perspective of a wide range of people whose cases come before she. her. she deserves nothing less than a prompt hearing and a prompt confirmation. as the process moves forward i plan to come back to the floor as often as necessary to rebut any baseless attacks leveled at this judge. it fills me with pride to have the opportunity to support president obama's groundbreaking nominee, someone who is clearly the right person for a seat on the highest court of the land. and it is an enormous joy to be reminded once again that in the united states of america, if you work hard, play by the rules, and give back to your community, anything is possible. thank you, madam president. with that, i yield the floor. madam president, i have nine unanimous consenunanimous conser committees to meet during today's session of the senate. they have the approval of the majority and minority leaders.

i ask unanimous consent that these requests be agreed to and that these requests be printed in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. menendez: with that, madam president, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the senate stands in recess until 2:15 p.m. >> first i would like to say a few words about the situation in

iran. the united states and the international community have been appalled and outraged by the threats, the beatings and imprisonment of the last few days. i strongly condemn these unjust actions and i joined with the american people in morning each and every innocent life that is lost. i've made it clear that the united states respects the sovereignty of the islamic republic of iran. it is not interfering with iran's affairs. but we must also bear witness to the courage and dignity of the iranian people and the remarkable opening with an iranian society. we deplore the violence against innocent civilians anywhere that it takes place. the iranian people are trying to have a debate about their future. some in iran, some in the iranian government in particular are trying to avoid that debate by accusing the united states and others in the west of instigating protests over the

election. these accusations are patently false. they are an obvious attempt to distract people from what is truly taking place within iran's borders. this tired strategy of using old tensions as a scapegoat to other countries will not work anymore in iran. this is not about the united states or the west. this is about the people of iran and the future that they and only they will choose. the iranian people can speak for themselves. that's precisely what has happened in the last few days. in 2009, no ironfisted strong enough to shut off the world from bearing witness to peaceable protest of injustice. despite the efforts, powerful images and poignant words have made their way to us through cell phones and computers, and so we have watched what the iranian people are doing. this is what we have witnessed. we have seen a timeless dignity

of tens of thousands of iranians marching in silence. we have seen people of all ages risk everything to insist that their votes are counted and that their voices are heard. above all, we have seen courageous women stand up to the brutality and threats that we have experienced the serious image of a woman bleeding to death on the streets. while this loss is raw and extraordinarily painful, we also notice. those who stand up for justice are always on the right side of history. as i said in cairo, suppressing ideas never succeed in making them go away. the iranian people have a universal right to assembly and free speech. if the iranian government seeks the respect of the international community, it must respect those rights and heed the will of its own people. it must govern through consent and not coercion. that's what iran's own people are calling for, and the iranian people will ultimately judge the actions of their own government.

the second issue i want to address is our ongoing effort to build a clean energy economy. this week the house of representatives is moving ahead on historic legislation that will transform the way we produce and use energy in america. this legislation will spark a clean energy transformation that will reduce our dependence on foreign oil and confront the carbon pollution that threatens our planet. this energy bill will create a set of incentives that will this bird of new source of energy including wind, solar and geothermal power. it will also spur new energy savings like efficient windows and other materials that reduce heating costs in the winter and cooling costs in the summer. these incentives will finally make clean energy profitable kind of energy, and that will be to the development of new technologies that lead to new industries that can create millions of new jobs in america. jobs the cannot be shipped overseas. at a time of great fiscal

challenges this legislation is paid for by the polluters who currently emit the dangers carbon emissions that contaminate the water we drink and pollute the air that we breathe. it also provides assistance to businesses and communities as they make the transit transitional to clean technology. i believe this to legislation is important for our country. it has taken great effort on the part of many over the course of the past several months. i want to thank the chair of the energy of the energy and commerce committee, henry waxman, his colleagues on that committee including congressman dingell and markey and rick boucher. i also want to thank charlie rangel, the chair of the ways means committee and the chair of the agriculture committee for their meaning and ongoing contributions to this process. i want to express my appreciation to nancy pelosi and stanek order for their leadership that we all know why this is so important. the nation that lead integration to make clean energy economy will be the nation that leads

the 21st century's global economy. that's what this legislation seeks to achieve. it's a bill that will ultimately open the door for a better future of this nation and that's why i urge members of congress to come together and pass it. the last issue i would like to address is health care. right now congress is debating various health care reform proposals. this obviously is a consultative issue, but i am very optimistic about the progress that they are making. like energy, this is legislation that must and will be paid for. it will not add to our deficit over the next decade. we will find the money through savings and efficiencies within the health care system. some of which we have already announced. will also ensure that the reform we pass ringdown the crushing cost of health care. we simply cannot have a system where we throw good money after bad habits. we need to control the skyrocketing cost that are at drive our families, businesses

and government into greater and greater debt. that means allowing americans who, like their doctor and their health care plans to keep them. unless we fix what's broken in our current system, everyone's health care will be in jeopardy. unless we act premiums will climb higher. then this will erode further in the rolls of the uninsured will swell to include millions more americans. unless we act one out of every $5 that we earn will be spent on health care within a decade, and the amount our government spends on medicare and medicaid will eventually grow larger than what our government spends on everythineverything else today. when it comes to health care, the status quo is unsustainable and unacceptable. so reform is not a luxury. it's a necessity. and i hope that congress will continue to make significant progress on this issue in the weeks ahead. so let me open it up for

questions and i will start with you. >> thank u., mr. president. your administration has said that the top iran's leaders, do you say that still so even with all of the violence that has been admitted by the government? if it is is there any red line that you are going to take that you will not cross without offer will be shut off? >> obviously, what's happened in iran is profound. and we are still waiting to see how it plays itself out. my position coming into this office has been that the united states has core national interest in making sure iran doesn't possess a nuclear weapon and it stops exporting terrorism outside of its borders. we have provided a path whereby iran can reach out to the international community, engage and become a part of international norms.

it is up to them to make a decision as to whether they choose that path. what we have been saying over the last several days, last couple of weeks, obviously is not encouraging in terms of the path that this regime may choose to take. and the fact that they are now in the midst of an extraordinary debate taking place in iran, you know, may end up coloring how they respond to the international community as a whole. we are going to monitor and see how this plays itself out before we make any judgments about how we proceed, but just to reiterate. there is a path available to iran in which their sovereignty is respected, their traditions, their culture, their faith is respected. but one in which they are part of a larger community that has responsibilities.

and operates according to norms and international rules that are universal. we don't know how they're going to respond to yet, and that's we're waiting to see. >> are there any consequences for what's happened so far? >> i think that the international community, as i said before, is bearing witness to what's taking place. and the iranian government should understand how they handle the dissent within their own country, generated indigenous late internally from the iranian people will help shape the tone, not only for iran's future, but also its relationship to other countries. since we are on iran, i know nikko is here from huffington post.

i know you and all across the internet we have been seeing a lot of reports coming from iran. i know there may actually be questions from people in iran who are communicating through the internet. do you have a question? >> i wanted to use this opportunity to ask you a question trekkie from an iranian. people are still courageous enough to be communicating on line, and one of them wanted to ask you this. under which condition would you accept the election of ahmadinejad, and if you do accept it without any significant changes in conditions there, given that a betrayal of the demonstrators there. >> we didn't have international observers on the ground. we can't say definitively what exactly happened at polling places throughout the country. what we know is that a sizable

percentage of the iranian people themselves, spanning iranian society, considered this election illegitimate. it's not an isolated instance, little grumbling here or there. there is significant questions about the legitimacy of the election. and so ultimately the most important thing for the iranian government to consider is legitimacy in the eyes of its own people. not in the eyes of the united states. that's what i have been very clear, ultimately this is up to the iranian people to decide who their leadership is going to be in the structure of their government. what we can do is to say unequivocably that there are sets of international norms and principles about violence, about dealing with the peaceful dissent.

that spans cultures, spans borders. and what we have been seeing over the internet and what we have been seeing in news reports, violates those norms. it violates those principles. i think it is not too late for the iranian government to recognize that there is a peaceful path that will lead to stability and legitimacy and prosperity for the iranian people. we hope they take it. >> jeff. >> switching gears slightly. in light of the financial regulation and reform that you may, how do you rate the performance in handling the financial crisis, and more specifically how do you rate the performance and would you like them to stay on? >> i'm not going to make news about ben bernanke. although i think he has done a fine job under very difficult

circumstances. i would say that all financial regulators didn't do everything that needed to be done to prevent the crisis from happening. and that's why we put forward the oldest set of reforms in financial regulation in 75 years. because there were too many gaps where there were laws on the books that would have brought about a prevention of the crisis, the enforcement wasn't there. in some cases there just weren't sufficient laws on the books, for example, with the nonbanking sector. i think that the fed operably performed that are than most other regulators prior to the crisis taking place. but i think they would be the first to have knowledge that in dealing with systemic risk and

anticipating systemic risk they didn't do everything that needed to be done. i think since the crisis has occurred, ben bernanke has performed very well. and one of the central concepts behind our financial regulatory reform is that there has got to be somebody who is responsible, not just for monitoring the health of individual the indivil institutions, but somebody who is monitoring the systemic risks of the system as a whole. and we believe that the fed has the most technical expertise and the best track record in terms of doing that. but that's not the only part of financial regulation. one of the things that we are putting a huge amount of emphasis on is the issue of consumer protection. you know, whether it subprime loans that were given out because nobody was paying attention to what was being peddled to consumers, whether it's how credit cards are

handled, how annuities are dealt with, what people can expect in terms of understanding their 401(k)s. there is a whole bunch of financial transactions out there where consumers are not protected the way they should. that's why we said we're going to put forward a consumer financial protection agency whose only job is to focus on those issues. now, the fed was one of the regulators that had some of the consumer responsibilities. we actually think that they are better off focusing on issues of broad systemic risk, and we have just one agency that focus on the consumer protection side. >> is that getting too powerful? >> if you look at what we have proposed, we are not so much expanding the fed's power as we are focusing what the fed needs to do to prevent the kinds of crises that are happening again.

another good example is the issue of resolution authority. i think it wasn't that long ago where everybody was properly outraged about aig, and the enormous amounts of money that taxpayers have to put into aig in order to prevent it from dragging the entire financial system down with it. had we had the kind of resolution authority, the kinds of laws that were in place that would allow an orderly winding down of aig, then potentially taxpayers could have saved a huge amount of money. we want that power to be available so that taxpayers are on the hook. >> major garrett. where is the major? >> right here in your opening remarks you said about iran that you are appalled and outraged. what took you so long? >> i don't think that's

accurate. track what i've been saying. right after the election i said that we had profound concerns about the nature of the election, but that it was not up to us to determine what the outcome was. as soon as violence broke out, in fact, in anticipation of potential violence we were very clear in saying that violence was unacceptable, that that was not how government ought urate with respect to the people. so we have been entirely consistent, major, in terms of how we have approached this. my role has been to say the united states is not going to be a foil for the iranian government to try to blame what's happening on the streets of tehran on the cia or on the white house. that this is an issue that is led by and given voice to the frustrations of the iranian people. and so we have been very

consistent, the first day and we're going to continue to be consistent in saying this is not an issue about the united states. this is about an issue of the iranian people. what we have also been consistent about is saying that there are some universal principles, including freedom of assembly and freedom of speech, making sure that governments are not using coercion and violence and repression in terms of how they interact with peaceful demonstrators. and we have been speaking up very clearly about that factor in our diplomats still welcome at the embassy? >> well, i think as you are aware, major, we do not have formal diplomatic relations date we don't have formal diplomatic relations with iran. i think that we have said that if iran chooses a path that abides by international norms and principles, then we are interested in healing some of

the wounds of 30 years in terms of u.s. iranian relations. but that is a choice that the iranians are going to have to make. >> david jackson. >> mr. president, two of the key players in the insurance industry sent a letter to the senate this morning saying that government health insurance plan would quote this memo unquote private insurers. why are they wrong? and secondly is the public plan nonnegotiable? >> let's talk personal about health care before more broadly. i think in this debate there has been some notion that if we just stand pat, we are okay. and that's just not true. you know, there are pulls out a show that 70 or 80% of americans

are satisfied with the health insurance that they currently have. the only problem is that premiums have been doubling every nine years. going up three times faster than wages. the u.s. government is not going to be able to afford medicare and medicaid on its current trajectory. businesses are having to make very tough decision about whether we dropped coverage or we further restrict coverage. so the notion that somehow we can just keep on doing what we are doing and that's okay, that's just not true. we have a long-standing critical problem in our health care system that is pulling down our economy. is a burdening families. is burdening businesses and it is the primary driver of our federal deficit. so if we start from the premise that the status quo is unacceptable, then that means we are going to have to bring about

some serious change. what i have said is our top priority has to be to control costs. and that means not just tinkering around the edges. it doesn't mean just popping off reimbursements for doctors in any given year because we're trying to fix our budget. it means that we look at the kinds of incentives that exist, what our delivery system is like, why it is that some communities are spending 30% less than other communities but getting better health care outcomes and figuring out how can we make sure that everybody is benefiting from lower costs and better quality by improving practices. it means health it. it means prevention. so all these things are the starting point i think the reform. and i have said very clearly, if any bill arrives from congress that is not on cost, that's not a bill i can support. it's going to have to control costs.

it's going to have to be paid for. so there has been a lot of talk about a trillion dollar price tag. what i have said is that we're going to spend that much money, then it's going to be largely funded through reallocating dollars that are already in the health care system but aren't being spent well. if we are spending $177 billion over 10 years to subsidize insurance companies, under medicare advantage, when there is no showing that people are healthier using that program, than the regular medicare program, that's not good deal for taxpayers and we will take that money and use it to provide better care at a cheaper cost to the american people. so that's point number one. number two, while we are in the process of dealing with the cost issue, i think it's also wise policy and the right thing to do to start providing coverage for

people who'd don't have health insurance, or are underinsured, are paying a lot of money for high deductibles. i get letters, two, three letters a day that i read of families who don't have health insurance, are going bankrupt, are on the brink of losing their insurance, have deductibles that are so high that even with insurance they end up with 50, $100,000 worth of debt or risk of losing their homes. and that has to be part of reform, making sure that even if you have health insurance now, you are not worried that when you lose your job or your employer decides to change policies, that somehow you are going to be out of luck. i think about the woman who was in wisconsin that i was with who introduced me up in green bay, 36 or so, double mastectomy, breast cancer has now moved to her bones. and she has got two little kids, a husband with the job. they had health insurance, but they are still $50000 in debt.

and she is thinking my main legacy, if i don't survive this thing is going to be leading $100,000 worth of debt. so those are the things that i am prioritizing. now, the public plan i think is an important tool to discipline insurance companies. what we have said is, under our proposal, is let's have a system the same way that federal employees do, the same way that members of congress do what we call it an exchange but you can call it a marketplamarketplace would essentially you have a whole bunch of different plans. if you like your plan and you like your doctor, you will not have to do a thing. yukiko plant. you keep your doctor if your employer is providing you good health insurance, terrific. we're not going to mess with it. but if you are a small businessperson, if the insurance that's being offered is something you can't afford, if

you want to shop for a better price, then you can go to this exchange, this marketplace and you can, look, okay. this is how much this plan costs. this is how much that plan cost of this is is what the coverage is. this is what gets my family. as one of those options for us to say here is a public option that is not profit driven, that can keep down administrative costs, and that provide you good, quality care for a reasonable price as one of the options or you choose, i think that makes sense. >> does that drive private insurers out of business? >> why would drive private insurers out of business? if private insurers say that the marketplace provides the best quality health care, if they tell us that they are offering a good deal, then why is it that the government which they say can't run anything so that is going to drive them out of business. that's not logical.

now, i think that there is going to be some healthy debate in congress about the shape that this takes. i think there can be some legitimate concerns on the part of private insurers that if any public plan is simply being subsidized by taxpayers endlessly, that over time they can compete with the government just printing money. so there are going to be i think legitimate debates to be had about how this private plan takes shape. but just conceptually the notion that all these insurance companies who say they are giving consumers the best possible deal, that they can't compete against a public plan as one option with consumers making the decisions what's the best deal, that defies logic which is why i think you have seen in the polling data overwhelming support for a public plan. >> negotiable? >> that you, mr. president.

following up on majors question. some republican on capitol hill, john mccain and lindsey graham for example, said your response on iran has been timid and weak. today it sounded a lot stronger. it sounded like the kind of speech john mccain has been urging you to get saying that those who stand up for justice are always on the right side of history referring to an iron fist in iran, appalled, outraged. were you influenced at all of them accusing you of being intimidated? >> what do you think? [laughter] >> lucki think john mccain has genuine passion about many of these international issues. and i think all of us share a belief that wants justice