[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Pages 558-573]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




      EMERGENCY UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION EXTENSION ACT--Continued

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the time until 2:30 
p.m. will be equally divided and controlled between the two leaders.
  The Senator from Alabama.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I wish to share briefly a few thoughts 
about where we are. We have before us an unemployment bill and the 
pending business is the Reid amendment that

[[Page 559]]

would extend unemployment benefits for a full year, and none of it is 
paid for effectively. All of it violates the Budget Act. It is 
unthinkable that we would pass another $17 billion that would add to 
the debt of the United States--every billion of it, every single dollar 
of it borrowed, much of it from people around the world who are not 
friendly to us. So this is not a good way for us to start.
  It is subject to a budget point of order because it violates our 
spending limits and that has been confirmed. I know the Presiding 
Officer is a member of the Budget Committee. It has been confirmed by 
Senator Murray and her staff, the Democratic leadership on the Budget 
Committee, that it violates the budget. So that means if it is not 
fixed--and I understand there is some attempt going on at this time to 
maybe rewrite it in a way that actually has a legitimate pay-for, to 
provide assistance to those who are long-term unemployed but paid for 
without adding to the debt of the United States.
  I will remind my colleagues that in December we passed the Murray-
Ryan legislation which set limits on spending, and the President signed 
it into law just 2 weeks ago. As soon as we waltz into the U.S. Senate 
in January of this year, we have a piece of legislation that bursts the 
budget entirely. It is an utter violation of the spending agreements we 
agreed to. So I hope our colleagues can present something to us that 
would lay out an effective way to handle those who are unemployed and 
would also pay for the legislation. That is what we have to do.
  This is how we go broke. This is what has happened. We made a promise 
when the legislation passed in December to cap spending and stay within 
that limit. That is the law that is being violated 1 month later, if 
this were to pass. Hopefully, it will not pass. I don't believe the 
House will pass legislation that adds another $17 trillion to the debt 
and not add--I just don't think that is possible.
  This is a process that is not healthy. I urge our colleagues to 
understand that if this legislation is not fixed--if the Reid amendment 
is not fixed and paid for--I intend to move to object to it, to raise a 
budget point of order. It will take 60 votes to override the budget we 
just agreed to. I don't believe 60 Members of this Senate will so vote.
  I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. 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. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Manchin). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, what is the issue before the Senate?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The motion to commit is the pending question.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I am going to offer a consent agreement 
based on the conversations I have had with a number of Republicans, and 
a long conversation with my caucus just a few minutes ago. I am going 
to speak for a few minutes because I know everybody has a lot to do, 
but we have all been working hard to find a way to extend unemployment 
insurance benefits for 1.4 million Americans who are struggling to get 
by.
  We have a filibuster before us again--another one. First, Republicans 
complained they were filibustering these essential benefits because the 
extension was not paid for. So Senator Reed of Rhode Island came 
forward with a pay-for amendment. Then Republicans complained, they 
were filibustering because they had not been able to offer amendments. 
So a proposal was made--and I am going to do that in a short time with 
a unanimous consent request--that would give each side a reasonable 
number of amendments--five, to be specific. Now Republicans say they 
want to have their amendments and have a cloture vote to pass the bill 
too.
  Sounds as though Republicans want to, for lack of a better way to 
describe this, have their cake and eat it too. The question is, are 
Republicans filibustering unemployment insurance benefits or are they 
not?
  If we have an amendment process, then what we should get in exchange 
is an up-or-down vote on the bill, and that is what my consent 
agreement will call for. Republicans who don't like extending 
unemployment insurance benefits can still vote no on the bill, but we 
should at least be able to have a vote on the bill. But we can't set up 
a system where the minority of the Senate, which opposes unemployment 
insurance benefits, gets both an amendment process where they can offer 
these poison-pill amendments and then the minority of the Senate, 
again, that opposes the bill, can still kill the bill. This doesn't 
make a lot of sense.
  I know everybody has worked hard to try to work through this 
process--to kind of thread the needle. I told a number of Republican 
Senators I met with a little while ago, as my Democratic Senators know, 
that we think there should be a new day in the Senate. We think we 
should start by whatever comes up next--whether it is flood insurance, 
unemployment compensation, whatever is next--by having a reasonable 
number of relevant amendments, and see if we, as Senators, can work our 
way through a bill doing that. If we can do that a few times, maybe we 
will get better and start having some nonrelevant amendments, but at 
least let us start someplace so Senators here can have the experience 
of offering amendments--both us and the Republicans--and try to get 
some legislation passed.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the cloture motions with 
respect to the Reed of Rhode Island amendment No. 2631 and S. 1845 be 
vitiated; that the motion to commit and amendment No. 2631 be 
withdrawn; that a substitute amendment, which is at the desk, be made 
pending; that there be up to five amendments related to the bill from 
each side in order to the substitute amendment; further, that each of 
these amendments be subject to a side-by-side amendment if the opposing 
side chooses to offer one; amendments under this agreement must be 
offered no later than 4 p.m. Wednesday, January 15; that no other 
amendments or motions to commit be in order; that no points of order be 
in order to the substitute or the underlying bill; that each amendment 
have up to 1 hour of debate equally divided; that upon the use or 
yielding back of time on each of the amendments offered, the Senate 
proceed to vote in relation to the amendments to the substitute in the 
order offered with any side-by-side amendment vote occurring prior to 
the amendment to which it was offered; that all of the amendments to 
the substitute be subject to a 60-affirmative-vote threshold; that upon 
disposition of the amendments, the bill be read a third time, as 
amended, if amended, and the Senate proceed to vote on passage of the 
bill; that if the bill is passed, the Senate immediately proceed to the 
consideration of Calendar No. 192, H.R. 2009; that all after the 
enacting clause be stricken and the text of S. 1845, as passed by the 
Senate, be inserted in lieu thereof; that the bill, as amended, be read 
a third time and passed; that an amendment to the title be considered 
and agreed to; and the motions to reconsider be considered made and 
laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The minority leader.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, we have 
now been on this bill a week--a week. No amendments have been allowed. 
It is pretty clear the majority leader is not interested in having an 
open amendment process. And, of course, the consent request that has 
just been offered requires that all of the Republican amendments be at 
a 60-vote threshold and that final passage be at 51--in other words, 
guaranteed to fix the result in such a way that doesn't give the 
minority a fair chance.
  I mean, who is to say, a number of our amendments might be appealing 
to Members on the Democratic side. That

[[Page 560]]

is probably why the majority leader wants it to be at 60, because he is 
afraid they may pass.
  So this has obviously been fixed to guarantee that you get no 
outcome. Of course, our Members who voted to get on the bill, who are 
anxious to try to improve the bill and find a way to get us to final 
passage, have also found this agreement to be unacceptable. So I am not 
speaking just for myself but for the Members on my side who have spent 
a lot of time over the last week trying to figure a way to get this 
bill across the floor in a bipartisan fashion which would actually 
achieve the result and try to get us to some reforms as well.
  So I ask unanimous consent that once the Senate resumes consideration 
of S. 1845, the unemployment extension bill, the first amendment in 
order be a Heller-Collins amendment related to the bill. I further ask 
unanimous consent that following the disposition of that amendment, it 
be in order for the majority leader, or his designee, to offer an 
amendment, and it be in order for the leaders or their designees to 
continue to offer amendments in an alternating fashion.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. REID. Reserving the right to object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, we have seen in the last little bit a 
significant number of statements on the floor and op-ed pieces written 
about process--process.
  On this side we have been talking about 1.4 million Americans needing 
help getting past the real financial crisis they find.
  It seems interesting to me the only fix to get no outcome is the 
Republican strategy to find something to object to no matter what 
Democrats try. Process--compared to helping in a substantive way people 
who are in trouble, process never wins. We need to move forward.
  My friend talks about amendments. Democrats have amendments. We have 
5 too. Ours would have a 60-vote threshold just like theirs. This is 
the new target that my Republican colleague the Republican leader has 
set. We have a new reality around here of 60 votes. This isn't anything 
I invented. In fact, I wish we would get rid of it and go back to the 
way we used to do it.
  So I repeat. I think this has been constructive. I especially 
appreciate the junior Senator from Nevada and the senior Senator from 
Maine working to come up with something. I am disappointed we couldn't 
work something out. It appears, and I have been told, they are going to 
object to this consent agreement just as I object to modifying my 
consent agreement.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I would like to ask the leader a 
question.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. SCHUMER. Objection.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard to the Republican leader's 
request.
  Is there objection to the majority leader's request?
  Mr. McCONNELL. I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, my friend from New York was standing to 
reserve the right to object.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Reserving the right to object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Let me just say, I think on both sides of the aisle 
there is a real desire to try to work things out so we can have more 
debate, more discussion. It seems to me, from the years I have been 
here--not as long as either leader--there has always been sort of a way 
the place worked, particularly in the old days when it worked better: 
The majority sets the agenda. That is their right as majority. The 
minority has the right to offer amendments--both--amendments that might 
change that agenda and amendments that, frankly, might be tough to vote 
for so the minority can capture the majority again. That has been fair.
  But it seems to me that what my friend the Republican leader is 
saying is: We want all the amendments we want, but we are still going 
to filibuster any bill you bring up. Maybe a few have said: If our 
amendments pass on the other side, maybe we won't filibuster. But that 
is not much of a fair deal.
  So I would suggest that what the Democratic leader has suggested is 
eminently fair. It gives the minority--no matter who it is--their time-
honored right to offer amendments, difficult amendments. That is part 
of the deal. But it gives the majority the right to set the agenda and 
not have the things they bring forward filibustered ipso facto and not 
be allowed to come to a vote.
  It is in fact true, as I understand it, that a couple of those who 
are offering amendments on the other side of the aisle have stated that 
if their amendment doesn't pass, they won't allow us to come to a vote.
  So I hope we could proceed along the way the majority leader suggests 
and not to simply offer amendments--relevant, not relevant; germane, 
not germane--and then make it almost certain the bill will be 
filibustered and that we won't be able to get an up-or-down vote. All 
we are asking is an up-or-down vote on employment insurance.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, regular order.
  Mr. SCHUMER. So I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Republican leader.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I believe I objected to the majority leader's request.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator did so.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to call up the 
Heller amendment No. 2651.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. REID. I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I ask unanimous consent to call up the Coburn 
amendment No. 2606.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. REID. I object.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Parliamentary inquiry: Is it correct that no Senator 
is permitted to offer an amendment to the unemployment insurance bill 
while the majority leader's motion to commit with instructions with 
further amendments is pending?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Further parliamentary inquiry: If a motion to table 
the Reid motion to commit with a further amendment is successful, would 
there still be Reed amendments pending that would prevent anyone from 
offering an amendment?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I have an important amendment that I 
would like the Senate to debate and vote on. The Reid motion to commit 
is currently blocking the consideration of those amendments.
  In order for the Senate to start considering amendments, including 
the Coburn amendment No. 2606, I move to table the pending Reid motion 
to commit with instructions and I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I do have a right to object to this; do I 
not?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct, but the question is on 
the cloture motion. It takes consent for the motion to be tabled.
  Mr. REID. I am not objecting.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second? There is a 
sufficient second.
  The question is on the motion to table.
  The yeas and nays are ordered.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  The result was announced--yeas 45, nays 55, as follows:

                       [Rollcall Vote No. 8 Leg.]

                                YEAS--45

     Alexander
     Ayotte
     Barrasso
     Blunt
     Boozman
     Burr

[[Page 561]]


     Chambliss
     Coats
     Coburn
     Cochran
     Collins
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Crapo
     Cruz
     Enzi
     Fischer
     Flake
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hatch
     Heller
     Hoeven
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Johanns
     Johnson (WI)
     Kirk
     Lee
     McCain
     McConnell
     Moran
     Murkowski
     Paul
     Portman
     Risch
     Roberts
     Rubio
     Scott
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Thune
     Toomey
     Vitter
     Wicker

                                NAYS--55

     Baldwin
     Baucus
     Begich
     Bennet
     Blumenthal
     Booker
     Boxer
     Brown
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Coons
     Donnelly
     Durbin
     Feinstein
     Franken
     Gillibrand
     Hagan
     Harkin
     Heinrich
     Heitkamp
     Hirono
     Johnson (SD)
     Kaine
     King
     Klobuchar
     Landrieu
     Leahy
     Levin
     Manchin
     Markey
     McCaskill
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Mikulski
     Murphy
     Murray
     Nelson
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Rockefeller
     Sanders
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Warner
     Warren
     Whitehouse
     Wyden
  The motion was rejected.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the next two 
votes be 10 minutes in duration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                             Cloture Motion

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The cloture motion having been presented under 
rule XXII, the Chair directs the clerk to read the motion.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

                             Cloture Motion

       We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the 
     provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, 
     hereby move to bring to a close debate on amendment No. 2631 
     to S. 1845, a bill to provide for the extension of certain 
     unemployment benefits, and for other purposes.
         Harry Reid, Jack Reed, Martin Heinrich, Richard 
           Blumenthal, Michael F. Bennet, Richard J. Durbin, Patty 
           Murray, Max Baucus, Debbie Stabenow, Bill Nelson, Amy 
           Klobuchar, Thomas R. Carper, Edward J. Markey, Benjamin 
           L. Cardin, Sheldon Whitehouse, Charles E. Schumer, 
           Patrick J. Leahy.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum 
call has been waived.
  The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on 
amendment No. 2631 to S. 1845, a bill to provide for the extension of 
certain unemployment benefits, and for other purposes, shall be brought 
to a close?
  The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 52, nays 48, as follows:

                       [Rollcall Vote No. 9 Leg.]

                                YEAS--52

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

                                NAYS--48

     Alexander
     Ayotte
     Barrasso
     Bennet
     Blunt
     Boozman
     Burr
     Chambliss
     Coats
     Coburn
     Cochran
     Collins
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Crapo
     Cruz
     Enzi
     Fischer
     Flake
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hatch
     Heller
     Hoeven
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Johanns
     Johnson (WI)
     Kirk
     Landrieu
     Lee
     McCain
     McConnell
     Moran
     Murkowski
     Paul
     Portman
     Risch
     Roberts
     Rubio
     Scott
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Thune
     Toomey
     Udall (CO)
     Vitter
     Wicker
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 52, the nays are 
48. Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn not having voted 
in the affirmative, the motion is rejected.


                             Cloture Motion

  Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before the Senate the pending 
cloture motion, which the clerk will state.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

                             Cloture Motion

       We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the 
     provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, 
     hereby move to bring to a close debate on S. 1845, a bill to 
     provide for the extension of certain unemployment benefits, 
     and for other purposes.
         Harry Reid, Jack Reed, Amy Klobuchar, Elizabeth Warren, 
           Richard J. Durbin, Sheldon Whitehouse, Edward J. 
           Markey, Tammy Baldwin, Patrick J. Leahy, Christopher A. 
           Coons, Barbara A. Mikulski, Patty Murray, Mark Warner, 
           Mazie K. Hirono, Christopher Murphy, Tom Harkin, 
           Sherrod Brown.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum 
call has been waived.
  The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on S. 
1845, a bill to provide for the extension of certain unemployment 
benefits, and for other purposes, shall be brought to a close?
  The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 55, nays 45, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 10 Leg.]

                                YEAS--55

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

                                NAYS--45

     Alexander
     Ayotte
     Barrasso
     Blunt
     Boozman
     Burr
     Chambliss
     Coats
     Coburn
     Cochran
     Collins
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Crapo
     Cruz
     Enzi
     Fischer
     Flake
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hatch
     Hoeven
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Johanns
     Johnson (WI)
     Kirk
     Lee
     McCain
     McConnell
     Moran
     Murkowski
     Paul
     Portman
     Reid
     Risch
     Roberts
     Rubio
     Scott
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Thune
     Toomey
     Vitter
     Wicker
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 55, the nays are 
45. Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn not having voted 
in the affirmative, the motion is rejected.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I enter a motion to reconsider the vote by 
which cloture was not invoked on S. 1845.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The motion is entered.
  The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I appreciate very much my colleague, the 
junior Senator from Nevada, voting with us--voting with himself. He is 
a cosponsor of this legislation. He and Jack Reed have done admirably 
good work for the Senate and for the country.
  Everyone should notice on the first matter we tried to invoke cloture 
on, I did not enter a motion to reconsider. I did on this one. This is 
a 3-month unpaid-for. I would hope we could get that passed sometime. 
If we cannot, there is still an effort, I am sure, out there someplace 
where we could find a way to work together to get these people the 
desperate help they need. So that is why I did this, leaving the door 
open for us to work together to try to come up with something.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. REED. I rise to express my extreme disappointment that the Senate 
has been blocked from moving forward on this critical legislation. 
There are about 1.5 million Americans who have lost their unemployment 
insurance since December 28. Every week 70,000 more lose that 
protection, so my disappointment is severe.
  But their situation is much more desperate. We had within our power 
today the ability to move this Senate forward to help our people, to 
help people who only qualified for the program because they worked and 
because they are still

[[Page 562]]

looking for work in one of the most difficult job markets we have seen 
in many decades.
  It is extremely urgent that we act and today we failed to act. We 
have to continue to move forward. The majority leader has procedurally 
put us in a position so we can call up this measure again very quickly. 
We have to continue to work toward a solution. We have to keep the 
economy moving forward and creating jobs. That was what this was about, 
giving people some modest support each week. But also, as the CBO 
estimated, this measure, if extended for the full year, would generate 
200,000 additional jobs. That is, on average, about what we have been 
creating each month. In fact, I will remind my colleagues, last year's 
unemployment insurance benefits were unpaid for and they generated 
additional jobs, not only providing benefits to people who needed it 
and were searching for work but increased economic activity in the 
country, which put people to work.
  I hope my colleagues recognize this legislation they filibustered 
today was the result of significant concessions to many of my 
Republican colleagues. I worked closely with my Republican colleagues. 
We worked to find a way through this thicket so we could help Americans 
who have earned this help.
  I think it is important to make clear how much we moved to try to 
accommodate the major objections and considerations of my colleagues on 
the other side.
  We first proposed--and I proposed--this as emergency spending, unpaid 
for. We received from the other side: No, we can't accept that. It has 
to be paid for.
  We went ahead, and the in the first proposal we voted on today, we 
paid for it. We also responded to another significant concern that we 
not use tax revenues to pay for it, so we avoided tax revenue.
  Next, we went ahead and we adopted a provision to pay for it, to 
provide for many months, 11\1/2\ months of benefits, paid for without 
using revenues.
  Let me also note that this is the exception to the rule. The White 
House, in some of their materials, has noted that ``fourteen of the 
last 17 times in 20 years that it's been extended,'' UI, ``there's been 
no strings attached,'' no pay-fors--emergency spending. But yet we 
listened to the thoughtful comments of our colleagues, we worked 
together closely with them, and we came up with a way to pay for this 
extension for 11\1/2\ months and not to use tax revenues, even though 
many on our side--in fact I would be among them--who would say there 
are egregious loopholes that should be closed regardless of what the 
revenue is used for but could be used to fund these benefits.
  Then we have had this procedural back-and-forth. But today Leader 
Reid offered a series of amendments to the other side, and they 
objected to that offer.
  Let me reiterate. We have tried, not only in very good faith but very 
diligently over the last several days particularly, to try to bring 
something to this floor that could get the 60 votes necessary to help 
these struggling Americans.
  We have incorporated, in fact, in our pay-for, one of the provisions 
Senator Portman suggested with respect to disability payments--which 
was controversial in some respects--but it was, again, another attempt 
to try to look at what my colleagues, on the Republican side as well as 
the Democratic side, were talking about in terms of how we would 
responsibly pay for this measure.
  We have been debating this extension since December. It is time to 
act, and regrettably we did not act today. We have made concessions to 
try to move forward. This was not a take-it-or-leave-it. It has been 
unpaid for 14 times before--and it would have been 15 times now. We 
have to do this. And still we are telling people who are in very 
extreme economic situations, who are depending on this modest $300 a 
week to help them pay their rent, pay their mortgage, put fuel in their 
car, have a cell phone so they can look for work, get to a job 
interview--telling them, no, you are still out in the cold, literally, 
and it is very cold in parts of the country.
  We can't give up. We are not going to give up. I am very encouraged. 
After talking to some of my colleagues on the Republican side, they 
still want to work through this with us. We will accept that 
opportunity to work together.
  Let us remember though what is a disappointing moment today for many 
of us is a dispiriting moment for millions of Americans who do not have 
the modest support unemployment insurance would provide. We have to 
work for them, we have to work for our economy, and we can do both. In 
the weeks ahead and the days ahead we will continue to do that.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.
  Mr. MORAN. As we just heard, the Senate continues to discuss and 
consider an extension of unemployment benefits. Many Americans 
certainly do continue to struggle to find work in today's economy. 
While assistance to those without work serves an important purpose in 
helping Americans in transition, I am fearful we are failing--in fact, 
I know we are failing--to address the underlying and important root 
cause of that unemployment; that is, how do we as Americans grow our 
economy and create jobs for the citizens of our country?
  A growing economy creates new opportunities for Americans to find 
meaningful work. With meaningful work comes the opportunity for 
Americans to improve their economic security and advance up the 
economic ladder.
  In 2012 Senator Wyden and I started the Economic Mobility Caucus that 
met today for the fifth time, exploring ways we could work together to 
create the opportunity for every American to work their way up, have a 
better life, a greater future, more success, and better financial 
stability.
  Unfortunately--again, at the moment, in my view--a lack of leadership 
and partisan politics have prevented action on measures that could 
provide an immediate boost to the economy at little or no cost to the 
American taxpayer.
  Data from the Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City makes clear that 
most new jobs come from the young companies created by entrepreneurs. 
In fact, since 1980, nearly all of the net new jobs that have been 
created by companies are less than 5 years old. These new businesses 
create an average of 3 million jobs each year.
  As of December, approximately 20.6 million Americans were unemployed, 
wanted to work but have stopped searching for a job or are working part 
time because they can't find full-time unemployment. When we talk about 
the unemployment rate, it masks the true story of people who have given 
up looking for a job as well as those who have a part-time job and need 
and desire a full-time job.
  The labor force participation rate has reached its lowest level in 35 
years. At a time when only 62 percent of working-age Americans are 
employed, it is clear we need an economic boost powered by 
entrepreneurship. To jump-start the economy and create jobs for 
Americans, we have put together and I authored bipartisan legislation 
called Startup Act 3.0.
  The Senate majority leader is often talking about the need for 
allowing votes on legislation that has bipartisan support, and this is 
a perfect example of such a bill that ought to be considered by the 
Senate.
  Working with Senator Warner--my primary cosponsor of this bill--and 
Senators Coons, Kaine, Klobuchar, as well as Republican Senators Blunt 
and Rubio, we introduced commonsense legislation that addresses four 
key factors that influence an entrepreneur's chance for success: taxes, 
regulations, innovation, and access to talent.
  It has become all too common in the Senate that we are denied the 
opportunity to have a vote on things that many of us find common 
agreement on, and Startup Act 3.0 is one of those. In fact, I offered, 
along with Senator Warner, Startup Act 3.0 as an amendment to the 
unemployment insurance extension bill. Startup Act 3.0 makes 
commonsense changes to the Tax Code to encourage investment in startups 
and reward patient capital. To address

[[Page 563]]

the burdensome government regulations, the legislation requires Federal 
agencies to determine whether the cost of new regulations outweigh the 
benefits--and encourages Federal agencies to give special consideration 
to the impact proposed regulations would have upon those startup 
businesses.
  As any entrepreneur knows, a good idea is essential to starting a 
successful business. To get more ideas out of the laboratory and into 
the market, this legislation improves the process for commercializing 
federally funded research so taxpayer-funded innovations can be turned 
into companies and spur economic growth and job creation.
  Finally, Startup Act 3.0 provides new opportunities for highly 
educated and entrepreneurial immigrants to stay in the United States. 
They are here legally now but are often told they need to go home to 
pursue their careers, when we know their talent and their new ideas 
could fuel economic growth and create American jobs.
  While there is meaningful disagreement--we have plenty of 
disagreement about the immigration issue--there are aspects of 
immigration in which there is broad agreement. One of the areas of 
agreement is highly skilled immigration. Highly skilled immigrants not 
only provide the talent for growing companies needed to fuel further 
growth and job creation, but those individuals tend to be very 
entrepreneurial.
  Immigrants are now more than twice as likely as native-born Americans 
to start a business. In 2011 immigrants were responsible for more than 
one in every four U.S. business founded.
  In addition, immigrants are responsible for significant contributions 
to innovation. According to a recent study by the Partnership for a New 
American Economy, 76 percent of patents at the top 10 patent-producing 
U.S. universities had at least one foreign-born inventor.
  One of the best things we can do for the American economy is to 
welcome highly skilled and entrepreneurial immigrants. No matter what 
Congress does, these individuals will continue to innovate and create 
jobs. The question is where will they innovate and where will the jobs 
be created. If Congress makes the right choice, those jobs and that 
innovation will occur in the United States of America and build the 
U.S. economy and employ U.S. citizens.
  Unfortunately, there are too many people in the Senate and in the 
Congress in Washington, DC, who say we can't do anything unless we do 
everything. That has prevented the passage of targeted immigration 
legislation that would boost the economic growth and create American 
jobs. That same attitude prevents us from doing many things on the 
Senate floor, and it is well past time we found ways to do the things 
we can agree upon and not wait for the opportunity to do everything. 
Let's do the things we can while we wait and work on the chance to do 
bigger and broader things.
  The STEM visas we talk about seem so important to our economy. 
American businesses are projected to need an estimated 800,000 workers 
with advanced STEM degrees by 2018 but will only find 550,000 American 
graduates with an advanced STEM education.
  We must do more as a nation. We absolutely must do more to prepare 
Americans for careers in STEM fields so that our country no longer has 
to rely upon talented foreign labor. But in the short term, as we work 
to equip Americans with skills for the 21st-century economy, we need to 
create a pathway for highly educated foreign-born students who are here 
in the United States legally, going to school, to stay in America where 
their ideas and talents can fuel great American economic growth.
  Startup 3.0 creates visas for foreign students who graduate from an 
American university with a master's or Ph.D. in science, technology, 
engineering, or mathematics. These skilled workers would be granted 
conditional status contingent upon them filling a needed gap in the 
U.S. workforce.
  It may seem counterintuitive that by allowing highly skilled workers 
to work in the United States, more Americans will find work, but that 
is exactly what will happen. A study by the Partnership for a New 
American Economy and the American Enterprise Institute found that every 
immigrant with a graduate degree in the United States from a U.S. 
university working in a STEM field creates 2.62 subsequent American 
jobs.
  If American companies are unable to find and hire the qualified, 
talented workers they need, those businesses will open locations 
overseas. I have seen examples of that too many times. When this 
happens, not only are those specific jobs gone--they are lost--but also 
the many supporting jobs and economic activities associated with them 
are no longer here.
  Even more frustrating to me is that when these highly skilled workers 
who are now employed in some other country and who are entrepreneurs 
too have an idea and they found and start a business that may grow and 
create more jobs because they couldn't find employment here due to 
lacking the necessary visa and have moved to another country, they use 
their entrepreneurial skills and talent, and they create the jobs--the 
company--elsewhere. So the jobs we need in this country are then 
outside the United States.
  This legislation also allows for an entrepreneur's visa. Immigrants 
to the United States have a long history of creating businesses in 
America. Today, 1 in every 10 Americans employed at a privately owned 
U.S. company works at an immigrant-owned firm. Of the current Fortune 
500 companies, more than 40 percent were founded by a first- or second-
generation American.
  So my question to my colleagues is, Why would we want to leave an 
immigration system in place that discourages entrepreneurs from coming 
to our country, investing their own money, and creating jobs here and 
strengthening our economy? I think we should do exactly the opposite 
and welcome those people who want to create jobs for Americans in 
America.
  Startup 3.0 creates an entrepreneur's visa for foreign-born 
entrepreneurs currently in the United States legally. Those individuals 
with a good idea, with capital, and a willingness to hire American 
workers would be able to stay in the United States and grow their 
businesses here. Each immigrant entrepreneur would be required to 
create jobs for Americans. If the business is not successful and jobs 
are not created, the immigrant would have to go back to his or her home 
country.
  Using conservative estimates, the Kauffman Foundation predicts that 
the entrepreneur's visa would generate 500,000 to 1.6 million jobs over 
the next 10 years. These are real jobs with real economic impact that 
could boost GDP, it is estimated, by more than 1.5 percent. These are 
jobs for Americans desperately seeking to work here to support their 
families and follow their dreams.
  As the Senate considers extending unemployment insurance in the short 
term, we must not lose sight of the long-term goal--that ought to be 
the short-term, intermediate, and long-term goal--of creating an 
environment for jobs in America. There is no better way to create jobs 
than to support entrepreneurs and to foster the development of new 
businesses, which are responsible for all those net new jobs in the 
economy.
  Numerous studies demonstrate that a smarter more strategic 
immigration policy that supports entrepreneurs and skilled immigrants 
can grow the economy and help put Americans back to work. Jobless 
Americans and U.S. businesses searching for the talent they need to 
expand and create jobs can no longer afford to let the all-or-nothing 
approach to immigration legislation hold economic growth and 
opportunity hostage. It has prevented progress on important challenges 
facing our country for far too long. A far better approach would be to 
pass the things we can agree upon now and keep working to find 
agreement on the issues that divide us. First on this list should be 
the measures outlined in Startup Act 3.0.
  Other countries are realizing the value of highly educated and 
entrepreneurial individuals in starting businesses, and they are 
changing their laws to welcome them. The United States cannot afford to 
turn a blind

[[Page 564]]

eye to global competition. If we fail to act, we risk losing the next 
generation of great entrepreneurs, and the jobs they will create will 
be in foreign countries, not in the United States, and we risk 
continuing another month in which 20.6 million Americans remain without 
meaningful work.
  Work is an ennobling feature of life. Jobs matter, and this Congress 
and this President have failed miserably, in my view, to carry out one 
of our primary responsibilities--to create an environment in which 
Americans can find work and can pursue that American dream of putting 
food on their family's table, saving for their kids' education, making 
sure they have a secure retirement in the future, and knowing every day 
when they get up and go to work they are doing something good for 
themselves and for their families and their country.
  Mr. President, we desperately need to work together to create an 
environment in which American jobs are created. No one I know really 
wants to be the recipient of an unemployment check. It may be 
necessary, but it is not their goal. The goal is to find an ennobling, 
meaningful job that supports them and their family.
  I thank the Chair for his indulgence.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
  Mrs. BOXER. I think it is wonderful to hear the Republican Senator 
Mr. Moran talk about job creation. It is really music to my ears, 
especially when he talks about addressing the importance of 
immigration, which clearly needs to be addressed and is clearly a job-
creation issue. That is why I have been hoping Speaker Boehner would 
take up the Senate's immigration bill, which is comprehensive; and, as 
President Obama said, if you can't do that, bring up a series of bills 
and let's get moving.
  Believe me, I have seen every report there is, and Senator Moran is 
right--immigration reform is necessary for us. It is an economic issue. 
It would be an economic boon to our country in terms of jobs and GDP.
  I also think it very important that we not turn our backs on an 
American value we have had in this country since the 1950s in which 
Republicans and Democrats in the Congress and Republicans and Democrats 
in the White House have agreed that when there is a great recession and 
people are out of work, they need to have unemployment compensation, 
which is an insurance program to keep them from falling apart. This is 
an American value.
  We talk about bipartisanship, but sometimes we just can't seem to get 
there. I have looked back, and since the 1950s, two-thirds of the time 
we passed an extension of unemployment compensation--many times to help 
people the Chair has worked so hard to represent, the mine workers and 
others who were hit with hard times, we did so in a bipartisan way--and 
two-thirds of the time with no pay-for. Since 1958, two-thirds of the 
time we extended it with no pay-for.
  Under George W. Bush we extended unemployment compensation--the 
extended unemployment compensation paid for by the Federal Government--
three times with no pay-for because it was an emergency. And we did it 
even though in those days deficits were raging.
  Here we have cut the deficit in half, and we don't like that. We want 
to cut it more. I want to see it balanced. But we surely should do what 
we just tried to do, which is to extend unemployment compensation for a 
long period of time with a pay-for--that is what we tried to do--or for 
a short period of time without a pay-for and help people keep their 
lives together.
  We have had this American value since the 1950s. Yet, for the first 
time I can tell, we had one party--with the exception of one person--
vote lockstep against extending unemployment compensation to hard-
working Americans who are looking for work every week, every day. And I 
have their stories, which I am going to put in the Record. They have 
turned their backs on 1.5 million Americans--in my State, 250,000 
people.
  Now, here is the thing--and I don't like to come and make these 
speeches, but the facts speak for themselves. Leader Reid, the majority 
leader, just offered a very important deal in broad daylight to the 
Republicans. And I am going to make a parliamentary inquiry, if I 
might, Mr. President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mrs. BOXER. Here it is. Is it true that Majority Leader Reid offered 
the Republicans five related amendments to the unemployment 
compensation bill, those amendments to be of their own choosing? Is 
that correct?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
  Mrs. BOXER. Is it further true that he offered Democrats five related 
amendments of their own choosing?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct.
  Mrs. BOXER. Is it further correct that he also said each side could 
offer an additional five amendments as side-by-sides, if they wanted 
to, of their own choosing? Is that correct?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
  Mrs. BOXER. Is it also true that he offered time agreements of 1 hour 
per amendment and then to be followed by passage of the bill?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
  Mrs. BOXER. OK. The reason I wanted to put this in the record in a 
simple way is because sometimes when we have the back-and-forth and the 
``I object'' and ``reserving the right to object,'' people lose track 
of exactly what happened.
  We offered the Republicans everything they said they wanted. They 
wanted amendments. They were offered amendments of their own choosing. 
Up to 20 amendments could have been voted on under the agreement. They 
said they wanted pay-fors. We gave them a pay-for that actually came 
out of Paul Ryan's budget, a structural change that would have paid for 
10\1/2\ months of unemployment benefits. The Republicans just can't say 
yes. They demanded amendments. We gave them amendments. They demanded 
pay-fors. We gave them pay-fors.
  I believe something else is going on, and I have to say what I think 
is going on. They do not want to extend unemployment compensation to 
the long-term unemployed. That is a dramatic change that is occurring 
in the culture of this country, in the compassion of this country, in 
the consensus in this country, in the values of this country. We are 
talking about 1.5 million Americans--250,000 Californians. I am frankly 
stunned.
  I know Senator Mikulski is here, and I so much want to hear from her, 
so I will skip some of the other history about how it has been over the 
years and how we have done this where we have come together, 
Republicans and Democrats. We have extended unemployment compensation 
benefits more times under Republican Presidents than under Democratic 
Presidents, and Democrats didn't stand there and say: Gee, there is a 
Republican in the White House. Maybe this will help him look good or 
maybe this will add two-tenths of 1 percent to the GDP. Maybe we better 
say no.
  No. We said yes because we are a party that believes people need to 
keep hearth and home together.
  The long-term unemployment rate is twice as high as it was at any 
other time when these extended benefits were allowed to expire. There 
are almost three unemployed people for every job opening nationwide.
  I am going to close with a few little stories from my constituents 
because one has to hear the voices of people. In this Senate, we should 
be representing the middle class and the working poor of this country. 
We should be fighting for them because, guess what, everyone else 
benefits. The billionaires and millionaires are doing fine. They do 
better when we have a strong middle class.
  The Presiding Officer is a fighter for economic justice, and I know 
this statistic is something the Senator has probably used many times. 
But the fact is that 450 families are worth more than 150 million 
Americans. I can guarantee you, those 450 families are just fine and 
their children and their grandchildren and their children's children's 
children. And good for them. Fine. But

[[Page 565]]

what about the people who are now cut off at the knees because they are 
not getting $300 a week to live? Here is one of them. One woman wrote 
to me:

       I am 58 years old and am receiving unemployment benefits 
     for the first time in my life. I am currently receiving my 
     first federal extension.

  Which, by the way, she has now been cut off from.

       I was laid off because the non-profit I was working for 
     lost a major portion of its state funding.
       Getting unemployment benefits is not preventing me from 
     looking for work. In fact, people getting extended 
     unemployment benefits are required to prove that they're 
     looking for work. I spend hours every week filling out 
     applications and posting my resume without results.

  And then she says to me:

       Tell me, how am I, and thousands like me supposed to pay 
     rent and eat? I agree that Washington should ``focus on job 
     creation'' but that should be in addition to, not instead of, 
     extending benefits. I beg you, please extend unemployment 
     benefits.

  Then there is Kaitlyn Smith of Twentynine Palms. She lost her benefit 
when the Federal extension expired. A Marine Corps veteran and the 
mother of two, Smith says: Work is hard to come by. They can't move 
because her husband, a vet of the Afghanistan-Iraq wars, must remain 
near the combat center until he is discharged in July.
  Listen to this:

       I have to keep the house at 55 degrees even though I have 
     two little girls, ages 2\1/2\ and 1\1/2\.

  That is what she told the L.A. Times in December.
  How do my Republican friends--except for the one who voted with us at 
the end of the day--look themselves in the mirror and think about this 
courageous woman whose family put their life on the line for the 
country and who is freezing in their home, because they are playing 
parliamentary games on process?
  Last, Cindy Snow of Beaumont:

       Why are they using us as pawns? They're playing games with 
     people's lives.

  Referring to politicians in Washington. That appeared in Bloomberg 
News.

       Laura Walker, a 63-year-old paralegal, has been looking for 
     work since January, when she was laid off from a California 
     law firm. She counted on $450 a week in federal unemployment 
     benefits for help that have now run out.
       ``Not all of us have savings and a lot of us have to take 
     care of family because of what happened in the economy,'' 
     said Walker, of Santa Clarita, who said she has applied for a 
     least three jobs a week and shares an apartment with her 
     unemployed son, his wife and two children. ``It's going to 
     put my family and me out on the streets.''

  That is from the Bloomberg News of December 30, 2013

       Cindy Snow, of Beaumont, CA, lost her job as a social 
     worker in April when the San Bernardino school system 
     terminated the child-care program where she worked. Her 
     husband, employed in the construction industry, has been 
     without a job since 2009. They have been relying on 
     assistance from the California Housing Finance Agency to 
     cover a $1,424-a-month payment on their home.
       When she loses her unemployment benefits, she said, the 
     family will no longer qualify for the housing assistance. 
     ``Why are they using us as pawns? They're playing games with 
     people's lives,'' Snow said, referring to politicians in 
     Washington.

  This is also from Bloomberg News of December 30, 2013

       Ethelyn Holmes, a software engineer who lives in Mission 
     Hills, is one of 18,720 San Diego County residents about to 
     lose the weekly payments. Holmes said her $450 weekly 
     unemployment payment goes to food, dental insurance and other 
     living necessities.
       Holmes, in her 40s, said she's tried zealously to find 
     work. She's joined the Project Management Institute of San 
     Diego, volunteered, attended meetings, cold called and 
     written letters. Now, she said she'd like to find a 
     retraining program to help her become more marketable. ``. . 
     . I have not been sitting here watching soap operas,'' she 
     said. ``I would go to work tomorrow, or today. I really am 
     tired of this.''

  That is from the San Diego Union-Tribune dated December 28, 2013.

       Steven Swanson of Madera Ranchos, CA, worked for 33 years 
     in wholesale, mostly in beverage sales, before losing his job 
     in 2011. Since then, he estimates that he's submitted resumes 
     for more than 500 positions and in the last six months filled 
     out more than 200 job applications--all to no avail.
       ``I want a job, I want to work,'' said Swanson whose 
     daughter and son-in-law live with him and pay rent to help 
     him keep up the mortgage on the house he owns. ``As a 
     taxpayer, I paid into the system for a lot of years. For them 
     to just shut it off and say, `These people need to get weaned 
     off and get a job'--well, yeah, I need to get a job. But for 
     them to suggest that I just go get welfare or go get food 
     stamps--that's why I'm frustrated with the Republican Party. 
     They just don't get it.''

  That is from the Fresno Bee of January 2, 2014.

  In addition to helping people get by while they look for jobs, 
extending unemployment insurance will help the economy.
  A new study by the Council of Economic Advisers and the U.S. 
Department of Labor estimates that extending unemployment insurance 
will prevent the loss of 240,000 jobs in 2014, including 46,441 in 
California.
  CBO has said that another year-long extension would add two-tenths of 
a percent to our GDP.
  CBO has found that when unemployment is high, extending unemployment 
insurance is one of the most cost-effective ways to grow the economy 
and create jobs.
  This will help us reduce our deficit in the long term. Already, our 
annual deficit has been cut in half. For 2009, when President Obama 
took office, it was $1.4 trillion. For 2013 it was $680 billion, and 
for 2014 the forecast is only $560 billion.
  We are making progress, and extending unemployment benefits will help 
us grow our GDP and reduce our deficit even more.
  So I say to my colleagues, the answer is obvious. Stop blocking this 
bill. It will save jobs, grow the economy, and provide help to our 
families while they get on their feet.
  There are a lot of games played around here, and sometimes it is time 
to call the bluff of the people who are playing cruel games. Leader 
Reid called the bluff of my friends on the other side. He said: You 
want amendments? You got them. You want to pay for this extension? We 
have done it. What did they do? They walked away. And who is suffering? 
People like the people I just told you about, ordinary folks who want 
nothing more than to get a decent job, who are caught in a situation 
where we are recovering from the worst recession since the Great 
Depression. And this is what we give them, a bunch of gobbledygook 
about: I wanted more of my amendments so I can be proud and offer 
amendments.
  There is a time and a place for filibusters, even though they do far 
too many. There is a time and a place to argue about process. This is 
not the time. This is not the place. This is wrong. I applaud Leader 
Reid for his leadership. I applaud Jack Reed for his leadership.
  Before Senator Mikulski takes the microphone, I wish to thank her 
publicly. What a hard job she had to sit down and negotiate an 
appropriations bill, an omnibus bill which covers everything we do. It 
was so hard. But she did it in the right spirit of bipartisanship. So 
did her colleague, whom she dealt with and had to deal with, 
Congressman Rogers. As a result, we are going to do something good here 
and give stability to the American people.
  Why can't that same spirit of cooperation take over when we have 
offered the Republicans everything they wanted in order to get them to 
vote for unemployment compensation? I am distressed about it, and we 
will keep fighting on this issue.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Warren). The Senator from Maryland.


                Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2014

  Ms. MIKULSKI. Madam President, I rise today to speak on the 
Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2014. But before I make those 
comments, I wish to associate myself with the remarks of the Senator 
from California Mrs. Boxer and also the Senator from Rhode Island Mr. 
Jack Reed and also all of those who voted to move forward where we 
continue to provide an economic safety net for those people who have 
lost their job and are actively looking for work, and to continue this 
economic and social contract which has been part of the way Americans 
respond to help other Americans at a time when they are down but they 
shouldn't feel as though they are out. I hope we could

[[Page 566]]

put party rancor aside and look at commonsense ways to move this bill 
forward.
  In terms of the so-called pay-fors, I have been here a long time. I 
have never seen this pay-for before on unemployment compensation, 
particularly for a 90-day bill. We are talking about 90 days, and we 
are already in the middle of January. I hope the two leaders can come 
together and we can resolve this.
  On another topic, I wish to report to the Senate some very good news. 
I rise today as the chair of the Appropriations Committee, and I wish 
to announce that the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2014 has 
completed all its work in the committee process. We have completed our 
conference and it has been filed in the House and should be considered 
in the House and Senate this week. What does that mean?
  First of all, our Appropriations Committee has met the test of the 
Constitution. Article 1, section 9 of the Constitution directs that 
there be an Appropriations Committee, although it is not referred to by 
name, and that every year we review the annual spending of the Federal 
Government and vote upon it.
  We also followed the law. By following the law, the law is the 
bipartisan Budget Act forged by Chairpersons Ryan and Murray. We meet 
the requirements of the Budget Control Act.
  The Budget Control Act looks at total spending for the Federal 
Government--mandatory spending and then discretionary spending. We who 
are appropriators handle all of the accounts for discretionary 
spending. Guess what. The Budget Committee puts a cap on us, and that 
is great. It is a way that we actually have a cap on spending that 
everybody knows and everybody voted for.
  So we have a cap by law on discretionary spending of $1.012 trillion 
for fiscal year 2014. The work of our 12 committees stayed within that 
cap, and yet we spent the money to meet certain areas. We met 
compelling needs. We certainly preserved national security. We looked 
out for our human capital, particularly our children in terms of 
education, and also invested in physical capital--improving 
infrastructure--and also the long-range needs of our country by putting 
public investments into important research and development by $1 
billion more in NIH.
  We also met the mandate of the American people who told us: Work 
together. Be bipartisan. Work across the aisle and work across the 
dome. And we did it. They also said: When the bill comes up, don't do 
it with brinkmanship and don't do it with showmanship. Get the job done 
in a commonsense way which promotes growth in our country but yet at 
the same time looks at reducing debt.
  They said: Don't do showdown politics. And we won't. We will pass it 
because we have met our deadline.
  They said: Don't put government on autopilot with something called 
those continuing funding resolutions. We don't do that either. Every 
one of our 12 subcommittees is in this comprehensive bill.
  We dealt with difficult and divisive policy issues, but we did it 
with diligence and determination. And, I must add, we tried to promote 
an atmosphere of civility as we did it. It was tense and it was 
intense. But at the end of the day, we did work pinpointing how to do 
the job rather than finger-pointing at each other. As I said, 
negotiations were conducted that way.
  Our House Appropriations Committee chairman--Mr. Hal Rogers, the 
gentleman from Kentucky--and I forged this agreement, along with 
ranking members, my vice chairman Senator Shelby of Alabama and in the 
House Congresswoman Lowey of New York. We didn't do it alone. There was 
bipartisan agreement of all the subcommittee chairs and over 50 Members 
of the House and the Senate.
  We met a very stringent deadline. When we left here on December 20, 
we had to produce a bill by January 15. That is tomorrow. That is when 
the continuing resolution expires. We are asking for a 72-hour 
extension, not to finish the job, but so we can do our deliberations on 
the floor in both the House and the Senate.
  We worked day and night. I jokingly said during the deliberations: I 
wish I were as thin as I am stretched, because we really worked at it. 
Over the holidays our staffs and our subcommittee chairmen worked. The 
only time they took off was Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. So we 
thank each and every one of them for their dedication.
  As I said, this bill required very difficult choices. It meant give 
and take. It meant more giving on both sides, because there were no big 
takes.
  We worked under a very tight budget, $1 trillion. It sounds like a 
lot of money, and it is. But of the $1 trillion, $600 billion was in 
the Department of Defense. The other $300 billion was in discretionary 
spending for all of the domestic agencies. It comes out to like 620 and 
380, but those are the rough numbers.
  So we did meet our national security needs, but we also were very 
mindful. I was particularly mindful of the social contract with the 
American people. I wanted to have a bill to help create jobs in this 
country, not make-work but real work, in rebuilding our physical 
infrastructure on roads and bridges and clean water. I also wanted to 
look ahead to the long-range needs of our country, in research and 
discoveries, and not only win the Nobel prizes but win the markets. We 
expanded our commercial service office to help us promote exports 
overseas, accelerating manufacturing institutes where government could 
work with this new emerging dynamic, small-scale manufacturing. I have 
lost over 12 percent of manufacturing in my State, so manufacturing is 
important.
  We wanted to make sure that families felt they had a government that 
is on their side--first of all, helping with school safety--and we have 
a bipartisan program in here to promote school safety--but at the same 
time to promote quality childcare and early childhood education. We 
then made those kinds of investments, all with an eye to getting value 
for taxpayers.
  Our colleagues were very clear, and so were the American people: We 
have to have a more frugal eye. I instructed my colleagues on the 
Senate side: Let's look at those programs which are dated, duplicative, 
or dysfunctional. They get a D: dated, duplicative, and dysfunctional. 
We were able to eliminate many of them, and we will be back at it next 
year doing a scrub. If you notice, there is no atmosphere of crisis.
  The other thing that I am proud of in this bill is that we avoided 
contentious policy riders. I think we have been able to deal with those 
in a way where they would not be a problem for the other side of the 
aisle.
  However, there was one item wrong or one technical mistake in the 
Budget Committee that I am proud that we were able to fix. This was 
really at the very top of our agenda, when Mr. Rogers and I met. We 
were deeply concerned about the cost-of-living issue related to 
military retirees of working age who were disabled or survivors. Their 
COLAs were mistakenly reduced by 1 percent in the recent budget 
agreement. This bill, the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2014, 
fixes that problem.
  It is limited in scope. It is limited to disabled military retirees 
and survivors of departed servicemembers--the neediest of the needy. We 
hope, as time moves on, there is a Presidential and DOD commission on 
pension reform at DOD, and we will have a comprehensive approach and do 
it. But I want our colleagues to know we were very mindful of these 
veterans. So we did this fix for military retirees of working age who 
were disabled or survivors of departed servicemembers, but we also did 
something else.
  If you go to the Web site in the House, which has the most detail 
because it is pending there--it will come up in the Senate when it 
moves here tomorrow--we really put money into veterans health care. We 
put money into fixing the veterans disability backlog. I know the 
Senator from Massachusetts believes that when you are on the front 
lines you should not have to wait at the back of the line if you are a 
wounded warrior to get your disability benefits determined. So we

[[Page 567]]

pushed for those reforms, and we put the taxpayers' dollars behind them 
because we knew that is the way they would want us to spend their 
money.
  We also maintained the veterans education budget because many of our 
young men and women coming back home who served so well over there need 
to brush up on education here to move them to jobs here.
  I hope in voting for this bill people realize it is a vote to support 
our most vulnerable patriots, to make sure we keep our promises to our 
veterans, and that we also look at the comprehensive bill that we have 
moved ahead without rancor, without roar, and we stayed within the 
budget parameters given to us on a bipartisan agreement.
  The House will consider this agreement this week. They have sent us 
over a 3-day extension so we could complete our work. I hope we pass 
it. I would like it to pass tonight or certainly tomorrow. We will be 
on the floor for ample debate on this bill, and I look forward to 
answering some questions.
  But at the end of the day, when all is said and done--in this 
institution often more is said rather than done--you will know we did 
get it done. I will have more to say about it when the bill comes to 
the floor.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. Madam President, I thank my colleagues from Minnesota 
and North Dakota who are on the floor. I know they want to enter into a 
colloquy, but they have been gracious to allow me 1 minute on a 
separate subject, which is flood insurance. I thank them so much.
  Before I start, I congratulate the Chair of the Appropriations 
Committee, who not only understands the issues in a major piece of 
legislation, from science to space to technology to defense to homeland 
security to education, and really keeps so much of that in her mind and 
her heart, but she also can explain this important bill to us in a way 
that everyone can understand.
  The Senator from Maryland is truly a champion and a treasure in the 
Senate. Before she leaves the floor I want to acknowledge her 
extraordinary leadership. It is a very tough time to find common 
ground, but she has found it with her Republican colleagues. I hope we 
can get this bill through the floor of the Senate in the next 2 or 3 
days.
  Let me say for one moment how important it is to pass this 
extraordinary appropriations bill, which many of us have been working 
on for over a year, literally, in public hearings and meetings, 
negotiating with our Republican colleagues. Of course, in the last 
month these high-level negotiations have been going on. We hope to be 
on that bill sometime tomorrow. Leader Reid has expressed that we will 
not be leaving for the break next week without getting that work done.
  I am prepared--all of us are here--to handle that business. But there 
is another piece of legislation of which, Madam President, you have 
been a cosponsor, and Senator Hoeven, who is on the floor, has been an 
extraordinary leader on, and that is to fix our well-intended but 
disastrous flood insurance program referred to as Biggert-Waters, which 
was passed a year ago with very good intentions, but it has had 
disastrous consequences in Massachusetts, South Dakota, Louisiana, 
Texas, Montana, and in Pennsylvania.
  This is not a coastal issue. This is an issue that affects millions 
of Americans owning their own homes, their primary homes, and business 
owners--solidly middle-class people who do not live anywhere near a 
beach and people whose homes have never flooded.
  They found themselves, because of the unintended consequences of this 
well-intentioned law, in a terrible circumstance in which they may 
actually lose their home and lose their business. We can fix that. The 
great news is we have a bill that is being led by Senator Menendez from 
New Jersey and Senator Isakson from Georgia. It is truly bipartisan. We 
have almost 30 cosponsors in the Senate. While it has been difficult to 
find common ground, we have worked very hard to find it. I am here on 
the floor to say to our knowledge we have pretty much worked out most 
of the objections on all sides.
  We think there might be amendments that are wanted to be offered by 
Senator Toomey, Senator Coburn, Senator Crapo, and on our side Senator 
Hagan and Senator Merkley. We are working through that now.
  The amendment of Senator Blunt we believe can be incorporated into 
the bill. The amendment of Senator Tester can be incorporated into the 
base of the bill with no harm to the underlying balance of the bill.
  I come to the floor to say to everyone, we are really making 
progress. We could work on these few amendments in the next hour, and 
the leaders might be able to ask unanimous consent for us to get on 
this bill in the morning and actually finish it before we go on 
appropriations. If everyone will cooperate just a little bit more on 
this, we could have several amendments and limit the time to 30 minutes 
of debate on each amendment. We would end up with about 6 or so 
amendments, and we could fit this into tomorrow morning's work.
  That is my hope. If we do not, then we are going to have to stay 
here, I think, even after the appropriations bill to get this. I don't 
know about you, Madam Chair, but I just cannot go home again without 
getting this fixed. We have been working on this patiently. We have had 
hearings. We have had meetings. We have had press conferences. We have 
a coalition of over 200 organizations.
  We have worked with the House in strong partnership. They will be 
ready to act when they get back on our bill. If we can get a strong 
vote of 70 Senators--which we are hoping for, maybe more--that will 
send a very strong signal to the House of Representatives. This bill 
has no score--a zero cost to this bill, zero. It doesn't repeal 
Biggert-Waters, it postpones it until we can fix it, and it gives us 
the impetus to fix it.
  Let's work hard in the next hour or so. I really thank Senator 
Isakson for working so hard--the Senator from Georgia--for trying to 
clear the objections that are on his side, and Senator Menendez and his 
staff for working on our side.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
  Mr. HOEVEN. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Louisiana for 
her work on the flood insurance bill. I am pleased to join her in that 
effort. It is very important. I hope we do have an opportunity to 
address that this week. We will continue to do all we can to help in 
that endeavor. Again, I thank her for all her work on that very 
important legislation.
  (The remarks of Mr. Hoeven and Ms. Klobuchar pertaining to the 
introduction of S. 1925 are located in today's Record under 
``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')
  Mr. HOEVEN. Madam President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the 
absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. LEE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                        Omnibus Spending Package

  Mr. LEE. Madam President, I stand before this body today to talk 
about the omnibus spending package the Senate will be considering over 
the next few days. I have some concerns related to this omnibus 
spending package that relate to a program called PILT. It is an acronym 
with which most Americans and probably even most Members of Congress 
are not familiar. It stands for payment in lieu of taxes.
  The program was developed to help those States, including my home 
State of Utah, in which the vast majority of the land is owned by the 
Federal Government. Beside me is a map of the United States. In red we 
can see all of the land that is owned by the Federal Government. As we 
can see by looking at the map, most of the land west of the Rocky 
Mountains--more than 50

[[Page 568]]

percent, in fact--is owned by the Federal Government. Very little of 
the land east of the Rocky Mountains is, by contrast, owned by the 
Federal Government.
  Being from a public land State presents some interesting, very 
significant, very substantial challenges. Among those challenges is the 
fact that the Federal Government has deemed this land, has legislated 
this land as being beyond the ability, beyond the authority of States 
and their political subdivisions--including counties and local taxing 
jurisdictions--beyond the ability of the States and their subdivisions 
to tax. So we can't collect property tax revenue from any of that land. 
As a result, a lot of our communities in public land States are 
impoverished--at least impoverished relative to what they might 
otherwise face. They are impoverished relative to what their ability 
would be to collect revenue through property taxes in public land 
States.
  For that reason, this PILT Program was created to try to offset--at 
least to some degree--the heavy cost, the disproportionate burden that 
is placed on the shoulders of public land States and communities.
  So each year Congress funds this program, and that program then 
partially offsets the lack of property tax revenue flowing through 
these public land States and communities.
  Here is the problem I wish to focus on today: The omnibus spending 
package we are considering this week contains no funding for PILT--no 
funding whatsoever. This is potentially devastating to public land 
States, including Utah, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, and many other 
States, especially those throughout the West. The problem is that 
America's public land States and counties can't wait any longer. This 
program must be funded, and it must be funded in this bill.
  Here is a letter from a commissioner in Piute County, UT. This 
commissioner states:

       PILT not being funded in 2014 will have a devastating 
     impact on all counties in the West, but it is particularly 
     devastating to a county the size of Piute. With 74 percent of 
     Piute County under Federal control, $225,000 of our $1 
     million budget--almost one-fourth--comes in the form of PILT 
     payments from the Federal Government. Without this funding, 
     we will be in the midst of one of the biggest disasters to 
     hit Piute County in years.
       We have been scraping and scraping to try to figure out how 
     to fund a fourth deputy sheriff in our county and thought we 
     had it figured out until this $225,000 evaporated from our 
     county's revenue.
       At the present time it is virtually impossible to staff all 
     of the police, search and rescue, and emergency services we 
     need. With this cut, it will be impossible.

  The Piute County commissioner continues:

       We will be forced to abandon services, including all 
     services on public lands. It will be sad to have our public 
     lands left without police, search and rescue, and emergency 
     services. I think it is critical to understand that the loss 
     of PILT funding cuts clear to the bone and will be 
     devastating to counties such as Piute.

  Now, some argue--some insist when faced with arguments such as 
these--that this is all OK and we can just wait to make PILT funding 
available, that we will make it available through another legislative 
vehicle we will supposedly pass later this year. In fact, some of these 
same people maintain that we will make it better, we will make it 
automatic, we will make it mandatory spending when we actually do this 
later this year.
  It is true that between 2008 and 2013 PILT was funded through a 
mandatory spending mechanism. That has now expired. But it is important 
to remember that there is nothing mutually exclusive about these ideas; 
no reason why we can't go ahead and fund PILT now with discretionary 
spending and then adopt something later to restore the mandatory nature 
of funding for PILT. We can fund PILT now in this bill, and then we can 
make it mandatory later. We can and we should. This would give States 
and counties the certainty they need, the certainty they have been 
waiting for, the certainty that will allow them, finally, to plan their 
budgets.
  Remember, for many of these counties, such as Piute County, UT, PILT 
is a substantial portion of their annual revenue stream. It is about 
one-fourth of the money that Piute County, UT, has to spend every 
single year.
  Importantly, I offered an amendment to last year's budget that would 
build a deficit-neutral reserve fund to make sure PILT continued to be 
fully funded. That amendment passed. Unfortunately, the fact that it 
passed has apparently not been enough to make sure it continued to be 
funded.
  Now we have a major funding bill before us. This spending bill 
occupies no fewer than 1,582 pages. It spends in excess of $1.1 
trillion. Yet PILT still isn't funded.
  It is important to point out that even if we do the right thing and 
even if we fully fund PILT in this program this year, the PILT Program 
is itself still not adequate. It is still in need of reform. PILT 
payments are quite insufficient.
  PILT was intended to soften the economic impact associated with the 
Federal Government owning so much of the land in the United States. In 
the case of Piute County, it is about three-fourths of the land. It is 
about two-thirds of the land throughout the State of Utah. In some 
counties in Utah, it is well in excess of 90, sometimes 95 percent of 
the land in a county. PILT was designed to soften that economic impact. 
But, regrettably, the Federal Government gives States, through the PILT 
Program, what amounts to in many instances only pennies on the dollar 
of what the taxing jurisdictions would receive if they were to tax that 
land, if they were to collect taxes--even if they were to collect those 
taxes at the lowest property tax rate, let's say the Greenbelt rate in 
many counties. We must correct that imbalance.
  In the coming days I plan to introduce legislation to begin the 
process of doing precisely that. After all, it makes no sense to have a 
program that some would argue is deceptively entitled ``Payment In Lieu 
of Taxes'' if, in fact, the payment in lieu of taxes doesn't even 
closely approximate the value that counties would receive if they were 
actually allowed to tax that land and collect that revenue as taxes.
  If an American citizen, a U.S. taxpayer, for example, decided to 
adopt his or her own PILT Program and on April 15 of each year just 
sent a check to the IRS saying: These are not my taxes, but this is my 
payment in lieu of taxes; I am just paying what I feel like paying, 
that would cause problems. The taxpayer in question would probably end 
up in prison. In any event, it wouldn't end well for the taxpayer. Yet 
we have allowed the Federal Government to get away with this over and 
over, often to the detriment of vulnerable communities, of poor 
communities, of communities that rely on the Federal Government's 
unsteady stream of revenue--a stream of revenue that, insufficient as 
it is already, is now being threatened altogether.
  In a sense the problem we face with the Federal Government owning all 
this land is not new. It is a problem that has been around for a long 
time. In many respects it was a problem envisioned by some of the 
Founding Fathers. In fact, we can go all the way back to the 
Constitutional Convention of 1787 and see that it was on the minds of 
some of the Founding Fathers.
  On September 5, 1787, at the Constitutional Convention they were 
discussing the public land-related authorities in the Constitution, 
including the authority that has now been included in what is often 
referred to as the enclave clause--article I, section 8, clause 17.
  One of the delegates to the Federal Convention of 1787, Elbridge 
Gerry, the delegate from Massachusetts, stood before the Convention and 
made an astute observation. Mr. Gerry said as follows. He expressed 
concerns that ``this power''--that is, the power of Congress over 
Federal public lands--``might be made use of to enslave any particular 
State by buying up its territory, and that the strongholds proposed 
would be a means of awing the State into an undue obedience to the 
General Government.''
  Then, as now, wise observations often came from the State of 
Massachusetts. Then, as now, we have a grave risk associated with the 
fact that when the

[[Page 569]]

Federal Government owns this much land, the Federal Government has this 
much power. It was on the minds of the delegates to the Convention of 
1787 that one of the things they needed to protect against was the 
concentration of too much power in the hands of a few, especially the 
concentration of too much power within the Federal Government. Each of 
them had a mission to protect the sovereignty of their respective 
States. And they understood that if Congress had too much power to 
simply buy up too much land in any one State--disproportionately in 
some States--the Federal Government would have too much influence 
within that State.
  I would ask you, when you look at this map I have in the Chamber, 
does that look equitable? Does that look like an equitable distribution 
of Federal land ownership? We have to keep in mind that, just as there 
are benefits associated with some of our public lands, there are also 
burdens attached to those benefits. When you look at those burdens, it 
is difficult to say anything other than that they are 
disproportionately allocated into a certain region of the United 
States. They are overwhelmingly located within the Rocky Mountains and 
areas west of the Rocky Mountains.
  So to the extent these benefits benefit everyone in the United 
States, then the burdens ought to be shared by everyone in the United 
States as well. Yet they are not. PILT, again, is woefully inadequate 
as it is. But now Congress is trying to withdraw funding for PILT. Even 
though some may say: Well, we will fund it later this year, we have no 
guarantee of that, and we should be funding it right now.
  As an interesting side note, in response to Elbridge Gerry's concern 
on September 5, 1787, the Founding Fathers put a qualifying clause into 
article I, section 8, clause 17. They said that Congress's plenary 
legislative jurisdiction over Federal public land lying within a 
sovereign State's boundaries would exist and could be exercised only if 
that land--the land in question--was acquired by the consent of the 
host State's legislature.
  Some have suggested that this may well mean that when the Federal 
Government owns land, when it acquires land within a sovereign State's 
territorial boundaries, that it owns that land just as any other 
proprietor would own it; that is, subject to the authority of the State 
and its political subdivisions to tax and regulate that land, unless or 
until such time as the host State's legislative body parts with that 
bundle of sovereign rights relative to that land. In other words, the 
State retains its taxing power over that land unless or until it 
voluntarily relinquishes it, gives it up, hands it over to the Federal 
Government. Yet, in nearly all instances where you see red on this map, 
that has not occurred.
  Many of these States have been content with the fact that they have 
been receiving PILT funds, however inadequate those PILT funds may be. 
But now even those are going away. Even if there is a promise that they 
might be restored later--later this year--they are still inadequate, 
and we still do not have the promise that is going to occur now. There 
is still a lot of uncertainty in a lot of parts of the country--in 
places such as Piute County, UT, and elsewhere within my State and 
elsewhere within the western United States.
  In order to protect against this kind of concern, the kind of concern 
that the delegate from Massachusetts described on September 5, 1787, 
Congress adopted a practice, when admitting new States into the Union, 
of incorporating language into the enabling act for each new State, 
describing what would happen to public land within the new State's 
boundaries after statehood. They adopted this practice and this 
language that would be used each time a new State was admitted into the 
Union.
  That language was included in Utah's statehood enabling legislation--
legislation that was adopted about 18 months before Utah finally came 
into the Union in January of 1896.
  Section 9 of Utah's enabling legislation says that public land 
located within the State, lying within the State of Utah, ``shall be 
sold by the United States subsequent to the admission of said State 
into the Union. . . . '' Adding to that, section 9 of Utah's enabling 
legislation said that 5 percent of the proceeds from the sale of that 
land would be given to the State and would be held in a trust fund by 
that State for the benefit of the State's public education system.
  So, as I mentioned, Utah was not the first State to have that kind of 
language in its enabling legislation. Many of the States that were 
admitted into the Union much earlier than Utah had similar language in 
their enabling acts. Missouri had such language. North Dakota had such 
language. We could name State after State after State that had such 
language.
  When you look at Missouri, when you look at North Dakota, and when 
you look at most of the other States that had language such as that in 
their enabling acts, you see very little Federal public land. You see 
because Congress and the Federal Government honored the promises made 
to those States. Congress followed through with that commitment. 
Congress did what it was supposed to do. It sold that land subsequent 
to statehood. Holding on perhaps to a few parcels here and there that 
it deemed necessary for one reason or another, it made good on that 
promise. Those States benefited. The Federal Treasury benefited. The 
American people benefited.
  It is important to remember that what we are talking about here--when 
you see all this red on the map, representing Federal land ownership--
is not about national parks. National parks represent a very tiny 
percentage of Federal land ownership. We are not talking about national 
monuments, which also represents a very tiny percentage of Federal land 
ownership. What we are talking about in the context of the PILT program 
are lands that are managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, an 
agency that is considered obscure, almost unheard of throughout most of 
the United States, but an agency that operates with a particularly 
dominant force in States such as mine, where you see a lot of red on 
the map.
  I remember the first time I showed this map to my children, my 
daughter Eliza, who was about 8 years old at the time, was just barely 
old enough to understand what I was explaining to her. I told her that 
the red indicated ownership of land by our national government. And 8-
year-old Eliza looked at that portion of the map that represented our 
State, and she said: Look, dad, they own Utah. I said: You're right, 
Eliza, they own Utah. They certainly own the overwhelming majority of 
it.
  Some of us have not forgotten this promise made in the statehood 
enabling acts of most of the States admitted into the Union, and yet 
Congress seems to be determined to overlook it. I am determined not to 
let that happen. Some of my friends back in Utah are likewise 
determined not to let that happen.
  A good friend of mine, Representative Ken Ivory, who serves in the 
Utah State legislature, has done an amazing job educating people 
throughout Utah and, in fact, across America on this very subject, on 
what happened with these statehood enabling acts, and why it is that 
States in the western United States got left behind when it came to 
promises made long ago by the Federal Government. I commend 
Representative Ivory for his work on this issue and pledge to continue 
working with him on this important project.
  You see, this is about much more than land. This is about the ability 
of local communities not only to thrive, but to survive. This is about 
communities where it is very difficult for people to get jobs. It is 
very difficult for people, in some instances, even to access their own 
property, even to access their own farms because it is impossible to 
get anywhere without crossing Federal public land and in some instances 
Federal land managers will block access to the only roads they can use 
to access their own property. This has to stop.
  In the meantime, it is vitally important that we focus on the issues 
at hand, that we focus, at a bare minimum, on promises that the Federal

[[Page 570]]

Government has extended in lieu of the other promises. That is not to 
say we are going to forget about the promises made in the statehood 
enabling acts. We are not. But, for the moment, my attention remains 
focused on making sure we fund the PILT Program. It has to be funded. 
In fact, it has to be funded even more than it has been in the past. It 
ought to reflect at least a rough equivalent of the amount of money the 
taxing jurisdiction could collect if it were taxing that land at its 
lowest rate. And, at a bare minimum, even below that, we have to make 
sure the program continues to exist. We have to make sure the program 
is funded at least at its current levels. This is not asking much. But 
it is necessary that we do this.
  The broken PILT Program is, one could argue, just another example of 
government applying significant and unnecessary weight to the shoulders 
of hard-working Americans, many of whom are struggling just to get by, 
many of whom are barely able to keep food on the table for their 
families, others of whom are able to provide for the day-to-day needs 
of their families but they are worried about what happens next. They 
find that whenever they find a little bit of additional income, no 
sooner have they earned it than they find it has been swallowed up--
swallowed up by increasing taxes, swallowed up by higher prices for 
goods and for services, and they do not know how to get out of this rut 
in which they find themselves somewhat trapped. These are the kinds of 
people who suffer the most as a result of the Federal Government's 
failed policies relative to its Federal public land.
  We have to remember that lifting these weights is not only within the 
government's power, it is the affirmative obligation of government to 
lift those weights. In an 1861 address to Congress, President Abraham 
Lincoln said the ``leading object'' of American government was ``to 
elevate the condition of men--to lift artificial weights from all 
shoulders, to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all, to afford 
all an unfettered start and a fair chance, in the race of life.''
  Current PILT policy imposes government waste that makes it more 
difficult for communities to provide important services such as 
schools, police, and fire departments. It hampers the ability of States 
to budget, plan, and provide for infrastructure improvements, make 
needed reforms to their tax systems, and attract new businesses and new 
jobs.
  This policy--and the Federal land management policies that accompany 
the PILT policy more generously--is broken, and it is imposing a heavy 
burden on our communities, particularly in rural areas where the 
Federal Government owns much, most or in some cases nearly all of the 
land and where needs are at their very greatest.
  The program is already broken. The program is already causing 
millions and millions of Americans to suffer. The program is already 
severely impeding economic opportunity for Americans, deepening the 
existing crisis of opportunity that we have in this country, which 
manifests itself on three different levels: immobility among the poor, 
insecurity among the middle class, and cronyist privilege at the top.
  If you live in one of these States, it might be great if you are one 
of those people who owns one of the few parcels of land that is not 
owned by the Federal Government. It is not so great if you live in one 
of the areas where the Federal Government owns basically everything, 
where you can do very little anywhere around you without permission 
from the Federal Government, where your local government is barely able 
to survive because it lacks a property tax base, and the Federal 
Government fails to adequately fund PILT and threatens--in this 
circumstance--to withdraw funding from PILT altogether.
  I respectfully implore all of my colleagues to consider the 
inequities inherent in this map, the inequities inherent in the PILT 
Program, and, for present purposes, to remember we need to fund PILT.
  It has to be reformed, absolutely, and we have to examine our Federal 
land ownership and management policies more broadly. Today we need to 
focus on making sure PILT is funded.
  I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                                  Iran

  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I come to the floor this evening to discuss an issue 
of national security, and that is how to prevent a nuclear armed Iran.
  I was thinking about our troubled history with Iran and whether more 
sanctions at this time makes sense for our national security interests, 
and I asked myself these questions:
  Can, in fact, a country like Iran change?
  Is it possible for an isolated regime to rejoin the community of 
nations and change its behavior after several decades?
  Must a country and its people be held captive because of the behavior 
of previous leaders in earlier times?
  So I thought back in history. I was a young girl during World War II. 
I remember when Imperial Japan killed millions in Southeast Asia, and 
particularly in China, during its brutal wars of expansion. Today, 
Japan is a peaceful democracy and one of this Nation's strongest allies 
in Asia.
  I remember when Hitler and the German Third Reich committed 
unspeakable atrocities across Europe, including the murder of 6 million 
Jewish citizens. Germany is now a close ally, a leader in the European 
Union, an institution created to ensure a war never again occurs in 
Europe.
  I remember General Franco's Spain, which was so diplomatically and 
economically isolated that it was actually barred from the United 
Nations until 1955. Spain is now a close partner of the United States 
and a fully democratic member of the European Union.
  The former Yugoslavia, Vietnam, and South Africa have all experienced 
tremendous change in recent decades. Independent states have emerged 
from the painful dissolution of Yugoslavia. Vietnam has opened itself 
to the international community but still has much progress to make. 
South Africa has shed apartheid and has emerged as an increasingly 
stable nation on a much divided continent.
  So I believe countries can change. This capacity to change also 
applies to the pursuit of nuclear weapons. At one time, Sweden, South 
Korea, and Argentina each pursued nuclear weapons.
  Following World War II, Sweden pursued nuclear weapons to deter 
foreign attack. It mastered nuclear technology and built and tested 
components for a nuclear weapon. It may have even obtained enough 
nuclear material to build a bomb. But in 1970, it signed the Nuclear 
Nonproliferation Treaty, and it ended its nuclear weapon program.
  In the early 1970s, South Korea actively sought a nuclear device. The 
United States heavily pressured South Korea not to go nuclear, and in 
April 1975, South Korea signed the nonproliferation treaty and halted 
its nuclear weapons activity.
  Throughout the 1980s, when it was ruled by a military junta with an 
egregious human rights record, Argentina had a covert nuclear weapons 
program. It built uranium production, enrichment, and reprocessing 
facilities, and it attempted to develop nuclear-capable ballistic 
missiles before abandoning its nuclear weapons program and ratifying 
the NPT in 1995.
  So the question comes, is Iran willing to change its past behavior 
and abandon its pursuit of a nuclear weapon? It may well be, and it is 
the job of diplomacy to push for that change.
  I believe there are positive signs that Iran is interested in such a 
change, and I would like to explain my reasons.
  The election of Hassan Rouhani was a surprise to many long-time 
observers of Iran because he campaigned in support of repairing Iran's 
relationship with the West.
  Since his inauguration he has tried to do exactly that. For the first 
time since the Iranian revolution, the leaders of our countries have 
been in direct

[[Page 571]]

communication with each other. Where once direct contact even between 
senior officials was rare, now Secretary of State John Kerry and Under 
Secretary of State Wendy Sherman are in near constant contact with 
their Iranian counterparts. Those conversations produced the historic 
Geneva agreement which goes into effect in 6 days, on January 20.
  Candidate Rouhani also promised to increase nuclear transparency, and 
he has delivered on that as well. Even before the Geneva interim 
agreement was reached, Iran slowed uranium enrichment and construction 
for the Arak heavy water reactor--maybe for technical reasons, maybe 
not, but it slowed. Iran has also reengaged with the IAEA to resolve 
questions surrounding its nuclear activities.
  So what has been achieved in Geneva? The interim 6-month agreement 
reached between the P5+1 countries, the United States, China, Russia, 
the UK, France, Germany, freezes Iran's nuclear program in place while 
a comprehensive agreement is negotiated in the next 6 months. This 
agreement caps Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium at 5 percent. It 
stops the production of 20 percent enriched uranium. It requires the 
neutralization of Iran's stockpile of 20 percent uranium. It prevents 
Iran from installing additional centrifuges or operating its most 
advanced centrifuges. It prohibits it from stockpiling excess 
centrifuges. It halts all significant work at the Arak heavy water 
reactor and prevents Iran from constructing a plutonium reprocessing 
facility.
  Most importantly, the interim agreement imposes the most intrusive 
international inspection regime ever. International inspectors will 
independently verify whether Iran is complying with the interim 
agreement. For the first time, the International Atomic Energy Agency 
inspectors will have uninterrupted access to Iran's enrichment 
facilities at Natanz and Fordow, centrifuge production plants, 
centrifuge assembly facilities, and Iran's uranium mines and mills. 
Finally, Iran is required to declare all planned new nuclear 
facilities.
  In exchange, the P5+1 negotiators offered sanctions relief limited to 
$7 billion, an aspect of the interim agreement that has been criticized 
and I wish to talk about it for a moment.
  Here are the facts on that sanctions relief which, in my view, does 
not materially alter the biting sanctions which have devastated Iran's 
economy. The vast majority of sanctions relief comes in the form of 
Iranian repatriation of $4.2 billion of its own money. Iran will 
continue to lose $4 billion to $5 billion a month in lost oil revenue 
from existing sanctions. Iran will not have access to about $100 
billion of its own reserves trapped by sanctions abroad.
  For perspective, the total estimated sanctions relief is valued at 
approximately only 1 percent of the Iranian economy, hardly a 
significant amount.
  I wish to take a moment to detail what is not in the interim 
agreement.
  First, it does not grant Iran a right to enrich. The United States 
does not recognize such a right for the five nonnuclear weapons states 
that currently have enrichment programs, and we will make no exception 
for Iran. But Iran does have a right to peaceful nuclear energy if it 
fully abides by the terms of its safeguards agreement under the NPT.
  Secondly, the agreement does not in any way unravel our core oil and 
financial sanctions. Others have argued the suspension of any sanctions 
against Iran will unravel the entire sanctions regime, and that is 
false. The Obama administration has taken action to ensure that does 
not happen.
  Two days after the interim agreement was reached, the United States 
settled with a Swiss Oil Services Company over sanctions violations. 
The settlement was more than $250 million. It was the largest against a 
foreign firm outside of the banking industry.
  On December 12, the administration announced the expansion of Iranian 
entities subject to sanctions. These entities either helped Tehran 
evade sanctions or provided support to Iran's nuclear program.
  On January 7 of this year, the administration halted the transfer of 
two Boeing airplane engines from Turkey to Iran. Through these actions, 
the Obama administration has made it abundantly clear that the United 
States will continue to enforce our existing sanctions against Iran.
  Third, the agreement does not codify the violation of U.N. security 
resolutions. Critics have attacked the interim agreement for its 
failure to completely halt all of Iran's nuclear enrichment by noting 
that six U.N. Security Council Resolutions have called on Tehran to do 
so and it has not done so.
  The purpose of the U.N. Resolutions was not to suspend nuclear 
enrichment indefinitely. Instead, these resolutions were designed to 
freeze Iran's nuclear activities until the IAEA could determine whether 
Iran's activities were for exclusively peaceful purposes.
  This is an important point. The interim agreement achieves what the 
six U.N. Security Council Resolutions could not. It freezes Iran's 
nuclear progress while a comprehensive, verifiable agreement is being 
negotiated over the next 6 months.
  The interim agreement was only possible because a strong 
international sanctions regime has worked to convince rank-and-file 
Iranians, candidly, that enough is enough.
  According to the State Department, as a result of the sanctions, 
Iran's crude oil exports have plummeted from approximately 2.5 million 
barrels per day in 2011 to around 1 million barrels per day in recent 
months. This decline alone costs Iran $3 billion to $5 billion per 
month in lost revenue.
  In total, 23 nations who import Iranian oil have eliminated or 
significantly reduced purchases from Iran. In fact, Iran currently has 
only six customers for its oil: China, India, Turkey, South Korea, 
Japan, and Taiwan.
  In the last year, Iran's gross domestic product shrunk by 5.8 
percent. Its GDP shrunk in 1 year by 5.8 percent, while inflation is 
estimated to be 50 percent or more.
  Prices for food and consumer goods are doubling and tripling on an 
annual basis, and estimates put unemployment as high as 35 percent 
while underemployment is pervasive.
  This is why Iran says enough is enough. The sanctions are biting and 
they are biting deeply, and there is no need to put additional 
sanctions on the table at this time.
  This body may soon consider the Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act; that 
is, a bill to do exactly the opposite, to impose additional sanctions 
against Iran, do it now, and hold it in abeyance.
  Before casting a vote, Senators should ask themselves what would 
happen if the bill passes and a promised veto by the President is not 
sustained. I would like to give my view.
  I sincerely believe the P5+1 negotiations with Iran would end and, 
with it, the best opportunity in more than 30 years to make a major 
change in Iranian behavior--a change that could not only open all kinds 
of economic opportunities for the Iranian people, but help change the 
course of a nation. Its destiny in fact could be changed.
  Passing additional sanctions now would only play into the hands of 
those in Iran who are most eager to see diplomacy fail. Iranian 
conservatives, hardliners, will attack President Rouhani and Foreign 
Minister Zarif for seeking a nuclear compromise.
  They will argue that Iran exchanged a freeze of its nuclear program 
for additional and harsh punitive sanctions. Think about that. They 
will say that Iran did not achieve anything with this agreement. All we 
got were more sanctions.
  Second, if the United States cannot honor an interim agreement 
negotiated in Geneva by Russia, China, France, Germany, the UK and 
ourselves--we are not alone in this--it will never lift sanctions after 
a final agreement is reached.
  Above all, they will argue that the United States is not interested 
in nuclear diplomacy--we are interested in regime change.
  The bottom line: If this body passes S. 1881, diplomatic negotiations 
will collapse, and there will be no final agreement.
  Some might want that result, but I do not.

[[Page 572]]

  Iran's nuclear program would once again be unrestrained, and the only 
remaining option to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon would 
be military action. I do not want that unless it is absolutely 
necessary.
  To date, the prospect of just considering this bill has prompted 
Iranian legislators to consider retaliation. There is talk that the 
legislative branch, called the Majles, may move to increase nuclear 
enrichment far beyond the 5-percent limit in the interim agreement and 
much closer to, if not achieving, weapons-grade uranium.
  So the authors of additional sanctions in this body and Iranian 
hardliners in the other body would actually combine to blow up the 
diplomatic effort of 6 major powers.
  The bill's sponsors have argued that sanctions would strengthen the 
United State's hand in negotiations. They argue that sanctions brought 
Iran to the negotiating table in the first place. They contend that 
additional sanctions would force Iran to abandon its nuclear program.
  I could not disagree more.
  Let me give the views of a few other people who are knowledgeable in 
the arena: Dr. Paul Pillar, a former U.S. intelligence official and 
current professor at Georgetown University recently argued:

       It is the prospect of having U.S.-led sanctions removed 
     that will convince Iran to accept severe restrictions on its 
     nuclear program. Threatening Iran with additional sanctions 
     now--after it has agreed to the interim agreement and an 
     interim agreement is about to go into effect--will not 
     convince Tehran to complete a final agreement.

  I couldn't agree more.
  If this bill would help our negotiators, as its authors contend, they 
would say so.
  I believe this bill is an egregious imposition on the Executive's 
authority to conduct foreign affairs. In fact, our Secretary of State 
has formally asked this Congress to give our negotiators and our 
experts the time and space to do their jobs, including no new 
sanctions.
  What does this body say, sitting here? We are not going to do that? 
This is a Secretary of State who is of this body, Chairman of the 
Foreign Relations Committee, who has been absolutely prodigious in his 
efforts to get this interim agreement, has gotten it, and we are going 
to run the risk that it is going to break apart during the next 6 
months when a final agreement might well be negotiated?
  If the Senate imposes its will, if we override the President's veto, 
and it blows up this very fragile process, some would say: Too bad, 
what a tragedy.
  We know what the Iranian reaction will be. The Iranian Foreign 
Minister Zarif, who I happen to have known for a substantial period of 
time, has clearly stated what the result will be in five words, and it 
is this: ``The entire deal is dead.''
  That is his direct quote. Why wouldn't we take him at his word? So 
far he has been good to his word.
  The ambassador of our staunchest ally, the UK, warned this body not 
to pass more sanctions. Sir Peter Westmacott recently wrote:

       Further sanctions now would only hurt negotiations and risk 
     eroding international support for the sanctions that have 
     brought us this far. The time for additional measures will 
     come if Iran reneges on the deal or negotiations fail. Now is 
     not that time.

  I deeply believe that a vote for this legislation will cause 
negotiations to collapse. The United States, not Iran, then becomes the 
party that risks fracturing the international coalition that has 
enabled our sanctions to succeed in the first place.
  It says to the UK, China, Russia, France, and Germany that our 
country cannot be trusted to stand behind our diplomatic commitments. 
That is a very big statement.
  Our allies will question whether their compliance with sanctions and 
the economic sacrifices they have made are for naught.
  Should these negotiations fall apart, the choices are few and the 
most likely result, in my view, is the eventual and inevitable use of 
military force.
  So I ask this body, Is that the choice we want to make? In 6 days the 
tentative agreement will go into place. We want to pass this? We don't 
even want to wait and see what happens?
  We don't even want to wait and see what the IAEA finds when they are 
in there 24-7, 365 days a year?
  I think what we ought to do is concentrate on Iranian compliance with 
the interim agreement.
  On January 20, 2014, this agreement comes into effect, 6 days from 
now, and over the next 6 months the international community will be 
able to verify whether or not Iran is keeping its commitments to freeze 
its nuclear progress.
  If Iran fails to abide by the terms of the interim agreement, or if a 
final agreement cannot be negotiated, Congress can immediately consider 
additional sanctions.
  I deeply believe that additional sanctions should only be considered 
once our diplomatic track has been given the opportunity to forge a 
final, comprehensive, and binding agreement.
  This is what is most distressing. If we had not reached an agreement, 
with the cooperation and leadership of the big powers of this world, 
that would be one thing. The fact is we have reached agreement and that 
action is just about to take place, and we are going to jaundice it, we 
are going to hurt it, and we are likely to collapse it by passing 
additional sanctions now which a President of the United States will 
veto with the aim of overriding that veto.
  How does that make any kind of common sense? It defies logic, it 
threatens instant reverse, and it ends what has been unprecedented 
diplomacy. Do we want to take that on our shoulders? Candidly, in my 
view, it is a march toward war.
  As Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, I know the 
challenges Iran poses to U.S. interests around the world.
  I see the majority leader is on the floor.
  Would the majority leader like me to cease for a moment?
  Mr. REID. Go ahead and finish.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. As I said, as Chairman of the Intelligence Committee, 
I know the challenges Iran poses to the U.S. interests around the 
world. Its patronage of the terrorist group Hezbollah, its support for 
Syria's Bashar Assad through the Revolutionary Guard Corps are two of 
the most troubling.
  I would hope that as a followthrough of diplomacy we might be able to 
quell some of these activities.
  Let me acknowledge Israel's real, well-founded concerns that a 
nuclear-armed Iran would threaten its very existence. I don't disagree 
with that. I agree with it, but they are not there yet.
  While I recognize and share Israel's concern, we cannot let Israel 
determine when and where the United States goes to war. By stating that 
the United States should provide military support to Israel in a formal 
resolution should it attack Iran, I fear that is how this bill is going 
to be interpreted.
  Let me conclude. The interim agreement with Iran is strong, it is 
tough, and it is realistic. It represents the first significant 
opportunity to change a three-decade course in Iran and an opening to 
improve one of our most poisonous bilateral relationships. It could 
open the door to a new future which not only considers Israel's 
national security, but protects our own.
  To preserve diplomacy, I strongly oppose the Nuclear Weapon Free Iran 
Act.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Donnelly). The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I express my appreciation to the courtesy of 
the Senator from California. She is courteous in everything she does in 
life. She is a pleasure to serve with.


               Unanimous Consent Agreement--H.J. Res. 106

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at 12 noon on 
Wednesday, January 15, the Senate proceed to the consideration of H.J. 
Res. 106, which was received from the House and is at the desk; that 
there be no amendments, motions, or points of order in order to the 
joint resolution; that there be 15 minutes of debate equally divided on 
the joint resolution; finally, that upon the use or yielding back of 
time, the joint resolution be read a third time and the Senate proceed 
to vote on passage of the joint resolution.

[[Page 573]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the request?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________