>> we have your material works better than our brothers in the budget committee. fare cutting everything these days in washington. .. >> this is my first subcommittee meeting but i am really looking forward to serving on this subcommittee as i think the issues are extremely important, and extremely relevant in my district at home. director sullivan, i appreciate your testimony today before us.

you know, in 2001 the u.s. patriot act mandated the secret service to establish a nationwide network of electronic crimes task force. and in my own city in los angeles in 2002, the los angeles electronic crimes task force was created and was tasked with working with federal, state and local law enforcement in providing network security and digital data recovery. can you tell me a little bit more about the role of this agency, its current initiatives? how does the task force work with local law enforcement, including lapd, l.a. county sheriff? >> yes, ma'am. electronic -- has been integral success for us i believe. we her first original one in new york going back to late 1990s.

but with electronic crime task force does it brings anybody under one roof going after the same people. nationwide with 29 electronic crimes task forces nationwide your which brings i think into play about 2500 state and local enforcement, we've got about 1800 to 2000 members who are from the financial and banking industry and we have about 350 people from academia. but really this is a great multiplier. it's all about partnership. these people are coming into the same office every day working together, going after the same people. training is also a very radical part of what we do. all of our special agents when they go through here, initial training period is new agents they get a basic computer class, computer training. and then from there they get

into more training. we have three different levels of trend for all of our agent. we have basic training. we have cyber or network intrusion training, and then we also have forensic training. as a result of how well that has done for our people, in cooperation with the department of homeland security, the state of alabama, we've opened up in hoover, alabama, a cyber training institute for state and local law enforcement as well as local prosecutors. so far we have put about 1000 people state and local law enforcement through that training, giving them the same, again, many of these people are involved in our electronic time -- electronic crimes task force. we get them the equipment. we give them the dream. and they're able to go out into the same thing our agents are doing. >> thank you. let me ask you one other question. interoperability is a problem

that was identified when we heard the 9/11 report card in homeland security committee. and it was one of the major lessons we learned that day on 9/11, the inability of our first responders to communicate, resulted in loss of lives. 10 years later and apparently we still haven't been able to create and fund that system. and i know my district has, puerto los angeles, l.a. international airport, and i'm always hearing from my local law enforcement agencies the need for national interoperability, communication system is vital. does secret service, do you see that as a problem as well? what your inability to communicate with first responders in a crisis situation? >> i think that's part of the

reason, when we put anything together we are always going to be planning for, you know, we want every single trip and every single visit to be a success but you always have to plan for the worst-case scenario. and that's why i cannot go back to the police means we have, why they are so important and why for each event, if it's in nsf you at the multi-national coordinating center, we will have every command level individual from every single department who will be represented there. and that could be anywhere from 50, 55 people. so if an incident does occur, we will all be in there together, everybody is going to have the same information, and everybody's going to be able to talk to each other and respond to that particular threat. but i would agree, i would agree with the assessment that you're getting from the state and local law enforcement that there is more work that needs to be done with interoperability. i do think that we, working with

our partners when we are working on these planned events, we are taking into account every continue to make sure we do have the best communication plan we can have is an incident were to occur. >> thank you. >> thank you, ms. hahn. now the chair recognizes the gentleman from arizona who may know a little bit about this from the previous experience. so the children from arizona. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you, director sullivan for being here today. mr. chairman, you are right. i've got is a writeup of the that i've had a lot of interaction with the men and women in the secret service, and they are by far some of the best and most professional people that i don't have the privilege to be around. and so i just want to say thank you for running such a great organization and the people in the secret service are just tremendous. >> thank you, congressman. >> in your testimony you raise the concern of the widespread use of the internet has led to a

lot of the proliferation of computer related crimes that have been targeting our nation's financial infrastructure, and yet affected virtually every sector of the american economy. how is the secret service dealing with that threat, and other any as you think might be able to be strengthened? >> i can i go back to the modeling of with our electronic crime task force where we bring everybody together, and what we try to do is try to stay one step ahead of the technology. you know, these people that we are up against that are committing these crimes, every time we figure out a solution to prevent them for what they are doing, they are looking for the next technology. their technology is evolving the same way as, you know, everybody's technology is evolving. and they really do take advantage of that. so we find by working with academia, we have people at carnegie mellon, at the engineering institute there. we work with them to, again, let

them see the trends we are seeing, but also for them to help us with countermeasures to that and look for better law enforcement tools for us to operate on. but the best people we have are the people that are dealing with this, this crime out there and just staying current with it and making sure that we get them the training that they need, make sure that we get them the equipment they need, and make sure that we keep them current. >> do you think you are staying one step ahead rather than being reactive? i know in all sorts of law enforcement, cybersecurity or whatever, it's hard to keep that one step ahead, because every single time you think you're one step ahead danger get teamed with another thing you haven't thought about before. so is it still kind of -- >> i would say it's a combination of both. i would say a lot of it is reactive. we have to see what that threat is out there and do we try to be very aggressive reacting to that. you know, using different investigative techniques, again,

that goes back to a how we are prevented about $13 billion in fraud whether we are rich with informants, even though we have a new type of crime here, we still do rely on good old police work. in making sure we are after talking to people who might have information and to making sure that our people are out there in very aggressive and looking at what the particular crime is. but no, a lot of it is reactive without a doubt. >> thank you, director sullivan. i yield back. >> thank you, mr. coyle. i know i have a couple of follow-up questions myself and i will open and i have a few things i would like to ask you. and then i'll open it if we have any, but would like to ask an individual question or participate in some follow-up with you, i will invite that, allow that as well for a few moments. but i want to return, director sullivan to some of the line of question that i spoke about before because again, i identify

this cycle as a moment in which there's going to be great deal of attention on our process and our candidates. we have been here watching the transition in the world of terror, in which we have identified the nature of the threat that we saw on september 11 a decade ago, the sophisticated wing operating in concert, and now we've begun to see, at least experienced here in the united states, to the extent we've had issues with terrorism, it's been changed. we've seen individuals operating as lone wolves, as the word would go. in addition, we are seeing a pattern of activity in which some from outside of this country are trying to reach back, connect with individuals within here, we call this the

radicalization aspect. i'm not sure that we've ever dealt with both of those while we conducted a presidential campaign, or at least to the extent that perhaps we think it exists today, without going into any particular techniques or other things, is this certainly an issue that you and the agency had anticipated? and how is it that you communicate with our other agencies who are looking at the global picture and try to identify risks to the homeland, but not the least of which would be an iconic situation like a candidate? >> thank you, chairman. again, i think this is the benefit from as being part of the apartment of homeland security, and i know that it is a priority for the secretary to counter violent extremism. and part of our strategy is to reach out to the community, make sure we are letting our state and local law enforcement partners out there know what we know in making sure that we have

the best information out there as well. as far as we are concerned, you know, we are a big consumer of information. we are not intelligence component, but for our threat reduction, for our risk management we really do depend on the information that we get from all of our partners. and i can tell you, and i think this past weekend, you know, you making the events up in new york and pennsylvania, here in washington, d.c., and i can tell you, chairman, the information we got from all of our federal partners out there, whether it was the fbi or from the intelligence community, we got tremendous support regarding these events, the information that was out there that really helped us put together the best plan we could put together, but when we put a plan together, you know, we take into account the lone wolf. we take into account the organized terrorist attacks. we take into account the threat

of ieds, all of that. we take into account. >> i was going to say that changing nature of the infrastructure out there. it's no longer the individual, unfortunately it is weapons as well have changed. >> absolutely. so over the years again, as talked about before as we see the threat evolve we have evolved with it. but i can't emphasize enough just to support that we get from all of our state, local and federal law enforcement partners. we really do succeed because of that information and because of that support that we get from them. >> let me ask one follow-up question related again to anticipating 2012. and i noticed we call the special events, the events of national significance that are going to be occurring here. any one of those would be important, but you're going to be in the spring of 2012, you are really at the height of the political season. at the same time, you are going be dealing with two rather

significant incidence that will probably attract international attention. my own recollection is whatever the g20 gets together it becomes an international event unto itself. are you going to be positioned going into a dual challenges of dealing with the continuing protection of your multiple dignitaries, while looking at these very significant events that are likely to require a fair amount of security for us in this nation? >> and again i go back to our partnership. right now we have, we've had people in honolulu, you know, or a number of months now putting together their operational plan for the apex summit. at the same time we have people in charlotte and tampa working with the state and local law enforcement partners putting plans together for both conventions. we will be naming or i think we already have many people that will be working in chicago on

the nato and the g20 summit. this is going to be their focus. and what we do for these events, mr. chairman, is we have an executive steering committee. and the executive steering committee, the three main federal partners that are involved in the committee would be fema for the consequential management, we have the fbi for the crisis management, and with us for the operational planning. and then in addition to that, we have the state and local law enforcement that are involved in public safety. their leadership would also be on the executive steering committee. underneath the executive steering committee we would have about anywhere from 20-25 subcommittees, and these subcommittees work on different areas that we believe to be issues. we have people working on an airport subcommittee. we have the airspace subcommittee. we have an intelligent

subcommittee. we have fire and life safety subcommittee. we have a subcommittee for everything you can think of it. >> and congress. [laughter] >> but all these subcommittees, everybody is coming into work every single day so it goes back to what i talked about before, chairman. the collaboration that we have out there, the partnership that we have out there quite frankly if we didn't have that we could not do this by ourselves. we really do rely on all of our partners out there. to make sure that we're able to do the visit. and again we don't go in there and say we are in charge. we go there and say this is a partnership, equal partnership, and everybody's value here and we really do want to work this together. and i think they must be working because since 1998, we have already done 37 of these and everyone of them seems to get better with time. and we learn from each one of them as well. >> i thank you for your

collaboration and i've seen it firsthand. as the challenges now, it certainly seems clear to work with the others, particularly appreciated with the locals in particular, so now i would turn to the ranking member, ms. speier. >> two quick questions. many states have the open carry laws which allow you to carry your gun openly. and during the presidential campaign in 2008 number of assault weapons at some public rallies. how do you deal with their constitutional rights to carry those weapons, and yet make sure that the safety of the candidates and the public is provided for? >> yes. our people go out and we a bite by the rules of that state. but what we do is, you know, we have, at every venue we have what we call a secure zone. and nobody is allowed into that secure zone, and we make sure that we give ourselves enough

standoff distance so that there is no type of weapon that is going to be within that area ha any harm to us. but we also other protective countermeasures going on to make sure that we do identify anybody who is out there with a weapon, that we can identify those individuals and make sure that, you know, that they will not be capable of bringing any harm to us. but again, it goes back to our partnership with state and local law enforcement. they are just so important to what they do and they do help identify those threats to us before they get to a point where it might be unmanageable. >> in some states allow for open carry of loaded guns? >> i believe so. i'm not -- i believe they do though, yes. >> all right. my second question, final question deals with the issue you had previously where you overspend your budget, didn't inform congress or dhs. what steps have you put in place to prevent that from happening

again? >> yeah, and i will just say for us we put together these type of events with the campaign. it really is difficult for us to forecast the cost, and there's a lot of things that come into effect. crowds and a number of days and just old married a different things. what happened in this particular instance was right at the end of december 2008, we learned that four additional nsses were going to be on during the inauguration. philadelphia, there's going to be a train trip originating in philadelphia coming down to washington. so philadelphia, wilmington, delaware, baltimore, maryland, and an event at the lincoln memorial were all designated as nsses. as we look at our budget, we realized that the money that we had for the campaign, the transition in the inauguration was not going to support these

for nsses. we notified the department of that challenge and let them know we needed to do a reprogramming. you know, one point i do want to be clear on, you know, we did not overspend from overall budget, what happened was we had to take money out of one protection line account and put it into this nsse account. so we took it from one protection account and put it into another protection account. unfortunately, we did not -- i written notification of this was not sent up to congress. and thus we were given this violation. some of the things we have done in the meantime is that we do have more frequent interaction with the dhs budget shop on this particular issue. there is a lot more oversight internally, and internal,

internal controls that budgetary controls we have to monitor the budget. but i will tell you, congresswoman, i, we as an organization took this to be very, very serious thing. i think if you read the report, it will show that this was not an intentional, and intentional oversight. it was just that these events came at us at a very fast pace, and we reprogrammed from our own line items that were not within that particular ppa. and the time a notification to congress was not made. we have talked to our appropriators on that. we have certainly told them that we will make sure not only in written language but verbally we will make sure that they know we are going to be doing any reprogramming. >> i thank you, and i yield back. >> thank you, ms. speier. another gentleman from minnesota has one follow-up question.

>> thank you again, mr. director. one of the questions i have is in your testimony you kind of alluded to expanding the paradigm of protection to include multiple infrastructure. how does the secret service go about doing that in the extent of being able to talk an open mic night and protecting our infrastructure moving forward? >> again i go back to opening -- infrastructure around the event. we have started up what's called the computer systems protection division. and again, these are all of our agents have been trained in forensics or cyberintrusion, these agents are out there looking to see if there is anybody out there trying to use cyber to attack our systems, looking to make sure that we prevent that from happening. but again, i go back to our mission, these people that

understand protection, understand investigations, these are the people that we are using to conduct these assessments. you know, for the nsse for example, with a group of people that are dedicated to paying attention and being very proactive on these issues here, but again i go back to everything that was done manually years ago is all being done remotely know either from within this country or outside of our country, and we just want to make sure that we evolve with that threat and make sure that we defeated the same way it is originating, which is via cyber. >> is there any areas that you feel the secret service could use more help and, in regard to basically a soft underbelly that you haven't quite reached the challenges that are faced? >> no. the biggest challenge we have is right after i became, one of the biggest issues right after i became director i asked that we take a look at our i.t. infrastructure. and i guess the best way to describe it if you're looking for 1980s state-of-the-art

i.t. infrastructure, we were your guys. our i.t. infrastructure was just old, and it needed a lot of support. and a lot of upgrades to it. you know, working with congress, working with the department, and working with many others we have been able to upgrade our i.t. infrastructure significantly. i believe that our i.t. infrastructure now is a lot more secure. i believe it is a lot more robust, but we still have a ways to go with that. we have stabilized it, but there are still some issues we need to work on with your i.t. infrastructure. and i believe as we go further into the 21st century, the better our i.t. infrastructure can be and all the things were doing with with i.t. now, if we can get that even further improved i think that will help us with our operational mission, as well as her business enterprise that we're doing. and maybe help prevent, you know, some of the challenges we had with the ada, for example,

in is better time information on where we are with the budget. >> thank you, mr. director, and i yield back. >> thank you, mr. cravaack. and the chair notes the rapid ascension of ms. hahn on this committee. but i know this on as a concluding question. >> thanks, mr. chairman. you know, i thought about it when you asked mr. quayle, he recognize mr. quinn and you said he has had some experience with this. and you put on the the answer to this question, but to in our government get secret service protection? and for how long? and you know, all the candidates, their spouses, their children? just the nominee?

presidents wives, children, how long after? who in our government receives secret service protection and for how long? >> you know, thank you, congresswoman. by statute the people we protect, president, you know, the first lady, their family, the vice president, you know, dr. biden in this case and their family. former presidents and their spouses. foreign heads of state and other dignitaries. i think that's about it by statute that are receiving our protection. you know, right now. one of the things i try not to do is name people by names because potentially there could be people that are receive a protection, people may be under the assumption they are receiving protection. but by statute, that's pretty much who is receiving protecti protection. >> and how long after, is it lifetime for all of these? >> up until i believe it was

2001, it was for lifetime president and first lady. there was a law passed i believe in the mid 1990s now that just, that has outlined that protection now for a former president will be for 10 years after they leave office. >> thank you. i yield. >> i noted that as i was reviewing the documents, that was a very good question. it was one that i was one as well and i saw i think at least from the previous, the most recent president on they will put a cap on a certain point after a decade or so. so that was understand you. that would be a change. i want to thank you for your testimony, and to the members for their questions. members of the committee may have some additional questions, and if they do i will ask that they be submitted to you and you would respond in writing, if you

would. and hearing record will be held open for 10 days. let me conclude as well we share with you a concern, and a support of concern for the challenging mission that you have. you done a great job of identifying the expansive mission, particularly as we're watching technology change and the focus of the global economy with her protection of our money supply, so to speak. but as we come in particularly into 2012, and this time which we are well aware, the changing nature of the world and then the identification of america as a target. we stand here ready, and if there are issues or moments of concern, we hope he will reach back to the committee, at least allow us to do our best, and to be responsive to the questions you might have. so, i take you for your service and for the service of your many

partners and agents who i know in anticipation of this year will be doing great work for america and for the people who you protect. thank you. >> thank you. >> without objection the committee stands adjourned. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

>> and we are looking at the u.s. capitol building as the u.s. senate is about to gavel in for more work on trade restrictions against myanmar, also known as burma. harry reid has changed that bill. also expected legislation extending programs and funding structures for the federal aviation administration, along with some service transportation provisions. and now to live coverage of the u.s. senate here on c-span2. rabbi leslie y. gutterman will lead the senate in prayer. the chaplain: o god, whose spirit is with us in every righteous act. we invoke your blessing upon the elected representatives of our

government. enlighten with your wisdom those whom the people have entrusted with the guardianship of our rights and liberties. on this day proclaimed as the international day of democracy, we pray that our country may ever be a beacon of freedom, justice and peace. we pray for those in other lands who are oppressed and persecuted. grant that this new day not be lost to us. may it be filled with your purpose and our labors rewarded by the satisfaction gained by all who pursue a life of righteousness, virtue and honor. 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., september 15, 2011. to the senate: under the provisions of rule 1, paragraph 3, of the standing rules of the senate, i hereby appoint the honorable sheldon whitehouse, a senator from the state of rhode island, 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. mr. reid: i'd like the senators from rhode island to have the privileges of the floor at this time. the presiding officer: without objection. the senator from rhode island is recognized. mr. reed: thank you, mr. president.

mr. president, i rise to thank and commend senator whitehouse for inviting rabbi leslie gutterman here to deliver the prayer. les gutterman has been an extraordinary figure in our state. a man of great wisdom and compassion and kindness who has, since 1970, contributed extraordinarily to the state of rhode island and to the people of rhode island. his ministry goes far beyond denominational lines. he literally is the rabbi for everyone around. in fact, he is my rabbi, and i'm pleased and proud to say that. so, mr. president, again, i'm delighted to welcome rabbi gutterman here today. mr. whitehouse: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: it's a great honor and a great pleasure to join my senior senator jack reed

in welcoming rabbi leslie gutter man to open the senate on this day by leading us in prayer. rabbi gutterman is a personal friend, but he is more than that. he is a person of real significance in the rhode island community. he has served as the rabbi of temple bethel for 40 years, which means that he has officiated at the weddings of the children of people whose bar mitzvahs he officiated at. and he has officiated at the bar mitzvahs of the grandchildren of people whose weddings he has officiated at. he is an important part of the rhode island community. he has been described as a community asset and a moral compass for rhode island. in addition, he is just a wonderful person. he and his wife janet have come here today to join us, and we are just very proud and

delighted that we could share this moment of the morning with our colleagues and with rabbi gutterman. so i yield the floor back to the majority leader with great pride in the presence of rabbi gutterman on our floor this morning. mr. reid: mr. president. the presiding officer: the majority leader is recognized. mr. reid: following leader remarks, the senate will be in a period of morning business for an hour. the majority will control the first half. republicans will control the final half. following that morning business, the senate will resume consideration of h.j. res. 66, which is a joint resolution regarding the burma sanctions and the legislative vehicle for additional fema funding. the filing deadline for all first-degree amendments, the substitute amendment to h.j. res. 66 is 1:00 p.m. today. i filed cloture on the substitute amendment and on h.j. res. 66 last night. no agreement is reached, there will be a cloture vote on the substitute amendment tomorrow morning. we hope we can reach an agreement to complete action on the joint resolution as well as

the f.a.a. and highway extension today. senators will be notified when votes are scheduled. mr. president, malcolm wallop is a man that i serve -- served in the senate with for approximately ten years. he represented the state of wyoming. during that time, i can remember the work that he and alan simpson did together, alan simpson, another retired senator from wyoming. he died yesterday. he was 78 years old. senator wallop was a fine man. his roots in wyoming stem back to pioneer ancestors and the bighorn. although he was born in new york, he served his country admirably in the army and then worked for many years as a cattle rancher and businessman before running for office. he was extremely good friends with the great nevadan paul axel. there were occasions where i didn't agree with him on political issues, but he was always an agreeable man, a very

fine man, and i honor his service today, both as a soldier and a senator, and certainly will miss him, as everyone in wyoming will and all of his colleagues who worked with him here in the senate. mr. president, in my office right across the hall, i have a wonderful picture painted by a nevadan. it's a big, big painting. it shows this handsome young man on this horse with all the trappings of a horse that is really nice -- a nice horse, a beautiful saddle, and all the adornments on this man's clothes are good. i'm sure the painting didn't take into consideration how he really looked when he arrived in las vegas valley because this man, rafael rivera, was the

first non-indian to see the las vegas valley. and i'm sure he was worn out and tired because he was basically lost. he was part of an expedition, a spanish expedition. he left them almost 100 miles from where he wound up in las vegas. but for us, rafael rivera is the person that founded las vegas. he was able to see this beautiful place in 1829. and as a result of that, we have a number of facilities named after rafael rivera, as well they should be, in las vegas valley. the picture is painted perfectly. it shows las vegas valley, sunrise mountain. the difference is there is no people there. now there is three million people in nevada, and we have sunrise mountain there, and the painting has no one or anything around it. now of course there is buildings

and hotels and lots of stuff there. today, though, mr. president, i join the more than 50 million hispanic americans in the united states in marking the first day of hispanic heritage month. this celebration of history and culture lasts through october october 15. it afforded the opportunity of bringing hispanic heritage and all it has to nevada and the rest of the country to honor the contributions of a population that is such an integral part of our national identity. for hundreds of years, latinos have helped shape the face of this nation. mr. president, i wrote a history of my birthplace, searchlight, nevada, and one of the interesting things i found in my research is the railroad that was built in searchlight in the early 1900's, 26 miles and it was a difficult railroad to build, but it was basically built by mexicans who had come

to the united states to do the labor that it took to do that. some 7,000 of them it took to build that railroad, not a very long one, 26 miles long, but it took a lot of work to get that done. so every place you go in america, every place especially you go in the west, you find the contributions made by hispanics. they have made contributions in the battlefield and the workplace and the classroom. they have spurred progress in the laboratory, playing field and all athletics, and of course in our halls of justice. they have shaped the way we farm and the way we do business. they have influenced our art and our literature. construction sites and casinos and shopping centers around the state of nevada, they have contributed mightily to that work that's being done and has been done. their language has even influenced the name of the state of nevada, which means snow

covered. las vegas means the meadows in spanish. hispanic americans have also played an important role in this nation's armed forces, as i mentioned just a minute ago. they have served in every conflict since the revolutionary war. nearly 30,000 of them have fought for our country in iraq and afghanistan and are still fighting. i thank them for their brave and dedicated service. and every year, latinos help propel contributions to our economy. more than 2.3 million hispanic-owned businesses employ millions of americans and provide crucial goods and services. and before, mr. president, leaving the subject of veterans and the good things they do, i was -- i want to make sure that the republican leader recognizes that we all celebrate a kentuckian who today is going to be awarded the medal of honor for this 21-year-old boy in the

hills of afghanistan that saved the lives of about 40 soldiers. one person. they had a wonderful piece on public broadcasting today about his courage and what he did. of course, wounded himself, but he carried people to and from battle and saved the lives, as i indicated, of a couple score of people. his name was dakota myers. i congratulate the republican leader for having such fine people come from the state of kentucky. today the senate recognizes the commitment of more than 50 million hispanic americans, family, community and country. that's the way it should be. i want to spread on the record how much i appreciate the support of the republicans in allowing us to be able to get on the fema bill. we're on that bill now. we have some amendments pending. if we're not able to work out an agreement on that today, we'll

have votes on a number of cloture issues relating to that most important legislation affecting millions of americans who have been devastated by mother nature. i'm disappointed, however, in one of our republican colleagues who at this stage is holding up something that's so vitally necessary. the house sent us two pieces of legislation that passed overwhelmingly in the house, one that will keep 1.7 million or is .8 million people -- or 1.8 million people working on highway construction projects. that's an extension of six months. they also sent to us a four-month extension, fully funded, of the federal aviation administration, also vitally important. lls my friend, the junior senator from oklahoma, unless he

agrees to allow us to move forward on this, one senator will stop 80,000 people from working. i hope he would reconsider. the issue that he has presented is a little unusual. he says that he doesn't like bike paths being part of the highway bill. well, for most americans, they are absolutely important. it's good for purposes of allowing people to travel without burning all the fossil fuel on the highways. i got up this morning very early and i went out and did my exercise. i'm not exaggerating. scores, at least 30 or 40 bikes -- scores may be a slight exaggeration, of people traveling -- not just for exercise, traveling to work with backpacks on. they are going to work. that's what bike paths are all about.

we have told my friend, the senator from oklahoma, if you don't like it, we'll have a vote on it. he said i don't want to vote. he just said whatever i want, i want it stuck in that bill. we can't do that. that's not what the house sent us. we can't do that. he says well, separate the two bills. we have the bills from the house of representatives. that's the arrangement that we have made, and it's a good arrangement to get these two vitally important pieces of legislation passed so that we can keep people, almost two million people, working. i'm disappointed in that. i hope we can work something out during the day because it's really unfair for him to hold up this extremely important legislation. there isn't a state in the union that doesn't have problems with 80,000 people being laid off. in nevada we have a new tower being built at mccarran field. it's really important. these people have to stop working. that's wrong.

not fair to the senate or to the country. the has the chair announced the business of the day? 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 10 minutes each. with the time equally divided and controlled by between the two leaders or their designees with the majority controlling the first half and the republicans controlling the final half. mr. durbin: mr. president, i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. durbin: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent the quorum call be suspended. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: mr. president, the reports about the rate of poverty in america is an eye opener. the numbers that have been reported are stunning. the number of americans living in poverty now stands at

$46.2 million -- 46.2 million people, that's an increase of 8.9 million just in four years. this has increased significantly since the year 2000. the poverty threshold, incidentally for a mother and father with two children is an annual income of $22,000 a year. that's less than $2,000 a month. so for that family of four, what we're saying is 46 million americans make less than that. i think all of us understand how difficult it is in this day and age to survive and raise a family, but this national poverty rate should be a wake-up call to us and i hope it puts a couple things in perspective. i spoke yesterday about visiting a warehouse in champaign, illinois for the food depositories in the pear. they send out food for food pantries that are managed by local groups, churches an the like. almost every state has them,

i'm sure they do. and i was in this warehouse during the august recess to talk about the increased volume of people who are going to food pantries on a regular basis. i visit these food pantries to introduce myself to those who are coming in and to learn as much as they want to tell me about their circumstances. well, at this warehouse in champaign, illinois was a woman who was very attractive and well dressed and standing there and i assumed she worked at the warehouse. turned out i was wrong because she said at one point she was a teacher's aide in the local school district. and i thought why is she here? i kept thinking to myself, i wonder why this woman is here. maybe she is on the board of this food depository. well, it turns out she was there to tell me her story. she's a single mom with two young children, she has a full-time job as a teacher's aide in the school district, and because her income is below the poverty level, she

qualifies for not only food stamps but also uses these food pantries. and she said to me, she wanted to express her gratitude that we now have extended these -- the snap program, food stamp program to include fresh produce, fruits and vegetables. she said it means i can take my kids to the local farmer's market and they get to meet the farmers and get to ask questions and hear stories about where these things come from, the fruits and vegetables that we buy and she says i get to buy healthy food to give my kids. it was an eye opener because i never would have picked her out of the crowd as a person who needed help to feed her children. and she did. and she told me without this i would be struggling. it's an eye opener too, i hope for all of america when you hear that 46 million of us are living in poverty, these are our neighbors, our friends, the people we go to church with. these are folks you may see in

the store, and they're people who are struggling and many of them working but not making enough money. some have full-time jobs, many have part-time jobs. and it's a reminder as we get into this deficit debate, ever never to lose sight of the safety net in america. we are a kind and caring people. we have proven that over many generations. we do things that many other countries don't do, for one thing, we have our young men and women volunteer to risk their lives in foreign lands to try to bring peace. in addition to that, we've been engaged for over a century in helping other countries that are struggling. i just received a handwritten letter from two grade school children in illinois about those who were starving in somalia. it was a heartfelt letter asking me to do something. not unusual. it's a sentiment expressed over and over again in our country. we need to have the same empathy and the same compassion for our

own in america. and what that means is not only saying good things and perhaps helping through our churches and other charities, but also making certain that the safety net programs in our country are there for those who are struggling. we're engaged in a mighty debate now about deficit reduction. i've been part of it for a little while and in some capacities, and i keep reminding those who are in the debate that there are some programs that are absolutely essential. some of them are obvious. the food stamp program to make sure that the lady i mentioned and others like her have enough food for their children. the medicaid program which provides health insurance for one-third of america's children, in illinois pays for over 50% of the births, and takes care of our elderly when they're in the nursing home and run out of their savings. so as we talk about deficit reduction, let us focus on making certain at the end of the

day the safety net is still in place. let us make sure that the childcare deductions that we in the tax code are there for work force, the earned income tax credit, a program started under president reagan which acknowledges that many people who are working still need a helping hand in our tax code. medicaid that i mentioned earlier, the food stamp program, housing programs for those who are homeless and need a helping hand. the safety net has to be honored and has to be preserved in the course of our deficit debate. but by also say at this point the president has really challenged us to stop giving speeches and to start moving forward on getting america back to work. he's made a proposal in last thursday's joint session of congress to give work force across america a payroll tax cut. what would it mean in illinois? the average income in illinois

is about $53,000 a year and the president's payroll tax cut would be worth 14 hoonts -- $1,400 to every family making that money. that's $120 a moo. may not sound like much to people who are wealthy but for those struggling paycheck to paycheck it could make a difference. president obama wants to give more income security to motorcycle middle-income families. and he said when it comes to small businesses let us give themselves incentives to hire the unemployed. the only line the president delivered a week ago that got a standing ovation from both sides is when he said let's he northwest advise our employers to hire veterans. that's part of the president's plan but he went beyond it and said if people had been unemployed and employer is willing to hire them give them a

tax credit to do it. the president is moving tax benefits to small businesses, the so-called job creators we hear so much about and i believe they are as well as to work force. but it's all paid for and this is where many republicans take exception. how does the president pay for getting america back to work? he asks is for sacrifice from the wealthiest people in america. there are some members of the republican party who would not impose one penny more in taxes on the wealthiest people in america. they are prepared to see every other family sacrifice except for those who can sacrifice without feeling any pain in their lives. i don't think that's fair and i think the president's right. those who are making the highest incomes in america should join with every other family in america and help us get beyond this recession. and also the president starts eliminating the subsidies, the federal subsidies for oil companies. i don't have to remind americans what the price of gasoline is. they know it.

in illinois it's over $4 a gallon many places i traveled to during the recess. these companies are witnessing the highest profits in the history of american business. the president has said and i agree it's time to cut the federal tax subsidy for oil companies, these profitable companies that make so much money for their shareholders and give so many bonuses to their officers. many republicans object to this, they don't want to raise taxes on the oil companies, they don't want to raise taxes on the wealthiest people in america. i just think that they ought to put it in perspective. if we can help middle-income and work force get through the recession -- working families get through the recession, if we can give small businesses an incentive to hire americans and turn this economy around, that's what america needs. let's get beyond the rhetoric that has stalled efforts in washington, let's get qlond the

obstructionism and the obstacles and work together with the president's leadership to come up with a plan to put america back to work. mr. president, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the republican leader is recognized. mr. mcconnell: in a ceremony at the white house this afternoon sergeant today coata meyer of the united states marine corps will become the first living marine recipient of the medal of honor. our nation's highest award for valor. he will be the first recipient in 41 years. the medal of honor is awarded for conspicuous gallantry and behavery at the risk of one's own life above and beyond the call of duty. every american can be proud of

sergeant meyer, age 23, for his exceptional valor in combat in afghanistan. and i'm particularly proud that sergeant meyer is a kentuckian. i'm honored that heroes like him come from the bluegrass state. sergeant meyer hales from columbia, kentucky and is a 2006 graduate of green county high school where he played on the football team. on september 8, 2009, his unit asienlt was with marine embedded training team 2-a, regional corps advisory command 37 operating in kunar province, afghanistan. that day he was sent to aid a group of marines and afghans trapped under heavy enemy fire from three sides.

you we're surrounded one of them broadcast over the radio. they're moving in on us. air support to assist the marines was unavailable. as the fighting was too fierce for helicopters to land. then corpal meyer requested permission to enter the zone of fire and come to their aid four times, and four times his request was denied. after four denials, he decided to go anyway, in an armored vehicle mounted with a 50-caliber machine gun with one other marine as a driver. twice, they attempted to reach their comrades and twice were forced back by bullets, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars. a bullet hit the vehicle's gun turret, striking corporal meyer's elbow with shrapnel.

he charged ahead alone to rescue his fellow fighters. under intense enemy fire, he reached a trench where helicopter pilots had reported their position. there he found his three fellow marines and a navy hospital corpsman all dead from gunshot wounds. still under fire, corporal meyer carried their bodies back to a humvee with the help of afghan troops and escorted them to a forward operating base about a mile away. he was determined to fulfill the marines' credo, to never leave  marine behind. corporal meyer and the three marines who he refused to abandon all knew each other well and worked together in the same four-man training team. he considered them close friends. in addition to the four men, corporal meyer pulled out of the firefight a u.s. army soldier

and at least afghan troops plus an afghan interpreter were killed in the attack. they had faced more than 50 enemy insurgents armed with machine guns, assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades during a six-hour firefight. now a sergeant, meyer combines his great heroism with great humility. this is not about me, he has said. if anything comes out of it for me, it's for those guys. he left active duty service in june, 2010, and currently serves in the inactive ready reserve of the u.s. marine corps reserve. mr. president, i know my colleagues join me in saluting sergeant dakota meyer for his extraordinary display of selfless valor for which he will be awarded the medal of honor at the white house ceremony this afternoon. he may not think of himself a hero, but his country certainly does.

his heroism and meritorious service has already been recognized in the many awards, medals and decorations he has received, including the purple heart, the navy and marine corps commendation medal with v. device for valor, the navy and marine corps achievement medal, the good conduct medal and the combat action ribbon. his fellow kentuckians and an entire grateful nation thank him for his service. brave men and women like him honor us and our country and make us proud that america boasts the finest armed forces in the world. now, mr. president, on another matter, it's been a week now since the president unveiled his second stimulus, and today a week later, white house aides

are expecting to hold a briefing to explain it all to the democrats who don't understand the details. well, one would think they would want to be briefed on details before the president demanded they pass it right away, not after, but then again, the white house probably expected stronger support from democrats than it's gotten so far. after all, this bill's top selling point, according to the president, was that both parties should like it, yet so far the only thing both parties in congress seem to agree on it there has got to be a better way than this. earlier this week, after several of us suggested that the president would have a hard time convincing members of his own party to support this plan, a number of them have proved us right. while the president was out in ohio insisting over and over again that congress pass the bill, it seemed like the only democrats who were even willing to talk about it here on capitol hill were tearing it apart. you had the democratic majority leader basically treeght it like

a legislative afterthought. one freshman senator called parts of the bill frustrating and unfair. another democrat called a central part of the bill terrible. one veteran democrat was tampering down expectations of it passing in one piece. and another veteran democrat suggested a completely different approach to jobs altogether. so i know the president and his advisors are keen on this idea of making republicans look bad, but from what i can tell, he has got a bigger problem at the moment lining up supporters in his own party. and that brings me to the real issue. the truth is the president has a problem that no amount of political strategizing can solve. his economic policies simply haven't worked. yet, he and his advisors seem to be the only folks in washington who aren't ready to admit it. i mean, we're in the middle of a crisis. the average length of

unemployment is at an all-time high. median income is going down instead of up. poverty levels are higher than they have been in nearly two decades. millions of americans can't find work. the numbers just keep getting worse, and the president's solution is to demand another washington surplus bill. because the first worked out so well? the first stimulus is a national punch line, turtle tunnels, sidewalks to nowhere, and now we're hearing reports that the white house fast tracked a half a billion dollar loan to a politically connected energy firm that their own analyst said wasn't ready for prime time. this place, this energy firm, was supposed to be the poster child of how the original surplus would create jobs. now it's bankrupt, and most of its 1,100 employees are out of

work, and they want another stimulus? look, even if you don't know about any of the waste or the alleged cronyism, here's the bottom line. two and a half years after the president signed the first stimulus, there are 1.7 million fewer jobs in this country. 1.7 million fewer jobs after borrowing and spending spending $825 billion to create them. what more do you need to know than that? we have done that. we have gone down that road before. shouldn't we try something different? how about we do what just about every job creator in america is telling us they need to do in order to create jobs, tax reform. loosening the grip of government regulations, and free trade agreements. that's how we'll create a better environment for jobs in our country. it might mean the president doesn't get his tax hikes but it

would mean more jobs. i know that some people sometimes get attached to a single idea, and this president seems to have come into office with one big idea -- that there isn't a problem that we have in this country that bigger government can't solve. but at a certain point, you have got to take stock, you have got to check the results and see how you're doing. i think it's pretty clear to most people what the results suggest. mr. president, it's time to change course. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from illinois is recognized. mr. durbin: how much time is remaining on the democratic side? the presiding officer: 18 1/2 minutes. mr. durbin: i see some of my republican colleagues here. i would ask unanimous consent that they be allowed to use their morning business time, that our 18 minutes remaining be reserved until after their

speeches. the presiding officer: without objection. the senator from tennessee is recognized. mr. alexander: i thank the distinguished democratic whip for his courtesy. republican senators have come to the floor today to talk about education, no child left behind, and i ask consent that we be allowed to engage in a colloquy. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. alexander: i thank the president. the senators who will be here will be senator isakson, burr, kirk and senator enzi. will you let each of us know when we have consumed five minutes? the presiding officer: the chair will do so. mr. alexander: i thank the president. mr. president, in the world in which we live, every american's job is on the line. as every american knows, better schools mean better jobs. and schools and jobs are alike in this sense. washington can't create good jobs and washington can't create better schools, but washington can create an environment in

which others can create good jobs and in which teachers and principals and students and the community can create better schools along with their parents. so a good place for washington to start is with the five pieces of legislation that we introduce today to fix the legislation known as no child left behind. no child left behind was a bipartisan effort in 2001 and 2002. president bush and democratic members of the senate and the house and republicans as well agreed on it. by 2014, the legislation said the 50 million students in our public schools, in nearly 100,000 public schools would be proficient in reading and math. there would be state standards and tests of those standards and requirements that the more than 3,000 teachers be highly qualified. there would be school report cards by sub groups of students,

and schools who failed to make what was called adequate yearly progress would receive federal sanctions. there would be more choices of schools and charter schools for parents. during the last nine years, federal funding for schools has increased by 73%, even though student achievement has stayed relatively flat. our legislative proposals today would set a new, realistic but challenging goal to help all students succeed and to end the federal mandates, which has washington, d.c., deciding which students and teachers are succeeding and failing. our legislation would require states to have high standards that promote college and career readiness for all students, would continue the reporting of student progress so parents and teachers in communities can know whether students are succeeding. it would encourage teacher and principal evaluation systems relating especially to student

achievement. that would replace the federal definition of a highly qualified teacher. it would consolidate federal programs and make it easier to transfer funds within local stricts. it would expand charter schools and give parents more choices. and for the bottom 15% of schools, the federal government would active help states turn them around. mr. president, much has happened during the last ten years, and it's time to transfer back to states and to local governments the responsibility for deciding whether schools and teachers are succeeding or failing. since 2002, 44 states have adopted common core academic standards. two groups of states are developing common tests to see whether students are meeting those standards. and more than 40 states are working together to develop common principles for holding schools accountable for student achievement. thanks to no child left behind, we now have several years of school-by-school information about student progress that puts

the spotlight on success, and it puts the spotlight on where work needs to be done. in addition, many states and school districts are finding ways to reward outstanding teaching and school leadership and to include student performance as a part of that evaluation. as common sense as that idea may seem, not until tennessee created the master teacher program in 1984 had one state paid one teacher one penny more for teaching well. all of the sponsors of the five pieces of legislation we introduce today are republicans, but many of the ideas were either first advanced or have been worked out in concert with president obama and with his excellent education secretary arne duncan, as well as with democratic senators here and with republican and democratic colleagues in the house. in other words, we have made a lot of progress. in the senate, my judgment is we're not far from agreement on

a bipartisan bill, with most of the differences of opinion centering around what i would characterize -- the presiding officer: the senator's five minutes has expired. mr. alexander: i ask for two more minutes. characterizing as including provision which is would create a national school board. mr. president, we on the republican side want to continue to work with our colleagues across the aisle in the house. our purpose in offering our ideas today is to spur progress so we can enact a bill before the end of the year. the house of representatives has enacted its first bill to fix no child left behind. it would expand charter schools. it's like the charter school bill that senator kirk will introduce today. the president has given us his blueprint. he has met with us. the secretary has warned us that under existing law, most schools will be labeled as failing schools within a few years, and he is proposing to use his waiver authority to avoid that. the secretary clearly has that waiver authority under the law, and i support his use of it in

appropriate ways. i'm introducing legislation today to make it clear that to me the appropriate use means using the waiver to accept or reject state proposals based upon whether those proposals enhance student achievement and not to impose a new set of washington mandates. but the best way for us to relieve the secretary of the need to consider waivers and to help american children learn what they need to know and be able to do is to us to -- for us to work together in the senate and in the house to fix no child left behind. i i ask unanimous consent to include in the record following by remarks or following the remarks of all of the senators the following information: why we need to fix no child left behind, how the environment has changed in the past ten years, a summary of the nine proposals that secretary of duncan and

senator harkin and senator enzi and others of us have worked on, a summary of the legislation introduced by senator isakson to change title i that i'm a principal sponsor of to change title 2 rrm, senator -- title ii, and the summary of the legislation on waivers. now, mr. president --. the presiding officer: without objection. senator isakson has a distinguished career in education not just as the leader of the senate of georgia but as chairman of the school board, appointed by governor glel miller and as a member of the house of representatives and key author in 2001 and 2002 when no child left behind was enacted. mr. iekssonson: mr. isakson: i thank the senator from tennessee, whose record is

distinguished, everything from president of the university of tennessee and on the pensions committee and obviously his service as secretary of education of the united states of america. i appreciate the reference, too, to ten years ago when we wrote no child left behind. there were nine of pus, five republicans and four democrats who locked ourselves up in the house education committee offices for about six weeks writing a document that became the law of the land and has served the country well for ten years. title i provision of that is the free and reduced lunch provision, the main title of the elementary and secondary education act and delivers content requirements under no child left behind. the reason i'm a sponsor, the principal sponsor of not the removal but the reform of title i is because no child left behind requirements under title i have worked and it is time to go to the next step. i want to be very specific about saying it worked. as everyone knows, adequate

yearly progress or a.y.p. was the goal of title i to see to it that every child every child is making improvements in reading comprehension and math matter ibs. we knew when we wrote it that if the bill worked it would become harder and harder and harder to reach a.y.p. because the base line was being built every single year. and the reason senator alexander talked about so many schools falling into needs improvement is because we've pushed the achievement level so high that meeting a.y.p. on a continually improving basis is difficult. it is time to terminate a.y.p. as a requirement of the bill but it's not time to throw out the system that made it work. disaggregation of students first of all was critically important. in public education in the united states prior to the no child left behind law, school systems and schools basically hid behind mean average scores or an itbs mean average store.

a compareson to other states in the nation which was an aggregation of all students' performance and an averaging of that performance. it took the eye off the ball, took the eye off the individual student. what no child left behind did was said you will test every student, disaggregate them by sex, by race, by disability, by non-english speaking and rate each disaggregated group on a.y.p. and if only one of those groups in a school or a system fails to make adequate yearly progress, the whole school goes into needs improvement. so you have a lot of schools being labeled needs improvement while they're making the best improvement they've ever made. it is time to end a.y.p. but not the disaggregation or the test scores. the greatest accountability measure in all of us as politicians know it is transparency. this bill will require the transparency of all the test scores, of each individual child and each individual transparency of each individual disaggregated group to ensure we

continue to know how our kids are doing and compare them on a year-to-year basis. but we do aby with needs improvement because it has served its pump. dissing aggregated for other purposes, one other change i want to emphasize on the floor today. the biggest aggregated group are those special needs children under under idea, individuals with disabilities act. they are all individuals who have an individual disability that affects their academic achievement or their ability to learn. when we passed idea in 1978, if i remember correctly in public law 94-192 we dictated we would give emphasis and training of those special needs kids and try to identify their needs and meet them in the public education system. when no child left behind dissing a a gated them into -- disaggregated them, we tested 98% with the same pencil and paper tet test. these are kids with a plethora

of disabilities that one single test could not possibly meet. we gave a 2% cognitive disability waiver so they could have an alternative assessment for up to 2% of the students but 98% had to take the same test. this reform of the idea portion of title i of no child left behind simply says this -- every year in the beginning of the school year, when the parent and the teacher and the school meet to put out the individual education plan, the i.e.p. for that student, the parent, the teacher and the school will determine what the assessment vehicle that best measures the assessment of that child will be, not a single one-size-fits-all paper and pencil test. that will ensure idea students get the individual attention they deserve and the measurement against the disabilities they have that's appropriate as approved by their parent, their teacher, and their school. and it will make a remarkable difference for idea kids and i'm very proud of that provision and the flexibility it gives to the systems to assess appropriately

rather than force a one-size-fits-all test against 98% of our disability -- children with disabilities. had disabilities. to repeat what i said -- the speaker pro tempore: the senator the senator's five minutes has expired. mr. isakson: i'm proud that senator alexander has taken the leadership on this committee to move forward on the reauthorization of idea. and no child left behind. mr. alexander: i thank senator isakson for his leadership on this bill. senator richard burr for years has focused on elementary and secondary education especially on making it easier for local school districts to use the federal dollars that are made available, and on finding ways to encourage student and teacher evaluation. he is introducing a bill which i'm proud to co-sponsor on titles ii and title iv. mr. burr: i thank the senator

from a state once owned by north carolina, and a distinguished member of this august body. mr. president, what are we simply here doing today? we're responding to what every c.e.o. has said and every local leader has said and every parent has said. if you want a future in this country, you've got to fix k-12 education. make sure every child in this country has the foundational knowledge to meet whatever challenge they're faced with in a lifetime. now, washington is good at sort of coming up with new perhaps and to be honest with you when you look back over the history of the last couple decades, every year we come up with a new program to fix k-12. what's the obvious thing? we never fix it. but the one thing we hear loud and clear from people who are on the front lines, those elected and those nonelected, those who are charged with educating our

children is my gosh, give me flexibility. you can't design one program in washington that works in raleigh, north carolina, and works in knoxville, tennessee. much less in rural north carolina or rural tennessee. what i propose today is very simple. that 59 pots of money, 59 different programs be merged into two pots and that those local school systems have the flexibility and the capability to choose what they're going to use that money for to educate our kids. what a novel thought, that we would take the people on the front line -- you see, for the first time i'm suggesting washington give up the power that we've got to say you'll do it our way or you won't get the money. we're faced in the future with

some degree of austerity. we're not going to have the money to throw it out and see what works. but that's washington's typical response. now it's time that we begin to focus on things, not that we think work, that the teachers and the principals and the elected officials locally but more importantly the community decide that it works. johnny -- johnny alluded to a number of things as far as how we gauge success or failure. i'm going to tell you the gauge we ought to have is what's a parent think. and the likelihood is by the time we get those standard tests, it's probably too late to fix it for their kids, but it may fix it for somebody else's. what we're attempting to do today is we reform k-12 education through these bills.

we're trying to lay the gantlet down and say no child will be exposed to an inferior education in the future because we're going to empower not washington, we're going to empower the local community. now, again, simply what i'm doing in the empowering local education decision making act of 2011 is to take 59, 59 programs under the elementary and secondary education and to put them into two flexible foundational block grants. some might say the state is going to steal money off it. we limit it. 1.5% to administer the program. a strict formula that says exactly how this money is going to be distributed so it's done fairly. where we don't exercise washington authority is we don't tell the loophole school here's the only way you can use it. we say to the local school system, here are 59 programs. you pick the ones that best fit

what your needs are in your community. in addition to that, those two pots of money that we've created are 100% transferable. if you feel that one pot doesn't meet the need which might be in your area, then you can shift all that money over to the other pot. so if you believe that focusing on teacher quality is better versus students, you've got the flexibility to do it without asking us for a waiver. and in addition to that if title i is somewhere where you need additional funds, both pots of money are transitional to title i to additionally support at-risk kids. just this week i received from the council of great city schools coalition by the way of our nation's largest central school districts, in their letter, and i quote, they

wrote this, "both title ii and title iv have become unwieldily and unfocused -- the speaker pro tempore: the senator has consumed five minutes. mr. burr: with budgetary constraints at all levels of government, streamlining providing predictable funding streams to local school districts and ensure local decision making under the use of the funds under your bill is particularly welcomed. i urge my colleagues, read these bills. look at your school systems. make a decision that's right for the future of every child in this country and support our reauthorization efforts. i thank the senator from tennessee. mr. alexander: mr. president, i thank the senator from north carolina, senator burr, for his insight and leadership on how do we help create an environment in which teachers,

parents, principals, and community leaders can make schools brp rather than send orders from washington to tell them how to do that. senator kirk from illinois will be here within a few minutes to introduce the charter school bill, which is the same bill that passed the house of representatives yesterday with i believe about 365 votes in a bipartisan way. as i mentioned at the outset, our purpose here today is to get things moving. we think there ought to be a -- a law before the end of the year that fixes no child left behind and toward that end, the senior member of the senate, health, education committee, senator enzi of wyoming began quietly more than a year ago to meet with the chairman of the committee, senator harkin, and with secretary duncan and on some occasions with the president and we were able to come to a good deal of agreement

about fixing no child left behind and then on the nine areas that we would focus on which i put into the record a few minutes ago, senator enzi is here and i thought he might want to speak about that because while all of house were introducing these bills today are republicans, we're only doing that as a way of moving the process and hoping to attract democratic support so we can have a bipartisan result. i i believe at the same time, senator enzi is continuing to meet with senator harkin, the chairman of the committee, with the hope that we can achieve that bipartisan result. the presiding officer: the senator from wyoming. mr. enzi: i want to thank the senators who have spoken for all of their efforts and thought. a lot of times, people think that what's being discussed on the floor here is the only thing that's happening with congress. there are things happening in the background that are probably achieving more than the debates that happen here. a lot of times what you get to see here is the blood on the floor that results in nothing. but everyone recognizes the

importance of education and recognizes that there was a significant effort made since 1965 with k-12 education. it's been renewed several times. in every single instance, it's been renewed in a very bipartisan way. we want that to continue to happen. the value of the senate and the house is to have a lot of different opinions on how something can be done and then to bring those together to form something usable in whatever area we're working on. i just can't think senators alexander, isakson, burr and kirk enough for the work that they have done in this area. it does help us to focus, and i am working with senator harkin, to try to come up with a bipartisan bill, and i think we have been making good progress. i have used these parts of the bills that you have heard about as reasons for stepping back and taking a look at what we're

really doing to make sure that the states can have as much of a role as possible, but the local people have an even greater role in what's happening in education, and that's where we're trying to keep the focus. this has been very helpful in my discussions with senator harkin to make sure that we stay on track with those things. senator alexander mentioned the nine things. secretary duncan traveled through most of the united states holding listening sessions to see what kinds of problems people had. and he agreed that the nine things that we had on this list were the problems with no child left behind that needed to be fixed. and senator harkin looked at that list and agreed in the same way. and so we have come up with some solutions. those need to be put into a bill, and that bill needs to be passed this year. next year, we get into presidential elections. i can't see where that's going to make things more bipartisan

or help education. there are a number of things that no child left hyped did. one is the disaggregation which did show some problems across the country where kids were being left behind. a lot of times when we focus on education, we focus on the state, we focus on the school district. once in a while, we focus on the school. but what we have been trying to do is get the focus on the kid to make sure that our children are learning what they need to know to be able to survive in this. and that's one of the places that we will be able to greatly improve as we move on in this. one of the surprises to everybody would probably be to find out that the federal government only requires one federal test. you always hear about all the testing the kids have to do across the nation. a lot of that is locally imposed. it's tests that they think are necessary. but the federal government says you need to have one at the end of the year. that's what we have consecrated on with the disaggregation.

so there have been a lot of surprises for people as they actually take a look at what that rather voluminous bill has in it. i think we are moving to a point where we should be able to get something done and get something done relatively quickly. again, it will be because of the work, these people have put together some bills to bring attention to some very specific parts that need improvement. i thank you for doing that. i yield the floor. mr. alexander: thank you, senator enzi. thank you for the leadership and the constructive way you and senator harkin are working together. i should emphasize i said in my remarks the respect we have for secretary duncan. he has done a great job of staying in touch with us without regard to political party and the president and he have stuck their necks out on some issues that aren't entirely popular with their democratic constituency. we respect that as well. as i said, our effort is to take these ideas and recognize we're in the ninth year of a bill that was supposed to be fixed after

five years and get it done before the end of the year. one example of what we could do, the senator from illinois would talk about, he has been the leader on expanding opportunities for parents and communities to use charter schools. the house of representatives acted on that bill yesterday, senator kirk. mr. kirk: as part of this effort, i think we need to reform no child left behind. we need to focus on making sure we preserve disclosure. and the right of parents to know how their kids are doing, without destroying the school, without having an a.y.p. measurement that somehow says most if not all schools are failing. as part of this effort, i'm introducing the empowering parents through quality charter schools act to emphasize charter schools and to make sure that their opportunities are more widely available to parents and children, especially in inner cities. this is a chart that shows the top ten nonselective -- meaning they take everyone -- public high schools in chicago.

and they are ranked in order by a.c.t. scores. can you see here lincoln park high school is number one, not a charter school, but in the top ten, eight of them are charter schools. and these are in some of the toughest neighborhoods in chicagoland. that's why this is one of the number-one issues being discussed right now in chicago. mayor emanuel, doing an outstanding job of leading a reform effort to make charter schools more available, to expand the day of instruction, and to expand the number of days in the school year. because right now chicagoland suffers from some of the lowest numbers of days of instruction in the country. right now, for example, in chicagoland, only about 10% of kids have the opportunity to go to a charter school. i think that we should set a goal of at least 50% having that opportunity. recently, i was able to visit

the noble street schools. also the -- another school which was -- represented about 99% african-american, overwhelmingly free and reduced lunch kids, and this school is outperforming all of its peers. despite not having any selection criteria and being able to take kids from all walks of life, including special needs kids. we are seeing something working here. mayor emanuel sees it, i see it, and that's why in the house of representatives when the companion legislation was considered, 365 representatives, including well over 100 democratic representatives, supported our charter school bill. we're introducing the companion over here. i'm hoping for equal amounts of bipartisan support because what we see is working in chicago can work elsewhere. now, the charter school movement

is generally focused on inner cities, but i want to make sure that charter schools are offered to kids in peoria, in springfield, in rockford, in metro east. and so the kind of success that we're seeing here, eight out of ten top performers being charter schools for nonselective public high schools is something that i think we should have offered here, and that's why i applaud our ranking member and especially senator alexander for putting together this group of bills to offer a higher education performance for america's kids, especially in the tough global political environment that they will be in. with that, i yield back to our leader on this joint effort and ranking minority member and thank them for the opportunity to speak. mr. alexander: mr. president, how much time is remaining? the presiding officer: 15 seconds. mr. alexander: thank you, mr. president. every american knows that every american's job is on the line

and every american knows that better schools mean better jobs. we're ready to work with the president, with our democratic colleagues to create an environment for better schools in this country by fixing no child left behind. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. i notice the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: mr. kirk: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from illinois is recognized. mr. kirk: mr. president, i'd like to make a brief statement about an entirely different subject. the presiding officer: the

senate is currently in a quorum call. mr. kirk: i ask that we vitiate the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. kirk: i would like to speak briefly on the subject of our relations with pakistan. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. the senator is permitted. mr. kirk: earlier this week, i gave a talk based on my service in afghanistan as a reservist about the growing threat of a new group to our forces in afghanistan, isaf and the afghan government. it's not al qaeda, which is armed and dangerous, but a shadow of its former shadow. it's not the taliban, which is still extremely armed and dangerous. it's a new group called the haqqani network. recently, there was a high-profile attack on the afghani government and the isaf headquarters in kabul, the capital of afghanistan. the u.s. ambassador two days ago then announced that this was the work of the haqqani network. that's a very important factoid. then yesterday the secretary of defense also highlighted the haqqani and pointed a direct

finger at the government of pakistan and its intelligence service, the i.s.i. it's all well known that while there are terrorists operating loosely in pakistan who attack afghans and americans, it's the haqqani network that enjoys the official support and backing of the intelligence service of pakistan. i think given this new information and especially given the statement by the u.s. ambassador in afghanistan, ryan crocker, and now our secretary of defense leon panetta, the senate should engage in an agonizing reappraisal of military assistance to pakistan, and we should base our reappraisal on the statements of our own ambassador in kabul and the secretary of defense himself, and with that, i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from missouri is recognized. mr. blunt: mr. president, i want to talk about the disaster funding debate that's going on

this week. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. blunt: and i appreciate your recognition. this is -- this is a debate that has become the debate as part of the burma sanctions act, which if we had been debating the burma sanctions act, i would also be for burma sanctions. but in this debate on disasters, missouri's played an unfortunate leading role in disasters this year of all kinds. we have had floods along the mississippi river, we have had floods along the missouri river. joplin, missouri, one of the bigger cities in our state, was hit by a tornado. we have evacuated a place in southeast missouri, a floodway called bird's point where for the first time since 1937 the corps of engineers decided that that 130,000 or so acres had to be used as a floodway, all the

crops that were planted up and destroyed. i was in that floodway for a couple of different days in august, and i will say the resilience of missouri farmers to get about 80% of that floodway back in soybeans means the economic loss, crop loss opponent be what it was, but the recovery loss is as substantial as is the cost of rebuilding that levee back to the level it was before the corps exercised the long plan that hadn't been used to take it down. tornadoes struck st. louis at the airport and around lambert field, in communities around lambert field. tornadoes in joplin were significant. i have mentioned on the floor before of the senate that i have lived close to joplin. it was in my congressional district for 14 years.

i had an office there. i'm probably as familiar with joplin as anybody that doesn't live there or hasn't lived there. as i went to the scene of this tornado, mr. president, the devastation made a city that i was very familiar with, at least a half-mile path, six miles across that city, virtually unrecognizable by me or the local police officer that was driving me around. we couldn't -- there were no street signs left. every block looked like the block on either side of it. an incredible amount of devastation. there were 141 people killed either at the time of the tornado or who within a few days of the tornado died as a result of the injuries. 900 people were injured. a hospital that was destroyed that will cost about about $500 million to replace. the high school was destroyed.

the vo tech school was destroyed, 500 commercial properties. 8,000 apartments and homes, and i think destroyed in virtually all those cases would be the right word. some of them salvageable, most of them not. homes, churches, elementary schools, the catholic school, all destroyed by that tornado. and while we make every day headway finding housing for people in that community that were affected by the loss of those 8,000 homes and while the schools were up and running by the day schools were scheduled to start 90 days later, and in an incredible way looking for whatever space was available and turning that into schools for this year, there's clearly a lot to be done. and this exceeds the capacity of an individual community or even a state to do what needs to be done.

now, i'm in the process and have been for some time now of discussing with g.s.a. the exact right request to be sure that we're not declaring disasters as national disasters that aren't national in scope. that we haven't gotten to a habit of saying that's a disaster, the governor ought to send a request to the president and the president ought to grant it, and we don't want to be doing that when a state or a community really could handle the problem. but we do always want to be sure that we have the resources necessary when states and communities can't possibly handle this kind of problem by themselves. the tornado i talked about was one. flooding in the entire mississippi valley watershed which i think is the fourth largest watershed in the world and whether it was the missouri river or the ohio river or the mississippi river itself, or the arkansas river, all of

this, this flooding that occurred this year has set a recovery number that really does require national involvement. and if we don't recover from these floods, the right kinds of things don't happen. i had a county commissioner tell me over august that the factory doesn't open until the highway opens. and the highway doesn't open until flood protection is guaranteed. and flood protection isn't guaranteed until we appropriate, mr. president, the money. and we should and appropriately are focused on jobs as the number-one priority in the country today, private sector jobs, but there are a lot of private sector jobs in my state and others that have not been there for months now because the factory is closed or the business has closed and that factory is not going to open again until people can get to

work and people aren't going to be on the highway to get to work until the levee is rebuilt and the levee is not going to be rebuilt until the corps of engineers has the money to do the job they're supposed to do and meet their obligations. the corps is responsible for taking care of some of our most pressing needs and whether it's restoring the levee at bird's point or levees in holt county which has 165,000 acres more than half the county under water, and a lot of that has been under water now for three or four months. i talked to a farmer in my office yesterday who went to his own home for the first time in three months by driving a tractor over some fearl high water areas but passible areas, his home hadn't been flooded but everything around it was so he hadn't been there in three months when we talked yesterday until he went this week. and so whether it's water along the entire missouri river, which has been in flood stage

through the month of august, recovering from what's happened on the mississippi river, we need to do our job. and in our case of the missouri river this hasn't been a one-week flood. this is a three- and four-month flood. i don't remember a time ever and in fact i'm not aware of a time ever when the entire missouri river from the missouri border in the northwest corner of the state to st. louis was in flood stage the entire month of august. and in some cases has been in flood stage now for what is four months. a community development block grants that help provide disaster community, short term and long term to meet a disaster recovery. block grant funds can pick up with fema leaves off, and i hope, mr. president, that's

part of our plan as we look for this disaster bill, which i'm intending to support, over the final -- or another disaster bill we can can agree to with the house, needs to make it sure we can make it possible for communities to do on their own ander or not even with state assistance. in joplin, underground utilities and storm sewers and sanitary systems of all kinds, owner occupancy programs to get people who owned a house but never again because the one through their own inability or their decision not to have insurance, if you own a house and you don't have a loan, there's no banker to tell you you have to get insurance, and we'll have some people that are negatively affected by that, but that was a decision they made. however, getting them into a house that they don't own is something that there are

government programs that are designed to help. but community development block grants allows qualifying communities to meet local matches and local needs with a whole lot less red tape than a lot of the other things that the government does. and of course fema funding is with the most recent hurricane, hurricane irene, suddenly fema said i know we made a lot of commitments to other communities that are already in progress, but we now have to turn to the new disaster. and i appreciate turning to the new disaster, but you -- you can't forget that a community has problems they can't deal with that we said we were going to help with just because the tv satellite truck has gone somewhere else. and so i think it's important that fema meet its obligation, as i said before, i think it's important that on an ongoing way we -- we're sure that we have a

standard for natural and national disasters that truly is national in scope, with thousands of acres of missouri farmland still under water, with communities trying to recover from tornadoes, with commitments that fema has told them to move forward on and now suddenly doesn't have the money that they'd already committed, we need to be concerned about that. programs like the watershed emergency protection and conservation emergency protection that are in this bill that really were in the ag appropriations bill that the committee voted out earlier this week will have a big impact on meeting these obligations. and so mr. president, i just say that despite the unprecedented year, my state and americans everywhere are responding to these disasters, but this is a time when the federal government needs to do what the federal government has said they are there to do. and hopefully we'll do this with

this bill or some other bill that comes quickly that allows these communities to meet their needs, these farm families to get back to work, these factory workers to see the factory doors open again, and i am supportive of this effort and would yield my time. the presiding officer: the senator from north carolina is recognized. without objection in the majority's time. only four minutes is remaining. mr. burr: mr. president, am i incorrect the other side has a speaker coming at 11:00? the presiding officer: the chair does not have information about that. mr. burr: mr. speaker, i'll take whatever time that -- mr. president, i'll take whatever time the president gives me and we'll yield when i need to to the other side. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. burr: let me just add to what my good friend from missouri talks about, that's about the federal commitment to disaster. north carolina happens to be one

of those states that is probably the most recent, and we welcome the attention of fema but we also have been the last disaster before. and just like he expects the promises to be fulfilled. even though we're first in line now, we expect the promises to be fulfilled to those who are already out there. our country is great enough to do it. it is the greatest country in the world. but it means we've got to do it in a responsible way and part of that means that we need to pay for it. and i hope my colleagues will join what i think will be a house effort to expedite the funding needed for disaster relief but to do it in a way we don't charge future generations because of our fiscal irresponsibility. i had the opportunity to participate in a colloquy earlier on reforms to k-12 education and i'd like to take the few remaining minutes that i've got to talk a little bit more about that. because i think to some degree we hear about education and the

failures of k-12. senator kirk alluded to charter schools in chicago. i want to mention a school nobody hears about. the kip academy. technically it's a charter school, it was started in houston, texas then expanded to second location was in new york city. its third location was targeted to be atlanta but halfway between atlanta and new york they found a little rural county in north carolina called north hampton county. and a little community there called gaston, north carolina. the last place would you expect a texas innovated charter school to say let's put a facility here. predominantly minority, clearly below the average income level of every county in north carolina. challenged for economic development. they just don't have the infrastructure. but kip looked at it and said you know, no child should go without what we're out there to offer.

and today the success rate out of that school is off the chart. but it also is in every kip location that's opened up. and when you have successes like that whether they're in houston, texas, or new york city or gaston, north carolina, the responsible thing is to stop and take a breath and ask yourself what have they figured out that either we haven't in washington or what flexibility do they have that we don't give everybody else? and when you walk into a kip school, it's markedly different as soon as you walk if the door. most kids are in uniforms. the school day is longer. the teachers are partners in education. which begs me to talk a little bit about teach for america. a program that many members of congress support. teach for america challenged the

next generation of kids who want to be educators to commit a certain portion of their life in these at-risk locations. it's a program we ought to support because its standards for its teachers exceed the definition we have for highly qualified. as a matter of fact, not only do the credentials make them one of the best individuals to put in a classroom, you match that with their passion for their students to succeed and all of a sudden you've got a formula for success regardless of the socioeconomic conditions of the child that came. well, i fear the teach for america is not going to get the attention of congress it should. yet across this country when you find successful, qualified teachers, they've come out of this program. and the commitment to be there for two years or three years or five years is no longer a

contract that they're waiting for the end of, they're looking for the opportunity to make this a career. and, you know, it's those teachers, those teach for america graduates that are finding their way to be in the principals of schools, to be an elected on the school board, to being involved in areas that for once now these teach for america graduates are challenging traditional education to live up to what the obligation is they've got, and that's to make sure that every child has the foundational education they need to compete. and it really doesn't matter whether the example i talk about is the kip academy, charter model that was started in houston, or whether it's the noble street charter that was created in chicago, all of these examples weren't created here. they weren't created in congress or in washington.

yet what typically we do is we try to import the solution from here. now, i'll be the first to tell you, a principal is much closer to your chin than the congress of the united states. they're much closer to the school. they are much closer to the school system. they have greater influence on the outcome. where have we been influencing education? we influence it on the input side, not the output side. because we say hey, here's some money. we've got some money, but you can only use it for this because we've determined this is the solution to the problem. kip sort of broke the mold. they said our mission is to educate every child. we want to see them succeed. let me give my colleagues an

example. in charlotte, north carolina, they opened a kip academy, k-8, next door to a traditional k-6 school. there is no way anybody can look at it and say this drew kids that were in a different neighborhood. no, it drew kids from exactly the same neighborhood. but if you look at the performance side by side physically, the performance of the kids in the kip far excel the performance of the kids in the traditional public school system. why? because kip officials have the flexibility to design how they educate those children. the goal at the end is the same, to meet a standard of performance, to meet an educational level that's set nationally. well, to me, it only makes common sense for us to see the

ones that exceed what the goals are that we set and ask how do we import what they do into the rest of our k-12 system? part of it is recognizing the facts that up here we don't have the solutions. we are merely a financial partner, and that's one of the reasons, mr. president, that this morning i introduced a bill, and what that bill does is it takes 59 pots of money, 59 separate programs that were funded last year, and in one area we call it the fund for improvement of teaching and learning. you see, we take 59 programs and we combine them into two pots of money. one of them teaching and learning. the second one, safe, healthy students. in the teaching and learning area, we have consolidated about

24 funding programs into one, and we have said to local educators you can use this money however you want to if your focus is teaching and learning, and you can pull out of the other pot any moneys you need for programs that address safe and healthy students. now, we went a step further. we said if one of these pots of moneys doesn't work for you, then we'll give you 100% transferability from one pot to the other. so if your objective and your need is greater in teaching and learning, we'll give you the ability to take all the safe and healthy student money and throw it over in the teacher and learning pot so that you can access more funds. in addition to that, there may be some communities across the country that need additional help in title 1, those at-risk students. we allow 100% transferability of both funds to title 1. so for those individuals across the country that are concerned with title 1, not only do we not

touch it, we leave it like it exists, we make it available to receive additional funding if a school system decides to do it, not a bureaucrat in washington, d.c. so under the fund of improving teaching and learning, teachers and local school districts may make the funds for activities and programs that meet the purposes of the fund for the improvement of teaching and learning in their unique and individual needs. these may include evaluation systems for teachers and principals that take into account data on student academic achievement and growth of a significant factor. exactly what senator isakson was talking about, the need for accountability. but what we're trying to do is we're trying to take a majority of the responsibility for accountability and send it to the local school system. all we can see is numbers down here in comparison with what our goal was for people to hit. what i'm concerned with is that

a community take ownership in the performance of their school systems because that community is reliant on their success for their future. mr. chairman, i see that my colleague from -- oh, he is going to switch with you so i will continue. so my -- my hope is that school systems and communities around the country will see this as a tremendous opportunity to once again not only take control of local education but to be empowered to make decisions on the way that they teach our kids. it reforms teacher and principal certifications, reassert if i occasions, licensing and tenure, alternative roots for state certification of teachers and principals, including mid career professionals from other occupations, former military personnel, and recent college or university graduates with records of academic distinction

who demonstrate the potential to become highly effective teachers and principals. you see, there is this whole pool of people that we exclude because they didn't go through a traditional method of being classified teacher, yet their base of knowledge, their expertise and i would suggest their passion in many cases exceed those that might be in that classroom today. is it reasonable to believe that a pharmacist has the institutional knowledge to teach chemistry? i hope so because we trust them every day when we go into that pharmacy. if a pharmacist feels impassioned enough that he or she wants to go into a high school and teach chemistry, what they might lack in the educational process of becoming a teacher, certainly they have the knowledge but more importantly they have the passion to want to be in there,

and more importantly an understanding of why success of that student is absolutely vital performance pay systems, differential, incentives and bonus pay for teachers in high-need academic subjects, specialty areas, teachers in high poverty schools and districts, teacher achievement initiatives that promote professional growth, multiple career paths and pay differentiation. you know, everywhere else in the world, we pay bonuses for performance. as a matter of fact, in the government, we pay bonuses when people don't perform. i haven't quite ever figured that out, but when we introduce bonuses, it's not based upon whether somebody or an agency or a department succeeded. it just becomes part of their annual stipend. we have got to revisit that. but why would we institute it in government and then suggest that when you import this into k-12 education that somehow it's wrong? the only reason it's wrong is

because the teachers union doesn't like it because they don't negotiate. well, that's got to change because the teachers union doesn't know our children. and the truth is the only reason the majority of the teachers actually join the union is because they are the only source of liability coverage, of liability insurance that that teacher can get. and the fact is you and i wouldn't teach in a classroom without liability insurance based upon the accusations and charges that some families come up with against the teachers. if you don't believe me, ask them. maybe what we need to do is look at a federal umbrella where we allow teachers to access liability insurance from us, maybe contract it with a third-party insurer, and give them the opportunity to go into that classroom and only be concerned with educating children. you know, i have never had anybody from teach for america talk to me about liability coverage. they only come in and talk to me

about the success of their students, about the need to expand programs that work, about the need for clebility at the local level because they have gone to multiple school districts, and they do things differently because that's where the administration told them they had to go to get their federal money. i'm suggesting a radical change, taking 59 programs, putting it into two pots, shaking it up and say you pick what's best for the school system you're in. and safe and healthy students block grants, the local districts could use the fund for activities and programs that meet the purposes of safe and healthy students and their unique and individual needs which may include but are not limited to drug and violence prevention activities and programs, before and after-school programs, including some recess periods and programs that extend the school day week

and the school calendar year, school-based mental health services. some of these sound early familiar because we have heard in our community people say, you know, we're not doing enough in mental health. well, that may not be the issue in the community next to us. this now allows the flexibility for the school systems that need to access it to access it. i think every member up here wants to make sure that their after-school opportunities for the many families that both husband and wife work. up to this point, we said here's the program, you have to use this program. now what i'm saying is here's the money. you decide what program best fits your school system. it may not be at the local rec center. it may actually be in the school. think about it. it's already a facility that we own. we're going to have to heat it. we're going to have to cool it. why not utilize it other than

just during the meat of the education day? school-based -- excuse me. emergency intervention services following traumatic crisis. it seems like every year we have got these events that happen and sometimes we forget the at the desk has on these students. i just talked earlier about eastern north carolina and the effects of hurricane irene. i have got communities right now where people have not been able to return to their home. the road's gone, power's not back on. the only access is by ferry. don't for a minute believe this doesn't have an effect on a fifth grader. maybe school had only been in effect for about a week, but they are traumatized from it. if it's identified by a school system, now they have got the credibility to treat that, because i can assure you if they are traumatized, the ability to

learn is probably minimized. programs that train school personnel to identify warning signs of youth suicide. now, i'd like to suggest, mr. president, that doesn't exist, and the truth is we know that it does. and in many cases, it's identified by the people that spend the most time with them and that's their teachers, coaches and administrators, but they really don't have the capacity to intervene in any way, shape or form. now the flexibility is at least there. i'm not suggesting that any of these areas are things that school systems have to do, but i think for once we have now laid a buffet out and said you pick and choose what works. if i could best summarize where i think our focus should be in washington on k-12, it is on the outcome. are our kids learning?

last year, about 66% of our nation's high schoolers graduated on time. in north carolina, it was barely over 70% graduated on time. now, let me assure those pages that are here and young folks that might be listening to this, there is a federal law that says every company has to accept an application from somebody that's looking for a job. there is no federal law that sis you have to interview that applicant. and if you're an employer today and you have got 100 applications and 98 of them have a high school diploma and two of them don't, i can assure you the two that don't have the high school diploma are not going to be invited back for an interview. they are out of the pool of selection because that has become the base minimum for

consideration of a job that might have any upward mobility. it doesn't mean that every child has to have a four-year degree, but it does mean from a standpoint of the business world, business has sort of cut it off and said our threshold is a high school diploma. 60 -- a high 60% of our kids are not graduating from high school on time. if i was on the floor today talking about health care, we would call this an epidemic and we would do whatever we needed to do to fix it. but, no, this is education, this is somebody else's children. i have already raised mine, i have educated mine. i would tell you this is the fabric -- the future fabric of america. we either fix education or the rest of the world will clean our clock economically in the future. the secret to long-term success is making sure that we field a

team of highly gifted, knowledgeable americans. if we plan to do that with a high 60% of our kids with barely a high school diploma, i will assure you the rest of the world will see that as an opportunity to surpass us and to bury us. we have got an opportunity to fix it now. we talked earlier about no child left behind, the right direction of legislation that will severely implement it incorrectly. it could have been a real winner if people embraced it, but they didn't, and now nine years later, four years after we were supposed to go in and assess its success, make its changes, reauthorize it, we're in the ninth year and we're still struggling to try to put together a reauthorization bill.

and in large measure because up until this point, everybody has wanted to try to create a washington bill to initiate solutions to elementary and secondary education versus a local approach that washington is a partner in that provides flexibility and imagination. mr. president, we're going to spend a loft time between now and the end of the year because i think it's absolutely vital we get reauthorization in 2011. i don't think we can let another class of students suffer through the lack of flexibility in the school systems that they live in. senator kirk talked about the need to expand charter school opportunities. i'm for it. i co-sponsored the bill. but just because there has been

a private alternative that works, let's also face the reality, we're not going to put every child in america in a charter school. we might ought to, but we're not. and millions we -- and millions we want to up front say everybody not in the charter school is going to have the educational foundation that kids over here have, then we better do both at the same time, provide that new avenue of education which is the expansion of charter school opportunities, challenge the private sector like kip stepped up and design a school that works. and at the same time look at the public side of it and say what do we need to do as a country, and i would suggest to you that when we honestly look at that and we focus on outcome versus input, what we'll find is that we've got to empower more of that local community.

we've got to challenge business leaders in that community to hold the school system accountable. we have to challenge parents to actually look at the performance of their children and to hold those principals and administrators and teachers accountable for the performance of their kids. we've got to make sure that a community sees the success of education as the ability for that community to grow in the future. the worst that -- the worst thing that a member of congress can hear, is to hear when a community says 1993 kids graduate from high school, they never return. they never return because the business opportunities aren't there. usually that's rooted in the fact that k-12 in that community doesn't work. because wherever you've got an educated work force, you've got

a company looking to make investments. i've heard my colleagues say that north carolina has unfair advantages in economic development, that we've got 58 community colleges and that gives us something to sell that everybody else doesn't have. we have the doas coast and the the mountains and the beach. and that's noting -- that's not something everybody has. it's all a good thing to sell but let me tell you what north carolina's got. let me tell why companies around the world are investing in north carolina. it's because we produce the second largest pool of graduates of higher education annually of any state in the country other than california. when a company vests -- invests a billion dollars into north carolina they can reach into the graduate pool and have a shot at getting the cream of the chop of those students -- crop of those students. why would it be different when a company looks at locating if it looks at a community with a

pitiful performance in k-12, why would they ever think of making the investment there? they're going to make the investment where the future work force is available and if they believe the kids graduate and leave and never come back, then they're going to look for where those kids move to to make that investment. if we want to keep communities alive whether they're in ohio or north carolina, we've got to find a way to make k-12 a success in every community, big and small, urban and rural, and it starts by legislation that empowers those local school systems. and more importantly, shifts accountability from washington and puts it back into the community, the responsibility of the officials, the business leaders, and most importantly, the parents. i'd like to thank the president for accommodating me this

morning. i notice the other speaker didn't come in, so i'm thrilled that i was given the extra time. i would urge my colleagues over the months to come to pay attention to the k-12 reauthorization. there will be many proposals that are out there, not all will work, and we're not assured that any are certain to succeed. but if you look for guidance, talk to the people that are closest to the problem, and the one thing that they're screaming for today is the flexibility to put the money where it can have the it therest effect on the outcome of education. and that's this slayings. i thank the president. 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 california is recognized. mrs. boxer: i ask unanimous consent the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. boxer: i ask to speak for 20 minutes. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered.

mrs. boxer: mr. president, i come here frustrated, angry, disturbed, that our republican colleagues are holding up three crucial bills. and america needs to hear this. they are stopping us from completing our work on our emergency fema bill. the moneys are needed throughout this country to rebuild the damage from the storm. a lot of it infrastructure, sewer plants, water plant, roads, bridges, highways. we see pictures of what is happening in places like vermont, where as senator leahy told us yesterday, a woman that he talked to has to drive an hour plus for her chemotherapy because the road is gone and it used to take her five minutes. we need to fix that road. we need to fix the roads, the

bridges, the highways, the sewer systems, the water systems, the schools that get harmed in these natural disasters, and the republicans are holding up the bill to let us do that. we have holds on -- more than one. the highway bill, known as the transportation bill, and the f.a.a., our nation's aviation bill. and here's the real shocker: the f.a.a. and the transportation bill, which have been merged in one bill, have come over from the house of representatives and the house relented on the numbers, they are at current levels of spending, they are clean extensions, which we wanted, but the republicans over here will not let us get to those bills. now, tomorrow the f.a.a.

authorization for the airports, to fix up the airports, rebuild the airports, that expires. so there's no fee as of tomorrow, and we have to stop midstream our airport improvements that are going on. it's called the airport improvement fund. they already shut that down once. i went around my state and saw safety projects stopped midstream. now they're doing it again, right over here. the republicans right over here. holding up the f.a.a. bill aga again. and it means 70,000 jobs lost on friday night. they're holding up the highway bill, the transportation bill, which i'm so proud in our committee we got the extension, everybody agreed to it, republicans and democrats in the

committee. republicans are holding it up now on this floor. it's a clean extension. it's 1.8 million jobs, everybody. 1.8 million jobs are relying on that extension. it's come over here from the house. take it up and pass it. oh, no. oh, no. there they go again stopping progress in this country. and i'll tell you why i'm so particularly frustrated. it has to do with the rebuilding that's going on and that has gone on in iraq and afghanistan, with american dollars. not one republican ever objected. and let me show you the pictur pictures. let me show you the pictures. this is a picture, mr. president, of a new water treatment plant that's been built in nassiriya, iraq, at a cost of $277 million american

dollars. not one republican said, stop this." not one republican said, "pay for it by cutting some other program." what's going on? let me show you the picture of a water treatment plant near the border of mexico in my state in california. it's old. i visited this treatment plant. it got hurt in an earthquake, and fema, the bill they're holding up, will pay to finish up this water treatment plant. which has got to be fixed before another earthquake hits us, and we know that's what's happened. so they are fine with building a water treatment plant in iraq, not a complaint, not a murmur, not a word, not an amendment.

but we have to fix our water treatment plants here with fema bill, and they're holding the bill up. and everybody knows that. because we could have taken care of that yesterday. so that's an example. here's another example. this is a picture of road construction in -- i want to say this right -- kapisa province, afghanistan. everyone is very proud america has built a road there. we have spent a lot of tax dollars in afghanistan and iraq. and i'm happy for the people there, that they have a road. and, god, we pray that nobody blows it up. but, i got to tell you, if you're going to build roads in afghanistan, you better build roads here in america. or the american people are going

to rise up and say, who are you fighting for? i never heard one republican s say, oh, they're building a road in afghanistan. that's an earmark. that's an earmark. let's stop it. that's a problem, let's stop it. we're spending "x" number of dollars. let's cut another program. never a word. but now we have our highway bill right now coming over from the house. they changed their mind over there. they did not cut it. it's current levels of funding. it's a good bill. it will last for six months' funding. it will preserve 1.8 million jobs, and the republicans are holding it up right now. why do you think this chamber is empty? why do you think i'm here letting off steam? because we're not vietnamin vot. let us vote. you don't like the highway bill, vote against it. you don't like it, that's fine.

vote against it. let us vote. 90 people will vote for it probably. let us vote. so here you have the picture of the excitement around a new road. and let's take a look at another picture of a road in my home state. in january and february of 2010, mr. president, california was hit by terrible winter storms and flooding and mud slides. this picture shows a road that was blocked after these storms. now, these storms hit us in many counties -- imperial, los angeles, riverside, san bernardino, s. ciscu. they're all waiting for the funds to rebuild a road that looks like this. impassable, shutting people down, a lot like the roads in

vermont now and other places. they're holding up the fema bill. they're holding up the highway bill. they're holding up the federal aviation bill. and it's wrong. i never heard them say, "strike that road that we're building in afghanistan! it's an earmark!" but they're holding up -- they're holding up the three bills we need to do. so now i'm going to show you another program. this is a brand-new air traffic control tower being built in mosul, iraq, at a cost 6 $10 million. you can see it's almost ready. the scaffolding is on it. it's been built. i never heard one republican s say, oh, wait a minute. let's strike some other money

somewhere else to pay for this air traffic control tower. i never heard one republican object to building this air control tower in iraq. not a word. but, when it comes to our air traffic control towers, you heard plenty. they stopped us from moving ahead with the f.a.a. reauthorization before we left for the summer break. it resulted in 70,000 people being laid off, and here's one of my towers in palm springs stopped in the middle, shut down in the middle. the workers had to leave, they lost money, the contractor did. the workers, some of them went off to other jobs. they had to hire new workers. i stood in front of this tower. i stood in front of a tower in oakland.

i went to los angeles and saw the work stopplage stoppages thd on the tom bradley new terminal because the republicans shut us down. and now today we come back, we all think we have a new attitude around this place, we're shut down again. and we have 24 hours to get this f.a.a. bill done. or 70,000 workers will be out again. and we have until september 30 to pass the transportation bill, or 1.8 million workers will be out of work. now, we have heard complaints from the other side as to why they're holding it up. so let me give you some of that argument.

one of our senators from oklahoma, senator coburn, says he wants to hold up the transportation bill, which includes transportation and f.a.a., because he doesn't like one part of the program. 2% of the funds go to things he doesn't like. well, he has every right to that opinion, and eve every right tok with us on an amendment and get it done. but he's holding it up. we could have had that amendment yesterday. he doesn't like the transportation enhancements program. and, for the record, there are a number of things in that portion, which is a relatively small amount of the bill, 2% of the bill, and we are reforming that section next year when we get to the new bill. but he's holding it up.

now, he's wrong to hold it up because of what i told you. he's putting at risk all of these safety improvements at our armets, he's putting at risk, you know, 1.8 million jobs on the transportation bill, he's putting at risk 70,000 jobs on f.a.a. because he doesn't like this program. now, he also misled people. he said that we spent 10% of our transportation money on this transportation enhancements program. we do not. we spend 20%. 10% -- we spend 2%. 10% is not 2%. he went on to say, that safety should be a top priority and we agree. but he doesn't understand what the transportation enhancements program is. it is about safety. it is about safety. the transportation enhancements program is mainly about saving

lives by preventing bicycle and pedestrian fatalities. that's what it does. it says to the states, we have a pot of money here. if you want it, you need to make sure you make safety improvements for pedestrians and bicycles. pedestrians and bicyclists account for 13% of traffic fatalities nationwide. p-with more than 47,000 pedestrians killed in the nine-year period 2000-2009. that's the equivalent of a jumbo jet crashing every month. so the safety enhanltses supported by -- so the safety enhancements supported by the program senator coburn wants to eliminate are needed to prevent these deaths. bike paths and pedestrian walkways are important. 50% of trips are three miles or less. 12% of all trips are made by bicycling and walking. and bicycle commuting has increased by more than 40% between 2000 and 2008.

so why on earth does he want to hold up this critical bill and the f.a.a. bill, because they're married together, to say he's for safety when he wants to eliminate this whole program, which is dedicated to safety for our pedestrians and our bicyclists? 47,000 of whom perished because we don't have these safety enhancements in place. all americans benefit from the program he wants to eliminate. we strengthen local economies, we improve the quality of life, we protect the environment, and he's willing still -- because that's what he's doing by holding this up -- he's risking shutting down our nation's entire surface transportation system as well as critical f.a.a. programs, and more than a million jobs, because he doesn't

like this program. wcialtion you know something? every one of us here, we have pretty good egos. you get here, and it's important. set it aside. you don't like something, offer an amendment. don't hold up all of these bills. it's wrong. because if we do, what they did -- shutting down the f.a.a. -- it makes a rough economy rougher. and it stalls us from doing the work we have to do. no one stalled the airport improvements in iraq. no one stalled over there on the republican side the road improvements in iraq. no one stopped improvements in afghanistan. no one stopped water system improvements in the war zones. but somehow when it comes to

america, well, we better cut this and cut that and offset this and offset that. we have a budget. we're going to live by it. we have an emergency. if you look at webster's dictionary's explanation of what an emergency is, here it is. this is webster's definition. an emergency: one, an unforeseen combination of circumstances or the resulting state that calls for immediate action. mr. president, webster's dictionary has it right. this ought to be put on the desk of every one of my republican colleagues. another definition: an urgent need for assistance or relief. so when there's an emergency, you step up to the plate and you solve the problem. just ask senator landrieu, who's

been leading the battle on this fema bill. you can't tell people out there that they only have 30 days of funding because you have to enter into a contract that may take three, four months to rebuild a bridge. it may take six or seven months to rebuild a water treatment system. but that's the way they approach it over there twhe comes to america -- over there when it comes to america. when it comes to funding wars and rebuilding the zones, i don't hear a peep out of them. not a peep. well, i say it's time for america. we have a choice. we can stand up for america right now today, we can pass these three bills: the fema bill which gives our governors the assurances and the people in our state the assurances that fema will team with them and do what it takes to rebuild after these horrifying emergencies, which by the way are becoming more and

more frequent because of climate change, but that's another battle for another day. that's another battle for another day. unfortunately, science in this body here takes a back seat to politics. and the special interests who want to say, climate change, no big deal, we need to protect our turf, that's what they say. and we've done nothing. the president has done what he can, and bless him for it. fuel economy, all of these things. but it gets worse and worse and worse. we've done nothing. i've got four grandkids, and i am so hoping in the rest of the time that i have to be here in this body and on this earth that i can get us moving on this climate change. but, oh no. so i guess we sit back while we

see more and more extreme-weather emergencies. and we see extreme-weather emergencies if the other side doesn't want to do anything about the cause of it, fine, that's their choice. they have to live with themselves. they can at least help us adapt to these problems. and that means paying to fix up our roads, bridges, highways, our water systems, our sewer systems; all of these things that get exposed to these weather emergencies. do you know, mr. president, that 70% of our highways -- excuse me -- of our bridges are deficient? 70% of our bridges are deficient. and i want to thank my ranking member, senator inhofe, on the environment and public works committee. he and i don't see eye to eye on the environment -- that's an understatement -- but when it comes to the infrastructure, we agree. and he talks about the tragic death of a woman, a young woman watts walking -- a young woman

was walking and a bridge literally fell apart, and it fell and killed her. now, this is america. 70% of our bridges are deficient, and we have colleagues holding up this bill? i say shame on them. shame on them for doing that. it's outrageous. we finally get the house to come to us, to our number, to free spending; i thank them for that. they came to their senses. they realize we need to rebuild our highways, we need to maintain our airports. they send us a bill that's good. on fema, they're not so good. on fema, they're doing a bad thoeufrpbg thr-fplt they're trying -- a bad thing over there. they're trying to cut programs. that's a bad deal. right here today we have a deal for fema that would do the job.

i said in my last talk about fema, the emergencies that we face is if your neighbor's house is on fire, don't waste time and fight about the cost of the garden hose. you'll get that later. your garden hose helps them and you feel they are a part owner, you can discuss it later. get out the garden hose, put out the fire, and everybody's going to be okay. playing games with these things, mr. president, is not right. it is beneath the dignity of the people of america who think we are a bunch -- let me repeat. who do not rate us very highly. that's an understatement too. how much lower can you go than

13%? well, i will say this: if we can't do these bills, we don't deserve to be 13% popular. we don't. we have certain basic responsibilities, and i am sick taoeurpbd of paying for roads -- sick and tired of paying for roads and bridges and embassies and buildings and everything else in iraq and afghanistan. we have given those people our finest. they have bled. they are still bleeding. and they have to take responsibility for their own nation. we have to take responsibility now for our nation. time is short. if the senate doesn't pass that highway bill, 1.8 million highway and transit jobs are at risk.

if the senate doesn't pass the f.a.a. bill by tomorrow, 70,000 jobs are at stake. and we saw what happened. i visited the airports. it was tragic to see people saying i have no job. these are all private-sector jobs mostly. there are some government jobs, for example, the f.a.a. inspectors, some of which pay on their own dime to fly across the country and inspect some of the projects. god bless them, and we better pay them for what we did here. and my understanding is this bill doesn't do that, but congressman micah claims he's going to take care of that. but we're about to do it again over here if republicans don't come to their senses. so, in summing up, this is a day for us to make a clear point that america has to start taking care of its people.

we all read the papers. we know what's happening to the middle class. we know what's happening to the poor. we know what's happening to our roads. we know what's happening to our bridges. we know that our airport system is the last century. we have to have nextgen. we have to move to a g.p.s. system, away from a radar system. they say no, no, no, no, no, no, no. and the message has to go out to the american people. they blame everybody, and i don't blame them. but right now it's clear the democrats in the senate want to pass three bills right now. they're all very important. one of them is the emergency fema bill to pay for these terrible disasters that have been hitting us. those are emergencies, and we need to go ahead and respond. two, a highway bill to fix our

deficient bridges, to fix our highways and our roads that are 50% deficient. in other words, half of them are not up to standard. we are living off our grandparents' investments at this point. we have got to invest in our infrastructure and all the jobs that come with it, so we have those three bills: f.a.a. and highway have been merged. and then you have the fema bill. we are sitting around here not voting. everybody look at this chamber. no one is here. no voting is taking place because we are the subject of a filibuster, which means a big stall. again i ask my friends on the other side: where was your

outrage when we were building roads and bridges and airports in iraq and afghanistan? where was your outrage about the stphoepb where was your -- about the money? where was your outrage about cutting something else to pay for that? where was your outrage? i tell you, i never saw it, i never felt it, i never heard it. and it is in a way humiliating for the american people that somehow they are just not as important. well, i'm here to tell you you are important. your jobs are important. your work is important. america as an economic leader is important. and so i'll be back on the floor to debate any one of my colleagues on the other side who disagree with anything i've said, and that's fine. they may disagree. they may defend why they allow projects to go through abroad but not here. they may say why they want to

cut safety programs from the highway bill that will save lives. and, by the way, that transportation enhancements program that they want to do away with was a pw-bt idea that came from republican john chafee and democrat daniel patrick moynihan in 1991. 1991. that sounds like 20 years to me. 20 years we've had that program. can we look at it? can we reform it? can we make it work better? of course. but don't just stand up here. by the way, one of our republican friends said just cut it and you don't even need a vote. take it without a vote. no. if we're going to vote on that, we're going to fight about it and have a vote. but let's have a vote. every minute that this chamber sits idly, let me tell you what's happening outside the

real world. this is the fake world in here. in the real world, people are calling one another, "what are they doing over there?" we have a chance to get these bills done fast. what are they doing? finally we get a bill that comes over from the house that is bipartisan, that is a freeze, that has everything intact, that sends a message we can move forward with f.a.a. for four months, six months on the highway bill, and we can't get it done. so i urge my republican friends to change their mind and change their tune, and stand up for america, and let us get on with the business of taking care of this country. it's highways, it's bridges, it's airports, it's emergencies. and if they do that, maybe we'll see the american people have a little more faith in us because right now they have lost faith.

and i don't blame them one bit. thank you very much, mr. president. i yield the floor and i note the absence of a quorum. mr. president, if you could wait. the presiding officer: the senator from california. mrs. boxer: i have permission for committees to meet. i have eight unanimous consent requests for committees to meet during today's session of the senate. they have the approval of both the majority and minority leaders. and i ask unanimous consent these requests be agreed to, these requests be printed in the record. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mrs. boxer: and now i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: