-time employee. They 
don't come under the full force of the law until they hit 50 employees. 
There are businesses that understand that, and they are trying to avoid 
getting to the 50th employee. But there are some catches in this law.

[[Page 12968]]

  First of all, the health care law sets full time at 30 hours, not 40 
hours per week but 30 hours. It was news to me. It always was 40 hours.
  Second, the law requires these employers to take everyone working 29 
hours a week or less, combine all of their time for a week, and then 
divide by the number 30 to establish how many full-time equivalents 
these part-time workers represent. I don't think a lot of people 
planned on that.
  If you are still following along at this point, congratulations. You 
can see how costly the taxes imposed by this law will be.
  What if the rule forces you to add all of your employees' hours and 
divide by 30 hours to determine your full-time employees? What if you 
have 10 employees who are working 40 hours? That would be 400 hours. If 
you divided that by 30 and find out that you are paying 10 people, but 
you actually have 13\1/3\ employees at the full-time requirement, that 
could put you over the 50 and put you into a whole different category 
of costs and penalties.
  If you have 10 employees and you watched it so that there are only 29 
hours, that comes to 290 hours. If you divided that by 30, you would 
find out that even though none of these people are full-time employees, 
you have 9\2/3\ full-time employees. You can see how they could do a 
little miscalculation, suddenly be at the 50, and be into a whole new 
series of penalties.
  The Obama administration also had to admit recently that the employer 
mandate, one of the key pieces of the law, isn't ready.
  One of the most economically crushing and burdensome regulations will 
not be implemented until past 2014, past the 2014 election in 2015. I 
don't think that was a mistake on their part. I think it was 
intentional--to come after the election.
  There is another little complication that gets thrown in here though. 
If those employers are not providing the health insurance and not being 
fined for not providing the health insurance, then the people who work 
for them have to go on the exchange to get their health insurance. If 
they go on the exchange to get their health insurance, they can't be 
subsidized by the businesses they worked for. That is going to be a 
surprise to a lot of employees too.
  The delay will force more people to enroll in health care exchanges 
or face the tax penalty if they don't. A lot of people don't realize if 
they do go on the exchange, there is also a surcharge on the cost of 
their health insurance. They are going to be paying a 3.5 percent tax 
for buying the insurance. Of course, if they don't buy the insurance, 
then they get a penalty.
  The delay was also made for the businesses without congressional 
approval, done administratively. The Congressional Budget Office and 
the Joint Committee on Taxation informed Senator Hatch this week that 
this delay will increase the cost of the new insurance program 
established by law by $12 billion. It is not as if we had an extra $12 
billion laying around here.
  In particular, the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint 
Committee on Taxation estimated that the Federal Government will be 
required to pay an additional $3 billion in subsidies for people on the 
exchanges. A lot of extra costs were just kicked in there. This delay 
not only increases the costs on hard-working Americans, but it fails 
the original intent of health care reform, and that is to provide 
Americans with high quality, affordable health care.
  In addition, the law requires the administration to set up health 
insurance exchanges in a number of States, including Wyoming. We are 
sparsely populated, low numbers. The numbers wouldn't work out to do 
our own exchange.
  One problem is the administration has yet to tell anyone exactly how 
they are going to do those exchanges or what even a basic plan is. If 
you are going to have a range of plans that insurance companies can bid 
on, that you can look up on the computer, doesn't it seem, before you 
can even start, that you would have to know what the basic plan is?
  How the President can argue that everyone will love the health care 
law once it goes into effect is beyond me. This administration can't 
even tell anyone where they can buy their insurance, what plan options 
will be available, and, most importantly, what the costs will be.
  Remember what Nancy Pelosi said before they passed the law? They will 
have to pass the bill before we get to know what is in it. The 
administration is shopping its own version of that statement.
  As the Senate Finance Committee chairman put it recently: this law is 
a train wreck waiting to happen. That is the Democratic Senate Finance 
Committee chairman.
  Of course, on top of all of this, the law relies in part on new taxes 
and tax subsidies to support the coverage expansion.
  This means the IRS will be involved in implementation. I have 
significant concerns with the ability of the IRS, particularly in the 
wake of the current scandal. The fact that this organization, the IRS--
tainted by such political behavior--is involved in implementing the new 
health care law has increased my belief that the health care law is not 
something the country wants or needs. Of course, the IRS employees 
don't want to come under this law either. I don't know of anybody who 
really wants to come under it.
  I will take a close look at proposals to remove the IRS from any 
implementation activities, but I do think they should be subject to the 
law too. At the same time, I will continue to work to provide folks 
with relief from the health care law as a whole.
  One of the things they have said if you are going on the exchange is, 
if you are in certain income categories, then you get a subsidy from 
the government to help you purchase your insurance. We are told now 
that will be self-reporting and will not be subject to audit. Doesn't 
that sound like something that could be fraught with a lot of fraud, 
where you say you just make enough to get into the biggest subsidies? 
Everybody wouldn't do that, of course, but I think there are some who 
would.
  How is the government doing on some of the things that they already 
put into effect? I saw a little article on high-risk pools. When the 
bill went in, a lot of the States already had high-risk pools, and we 
worked with States to make those viable, but the Federal Government 
said we could do it for less. They put in a high-risk pool.
  To keep people from jumping from the State ones, which, yes, are more 
expensive, over into the Federal one, which is less expensive, they 
said you couldn't make the jump unless you were without insurance for 6 
months. People who are in the high-risk pool can't afford to be without 
insurance for 6 months.
  There wasn't a big jump to the high-risk pool. But in spite of the 
fact that there wasn't a jump to the high-risk pool, the Federal high-
risk pool went broke. It ran out of money.
  Here is the disturbing part of that article. They said, well, they 
would just shift that cost over to the States. The States are already 
doing it, and they are doing the right thing. Now they are going to be 
asked to pick up the additional costs. How many parts of ObamaCare are 
going to get shifted over to the States? The States have had a lot of 
promises. Can any of those promises be met? Will they be met? A lot of 
decisions are being based on what the Federal Government promised.
  Of course, in truth, we are out of money. The new law also tried to 
address the problem of rising health care costs. I believe the Federal 
fiscal situation is untenable, and we need to implement significant and 
far-reaching spending cuts to get our fiscal house in order. We cannot 
continue on our current path.
  The President and his administration will argue that the new law will 
expand access and lower costs. While the law certainly increases access 
to insurance, it also moved billions of dollars from the Medicare 
Program to pay for this new insurance program. That is not exactly 
saving the government money.
  The projections for lower costs also don't add up for the average 
American either. Insurance premiums and rates

[[Page 12969]]

are increasing. Small businesses are unable to continue to provide 
health insurance for their workers.
  Businesses in general have delayed hiring or are only hiring people 
part time--although I hope they listen to the part that I gave about 
the little part-time catch that is built into the law.
  All of these decisions are directly driven by the economic impact of 
the health care law. My Senate Republican colleagues and I are focused 
on developing proposals that address the worst aspects of the health 
care law. The law increases premiums and health care costs, forces 
employers to stop offering insurance to their employees, and slashes 
benefits for millions of Medicare beneficiaries.
  I support repealing both the cap on health savings accounts, flexible 
spending accounts, and the prohibition on over-the-counter purchases 
included in the health care law.
  Flexible spending accounts help make consumers more aware and engage 
in their health care spending.
  Health savings accounts are something that young, healthy staffers of 
the Senate like to do. They can do the math real easy. They can look at 
the regular program and see how much that would cost or they could take 
a look at health savings accounts. The difference in the price, in only 
3 years they could cover the whole deductible part as long as they were 
healthy for 3 years. They would be covered for that part until 
something major happened--and they were covered for catastrophic--so 
they found that to be a real bargain. But not anymore.
  Additionally, a number of other Senators and I have put forward bills 
to repeal the taxes imposed by the President's health care law. That 
would be relief from new taxes on prescription drugs, relief from new 
taxes on medical devices, and relief from new taxes on health insurance 
plans. I wish to provide relief to employers from new regulations 
imposed on them by the law.
  These ideas preserve competition in a private market for health care 
coverage and lower the cost of care for the consumer. All of these 
steps are commonsense reforms to the health care law that take us off 
the path toward a national, Federal health care system.
  One of the most effective ways Congress can address the rising costs 
of health care is to focus on the way it is delivered as part of the 
Nation's current cost-driven and ineffective patient care system. 
America's broken fee-for-service structure is driving our Nation's 
health care system further downward.
  Today's method of payment encourages providers to see as many 
patients and prescribe as many treatments as possible, but it does 
nothing to reward providers who keep patients healthy. Maligned 
incentives created by the fee-for-service system drive up costs and 
hurt patient care.
  Tackling this issue is a good start to reining in rising health care 
costs. The health care law championed by President Obama and the 
majority party in the Senate did little to address these problems 
because the vast majority of the legislation involved a massive 
expansion of the government price controls found in the fee-for-service 
Medicare and Medicaid Programs.
  If we wish to address the threat posed by out-of-control entitlement 
spending, we need to restructure Medicare to better align incentives 
for providers and beneficiaries. This will not only lower health care 
costs, it will also improve the quality of care for millions of 
Americans. It is very important that we protect access to rural health 
care services too.
  There is more that can be done to better align Federal programs to 
meet the needs of rural and frontier States. The criteria that 
determine eligibility for Federal funds to support rural health care 
programs are based on factors that make it difficult to prove the needs 
of the underserved, rural, and frontier areas.
  For example, one provider for 3,500 people in New York City is 
entirely different than the 3,500 people living in Fremont, Campbell 
County or, perhaps more so, Niobrara County. I use Niobrara County 
quite a bit, for example, because Niobrara County is the size of 
Delaware and has 2,500 people living in it. It is 90 miles tall, 75 
miles wide, and near the bottom of the center is a town called Lusk. 
This is where almost all of the people live. They do have a hospital 
there.
  When they have a doctor or a physician's assistant, the hospital is 
open. When they do not, they are 104 miles from a trauma center.
  You can't apply the same rules to that hospital that you apply to New 
York City hospitals. In addition, we need to think more creatively 
about how to use technology services, to improve telemedicine 
capabilities, particularly for the rural areas so that where a person 
lives has less impact on the level of care they are able to receive.
  The advancement of more powerful, wireless technologies has 
substantial potential to remotely link individuals across the country 
to deliver health care in more accessible settings. Our Nation has made 
great strides in improving the quality of life for all Americans. We 
need to remember that every major legislative initiative that has 
helped transform our country has been forged in the spirit of 
cooperation. These qualities are essential to the success and longevity 
of crucial programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.
  When it comes to health care decisions being made in Washington 
lately, the only thing the government is doing well is increasing 
partisanship and legislative gridlock. The President and Democrats need 
to listen. It is time to admit that this partisan experiment in 
government-run health care is failing. In order for this to get better, 
they must acknowledge the problem. Some of the law's authors and 
biggest supporters admit this law is a mess, and it will only get 
worse.
  However, those in the Democratic leadership continue to support 
flawed health care laws out of pride, politics, or a belief that the 
government knows best. It makes no sense to stubbornly cling to a law 
that is so massive, burdensome, bureaucratic, and confusing that it is 
collapsing under its own weight.
  By focusing on positive changes, Congress can give the failed law's 
proponents a way out. The key is finding common ground. More often than 
not, the country hears about what divides Congress instead of what 
unifies us. We could come together and focus on commonsense solutions 
with the kinds of step-by-step reforms that would protect Americans. I 
believe Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle can agree on 80 
percent of an issue 100 percent of the time.
  I want to be clear that this isn't compromise. When you compromise, 
each side gives up something they believe in, and in the end they get 
something no one believes in. I am about agreeing on common ground 
without compromise, without sacrificing each party's principles, by 
leaving out parts of the issue to look for a solution later.
  Congress also needs to stop deal-making and start legislating. We 
need to stop developing comprehensive bills and then marketing them as 
the only option. To me, comprehensive means incomprehensible. The 
larger a bill is, the harder it is to agree. And, of course, you can 
tuck some things in there that people never see. This is especially 
true when we pass a bill that no one has fully read and then afterwards 
we find out what is in it.
  No party has all the good ideas. By working together, the end result 
should be something that not only works but moves the country forward 
in a responsible way.
  We still need health care reform, but it has to be the right way, 
with strong bipartisan support on individual health care issues. What 
happened to individual choice on a policy? What happened to liability 
reform? What about the sale of insurance across State lines or pooling 
through an association so they have leverage against the insurance 
companies? What happened to adequate compensation for providers? All of 
these have been left out. Providing Americans with access to affordable 
health care at a high quality is something Republicans and Democrats 
should be able to agree upon.
  The challenges of the American health care system are not going away.

[[Page 12970]]

If we improve health care in a practical instead of a political way, we 
can make its better. Good policy is good politics. Why do I have some 
hope this is going to happen? Congress is more interested now than they 
have ever been, and the reason is there was a Republican--yes, there 
was one Republican provision in the bill that forced Congress to go 
into the exchanges too. We and our staffs have to live under the law we 
passed. That is how it should be. But the result is hitting everyone in 
their offices right now. Every Senator and every Representative is 
looking at what may happen to their staff on January 1, and their 
staffs are concerned. It has changed the tenor of some of the hearings 
we are having. It is pretty hard-hitting on both sides. So with that, I 
do have hope.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.


                         Postal Service Reform

  Mr. CARPER. Madam President, most of our colleagues have finished, a 
lot of them packed up and are heading back to their home States to 
begin the August recess. I wish them all well, especially the one who 
just preceded me on the floor tonight.
  I stand between the staff here and the pages who are wrapping up 
their summer with us--at least a month with us. They will be heading 
back to their home States across America. We had one of our pages--a 
page, actually, in the last group, at the beginning of the summer--from 
Delaware, and we are very proud of her and all the ones who have been 
here. I have told them they are among the best group we have ever had--
even that guy from Arkansas, whose mom used to sit right down here in 
the row next to Mark Pryor and me.
  I thank the staff for their hard work throughout the course of this 
year. I think we are in a good place, and the Senate is starting to act 
more like the Senate of old. We are beginning to govern a little more 
from the center, and Democrats and Republicans are looking to find new 
ways to work together on a wide range of issues.
  I am especially pleased with the progress we made on the Federal 
student loan program, again trying to make sure the program is 
available and at a reasonable interest rate cost to help make sure a 
lot of students, young and old, if they need help, can sign up for 
student loans late this summer and fall and then go back to school and 
complete their education.
  Senator Enzi used the numbers 80-20. In the time I have known him, he 
has talked about the 80-20 rule, of which he may be the architect. The 
80-20 rule is something like this: Around here, we agree on about 80 
percent of the stuff and may disagree on about 20 percent of the stuff. 
But in the end, why don't we just focus on the 80 percent we agree on 
and set aside the 20 percent we don't agree on and then take that up 
another day?
  That is the spirit Senator Tom Coburn, who is the ranking Republican 
on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and 
I have taken to an issue that needs to be addressed, and that is a path 
forward in making sure we have a strong postal system in this country, 
as we have had for over 200 years. We need to have a strong, vibrant, 
financially strong, and sustainable postal system for a long time, for 
as long as we are going to be a country.
  The nature of our needs and the way we communicate has changed 
dramatically. I remember finding in my parents' home, oh gosh, about 5 
or 6 years ago, when, after my dad had died, my mom was going to move 
out of her home in Florida up close to my sister in Kentucky, this 
treasure trove of love letters my parents exchanged during World War 
II. For others of you whose parents have been in similar situations and 
whose folks were part of the ``greatest generation,'' you may have 
uncovered a treasure trove of letters like that as well. They wrote 
literally every day--just about every day through the war.
  I remember that the happiest days I spent in Southeast Asia, in the 
several tours I served there in the early 1970s, the happiest days for 
us each week were the days we got the mail. Those were the best days--
letters from home, cards, postcards, newspapers, magazines. Those were 
great days.
  Our troops in Afghanistan still get mail. They still get letters and 
postcards and birthday cards, Father's Day and Mother's Day cards, but 
it is different because they have Skype and cell phones and a lot of 
other ways to communicate.
  I asked my staff recently to go back 12 years ago to when I first 
came here and tell me how many e-mails we got for every letter we 
sent--tell me how many e-mails we got for every letter we sent and 
received. It turns out for every 1 e-mail we received, we received 10 
or 12 letters. That was just like 10 or 12 years ago. Then I asked them 
to tell me what it is today, and it has flipped. It is just the 
opposite. For every letter we get, we receive roughly 10 or 12 e-mails. 
So the way we communicate in this country has changed, and that is just 
one clear example of it for us here on Capitol Hill.
  The Postal Service has struggled much like the U.S. auto industry did 
in the last decade or two to try to make a go of it. The auto industry 
found themselves in a situation where they had more plants than they 
needed, more suppliers than they needed, they had really in some ways 
more different models than they needed, and they had, sadly, more 
employees than they needed given their market share, which was about 85 
percent when I was in Southeast Asia, and it dropped to about 45 
percent 3 or 4 years ago. Fortunately, the auto industry in this 
country has revived, is vibrant, and is coming back. They are hiring 
and building cars--award-winning, highly energy efficient cars.
  The auto industry was an industry that had to retool itself and right 
size itself for the 21st century, and they have done that and done it 
well. The big three in the United States are back and building some of 
the best cars in the world. We are proud of the work they do, and they 
are not only hiring people but are paying bonuses to their people, and 
it has turned out to be a really great success story. These were 
companies that were literally going into bankruptcy--GM, Chrysler--not 
that many years ago. They are back, and we are a better country. Thank 
God we helped them get back. And Ford builds great vehicles.
  What do we do about the Postal Service? The Postal Service has about 
7 million people working for it or who have jobs that are related or 
are connected directly or indirectly to the Postal Service--7 million 
jobs. What do we do about them?
  I think what we need to do and are trying to do is contained in the 
legislation Dr. Coburn and I are introducing tonight, which we have 
worked on for the last 6 months. I really thank him and his staff, 
especially Chris Barkley, who is here on the floor with us, who has 
worked very closely and hard with John Kilvington, who is a member of 
the majority staff at the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs 
Committee.
  We want to thank a lot of people, Democratic and Republican staff, 
majority and minority staff, for the terrific work they have done to 
try to find the middle, to focus on that 80 percent we can agree on, 
and the 20 percent we can't agree on, we will put off until another 
day.
  The legislation we have written, put simply, addresses how we make 
possible and ensure that this Postal Service--which was literally 
spelled out and called for in our Constitution all those years ago--is 
still relevant today; that it is able to be financially viable today 
and help meet our communication needs today in a different age, in a 
digital age. They can do this. They can do this. There is a lot in the 
legislation that will help make that possible.
  We have not written a perfect bill. The ones I have ever written or 
coauthored or authored, believe it or not, are not perfect. We do our 
best, and then we introduce the legislation and ask other people who 
have similar or different views to tell us what they like about our 
legislation and what they do not like.
  In introducing this legislation, we would invite folks from around 
the

[[Page 12971]]

country, whether they happen to be residents, consumers, people living 
in homes, families who rely on the mail, whether they happen to be 
businesses that use the mail broadly or whether they happen to be folks 
who send out magazines or catalogs or other nonprofit groups or other 
folks who work for the Postal Service, the employees, those who are 
retired, the customers of the Postal Service--we welcome their input as 
they have a chance to look over what we have written. We ask them to 
see if they can help us make it better.
  Over in the House of Representatives, Congressmen Issa and Cummings 
have been working, along with their colleagues, on legislation. It has 
been reported out of committee over there, I think on a party-line 
vote.
  One of the things that was important to me was to write a bipartisan 
bill. Dr. Coburn wanted us to write a bipartisan bill. Neither one of 
us got everything we wanted. The nature of compromise is there are some 
things that, frankly, you are not all that enamored with, and that is 
the case here. Our pledge going forward is to continue to work 
together, to ask Democrats and Republicans to help us improve on this 
legislation.
  The challenge for us is this: In a digital age where people use Skype 
and Internet and Twitter and all, how do we enable the Postal Service 
to use what is truly unique--and it is a unique company, if you will; 
it is a public-private company, although a big company, the second 
largest employer in the country, and it is a business that goes to 
every mailbox in this country 5 to 6 days a week--to make a profit, to 
be financially sustainable, and to meet our communication needs without 
a huge ongoing reliance from the taxpayer, from the Treasury, to do 
that? I think they can do it. I think they can do it. I think the 
legislation we have written will help make that possible.
  I want to say a special thanks to a number of folks. I want to thank 
the Postal Service, led by Pat Donahoe, the Postmaster General; the 
Board of Governors there, which is part of the Postal Service: the 
folks who represent hundreds of thousands of postal workers through the 
union; the businesses across the country that use and rely on the 
Postal Service; and a lot of customers--regular people who have given 
us their ideas and shared their ideas with us from towns large and 
small, cities and States large and small. We look forward to their 
input and their criticism--constructive, we hope--to make this 
legislation even better.
  I would again say to our staffs who worked so hard to get us to this 
point a very special thank you.
  To our colleagues on both sides of the aisle, we look forward to 
working with you to make what we think is a good bill even better. I 
like to say that everything I do, I know I can do better. If it isn't 
perfect, make it better. And my last thought on this is that the road 
to improvement is always under construction.
  So we have some more work to do, and we will take what is a good 
bipartisan bill and hopefully make it a lot better.
  Madam President, with that, I will say good night to you. I look 
forward to seeing you in about 5 or 6 weeks. My best to you and the 
people you so ably represent in New Hampshire. God bless.
  With that, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________