the 1980s when the isi, that was the argument through most of the first half, three quarters of this decade. the formula of the cia would repeat endlessly is that the isi is our most important ally in the war against al qaeda and our most difficult ally in the war against al qaeda. they would point to others whom we had gotten through assistan assistance. that has changed. that has changed in the last year, it certainly has changed under the life of the raymond davis affair. and abbottabad circa changed even more. my former colleagues are

spending even more time that i am trying to answer my question, clueless, complicit. because for them even more up close and personal question. it's that advocate changes as it has, that leads in essence the uniform military which is arguing the case that we need them for the supply line and, you know, i had a drink with kayani last night. usually an okay guy. he's not as bad as he thinks. the departure of gates and the arrival of leon panetta will bring with him the new cia view i think it's also bad news for pakistan. the principle defender engagement with pakistan and state department which, of course, because it is the state

department who argues in favor of engagement with everybody. that's what diplomats are supposed to do. it's track record of winning those debates, not just in this administration but every administration, is pretty slim. it may have engagement but it's engagement often with nothing inside of the. so my reading of the tea leaves is that not only does events on the ground argued this relationship is going to get worse, bureaucratic changes, personnel changes in washington will probably add to that. all that said, at the highest levels of this administration, as i said earlier, they've never had delusions about pakistan, but they also do understand that pakistan is an important place. and they are getting angry with the comment getting frustrated with it, feels good but that's not a policy.

anger is not a solution to this problem. solutions are not very good, and is the least effective of them. >> tony, you should our popularity plummet in pakistan despite all the aid we give, despite taking medication plant has been cleared all the way up to the president. it to any strategic indication, plan that could make in pakistan giving the current strikes, the ray davis affair, or is it a hopeless cause? >> i don't think it's hopeless. i think by the one of our great problems is that it is somehow you find a message, you keep repeating it is somehow impact on public opinion. if there's anyplace that's worked since, the start of the second bush administration, i would love to hear it. i think the difficult is if you want to communicate to people you have to tee mccabe within as realistically -- you have to

communicate with them with as much depth as possible. as bruce points points out, you have the intelligence security people who are very realistic about this range of problems. what you don't have is imagine a set of media. what you don't have is a political structure that does a good job of communicating it. and i think the other problem is, until pakistan's domestic politics can address pakistan's problems, they can't be realistic about us your and that's the tragedy. it wouldn't matter that much in its pakistanis were angry at the united states. what does matter is the inability focus on education, population, water, infrastructure, the failure of the central government to respond in emergencies like the flood, all of the things that

people actually need. and with that, the threat that is posed by religious and separatist extremist groups. a threat which in many ways is not directed towards us or afghanistan or anyone on the outside. it is caused by the problems on the inside. >> you all have been very patient. we have about 20, 25 minutes for questions. please take your name, affiliation, please ask a question rather than offer a speech. go ahead. wait for the microphone. >> yes. i am from northrop grumman. simple question. not unreasonable hypothetical, that there will be a deal cut between the government in kabul and the taliban. how does that change the equation? >> well, the problem is it can

be any deal under the sun. when you cut this kind of deal, are you cutting it around us or with us? are you cutting it with a group of taliban which might actually accept a political role, or is this simply a cosmetic device by the taliban to try to manipulate the situation? is the shaikh omar, a somewhat uncertain deal, this particular group of bedfellows it's always basel in politics but the idea of omar-karzai is not something that strikes me as immediately possible. you have the problem of haqqani and how does haqqani fit into this structure? the other thing to remember is, we are still fighting in many ways a tactical war to try to

transform afghanistan into a state with a more effective government, with popular support. the taliban is fighting a war of political attrition, and in many ways they want to expand their role, expand their control and simply out weight as which is what they need to do to win if the afghan government remains weak, and something they can exploit. so, so the problem with most of these deals, particularly and tell the taliban can be firmly convinced that they're going to lose and that they reached some kind of the competition, is that this kind of negotiation can simply be an extension of the insurgency i other means. and we've seen that. we have seen in nepal, and a great many other areas.

it's compounded by the fact that there are a number of countries in isaf, germany in particular, that simply want out under any form of political accommodation possible. so the pressure isn't simply pressure that affects the key negotiating partners, its pressure within nato and isaf and the rl but certainly here in the united states of people that believe that, frankly, if we can't create a stable in state anyway, accommodation and departure is the better part. >> i just want to add one thing. i agree with all that. i am in favor of a political process but i'm deeply skeptical a political process is going to emerge. i'm deeply skeptical that if it does the merger will produce the outcomes we want. i figured the political process between gaza and the taliban will lead to the collapse of the northern alliance as abdullah

abdullah and other sake we're not interested. in a polka process with people who we regard as our mortal enemy. barges also want to put and -- i also want to put an inconvenient fact out there. there is a great hope in certain circles here and in many circles in europe, the taliban can be split from al qaeda. that these are not necessarily bound together organizations. there was an inconvenient fact. less than 96 hours after osama bin laden was killed, taliban shura councils went out with patty eulogy and bemoaned this disastrous moment had come to the islamic world. it lauded mr. bin laden as a key hero of islam, as a hero of their movement, as a defender of

afghanistan, as a hero of the palestinian cause. everything that you would not want the afghan taliban to say about osama bin laden, they said it. now, we can dismiss it as propaganda if you want to. people will say, you know, they get carried away by the moment. well, you do that at your own peril. i think the afghan taliban revealed the relationship between al qaeda. i suspect that in that mountain of data they are going through, they're going to find a lot more communications between mr. bin laden and taliban commanders and people would want to find. >> you on that just a vision list as well? >> yes. i get a lot of weird e-mails. >> i am from the university of richmond. i share your frustration. you have used words -- i wonder

if we can really afford to divorce pakistan. bruce mentioned some of the importance of pakistan, and i would just add a few more. some of this have to do with negative enforcement. if we could drive pakistan into china's orbit, they can continue, you know, or liberating the network, come to my. they can provide sanctuary to al qaeda and so on. so i wonder if marriage of convenience is a possibility? >> i don't think either telling or i are advocating divorce. we are not here in the business of saying let's break with pakistan and enter a hostile relationship. what we're trying to do is be realistic, that engagement

prospects of success were always small, and look smaller today than they did two years ago, three years ago when president obama was elected. and i think we have to deal with that reality. there are all kinds of negatives of a pakistan that is even more hostile than the one we have today. greg asked me what my nightmare scenario is. my nightmare scenario is a jihadists state in pakistan, where, through the instrument of a military coup, a true believer in global islamic jihad takes control of the fastest growing nuclear arsenal in the world. that sixth largest country in terms of population. what would we do about that? try to wrap your head around what american strategy would deal with to do with a country like that. we're going to engage them?

they're not likely to engage us. are we going to contain them? we might have some success in that because virtually everyone else would also find them dangerous, that containment is always a long-term approach. are we going to use kinetic force? are we going to use force against pakistan? should we invade pakistan? i know your reaction is this guy is nuts, but we have invaded three islamic countries in the last decade, one we kind only invaded airspace, but we still invaded their airspace. but in the case of pakistan, this really would be insanity, taking on a nuclear armed enemy with 180 million people who, as tony's poll chart shows is, are not exactly ready to be won over to the american way of life by some gis with bubblegum. it can get much worse. we are not advocating that.

we are not in favor of divorce, but i think realism is important in thinking about the future of the u.s.-pakistani relations. we are in a dark place and it's getting worse. >> i think i'm going to have to try to get away from the mental image of rambo part nine as we go into get the nuclear weapons in pakistan. what is sylvester stallone where it -- when we really need them? i don't say that this usually. people say its nuclear power and, therefore, we have to, what? and sometimes you get these hand the place we're going to bomb it out of nuclear weapons or we'll send in special forces. frankly, that is an extraordinarily dangerous image. what we also have to recognize is, when we talked about transitioning out of

afghanistan, there is the question will we leave enough people to keep the structure together for a while? can it hold together on its own? if we do instead of pulling transitioning in 2014 actually sustain the afghan national force development through 2020 and beyond, which is the real world plan it you want it to hold together. if we do that, do we maintain the capability and some kind of presence to deal with extremism in pakistan. that are, in fact, terrorists targets. if so, what do we have to pay the pakistanis, and what do we have to give them to implement? these are all strategies which we may find themselves thrust into. they don't give you, however, anything like that presence or the labor that we have now.

we have $107 billion of military operations funded this year. $4 billion worth in a. $7 billion worth of additional money to deal with the va and the medical costs of the war which a team that with time with the wounded. and other people who are eligible. are we ever going to sustain even a fraction of that beyond 2014 if we do it even that long? and if so, what is our reach in this region? what kind of aid would actually work with pakistan? and what is our policy towards south asia and towards central asia at a time when yes, we have interest in pakistan, we have interest in latin america. we have interest in japan, and we're headed toward a period in time when we have to be much

more careful about how we allocate these resources and we have been in the past. these are all very hard choices, but what they all warn you against is focusing only on the present in pakistan as one country of particular interest. we've spent the last decade without a regional strategy towards anybody. we can't afford to have a pakistan centric strategy or an afghan centric strategy in the future. >> first, bruce, what make you think pakistan can become a jihadists country? yes, they do not trust the united states, but they are

being killed by the jihadists who believe in global jihad. secondly, when we talk about political negotiations with taliban in afghanistan, where do we leave pakistan in regard to its long-term believe that one day u.s. is going to leave pakistan to deal with the situation? secondly, how do we look at the relationship with, their relationship with haqqani group and their longtime which to have a major role in afghanistan after 2014? thank you. >> i think and to the first question is, as i said before, a to which has to reincarnation. the pakistani army is at war with part of the frankenstein it created and it is in bed with this part frankenstein has created. the complexity, the contradictions that go on in the

pakistani army's behavior towards jihadism are difficult for the american mind to comprehend, but it is these contradictions and these complexities which make this such an important and difficult problem to deal with. is such a coup eminent? is it inevitable? no. is it possible? certainly. isn't the most likely outcome? fortunately i don't think so. craig was asked me for my nightmare. usually your nightmares are not the most likely thing that's going to happen to you the next day. but you ought to pay attention to worst-case scenarios. not be accessed by them either. the question of pakistan's role in the future political process in afghanistan seems to me to be first of all, the question should be addressed to afghans.

countries do not have a right to be involved in the internal political process of their neighbors without invitation. and the problem for pakistan and afghanistan is it is perceived to have invited itself in over the course of the last 30 years without invitation. if you think -- my doubts about the honesty of the pakistani army and its dealings with afghanistan are extreme, you should talk to the former head of the afghan intelligence. he is a very interesting case. he's been saying for the last five years one thing over and over again. osama bin laden is not hiding in a cave. he is hiding in the heartland of pakistan, in a pakistani military garrison, probably protected by the isi do

everything but that last statement is now a fact. he was right about that. >> i think if i may turn to afghanistan. the issue isn't just the haqqani network. it's 2015, karzai has either change the constitution, or he is gone. no one has emerged under karzai as a strong, confident leader. any of us who have met some of the other would be afghan leaders have good reason to be extremely cautious about what comes next. who in a southern pashtun now has what political status. how separate are the southern pashtuns from the northern pashtuns? how is the haqqani network then fading into the taliban generally, is the kind of sure

even at that point real? is omar still around? how much of the central government has actually evolved in a positive direction versus a lot of polls which indicate that basically it has not improved in popularity. as result of the new strategy nationally. just in areas where we have not provided that security in the south and kandahar. what is the status of the northern groups in afghanistan? and having had two failed elections, one for president and one for parliament, and having created a legislative body which has no clear function, even if it is properly elected because we never really gave them control over money that any legislature should have, what

actually the fault? -- what actually evolves? so at this point we can't at this point in time answer one single question predictably. and we have no transition plan that anybody has articulated, either in afghanistan or the administration, to move towards a goal to deal with. i would just suggest to you that we need to look far beyond 2014 as quickly as possible, particularly because something people forget again and again in this city is, for us to act we need money. we are already drafting the fy 2013 budget submission. that will fund the transition here. if we do that as we now are without any guidance as to the plan for transitioning, we present a lot of problems for us

that potentially we could avoid. and this is the kind of reality we face when we start talking substance as distinguished from political concepts and good intentions. >> i think we have time for one or two more if there are other questions. please wait for the microphone. >> i am with help the afghan children. i'm an afghan and husband working in afghan -- afghanistan and some in pakistan the last few years. my question is that how often afghans, especially civil society, afghans are actually engaged are involved in the decisions that are made for afghans in afghanistan about afghanistan, or the future of afghanistan?

are they being consulted, or at least their opinions are considered? thank you. >> i think that the answer is which afghans. first, you have to elections. afghans ran, certainly no one on the outside suggested who should run these elections. you do have an afghan government which is being steadily strengthened. the fact is that this point in time the aid money vastly succeeds -- exceeds the governments of the to spend let alone spend it wisely. so the ministries themselves can execute the budget they draft. when you talk about civil society, we have as result moved money to get independent funds for provincial governors because of constitution was not -- did not provide a way of funding the governors. you created a structure to help train and create deputy district

governor's. you've created a structure to try to empower locals through the a process. i'm not sure who it is in the afghan process that is excluded from this. the fact is that if you look at what is actually happened, you keep hearing people in the afghan government say, we should control the money. and then you look at what happens when you give it to them. and, frankly, you've already exceeded by far their ability to deal with it at this point in time. let me say that you are not going to put this kind of money into ngos. you are reforming contracting

process that won't give afghans as a whole more decisions, not the whole idea is to get away from a contracting process that had major subcontractors go directly to afghan contractors. that hopefully would also solve some of the security and other issues. but this isn't something where you suddenly call a large popular assembly in kabul and ask people what they are doing. it's also a fact while they are not normally published, you are running quarterly polling of afghans to figure out their assumptions and wants. and certainly you have responded because what afghans have wanted by way of aid has not been development in the classic sense, but relatively simple schools, local electric power, better roads and water.

and, of course, security. they've also wanted to have government services and less corruption, but this is very much a matter for afghans to solve, not for us. we can run anticorruption drives and run the training programs and build up governance, but while those can sometimes help they do not reform society. or if they do, we don't have a single example of success since world war ii. and it is not imminent anywhere i know of. we can help people help themselves. >> final question. okay, please join me in thanking bruce riedel and tony cordesman. [applause] >> c-span networks provide coverage of politics and public affairs, nonfiction books and an

american history. it's all of able to you on television, radio, online and on social media networking sites. and find our content anytime through c-span video library. and we take c-span on the road with our digital bus and local content vehicle. bring our resources to your community. it's washington your way, the c-span networks now available in more than 100 million homes. created by cable, provided as a public service. >> the u.s. senate is about to gavel in to start the day on this thursday. up first, general speeches for about an hour and at about 10:30 lawmakers resume debate. yesterday lawmakers rejected an amendment offered by montana democrat jon tester to delay the capping of debit card fees. those caps which passed into law last year as part of the financial overhaul bill are due to go into effect next month. and it would have delayed them for another year. now live coverage of the u.s.

senate here on c-span2. the presiding officer: the senate will come to order. the chaplain, dr. barry black, will lead the senate in prayer. the chaplain: let us pray. almighty god, life of our life,

you have given us this nation for our heritage. today, we ask that you will keep us mindful of your favor and glad to do your will. use the members of this body to uphold the public interest, to labor for justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with you. give them the wisdom to use their power for the healing of our land. keep their goals hierks their vision clerks and their minds keen. and, lord, we ask your choicest

blessings upon our departing page class. we pray in your righteous name. amen. the presiding officer: please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance to the flag. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. the presiding officer: the clerk will read a communication to the senate. the clerk: washington, d.c, june 9, 2011. to the senate: under the provisions of rule 1, paragraph 3, of the standing rules of the senate, i hereby appoint the honorable tom udall, a senator from the state of new mexico, to perform the duties of the chair.

signed: daniel k. inouye, president pro tempore. mr. reid: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority leader is recognized. reid following any leader remarks the senate will be in a period of morning business for one hour, with the republican controlling the first half and the majority controlling the final half. following morning business, the senate will resume consideration of the economic development act. there are currently five amendments pending to the bill. mr. president, this is an important bill. this is the most important bill we've ever done? the answer is, of course not. but it is an important piece of legislation. the economic revitalization act is central. what are the central points of this legislation? the e.d.a. has helped create jobs and growth in economically hard-hit communities across this nation. the reauthorization of this

important legislation will help ensure that agencies are able to continue creating jobs and investing in distressed communities. since 2005, the e.d.a. has invested about $1.2 billion, and these grants have created more than 300,000 jobs, precise list 314,000 jobs. for every dollar that is invested in e.d.a., we get $7' worth of private investment. that's why these jobs are created. this legislation makes it better. it is a bipartisan bill. senator boxer and inhofe and their committee have worked to get this to the senate floor. it increases flexibilities for grant year, it lowers the throash hold requirements for grantees to receive an increased federal sharks makes more investments available for assistance. now, mr. president, we're trying to move through this legislati legislation. senator snowe offered an

amendment. she hasn't come to utter a single word about this amendment. the amendment was offered yesterday. this is the same piece of legislation that held up our small business innovation act. we've had other senators who have come and offered amendments. i don't particularly like the amendment offered by the junior senator from south carolina, but he came and said, i want to offer this amendment. i'll agree to a time limit on it. senator pawcialg the junior senator -- senator pawcialg the junior senator from kentucky, said he had an amendment he would like to offer. i didn't ask for time agreements on these pieces of legislation. i should not act as the person who determines what amendments are offered an which amendments aren't offered. but when someone offers an amendment, we should be able to work it to a conclusion. and this bill, as i've indicated, is an important piece of legislation. we need to move through this. and we're going to do that to the bev of our ability. we have a number of votes today.

we'll do our best to move through this piece of legislation so we can move to other things. we have a lot of things we can do. and we can work on bipartisan pieces of legislation. that's my hope today. i would note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. mr. mcconnell: mr. president, i would just say to my -- i'd suggest the absence of a quorum. quorum call:

mr. mcconnell: mr. president? the presiding officer: the republican leader is recognized. mr. mcconnell: i ask that further proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: i was just discussing with the majority leader privately the comments he made publicly about getting votes, and i have asked my members and i understand he indicated most of our members who have amendments are willing to take short time agreements, and we ought to be able to move forward and have votes and the senate function in the way that it should. mr. president, with each passing day, the american people grow more concerned about our

nation's future. the washington post/abc news poll this week said by 2 to 1, americans believe we are on the wrong track and nine out of ten rate the economy negatively. and yesterday a cnn poll found that many americans expect another great depression. it's in this context that president obama has started talking about how concerned he is about jobs. this week the president said he wakes up every morning and asks himself what he can do to spur job creation. and every morning this week i've come to the floor with some suggestions for him. the fact is, many americans have a hard time believing the president is focused on jobs when so many of his policies seem to be designed to destroy them. and in some key areas like trade, energy, and debt, the

president himself has acknowledged that a reversal of his policies would create jobs and spur recovery. let's start with trade. hoping to sound like he had a plan for job creation, the president used the giant platform provided by his annual state of the union message in january to declare that he'd finalized a trade agreement with south korea that would support at least 70,000 american jobs. yet nearly five months later he sent his aides out to say that he won't sign them into law unless congress approves billions more in government spending first. on energy, the president has acknowledged the pressure that regulations put on job creators. that's why he ordered a review of them in january. yet by one estimate, the national energy tax his administration is trying to pass through the e.p.a. could cost,

by some estimates, millions of jobs -- millions. and while the president has acknowledged that in order to sustain economic growth and create jobs, as he put it last year, we'd need to harness traditional sources of energy, his continued refusal to reissue drilling permits in the gulf has an a devastating economic effect. on the debt, the president himself has said, and i quote, "if we don't have a serious plan to tackle the debt and the deficit that could fuelly end up being a bigger drag on the economy than anything else." end quote. and yet under his leadership, the nation's national debt has skyrocketed 35% from $10. 5 trillion to $14.2 trillion. our deficit is three times bigger than the biggest annual deficit during the bush administration and the president refuses to put forward a serious

plan to do anything to bring the debt or the deficit down. so there's a pattern here. the president likes to say that he's concerned about the economy and jobs, but his policies tell an entirely different story. he can talk all he wants, but he can't walk away from what he's done, and the things he's failing to do right now to create private-sector jobs, and to get our economy moving again. chief among them is his refusal to do anything to lower the debt and deficits he's done so much to create. right now the u.s. businesses are seeing signature on nearly $-- are sitting on nearly $2 trillion in cash. most of them would love to invest this cash in new products and ventures and employees, and yet they're holding back. why? well, its eats not just the resolutions -- well, it's not just the regulations and mix

signals they're getting on taxes, its eats also the uncertainty surrounding our future. how can businesses be confident about the future and hire new workers to build that future if the democrats who run the white house around willing to do anything -- anything at all -- about our deficit and our debt? investment follows certainty. that's one thing this white house refuses to provide. and this ongoing uncertainty is paralyzing our economic recovery and seriously hindering job creation. one recent study suggests that any nation which carries a public debt load at or above 90% of its economy loses one point of economic growth, which the administration's own economists have said is equivalent to 1 million jobs. so why won't they propose a serious plan to lower it?

when will the administration follow through on what if knows it has to do to spur job growth? the solutions, mr. president, are right in front of them. right in front of us. the administration acknowledges that free trade agreements, exspandling domestic energy exploration, cutting regulations, providing tax sernghts and reducing the debt will lead to a dramatic increase in jobs. so why won't it follow through? too often, unfortunately, the answer is political. they don't want to cross some special interest group, whether it is those who don't like trade agreements or those who don't like the private companies like d. like the way private companies like boeing run their businesses or those who just don't want to give up a single, solitary penny of federal spending. but the good of the country is more important than the goals of some political interest group. we have to rein in our debt, cut

spending, reduce taxes, reform entitlements, and grow this economy. this administration knows this as well as i do. it's time to act. so looking ahead, the key to success, in my view and in the judgment of others, including moody's, is for everyone involved to view the upcoming debt limit vote as an opportunity -- an opportunity -- an opportunity to reduce washington spending now and to save the taxpayers trillions of dollars over the long-term. it's an opportunity to put our fiscal house in order and prevent the fiscal crisis that we all know is coming. we know what we need to do. the time to do it is now. mr. president, i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: under the previous order, the leadership time is reserved. under the previous order, the senate will be in a period of morning business for one hour with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes

each, with the time equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, with the republicans controlling the first half and the majority controlling the final half. the senator from iowa is recognized. mr. grassley: mr. president, i come to the floor to introduce a piece of legislation that i have introduced many times in past congresses, make some progress on the goals that i seek but not getting 100% finality of the policies that i want. and i am always able to do this with a bipartisan piece of legislation. today i do it with senator johnson of south dakota. i'll let senator johnson speak for himself. i want to give the reasons that i'm introducing this bill in my remarks for today. i want people to know that on most farm policy -- and this

deals with farm policy -- that the senator from south dakota, mr. johnson, and i agree on most everything on farm policy. and this is a piece of legislation that's probably going to come up not so much stand-alone as when we discuss the reauthorization of the farm bill, which generally could start this year and probably go into next year. but i want my colleagues to know that this is an effort that i'm not giving up on. it deals with the issue of how much one individual farmer should get from the farm program. and so my approach is to put what you call a hard cap on the amount of money that one farmer can get. my remarks will explain why. also, though, in a time when we have great budget deficits,

people might think that i'm introducing this bill just because i'm concerned about the budget deficit, because this bill, if enacted, will save about $1.5 billion. but that's not my main purpose for doing it. my main purpose is to have the historical basis for a safety net for farmers to -- the principle that our safety net ought to be targeted towards small and medium-size farmers. so today senator johnson and i are introducing the rural american preservation act. america's farmers produce the food that feeds our families. the bill helps ensure that our farmers are able to provide a safe, abundant and inexpensive food supply for consumers around the world while maintaining the safety net that allows small and

medium-size farmers to get through tough times. everybody sees tough times that are out of their control, but the importance of the farm safety net can be seen no farther than the dinner table that each of us sit around as recently as last night. stop to think, if you were unable to feed your children for three days -- because there is an old adage that says something like this, that you're only nine meals away from a revolution. maybe in those circumstances, if you love your children, maybe you won't think this happens to you because we have the abundance of food so much in america. but you're aware of the fact that in a lot of countries they do have food riots when there is a shortage of food. so you might do just about

anything: stealing, rioting, whatever it takes, to give those children the food that you want them to have to keep them alive after maybe not having food for three straight days. so, the cohesion within our society, social cohesion that is, is one of the reasons it's vitally important that we maintain a farm program that will make sure that there's readily available food supply. another reason i'm not going to go into in these remarks is that food is very essential to the national security of our country. in other words, the defense of our country. and all you have to do is rely upon an old adage that napoleon used to say is that an army marches on its belly. also more recently, you can look at the farm praepls in germ -- farm programs in germany and japan where they have in their mind the mistakes that were made

for their war effort in world war ii -- thank god they didn't succeed, but anyway they did not have enough food for their military people. so i also want to think of short supply of food not only for social cohesion, but also for national security purposes. to ensure that the family farmer remains able to produce a food supply for this cohesive and stable society that i've talked about, we need to get the farm safety net back to its original intent to help small and medium-size farmers get over the ups and downs of farming that are out of their control. and that could be natural disaster. it could be grain embargoes put on by the president of the united states. it could be, in the case of nixon, freezing prices of beef and ruining the beef industry of

the midwest, as an example. you've got to remember, the original intent of federal farm programs was not to help farmers get bigger and bigger, but the safety net has veered sharply off course. and that's why i talk about the necessity for a hard cap on any one farmer getting help from the farm program, because we're now seeing only 10% -- only 10% of the largest farmers actually getting nearly 70% of the total farm program coming out of the treasury of the united states. there's no problem with a farmer growing larger in his operation. so let me make that clear, if you want to get bigger and bigger in america, that's an american right to do it. but the taxpayer should not have to subsidize that effort. and that's what's happening

today. there comes a point where some farms reach levels that allow them to weather the tough financial times on their own. smaller farmers do not have that same luxury. but these same small farmers play a pivotal role in producing the nation's food. i've been approached time and time again by farmers concerned about where's the next generation of tpaerplgs -- farmers coming from when the price of farmland is shooting up, particularly when the federal taxpayers are subsidizing that effort. it's important that we keep young people on the farm so that they can take the lead in producing our food when the older generation of farmers is ready to turn over the reins. but, the current policies that allow 10% of the largest farmers to receive nearly 70% of the

total farm program payments creates a real barrier for beginning farmers. the current system puts upward pressure on land prices, making it more difficult for small and beginning farmers to buy a farm or to pay cash rent. this allows then the big farmers to get even bigger. and this is not unique to my state of iowa. i'm sure it's not unique to the state of south dakota, where my cosponsor friend, senator johnson, comes from. this upward pressure on land prices is occurring in many states. it is simply good policy to have a hard cap on the amount a single farmer can receive in the farm program payments. we will keep in place a much-needed safety net for the farmers who need it the most. and it will help reduce the negative impact farm payments

have on land prices and cash rent. our bill sets the overall cap at $250,000 for married couples. now people listening here in the senate or people listening back home on television probably thinks that's outrageous to have a figure that high and call it a hard cap. but -- but, this is something that is national policy and may not be applicable just to my state, and it's necessary to reach some sort of common ground here in the congress. but i recognize that agriculture can look different around the country, so this is a compromise. just as important as setting the payment limits is the tightening of the meaning of actively engaged. and since i've used my time up, i'm not going to go into what actively engaged is about. but it means if you're a farmer,

you ought to be a farmer and not a city slicker from new york city benefitting from the farm program. i'll put the rest of my statement in the record, mr. president, and i yield the floor. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. grassley: and i yield the floor. mr. johnson: -- mr. thune: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from south dakota is recognized. mr. thune: last week i had the opportunity to travel my state of south dakota as i think most senators who were home over the break did. during the week i was able to be part of a couple of events in my state with former comptroller general david walker. i think most people here are acquainted with mr. walker. he had a ten-year run as the comptroller general of this country. he has since started an organization called come back america initiative and has been traveling the country trying to explain to the public the issues surrounding our national debt, high federal spending levels and

their effect on our nation's future. i would add that he is someone who takes both parties to task. he is an equal opportunity critic. he is very bipartisan in his criticism of the out-of-control spending that exists here in washington, d.c. but he did point out, mr. president, the tremendous growth in government which has occurred in the course of our nation's history. in fact, when our country was founded, if you go back that many years to the formative years of our country -- and he uses the year 1800 as an example -- that government spending made up just 2% of our entire economy. 2% of our g.d.p. was represented by government spending. and today it makes up almost 25%, and we are on a trim line, trajectory where that will rise to 39% by the year 24040. so you have -- by the year 2040. you have seen this upward spike

of our federal spending as a percentage of economic output. the reason for that, as he notes, is primarily entitlement programs. in other words, you've got medicare, medicaid and social security which now represent about 43% in 2010 those three programs represented 43% of our total federal spending. that number is geared or set to really spike as we head into the future. he pointed out that we're set to spend more on mandatory programs than we will take in in revenue in 2011. so this current year we will spend more on mandatory programs, which include those i just mentioned -- medicare, social security and medicaid -- than all the revenue that the federal government will take in. so that would mean that we can't even afford to pay out the programs, the mandatory spending programs that we have in our budget, not to mention those discretionary programs which are the other part of our federal

budget. and if you look at it in terms of how much we spend a day and how much we borrow, we are borrowing about 42 cents out of every dollar that we spend. that's the reality that we're faced with. it's clear that we need to make some reforms, mr. president, particularly the entitlement programs to, put them on a more sustainable footing. further, mr. walker shared the results of his fiscal fitness index which puts the united states at 28th out of 34 developed countries, just behind italy and just two places in front of ireland. 28th out of 34 countries around the world, developed countries, in terms of our fiscal fitness. mr. walker's message obviously is not a fun one. it's not a message that you would expect people to like to hear. it's not a message that promises more spending on people's preferred programs. yet, my constituents were eager to hear this message. why is that, mr. president? well, one, he was honest. he was honest about the size of

our problem, about the scope of our unfunded liabilities, about the causes of this deficit -- that it is primarily, primarily a spending-driven crisis; about the effect of the health care law and health care spending in this country, and about the measures that are needed to cut spending and to bring the budget back into balance. sunlights appreciate that kind of honesty, mr. president. they appreciate someone telling them the truth, not continuing to make promises that cannot be kept. and, two, they were eager to hear his message because his message offered hoavment he pointed out that if the country adopt add fiscal plan that would bring down our deficits on a level that was similar to the president's fiscal commission's plan, our nation, our nation's rating on his fiscal fitness index, would jump from 28th clear up to 8th place. he showed the attendees that there are a series of steps that we can take to fix social security, medicare, and medicaid. to preserve these programs

without bankrupting our country. and he showed us that if we start now, we have time to make these changes without being forced to make draconian cuts or to hike tax rates. this hope that we can fix these problems is real, and it gives the general public something that they can understand, and that was certainly the case, mr. president, with sunlights last week. unfortunately, there was another event that occurred last week, and that was the release of the unemployment numbers. and those numbers did not reflect hope but instead indicated that we have a long way to go toward fixing our economy. these numbers show that unemployment had risen to 9.1%. furkts the long-term unemployed increased to 6.2 million peernlings as those who are out of work are taking longer to find jobs. this long-term unemployment is particularly important for a number of reasons. one, these individuals who suffer from long-term unemployment often exhaust government and personal resources available to thevment as a result, they are at greater

risk of falling into poverty. furthers, it indicates that our economy is sufficiently dynamic. these individuals could have skill mismatches or there simple may not be any jobs in their economy. they may see their skills did he minutish and being less and less attached to the workforce. it will become harder and harder for these people to find a job as they no longer know the late- latest technologies or no longer have the skills they developed by years of practice. this creates long-term challenges for our economy to be able to find these individuals jobs. so the question, mr. president, is how -- how do we create an environment where businesses and individuals can be creating jobs? we will, we know that we need to -- well, we know that we need to cut spending and to cut unnecessary regulations n a recent presentation to the university of washington, nobel laureate robert lucas pointed

out that the possibility of higher taxes, the uncertainty of regulations, and the increasing role of the federal government in health care because of the health care law are all contributors to our slow economic recovery. likewise, dr. lucas speculated that our economy may continue to grow at a slower rate because of the increased regulation, taxation, and spending that is moving us cloalser to a european -- closer to a european welfare state. dr. lucas notes that these european economies have incomes that are 20% to 30% less per capita because of these irches differences in the size of government is. it is clear that this would even further increase unemployment if we continued to move along this path. we can't just continue, mr. president, with the status quo. we already know that the size of our debt is costing us one percentage point in growth every year, which according to the white house's own economists is

the equivalent of 1 million jobs. in other words, when we success staint kind of debt load that we have today, our gross debt as a percentage of our g.d.p., our entire economic output is over 90%, that means that we're losing economic growth and that means that we're losing jobs -- we're shedding jobs as a consequence of this high level of debt and high level of spending. so we need to grow the private economy, shrink government spending and cut our deficits and debts. this is the path that will help us on a recovery, help our economy recovery and allow it to create jobs that are necessary to lower that unemployment rate. and we know that we can do this. there are a number of reforms and spending cuts that we are pushing to attach to the debt limit that's under discussion right now that we -- so that we can make it easier and cheaper for individuals to create the jobs that are so necessary to get our economy back on trangdz to get people back to work. now, i would simply mention, mr. president, it that there are a number of things that can be

done and should be done. obviously, spend and debt and doing something about the trillion dollar deficits, now the th 1.3 trillion debt, we have an opportunity to do something about that. we've an opportunity as noted by the leader this morning to do that in the context of this debt limit debate that we're going to have. we should view this, both sides, as an opportunity to do something meaningful about spending and debt and to put our country on a path, a more sustainable path, fiscal path, for our future. but there are a number of other things that impact the economy today that should be done. one is, we have three pending trade agreements that were negotiated three to four years ago. they have been languishing here because the white house will not send those trade agreements up here for congress to act on. now, just to give an example of what that means to an agricultural state like south

dakota, colombia someone of those three trade agreements -- colombia, panama, and south korea, all of which present markets for south dakota agricultural products. but agricultural exports are a big part of colombia's -- our trade relationship with colombia n200 l we had an 81% market share in colombia. today that is a 27% market share, mr. president. we need -- could i -- i ask unanimous consent for an additional minute to wrap up. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection, so ordered. mr. thune: we need those trade agreements, mr. president, approved to create jobs and grow this economy. i would hope that the white house would follow through on their rhetoric and actually send those trade agreements up here so we can act on them. it has been 771 days since beesed a budget in this country, mr. president, and we talk about -- the administration talks about the need to do something about spend and debt and yet here we are having gone 771 days

without even having passed a budget. if we're serious about spend and debt we need a budget that sets a blueprint for a more fiscally sustainable future for this country. and we need energy policies that allow us to develop energies to get american energy to get fuel costs urchedz control, which also impacts in a very direct way our economy rand our ability to create jobs. mr. president, the solutions are out there. they are a very straightforward, very simple. we need to have the will to move forward and to address these issues. i hope that we will because the american people expect and deserve that we will. as dr. walker pointed out last week in my state of south dakota, if we don't, we are headed for a fiscal train wreck. mr. president, i yield the floor. mr. hatch: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from cut recognized. mr. hatch: i ask for naff time to give my remarks this morning andzy for an equivalent amount of time to be give tonight other sievmentd. the presiding officer: is

there objection? without objection, so ordered. mr. hatch: i hope i can stay within the time constraints, but i am not shiewmplet i am proud to rise and offer with my good friend, the senior senator from connecticut, senator lieberman, a continuing resolution which reaffirms our nation's steadfast and unshakable commitment to the security of israel. specifically, through the establishment of secure, recognized, and defensible borders. i am also proud that this -- pleased that this resolution is supported by apec. it is unfortunate that i feel compelled to offer such a resolution. for years both republican and democratic administrations have recognized that that israel's boundaries of june 1967 are indefensible and if reestablished will create a strategic military vulnebility for our staunch ally israel. mr. president, that is why president obama's recent comments were so dumbfounding. the president's prepared and thor roar rowly considered

remarks called for the starting point of negotiations to be what we all know are the militarily indefensible 1967 lines. remember, if israel returns to the 1967 lines, it's territory will in some locations be only nine miles wide. as prime minister binyamin netanyahu correctly stated in a friendly and appropriate correction to the president's remarks, the 1967 lines are not boundaries of peace; they are boundaries of repeated war. israel would have to give up the golan heights, the strategic elevated location which dominates northern israel. does the president not remember during the 1973 war the syrians launch add massive armored attack on the golan heights, which almost succeeded? this raise the the question of who president obama was attempting to appease with his ill-advised statements which unnecessarily drove a wedge between the united states and israel. mr. president, the fact is the national security interests of

the united states and israel are linked. the threats israel faces are threats the united states faces. whether it is hezbollah in lebanon, hamas in the gaza strirntion or those -- or these groups benefactor iran, we share a common foe. unfortunately, that foe, i, appears to be growing stronger and more capable. iran has repeatedly stated it wishes to wipe the united states and israel off the map. iran's obvious same to establish strategic dominance over the entire region. their relent lings pursuit of nuclear weapons and ballistic missile technology is of grave concern. mr. president, much has been said about iran's nuclear program but much less has been articulated about its ballistic missile program. no toured achieve its strategic objectives, iran has embarked on a significant ballistic missile program. iranian officials have boasted that they have the ability to

produce a ballistic missile with a 1,250 range. in 2009, the iranians were able to launch a multistage space-launched vehicle that the air force concluded -- quote -- "can serve as a test bed for long-range ballistic missile technologies." unquote. now, even more troubling, the iranians appear to be developing a new long-range multistage solid rocket motored missile. why is that important? if the iranians successfully feel this type of technology, they will be able to launch almost instantaneously missiles which carry warheads over great distances. with these ominous developments emanating from israel's and the united states's common foes, do we really want to be seen as distancing ourselves from one of ash staunchest allies, especially on such a pivotal issue as israel's borders? this issue of these borders is only underscored by the constant attacks on israel's borders by

iran's surrogates, hezbollah and hamas. mr. president, that is i didn't believe this concurrent resolution is so important. it reaffirms the long-held bipartisan policy of the united states that we will -- quote -- "support and facilitate israel in maintaining defensible borders and that it is contrary to united states policy and our national security to have the borders of israel return to the armistice lines that exist on june 4, 1967." now, mr. president, the united states has no greater friend than israel and israel has no greater friend than the united states. israel too often finds herself alone in the world, unjusticely singled out by the world without the authority to defend itself. from my perspective, israel does not need to apologize to anyone for defending itself against those who would do her harm, and i will always stand by israel as she seeks to protect her citizens against terrorists &

their state sponsors. having said that i also believe in the vast majority of our audience, especially the young people, who do not fully appreciate the current regime that is, i think, devastating iran and causing such problems in the middle east. we must support those people who are searchers for freedom. now, the security of both our nations is irrevocably linked this. bipartisan concurrent resolution removes any harmful ambiguity the president's remarks a while ago might have caused. the united states simply must stand by israel. with his remarks last week, president obama undermined her. israel faces consistent, unprovoked aggression by longtime supporters of terrorism. but israel is not a victim. all she asks senior senator the ability is the -- all she asks

is the ability to defend herself. this is no time for the united states to distance itself from israel. and i will do everything toik affirm israel's territorial integrity and ability to protect her citizens against the unprovoked attacks of terrorists and state actors. and because israel is a true friend, i am not surprised that this resolution has strong bipartisan support. my colleague, senator lieberman, and i will be joined by members of both parties who want to remind the world the united states is steadfastly committed to the security of israel and especially our allies' ability to maintain secure, recognized, and defensible borders. now, mr. president, let me add some additional remarks to pay tribute to technical sergeant christopher m.solsby. technical sergeant salsby was

filled in afghanistan. mr. president, technical sergeant solsby was a brave and courageous man. returning to the field of battle three times, twice in iraq and the final tour in afghanistan, he volunteered for one of the most dangerous assignments in the war on terrorists. he was an explosive ordinance disposal technician. now, this is not the first time that a member of hills e.o.d. flight had been killed while protecting his fellow service members from improvised explosive devices. in early 2007 three other members of the 75th squadron were also killed. despite this tragedy, technical sergeant solsby always returned to duty. i believe one of utah's largest newspapers, the standard examiner, paid him the highest

tribute when it stated -- quote -- "christian m. solsby died doing what he loved: saving lives." i cannot think of a better definition of a true hero. for those who knew him best -- family, friends and fellow service members -- they described him as smart and highly energetic. growing up he loved model rockets and airplanes. during his 11-year career in the service, his fellow airmen came to rely upon him and his professionalism. indeed, there is a broad consensus among hills e.o.d. technicians that he was the benchmark by which all others were judged. his distinguished service also did not go unrecognized. technical sergeant solsby was the recipient of the bronze star medal with valor device, the air force meritorious service medal,

purple heart medal. air force achievement medal with one oak leaf cluster and the air force combat action medal. i know that god will be watching over the family of this admirable man. he gave his life so that others might live. technical sergeant christopher m. solsby will never be forgotten. mr. president, with that, i yield the floor. and suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from virginia is recognized. mr. warner: i ask proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. warner: mr. president, once again i come to the floor to celebrate and recognize the contribution of our federal employees. i do this on a regular basis because while we debate the issues of the day and grapple with issues around debt and deficit, issues that will require us to cut back on government spending, i think it's important that we remember

that there are literally millions of americans who work in one form or another for our federal government that day in and day out, from our armed services to folks who work within this capitol complex, to folks who work within health and human services, who work in research, who make enormous contributions to our nation. we should not lose sight of those facts as we grapple with issues around debt and deficit and a host of other issues that we deal with in this body. so today i rise to honor another great federal employee, rafat ansari. mr. ansari is a senior scientist and leading innovator at nasa's glenn research center in cleveland. he has been recognized for developing a safe, noninvasive laser device that could drastically improve the early detection of cataracts and

improve people's lives in the process. cataracts are the leading cause of vision loss and blindness in the united states and the world. they affect over 22 million americans over the age of 40, and over 6.8 -- $6.8 billion is spent annually in the united states on cataract treatment. mr. ansari was motivated to treat cataract patients after his father was diagnosed with the disease. he realized that rat a racquets are -- cataracts are caused by proteins in the lens that cluster abnormally, a process similar to what he was studying in his space experiments. lacking the necessary financial resources, he began conduct research in his home kitchen using a light-scattering device which were able to identify clustered proteins in the eye lens. these kitchen experiments

ultimately led mr. sansari's invention of an innovative eye-scanning device and procedure that is at least two or three times stronger than any device on the market. his invention also has the potential to significantly improve the ability to detect early signs of alzheimer's, parkinson's, diabetes, and many other diseases. the procedure is currently used by nasa to study the long-term consequences of space travel on the vision of astronauts. mr.ansari's test ment to all that makes our nation great. born in stack stan, he always dreamt of working for n.a.s. savment not only was he able to realize his dream but in the process he has made discoveries that could have a big impact on the lives of millions of people, not only here in the united states but around the world.

i hope my colleagues will join me in honoring mr. ansari as well as those other great scientists and engineers at nasa for their excellence in service to our nation. mr. president, one more time, i want to acknowledge not only mr. ansari but all of our federal workers. i think it is important, as somebody who has been very involved in hoping to do something on this issue of debt and deficit, we will have to make some cutbacks on how we operate, but i think it is important to remember as we talk about some of these cuts that we are affectin affecting the livef millions of good americans who try to keep this government work on an efficient, honest and ethical basis day in and day out. with that, mr. president, i yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma is recognized. mr. coburn: i'm sorry? the presiding officer: objection is heard. quorum call:

mr. reid: mr. president? the presiding officer: the

majority leader is recognized. mr. reid: i ask consent the call of the quorum be terminated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: mr. president, i have 12 unanimous consent requests for committees to meet during today's session. they have the approval of senator mcconnell and of me. i would ask consent these requests be agreed to and printed in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. morning business is closed. under the previous order, the senate will resume consideration of s. 782, which the clerk will report. the clerk: calendar number 38, s. 782, a bill to amend the public works and economic development act of 1965, to reauthorize that act, and for other purposes. mr. reid: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. reid: if i call for regular order, which i am, that means the snowe amendment would be pending; is that right? the presiding officer: the amendment is now pending. mr. reid: mr. president, first of all, i appreciate the cooperation of senator snowe, senator coburn and others. it's important we move pal long with this legislation. so for the next three hours we

will be able to debate the snowe amendment. the time will be equally divided during that period of time. we have a number of amendments others want to offer. we already have four in addition to hers that have been offered. we have time agreements on those. i appreciate everyone's help in moving forward in this regard. mr. president, i ask unanimous consent the time until 2:15 be equally divided between senators snowe and boxer or their designees, and at 2:15 the senate proceed to vote in relation to the snowe amendment. no amendments or points of order be in order to the snowe amendment prior to the vote other than a budget point of order, and the applicable motions to waive. the amendment not be divisible, the amendment be stoubt a 60 -- be subject to a 60-vote threshold. i would also say before the chair rules on this that we have senator mccaskill that wants to offer an amendment on the same subject matter.

we'll do that at some subsequent time. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection, so ordered. mrs. boxer: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from california is recognized. mrs. boxer: mr. president, as i understand it, i will have an hour and a half to present our side on the amendment, and senator snowe will have an hour and a half. could you please give me the exact time frames here? the presiding officer: under the order, an hour and 37 minutes for each side. mrs. boxer: thank you very much. i was close. i just want to let senator snowe know what my plan is at this time. it is, first, i'm going to yield some time on another subject but will be used on our time; to senator whitehouse who has something very important

pertaining to his state. and then i'm going to come back and take as much time as i might consume -- and it won't be that long. i want to lay out where we are in this debate, why this bill is so important. and i'm going to make some remarks about senator snowe's amendment. i don't know exactly how long it will take, but i will do it as quickly as i can and retain the balance. but at this time i would yield ten minutes of my time to senator whitehouse. senator whitehouse is coming back with his charts, and i reiterate i would yield the first ten minutes of my time to senator whitehouse. mr. whitehouse: thank you, senator boxer. the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island is recognized. mr. whitehouse: thank you, mr. president. my time in this chamber often gives me cause to reflect on our history and on the brave patriots who went before us, many of whom risked or even gave their lives to create this great

republic. today i'd like to talk about a group of men who 239 years ago tonight engaged in a daring act of defiance against the british crown. for many of us, the boston tea party is one of the first events we hear about in school on the road to our american revolution. growing up, we remember told the story of painted up bostonians dumping shipments of tea into boston harbor to defend the principle no taxation without representation. conspicuously missing from history books is the story of the brave rhode islanders who challenged the british crown far more aggressively, more than a year before bostonnians dumped those tea bags into boston hash. today, on its anniversary, i would like to take us back to an earlier milestone in america's fight for independence and to share with you the story of a british vessel, the h.m.s.gaspi

and to introduce to you some little-known heroes now lost in the footnotes of history. in 1772, amitts growing -- amidst growing tensions with the american colonies, king george stationed his revenue cutter, the h.m.s. gaspi in rhode island. its task was to prevent smuggling and enforce the payment of taxes, but to rhode islanders, the vessel was a symbol of oppression. the oppressive presence of the gaspi was matched by the offensive manner of its captain, lieutenant william dudington. he was known for destroying fishing vessels and confiscating their contents, flagging down ships, only to harass, humiliate and interrogate sailors. but on june 9, 1772, an audacious rhode islander, captain benjamin lynnsey took a stand. aboard his ship, the hannah, he set sail from newport to

providence. on his way, he was stopped for a search. the defiant captain ignored the command and continued on his source. recently, dr. kathy abbas, director of the marine archaeology project has suggested a motor naturing factor for dudington to have wanted to seize the hannah. she may have been carrying 230-pound sterling on board. as she told the journal, that was an enormous sum in those days. in any event, captain lynnsey and his hannah sought to evade the gaspi. gunshots were fired and the hannah fled north up the bay with the gaspi chasing behind in pursuit. outsized and outgunned, captain lynnsey drew confidence from his familiarity with rhode island waters. he led the gaspi in the shallower waters off a point where the smaller hannah cruised safely over the sand banks. the heavier gaspi ran aground and stuck. the gaspi was stranded in a falling tide and it would be

many hours before high tide would lift her free. arriving triumphantly in providence, captain lynnsey visited john brown whose family helped found brown university. the two men rallied a group of patriots at saban's tavern in what is now the east side of providence. the gaspi was despised by rhode islanders who had been too often bullied in their own waters by the ship and the stranding of this once-powerful vessel presented an irresistible chance. on that dark night, 60 men in longboats, led by captain lynnsey and another great figure from rhode island revolutionary history, abraham whipple, moved quietly down nightmare began sack bay. they circled the gaspi and demanded that lieutenant dudington surrender the ship. dudington refused and annandaleed his men fire upon anyone who tried to board. the rhode islanders took this as a cue to force their way onto the gaspi and they boarded her

in a raging uproar of powder smoke and clashing swords. amidst this, lieutenant dudington was shot by a musket ball. right there, near rhode island, the very first blood of what was to become the american revolution was drawn. victory was soon in the hands of the rhode islanders. brown and whipple took the captive englishman back to shore. you can go today down behind o'rourke's bar and grill in patuxent village, down peck lane towards the water and you can see the bronze plaque there commemorating the spot where the captured crew was brought ashore. the rhode island patriots then returned to set the abandoned gaspi on fire and rid narragansett bay of this nuisance for once and for all. as the gaspi burned, the fire reached her powder magazine and she exploded like fireworks. the boom echoed across the bay through the night as the remains of the ship splashed down into

the water. the gaspi was gone, captured, burned and blown to bits. the site of this historic victory is now named gaspi point. the wounding of lieutenant dudington and the capture and destruction of the gaspi occurred 16 months before the so-called boston tea party. perhaps this bold undertaking will one day show up in our history books, alongside pictures of the blazing gaspi lighting up narragansett bay. perhaps american children will one day memorize the dates of june 9 and june 10, the night in which benjamin lynnsey, abraham whipple and john brown led this violent attack on british rule. i do know that these events will never be forgotten in rhode island. over the years, i have often had occasion to march in the annual gaspi days parade in warwick, rhode island, as every year we

recall the courage and zeal of these men who risked it all to defend the freedoms that we enjoy today and who drew the first blood in what then became the revolutionary conflict. i thank the chair, and i would add only that in the context of fires and disasters, we have lost one of the signature buildings of winsocket, rhode island, last night. it was called the winsocket rubber company. the building was known as the alice mills named after the mother of the president of the company who built it. it existed for -- i don't know -- 100 years or more. it burned in a fire so great that 12 municipal fire departments had to answer it last night. fire departments all the way from rentham, massachusetts, all the way down to rhode island. i want to express my sympathy to the people of winsocket on this loss and my pride to the firefighters who responded from so far and wide to attend to

this fire. unfortunately, the mill could not be saved. these mills are very hard to prevent fires in once they get burning. we have lost something very precious in rhode island. i just wanted to note that in addition to my remarks about the gaspi. let me thank very much my chairman on the environment and public works committee. i know she has important business on the floor, and it was very kind of her to give me these few minutes to talk about this historic day in rhode island in american history. thank you, chairman boxer. i yield the floor. mrs. boxer: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from california is recognized. mrs. boxer: mr. president, i just want to thank my colleague for his remarks, and i offer my deepest sympathies to those impacted by that terrible fire. unfortunately, in this country, we are witnessing so many disasters. it's -- it's so difficult fr the people to deal with this, but we have to always respond, and i'm glad that he paid tribute to the firefighters, the fires responders because they are the ones who put everything on the line to help us. well, mr. president, we have

before us a bill called the economic development revitalization act of 2011. it's s. 782. it is a good bill. it is a bill that is needed for our times, because it is a bill that is focused really on one thing -- jobs. and when you ask people what our focus should be, and we all know we need to reduce the deficit and the debt -- they all say number one is jobs, because without jobs, deficits only get worse, debts only get worse as people have to turn for their very survival to the safety net that is provided in this great nation. so when we have an opportunity to come together across party lines with a jobs bill, you would think we would be delighted to do it. now, this e.d.a., the economic development administration, was reauthorized back in 2004 when george w. bush was president,

and let me tell you a story, because everybody came together, and that e.d.a. reauthorization passed by voice vote and was signed into law by president george w. bush. so it is a bit perplexing for me to note that we have dozens and dozens of amendments that are absolutely nongermane to this reauthorization. we have one amendment that is pending. my colleague, senator snowe, is offering, which has never had a hearing. it has never had a markup, and it is absolutely going to change the way we can protect our people from pollution, from danger and i think it is unfortunate that rather than work on this together, we are seeing this offered as an amendment. it is senator snowe's complete right to do this.

i respect it and i -- i honor it and i understand how strongly she feels, but i feel just as strongly that something that would ignore public health and safety and not even put that in the benefits column is something that's a danger to the people that we serve. so we're going to have a debate about it, and the votes will come at 2:00, and i'm pleased that we will get to vote on this, and i do hope at some point we'll be able to look at regulatory flexibility, we'll be able to work to make sure that as we assist our businesses -- and we all want to do that -- that's what this bill, the e.d.a. bill, does. it's assisting business, it's jump-starting business development. we have example after example of that. we also can work to ease their burden a bit while not endangering the life and the health of the people. that's pretty straightforward, and i would be very happy to work with my colleague on that,

but this bill has never even had a hearing. this bill she is offering has never been marked up, and i have had no opportunity other than this one to basically say how i feel. and i know it's in contrast to the way senator snowe feels and senator coburn, and i have lots of respect for them. i hope they have respect for me as the chairman of the environment and public works committee because my view is my obligation is to protect the health and the safety of our kids. how many kids have asthma. if i asked a group here, i would bet a third of the hands would go up. if i asked how many people know someone with asthma, i bet more than half would raise their hands. so we can't willy-nilly just support, i think, an approach that would take away the ability to put the benefits of -- of protecting health into any formulas before we say regulation should be thrown overboard. and i think there are ways to

definitely work together on this. unfortunately, today we're going to have an up-or-down vote on the snowe amendment without that opportunity. but i want to go through the fact that the bill that is before us, the underlying bill, s. 782, has strong bipartisan support. it was reported out of our e.p.w. committee by voice vote with only one objection, and that's because this e.d.a. has prayed -- operated for 50 years. it last a -- has a very good tradition of spurring jobs and creating growth in hard-hit communities nationwide. this bill is going to ensure that e.d.a. can continue to create jobs. thousands of jobs protect existing jobs and drive local economic growth. and, you know, it is distress to go me to see, for example, an amendment by senator demint. he's very proud of his

amendment. what would it do? it would do away with the e.d.a. so on a bill to reauthorize the e.d.a., he has an amendment to eliminate the economic development administration. now, again, i respect his view, but i don't understand it. why don't i understand it, mr. president? because in 2005, senator demint sent out a press release congratulating local leaders for securing an e.d.a. grant for the city of dillon, south carolina. so you have senator demint proposing to eliminate an agency which he lauded, not once but more than once. senator demint was quoted in the press release, saying -- quote -- "this development in dillon county will save and create hundreds of south

carolina jobs,&i am pleased that the e.d.a. has awarded these funds." so what planet are we on? we have a senator who sends out a press release lauding an agency that he now wants to eliminate. so you would say well, maybe that was 2005 and he certainly should change his mind. no. one year ago, senator demint's staff held a workshop in myrtle beach to highlight competitive funding opportunities available to local communities and businesses through e.d.a. and other federal agencies. june 16, 2010, here it is. workshop to highlight competitive funding opportunities. the office of u.s. senator jim demint and the myrtle beach chamber of commerce will provide a workshop, and it goes on, the e.d.a. will be there and the

staff of senator demint. so i don't get what's going on. how do you send out a press release lauding an agency and then say let's do away with it? i don't get it. if jobs are our number-one priority, mr. president -- and i certainly know that you are fighting 24/7 for jobs. you're fighting against outsourcing jobs. you're fighting for job creation. the e.d.a. for every dollar that we spend in federal money attracts $7 of private investment. and i'm going to go through those right now with you. again, historically, $1 of e.d.a. investment attracts nearly $7 in private-sector investment. now, you say, well, for our investment in federal dollars, how much does it cost for us to create one good job? the answer comes back, e.d.a.

creates one job for every $2,000 to $4,600 invested. that is a good investment. e.d.a. is a job creator. that's why it is perplexing to me to have to face a host of amendments that are distracting us from jobs, jobs, jobs. mr. president, between 2005 and 2010, with investment of $2.4 billion, total jobs generated cloorcgeneral --total jobs gene. at the $500 million funding level authorized, e.d.a., if

that funding was spent, e.d.a. would create 87,000 to 200,000 jobs every year. 400,000 to 1 million jobs over the life of the bill. now, we don't know that that $500 million will stay, but historically that's what we've authorized e.d.a. at. here are the people who are supporting an authorization of the e.d.a. the united states conference of mayors, the american public works association, the national association of counties, the afl-cio, the american planning association, the association of university research parks, the educational association of university centers, the economic development council, the association of development organizations, the national business incubation association, state science and technology institute, university economic development association, national association of regional

councils, and we got a letter from an arm of the u.s. chamber of commerce lauding this program and citing how well they work with the e.d.a. they say, "we are the citizenship arm of the u.s. chamber of commerce and in this capacity we work with thousands of business and local chambers of commerce on community development and disaster recovery. these local chambers and businesses are constantly looking for national best practices, lessoned learned, technical assistance, strategy support and other insights, stools and techniques to make communities as competitive as possible. "requests and here's what they close -- this is the chamber of commerce arm. "as you consider e.d.a.'s future roles and responsibilities, we'd be happy to share with you our experiences and lessons learned in working with the agency and provide you with additional information." they talk about the unique

capability the e.d.a. can and does support. they say e.d.a. staff members have displayed a high degree of professionalism and technical expertise. they've engaged with us on multiple levels from consultations to sharing valuable field experience at the state and national levels -- state and local level. so we have tremendous support mpl.the afl-cio dealing with the loss of construction jobs says, "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 in promoting needed job creation and industrial and commercial development." and i would say, the last chart -- american public works association. they build the public works, the water systems, the sewer systems we need. this is a letter from peter king, executive director of american public works association, dated this month.

"write on behalf of the 29,000 members of apwa in support of the economic development revitalization act, s. 782. we urge the senate to pass this legislation which will create jobs, stimulate economic growth in distressed areas and improve the economic growth of local communities." so, i would say this: after senator snowe speaks and others speak, i will reserve my balance of time to go into specifically what programs we have seen flourish because of that little spark that gets lit when e.d.a. gets in there. the private sector loves this program, the local government, state government loves it. its he's worked since 1965, and i would urge my colleagues, if you have amendments, let's get time agreements, let's dispose of those amendments, let's get to a final vote on this very

important program which has flourished under democrat programspresident, republican presidents, democrat congresses, republican congresses. for goodness sake, does everything have to be a fight royal around here? we ought to be able to reach across the aisle when there is a bill brought that up deals with jobs. and if we don't do that we fail the people. we honestly fail the people. my very last point. senator inhofe worked very hard on this bill. republicans have added a lot of reforms to the e.d.a. i think those reforms are very important. one ever them would eliminate duplication of effort. others would give the private sector the ability to buy out the e.d.a.'s interest. so i think, clearly, clearly, at this time we should get these amendments done. i'm pleased that senator snowe has agreed to a vote. i know she's anxious to speak, and i would conclude at this

time and reserve the balance of my time and ask how much time is remaining on my side. the presiding officer: 76 minutes remaining. mrs. boxer: thank you very much. i yield the floor. ms. snowe: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senior senator from maine is recognized. ms. snowe: yes, thank you, mr. president. and before i begin to address the pending amendment that i have offered along with a number of senators in response to regulatory reform, i'm going to recognize the senator from north dakota, who is a cosponsor of this legislation, and i am delighted that he is. he recognizes and acknowledges the import of change the regulatory environment in america today if we're going to have job creation and economic growth. mr. hoeven: thank you, senator snowe. i am pleased to be here -- the presiding officer: the

junior senator from north dakota is recognized. mr. hoeven: thank you. senator snowe, i'm pleased to be here and to rise in support of your legislation, the freedom act of 2011. i know you have comments to make. also, i appreciate senator boxer's comments in regard to republicans and democrats coming together on this legislation, and i think that's exactly what needs to happen with the snowe-coburn amendment, the freedom act of 2011. i am very pleased to be a cosponsor of this legislation. and i draw on ten years of experience as a governor in our state in expressing how very important it is that we create the kind of legal tax and regulatory structure at the federal level -- at the federal level -- that will help us to stimulate private investment and get this economy going and growing and get people back to work. and i know, senator, that is exactly what you hope to achieve

with this amendment, and you will, and that's why we need to pass it. you know, just this morning jobless claims came out, and they were higher -- new jobless claims were higher than anticipated: 427,000. latchet week we got the employment numbers. we gained only 54,000 jobs. and unemployment is 9 poit 1%. at the same time we face a more than $14 trillion deficit -- debt. our deficit, more than $1.5 trillion. we're spending $3.7 trillion a year and only take in $2.2 trillion in revenue. now, clearly we need to get a grip on spending. but to get out of this deficit and debt and to get people back to work, we need to get this economy growing. and that doesn't mean the federal government spending more; it means the federal

government spending less and creating the kind of progrowth jobs-oriented economy, legal tax and regulatory structure that will help us grow. and if you look back at decade of the 1990's when we had a deficit and even before when we had stagflation, it was a combination -- it was a combination of a growing economy and better fiscal management that got people back to work and got us out of the deficit and gutted to us a surplus. we need to do that again. we need this kind of legislation that will help us create a regulatory environment that stimulates business investment, creates jobs, gets people back to work, gets a growing economy and then with good fiscal restraint will help us get on top of this incredible -- you know, this huge deficit and our debt. it's vitally important for us. now, it's vitally important for future generations. this is an important step in the

right direction. i'm pleased to cosponsor this legislation with you. thank you for bringing it forward, and i look forward to hearing your remarks very much. and i yield the floor. ms. snowe: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from maine is recognized. ms. snowe: thank you. and i want to thank the senator from north dakota, senator hoeven, for his excellent remarks. he understands, as a former governor for ten years, the impact of regulations on small businesses and how detrimental they can be to job creation, and particularly at this time where we have a very difficult economy, we have persistently high unemployment, we have subpar economic growth, we are at a consequential moment in our economic history, frankly, mr. president, that deserves the attention of the united states senate on this particular issue. so i want to thank the senator for his comments and recognizing

the effects that regulatory reform will have on the performance of small business and ultimately job creation in this economy. mr. president, i'm very pleased to have so many of my colleagues cosponsoring this amendment and i'm pleased as well to as worked with the senator from oklahoma, senator coburn, and has been cosponsored by senators mcconnell, ayotte, barrasso, senator brown, senator coats, senator enzi, senator isakson, senator hoeven, senator johnson, senator moran and senator vitter. it is clear to me that many of the senators understand the value and the imperative of reforming our regulatory system. it is absolutely vital that the federal government considers the small business economic impact of the rules and regulations that the agencies that -- are promulgating. the question is why do we need regulatory reform? i keep hearing this. we had a bill on the floor last

month, early may, in which i was deny add vote on this amendment. which was regrettable because it's clear that many people don't understand how important this is and how central it is to small business job creation, how vital it is to the survival of small businesses and the cost of doing business across america. and that's what i keep hearing, so i keep hearing about, well, yes, we understand it is important, however -- or but, or at some point. let's define "at some point?" when? so when i was deny add vote on may 4 here in the united states senate on the small business bill on regulatory reform, i heard we were going to have hearings on the issue. well, that obviously hasn't occurred. so it becomes the politics of obfuscation. it is not the reality. as one of my small businesses said yet yesterday, he said, it's like when you come to washington, it is a walled city. walled off from reality.

detached from the real world on main street. so i keep hearing, oh, we're going to have hearings. well, we haven't had hearings. we did have a hearing in the small business committee on regulatory reform. but that's not enough. it doesn't suit the senator from california, saying, well, we haven't had hearings. well, i know she's offered plenty of amendments on the floor of the united states senate that hasn't had hearings. we had a major issue yesterday that was very important to small business, the interchange fee. that didn't have hearings. we didn't have hearings the first time it was offered to the dodd-frank legislation last year. and yesterday's amendment didn't have a hearing. so it's a new standard when it comes to regulatory reform. it's a new standard bh it comes to the amendment that i have offered consistently, it's been sitting out there. do you think there have been any overtures by anybody on the other side of the aisle to say, you know, we need to work on it right away. we get it. something is happening on main street in america. and what's happening on main

street in america is that we're not creating jobs. we are not creating jobs. why? because of what is not happening here in washington and in the united states senate. there is a clear detachment from the real world. people keep asking me, small businesses, what's going on? i said i can't explain it other than it's clear that people don't understand what's going on. because if they did, we'd be sitting down talking about it. i heard the senator from california say at some point. there's ambiguity. talk about the person who's running a small business, trying to keep his neck or her neck above water to keep their business afloat during these very difficult times, and what do they talk about? they talk about the regulations that's suffocating their ability

to survive in this very tough economic climate. we're dithering. that's what this is all about. it's all a masquerade. it's a facade. just bringing up bogus arguments. i have been in the legislative process for the better part of four decades. i know when there's a serious purpose about working together and solving a problem. there is no interest in solving this problem. everybody's got their own agendas. people wondering why there is this unemployment rate, 9.1%. 9.1%. when i raised the concerns to the secretary of the treasury back in early february in the finance committee when he was testifying, i described the concerns about what was happening on main street, because i take main street tours. i invite people to do that and to actually listen to what

people are saying. and he said i think your view of the economy and pessimistic. i said, well, maybe i wasn't hearing it right. maybe i wasn't hearing it right on main street. so when i meet with my small businesses, i mention that to them, and you know what they say? they laugh. they can't believe it that people don't understand, that the secretary of the treasury doesn't understand what's going on on main street. the administration doesn't. the united states senate doesn't. the u.s. congress doesn't. because if you did, we'd be working here day and night. i was told i had to have a vote on this amendment right now. why? because it's thursday. we're smelling the fumes. and while people are suffering on main street, they're losing their jobs. have you heard the stories about what people are facing? they're desperate. time and time again i hear the

same old refrains. we don't have time. we've got to rush it. it hasn't had hearings. we'll do it some time. well, you tell that to the average american who's struggling to keep a job, find a job, or to keep the doors open to their business. that's what this is all about. that's the reality. now we can pretend it's something else, but those macroeconomic numbers are demonstrating time and time again that there is a desperation out there. and we're in another world. we take two-week recesses. then we come back and we have morning business, and we chat along. that does nothing to resolve the consequential issues facing this nation. there was a time that used to

work, where you can sit down and solve a problem. but now it's all a facade. a few talking points, and we move on. in the meantime, people are suffering, and they're handicapped by our inability to work together. and regulatory reform is central to that agenda. make no mistake about it. let's look at what we're talking about why we need regulatory reform. the analysts have lowered their forecast for the second quarter growth this year. the first quarter growth was already abysmal at 1.8% of g.d.p. manufacturing recovery has slowed. housing remains in shambles with the new numbers that are out. new claims for jobless benefits, as the senator from north dakota indicated, exceeds 400,000 again. growth of consumer spending is sluggish. now the president talks about job creation and stimulating the

economy, but results speak louder than words. since the president took office, unemployment has dipped below 9% for only five months. and even that data is skewed because it doesn't account for the millions of workers who have exited the workforce altogether. just last week the unemployment rate for maine increased to 9.1%. we are experiencing the longest unemployment period in american history since data collection started in 1948, surpassing even the 19282 double-dip recession for the length of unemployment. despite the president's promise, and $800 billion stimulus package, a $700 billion tarp program, up to $600 billion in quantative easing by the federal reserve, over $2 trillion in overall government spending, we

are years away from where we need to be in terms of job or economic growth. 40 months, mr. president, 40 months. 40 months; imagine that, after the start of the four deepest postwar recessions. our economic output averaged 7.6% higher than prerecession levels. yet, since december 2007, when the most recent recession commenced, our g.d.p. has only increased .1%. that's why we need regulatory reform, mr. president. that's why we need it. we need to bolster job creation. and the only place where you can do that is through small businesses. i know firsthand, the senator from california says we need

hearings on this amendment. then we should change the rules of the united states senate and require every amendment that's offered on this floor has to have a hearing. every bill. that must be a new standard, mr. president, because obviously there is no fundamental understanding of what is taking place. we have had hearings on this question in the small business committee, and focus is that we desperately need reform. we heard in november of 2010 in a small business regulatory reform hearing, a witness noticed if there was a 30% cut in regulatory costs, an average ten-person firm would save nearly $32,000, enough to hire one additional person. when president reagan entered office in 1981, he faced actually much worse economic problems than president obama

faced in 2009. three worsening recessions starting in 1969 were about to culminate, and the worst of all in 1981, 1982. and i know, i served in the u.s. house of representatives at that moment in time. with unemployment soaring into double digits at a peak of 10.8%, huge chunks of industrial america shut down and never reopened. yet, once the recovery began in earnest the first quarter of 1983, the economy boomed, exceeded 7.1% for five consecutive quarters. it kept growing. 4% pays for another two years. the contrast in results between the current recovery and the reagan years is instructive, because the policy mix was so different. in 1980's, the policy goals were to cut tax rates, reduce regulatory costs and uncertainty, which is what these

regulations are producing day in and day out, let the private economy allocate capital free of political direction and focus monetary policy and price stability rather than on reducing unemployment. this is the type of policy we need to rediscover if we're going to climb out of this economic downturn. now let's look at the first chart, small business job creators in my state and across america because they are the ones that create 70% of all the net new jobs in america. that's why regulations become so essential and an imperative. the total cost of regulation is at $1.7 trillion. that's with a "t." trillion dollars. and small firms with fewer than 20 employees bear a disproportionate burden in terms of those costs, 10,585 per

employee, 36% higher than the regulatory costs confronting larger firms. now, i know some people like to dispute numbers and said that's not really a true number. oh, really? just add them up. just add them up. there was a study that was done by crane and crane. they added the estimated cost of four categories or types of regulations: economic regulations $1.2 trillion. environmental regulations $281 billion. task kpwhraoeupbs $160 billion. regulations involving occupational safety, health and homeland security, $75 billion. some studies omit independent agencies, omit the internal revenue service and the calculation in cost of regulations. you ask the small business or any business in america about that. the i.r.s. doesn't cost in terms of regulations.

of course they do. you have to include all agencies of government that have an impact directly on small business or any business in america. the point is, mr. president, the principal impediment to job creation in this country is a broken regulatory system. we have repeatedly talked about it. it is a top priority for small business community across america. every major organization that is a key voice for small businesses echoes this repeatedly. federal regulations has placed a tremendous burden. i know my colleagues and i understand, some of us understand the critical nature of all of this. we've heard the message loud and khraoefrplt and even the president, interestingly enough, started issuing an executive order in january to begin the process of reviewing federal regulations, saying the need -- and i quote him -- unnecessary

paperwork requirements that waste time and money. in four months the administration's preliminary findings uncovered $1 billion in savings to 30 agencies. they ran the gamut. they included even environmental regulations. so obviously there's some recognition and acknowledgement that regulations are a barrier and an impediment. i mean, one of the proposals that the president is eliminating by the environmental protection agency, so i don't think anybody would suggest he's trying to eradicate all environmental protections in america bill identifying some that just aren't worthy of support because they are onerous. would eliminate the requirement to for states to protect against fuel polluting the air at gas stations. says modern stations have these systems. that would save up to $67 million a year. nobody is going to accuse the

president of saying undermine all environmental regulations in the country as if we can't be discerning and discriminating in evaluating what's worthy and what isn't. what's too costly and complex and what isn't. what makes sense and what doesn't in this current context of this economic environment. can we spend time doing that, since the time i was denied on may 4 an ability to vote on this amendment, could we have worked that out? absolutely not. so, why can't we become involved in this effort? it seems we're turning a blind eye to it. no recognition because i don't think there's a full understanding or appreciation of what is going awry in the economic landscape in every community across this country why there is that despair or anxiety. and, oh, by the way, about 80%

of the american people believe we're moving in the wrong direction when it comes to our economy. that should be a paul revere wakeup call. that should be a message that we might want to recalibrate our focus here in the united states senate, maybe spend some time here in the united states senate working out the issues to solve the problems so we can create jobs for americans who are unemployed, because we know that 9.1% doesn't capture all unemployed americans. there are many who just have dropped out entirely. you can have as many as underemployed or unemployed up to 25 million americans, mr. president. that is staggering. that is breathtaking. now at the time i was denied a vote, the last time that we could have been moving ahead on this legislation, or in the interim when i was denied that vote on may 4, working out another solution to work through

these issues, the chairman of president obama's own council on jobs and competitive, general electric c.e.o. jeff immelt -- this just happened may 10. play 4 said can't do regulatory reform. that's preposterous. haven't had hearings, if hearings matter, by the way. hearings sometimes are a path to nowhere. nothing leads from anything. but let's say we'll take that time to do something since then. have there been hearings called for? no, of course not. but six days later, who's speaking on regulatory reform? the president's own council on jobs and competitiveness, that's who. and he is noting a number of priorities. and guess what?

one of them happens to be regulations. and it says to support a pro-growth environment and strengthen u.s. competitiveness, he listed focusing on small business, right, improving and innovating education, bolstering exports to the world's fastest growing markets, three of those priorities. and then he called for, and i quote, collaboration between government and business with regard to regulation as a top priority, noting that decades of overlapping, uncoordinated regulations create unnecessary hurdles, increases burdens for entrepreneurs and businesses large and small across the country, end quote. let me repeat. this is from the president's hand-selected chairman of a council dedicated to create

american jobs and boosting our competitiveness. now he made this pronouncement less than a week, as i said, as the senate failed to consider my regulatory reform amendment. that was nearly two months ago, when we just had a mere three days of votes over that time. so you might think well, okay, there were some reasonable concerns about my amendment. what have we done since then? nothing. nothing. nothing. we might have had a recess or two. we had days without votes, days without debating key issues. actually, not just days. weeks. nothing. nothing. it's -- nothing's connecting. you know? what's connecting, though, unfortunately for small businesses and people who depend

on small businesses for jobs is that it's a cause and effect, and that's why you're seeing the dill tirious -- deleterious effects of our inability to work on the issues that matter, that we have just basically relegated all of this to the back seat. you know, we will subjugate it for other things without purpose. it truly is regrettable because of what it is doing to the average american and to those who are struggling, and people rightfully know it. the american people understand what is happening here or what isn't happening here, i should say. the breadth of regulations is truly punitive on businesses in america. the heritage foundation reported last year that the burden of

regulation on americans increase at an alarming rate in fiscal year 2010. with a record 43 major new regulations costing costing $26.5 billion alone, far more than any other year for which records are available. that's just in one year, year, $26.5 billion. that's on top of the the $1.75 trillion in annual regulatory costs. that's just one year, year, $26.5 billion. i mean, it's clear that the administration and the agencies have gone on a regulatory rampage. so, again, it's that detachment from the real world and what this means. what are the real practical implications for the person running a small business and trying to calculate the costs or

anticipate future softs? so why are they going to hire new employees to take on new costs? why are they going to make investments? they don't dare, they can't take the risk. they say we don't know. i meet with small businesses regularly, i talk to them. they keep saying it's uncertainty, the regulations. well, this demonstrates it. just in 2010 alone. the heritage foundation said regulatory costs will rise until policymakers appreciate the burdens that regulations are imposing on americans and the economy and exercise the political will necessary to limit or reduce those burdens. that's exactly what our amendment will do. this is a clarion call for regulatory reform. they should know no political, philosophical boundaries. there shouldn't be philosophical differences. now, you might have some arguments about what approach you take, but those things can be worked out. in fact, that's exactly what i

did with the amendment that i offered. that i was a denied a vote back on may 4. from the other side, there were some issues. we made five major modifications to my proposal because it is important to build bipartisan support. i have certainly reached across the aisle on so many occasions, so i would have thought that we could have had a corresponding response to work out these issues. that's what i don't understand. there shouldn't be any debate. they talk to their small business community, they get the same response. so what can we do to make it better, and that's the key. the key is making some changes. now, you know, one, i call for small business review panels to be attached to every agency so that we review the regulations before they are promulgated, before they are implemented, so

we find out beforehand what might be of concern to small business, what might have potential costs or risk or won't work out. know it beforehand. i hear from some who say oh, no, we'll work it out later. you ask a small business person how are you going to work that out afterwards after they are paid, you know, astronomical costs to comply with that regulation, so let's set up the small business review panels. and this isn't a new model. this isn't a new model. there are such panels to osha and e.p.a., and i offered it to the financial regulatory reform bill, to the consumer protection financial bureau, and it's part of that mechanism now, so there was a model that we adopted from osha and e.p.a. from 1996 where we had a democratic administration that's worked exceptionally well. so i thought well, why not apply it to every agency? well, absolutely not. so i said okay, what can we do

to work it out? so i talked to them on the other side of the aisle, we changed it. we said for the three years that this bill will be authorized, we'll do it, you know, for nine agencies, three a year, to see how it works. the nine biggest agencies that had the most effect on small businesses. so i did that. i might that change because i thought, you know, we'll try it out, okay? to address the concerns that were expressed on the other side of the aisle. and so then we said we should start requiring the agency to do what they are supposed to do by law, so you think it's a little redundant to ask them to do what they are required to do already, which is to review the rules. they're supposed to review the rules every ten years, but guess what? they don't. they don't. so i said well, if they're not reviewing these rules every ten

years, then they couldn't be that important, so let's take them off the books. that's what i said. that's what i had proposed. if an agency can't be bothered to review the regulations as they're required to do under the law every ten years and they're not doing it, then it must not be that important, let's take them off. so there was some resistance on the other side, so i made the change in response to the concerns, and what i incorporated is that they would lose 1% of their operating budget. that's fair. we have to give them incentive to do what they should be doing by law, but we'll now give them some greater impetus to comply with the law. it is amazing that we're in that position, but that's where it stands. and so i made that change because i thought that it was important. we have inspector generals. they are tasked with ensuring that these reviews are taking place, and they can do so in

consultation with the chief advocacy council and the small business administration. it's not unusual for an i.g. to determine if the agency is complying with existing laws. after all, isn't that what they precisely do? would anybody argue that updating ineffective regulations hurt the environment or harm small businesses? you know, the administration's own preliminary review of regulations at 30 agencies in four months identified identified $1 billion worth of savings. why wouldn't we want to start those reviews to become the norm rather than the exception? i just don't understand it. are we that busy here that we can't do it? maybe we could forfeit a few recesses and do some work for america. to connect with what's going on on main street, getting back to main street because that's where the jobs are created.

maybe we could spend more time here doing that instead of deferring sometime down the road perhaps, maybe all those ambiguous phrases that again lead to no practical outcome or result. well, you know, so i made some other key changes in hopes that we could build that bridge in response to the concerns that were given on the other side. i made five major modifications because i thought it was important to build the bipartisan support, but again i was denied that opportunity. so now we're saying -- well, it hasn't had a hearing. well, i think we ought to change the rules of the senate, mr. president, as i said earlier , that are required for every amendment. perhaps that would slow the train down someplace here. maybe we could get back in achieving some real results. now, another provision that i have in my regulatory reform act

that i have introduced with senator coburn and so many others here, the basic commonsense approach, but it might not work for some here, i'm sure, incorporating the indirect economic effects of small -- you know, of regulations on small businesses. so that we make sure that they anticipate the foreseeable indirect economic effects in addition to the direct effects because we know there are a multiplicity of effects that resonate and reverberate with other industries, and that needs to be calculated and incorporate ed and factored into the equation in terms of costs. now, i also recommend that we expand the judicial review requirements so that we make sure that small businesses have

the opportunity to at least make sure that the agency considers issuing a rule that has significant economic impact on a substantial number of small businesses, that it must publish that with a proposed rule, that the agency has considered the impact of the rule having small businesses, that it has contemplated less costly alternative ways to make the rule less burdensome. that's important because they ought to listen to a diverse -- diverse options in terms of the rule that they are proposing to make sure they have incorporated the views of small businesses and understanding the implications, be more exact and precise in the process, not waiting until months and years down the road after you go through a very extensive, complicated rule-making process to try to make your case.

small businesses don't have the resources to do that to begin with, let alone the time or employees to do it, and that isn't a good use of their capital, by the way, to be spending their time arguing with a government agency, you know, time and again. for 30 years, small businesses have had the ability for judicial review of agency's small business impact statement after the rule has been made. and in this entire time period, mr. president, for over 30 years, even with the ability to obtain judicial review, we know of only two rules that are demanded by the courts. one was a mining regulation that did not account for the number of small businesses that had gone bankrupt under bonding requirements. the other was fishing restrictions issued without realizing the impact on fishermen. so what this means is that waiting until the rule is final is simply too late. the damage is done, mr. president. so to correct this injustice,