[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Pages 13218-13230]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




 NOMINATION OF PAMELA HARRIS TO BE UNITED STATES CIRCUIT JUDGE FOR THE 
                             FOURTH CIRCUIT

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the 
Senate will resume the following nomination, which the clerk will 
report.
  The bill clerk read the nomination of Pamela Harris, of Maryland, to 
be United States Circuit Judge for the Fourth Circuit.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the time 
until 5:30 p.m. will be equally divided between the two leaders or 
their designees.
  Mr. REID. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                              Immigration

  Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I am here to talk about some complex 
litigation on Chinese drywall. But before I do, this week seems to be 
the week if we are going to get anything done to assist the 
administration with regard to all of these children showing up at the 
border. It has diminished over the last few weeks. Nevertheless, there 
has still been an influx that we have all read about. Senator Mikulski, 
the chairman of Appropriations, has roughly a $2.7 million supplemental 
appropriations bill. It would be this Senator's intention--and I think 
I can speak for several other Senators who feel very strongly--that we 
have not addressed the very root cause of the problem, which is that 
the drugs in huge shipments on boats coming from South America into 
those three Central American countries with boatloads of cocaine, 
carrying 1 to 3 tons of cocaine apiece, have not been interdicted. It 
was riveting testimony that our four-star Marine commander General 
Kelly of the U.S. Southern Command pointed out that he, his staff, and 
the Joint Interagency Task Force that is headquartered in Key West have 
to watch 75 percent of those boats coming in from the Caribbean in the 
east into Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador and the Pacific on the 
west--they have to watch 75 percent of them get through. They cannot do 
anything about it because they don't have the Navy ships or the Coast 
Guard cutters with the helicopters that can interdict them. If we did 
that we would diminish a lot of the flow of those drugs. And you wonder 
why are all the children showing up. A number of us have made several 
speeches about this and I will not go back into all of that. Suffice it 
to say that the drug lords basically control the countries because they 
are in cahoots with the criminal networks that have taken over and 
violence has erupted.
  Remember, Honduras is the No. 1 murder capital of the world. What is 
a parent going to do? Their child has to join the drug gang or they are 
going to go to their child's funeral because they will kill him if he 
doesn't.
  No. 3, they are seduced by these coyotes who have this network to get 
immigrants to the north into Texas, and they are telling them they can 
get in--just send your child. You pay me $1,500, $5,000 a child; we 
will get them in. Now that is going back to the root cause of the 
problem. If we stop all the drugs going in, maybe governments such as 
that of President Hernandez of Honduras will have a chance of stopping 
some of the corruption that is so rife in that government and the local 
governments and the local police forces.

[[Page 13219]]

  We have gone over and over this before, and I just want to say that 
this Senator and others--particularly Senator Kaine who knows this 
issue well. He was a missionary when he was in law school. He took a 
year off from law school. Senator Kaine of Virginia lived in Honduras. 
He speaks fluent Spanish. He knows this problem as well. If we could 
have a greater percentage of those drugs interdicted, then we would 
seriously start to diminish all of this migration to the north through 
the rest of Central America and through Mexico to the Texas border.
  In closing, why are the children not coming from the other three 
countries right there--Belize, Nicaragua, Panama; Costa Rica, a fourth 
country--in Central America? The children are not coming from those 
areas. They are coming from the three where all the drugs are and where 
the drug lords have taken over. I hope the Senate will react with some 
rationality, and as difficult as it is going to be to pass a 
supplemental appropriations bill down at the other end of this hall in 
the House of Representatives, putting money in there to activate Coast 
Guard cutters--there are a number of them out in San Diego that are 
inactive--activate them and give the U.S. Navy the ability to 
reposition ships--it might actually help us pass this supplemental 
appropriations bill down there at the other end of the hallway in the 
House of Representatives. We have just a few days to pass this. I am 
hoping we are going to be able to do so.


                            Chinese Drywall

  I came to the floor to tell you about Chinese drywall. You cannot see 
it. This is a normal piece of drywall. It is cut off here. It is very 
faint on this picture I have in the chamber where you can see the 
marking that this is from China. This photograph doesn't tell us much, 
but let me tell you what Chinese drywall has done to the people of this 
country, making them unable to live in their houses because there is 
some kind of sulfuric content in this Chinese drywall that emits a gas 
and the occupants of a house such as this get sick. I can tell you what 
it smells like. It smells like rotten eggs. I have such sensitive air 
passages that when I walked in, all of a sudden my eyes were watering, 
my nose was stopping up, and I was starting to cough. That was just a 
few minutes in a house with Chinese drywall.
  If you can imagine, what if somebody cannot sell the house because 
the mortgage company will not cooperate. They are stuck. They cannot 
sell their house because who is going to buy a house with defective 
Chinese drywall. They cannot get a loan for their house. What would 
have happened if back at the severe time in the 2004-2005 timeframe--
and then they got hit with a big recession coming in 2007, 2008--what 
would have happened if they didn't have a job and were stuck with the 
house and everybody was getting sick in the house?
  The Chinese Government has had continued and repeated failure to 
participate in the legal process of this country to help the homeowners 
who were severely impacted by this problem with Chinese drywall.
  Here is how it started. We had a few hurricanes in 2004 and 2005. The 
big one everybody remembers is Katrina in 2005, but there was one year 
before Katrina when four hurricanes hit the Florida Peninsula all 
within the span of a month and a half. Therefore, there was a lot of 
cleanup and a lot of rebuilding because of the damage the hurricanes 
had done. Normal drywall manufacturers and distributors and suppliers 
ran out, so they asked for extra drywall coming from China. It was 
coming from a Chinese company, but it was basically owned by the 
Chinese Government. So we had a housing boom to recover from the 
hurricanes, and as a result we had in the gulf coast area these 
rebuilding efforts to recover.
  A number of builders and contractors imported this defective and 
sickly drywall. It started causing problems the minute people walked 
into the repaired home. They reported that it smelled like sulfur, 
rotten eggs. They would have metal corrosion. Let me show you a picture 
of an air-conditioner. This photograph doesn't do it justice, but these 
are all the coils on the air-conditioner, and on close inspection we 
can see that every one of these coils--these metal parts--are corroded.
  I went into a home that had their silverware--the silverware--totally 
corroded. Any metal parts in the house were totally corroded. People 
started reporting the health effects, and following all these reports 
several Federal agencies, including the Consumer Product Safety 
Commission, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of 
Housing and Urban Development, started looking into the problem.
  I must say there were a number of Senators who had to start kicking 
down the door to get them to pay attention. This Senator from a State 
that was severely affected was one of them, and the Senator from 
Louisiana who sits right here. After she had all the problems of 
Hurricane Katrina, the Senator from Louisiana, Ms. Landrieu, started 
raising Cain, and they found that this sulfur emission from this 
defective drywall was causing the corrosion and the property damage as 
well as the health effects. But these agencies, once they did that--and 
I must say we had to urge and urge and urge the agencies, but they 
weren't able to offer any kind of financial assistance.
  As I laid out in my opening comments, what was a homeowner to do. 
They couldn't get the bank to go along. They couldn't get the insurance 
company to go along. By the way, the insurance company said: We are not 
covering this as a defect in the house. So the homeowners didn't have 
any other recourse than to join a lawsuit against the responsible 
Chinese parties. Much of this litigation was consolidated in Federal 
district court in New Orleans in a multidistrict litigation. After an 
extensive period of discovery, the judge ordered it was determined that 
two Chinese manufacturers and their affiliates were responsible for 
most of the problem drywall: Knauf Plasterboard Tainjin and its 
associated affiliates, Knauf Industries. Knauf was a German company 
that imported and distributed this drywall. The other one was Taishan 
Gypsum Company and its affiliates.
  The Knauf entities agreed to appear in court on this litigation. 
Knauf reached a global settlement that allowed many of the homeowners 
with Knauf drywall to remediate their homes, get the plasterboard torn 
out. They often had to redo anything that was metal, such as pipes, 
air-conditioners, and so forth, and be able to get on with their lives.
  Taishan has refused to participate in the multidistrict litigation, 
despite the fact that several of the plaintiffs in this litigation 
served Taishan officials in China. This Senator went to China and 
talked to their equivalent of our Consumer Product Safety Commission. 
Early on I talked to them, and in essence they blew me off. They were 
served legal process in the lawsuit under an international agreement 
called the Hague Convention on the Service Abroad of Judicial and 
Extrajudicial Documents in Civil and Commercial Matters. It is the 
Hague Convention, of which the United States and China are both 
signatories. Taishan thumbed its nose at everybody and failed to appear 
in court in cases where they had been properly served under the Hague 
Convention. The judge in this litigation then entered default judgments 
against Taishan for damages resulting from the defective drywall.
  Listen to this. Rather than pay these claims under court order, 
Taishan then retained counsel. They refused to do anything up to that 
point. When they were docked by the judge, they retained counsel in the 
United States for the sole purpose of contesting the district court's 
jurisdiction and they appealed the case to the court of appeals.
  In January of this year a three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit 
unanimously upheld that the U.S. courts had proper jurisdiction over 
Taishan and could enforce the default judgment. In addition, Taishan 
let the time limit to file an appeal with the Supreme Court expire. You 
would have thought this would have spurred this Chinese company and its 
affiliates to do the right thing and

[[Page 13220]]

finally reach a settlement, but, unfortunately, they thumbed their 
noses again.
  Instead, Taishan told the district court's Federal judge that it was 
walking away and would no longer make any appearances in the court.
  Well, there is a judge down in New Orleans named Judge Fallon, and 
needless to say that didn't go over too well with him. In July--earlier 
this month--Judge Fallon issued an order holding Taishan in both civil 
and criminal contempt. He enjoined Taishan and any of its affiliates 
from conducting business in the United States until it participates in 
the judicial process. He also took the unusual step--because he wanted 
everybody in the U.S. Government to understand the gravity of his 
order--to send the contempt order to the U.S. Attorney General, the 
Secretary of State, and Members of Congress to express his frustration 
on how Taishan--and therefore the Chinese Government--was flouting 
international and U.S. law. I am very grateful to Judge Fallon. He has 
taken this action to ensure that this rogue company and its rogue 
government are prohibited from conducting any business in the United 
States until they participate in this judicial process and take 
responsibility for their actions.
  We can't issue that against the Chinese Government. It is against 
this company and its affiliates. But make no mistake. This company is 
owned by the Chinese Government.
  What does this say about our policy of letting Chinese manufacturers 
import pretty much any kind of consumer product they want into this 
country without mandating any legal recourse if something goes wrong? 
We thought that was covered under the Hague Convention. What does this 
say about Chinese companies that routinely ignore service of process 
under ratified international conventions?
  The reason for this speech is to call on Taishan and the Chinese 
Government to do the right thing: Stop hiding and finally help the 
homeowners who have had their lives turned upside down at great 
financial and personal health loss by your defective product. If they 
don't, then I think it is time for the Senate to take action to make 
sure the Chinese and other foreign manufacturers are held financially 
accountable for defective products.
  As I close I wish to reiterate why this case is so important. My 
constituents are certainly aggrieved, as are Senator Landrieu's 
constituents and a number of constituents in the Commonwealth of 
Virginia, by this defective drywall.
  Why is this case so important? Its implications are far broader than 
the issues presented in this litigation. It poses a defining moment for 
the Chinese Government and its companies, which raises grave questions 
as to the risk of doing business with the Chinese.
  Will the Chinese Government and its companies honor their moral and 
legal obligations under this or any other commercial contract? Will the 
Chinese Government and its companies which have profited from the sale 
of defective products to consumers here in the United States continue 
to flee court jurisdiction when sued or will they honor moral and legal 
obligations to appear in court, defend themselves, and satisfy an 
adverse judgment?
  If the Chinese Government and its companies will flee jurisdiction in 
this case, when they fear or are faced with an adverse judgment, can 
any company or any individual or any party afford the risk of doing 
business with the Chinese Government or its companies?
  If China will run from the law here in the United States, will it not 
run from the law everywhere else?
  I rest my case, and I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Alabama.


                              Immigration

  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, we are entering a momentous week. 
Congress must face the reality that President Obama is moving towards a 
decision whereby he would issue Executive orders in direct 
contravention of long-established American law that would grant 
administrative amnesty and work permits to 5 to 6 million persons who 
are unlawfully in this country. This is after Congress has explicitly 
refused demands to change the law to suit his desire.
  The current law is plain. Those who enter this great Nation by 
unlawful means, or who overstay their visa, are subject to removal and 
are ineligible to work. Indeed, I will read one portion of the 
Immigration and Nationality Act, section 274, which makes employment of 
unauthorized aliens unlawful. ``In general, it is unlawful for any 
person or other entity to hire or to recruit or refer for a fee for 
employment in the United States an alien knowing the alien is an 
unauthorized alien.'' That is the law of the United States.
  It is plain. Those who enter by unlawful entry are subject to removal 
and ineligible to work. That is just one of the provisions, and it is 
our law. Our law is right and just, and it comports with the laws of 
civilized nations the world over, and if followed, will serve the 
honorable and legitimate interests of this Nation and her people.
  The National Journal, Time magazine, The Hill, and others, are 
reporting that by the end of summer President Obama--sore at Congress, 
and by implication at the American people--plans, by the stroke of a 
pen, to do what the law expressly forbids: to provide amnesty and work 
permits for millions. This would be in the contravention of his duty 
and his oath to see that the laws of the United States are faithfully 
enforced, and it would be a direct challenge to the clear powers of 
Congress to make laws.
  Congress makes law and the executive branch executes those laws. It 
is that simple. The President's actions are astonishing and are taking 
our Nation into exceedingly dangerous waters. Such calculated action 
strains the constitutional structure of our Republic. Such unlawful and 
unconstitutional action, if taken, cannot stand. No Congress--with 
Republicans or Democrats in the majority--can allow such action to 
occur or to be maintained. The people will not stand for it. They must 
not stand for it.
  Mr. President: My petition is that you pull back. It is utterly 
unacceptable for you to meet with special interest groups, such as the 
National Council of La Raza and others, and then promise an action to 
them that is contrary to law. Such actions would be wrong. It would be 
an affront to the people of this country which they will never forget. 
It would be a permanent stain on your Presidency. I urge you to make 
clear you will not do this.
  I am not suggesting negotiations or any parley or any compromise. 
There is no middle ground on nullifying immigration law by the 
President. Some of your people--maybe bright, young staffers--think the 
President can intimidate Congress, that the Chief Executive can make 
such a threat and the lawmakers will just cower under their desks. That 
is wrong, sir. You cannot intimidate Congress--or the American people 
who sent them here, for that matter. Simply put, that which you desire 
is beyond your lawful reach. This is the time for administration 
officials to urge restraint within the White House. It is critical that 
the Attorney General, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the White 
House legal counsel do their duty and give the only advice they can 
give: ``Do not do this, Mr. President.'' ``You cannot do this, Mr. 
President.'' That is what they need to say. They know that is the right 
answer, and they should stand up and say no.
  Some of the best work advisers can do is to head off a disaster 
before it happens. CEOs, business types, politicians, Governors, and 
mayors get headstrong sometimes. In those instances, to avoid disaster, 
their advisers need to stand up and be counted.
  Just as the unlawful DACA amnesty for young people created an 
unprecedented and unlawful flow of more young people, that initiative 
has now, it seems, encouraged the President to take even more unlawful 
action for millions of adults this time, the papers say, by a 10-fold 
increase. If millions are given amnesty by Executive order, we can be 
sure that the result will be that even more adults--by the millions--
will be coming here unlawfully in the future.
  It will collapse any remaining moral authority of our immigration law 
and undermine the sovereignty of our Nation. If you don't have a 
legitimate,

[[Page 13221]]

lawful system of immigration that you can enforce and abide by, then 
you have undermined the very sovereignty of your Nation. It amounts, in 
effect, to an open borders policy that has never been the policy of any 
developed Nation that I am aware of and has been rejected by Congress 
and the American people repeatedly.
  In effect, the President is preparing to assume for himself the 
absolute power to set immigration law in America: Well, I'll just 
enforce what I wish to enforce, with the absolute power to determine 
who may enter and who may work, no matter what the law says--by the 
millions.
  Our response now is of great import. It will define the scope of 
executive and congressional powers for years to come. If President 
Obama is not stopped in this action and exceeds his powers by 
attempting to execute such a massive amnesty contrary to law, the moral 
authority for any immigration enforcement henceforth will be 
eviscerated. Anyone the world over will get the message: Get into 
America by any method you can and you will never have to leave.
  We are almost there, but it is not too late. I have studied this 
issue. It is absolutely not too late for us to restore a lawful system 
that treats applicants who come to America fairly and serves the 
national interest. This can be done; we just need a Chief Executive who 
leads.
  Let me state a warning.
  For the more purely political in Washington, the results of the 
recent primary elections show that the American people are being roused 
to action and, once activated, their power will be felt. They will not 
be mocked. They have begged and pleaded for our Nation's immigration 
laws to be enforced for 30 or 40 years. The politicians have refused--
refused, refused, refused. They have defeated amnesty after amnesty 
after amnesty, and they will not sit back and allow the President to 
implement through unlawful fiat what they have defeated through the 
democratic process. They must not yield to this.
  There is one thing that powers in Washington fear, and that is being 
voted out of office. Before a Member of Congress acquiesces to any 
action of this kind, they should consider their responsibility to their 
constituents.
  No Member in either party--Republican or Democrat--should support any 
border legislation that moves through this Senate that does not 
expressly prohibit these planned executive actions by the President, 
and that prohibits any expenditure of funds to implement them. There 
can be no retreat on this point. We simply need to say the Chief 
Executive of these United States cannot expend any money to execute a 
plan of amnesty. Surely that would end it.
  All of this is grim talk, but the situation is stark. Congressional 
action this week to bar unilateral, imperial action by the President is 
surely the best course to head off what could be a constitutional 
crisis. It will be good for the President because it will stop him from 
taking a step that will permanently mar his Presidency and the office 
of the President. It will avoid a major governmental disruption at a 
time when the Nation faces many threats. It will protect the rule of 
law and the constitutional order whereby Congress makes laws and the 
President executes them, whether he likes them or not.
  We have heard it said the President must act because Congress refused 
to act. Well, that is not so. Congress considered his proposal, they 
looked at existing law today, and Congress made a decision. They did 
not pass what the President proposed. They decided to stay with current 
law. So I would say that is a decision and a clear action by Congress. 
And his statement that Congress doesn't act; therefore, I can use my 
pen to act--it is not correct. It is absolutely false and contrary to 
our constitutional traditions.
  Pulling back at this time will avoid a major governmental disruption 
at a time when we are facing threats all over the world. There is much 
instability. As someone said, the wheels seem to be coming off in every 
area of the globe and at home. The last thing we need is a major, 
intense, internal battle with the President over illegal actions he 
would like to take.
  It will also help reestablish the constitutional power of Congress to 
make laws and perhaps mark the end of this Congress's acquiescence to 
executive overreach.
  Professor Jonathan Turley has expressed amazement that Congress has 
been silent in the face of some of the most imperial Presidential 
actions ever, and he explicitly considers President Obama's actions on 
immigration to be one of those. But there are a host of others.
  It will stop millions of work authorizations for those who would then 
be able to take any job in America at a time of high unemployment and 
falling wages. In this way, standing up to the President's action would 
protect American workers. We have the largest percentage of working-age 
Americans who are unemployed since the 1970s, and people need to know 
that a lot of the recent job numbers that are cited with such positive 
spin include unprecedented numbers of individuals on part-time work. 
These are not full-time jobs, many of them. An unprecedentedly high 
number of those jobs are part-time jobs. We are not doing well. This 
country does not have a shortage of labor. It just does not. It has a 
shortage of jobs. And recent immigrants--Hispanics and others who are 
coming to America--are having a hard time getting jobs too. Would it 
help them to have millions more competing for the limited number of 
jobs out there? Would it help poor working people all over America? 
Would it help African Americans? The experts tell us absolutely not. In 
fact, the Congressional Budget Office has told us that if this kind of 
mass amnesty were to be adopted, wages in America would fall for a 
decade.
  So let this clearly be known: The Congress of the United States and 
the President of the United States are given only limited powers by our 
Constitution. They are not unlimited. Neither the President nor 
Congress can do anything it wants to do. It was set up that way from 
the very beginning.
  Mr. President: You work for the American people. They don't work for 
you, and they will not accept nullification of their law passed by 
their elected representatives. The American people are not going to 
accept it. They are going to fight this. I am confident they will. They 
will resist.
  Every Member of this Congress--Republican or Democrat--will face a 
time of choosing this week. Directly or indirectly, every Member will 
be asked to support and cosponsor legislation that would stop these 
actions by the President. It is not hard to do. It will be a simple 
choice that people will remember: Do you support and approve the 
President's proposed actions? For those who cosponsor legislation to 
stop this illegality, their answer will be clear. For those who refuse 
to take simple action to stop it, they will have voted to enable what 
the National Journal has rightly called ``explosive action'' by the 
President. ``Explosive action.'' And, indeed it is. This immigration 
debate is important. People have invested time and energy and heart and 
soul into it, on both sides. Good people have debated it. Congress has 
made a decision. The President is not now entitled unilaterally to 
assert his position. Indeed, he told some of these activist groups not 
long ago that he did not have the power to do what they were asking him 
to do. Now he suggests he does before the end of the summer.
  So I am calling on all Members of Congress today to stand up to these 
lawless actions and sponsor legislation that will block them. I am 
calling on all Members of Congress today to oppose any border 
supplemental that does not include such language. I am calling on every 
person in this body, and in the House of Representatives, to stand and 
be counted at this perilous hour.
  I am calling on the American people to ask their representatives: 
Where do you stand on this, Senator? Where do you stand on this, 
Congressman? All of us were elected by American citizens to serve them 
and to serve and honor their Constitution that is our birthright. Will 
we answer that call? Where will history record that each of us stood at 
this important time? I believe

[[Page 13222]]

the answer should be clear: We stand for law. We stand for the 
Constitution. We stand for an honorable, lawful immigration system that 
treats everyone fairly and serves the national interests of the people 
of the United States.
  I thank the Chair and yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Coons). The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                           Highway Trust Fund

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I am here because in the next week we 
are going to, it looks, vote on a House-passed bill to prevent an 
impending highway funding gap. We must pass this bill to avoid funding 
disruptions and to avoid all the job losses that would follow from 
funding disruptions, all of which could begin literally in weeks if we 
did not pass the bill.
  But I have to say the House highway bill is woefully inadequate. It 
is, frankly, a pathetic measure. It fails at virtually every measure, 
most particularly failing to provide the leadership and the certainty 
all of our States need so badly as they seek to implement their highway 
programs.
  The only positive thing that can be said about this bill is it is 
better than no bill at all and a collapse of the highway fund. But that 
is not much of a commendation. The American Society of Civil Engineers 
gives America's roads a letter grade of D, our bridges only a C-plus.
  In my State of Rhode Island, we have been around a long time. We were 
one of the founding Colonies. We have a lot of old roads, a lot of old 
infrastructure. We have a lot of stuff that dates a long way back. Our 
infrastructure, for that reason, is among the worst in the Nation, with 
41 percent of our roads in poor condition, 57 percent of our bridges 
rated deficient or obsolete.
  Last Friday I visited one of our bridges, the Great Island Bridge in 
Narragansett, RI. This bridge is the sole access to an island community 
of 350 homes. It has been rated functionally obsolete and it must be 
replaced. If that bridge fails, the island's residents have no way to 
get to or from their homes.
  I will vote for this House bill to avoid that kind of catastrophe. 
But we are wasting an opportunity to do more, to do a responsible 
highway bill. We actually have a pretty good model. The Senate 
Environment and Public Works Committee, on which I serve, actually 
passed a bipartisan, multiyear infrastructure investment plan. That is 
what we need. A 6-year bill is what EPW passed. That is the kind of 
certainty our highway departments need so they can sign contracts for 
long-term projects.
  Sadly, the Republicans in the House could not manage that. The House-
passed bill will extend the authorization for a mere 8 months. The EPW 
bill, the 6-year bill written by Chairman Boxer and Ranking Member 
Vitter, in bipartisan fashion would reauthorize our Nation's highway 
programs for 6 years, through 2020.
  Our committee has done its part to move a 6-year bill in the regular 
order, in a bipartisan fashion. The House, once again, has failed. 
States need budget certainty to plan multiyear construction projects. 
That should be obvious enough even for the House to understand. To the 
millions of Americans who depend on Federal highway funding, either 
directly or indirectly, for their paychecks, for their livelihoods, the 
paltry 8-month extension says to them and their families: You have work 
until next May. That is not what these workers need and that is not 
what our 50 States need. They need long-term certainty, and this bill 
fails them.
  I plan to support the Carper-Corker-Boxer amendment which would force 
that debate this year so we do not go home at the end of this Congress 
without having passed a serious highway bill. There is no reason the 
American people should have to wait until 2015 for the certainty and 
security of a long-term highway bill, plus no guarantee we will do it 
even in 2015. If the House cannot do a long-term bill now, what makes 
them think they can do a long-term bill later? Let's roll up our 
sleeves and pass a long-term highway bill this year.
  The House bill also fails to provide any real solution to highway 
funding, to the widening revenue gap in the highway trust fund. The 
Federal gas tax of 18.4 cents a gallon is not indexed to inflation and 
Congress has not touched it in 20 years. So it should be no surprise 
that it is no longer providing the revenue support it used to.
  Plus, thankfully, cars are more fuel efficient, which is great for 
drivers--it lowers their fuel expenses--but it lowers highway revenues 
further. The House bill completely ignores that larger problem of how 
we pay for our highways in favor of a short-term funding patch with 
gimmicky one-time budget offsets that have nothing to do with highway 
use.
  We had the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in the Environment and Public 
Works Committee say: Sure, raise the highway tax a little bit. Let's 
get built the infrastructure this country needs. But instead of 
crafting a responsible long-term highway plan, the House Republicans 
are running scared from tea party groups, tea party groups that do not 
think the Federal Government should invest in infrastructure at all.
  The Club for Growth, so called, went so far last week as to say the 
highway trust fund--and I am quoting them here--``should not even 
exist.'' Funny how Republican Presidents--Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, 
Ford, Bush, and Bush--all managed to accept the idea of a Federal 
highway system, not thinking that there was anything unusual or 
improper about that.
  Well, today's far-right extremists have gone way beyond them. They 
have gone way beyond the American people. The American people 
overwhelmingly support Federal infrastructure investments. According to 
a recent poll commissioned by the American Automobile Association, more 
than two-thirds of Americans believe the Federal Government should 
invest more in roads, bridges, and mass transit systems.
  We may as Americans have differing views on many issues, but when it 
comes to investing in the roads and bridges we all use, there is, 
unsurprisingly, broad agreement except, of course, at the far-right 
fringe where people hate the government so much they want the rest of 
us to drive on bad roads and obsolete bridges. But that kind of extreme 
ideology hits Americans in the pocketbook.
  Rhode Islanders, for example, pay an estimated $467 extra each year 
for car repairs due to bad roads and potholes. So if you are looking 
out for the ordinary American, if you are looking out for the ordinary 
American consumer, if you are looking out for the ordinary American 
consumer's pocketbook, you will invest in infrastructure so our cars 
are not being banged up and beaten up on bad roads, obsolete bridges, 
and unfilled potholes.
  I am going to hold my nose and vote for this House-passed bill, 
because at this point the only alternative is a shutdown of the highway 
program. But let's be clear: This bill is a joke that does nothing on 
long-term investments in our infrastructure, nothing in a sustainable 
way to pay for them. We should not procrastinate until next May. We 
should start right now by building off of the bipartisan 6-year bill 
the Environment and Public Works Committee passed to give our 
constituents the infrastructure investments they are counting on us 
for.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. COONS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Hirono). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                           Manufacturing Jobs

  Mr. COONS. Madam President, I come to the floor today to talk about 
jobs, about manufacturing jobs in particular.
  As we in the Senate get ready to leave Washington and return home to

[[Page 13223]]

our States for August, it has become popular in the media to say our 
legislative work is done; that it is mostly about campaigning from here 
on out, for the weeks, the months remaining until the election in 
November. After all, we hear reported this is a body so divided, so 
riven by gridlock and partisanship that we haven't gotten a lot done, 
and the prospect for getting more done is even less.
  Although I have certainly been frustrated by the pace of progress at 
times, this story not only gets a lot of things wrong, it is 
counterproductive and at times even self-fulfilling.
  Let me start with the fact that we can, and we have, gotten important 
things done for manufacturing and for our economy and for our States as 
a whole.
  Last year 26 of my Democratic colleagues, including the Presiding 
Officer, joined an initiative called Manufacturing Jobs for America, or 
MJA. The goal of Manufacturing Jobs for America has been simple: put 
together a collection of our best ideas--our best ideas--to spur 
manufacturing, job creation, to work with Republicans to find common 
ground, and to get these bills passed. We are focusing on manufacturing 
as a group of Senators because it is the foundation of our economy. It 
is the foundation of the pathway toward a middle class. Manufacturing 
jobs pay more in benefits and contribute more to the local economy than 
any other sector, fueling growth in other sectors.
  Manufacturing is also incredibly innovative. Manufacturers invest the 
most in research and development of any industrial sector.
  We have focused on four different broad areas in the MJA initiative: 
training a 20th century workforce; expanding access to capital for 
businesses looking to expand and invest in growth; leveling the global 
trade playing field and opening markets abroad; and focusing our 
government behind a national manufacturing strategy.
  These are the four main areas of focus for Manufacturing Jobs for 
America, and together we have introduced over 30 bills, nearly half of 
which are bipartisan bills, with Republicans joining us in advancing 
these ideas. Together, we have made real progress in moving the ball 
forward. Already, five of these bills have passed out of committee. 
Three of them would take further steps to give startups and small 
businesses access to the research and development tax credit which came 
out of the Finance Committee. Two others passed as part of a single 
package to create a national manufacturing strategy and improve STEM 
education in our high schools and colleges that came out of the 
commerce committee. There is no reason that, working together, we can't 
get these bipartisan bills passed through the full Senate before the 
end of this Congress.
  This isn't just wishful thinking. We have already seen seven 
provisions from Manufacturing Jobs for America bills enacted into law 
as well. In last year's Defense Authorization Act we included an MJA 
amendment that streamlines regulations and makes it easier for small 
businesses to do work with the Federal Government. Recently, as a 
result of our work to ensure innovative small businesses and startups 
can access the research and development tax credit, the administration 
took executive action to implement another MJA provision, and just last 
week the House and Senate came together to pass the broad bipartisan 
Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act to reform and streamline our 
Nation's job training programs--a bill that ultimately included five 
separate MJA provisions within it, and a bill that has now been signed 
into law by our President.
  The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act was years in the making, 
and its success is in no small part due to the relentless efforts of my 
colleagues Senators Murray and Isakson--Democrat and Republican--as 
well as Senators Harkin and Alexander, who have worked for years to get 
this over the finish line. Their success in crafting this bill and in 
building bipartisan support for it is a lesson for all of us, and it is 
a large example of what we have tried to do, bit by bit, for other 
manufacturing bills.
  To me, it is really about determination. We have shown it is possible 
to get things done if we relentlessly seek common ground, if we engage 
outside groups, if we strengthen the quality of the ideas, and if we 
build bipartisan paths toward success.
  One of our country's biggest challenges is the rapid pace of change 
in our globally interconnected economy. The middle-class jobs of today 
and tomorrow require higher skill levels than ever before as the 
economy continues to evolve. America needs a system that emphasizes 
lifelong learning, learning on the job, and constant adjustment. This 
is a challenge that Members of both parties are well aware of and are 
dedicated to stepping up and meeting. That is what the Workforce 
Innovation and Opportunity Act is all about.
  To put it in some context, by 2022 we are projected to have 11 
million fewer workers with postsecondary education than our economy 
will need. But by consolidating 15 outdated or redundant Federal job 
training programs, by creating new board accountability standards, and 
by giving cities and States the flexibility to meet their economy's 
unique local needs, the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act will 
help us make up that shortfall.
  I was at the bill signing last week at the White House, along with 
the Senators whom I cited who led the charge on this, and it was 
uplifting to see the positive impact that came out of uniting in such a 
broadly bipartisan way on such an important issue as job skills for the 
modern manufacturing workforce for America.
  On a week when Congress came together to improve our investment in 
America's workers, Vice President Biden also released a critical report 
that had great contributions from the Secretaries of Commerce, 
Education, and Labor--a critical report that details a number of other 
steps the administration is taking as a complement to that new law, the 
Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, to equip our workers for the 
21st century economy.
  As we get ready this week to return to our home States and to hear 
from our constituents in August, there is no reason to stop legislating 
this week and when we return in September. That is why I am introducing 
another bill as part of Manufacturing Jobs for America, a bill called 
Manufacturing Universities Act of 2014.
  This bill will take on a simple but important challenge. Because 
today's manufacturing jobs require higher skill levels than ever--
higher skill levels than yesterday's assembly line jobs, our schools 
and in particular universities need to be equipping students with those 
skills. Since innovation and research and development keep leading to 
new materials and new technologies that are critical to keeping 
American manufacturing at the cutting edge of the global economy, we 
also need to connect our universities with our manufacturers.
  The manufacturing universities bill would create a competitive grant 
program that would ultimately designate 25 American universities as 
manufacturing universities. The competition would incentivize schools 
to build engineering programs that are targeted, that are focused on 
21st century manufacturing and the skills our workers need to thrive. 
This would allow the cycle of innovation that can begin in the 
laboratory, that can mature in a factory, and that can produce more 
competitive products of the market to be fully harnessed around the 
challenge of meeting the 21st century manufacturing environment. That 
would build on important work that is already being done to link 
universities all the way to the shop floor but where we are not doing 
as much as we can and should with Federal grant funds that go to 
universities for research, to make them relevant and to make them 
current and to make them competitive.
  For example, in my home State of Delaware, this bill, if enacted into 
law, could help the University of Delaware bolster its work with the 
private sector, focus its work with the Delaware Manufacturing 
Extension Partnership, focus the partnership between Delaware Technical 
and Community College, Delaware State University, and

[[Page 13224]]

our manufacturing community in Delaware, to ensure that manufacturing 
becomes a larger part of the University of Delaware's engineering 
curriculum and the training and research and outreach conducted by Del 
State and Del Tech.
  The competitive challenges of the 21st century are big, but we have 
every reason to be united around meeting them. Manufacturing Jobs for 
America, like the Manufacturing Universities Act, take simple steps to 
invest in America's workers so they can drive our innovation and growth 
today and tomorrow, and take simple steps to make sure we are being as 
competitive as possible, that we are growing the best jobs possible for 
our home States and for our whole country.
  Let's come together in a bipartisan way. Let's build on the success 
we have already seen across the different skills initiatives I have 
discussed. Just because elections are coming up this fall doesn't mean 
we can't continue to get behind great ideas--whether Democrat or 
Republican, whether from the House or the Senate--to move our Nation 
forward, and to create great jobs for all our States and all our 
communities.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, last week I explained why I oppose the 
nomination of Pamela Harris to the Fourth Circuit. I wish to raise 
several other aspects of her record that I find troubling, but before I 
address the specifics of this nominee, I need to place this nomination 
in context.
  Last November, when the distinguished majority leader decided to toss 
aside an institution almost as old as the Senate itself, he claimed 
that breaking the rules was necessary because of an imminent crisis in 
the DC Circuit--not a judicial emergency; the numbers made it plain 
there was no judicial emergency, but a crisis that required radical 
action. That was after we had already confirmed the President's first 
nominee to the DC Circuit by a unanimous vote of 97 to 0. As I said in 
November, there was no crisis.
  According to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, as of 
September 2013, the DC Circuit had 149 pending appeals for each active 
judge, by far the lightest caseload of any of the Nation's 13 circuit 
courts of appeals. The number of cases filed in that circuit decreased 
by almost 5 percent during the year 2013. So the only crisis the 
distinguished majority leader was responding to was one he and the 
Obama White House had manufactured. Instead, in an exercise of raw 
political power he decided to stack the DC Circuit by ramming through 
three of the President's nominees simultaneously. It turns out that the 
crisis was just an excuse for a political power grab, plain and simple, 
and everyone knew it. Despite the denials from the other side, all the 
signs were there for anyone and anybody who cared to see those signs.
  In May of last year the distinguished majority leader said the DC 
Circuit was ``wreaking havoc with the country'' and that he was going 
``to do something about it.'' I am not going to recount how many of my 
Democratic colleagues repeatedly blocked President Bush's nominees to 
that court when they were in the minority. Those were and remain 
nominees of the highest quality who deserved a vote but never got such 
a vote. Suffice it to say then that during the Bush administration, 
when the parliamentary shoe was on the other foot, the distinguished 
Democratic leader claimed the filibuster was a sacred institution. 
Times surely have changed.
  So now after the other side has succeeded in stacking the DC Circuit, 
Democratic appointees outnumber Republican appointees by a 7-to-4 
majority among active judges. The distinguished majority leader wasn't 
going to leave anything to fortune and he rammed those three nominees 
through.
  I am recounting how the majority leader took the Senate nuclear 
because it all came to another head last week. You see, on Tuesday the 
three-judge panel of the DC Circuit decided the Halbig v. Burwell case, 
the most significant ObamaCare ruling since the Supreme Court upheld 
the constitutionality of the law in 2012. Halbig is a straightforward 
case of statutory interpretation under the Administrative Procedures 
Act and the DC Circuit panel got it right. As the panel held, the text 
of the Affordable Care Act states on its face that tax credits are 
available only to individuals--individuals--who purchase their 
insurance plans through an exchange established by a State. So the IRS 
cannot make the tax credits available as the law clearly says to those 
who bought plans through the Federal exchange. You don't have to take 
my word for it. Putting aside the ample evidence mustered by the DC 
Circuit's opinion, as early as 2009, the former Democratic chair of our 
Finance Committee suggested that tax credits were aimed to cover only 
State exchanges. Additionally, economist Jonathan Gruber, one of the 
key architects of ObamaCare, has been very clear on this question.
  According to the New York Times, Mr. Gruber's role in designing 
ObamaCare was so crucial that ``the White House lent him to Capitol 
Hill to help Congressional staff members draft the specifics of the 
legislation.''
  What did the administration's own expert economist have to say about 
the availability of tax credits under ObamaCare? Here is his quote from 
2012 explaining how credits were intended as a political pressure 
tactic on our 50 States:

       I think what's important to remember politically about 
     this, is if you are a state and you don't set up an Exchange, 
     that means your citizens don't get their tax credits. But 
     your citizens still pay the taxes that support this bill. So 
     you're essentially saying to your citizens, you're going to 
     pay all the taxes to help all the other states in the 
     country. I hope that's a blatant enough political reality 
     that states will get their act together and realize that 
     there are billions of dollars at stake here in setting up 
     these Exchanges, and that they'll do it. But you know, once 
     again, the politics can get ugly around this.

  Mr. Gruber is right. The politics have gotten very ugly around this.
  After the panel ruled against the HHS Secretary in Halbig last week, 
it only took the administration about an hour to announce that it would 
seek en banc review by the full DC Circuit. That is where the 
majority's power grab is paying off. Breaking the Senate's longstanding 
rules and stacking the DC Circuit was a premeditated political 
calculation from the very beginning. So last week when asked whether 
his decision to stack the courts was vindicated by the Halbig decision, 
the distinguished majority leader told the press: ``I think if you look 
at simple math, it does. Simple math, you bet.''
  Simple math was the other side's calculation. The simple math is 
stacking the DC Circuit with leftwing judges who will do in a court 
what the President and the other side have been unable to do through 
the legislative process. It is what they have been unable to do through 
the proper channels of government designated by the Constitution to 
resolve these issues through the Congress. But the President has been 
complaining for years that he cannot accomplish his legislative agenda 
that way, so he went looking for alternatives to that constitutional 
process, where the Constitution says the legislative branch shall 
legislate, and the Constitution says that the executive branch should 
only execute. Faithfully executing the laws is not something this 
President concerns himself with. By now everybody has heard the 
President's boast about his pen and his phone. As of July 18 of this 
year, the President wielding that pen and dialing that phone has 
unconstitutionally amended ObamaCare by executive or administrative 
fiat a grand total of 24 times, and that could be a very conservative 
estimate of everything he has done. The President's unilateral 
Executive actions were not minor. They unconstitutionally altered basic 
aspects of the law's design and operation. Things as fundamental as 
delaying the individual mandate, ordering the IRS to make subsidies 
available through Federal exchanges in direct contravention of the law, 
extending noncompliant plans, delaying the employer mandate--not once 
but twice--and exempting unions from reinsurance fees which will create 
costs that will be passed on to consumers who aren't fortunate enough 
to be employed by the President's political allies--all of these and

[[Page 13225]]

more in violation of law. By his own admission the President has used 
these aggressive and lawless tactics because he cannot prevail in the 
legislative process. But time has shown that Executive action has been 
insufficient to realize a failed legislative agenda. So the President 
turned to the courts to do what he couldn't otherwise do legislatively, 
what he couldn't do within constitutional constraints, because it is 
all about just ``simple math.''
  That is not the way the Constitution works. High school students know 
otherwise. The President isn't entitled to a rubberstamp from a 
Congress on unpopular legislation, and he is not entitled to stack the 
courts with radically liberal judges when his political initiatives 
fail legislatively.
  So I want the other side to remember how politics works when they 
inevitably find themselves in the minority once again. I want them to 
remember the new realities of the so-called simple math that they 
resorted to in order to accomplish legislative projects through 
judicial proxies instead of through the democratic process.
  The DC Circuit wasn't the only appeals court to rule on the ObamaCare 
subsidies issue last week, and that brings me back to Professor 
Harris's nomination that we will be voting on today. The Fourth Circuit 
has ruled, but in contrast to the DC Circuit, it upheld the 
administration's subsidies regime in a case called the King case, and 
that is where this nominee comes in. As I explained to my colleagues 
last week, the timing of the vote on this nomination is not 
coincidence. Professor Harris is being fast-tracked to the Fourth 
Circuit just in time for another en banc appeal, should one 
materialize.
  The professor, one of the President's most stridently liberal 
nominees to date, is jumping ahead of other circuit nominees on the 
Executive Calendar. Why? For one simple reason: The administration is 
betting on more simple math to defend ObamaCare in the Fourth Circuit, 
just like they are betting on simple math to save them in the DC 
Circuit.
  My colleagues need to face the facts. Professor Harris is a rock-
solid vote for saving ObamaCare's unlawful subsidy regime which many 
commentators have described as the economic linchpin of the entire law. 
All we need to do is look at the nominee's record, which shows time and 
again how this nominee confuses politics with the law.
  For years prior to her confirmation hearing she advocated a legal 
philosophy in which leftwing politics actively guides and actively 
shapes judicial decisionmaking. She has explained in detail that she 
believes the Constitution is made and remade over and over again by 
political movements at the so-called constitutionally critical 
junctures. So do we even need to ask whether Professor Harris thinks 
that passage of ObamaCare was one such critical juncture and that the 
law is worth preserving at all costs? The question answers itself.
  Just look at Professor Harris's record. Before my colleagues vote I 
want them to have a clear picture of what this nominee stands for, so I 
am going to mention a few truly remarkable positions she has taken in 
addition to the many I discussed with my colleagues last week. 
Professor Harris is on record that extralegal considerations should 
influence how a judge rules. She also expressed her belief that the 
personal characteristics of the judge should matter as well.
  I think it is fair to say that she is acutely concerned with the 
personal characteristics of the judge. In 2010 she even told the Los 
Angeles Times that the President should consider a judicial nominee's 
religious beliefs when filling Supreme Court vacancies, even though our 
Constitution says there can be no religious test for any office. She 
said:

       It is hard for me to see religion as especially different 
     than all other things that presidents take into account.

  I don't even know where to start with that, and perhaps the less said 
about it the better. But I would be interested to know which religions 
the nominee thinks are suitable or unsuitable for representation on the 
Federal bench.
  I will leave you with another example of how out of mainstream this 
nominee is. Professor Harris is an outspoken advocate for abortion 
rights. Over the years she has made a number of controversial 
statements about abortion and the Supreme Court's abortion precedent. 
Shockingly, on one occasion last year she described partial-birth 
abortion as merely a ``late-ish'' kind of abortion. The nominee also 
suggested that States ``gin up medical controversies'' intentionally 
and in bad faith in order to justify restrictions on late-term 
abortions.
  She denigrated restrictions on partial-birth abortion because, in her 
view, ``you could find one guy to say `I don't know it's safe to create 
medical uncertainty that will allow state regulation.'''
  Those are definitely not the views of mainstream nominees.
  My colleagues need to understand this nominee's views fully before 
they cast their votes. This is a nominee who describes herself as a 
``profoundly liberal person'' and who thinks the Constitution is a 
``profoundly progressive document.'' This is a nominee who actually 
thinks the Constitution embodies her personal leftwing philosophy and 
has said it is ``pretty close to where I am.'' This is a nominee who 
suggested that a judicial nominee's religious faith is a valid 
consideration for service on the Federal bench. This is a nominee who 
thinks partial-birth abortion is just a ``late-ish'' kind of abortion 
and criticizes State partial-birth abortion laws ginned up by fake 
controversies and bogus data.
  I explained earlier, a vote for this nominee is a vote in favor of 
ObamaCare, and that is why she is being hurried onto the Fourth Circuit 
ahead of nominees to other courts of appeal. It is the distinguished 
majority leader's simple math.
  This is perhaps the most liberal judicial nominee we have seen from 
this President so far, which is why I am going to vote no on this 
nominee and urge my colleagues to do likewise.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.


                          State of the Senate

  Mr. HATCH. Madam President, I rise to speak about a subject that 
troubles me greatly: the state of affairs in this body, the U.S. 
Senate.
  I spoke on the floor last week about how the Senate has historically 
lived up to its unique and essential role in our constitutional order. 
Today, I am compelled to offer an account of this institution as it 
operates today. I believe this message is important both for the 
American people, whom we all serve, and for my colleagues in this body.
  When I spoke on the floor last week, I noted the widespread 
perception that the Senate has fallen into dysfunction. The 
pervasiveness of this view is striking among the public, in the media, 
and even among current and former Senators of all political and 
ideological stripes. And it is true. The Senate is in worse shape now 
than ever before in my 38 years of service here.
  We must properly locate the source of the problem if we are to have 
any hope of correcting it. Political discourse about the state of the 
Senate is so often dominated by those who call for the Senate to be 
more productive, more efficient. To these critics, the Senate's rules 
are anachronisms, historical accidents, relics of a bygone era that 
must be swept away for the Senate to race through more legislation and 
nominations, not the least of which we just heard Senator Grassley 
speak about.
  As I laid out on the floor last week, the purpose of the Senate is 
not to duplicate the work of the majoritarian House of Representatives. 
Our work is of a different sort. The Senate was designed to refine the 
unbridled passions of popular will, to apply considered judgment to 
produce thoughtful legislation aimed at the common good.
  Structuring a body of such a unique character occupied much of the 
Framers' time during that hot summer in Philadelphia in 1787. Beyond 
the Senate's constitutional architecture, the body's rules, traditions, 
and precedents have developed over more than two centuries, not as 
flukes but as means of reinforcing and facilitating its purpose.

[[Page 13226]]

  During the past 227 years, the right to debate and the right to amend 
have become the twin pillars that upheld the Senate's lofty purpose as 
a body of considered judgment. As Senator Robert C. Byrd wisely 
observed, ``As long as the Senate retains the power to amend and the 
power of unlimited debate, the liberties of the people will remain 
secure.''
  Many of the greatest legislative achievements of this body during my 
38 years as a Senator were only possible because of our open methods of 
deliberation and amendment. I think of my many partnerships with the 
late Ted Kennedy, and others--Senator Harkin, Senator Dodd, Henry 
Waxman. I can name quite a few. Senator Kennedy and I fought like 
brothers but became the best of friends. This unique environment of the 
Senate allowed us to find areas of mutual interest and ultimate 
agreement for the public good. Last week I named just a few of these 
landmark accomplishments: the 1981 budget, the blueprint of how we 
turned the economy around in the Reagan years; the 1997 budget deal in 
which we cut taxes, balanced the budget for the first time in decades, 
and created the State Children's Health Insurance Program; the 
Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, a vital criminal law 
that curtailed the abuse of our courts; and the Religious Freedom 
Restoration Act, a landmark piece of legislation sadly attacked by many 
of my Democratic colleagues to gin up a phantom war on women to save 
their lagging electoral fortunes, but in reality a bipartisan agreement 
that Teddy Kennedy and I championed and that passed almost unanimously. 
These are just a handful of our legislative achievements throughout the 
past four decades.
  Like so many others, the roots of these successes lay in the Senate's 
characteristic deliberation, including unlimited debate and an open 
amendment process. Guaranteeing each individual Senator the full right 
of participation enhanced the quality of the final product and 
crowdsourcing good ideas rather than limiting input to a small 
gathering in backroom Capitol offices.
  Giving each Senator the opportunity to have his ideas discussed and 
debated gave us all confidence that the final product represented the 
best, most considered judgment of the whole body, encouraging Senators 
to support sometimes imperfect but decisively beneficial legislation. 
Allowing modifications to the initial iteration of a bill--while often 
frustrating for partisans and purists--often created a broad base of 
support for lasting reforms. Emphasizing an open and inclusive process 
encouraged partnerships even among ideological opposites, such as Ted 
Kennedy and myself, to find areas of mutual agreement and reach broad 
consensus. And respecting the limits of the majority party's power 
established confidence that when the positions of the parties switched, 
the rights of the minority would remain protected.
  The atmosphere facilitated by our longstanding rules and traditions 
represents the Senate at its best. The Senate, functioning as it 
should, and so often has over much of my time here, demonstrates that 
these procedures and traditions are not flukes of history meant to be 
swept away as soon as they are politically inconvenient or frustrate a 
majority party. Rather, they are vital to the Senate's ability to serve 
the American people.
  This is why the first Adlai Stevenson in his farewell address to the 
Senate as Vice President warned:

       It must not be forgotten that the rules governing this body 
     are founded deep in human experience; that they are the 
     result of centuries of tireless effort in legislative halls, 
     to conserve, to render stable and secure, the rights and 
     liberties which have been achieved by conflict. By its rules 
     the Senate wisely fixes the limits to its own power. Of those 
     who clamor against the Senate, and its methods of procedure, 
     it may be truly said: They know not what they do.

  Sadly, these critical and defining practices are under attack. Some 
who once defended the right to amend when in the minority have acted 
consistently to deny that right now that they are in the majority.
  On February 28, 2006, the senior Senator from Nevada, then serving as 
minority leader, condemned a procedural maneuver that denied the 
minority the opportunity to offer amendments. He stated unequivocally: 
This is a very bad practice. It runs against the basic nature of the 
Senate.
  That maneuver, referred to as filling the amendment tree, allows the 
majority leader to use his right to be recognized before any other 
Members as a means to block any and all other amendments by filling all 
amendment slots with his own amendments and thus prohibiting anybody 
else from having any rights of amendment.
  Less than a year after condemning the maneuver of filling the 
amendment tree as a very bad practice, inconsistent with the very 
nature of the Senate, the senior Senator from Nevada became the 
majority leader. Rather than take his own wise counsel from months 
before, he instead began a consistent pattern of procedural abuse by 
using that very same destructive practice. The majority leader employed 
that tactic 21 times during the 110th Congress and 23 times during the 
111th Congress. As the 112th Congress opened, the majority leader 
pledged to use this tactic only ``infrequently,'' but went on to employ 
it a record 26 times in the following 2 years.
  The Congressional Research Service confirms that the current majority 
leader has used his position to deny amendments to the minority more 
than twice as often as the previous six majority leaders combined. He 
has used his position to deny amendments to the minority more than 
twice as often as the previous six majority leaders combined.
  Six Senators led this body as majority leader between the 99th and 
109th Congresses, three Republicans and three Democrats. I served here 
under all of them. Together they denied amendments to the minority 40 
times in those 22 years. No individual leader used this tactic more 
than 15 times. As of this month, in less than 8 years, the current 
majority leader has denied amendments to the minority a staggering 87 
times.
  The right to amend is indeed a part of the basic nature of the 
Senate, a defining feature of this body that allows us to conduct 
legislative business differently than in the majoritarian House. The 
right to amend allows different voices to be heard, different issues to 
be raised, and different decisions to be made. Denying that right 
changes the basic nature of the Senate and prefers power over liberty.
  Hardly a day goes by without the current majority confirming my 
point. Earlier this month the majority leader discussed the possibility 
of allowing amendments to a bill. The minority, he said, want 
amendments ``because they want to kill the bill.'' But he pledged to 
consider amendments that, in his view, would ``lead to passage of the 
bill.''
  In other words, the minority has only those opportunities to 
participate in the legislative process that the majority leader says 
they do. He was right back in 2006: This is a very bad practice, and he 
is only making it worse.
  Consider another way of looking at this problem. Recently, almost a 
year went by during which the majority leader allowed votes on only 11 
Republican amendments. Think about that--only 11 amendments in nearly a 
year. All 45 Republican Senators together got fewer votes on amendments 
than, for example, one House Democrat, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson 
Lee. Indeed, the Republican House majority allowed votes on 174 
Democratic amendments during the same period that the majority leader 
here allowed votes on only 11 Republican amendments. There are Senators 
who have been here 6 years and have never had an amendment of theirs 
voted upon--that is pathetic--on both sides.
  The other defining feature of the Senate, the right to debate, is 
also fast becoming a thing of the past. This practice has been a 
central characteristic of the Senate for more than 200 years and, like 
the right to amend, allows voices to be part of the legislative process 
who would otherwise be shut out.
  When I was first elected, this body included only 38 of us 
Republicans, even fewer than the threshold in our

[[Page 13227]]

Senate rules to prevent cutting off debate. I know from long experience 
that the right to debate can often annoy the majority by empowering the 
minority. But fulsome debate and thorough deliberation far more than 
expediency or efficiency is essential to the nature of the Senate. Both 
sides have been annoyed from time to time, but nothing like this.
  Senate practice and rules have, for more than two centuries, required 
a supermajority of Senators to end debate before the Senate can vote on 
a pending legislative matter or a nomination. The current majority 
leader has compromised the minority's ability to debate in both areas.
  Under the rule adopted in 1917, ending debate begins with a motion to 
invoke cloture to end debate. The current majority leader often files a 
cloture motion on a bill at the very same time he brings it up for 
consideration. He has used this tactic far more often than previous 
majority leaders, and its effect is not to end debate on legislation 
but to prevent it altogether. Whenever those of us in the minority have 
resisted his demand that we end debate as soon as we begin 
consideration, the majority leader wrongly labels it a filibuster.
  Last November the majority leader claimed there had been 168 
filibusters on executive and judicial nominations. The majority leader 
used this supposedly unprecedented level of confirmation obstruction to 
take the drastic step of abolishing extended debate altogether using 
the so-called nuclear option. But the majority leader was counting 
cloture motions, not filibusters. A cloture motion is simply a request 
to end debate. A filibuster occurs when the debate cannot be ended 
because the cloture vote fails. In fact, most of those were not 
filibusters; they were falsely called that. There have been only 14 
filibusters of President Obama's nominees, and that practice was on a 
decline. The Senate, in fact, confirmed 98 percent of President Obama's 
nominees. There was never a problem there.
  The majority leader's current opposition to filibustering Democratic 
nominees is simply impossible to reconcile with the 26 times he voted 
to filibuster Republican nominees.
  But even as destructive as the nuclear option has been, some of the 
less visible changes to the management of this Chamber have proven just 
as damaging to the functioning of the Senate. Take the committee 
process--the primary forum for both deliberation and amendment. The 
majority leader has set a record for completely bypassing the committee 
process, bringing most of the bills we have considered lately up in 
essentially final form, shielding them from deliberation and amendment 
on both the floor and in committee. In each Congress since he became 
majority leader, the senior Senator from Nevada has set a record for 
bypassing the committee process. In fact, with 6 months remaining in 
this Congress, he has already used this tactic more in one Congress 
than any other majority leader.
  What are these matters the majority leader brings to the floor? An 
unschooled observer might imagine that after the negotiation of the 
Ryan-Murray budget agreement--an imperfect bargain but a breakthrough 
for cooperation nonetheless--we would join the House in pursuing the 
appropriations process through the regular order; that we would use the 
opportunity to exert our influence as legislators on how our 
constituents' hard-earned dollars are spent. Instead, the majority 
leader brings up bills that have no chance of becoming law in order to 
score political points to reinforce disingenuous narratives about a 
supposed war on women or so-called economic patriotism.
  The current majority leader's abuse of the Senate amounts to a 
national travesty. He has broken down so much of what makes this 
institution serve the Nation's interests in order to advance his own 
party's temporary political gain. Such a betrayal of trust is nothing 
short of tragic.
  To my 56 colleagues who have never served in the Senate when this 
body lived up to its potential greatness, we can indeed restore the 
Senate's rightful place in our constitutional order. This body can 
again be a source of great legislative achievement borne out of 
thoughtful deliberation and inclusive consideration. But this majority 
leader's slash-and-burn tactics are not the path to achieve these 
worthy ends. They are a dead end, leading only to the destruction of 
this institution that has served our Nation so well for so long. 
Instead, restoring the Senate will require us all--Republicans and 
Democrats alike--to stand for the institution's rules, traditions, 
precedents, and for our individual prerogatives as Senators.
  The majority leader is my friend, but I have to say these criticisms 
are valid, they are honorable, and it is about time that people on both 
sides of the floor start to realize we can't keep going this way and 
still call this the greatest deliberative body in the world. It is 
pathetic. I think people on both sides know it is pathetic, and it is 
time for it to stop.
  Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                           Highway Trust Fund

  Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, it is hard to imagine a more pressing 
need for our people, for our economy, and for our quality of life than 
reauthorizing the highway trust fund.
  The Senate has previously entered into a unanimous consent agreement 
to have votes on four transportation funding amendments. The reality, 
however, is that time is running out to hold those votes before they 
would become what amounts to a meaningless exercise.
  We all know that this week the Senate still has to vote on veterans 
health care, emergency funding to deal with wildfires raging in the 
West, and the challenge of those child immigrants coming across the 
border from Mexico. That is all the more reason why the critical issue, 
the urgent issue of transportation funding should not be left to the 
last minute. Left to the last minute, in effect, this body would simply 
be surrendering its ability to have a genuine impact on an urgent 
national issue--an issue critical for our people, for our economy, and 
for our country in the days ahead.
  Now, if the Senate were to vote tomorrow on transportation funding--
and the majority leader, Senator Reid, has assured me that would be 
acceptable to him--there would still be time to work out any 
differences between the Senate and the other body before the Congress 
recesses at the end of this week.
  However, if the votes are delayed until later in the week, my 
judgment, as chairman of the Finance Committee, where Senator Hatch and 
I have put together a bipartisan bill is that if the votes are delayed, 
for example, on the bipartisan Wyden-Hatch amendment, it would become 
almost impossible for the Senate to have any input into the final 
transportation bill that goes to the President.
  Just from my own standpoint, I think it would be legislative 
malpractice for the Senate not to have a role to play in this premier 
economic issue now before the Congress. The highway trust fund, 
colleagues, is going to be reauthorized this week. That is 
nonnegotiable. The reason it is going to be reauthorized this week and 
we will not accept anything else is that the stakes are just too great. 
If our country was to have the transportation equivalent of a 
government shutdown, more than 700,000 jobs could be affected, coming 
on the heels of a slowdown in home construction which we have just seen 
in the last few days. It would be a devastating blow for the 
construction industry and our whole economy.
  Beyond the short-term impact and the threat to the already shaky 
recovery, my view is that every Senator, every Democrat and every 
Republican, understands transportation funding

[[Page 13228]]

and improving our infrastructure is critical to our country's future. 
The reality is that it is just not possible to have a big league 
quality of life with little league infrastructure.
  Now as I wrap up, I would like to talk about a couple of other points 
that are relevant to how the Senate conducts its business. I am 
especially grateful to Senator Hatch, who has consistently met me 
halfway. As we know, our distinguished colleague, the former chairman, 
Senator Baucus, is now Ambassador to China. I took up that position in 
February. From the very day I became chairman of the committee, Senator 
Hatch has been willing to work with me, meet me halfway and, in 
particular, has talked about the importance of the Senate functioning 
in its regular order.
  I would point out that a number of colleagues have been saying just 
that, and that the Senate has not had a chance to vote on amendments to 
legislation this year. That is not how this great body is supposed to 
operate. We know, with respect to this transportation bill, if we can 
get it brought to the floor tomorrow so we can have a real debate, we 
could have two bipartisan amendments and two from the minority that 
will shape not only transportation policy but also policies in vital 
other areas, including taxes, pensions, and trade.
  If the votes on these amendments, bipartisan amendments, are fairly 
structured so that both sides would have a chance to weigh in and if 
the votes on these amendments are going to be given full and fair 
consideration and not become some kind of exercise in futility, they 
have to be held tomorrow. So I hope we will be able to work this out. I 
had thought about coming here and advancing a procedural motion. My 
hope is we can work this out so we can really debate these critical 
issues.
  I do think the other body goes too far on the issue of pensions 
smoothing. Given that position, the country is likely to have two big 
challenges in the future. First, how do we fund transportation? And 
second, what are we going to do about the hopes and aspirations of all 
of those workers relying on pensions and the future of the Pension 
Benefit Guarantee Corporation?
  So I do think the bipartisan Senate proposal that Senator Hatch and I 
have authored--and there are other bipartisan proposals--gives us a 
chance to, in effect, have the Senate weigh in in a meaningful fashion 
on this critical issue.
  I know we are going to have a vote in a little bit, and there will be 
a discussion between the leaders and colleagues. I may come back later 
tonight to discuss this further. I simply come this afternoon--more 
than anything else, what I have sought to do is to try to advance 
exactly what Senator Hatch has been talking about: Regular order and 
the chance for both sides to be heard on critical issues and to try to 
get beyond some of the polarizing, divisive kind of rhetoric that 
certainly you hear outside the Capitol.
  I was home this weekend marching in parades, getting out across the 
State. That is what I heard continually, people coming up and saying: 
Ron, can't the Senate and the Congress find a way to come together? 
Senator Hatch and I did that on a bipartisan proposal. There are other 
bipartisan proposals, proposals that ensure the minority has a chance 
to be heard. I just hope we can work it out this evening so both sides 
will have a chance to have a fair debate on this issue at a time when 
it is still meaningful.
  I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum and ask 
unanimous consent that the time in quorum calls be equally divided.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CARDIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. CARDIN. Madam President, in a few moments we are going to have 
the opportunity to vote on the confirmation of Pamela Harris for the 
Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. I am very proud to have joined Senator 
Mikulski in recommending to President Obama the appointment of Pamela 
Harris to the Fourth Circuit.
  I have interviewed many candidates for judicial appointments. I can 
tell you Pamela Harris is at the top, as far as her qualifications for 
this appellate court position. She is an extraordinarily talented 
person who has devoted the prime part of her life to public service and 
seeks this appointment for the right reasons--to continue her public 
service.
  I mentioned that Senator Mikulski and I both recommended her 
appointment. Senator Mikulski has set up, as the senior Senator in our 
State, a process by which we solicit the strongest possible candidates 
of interest to fill judicial vacancies. We understand these are 
lifetime appointments. We understand the importance of these 
appointments. We have a screening process and an interview process in 
addition to the White House and Justice Department vetting process, 
which we think will give us the highest quality person to fill these 
lifetime appointments. In Pamela Harris's case, I am extremely proud. I 
thank Senator Mikulski for her commitment to a process that gives us 
the very best people for these positions.
  Pamela Harris is the granddaughter of Polish-Jewish immigrants who 
came to this country to seek a better life for their children. Pamela's 
mother worked her way through law school. Pamela herself went to Yale 
College and then Yale Law School. She was helped in the process with 
Pell grants. She is a product of the Montgomery County public schools. 
We are very proud of the fact that she has really lived the American 
dream and has been able to accomplish so much in her career through 
hard work and believing in this country.
  When we take a look at her professional accomplishments, I don't know 
what else we could ask. She has the highest rating from the American 
Bar Association, which gives us that information on the candidates who 
are nominated for judgeships.
  She clerked for Judge Harry T. Edwards in the U.S. Court of Appeals 
for the District of Columbia, and she clerked for Justice John Paul 
Stevens in the Supreme Court of the United States. She has been an 
associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, 
codirector of Harvard Law School's Supreme Court and appellate 
litigation clinic, a visiting professor at Georgetown University Law 
Center, and she was in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Policy. 
At Georgetown University Law Center, her clinic prepares lawyers for 
their arguments before the Supreme Court of the United States. In other 
words, she is basically the person who teaches and gives practical 
experience for those who have to appear before the highest Court in 
this land.
  It is interesting that she has dedicated about half of her time to 
civil cases and about half to criminal cases, so she is well versed on 
the responsibilities of our appellate court. I don't think we could 
have found a more qualified person to fill this extremely important 
position on the Fourth Circuit.
  I also want my colleagues to know that she understands the 
responsibilities of a lawyer and a judge to provide access to all. She 
will take an oath if she is confirmed--and I am hopeful she will be in 
a few moments, literally--to serve justice regardless of a person's 
wealth or poverty. As a private attorney, she helped develop a 
relationship with the public defender of Maryland to provide help to 
indigent individuals who needed additional services. She is committed 
to pro bono service and she is committed to equal access to justice in 
addition to everything else she has done in her career. She really 
understands. She has the talent, she has the commitment to all in our 
communities, and she understands what the appropriate role is for a 
member of the bench, for a judge.
  I know Senator Grassley has mentioned his concerns, but Senator 
Grassley asked a lot of questions for the record, which is the right of 
any Senator to do. These are lifetime appointments, and I fully support 
that.

[[Page 13229]]

But I wish to state Pamela Harris's own words in response as to 
understanding the difference between an advocate and a judge, between a 
lawyer representing a client and a judge. I know when I practiced law, 
I gave everything I could to help the clients I represented. I didn't 
always 100 percent agree with their position, but it was my 
responsibility to advocate for their position. That is how our system 
of justice operates. That is our rule of law.
  Pamela Harris said:

       I fully recognize that the role of a judge is entirely 
     different from the role of an advocate. If confirmed as a 
     judge, my role would be to apply governing law and precedent 
     impartially to the facts of a particular case.

  She gets it. She understands what the role of a judge is.
  Quite frankly, I want people who are active in the legal system to 
apply and become our judges because they understand the importance of 
the work a judge does.
  She continues:

       It is inappropriate for any judge or Justice to base his or 
     her decision on their own personal view or on public opinion. 
     . . . If confirmed as a circuit judge, I would faithfully 
     follow the methodological precedence of the Supreme Court and 
     the Fourth Circuit, applying the interpretive approaches and 
     only the interpretive approaches used by those courts.

  Perhaps that is exactly what we want from our judges. We want them to 
be worldly. We want them to understand the law. We want them to have 
been involved in the law. In Pam Harris's case, she has been a 
professor, she has taught the law, and, yes, she has been actively 
engaged. But once they become a judge, they need to apply the 
precedence from that circuit, from the Supreme Court, and that is 
exactly what Pam Harris said she would do. Her reputation for being 
straightforward and telling it exactly the way she believes has been 
well documented in the record before the Judiciary Committee.
  I thank Senator Leahy for the incredible manner in which he operates 
the Judiciary Committee in the best traditions of the Senate. They had 
a full hearing on Pamela Harris's nomination. They had a full record. 
One of the letters that is part of that record that is also part of the 
record of the Senate was a letter--the Judiciary Committee received 
numerous letters of support for Pamela Harris. I will quote from one 
letter that was signed by more than 80 of her professional peers, which 
included individuals appointed by Republican Presidents and Democratic 
Presidents to key positions, including Gregory Garre, the former 
Solicitor General for George W. Bush. In that letter where these 80 
signatories to that letter strongly endorsed Pamela Harris's 
confirmation for judge on the Fourth Circuit, it says:

       We are lawyers from diverse backgrounds and varying 
     affiliations, but we are united in our admiration for Pam's 
     skills as a lawyer and our respect for her integrity, her 
     intellect, her judgment, and her fair-mindedness.

  Continuing:

       Many of us have had the opportunity to work with Pam on 
     appellate matters. She has been co-counsel to some of us, 
     opposing counsel to others, and a valuable colleague to all. 
     In her appellate work, Pam has demonstrated extraordinary 
     skill. She is a quick study, careful listener, and acute 
     judge of legal arguments. She knows the value of clarity, 
     candor, vigor, and responsiveness. Of equal importance, she 
     has always conducted herself with consummate professionalism, 
     grace, and congeniality, and has a humble and down-to-earth 
     approach to her work.

  The letter concludes:

       Her well-rounded experience makes her well prepared for the 
     docket of a federal appellate court. Pam's substantive 
     knowledge, intellect, and low-key temperament will be great 
     assets for the position for which she has been nominated.

  I pointed out before and I will again that there are many questions 
that were posed to Pamela Harris during the confirmation process. I 
would encourage my colleagues to take a look at those. I did. I read 
her answers to those questions. They were very well documented and very 
professional. Her reputation is one of being a straight shooter and 
saying exactly what is on her mind. Read her responses. She understands 
the role of a judge. She is well qualified to serve on this circuit.
  She has the strong endorsement of the two Senators from her home 
State, and I urge my colleagues to vote for her confirmation. We are 
very proud of her record on the Fourth Circuit.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CARDIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Under the previous order, all postcloture time has expired.
  Under the previous order, there will be 2 minutes of debate equally 
divided prior to a vote on the Harris nomination.
  Mr. CARDIN. I ask unanimous consent that the time be yielded back.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The question is, Will the Senate advise and consent to the nomination 
of Pamela Harris, of Maryland, to be United States Circuit Judge for 
the Fourth Circuit?
  Mr. CARDIN. I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Alaska (Mr. Begich), the 
Senator from Louisiana (Ms. Landrieu), and the Senator from Hawaii (Mr. 
Schatz) are necessarily absent.
  Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the 
Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander), the Senator from Alaska (Ms. 
Murkowski), the Senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio), and the Senator from 
Louisiana (Mr. Vitter).
  Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. 
Alexander) would have voted ``nay.''
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Donnelly). Are there any other Senators in 
the Chamber desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 50, nays 43, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 242 Ex.]

                                YEAS--50

     Baldwin
     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
     Leahy
     Levin
     Markey
     McCaskill
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Mikulski
     Murphy
     Murray
     Nelson
     Reed
     Reid
     Rockefeller
     Sanders
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Walsh
     Warner
     Warren
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                                NAYS--43

     Ayotte
     Barrasso
     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
     Lee
     Manchin
     McCain
     McConnell
     Moran
     Paul
     Portman
     Pryor
     Risch
     Roberts
     Scott
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Thune
     Toomey
     Wicker

                             NOT VOTING--7

     Alexander
     Begich
     Landrieu
     Murkowski
     Rubio
     Schatz
     Vitter
  The nomination was confirmed.

[[Page 13230]]



                          ____________________