a senator: hello, mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mr. corker: mr. president, i rise to talk about the tester -- the presiding officer: we're in a quorum call. mr. corker: i'd like to have unanimous consent to dispense with the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. corker: thank you. mr. president, i rise to talk about the tester-corker vote that will take place at 2:00 today. i know there has been a lot of discussions about the durbin amendment which occurred during dodd-frank and where we are today. i jus -- i just want to spend a moment clarifying the fact that the tester-corker amendment does not do away with the durbin amendment of. the durbin amendment will still be the law of the land. and a huge victory, i think, during the dodd-frank

regulation, something i didn't support, but a huge victory for the retail industry in that for the first time in the history of our country, per the law that was passed, debit cards are going to be a regulated entity. and there's nothing about the tester-corker amendment that in any way changes the fact that it's going to be a regulated industry. that is going to occur. what tester-coxer does -- what tester-corker does is to try to bring back into balance how we look at this particular transaction. you know, mr. president, we're going through this period of time in our country's history where, you know, people have been very upset with financial institutions at many, many levels. and it's almost as if the way the durbin language now is, it's an attempt to basically punish, be punitive to community banks, rural banks, credit unions,

megabanks all across our country for things that happened in the past. and there's no question that many financial institutions made mistakes. there's no question that government made mistakes. there's no question that congress has made mistakes. there's no question that consumers across our country, in many cases, have made a lot of misstaifntle but we're at place in our country's h evolution whe what we need to do is reinforce economic growth in this country, and make sure that regulation has the right balance. and i feel like that the pus push-back against corker-tester, corker-tester is really an attempt to try to punish, stick a stick in the eye of, do whatever, to really get back at the financial industry. and, again, i think there's been a tremendous win by the proponents. you have a debit card industry that's going to be regulated. the question is what is the fair

way to regulate them, as it relates -- what are the allocated costs? so the federal reserve has told us that the language that exists in the durbin amendment, which really only allows incremental costs, sin aproavment they're very uncomfortable with it. they're uncomfortable what that is going to do to community banks, rural banks, smaller banks all across our cufnlt the fdic has said they're really concerned about the language because the cost of the transaction is not going to be appropriately assessed. they've shared that in ub testimony. the o.c.c. has done exactly the same thing. state bank commissionerrers across this country have done the same thing. and i know we have the -- the presiding officer is from minnesota fnlt i know he flies here to washington probably each week. the way the language is now written, it would be as if the presiding officer got on a flight from minneapolis to fly

to washington, the seats were mostly full, but a standby passengers-on-got on the plane at the last minute, sat down in an empty seat, and the airline was forced to charge everybody that flew on their airline only the cost of what that one additional passenger -- half the trip was going to take place -- what that one additional passenger cost the airline to travel from minneapolis to washington. obviously that cost is almost negligible because, you know, all the reservations, the flight has been fueled, the flight attendants are there the pilots are there, all of those costs are already dl. we wilwell, that's the way the n amendment now reads. that's the way the law now is, that the federal reserve, the federal reserve can only take into account, as they regulate the debit card industry, what that incremental cost is, what adding one transaction to the

system would cost. everybody knows -- i mean, the retailers who are opposing our amendment, know that there is no way that any of them could survive in th the retail industy if their costs were only allocated to them on an incremental basis. so everybody knows that this is flawed. i don't think there's any debate about the fact that the way we're looking at regulating the debit card industry is flawed. but what people are doing, it's almost sort of a venezuelan approach, you know. well, we're angry at these folks and so even though we know that assessing the cost of dibbed --t cards and only allowing incremental covelets, even though we know that's inappropriate and even though we know that no business can survive, we're still going to do this because the banks did this or the banks were involved in mortgages.

and it is a policy that just doesn't make sense. it's not an appropriate way, in my humble opinion, for a body like ours that hopefully stands above trying to punish people but is here to put policies in place that will make our country stronger. so what we've add -- and i see the senator from north carolina, who's been highly involved in reaching the place where we are -- what we've said is, look, durbin should stand. durbin should stand as it is. we should regulate the debit industry. okay, we understand that's going to happen. but let's make sure that when the regulators look at regulating the debit card industry, they're able to also look at the fixed costs, those costs that should be appropriately considered in setting the rates. my guess is the presiding officer has some regulatory boards in the state of

minnesota. maybe they regulate descry electricity, maybe that he regulate water maybe they regulate natural gas. i don't know. we have similar types of things in tennessee. and when they look at regulating those industries, they take into account those costs that are appropriate and n. regulating the industry. i haven't heard anybody debate negatively that it's inappropriate -- that it's inappropriate to allocate costs the way senator hagan, the way myself, the way others have talked about doing that. it's ball about the emotion -- it's all been about the emotion of trying to do damage to financial institutions because people are upset with them. there's been an emotional argument about saying, you know, these institutions did some really bad things, and, therefore, we want to punish them even though we know the

cost allocation is inappropriate. we all know what's going to happen is not only are we going to do damage to our community banks, our credit unions, our rural banks all across this country, but in the process of allowing the rules to stand as they are and the direction that we give to the fed to stand as it is, what's going to happen is we're going to have constriction of credit. i mean, right now in our country, we are watching a pause, a pause taking place in economic growth, and one of the driving factors, there's no question, is our financial institutions are out there, they are seeing in every way their ability to lend to be clamped down, capital requirements are changing. some of these things were good things that needed to happen, but this is just one more of those -- and so the senate, if the senate chooses to defeat tester-corker today, hagan,

crapo, lots of people have been involved in making this, so that we get back in the middle of the road, in a when we regulate dribt cards we -- when we regulate debit cards, we do so by truly regulating the cost of the card itself. this is just one more blow against our economy as we continue to constrict lending in our financial institutions to communities and citizens all across our country. you know, shb a chawrpt yesterday -- somebody had a chart up yesterday looking at canada and looking at europe. and one little detail -- and they were talking about the lack of debit charges or in some cases the fees were less than they are in our country -- one of the details they left out is they don't have community banks. i mean, in canada you've got a handful of highly regulated, almost utilities that are banks -- under five. that's a very different scenario

than we have in this country where we have community banks all across the country that are out there lending to innovators. banks all across this country lending to innovators, very, very different environment. they're able in canada to actually generate fees in other ways, and of course they don't have the community banking system and credit union system that we have across our country. so to me, what i hope will happen at 2:00 -- and i know this has been a contentious issue, a vote that candidly a lot of people would just assume go away because people have friends that are retailers, people have friends that are bankers, and they hate -- quote -- "to choose between their friends" -- but i hope what'll happen at 2:00 is when people come down to the twol vote, they'll look at the policy, and they'll say, you'r you are righ. the financial industry has been

in some excesses. we regulated the financial industry heavily two years ago when dodd-frank was passed. if we're going to set rates on debit card, let's aleast allow the fed to consider all of the appropriate costs. look, if a bank is offering bonus awards for people that shouldn't included. that shouldn't be included. we understand that. but the fed ought to be able to look at all of those costs that are fair, and i hope that members of this body will rise above the emotional aspect of this vote. i hope they'll rise above the rhetoric. this is anything but another bank bailout. what this is is allowing the fed to rightfully, as they have requested of the united states senate, to rightfully be able to look at all of the appropriate costs that go into a debit transaction. and, again, if -- if tester-co

tester-corker passes, if tester-corker-hagan-crapo passes, it is a tremendous win for the retailers. they have a regulated debit card interest. something they've wanted for a long tiesm but it also strikes the balance of appropriateness, as it relates to us, as we look to move ahead with appropriate -- with appropriate -- regulation of our financial industry. so i hope that -- i know we're on the cusp. i know this is going to be a very, very close vote. i do hope that our colleagues will look at the policy. if they haven't spent time yet with their staffers, look at the language. durbin still stands, if tester-corker passes. durbin stands. all it does is allow the regulators to appropriately, just as happens in every state around this country that

regulates industries, allows the fed to appropriately look at those costs that ought to be associated with the debit card. mr. president, i thank you. i urge my colleagues to vote in support of tester-corker. i thank you for the time, and i yield the floor. mrs. hagan: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from north carolina. mrs. hagan: thank you, mr. president. i, too, come to the floor in support of the amendment by senator tester and senator corker from tennessee. and let me tell you, i threw myself into these negotiations many weeks ago when i saw the great bipartisan work of my colleagues from montana and from tennessee, and you've just heard the senator from tennessee talking about this. they have worked tirelessly on this issue, and they've shown great leadership in their willingness to modify their approach. and what we have now is a bipartisan, balanced compromise amendment that's going to address the concerns raised by

the regulators, the small debit card issuers and many senators about the federal reserve's approach toward a regulated interchange fee market. the amendment does not repeal the debit interchange amendment championed by senator durbin last year. just as the senator tennessee just said, it does not repeal that. in fact, a number of senators who supported senator durbin's amendment also support this compromise amendment. it's moderate, it's bipartisan, it's balanced and it really now gives the regulators the time and the tools that they need to get this rule right. this is the type of commonsense compromise that senators on both sides of the aisle can support. this bipartisan and balanced approach, i believe, is how the senate should operate. when the senate added section 1075 to the dodd-frank act last year, it required that interchange transaction fees

charged by issuers be reasonable and proportion a and importantly, the amendment exempted banks with fewer than $10 billion in assets. and during the rule-writing process, this exemption has been characterized as ineffective. in february, during testimony before the senate banking committee, federal reserve chairman bernanke, the person ultimately responsible for writing these rules, said that it is possible that this exemption will not be effective in the marketplace. and that it is possible that in practice community banks would not be kpheplt from the lower -- exempt from the lower fee. additionally mrs. baird echoed those same concerns. these are the people responsible for monitoring the safety and soundness of our community banks and our credit unions, and they too have expressed serious doubts about the practical

effectiveness of the small issuer exemption. this is extremely concerning to me. the senator from north carolina, where we have a strong presence of community banks and credit unions that serve constituents of mine all across north carolina. this legislation helps get the small issuer exemption right. it provides two levels of protection for small banks and credit unions. first, it considers the impact on small issuers up front as part of a short six-month study. and then it directs the banking and credit union regulators to carefully review the effectiveness of this small issuer exemption which will be going to the community banks and credit unions. and it directs the regulators to look at the exemption from a safety and from a soundness perspective. this is of particular importance at a time when community banks around the country are

struggling to provide credit to our main street businesses. then once the final rules are in place, it would require a review of the effect of the rule on the market. this approach gives the regulators the time to look at small banks and credit unions up front and an opportunity to point out any problems that they may see arise in the future. this is a sensible, balanced approach. it's bipartisan and it is one that i too urge my colleagues to support. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. mr. wyden: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oregon is recognized. mr. wyden: mr. president, i wanted to just take a few minutes to discuss the underlying legislation, the economic development administration bill, because i think with the new numbers about the american economy, the

joblessness, the trends, we're all looking for ways to encourage investment in the united states, and we're looking for ways to promote new industries, new industries that will create family-wage jobs. and the economic development administration has helped to do that in my home state and in other parts of the country. and i wanted to just take a few minutes and discuss -- i see the chairman of the finance committee here and may have gotten a little bit backed up, and am going to take just a few minutes. i'm anxious to hear from the chairman of the finance committee. mr. president, the area that i want to talk about with respect to the economic development administration involves nanotechnology. this is in effect the science of small stuff. we are seeing it pay off big what whole host of

energy-related applications, in health care, particularly in terms of drugs and new medical devices. it's made a big difference at the pentagon in terms of their looking at adding carbon nanotubes to a number of the products that we need to protect our war fighters. and the fact is that when you talk about this agency, you're seeing that a small public investment can leverage very substantial private-sector investment in a way that's going to encourage jobs in the united states, and particularly in what i call the sunrise industry. and it is sure making a difference. for example, "wired" magazine just recently talked about growth in a number of key sectors, and they said

nanotechnology between 2006 and 2010 grew more than 18%. one of our leading growth industries with jobs in the united states. and i for one thought that we were going to see growth in a number of instances. we've seen bipartisan support for congressional efforts to 21st century nanotechnology legislation in particular signed by george w. bush. there is one piece of legislation i was especially proud of being part of because it encouraged research in this exciting field. it had bipartisan support and laid the groundwork for the next steps. and the next steps in particular involved using at e.d.a. some ploddest public -- modest public investments to leverage very

substantial investments in innovation. in my home state a technology institute is on the cutting edge of nanotechnology research and application, and it has been helped by the e.d.a. agency. the participants in onami included the four largest public research universities, the national science foundation, the department of defense, energy-commerce, and major corporations as well. and what we have sought to do is to make sure that in this extraordinarily exciting field we don't fall behind china and other global competitors. so there's huge potential. federal efforts can support private-sector initiatives in the nanotechnology field, and together leverage u.s. advantages in innovation and technology, and particularly facilitate job growth. the distinguished president of

the senate i know has intel as a large employer in his state, as they are in mine. that's the kind of company that we're looking at for the future, where they pay good wages, where we're seeing substantial growth, and they're looking to try to target nanotechnology in particular as a sunrise industry, as an area that is going to facilitate an opportunity for our country to lead. and america is in a fight for the future of nanotechnology. we're seeing china and a lot of our global competitors making major investments in this area. our private sector is stepping up, but we ought to have the government partner as well, and that's why e.d.a.'s support of nanotechnology and the innovation economy is so critical. they've partnered with the national science foundation and the national institutes of health to promote innovative

aptphroefps health -- approaches in health and science. i'm proud to say as part of a major economic challenge grant, the oregon innovation cluster of which onami is a part of, was one of the award winners. and my state, mr. president, is not the only place where nanotechnology investments are being made. the economic development administration has invested in nanotechnology throughout the country. in colorado, in the midatlantic, nanotechnology alliance, in tennessee, in south carolina with the clemson university research foundation. these are just a few of the examples from oregon all the way across the country to the east coast of the united states where the economic development administration has helped entrepreneurs work to create jobs in exciting fields like

nanotechnology and help us commercialize leading-edge technologies. i hope my colleagues will support this bill. i particularly commend the chair of the committee, senator boxer. nanotechnology and e.d.a. are a partnership for high-tech industries can help us create good, high-paying jobs here in america. i hope we'll support this particular legislation. and with that, mr. president, i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from montana is recognized. mr. baucus: mr. president, i rise to express my strong support for s. 782, the five-year reauthorization of the economic development administration, which frankly i am proud to have cowritten. abraham lincoln said the legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done, but it cannot do it all or cannot so well do for themselves in their separate and

individual capacities. end kwoefplt that is what the economic -- end quote. that is what the economic development revitalation act will do. it will help americans achieve what they cannot so well do for themselves. e.d.a. is the only federal agency charged solely with job creation. each dollar e.d.a. funding leverages nearly $7 in private-sector investments. from 2005 to 2010, during the administrations of presidents from each political party, the e.d.a. awarded $1.2 billion in construction-related revolving loan projects. according to estimates, more than 314,000 jobs resulted from those investments. e.d.a. programs are critical to my home state of montana, a state with lower per capita income with great 21st century

potential. when the timber industry in the western part of the state suffered setbacks, we pared funding from the recovery act with state dollars to create an $11.7 million revolving loan fund. we enabled 34 companies to continue operating and supported nearly 2,000 jobs despite the economic downturn. in the eastern part of the state, we experienced migration where the problem is both people and jobs leaving the area altogether, which e.d.a. can help us address in a new provision under this bill. a key feature of the bill is the increased federal share for areas that demonstrate unusually severe economic distress and unique circumstances. for instance, in the event of a federally declared disaster, the federal share is to increase for 18 months. this applies to nonweather events like the september 11 attacks or a natural disaster like we experienced in montana

where we're currently facing severely flooding. areas like brown belt, lodge grass, fort peck, rocky boys and elsewhere are confronted with a crisis of biblical proportions on account of the floods. when i was in montana last week i witnessed challenges that confront us and i'm working very hard to ensure that federal resources will be available for those most in need, which is a legitimate object of government, as lincoln observed, this sproefgs one more way to -- this provision is one more way to do that. also we have established a minimum 75% federal share under this bill to help indian tribes, tribes lacking sufficient resources to provide the typical matching share as is often the case in my home state of montana. i want to thank chairman boxer and ranking member inhofe for their leadership in working on the bill. i think the e.d.a. administrator

john fernandez for coming to montana to meet with my constituents in butte to help our communities and state and the country. in closing, this is a good bill with backing from both sides of the aisle. i urge my colleagues to support it, support it strongly. we talk a lot about job growth, mr. president. here's an opportunity to do something about it and pass this bill. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from montana is recognized. mr. tester: before i get into my statement i want to thank the senior senator from montana for his leadership. thank you, max. mr. president, i want to take a moment here to clarify for my colleagues the intent of this amendment, to further clarify it. not surprisingly, a number of groups have made a number of claims about what this amendment is and what it is not. in drafting any regulations required by -- in drafting any regulations required by this amendment, any agencies involved

are required to not only abide by the letter of the law, but also the congressional intent of its office. so let me take a minute to try to make crystal clear what exactly the intent of this amendment is. first of all, let me address some of the claims that have been made about the implementation date of debit interchange regulations. my amendment would direct the fed to implement these provisions on a date of their determination. why was this language included this way? the intent of this language is to provide the fed with the discretion to implement these regulations as quickly as is practically possible for merchants, issuers and networks to prepare for such new regulations. the hope of this language would be to avoid the situation that we're in right now, where parties impacted by these changes will likely have less than a month to implement significant changes to the debit interchange system. to be clear, the fed may not

disregard implementation of debit interchange regulation as some have articulated. they also may not arbitrarily decide to implement these rules five years from now. any delay in implementation beyond a reasonable time line of a few months would need to be justified by the fed. let me also take a minute to address concerns that have been raised about the language that we've used to describe what considerations the federal reserve must make if a determination is made in this amendment and the federal reserve is directed to rewrite debit interchange rules. the language states that the federal reserve shall consider consider -- and again, shall consider all fixed and incremental costs in determining what is reasonable and proportional interchange fee is. again, let me say this again. the fed shall consider, not include, not calculate, but shall consider all fixed and incremental costs. that word's important because

consider provides the fed with the discretion to consider and determine using their judgment what is reasonable and proportional, being that any costs considered would need to be justified to the fed. to further clarify, the language directs the fed to consider all fix pped -- fixed and incremental costs associated with debit card transactions and program operations and allow incentives for a more innovative, efficient and secure payment card network. why did we include all fixed and incremental costs? that's because the original statute limited the costs that the federal reserve could consider to only those costs associated with the authorization, clearance or settlement of a particular electronic debit transaction. this language severely limits the costs to issuers that the fed may consider in calculating reasonable and proportional rates and is in a large measure why the federal reserve's

proposed rule is currently at 12 cents. there are a number of fixed costs that are associated with debit transacks, chief among them fraud costs, which are also arbitrarily limited in the original statute. the fraud language states that the federal reserve may -- not must, but may allow for a fraud adjustment for costs associated with fraud prevention. now, the federal reserve draft proposal did not include any fraud adjustment, and we have no idea what an adjustment might look like or whether the final rule would include one, but if it did, it could only include an adjustment related to fraud prevention, not the actual costs or losses associated with fraud. take, for example, the breach by michael's store, a breach, by the way, which was the fault of the retailer who had their debit kiosk compromised. what was the cost to the issuer

of the cards which were compromised? well, they were significant. first of all, it was a community bank in illinois who had a fraud monitoring program that identified the threat and alerted the retailer that their kiosks had been compromised. then there was the cost to these issuers of making their customers whole again for the losses that they sustained by criminals removing funds directly from their bank accounts, $500 at a time. additionally, issuers had to foot the costs associated with reissuing the cards and opening new accounts for customers with compromised accounts. but none of those costs associated with fraud and losses assumed by the issuers could be calculated in the fraud adjustment under the current statute. that's why we included language directly with the federal reserve to consider all fixed and incremental costs associated with debit card transactions and program operations to capture those costs. fraud losses and monitoring programs are not associated with individual transactions. nor is the creation or

reissuance of physical cards, account maintenance or card holder services. let me also say that what we do not believe is included in any reasonable and proportional fixed and incremental costs associated with program operations. as a result of our conversations and consultations with the fed, we do not believe that rewards programs or miles, neither would nor should be considered as per missable compensation, nor should be any executive compensation nor should the costs of maintaining a.t.m. machines. and why did we include the language in allowing the federal reserve in setting reasonable and proportional rates to allow insentives for a more innovative and secure payment card network? we added in because of conversations with the federal reserve about what sorts of costs would be included in reasonable and proportional costs. they indicated that right now they do not have the ability to incentivize savings by issuers to make processing more

efficient or secure. it seemed like a pretty good idea to senator corker and i that we should give the federal reserve this kind of discretion and that issuers should be incentivized to lower costs below whatever the federal reserve determines to be reasonable and proportional. otherwise, the fee would likely stay the same for years to come as there would be no incentive to lower costs. in addition to the flexibility provided by the federal reserve to set the rates, the amendment also intends to provide discretion to the federal reserve to include additional factors in the study, such as the overall impact of regulating interchange fees on small businesses and the economy, as well as discretion in the agencies that the federal reserve may consult when drafting the study. in addition, it is intended that the findings must be made public and that the federal reserve is not required to start from square one. the intent is for the federal reserve to be able to build upon the information and insights that they have gathered already and are a part of the current record. finally, this amendment doesn't underminor inhibit the federal

reserve's ability to implement the routeing and network exclusivity provisions in the underlying statute. in fact, it does quite the opposite. we sought to preserve this language, and these provisions as they were originally included in the statute. in the last couple of days, as senators have suggested, additional changes that would improve consumer-related aspects of the study proposed by my amendment. i very much appreciate their concerns and their interest on this critically important point and the changes that they have suggested are certainly ones that myself and other cosponsors are open to. unfortunately, the senator from illinois filled a second-degree amendment that essentially closed off any chance to make additional changes once the amendment was filed. i am more than willing to work with my colleagues to find ways to continue to improve this amendment and ensure that consumers, small businesses and small banks and credit unions get a fair deal as we move to a regulated interchange marketplace, and that is what we will get out of this amendment.

the same idea of regulation that 64 members of this body supported last year, but the difference between my amendment and the current law is that we will ensure that the fed's regulations do not set the price below the costs of doing business. current law prevented the fed from looking at any number of elements of the cost of interchange. some fraud costs were yud to be included but not others. some technology costs were included but not others. why? because the senate made those arbitrary decisions. the result is a proposed fed rule that sets debit interchange rate at 7 cents or 12 cents for all transactions, a level most folks agree is too low. let's -- let's allow the fed to find the actual correct number. as a farmer, i could tell you that it costs me $3 to produce a bushel of wheat. it won't matter if i sell it for for $2 or $1 or 50 cents.

i'll still go out of business because it's below my cost of doing business, and that is precisely what will happen to our smaller banks and credit unions. with that, mr. president, i yield the floor. i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. mr. durbin: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from illinois is recognized. mr. durbin: i ask the quorum call be suspend. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: i have high regard for the senator from montana. he is my friend and will be however the vote happens in a couple of minutes, but i do disagree with him on this. and i would like to make it clear from the start, the law on the books today specifically exempts community banks and credit unions, specifically, those valued at $10 billion or less. that means 100 banks out of

7,000 in america are affected by this new law and three credit unions in all of america. now, the banks and credit unions have come here and said not enough protection because we can't be sure that you'll protect us from the credit card companies coming back on us and hurting us. okay. we could write in more protection, if necessary, but to argue that we're -- we're trying to save mom and pop banks here from whom? we're trying to save them from the credit card giants who have created this price-fixing mess. if you're an autograph seeker and you happen to want to meet c.e.o.'s of major corporations, you hit it rich today. get over there and walk the halls of the senate office buildings and you will meet the c.e.o.'s of the biggest companies and banks in america. why are they here today? because of this 2:00 vote. why is this 2:00 vote important to the three biggest banks in america, chase, bank of america and wells fargo?

because right now, what is at stake with the tester-corker amendment is $8 billion, is $8 billion, $8 billion in fees that they want to collect from consumers and businesses all across america. $8 billion. now, when we got into the business of tarp -- remember those days? when the banks had messed up the economy so badly that we had to come to their rescue with taxpayers' money, and the average family across america watched the taxes they were paying this government going to the biggest banks on wall street. well, that was about about $800 billion. the three big banks here that profit the most from this amendment, the three biggest banks that will profit the most, chase, bank of america and wells fargo, each were the fisheries of that tarp money, of that bailout money. $25 billion to chase, chase, $45 billion to bank of america, and $25 billion to wells fargo.

they did quite well. we not only rescued them, they sent us a little thank you card. do you know what it was? it was a notice that they were giving their chief executives bonuses out of the tax money we were sending. well, the question is not whether we're going to do another tarp today, whether we're going to do a baby tarp. it's only $8 billion for these three big banks this time, but i think it's an outrage. it's an outrage to make consumers across america pay this. they pay it every time they use their debit cards. and the merchants and retailers who collect it have no voice in this process. i wish some of the people who come to this floor and shed copious tears over community banks and credit unions that are already protected in this law, i wish they would shed a few tears for the people who run the shops and businesses across america, the restaurants, the hotels. these are the people that are being hit by these debit card fees every single day.

where is the sympathy for small business on this floor? they're all over illinois, they're all over america. if we really believe that the key to economic recovery is the strength of small business, creating and expanding jobs across america, for goodness sakes, why don't we stand up for them? you can't vote at 2:00 for this pending amendment and say you're a friend of small business. no, you can't. small businesses -- small business is lined up across america for once saying give us a break against these credit card companies and the big banks on wall street, give us a break. are we going to do it? i'm afraid not if we pass this amendment. i look at this amendment and i think to myself why did the banks write it the way they did? they wrote it so that they could include more cost into their calculation of the fee they charge on an interchange transaction with debit cards. i will tell you this -- based on the language that was just read

to us, they will easily justify the 44 cents they are currently charging and more. i respect my colleague from montana and what he says on the floor, he didn't mean to include certain things, i wish he had been specific. i think the language of this amendment is broad enough and wide enough to drive a truck through it. the banks are going to come out quite well, thank you, at the end of the day, but don't they always? when it's all said and done, aren't they usually the winners around here? today is the chance to turn the tables, to really make the winners small businesses and consumers across america. that's why consumer groups support keeping the law as it is. that's why when the banks wrote this, they said the four agencies that would decide what the fee was going to be will be four bank regulators, searching, searching, searching for any reference to consumers, small

businesses, sorry. banks couldn't include those people. couldn't include those people in that calculation. so to say that we are for the little guy and that's why we need to vote for this amendment is to ignore the amendment's wording as written. if you're for the small business people across america, there is only one vote and it's a vote no. let the federal reserve issue this rule. don't let the banks stop them in their tracks, and that's exactly what they want to do. let them issue this rule. if more needs to be done, i'm on board, but the notion that we can't even trust the federal reserve to come up with a rule on this that may protect small businesses and consumers across america is just plain unfair, it's wrong, and we ought to know better. i reserve the balance of my time. the presiding officer: the senator from montana is recognized. mr. tester: mr. chairman, i, too, want to echo the thoughts of the good senator from illinois. senator durbin and i are

friends. it may not sound like it today but we are. we just happen to disagree on this particular piece of policy. there is one premise that i think, mr. president, that is being taken as a given that is not a given at all, and it was in the original durbin amendment, and it said we were going to exempt banks of of $10 billion and less and credit unions of $10 billion and less. so we're going to do that. a lot of folks voted for this amendment because they knew the small banks couldn't distribute their costs and it could have undue harmful effects on the small banks, small credit unions and community banks. but the facts have borne out different since in the last year. and they haven't been borne out by stuff that i've made up. it comes from the regulators themselves. and i have avenue said many times on this floor that every regulator i have talked to, state or federal, have said, the exemption for small banks and credit unions won't work.

it won't work. we voted on something a year ago that we thought we had, and it doesn't work. let me read you the quotes. fed chairman ben bernanke, still not sure whether it will work. the market forces that would work against this exemption. said it may 12 of this year. another quote by chairman bernanke. "it's going to affect the revenues of small issuers and could result in some of the smaller banks being less profitable or even failing." once again at a banking hearing. by fdic chairwoman b amendment of r. "i do think this is going to reduce the revenues." let me say it again. "i do think this is going reduce the revenues at a number of smaller banks and they will have to pass it on to the customers in ties's terms of higher fees." chase that mean? checking, time to get a loan, all of that stuff. money doesn't grow out of the

air. you've got to make it up somewhere. another quote from ben bernanke. and it is about the two-tiered system that is unlikely to be maintained to protect small institutions. "a number of networks have expressed their interest or willingness to maintain a teeferred interchange fee system. but of course it is not required." chairwoman b amendment of r again. "if the federal reserve's view that there's no legal authority to require that, it does become more problematic. the fact that the two-tiered system is not going to work. every regulator said it is not going to work. its impact is going to be small community banks. not the wall street boys. they're fine. we agree on that. but the community banks and credit unions are going to have incredible impacts on our small businesses that we're trigg to help get us out of this recession that we're in. this is into the bailout. this will ensure a regulated debit card interchange system

and by the way, yot i don't believe in bailouts. i voted against the tarp bailouts, voted against the auto industry bailout. i wouldn't be supporting this if it were bailout. i wouldn't be offering t wall street banks are going to be just fine. they're going to be just fine regardless of what happens. the fact is that the exemption for banks under $10 million will not work. that's why i'm here. it's as simple as that. i want to close for now with a statement made by the frank in dodd-frank, who this bill is named off. barney frank, who worked with chris dodd to craft this bill in the house and the senate, here's what barney frank says. it today the 8th, by the way? he said it today, the 8th of june. i quote -- and he's speak of the

tester-corker-hagan-crapo-bennet amendment, this amendment of i quote. "this is a good, balanced, compromised approach. i support it, and i hope it will pass." the author of this bill from the house thinks this is a good policy change to make dodd-frank better. i yield the floor, mr. president. bthe presiding officer: the senator from delaware is recognized. mr. carper: mr. president, good to be with you again. spent most of the morning with you and now part of afternoon. this is -- this is -- this is -- this is really a difficult issue for a number of us in the senate because we have friends on both sides of this issue. and it's also a difficult issue for a lot of people because we don't want to be unmindful of the concerns raised legitimately by merchants for a number of

years about debit charges that they have had to pay and we don't want to be unmindful of the concerns of banks, be they big or licialtion or by credit unions. one of my colleagues said, i don't want to vote on this. one guy said, i certainly don't want to have to vote on it twice. another colleague said to me, i don't like the idea of just kick the can down the road, having a 24-month pause and maybe the new congress, the new administration, maybe it'll all go away. that's not interested in what i'm doing. one of my colleagues said, why don't we fix this problem rather than kick the can down the road for 24 months? as it turns out, phaser our colleagues who voted with the senator from illinois, the author of the durbin amendment, voted with him originally when the bill was first -- the amendment was first offered, they actually sat down, two democrats, two republicans, and they and their staffs hammered out legislation. they worked with senator tester and senator corker as well, but

that's really who wrote the bill. did they get input from the merchants? i would hope they did. did they get input from the banks? that's the way this place works. we seek input from not just banks, not just credit unions, not just merchants but consumers as well. i think back on the life that i've been privileged to lead dish spent a lot of years in the navy, had the privilege to serve my state as gone shall now here in the senate with my colleagues, i know any number of times in my life i have done things that i thought was sure to be the right thing to do but had an unintended consequence. i was sure i was doing the right thing. but ultimately it turned out that there were consequences that i didn't anticipate. and what we had to do what i had to do is go back and help be part of the solution in addressing those unintended consequences. senator durbin put his finger on a big problem and the finger that he put -- the problem he put his finger on actually more

than a year ago but a number of years ago was we have a situation with the use of debit cards were merchants are disadvantaged, don't really have a lot of options and they end up having to pay large fees to banks, sometimes big banks but sometimes small banks, and they really don't have much choice. they don't like that. and they'd like to see us do something about it. so what senator durbin proposes is a way to deal with that. he intended in his legislation not only to try to help consumers, to help merchants but he also tried help small banks, those under, i think, $10 billion in assets, and to protect credit unions and their members. i -- i tboonts see if we have a quote here. all of these banks have different regulators. i don't have quotes from all of them but here is a quote that senator tester shared with us of ben bernanke, the chairman of the federal reserve when he was talking about the unintended consequences and here's what

sheila bair said from the fdic. "we are concerned that these institutions may not actually receive" -- she's talking about small banks under $10 tbhl aassets -- "we're concerned that these institutions may not actually receive the benefit of the interchange fee limit exemption explicitly provided by congress, resulting in a loss of income for community banks and ultimately higher banking costs for their customers." john walsh, the interim controller of the currency, he says this, "we believe the proposalation an unnecessarily narrow approach to recovery of costs that would be howable under the law and that are recognized and indisputably part of conduct ago debit card business. this is long--term safety and consequences for banks of all size." they think they have a job here. their job isn't to be the lap

dog for financial institutions. their job is to regulate financial institutions. i have gone back here trying to think about some times when we had abuses to clean up and how do we go about doing them. we had big -- this is going to sound strange for a guy from delaware to say this. we had big abuses from credit cards. it was impossible for people to get credit card applications, look at it and maybe got six of them and decide which are actually in their best interests to fill out and to submit. we had banks -- credit card banks are take advantage of people in ways that were untoward and unethical. what we did in the banking committee when i served there is we held not just a hearing, we held extensive hearings for months. they did the same thing in the house. and we asked gork g.a.o., to hep with us an in-depth study of the credit card industry.

there are watchdog agencies. they came back and said, these are our recommendations. and we passed legislation in the senate -- the senate passed legislation in the house. the banking industry didn't like it much. they complained about t we went to conference with the house and senate, worked out a exrosm the banking industry didn't like tch. the banking industry -- the regulators were required of the banks to help us implement the legislation and they had to write regulations. they had to write regulations that were true and consistent with the underlying law and they d and you know what? the banks didn't like it very much. but they were promulgated and the some of them immediately, in some cases over a period of several months but eventually got the job done. i think consumers are much better o are banks making as much money as they used to on credit cards? no. are consumers being treated more fairly? yes, they are. part of what happened here is extensive hearings involving g.a.o., getting input from a

lost folks, a lot of folks with different views on this, and then acting, in light of the process. i think what's different in this case is i don't believe the banking committee -- and i can't speak for other committees in the last congress -- but i am not aware that the banking committee had the opportunity to hold hearings and bring people in on the last congress and say, this is what's good about the amendment proposed by our friend from illinois, and this is what's bad. i don't think we had g.a.o. -- g.a.o. didn't have the opportunity to come in and say, you know, we never invited them to come in, as we did on the credit card side. therefore, their voices were not available to us. that's unfortunate. here's whapped what's happened. the legislation was passed. senator durbin offered it. he said, we've a problem here. here is my suggestion. he said, we should regulate the marketplace for debit cards. and the free marketers said, oh,

no, no. we should let market solutions work. something i generally agree with. but in this case they weren't working. he came up with an alternative. unfortunately, the best of intentions, we have these unintended consequences. what do we do about them? we have a situation where i'm not sure consumers are going to be advantaged by the current law as it reads. big banks, they'll be okay. theg take care of themselves. a lot of smaller banks, the community banks, they've been beating on my door and the folks from credit unions. they are less able to look out for them sessments that's despite the effort by the author of the amendment to try to make sure that we provide them an exemption. the regulators say, frankly, sorry, it doesn't work. doesn't work. so that suggests to me that we

hit a pause button not for two years, at least for the next -- as much as six months and to the regulators, okay, do now what we should have done a year or two ago. complete an in-depth study, look at the concerns of the merchants, look at the concerns of the consumers, look at the banks of big banks, small banks, middle-sighed banks and credit unions appeared come back to us with what you think to be a fair approach. if you can do did in less time, let's do that. and if they come back to us and say, look, the legislation as written, current law, is just fine for consumers, is just fine for institutions of all size, and is fair to the merchant -- if they come back and say this, the durbin amendment in the law prevaisms we say that's it. the regulators have subpoenaed we're done. now, if they come back and say, we've got a problem here, these outfits, the regulators have up to six months to figure out regulations that can then be implemented after the six

months, to fix the problem. some will say, well, how do we know they'll do anything fair for consumers in they just did it for credit cards two years ago and the bankers didn't like t they still don't like t we have the pain in my state in the unemployment records to reflect that. but who's better off? consumers are better off. consumers are better off because the congress did its job. we were deliberate about t we sought input from all cite sides. the regulators did their job and it has been implemented in a prompt way. i want to close maybe with this thought. there is an outfit called michaels. we have a michaels store not far from where my family live in wilmington. they sell art supplies. they are a national chain. and pretty successful company. they were i in the news recently

not because after good storks but because of a data breach story. a lot of people who had accounts with them, their information, of their customers was disclosed. and there's great concern on the part of the consumer, the customers, the consumers that there had been this data breach and some of their sensitive information was going to be at risk. could be identity risk. who did those customers turn to and say, fix this problem? did they turn to michaels and say you fix this problem? most probably didn't. you know who they turned to? they turned to their banks. they turned to the issuers of their credit cards and say you fix this problem. you issue a new credit card for us and cover this for us. the banks did that. finally, i'm not here to carry the water for the banks.

i think we're all here to do what we think is right. my colleagues who are undecided how to vote here -- i know some are -- they don't want to choose between their two favorite children, the merchants on the one hand and the financial institutions, credit unions and all on the other. you don't have to choose between your two children. ask yourself what is the right thing to do. try to understand what is in the bipartisan amendment, some of the people i most respect here in this body. listen to guys like barney frank who don't have a dog in this fight but have a lot of knowledge, and try to make the decision that you think is the right thing to do. thank you very much, mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from illinois is recognized. mr. durbin: how much time is remaining? the presiding officer: 13 minutes, 52 seconds. mr. durbin: mr. president, if senator tester returns to the floor and wants to speak before the vote, i'm going to ask for unanimous consent to each have

two minutes for that purpose. perhaps he does not want to but i want to make that a matter of record here because euplt him -- i want him to have a chance to close. did you ever pull out one of these cards to pay for something? if you're my age you don't do it as often as younger people. i was in the carry out this morning and a young woman who was a police officer put up a pack of chewing gum for $1.20 and put up her debit card. the average amount for a debit card is 44 cents for each transaction. how much money do you think the owner made? the answer is nothing. what happens is the banks issuing these debit cards are impose swipe fees on these transactions and merchants and retailers have no voice on the

amount of that tpaoefplt the federal reserve did a study and asked how much does it actually cost them to process that debit transaction, and the answer was 12 cents. in a range of 12 cents. the charge is 44 cents, the cost is 12 cents. is there something wrong with this picture? it means that person, every person buying goods in stores across america pays more to pay for this fee. now we have heard the plaintive cries of those offering this amendment of how we've got to have some sympathy for these banks. these poor banks struggling to survive. if they can't collect the maximum on their debit fee, interchange tpaoerbgs swipe tpaoerbgs -- swipe fee, what's going to happen to them? we've already implemented all banks with $10 million or less, so we're talking about the big boys, big banks. let's ask a few basic questions.

how does the debit card interchange fee in america compare to other countries? visa and master card do business all around the world. banks issue these all around the world. how do we stack up? where is the old u.s. of a.? we have the highest interchange fees charged by visa and master card than anywhere in the world. the highest. thank you. can america express its gratitude? what do they charge in other countries? debit interchange fees in the european union less than one-fifth the charge in the united states. so let's do the math. 9 cents a transaction in europe, 44 cents here. we want to give a big sloppy

kiss to these big banks at 2:00 for the way they're going to treat us on this. but it gets better. when you go to canada, visa and master card debit interchange fees in canada? zero. there is no interchange fee. now we have people on the floor asking us to show sympathy for the banks and give us an interchange fee and they charge nothing in canada. zero. that's the reality. and the biggest banks make the biggest money on this process, far and away. chase, bank of america and wells fargo, to the tune of almost $8 billion a year. how long do they want the study to go on on interchange fees? if you're making $1.3 billion a month, you want the study to go on for months, if not years. get back to you later, we say to the banks. yeah, that's exactly what they

want. and at 2:00 we'll decide as a senate whether we're going to give it to them. this amendment drawn up by the banks compromises between the banks, gives to the banks exactly what they're looking for. a huge loophole to assess their interchange fees to justify what they're charging today and charge more. nothing in here, nothing to protect consumers and businesses across america. i got started in politics with a fellow named paul douglas. this goes back a few years. i was a college student. douglas was a ph.d. in economics, much smarter than i am for sure. he spent his whole life trying to pass something called truth in lending. all he wanted the banks to do was to tell their customers how much they were charging them with interest rates. he spent 18 years battling that and he left the senate without getting it done. couldn't finish it. bill proxmire took up the battle

and passed it, but paul douglas fought those banks for 18 years. it's a battle that's been going on a long time around here because there is a lot of power in this banking community, these financial institutions. when they come to the floor and say they want something, congress decides we better start talking. it's rarely, rarely that they ever lose. i guess you could say the wall street reform bill was a loss for them, but they deserved it. look at the god-awful mess they put america into with their rotten practices, their stupidity, their reckless conduct. we're still paying for that. we still have a lot of people out of work and businesses that failed. many of the savings accounts of families across america are still suffering because those banks made those mistakes. and in the free-market system, did they pay for their mistakes? no. the american taxpayers paid for their mistakes, giving credit where it's due to senator tester, he voted against the tarp bill. i want to put it on the record. he said it and i want it to be on the record.

i voted for it. i did because i was told by ben bernanke of the federal reserve and hank paulson of the department of treasury if you don't help these banks and they fail, you're going to see a worse depression than 1929. i bought it, voted for it. almost $800 billion in bailouts to these banks. i was seething to think we were going to pay taxpayers money to help these banks be rescued from their own stupidity and their own greed. we did it. the three biggest banks that are involved here, some $# 5 billion we sent -- 59 billion we sent to them. they're back. they're looking for the second installment on their payments from businesses and consumers across america. what they're asking for, the biggest banks, is almost $8 billion a year in these interchange fees. we've got a chance now to try to bring balance to this conversation. we've got a chance to finally

stand up for small businesses and merchants and consumers across america who have been victimized by the credit card companies and the big banks for too long. can this united states senate stand up once a year, once a decade for consumers across america against these financial institutions? that's what's at stake with this amendment. i know it's going to be a heated vote because my poor colleagues have been beaten to a pulp by both sides that feel very intensely about this. and i want to credit my colleague from montana because he told me at the outset when i said, jon, please don't do this, he said i believe it. and, jon, i admire you for doing it. still do, even though i disagree with you, i admire you for doing it. you're a man of conviction and principle and a great senator. but this is an historic moment in the senate. it is a moment where we will decide whether or not for once the big banks are going to lose and the consumers are going to

win, whether or not we're going to reduce the cost of these transactions that help consumers across america, help small businesses across america make the profit they need. some people say that, well, this hasn't been studied enough. for 11 months now the federal reserve has been studying this, the best economists, the best minds there. they have entertained 11,000 comments. they have heard everything under the sun. they have heard it all. in a matter of days they're set to issue a rule, a rule which no one has seen arcs rule which the banks don't want anyone to see. they don't want this rule to see the light of day. that's why they're here today to stop the federal reserve from issuing a rule that may cost them in terms of their bottom line. it's our choice now. it's our choice about whether or not these banks are going to prevail or not. and history will record the strength of consumers, small businesses across america

against the wall street banks who take away more than half of the interchange fees on debit cards that are collected across america. i hope that my colleagues will stand by the decision that we made a year ago. i hope that we'll give each of us an opportunity to see this rule come in effect and from that build on it a stronger, growing economy, one that is fairer than an economy where interchange fees have been dictated by big banks for too long. mr. president, i reserve the balance of my time. the presiding officer: remaining time, 3 minutes, 55 seconds. mr. durbin: i mentioned on the floor earlier that i would like to give to my colleague 2 minutes, and then i'll take 2 minutes. i ask unanimous consent that the senator from montana -- the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection, so ordered. mr. tester: just to clarify, i've got two minutes, senator durbin has got 2 minutes and

then we vote? the presiding officer: that is correct. mr. tester: god bless the united states senate. i would say this, first of all, to the folks in the galleries and members that are still in their offices, look at me. do i look like a banker? senator corker and myself drew this amendment up. the banks did not draw this amendment up, with the help of senators hagan, crapo and bennet. as is usual, we agree on 90% and 10% we disagree on. do i think swipe fees need to be regulated? of course. the problem with this amendment is the exemption on community banks under $10 million does not work. i've read the quotes from bernanke and bair and all and they said they don't know how to make the system work as a free market. the system will overrule that and that's the way it ought to

be in this country. the bottom line is i look at this from a rural perspective and the impact the federal government has on rural america and while we're trying to solve one problem we're creating two or three others. i could care less about the wall street banks. they're going to do fine. i tell you what, we lose the banks in our small towns in montana or wyoming or tennessee, and you can put another nail in the coffin of rural america. with that, i yield the floor to the good senator from tennessee. mr. corker: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mr. corker: i couldn't agree more. it's amazing, we passed this 2,400-page bill a year ago. and on all the tough decisions we defer to the regulators. and the regulators are now creating all kinds of rules because we knew that they had some wisdom that we didn't have. and yet in this case where the regulators, every single regulator involved is telling us the way the durbin amendment was written, we're going to damage

the community banks and credit unions, that it won't work. so it's amazing that in this case where the very people who regulate tell us please change this, it won't work, we're saying, no, this is going to benefit wall street. that's not the case. this puts the durbin amendment in the middle of the road, where it needs to be, and i hope everyone will support it. thank you. the presiding officer: the senator from illinois. mr. durbin: mr. president, i understand 2 minutes. the presiding officer: the senator has 2 minutes. mr. durbin: if you're interested in small town america, you should be interested in the businesses that operate in small town america and they are begging you to vote no on the tester-corker amendment. i happen to live in a town of 120,000 people. it's a little bit larger than my colleague's hometown in montana. but i can tell you what the businesses there are saying. i can tell you what wendy cronister who is saying who is owns the road rein skwrer gas stations. she is saying give me a break. they're hitting us so hard with debit interchange fees. we've got letters from the

military base exchanges which says this is the fastest-growing uncontrollable cost they are facing. this is a problem which the credit card companies and banks wanted to ignore, and now this amendment wants to delay for six months, a year or longer. in terms of trusting the regulators, i'm afraid that the banking interests that wrote this amendment didn't trust them to even issue the rule. you had to call this debate before they even issued the rule. you don't know what the number is going to be on the interchange fee, but the -- you if you go to the rooms on capitol hill here, you won't find a lot of small town bankers, you'll find the biggest banks in america waiting in the wings, waiting, putting in billion dollars worth of prayers that this amendment is going to pass. i don't question the intentions or motives of senators tester or corker, i never will. but i can tell you the effect of this amendment is going to be

giving to those big banks and those credit card companies a windfall of profit they do not deserve. if the interchange fee is zero in canada, why is it 44 cents here? can we stand up representing the people of this country and say that is fundamentally unfair? you've got to treat our consumers and merchants fairly. if we can't stand up and do that, why are we here? to do the bidding of the banks and the credit card companies? i hope not. i hope we're here to stand up for economic fairness and for consumers and small businesses across america begging us to defeat this amendment. and i yield the floor. mr. corker: mr. president? the presiding officer: the -- mr. durbin: suggest the absence of a quorum. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: suggest the absence of a quorum? the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mr. corker: is there a moment that we can continue to talk about this? the presiding officer: we're in a quorum call. mr. corker: i'd like to ask unanimous consent -- the presiding officer: objection is heard.

mr. reid: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. reid: we're in a quorum call is that correct? we're in a quorum call. mr. reid: i ask consent that that be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. the presiding officer: the republican leader. mr. mcconnell: on behalf of senator snowe and coburn, i ask unanimous consent to temporarily set aside the pending amendment so that i may call up my amendment number 390 which is at the desk. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. the clerk will report. mr. mcconnell: i ask consent that the readying of the amendment be dispense with. the clerk: mr. mccome for ms. snowe introduces amendment 309. mr. reid: we're going to vote on the amendment now? the presiding officer: the senator's correct. there a sufficient second? -- is there a sufficient second? it's already been called. durbin amendment is withdrawn. the clerk will call the roll on the tester amendment.

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: are there any senators in the chamber wishing to vote or change their vote? if nottings on this vote, the yeas 54, the nays are 45. under the previous order, requiring 60 votes for the adoption of this amendment, the amendment is not agreed to. under the previous order, the motion to reconsider is considered made and laid on the table. the majority leader. mr. reid: i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll of the senate. quorum call:

mr. demint: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from south carolina. mr. demint: i ask that the quorum call be suspended. the presiding officer: is there objection? a senator: yes. i object. the presiding officer: objection is heard. quorum call: you

quorum call:

the presiding officer: without objection -plt the wrorl -- without objection, the majority leader is recognized. mr. reid: could we have order, mr. president. the presiding officer: the senate will be in order. mr. reid: i've spoken with the chairman of the committees and a number of other senators, including senator snowe, who has offered her amendment on this bill. she has not determined yet how much time she wants on this. we'll be happy to work with her to make sure she has some time to speak on it, of course. senator demint has indicated he has an amendment he wants to

offer. senator paul has indicated he has an amendment toepts offer. -- he wants to offer. so i think what we'll do at this stage is senator boxer will give a statement, however long she feels is appropriate. as soon as an amendment is offered by senators demints and paul, they're going to debate their amendments at some later time. we have some people on our side who want to offer amendments. to keep this fairly orderly, we'll have two amendments on our side be offered, and then we'll sit down and talk about that again. that would be five amendments pending, and i think that's enough for us to get our arms around and try to move forward with this important piece of legislation. i ask consent that senator demint be recognized to offer an all, senator paul be recognized to offer an amendment, and senator boxer be recognized to speak for whatever time she feels appropriate, and then we would have a couple of amendments offered on the democratic side and then we will

reassess where we are after that. the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. reid: the only thing, mr. president, so we know where we start on this, that we want to make sure that the amendments offered by our republican colleagues and democratic colleagues initially be not divisible. the presiding officer: is there objection? hearing no objection, so ordered. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from south carolina. mr. demint: unanimous consent tubing set aside the -- i ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment to call up amendment 394. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from south carolina, mr. demint, proposes amendment numbered 394. at the end add the following: section 21, repeal of the dodd-frank wall street reform and consumer protection act. mr. demint: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection, the senator from south carolina is recognized. mr. demint: thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor.

mr. paul: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from kentucky. mr. paul: i ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment and call up amendment 414. the presiding officer: without objection. the clerk: the senator from kentucky, mr. paul, proposes amendment 414. at the appropriate place insert the following. mr. paul: mr. president, i ask that the reading be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. paul: this amendment will raise the debt ceiling $2.4 trillion. this will comply with the president's budget. many on the other side have asked for a clean vote on raising the debt ceiling. because i want to get along and go along i want to make this vote available for those who want to raise the debt ceiling. i will vote no but i wanted to do this in consideration with the majority's wishes. thank you. appropriate the senator from california. -- the presiding officer: the senator from california.

mrs. boxer: mr. president, let the games begin. that's what's going on around here. i have full respect for my colleagues. and you can tell from the tone and tenor of senator paul that he finds it amusing that he's offering a clean debt ceiling increase that he's voting against. he's offering an amendment that he's voting against when we know we're in discussions with the president and discussions with the vice president and discussions with the gang of six to try and figure out a way that we can come together, not have gotcha votes on the united states senate floor. it's outrageous. i'll tell you why it's outrageous. we have an underlying bill here, mr. president, that you've been very helpful with, s. 782, the economic development revitalization act of 2011, which will reauthorize a very important program that's been in place in this country, in this great nation since 1965 that was last passed when george w. bush

was president, that passed this senate unanimously without all these amendments that are going nowhere. i mean, there's 27 amendments as of last night, actually there's probably many more now. and we know this game because we played it once before when senator landrieu stood where i'm standing now and tried to get a small business bill through here which would have created thousands of jobs in this nation. well, here we are. we have a bill that came out of the committee i'm fortunate enough to chair, environment and public works, with a strong vote. we had one dissent. senator inhofe is my primary cosponsor. for 50 years this e.d.a. program, the economic development administration, has created jobs, spurred growth in economically hard-hit

communities. we know the struggle we're having coming out of this greatest recession since the great depression. and i want to remind the people within the sound of my voice that when president obama took over, this country was bleeding almost a million jobs a month. and we're getting back on our feet. we got the auto industry back on its feet. we're getting manufacturing back on its feet. and it's too slow. we have to do more. and once in a while we get an opportunity to work with small businesses, the private sector, local government, attract funds from nonprofit organizations, and bring jobs and important work to our communities. and this is one way. an arm of the chamber of commerce wrote me a letter

yesterday saying how important this work is. do i have a copy of that? their business civic leadership center said e.d.a. has served as a valuable partner in many communities that we have worked in, including san jose, california; seattle, washington, mobile alabama; boca raton, florida; minneapolis, minnesota; newark, new jersey; and many others, signed by stpaoe tpepb jordan, executive -- stephen jordan, executive director of the u.s. chamber of commerce. this is a bill that is being offered i guess for playing games on the floor of the united states senate. what is our number-one job? to create jobs. to create jobs. what does the afl-cio say?

you've got business and you've got labor. e.d.a. has established an admirable track record in assisting economically troubled low-income communities with limited job opportunities by putting their investments to good use and promoting needed job creation and industrial and commercial development. signed by william samuel, director, government affairs department, afl-cio; dated yesterday. now why is business and labor supporting this bill? why do they want us to stop the games and pass this bill? because they want jobs for businesses, and businesses want the work. now let's just take a look at other people who were supporting, in addition to the arm of the chamber of commerce and afl.

the u.s. conference of mayors, american public works association the national association of counties. and i was a county supervisor and belonged to that many, many years ago. you want bipartisanship? go to the national association of counties. there are democrats, republicans, independents, people of every stripe. liberal, moderate, conservative. they all come together. why? because business and labor are together, and everybody wants jobs. why do we have to face a 700-page amendment by my friend, maine senator olympia snowe, on deregulation, a bill that hasn't had one hearing in any committee and will in many ways eviscerate the important rules and regulations that protect public

health and the environment. we should have a hearing on that bill. i'm sure we can work together and make it a wonderful bill. instead it's offered on this bill, 700 pages. a senator: will the senator yield for a question? mrs. boxer: i will not yield at this time, but i will yield when i've concluded. we have a 700-page amendment that's been offered here to a what? 40-page bill? 29-page bill. we have a 29-page bill that will create tens of thousands of jobs, and we have the first amendment offered by my good friend, 700 pages, not one hearing, and it repeals all kinds of protections for the

public health. i don't get it. there's only one thing that i can get with all these amendments. we have amendments on the debt ceiling that have nothing to do with this bill. this bill will create income for taxpayers because when jobs are created and people work, they pay their fair share of taxes. this bill does not deserve to be treated this way. when it passed almost unanimously out of the committee and it is totally bipartisan and it's been in place for almost 50 years. but yet and still, that's where we are. every senator has the right to do what he or she wants. they can play games, they can have fun.

but you know what i care about? the people i represent. and, mr. president, they need jobs. i care about them whether in kentucky, california, or maryland. any state in this union. we are united states senators. we should care about the peopleñ not get up here and play games. e.d.a. uses limited federal dollars to leverage large amounts of private sector investment. it's the -- it's the little spark that creates economic activity in areas that are distressed, and it creates these jobs all across the country. every dollar of e.d.a. investment attracts nearly $7. i'll show you some other charts. with when we vote for this bill, this is an authorization, not an appropriation. we have authorized it at

at $500 million historically. in the last couple of years, it's been funded at about about $300 million, $250 millio. every dollar attracts $7 from the private sector, and that's a fact, and it's been documented in congressional testimony made on march 3, 2011. that's the history of the e.d.a. and people say, senator, how much do these jobs cost? here is what we know. one job is created for every every $2,000 to $4,000 invested. so it's an average of somewhere around $3,000 a job. that's a good return on our investment. 220 and 500 jobs are created for every $1 million of e.d.a.

investment. between -- here's what we know. between 2005 and 2010, 450,000 jobs were created by these investments and 85,000 jobs were saved. everybody in this senate -- i could be wrong. if asked what's the most important thing we have to do today, it is to help spur job creation in the private sector, and most of these are in cooperation with the private sector. sometimes they are sewer projects, water projects that are needed by the private sector, and i'm going to give you some examples. since we are authorizing this, at this stage the bill is

is $500 million. i asked how many jobs would be created each year, and it looks like it would create nearly 200,000 jobs per year and between 430,000 and a million jobs over the life of the bill. i want to give you some examples. some examples because this isn't rhetoric, this is a program that has been in place since 1965. the city of dixon in my home state got $3 million for a water system that will increase the city's water supply and their storage capacity, will eliminate a major impediment to planned development and expansion of the city's commercial industrial areas. when you don't have enough water, you can't expand. i learned that when i was a county supervisor. you need to make sure there is adequate water, adequate

electricity, adequate sewer. you have to make sure there are adequate roads. all these things are necessary for development and job creation. this prong is expect -- project is expected to create a thousand jobs and leverage $40 million in private investment. so we have a $3 million investment to improve the water system and it's going to leverage to $40 million. i call that a good deal for our taxpayers and a great deal for the american people to see jobs created. a thousand jobs, good jobs created. and that means a thousand dads and moms bringing home paychecks for their families. but what do we have here? the same thing senator landrieu had to put up with. amendment after amendment after amendment that have nothing to do with this bill. we even had an amendment for a republican friend that would do away with this entire agency.

unbelievable. the city of shafter in my state, $2 million for sewer and water improvements to serve the east shafter logistical center which will allow development of an additional 600 acres to enable continued growth at the center and support a multimodal transportation hub. this project is expected to create 1,400 jobs and leverage leverage $200 million in private investment. so that's a $2 million investment that is going to be leveraged, leveraged, leveraged. you know, we're going through a time when we have to cut spending, and i love when the republicans lecture democrats about it. watch, wait until you hear what goes on here. guess the only party to ever balance the budget and create a surplus. the democrats, with bill clinton, in recent memory. so don't lecture us about how to balance budgets. we know how to do it.

and guess what? we know how to do it by creating 23 million jobs. so i don't need to hear the lectures because they are misplaced. talk to yourself. you're the ones who didn't say a word when george bush did a tax cut to billionaires and put it all on the credit card, and now you still want to extend those tax cuts and bleed the revenues. a senator: will the senator yield for a question? mrs. boxer: i will not yield until i am finished. i have stated it before. but thank you for asking. here's where we are. i have to reiterate so i don't lose my place. under bill clinton, the democrats balanced the budget, created surpluses and 23 million jobs. george bush came over, he held a press conference, i saw it last night. he said we don't need surpluses. this money belongs to the american people, and he didn't say what he meant. he meant it belongs to rich people, super rich people who

earn over $1 billion and and $1 million, he gave away the store. then he went to war, two wars, put it on the credit card. and my friends on the other side never once said gee, i can't raise the debt ceiling to pay the debt. they all voted to pay, almost to a person, raise the debt ceiling when it was doubled from bill clinton. but now after george bush left a mess, a god-awful mess in the debt and the deficit, he handed president obama $1.2 trillion deficit, all of a sudden they blame pb for all of this. the american people get it. they don't buy it. they understand it. they're not happy where we are and they shouldn't be, but they know where the problem started. you know why? because you can't rewrite history. well, you could try, but those deficits and those debts, those

numbers, they're in the books, and unless you erase them, they'll remain in the books. i don't care whether it's talking about paul revere's ride or the deficits, that's history. so i'll show you the deficits we had when we were in control. we got it down to zero and we got surpluses and 23 million jobs. and that all was erased. and then we entered a situation the last couple of years of the bush administration where jobs were bleeding at 800,000 a month, 700,000 a month. credit was frozen, the automobile industry was in the tank, and president obama took action. and this recovery is tough. the worst recession since the great depression. so this is what i know we can do

if we work together. dare i say it? we can adopt a framework that understands billionaires and millionaires don't need their tax cuts now, we can get some more revenues in here and cut the fat and cut the duplication and go after the people who don't pay the taxes they owe and end the war in afghanistan and save $1 trillion over ten years. i can come up with $4 trillion pretty easily. allow medicare to negotiate with the drug companies for lower prices. how's that? $200 billion. but no, instead, this demagoguery. and there's attempts to bring down bills like this, clean, nice bills that will do everything we know we need to do now. rench our spare dollars, attract public investment, create jobs,

no, we're facing a host of amendments. and i don't find it funny. i find it sad that we cannot come together. i have a city in california, a very fast-growing city in the silicon valley, san jose. we got them through this program program $3 million for the renovation and expansion of the center for employment training. what do they do there? they teach skills so when we see there are certain job losses going on, we teach people the new skills. we increased that center's capacity by 860 students. we expanded access to a g.e.d. so people who didn't finish high school could get their diploma. we taught them how to speak better, how to read better. we taught them small business entrepreneurship. this is what we're expanding to new people, and this project is

going to create 4,900 jobs and leverage $3 million in private investment. this one was one to one. it was $3 million in public investment, $3 million in private investment, 4,900 new jobs predicted. i could tell you we are continuing with this program -- and by the way, these are not earmarks. we have six regional offices, and there are applications made for these grants, and they are made by the e.d.a., and it's under the commerce department. in the west coast, -- this is in 2003, just to prove some points here. e.d.a. invested $1.8 million in the construction of a water and energy technology incubator in the central valley of california. for those who don't know the central valley, it's where you get a lot of your fruit and

vegetables. and they are struggling and they are suffering with the downturn. in 2003, according to e.d.a., the incubator has housed more than 15 entrepreneurs since it opened and those entrepreneurs have obtained over $17 million in private capital and created jobs for central valley. $1.8 million in the construction of more than 2,300 square feet as an incubator for technology business, and look what happened. from that small investment, it attracted $17 million. that's a huge leverage, a huge leverage. you all know boeing company. in order to help mitigate the boeing company's decision to reduce manufacturing jobs and rent in washington, e.d.a. invested $2 million in 2006 to help build infrastructure to serve the commercial redevelopment of a 42-acre former aircraft manufacturing

site. the redevelopment has created a mixed use campus used by businesses focusing on commercial services, high tech and life sciences, 2,500 jobs. in the midwest, i talked about this yesterday, the city of duluth in minnesota. they did something terrific there. they gave a grant of of $3.5 million. it was matched by a city grant of $2.3 million, and they set up this aviation business incubator at duluth airport and a company named ciris aircraft grew from a handful of employees to 2,000 by 2008. now, this incubator is now leased to ciris design corporation which has the largest share of the worldwide general aviation market. mr. president, what we're talking about here is planting a seed of economic development, and that seed attracts more

seeds. from the private sector, from the local people, from the nonprofit, and at the end of the day, what have we done by that little seed? it really has grown, and it's happened since 1965 when this program was created, and by the way, you will be shocked to know it was authorized at the same amount of money in 1965. $500 million. is that right, kathy? $500 million. so the fact is this isn't a program that has grown and grown. it's stayed the same, which means if you put inflation in, it's dramatically cut to a tiny part of what it once was to the country. but it's a beautiful part of economic growth. and what do we need today? jobs. and what's the second thing we need? jobs. and what's the third thing we need? jobs. so i'm not amused by, you know,

27, 28, 29, 30 amendments, some of which have nothing to do with what we're talking about. one of my friends on the other side of the aisle has an amendment that's pending to repeal banking reform. everything we did and worked on. i guess he wants to go back to the days when the banks dot bigger, bigger, bigger, gambled with our money and we almost lost capitalism in this country. ok. that's his right. what is he doing -- why is he doing it on this bill without a hearing. another colleague has a 700-page amendment to end the regulations, i say to my friend that protect the health and safety of the people. not one hearing on it. so i think the american people have to wake up. so i'm saying, wake up, america,

today. wake up and pay attention to what's happening here. we have a bill on the senate floor that is meant to do one thing, create jobs. inners that have been hard hit by this bad economy. why are the republicans stalling it? hurting it? putting forward amendments that have nothing to do with it? you have to ask that question. they voted for it under george bush unanimously the same program. they voted for it near unanimously out of our committee, i say to my friend who is a senior member and a great chairman of a subcommittee on our committee. they voted for it. and now they're delaying it. and offering all these poison pill amendments to it and it's the second time they've done it. america, you have to wake up. it's the second time they've done it. they did it to the small business bill. they hurt small business. they're doing it to this bill.

they're hurting job creation. and they're hurting small business again. and they're hurting big business. i said before one of the things helped boeing. the maytag, there's another company you know the name of. in 2007, the may tag plant, with headquarters in newton, iowa, had 1,500 factory and administrative workers were closed down, there were two manufacturing operations that could be located on the old site. t.p.i. composite, a wind blade turbine manufacturer, and a manufacturer of massive steel powers for windmills. can i ask my friend if he would like some time on this? i'm going to continue telling you the may tag story. when i finish i'm going to turn

to my very important member of the committee, senator cardin, for some remarks. e.d.a. invested $580,000 in 2008 for a wind tower storage facility leased to trinity. that attracted, that $580,000 attracted $21 million in public investment. that same year we saw investments in iowa. so i'm going to stop now, yield the floor so my friend can ask unanimous consent that he be recognized. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. mr. cardin: thank you, mr. president. i believe we're on the pending amendment, so we're not -- mrs. boxer: we're on the bill. the presiding officer: that is correct. mr. cardin: mr. president, let me compliment senator boxer for her leadership on this bill.

senator boxer pointed out this dea bill is about jobs. it's about offering jobs in under-served areas. these are areas which are difficult to create jobs in good times, but in hard times they get hit even harder. the e.d.a. program leverages a small amount of public support for private-sector investment that creates jobs in underserved eamples in my state of maryland, e.d.a. projects have been very successful in bringing jobs to the rural parts of maryland, to western maryland, to our eastern shore. they have leveraged private-sector investment and we maintained and created jobs. yesterday on the floor i gave specific examples of e.d.a. projects in western maryland on the eastern shore of maryland. i talked about an old manufacturing plant that was

saved under an e.d.a. grant, leveraged 10 to 1 with private-sector investment saving over 100 jobs and creating another 20. these are jobs that are important for economic growth in our community. we all understand that this recovery has been a very difficult one for us to get moving at the pace of job growth that we know that we need for this nation. we all thought about what we could do about our budget deficit. i would hope we would all agree the most important thing to do is to create more jobs. it's interesting that the majority leader has brought forward three major bills now to create jobs. i'd like to have a little cooperation on the other side of the aisle so we can get these bills to the president for signature. the f.a.a. bill that deals with modernizing our aviation system will create jobs and keep our airs safer is tied up in conference. let's move it forward. let's get it done and get it to

the president. we had the sbir bill before us that would help small businesses that are innovation as far as job growth and we had so many nongermane amendments that were offered to it we couldn't get it through -- to the floor of senate. now we've got an e.d.a. bill that came out of the environment public works committee that came out by near unanimous vote that over the history of the e.d.a. has not been controversial in its reauthorization, now it looks like we're going to see that there's going to be numerous nongermane amendments offered in an effort basically to just ignore the importance of the underlying bill that could create jobs for our communities. so i just want to urge my colleagues to, yes, come forward with your amendments. let's debate them. if they're not relevant to creating jobs on the e.d.a. bill, you know, let's be reasonable about this.

let's not have a whole series of amendments that are -- are totally beyond the coach this bill like the -- the debt -- beyond the scope of this bill like the debt or the financial reform of last year. i don't pinned debating those issues, but they shouldn't be debated at this particular moment. i hope that we will be able to get to the reauthorization bill. i pointed out yesterday that one of the highest priorities from the -- from our local people in maryland on need was additional help from the federal government for planning dollars. planning dollars allow local communities develop a strategy that can help them with economic growth in a community. i can tell you having been recently out to cumberland, maryland, a great part of our state of meryl, beautiful part of our state of maryland, used to have a lot of manufacturing jobs there. many of those jobs have moved on. they want -- they do have a

strategy, but they need the planning help and either put that together so they can come together with a game plan attracting more private-sector interest in order to be able to create more job opportunities for families to stay in the western part of our state. it's that type of assistance that is contradictly important to america. -- critically important to america. i come back to the point that senator boxer raised. the purpose of this bill is to create jobs. jobs. #u -- save jobs and create jobs. we need to get on with that business in the united states senate. that's why i'm proud to have worked to bring this bill forward. i hope that my colleagues will be judicious with their amendments so we can get this bill through the senate to the house so that we'll have an opportunity to get this to the president in the very near future.

and, with that, mr. president, i would suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. cardin: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. mr. cardin: i would ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. cardin: madam president, i would ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside a so i can offer amendment number 407. the presiding officer: is there objection? hearing no objection, the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator maryland, mr. carden, proposes

an amendment numbered 407. at the end, added following: prohibition on interest -- mr. cardin: madam president, i ask that the amendment be considered as read. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. cardin: madam president, i will speak a different point about this amendment, but this amendment is an equitable amendment dealing with the interest charges on loans that -- government loans that are paid off in the middle of the month to prorate the interest. it is a consumer issue. it will, i think, help american families, and i will explain it in more detail at a later part of our proceedings. and with that, i would suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. merkley: madam president, i ask that the quorum call be set aside. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. merkley: i ask unanimous consent to set aside the pend pg amendment so that i may call up amendment 428 which is at the desk. the presiding officer: is there objection? hearing no objection, so sorded. -- so ordered. the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from oregon, mr. merkley, for himself and ms. snowe, propose amendment numbered 428. at the end, added following: federal regulation -- mr. merkley: madam president, i ask unanimous consent to dispense with further reading. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. merkley: thank you, madam president. i'd like to also speak to the bill before us on the economic development administration. i rise specifically to talk about the issue that is on the

minds of all americans, and that is the topic of jobs. unemployment is far too high. my home state unemployment is too high. and that's before you count all of the folks who are underemployed, who have found some type of part-time work but it is not enough to support their family. we all know how worried americans are about this. it goes to the heart of their financial foundations, the success of their families, and it should be our top focus. the good news is that the bill before us creates jobs and stimulates the economy in our towns and regions that need the help the most. the economic development administration assistance is targeted to both rural and urban areas experiencing high unemployment, low income, a natural disaster, or other severe economic distress. and it does this at a low cost

and gets the most bang for our buck. the bill encourages private-sector investmen invest. indeed, for every dollar the government sphendz on these projects -- spends on these projects, we leverage $7 in private investment. madam president, that is terrific leverage for our national investment. with national unemployment still above 9% and with extreme storms causing destruction around the nation, our support this these regions matters now more than ever. whether a town is recovering from a plant closure or a flood, it is critical that the community invest in planning for their new economic future. the kind of assistance provided by the economic development act is critical to promoting economic growth and job creation, particularly in small communities. i'd like to share an example from my home state.

the town of bernonia, oregon, a small community in the northern part of our state, devastated by heavy flooding in 2007. like many of the rural communities who are helped by these grants, vernonia is too small to have a dedicated staff to help them rebuild the local economy, and that is where the e.d.a. has a great role to play. through two e.d.a. programs, the federal government was able to step in and help by partnering with local governments and private business, and today vernonia is doing much bemplet as executive director of that ears economic development district said, we would be lost without the e.d.a. or take another example regarding the timber industry in oregon. hit hard by declining demand because of the housing market being in the ditch, the timber companies and their workers are

struggling. but they have two things on their side: great workers and great natural resources. and with the help of grants from the e.d.a., one of those lumber mills on the cla klamath reservn has been turned into a new biofuels plant bringing new economic activity to the klamath reservation and creating and saving jobs for oregonians. furthermore, the e.d.a. can continue to help our timber businesses and other similar businesses plan for the future. it can help companies project contracts that are likely to come down the road and how they can tailor their business mod toll grow accordingly. e.d.a. investments are a proven path to retaining or creating new private-sector job opportunities and helping small businesses diversify or expand.

in fact, from 19 -- excuse me, from 2005 to 2010, e.d.a. projects led directly to the creation of more than 300,000 jobs. and this doesn't even count the many thousand more jobs that were created by those seven private dplars for every public dollar. without question, the e.d.a. represent an efficient and cost-effective way to help distressed regions overcome challenges they are facing and build a new foundation for job growth in our communities. i urge my colleagues to pass this bill and to put our country back on the path to creating jobs. thank you, madam president.

the presiding officer: senator? mr. merkley: i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from virginia. mr. webb: is the senate in a quorum call? the presiding officer: yes, we are. mr. webb: i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. webb: i ask consent to speak as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. webb: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i'm pleased to come down to the senate floor along with my colleague senator corker, a fellow member of the senate foreign relations committee, to speak about a joint resolution that we introduced earlier today that deals with the situation in libya. this was introduced as a joint resolution rather than as an amendment on the current legislation because i believe that this matter is serious

enough that our body should actually consider this as a stand-alone piece of legislation and coordinate it with the house and get this passed with due speed. this resolution, first of all, contains a statement of policy that american armed forces should be used exclusively to defend and advance our national security interests. second, it prohibits the deployment, establishment or maintenance of ground troops in libya with two notable exceptions. the first would be for the purpose of immediate personal defense of american government officials, including diplomatic representatives, which i believe would be an important exclusion once we, once and if we decide to conduct negotiations or reestablish our embassy inside libya. the other exception would be for the purpose of rescuing members of the armed forces would be in libya and would be in imminent

danger. it also prohibits the awarding of contracts to private security contractors to conduct, establish or maintain any activities on the ground in libya. this language in section 2 is similar to language that passed the house last week with a vote of 416-5. section 3 includes a sense of congress that the president should request congressional authorization for the continuation of american involvement in ongoing activities in libya and that the congress in its constitutional role should debate and consider this matter expeditiously. section 3 includes -- excuse me. section 4 and 5 require the transmission of information to the congress on a wide variety of information that to this point we have not been properly included on, and that language in some form passed the house last friday with a vote of 216-145. again, i appreciate very much

senator corker joining me as principal cosponsor together with this amendment and i'd like to explain why i believe it's important that we take this measure as a body, as a congress in response to the actions that the president took in libya nearly three months ago. first, we know -- we are reminded every day that our economy is going through a terrible crisis, even as we expending hundreds of billions of dollars every year on wars in the most vitriolic and contentious part of the world. second our military has been engaged in combat for almost ten years. we have 45,000 military members in iraq despite a stated commitment for a full withdrawal by the end of this year. we have about 100,000 troops in afghanistan and the prospect for a meaningful withdrawal in the

short term doesn't look good. when we examine the conditions under which the president ordered our military into action in libya, we're faced, in my view, with the prospect of a very troubling, if not down right odd, historical precedent that has the potential to haunt us for decades. the issue in play here is not simply whether the president should ask the congress for a declaration of war, senator is it wholly about whether the president has violated the edicts of the war powers act which, in my view, he clearly has. the issue for us to consider is whether a president, any president, can unilaterally begin and continue a military campaign for reasons that he alone has defined as meeting the demanding standards of a vital national interest worthy of risking american lives and expending billions of dollars of our taxpayers' money. what was the standard in this case? the initial justification was

that a dictator might retaliate against people who rebeled against him. i do not make light of the potential tragedy involved in such a possibility, mr. president, although it should be pointed out that there are a lot of dictators in the world and very few democracies in this particular region, which gives this standard a pretty broad base if a president decides to use it again. and then predictably once military operations began in libya, the stated goal began regime change with combat now having dragged out for nearly three months. so the question becomes whether a president -- any president -- should be able to pick and choose when and where to use military force using such a vague standard. and actually that is the most important question, mr. president. given our system of government,

who should decide? and even if a president should unilaterally decide on the basis of overwhelming vital national interest that requires immediate action, how long should that decision be honored? taopbd what length should our -- and to what length should our military go before the matter is able to come under the proper scrutiny and boundaries of our congress? let's review the bidding, mr. president. what did it look like when our 0 president ordered our military into action in libya and what has happened since? was our country under attack or threat? was a vital national interest at stake? were we invoking the right of self-defense as outlined in the nation's chart center were we called upon by treaty commitments to come to the aid of an ally? were we responding in kind to an attack on our forces elsewhere as we did in the 1986 raids in

libya when i was in the pentagon after american soldiers had been killed in a disco in berlin? were we rescuing americans in distress, as we did in grenada in 1983? no, we were not. the president followed no clear historical standard when he unilaterally decided to use force in libya. once this action continued beyond his original definition of days, not weeks, he did not seek the approval of congress. and while he has discussed this matter with some members of congress, this administration has not formally conferred with the legislative branch. i believe it is appropriate to question on whose behalf this continuing action is being taken, and most importantly at this point what is going to be asked of our military in the coming months assuming that the qadhafi regime does fall. this isn't even a civil war,

mr. president. secretary of defense gates commented to me when i asked him that question during a hearing on the armed services committee recently, you don't have a civil war when there is no clearly formed opposition movement. it's been a random rebellion. we could empathize with the frustrations of this rebellion, but looking into the future, the only thing that the opponents of the present regime all seem to agree on is that qadhafi should go. i've said repeatedly over the past few months this matter is greatly, when one considers what the aftermath of this action could entail for the international community. an additional curiosity is that we still recognize this regime, even as we have been participating for nearly three months in actions designed to destroy it. i've raised this matter repeatedly with our state department. we have not severed relations with this regime, nor have we recognized a successor regime.

we have merely suspended our relations. so we're looking at something of an historical anomaly, mr. president. we're participating in attacks on a regime that we recognize on behalf of rebel forces that are so amorphous that we don't. and we really don't know what's going to replace the regime that we recognize once it's gone. obviously i'm not raising these points out of any lasting love for mr. qadhafi or any hopes that he continues in his present position, but let's be very clear. this is a region rife with tribalism, fierce loyalty, brutal retaliation. in this part of the world the lust for revenge upon those who try to destroy you is not a characteristic that is unique to mr. qadhafi. whether qadhafi stays or fails, that's very likely going to be the future at some level in libya. and this is not a place for american troops to be sent in order to sort out this mess. if other nations decide to do so, i certainly have no

objection. but our military is stretched too thin. our economy is too fragile. and the reasons for us to continue in this effort are too ill-defined. so it's important for the congress to step in, mr. president, and to clearly define the boundaries of our involvement. we should be saying, without hesitation, that no american ground personnel should be introduced into libya now or in the future. we should also be insisting on fair and open communication from this administration to the congress rather than the stonewalling that has characterized the past three months. mr. president, this is not a political issue for me. rather, it's an issue of how our government is structured. and i would submit that this issue has historical consequences. our three branches of government were carefully designed by the founding fathers to guard against hasty decisions or

judgments that would not be fully in our national interest. for centuries the english monarchs have been able to wage wars of choice with the only restriction being whether parliament would raise enough taxes to fund their adventurous armies. our founding fathers said no. the framers of the constitution deliberately gave the congress a specific power to rein in such conduct and to protect our people from unwise choices by insisting on a democratic consensus. the structure of international relations has become much more complex since then, but the principle is still vital and it still must hold. mr. president, over the past ten years, in pursuit of a workable formula with which to defend our nation against legitimate threats, we have allowed the balance of power in our constitutional system to tilt far too heavily to the executive branch. there could be no clearer

example of why the congress might -- must finally say enough is enough than the situation we now face in libya. we must clearly say as a governing body that there are boundaries on the conduct of a president -- any president -- when it comes to his or her unilateral decision to use military force. we should be clear that american military forces, in uniform or not, do not belong on the ground in libya. we should make it clear that we will not be deterred in requests for information that allow us to perform our responsibilities. to do less than that would bring us back in times to a system of government our forefathers risked their lives to improve upon. we're not the parliament of king charles. i believe my fellow members would agree that our role as a legislative body is more than that have collecting taxes so that the president -- any

president -- can raise armies and fight wars of his own choosing. and that is why i am asking every senator to support this legislation. mr. president, i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mr. cor -- mr. corker: i'm pleased to join the distinguished senator from virginia, former secretary of the navy, in this resolution, along with senator lee from utah. i look forward to a debate of this resolution next week, which i hope will end up passing both bodies and cause numbers of answers that we have been requesting to come forth. mr. corker: i want to discuss the ongoing situation in libya where specifically u.s. participation in nato military operations authorized by the united nations security council resolution passed on march 17, 2011. for those of you listening, you

have heard me correctly. it was authorized by the united nations, not the u.s. congress. we're spending roughly roughly $2 million per day on a mission which the president has yet to broadly consult congress. i find it unbelievable that the president would seek the approval of the united nations and the arab league for military operations over libya while sidelining the body that speaks for the american people, not even answering our questions. this is not consolation, nor is the president heeding the concerns of his own constituents. for many weeks now, i and many colleagues, for that matter, have attempted to gain answers to some of the most basic questions about what we are doing in libya. through hearings in the foreign relations committee, we have not received these answers. we have asked for specific witnesses and received no response. this is not consultation. in my ongoing attempts to receive answers to these questions, i sent a letter to

secretary clinton and secretary gates on april 14, 2011, specifically outlining five questions. i have the letter here and ask unanimous consent to enter this letter into the record. mr. president, i ask unanimous consent -- the presiding officer: without objection. mr. corker: thank you, mr. president. today, one day shy of eight weeks later, i finally received a response. this response didn't come from secretary clinton, it didn't come from secretary gates. this response came from the acting assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs and only paid lip service to one of my five specific requests for information. mr. president, i ask unanimous consent to enter this nonresponse into the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. corker: mr. president, this is unacceptable. this is an unacceptable way to treat a co-equal branch of the

u.s. government that has granted certain responsibilities to our armed forces by the founders of our country. without these answers, members of congress are unable to assess critical questions in debate of whether we should continue to engage in military operations in libya. this is why i'm pleased to join my colleagues, senator webb and senator lee, in introducing senate joint resolution 18 today. this is a joint resolution drawing on language that has already passed the house of representatives last week, and it requires the president to answer 21 questions critical to determining whether engagement in libya is in the vital national interests of the united states. this joint resolution further expresses a sense of congress that the president should request authorization from congress for the continuation of the united states involvement in ongoing nato activities in libya. and it says that congress should

fully debate and consider such a request in an expedient manner. mr. president, i can't imagine there is anybody in this body that would not like to debate this issue on the floor regardless of how they may feel about this conflict. mr. president, we owe it to every man and woman who puts on a uniform to serve our country and to every taxpayer who funds the operations to be clear that our entry into any conflict has been thoughtfully considered, contains clear justification, a clear mission and a clear debate of the risk and benefits. the information sought by this joint resolution will help us meet those obligations. i look forward to the senate considering this joint resolution in the near future, hopefully next week. mr. president, with that, i yield the floor and notice the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. corker: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mr. corker: mr. president, i'd like to ask unanimous consent to winter the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. corker: i thank you for that.

mr. president, noticing that there is nothing happening on the floor, i want to come down and talk a little bit about the vote that just occurred on the tester-corker amendment. obviously, i was on the loosing side of this debate. but as we went back to our office, i did want to say that one of the folks that i have worked with for a long time noted that this may be the first time in a long, long time in the united states senate you had a real bipartisan debate where you had people on both sides of the aisle, on both sides of the issue in large numbers, and while -- while, mr. president, we came up short from my standpoint on the vote, the other side obviously didn't come up short, i want to say that i see a glimmer of hope in that regardless of how the outcome may have been on this particular vote -- and again i worked hard to try to pass an amendment that

i thought was good policy, the fact is if you really look at the vote count, i cannot remember in a long time a vote on a contentious piece of legislation like this where there were so many people in the majority and minority on both sides of the issue just evaluating the policy on the grounds on which it was coming forth. so for what it's worth, i -- i thought that was an interesting observation. i want to say to those people who supported the tester-corker amendment, i thank them very much for them listening and working with us to try to pass the legislation, and for those people who voted against it, again, i thank them for the way in which this debate was conducted. again, it's been a long time since i remember something like this on the floor where you had such a split vote on both sides of the aisle, and i think that's progress and i just wanted to

note that to the president and certainly to all of those who were actively engaged in this debate on both sides of it. i think that in itself, while, you know, we did not prevail in the legislation itself, from the standpoint of the senate, not myself, i think that is an accomplishment worth noting, and with that, mr. president, i want to yield the floor. and again i notice the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: y: i ask unanimous

consent that nicholas patterson, a detailee on the staff of crime and terrorism on the committee of the judiciary be granted floor privileges for the remainder of the 112th congress. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. leahy: madam president, i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. hatch: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from utah. mr. hatch: i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be

rescinded. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. hatch: madam president, our economic situation grows more dire by the day. our unemployment rate has gone back up to 9.1%. last month only 54,000 jobs were created. you've got to create over 145,000 to just stay even. housing prices remain in free fall. since 2007, home values declined by more than they did during the great depression. in large part due to qe-2 americans are facing higher gas prices and higher food prices that are cutting into their family budgets. now there is increasing pressure for a qe-3 which would only accelerate commodity inflation. and looming over all of this is our national debt. we have a national debt of nearly $14.5 trillion. that actually understates things. this is how "usa today"

calculated it earlier this week. this chart here says it all. let me just read that. "u.s. owes $62 trillion." let me just read that again so that it sinks in. "u.s. owes $62 trillion." numbers like this are frightening to the american people. they are numbers fit for a ban in a in a republic, not the -- fit for a ban in a in -- they ae numbers fit for a banana republic. our constitution has served us well, working over more than two centuries to guarantee and extend liberty and equal rights of american citizens. but from time to time it has become apparent that the constitution needs to be amended. the founders themselves

contemplated in this even wall street given to the -- in this eventualty given to the people's representative in congress and the people in the states, the various states the opportunity to amend the constitution. and it has become so clear that our spending situation is so grim and the president and some members of his party are so unwilling to rectify it that a constitutional amendment is in order. the bottom line is that federal spending has become a threat to liberty. the inability to rein in federal spending is effectively undermining the promise of the declaration of independence and the constitution's preempt. it is slowly turning our fellow citizens into servants and stewards. to restore the constitution's promise and the classical liberty that the founders sought to secure, we must amend the constitution and we must do it now. we must amend the constitution

by voting on s.j. res. 10, passing it and sending it to the people of the states for ratification. the people that i serve in utah are demanding this action, and i know that citizens across this country are demanding it as well. they see the problems looming up before us. one of the first things that i did at the beginning of this congress was introduce s.j. res. 3, a balanced budget amendment to the constitution t. received the support of 32 members of the senate at that time pwurbgs we didn't have time -- but we didn't have time to get to the rest of it. what is remarkable is what happened a few weeks later. all 47 members of the republican caucus unified behind a single balanced budget amendment, s.j. res. 10. i was proud to work with my colleagues to draft this amendment that announced loudly and clearly where the senate republican caucus stands on this issue. when i introduced that amendment at the end of march, i was honored to stand by the senate

majority leader mitch mcconnell, my colleague from utah, mike lee as well as my colleagues who took a stand on restoring the constitutional original checks and balances. i was honored by the support this amendment received from groups commited to taxpayers and limited government. there is a list of just some of the groups. here's a list of some of the groups supporting s.j. res. 10, 60-plus, americans for tax reform, americans for prosperity, club for growth, freedom works, americans for limited government, the national taxpayers union, the council for citizens against government waste, the national taxpayer of limitation committee, the american council for health reform, grass root voices, and ending spending. but most of all i was honored to

be serving my constituents in utah who told me that this was a fight worth having. i'm under no illusion that is this is going to be an easy fight. the bottom line is that some members of congress and certainly president obama cannot be trusted to control federal spending in the long term. consider the issue of entitlement spending. medicare and social security are bankrupt. the failure to put forward a plan that would address their permanent spending shortfalls is quite simply a plan for the destruction of medicare and social security. the democrats' commitment to the entitlement casino is the commitment to national bankruptcy. don't take my word for it. listen to what the social security and medicare trustees have to say about those programs. in 2010, social security ran a $49 billion cash deficit. it is now permanently in the red, with the federal government forced to use general revenues to make up for these shortfalls.

the trust fund will be completely exhausted in 2036. we all know there is no real trust fund, just i.o.u.'s issued by the government. but even that will be exhausted in 2036. and what about medicare? not to be outdone, medicare's trust fund is now permanently in the red as well and will be completely depleted in 2024, if not before, as that date keeps moving up because of the profligacy of people here in the congress. and the lack of leadership in the white house. these numbers are jarring. they demand a serious and an adult response. but what is the reaction of our colleagues on the other side to these numbers, or at least some of them? for too many the strategy is one of deny and smear. deny there is a problem, and smear those who attempt to fix this spending crisis. the president's budget was a

joke. his budget was nothing more than a speech with some vague details. before memorial day the senate's democratic leadership busied itself attacking senator -- congressman ryan's budget. at a time when leadership is called for president obama is missing in action and complicit in the demagoguery in the democratic national committee. there is a reason the democrats don't have a way to look forward out of this mess. they refuse to cut spending and reform entitlements but they also refuse to tell the truth about the tax increases that would be necessary to balance the budget that i wear. and the entitlements -- their way. and the entitlements are social security, medicare and medicaid to mention a few. the democrats are content to be the tax collectors for the welfare state but they will not acknowledge what this entails.

massive tax increases on america's families and on america's small businesses. in his orpblg budget -- original budget president obama proposed $1.6 trillion in tax increases on all segments of our economy. in spite of these tax increases his budget got nowhere close to balanced. before memorial day democrats attacked chairman ryan's budget and offered up as an alternative roughly $21 billion in tax increases on oil companies. to borrow from john mcenroe, they cannot be serious. $21 billion in tax increases when we have $62 billion in unfunded obligations, when we have $62 trillion in unfunded obligations. u.s. owes $62 trillion. what a joke. the experience of the last few decades and hraftd few weeks -- last few weeks demonstrates the need. our spending is out of control

and president obama refuses to address this spending in a meaningful way. all they have in their bag of tricks are tax increases but the tax increases that would be necessary to fill this deficit hole would crush the liberty and the livelihoods of the american people. rather than doing serious work and making the tough decisions necessary to right our out-of-fiscal ship, rather than engaging in true leadership, the president seems content to focus on the next election and leave the hard decisions for a later day. that is the best case scenario. the worst case scenario is that certain liberals are content to force a full-blown fiscal crisis, one that would make the economic collapse of 2008 and 2009 look like the minor leagues. and then hope that all of the pressure will be to institute a value-added tax that will be a permanently open spigot, filling the coffers of the bloated federal government. either of these scenarios is

unacceptable. the fact is we're running out of time. the country needs to act now. unfortunately, in the absence of presidential leadership, the constitution provides an opportunity for congress, along with the people of the states, to amend the constitution and solve our country's systemic fiscal imbalance, even when the president refuses to do so. getting a balanced budget amendment passed is going to be an uphill climb. we all know that. i know all too well the democrats' calculated resistance to serious efforts to reduce federal spending. in 1997, a balanced budget amendment that i introduced and fought for fell short by just one vote in the senate. we had 66 votes. we actually had 67 that morning, but one of our senators was threatened by the unions and flipped off and we lost by one vote. 14 years later, our national debt stands at over over $14 trillion, threatening our economic future, reducing our global competitiveness and

jeopardizing our national security. now, can you imagine where we would be had we really been successful in passing that amendment and had one more vote to do it back in 1997? we wouldn't be in the colossal mess we're in today. yet, the resistance to a balanced budget amendment is probably even stronger among democrats now than it was in 1997. nonetheless, i am hopeful if the citizens and taxpayers of utah are in any way representative of the people in the rest of the country -- and i think they are -- it is clear that they have had enough. the people of this country are not going to stand by any longer and wait for a -- a congress to fix this situation. they understand that the constitution must be amended in order to revive the founders' original limits on the size of the federal government. passing a balanced budget amendment is not just a constitutional imperative, it is essential to the long-term fiscal health of this country. in the coming weeks, the fight

over the debt limit is going to come to a head. it is going to be a long, hot summer. i, like a lot of others who really care for this country, will be itching for a fight, and i will go to the mat for this balanced budget amendment. in this country, the people are sovereign and it is well past the time that we give them a balanced budget amendment to ratify. now, i urge my colleagues who have not done so already to support s.j. res. 10. i look forward to debating on this amendment and passing it later this summer. i believe the leadership on the other side should bring up the balanced budget amendment and have a full-scale debate before we lift the debt ceiling. that would really -- if the debt ceiling is to be lifted, and i'm not so sure it should be lifted without a balanced budget amendment. on the other hand, the very least that has to happen is to bring up this balanced budget amendment before we actually get

into the fight over the debt ceiling. it would be a very, very good thing for this whole body to have to defend itself and to have to make arguments pro and con with regard to the balanced budget constitutional amendment. and i believe when the american people see in what terrible shape we're in caused by terrible, terrible profligacy, caused by terrible spending by the congress of the united states, caused by unreasonable approaches towards trying to get things under control by those who have been in control here and by the left, let's just understand it, this doesn't just come from the right, it comes from the left. when people start to really understand this, they're going to get tremendously angry, and i think in every respect they're going to start saying we have had enough, we have had enough, it's time for you folks in the congress to stand up and pass a balanced budget amendment that

we'll have to live with in order to -- in order to save this country and to save it from the free fall that we're in right now. i hope we can get our colleagues on both sides -- we do have all 47 republicans. i hope we can get our colleagues on the other side to think and look clearly about the balanced budget constitutional amendment, s.j. res. 10. i look forward to debating and voting on this amendment and passing it later this summer. madam president, i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. harkin: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. harkin: i ask that further proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. harkin: madam president, i ask that members of my staff be granted floor privileges for the duration of today's proceedings. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. harkin: madam president, i wanted to take just a few moments here to talk about the republican budget, the so-called ryan budget in the house. this has been widely condemned, of course, for its plan to end

medicare and for its radical cuts to medicaid, but i have come to the floor today to highlight yet another extreme element of that republican budget. its unprecedented assault on education funding and the grave threat this poses to school reform efforts across the united states. this republican budget would slash funding for education by 15% next year, 2012. even more drastic cuts to education funding would come in each of the years to follow. these draconian cuts to education could not come at a worse time for america's public schools. the final budget agreement for the current fiscal year reduced education funding by by $1.3 billion. it zeroed out, for example, these -- the successful striving readers initiative. the only comprehensive federal program to help struggling adolescent readers. and i might just add that that budget ended all literacy programs for kids in america

funded by the federal government. the federal government now does not fund one literacy program in america. that's how bad it's gotten. meanwhile, cash-strapped state and local governments are slashing school budgets, firing tens of thousands of teachers in texas. governor rick perry has called for a $10 billion cut in education funding. in new york city, mayor bloomberg has proposed laying off 6,000 teachers. madam president, i have an unusual perspective as both the chair of the appropriations subcommittee that funds our federal education programs and also as a chair of the authorizing committee, the health, labor and education pensions committee which authorizes pension programs. there is no question in my mind that combined federal, state and local budget cuts pose a grave threat to education reform efforts across the country, just as these efforts are reaching critical mass. here's why. 48 states in the -- and the

district of columbia have collaborated to create high-quality common education standards for the first time. the obama administration's race to the top initiative has jump-started ambitious state-level reforms ranging from expanded charter schools to stricter teacher and principal accountability. in the "help" committee, working with senator enzi and i together are working on a bipartisan effort to reauthorize elementary and secondary education act. however, it's wishful thinking to expect improvements in school quality at a time when we're laying off teachers, increasing class sizes and reducing instructional time. i'm struck by the fact that the republican budget's assault on education comes at a time when america's competitors are surging forward. for example, china has tripled its investment in education and

it's building hundreds of new universities. even in times of austerity and shrinking budgets, smart countries don't just take a chain saw to themselves. they continue to invest in the future, and above all, they continue to boost investments in education. so, madam president, as we go forward with education reform in the united states, we're building on strength. most kids in affluent communities already attend high-quality public schools, and they go on to higher education. our challenge is to ensure that all american students have this opportunity, including the nearly 20% of children who live in poverty. now, again, certainly money is not the only factor in creating high-performing schools, but it does take money to modernize school facilities, to hire highly qualified teachers, to create effective assessment systems and to provide appropriate instruction for

students with special needs, to demand reform without resources is to set up students and teachers to fail. let me repeat that. to demand reform without the resources is to set up the students and the teachers to fail. in the months ahead, congress will be focused on reducing the deficit and trying to prevent a default on america's debt obligations, and of course this is appropriate, but it must not preclude sustained strong investments in the education of our young people. we need to invest more, not less, in helping states and districts to close the gap between world-class schools that are in the affluent suburbs and the struggling schools in the poor urban and rural communities. we need to provide resources to ensure that the goal of graduating students who are college and career ready applies to all students, including