the clerk: nominations mark raymond hornak to be united states district judge. robert david mariani to be united states district judge. robert n. scola jr. of florida to be united states district judge. the presiding officer: under the previous order, there will be ten minutes of debate equally divided in the usual form. under the previous order -- who yields time? a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from pennsylvania. mr. casey: madam president, i rise to speak about both nominees. i'll start with bob mariani. i refer to him that way because i've known him a long tiesm but the full name is rough robert david mariana. bob mariana is someone that i know to be a person of not just high intellect and ability but

also someone of great integrity. he was born in scranton, pennsylvania, the same city i was born in. i still live there and so does he. he received his law degree cum laude in 1976 from the care us could university school of law. also received his college education cum laude from villanova university graduating within the top 10% of his class, and he was ranked second within his major field of study as an undergraduate. bob mariana is a well-respected lawyer and advocate in northeastern pennsylvania. he's received the highest rating, well-qualified, from the american bar association. he spent 34 years as a civil litigator in scranton, parks where he specializes in labor and employment law. since 2001, he's been the sole

shareholder in the law firm that bears his naism he is also the sole proprietor of a similar law office that bears his name from 1993 to the year 2001. partner as well in an earlier iteration of that law firm mariana and greco. he has taught labor law at penn state university and has been an instructor at penn state's union academy program. a whole series of commendations and awards that i won't list for purposes of the time we have today. but probably the most important thing i could say about bob -- and i know i might be a little biased because i know him and have great respect for him -- but this is a person who will apply the law, this is a person who understands that when someone comes before him, they should be accorded basic fairness, no matter who they

are, no matter what point of view, nowhere where they come from -- no matter where they come from. and i know that integrity and commitment to the public service of not just the law but the public service that a judge can provide, that those values will guide bob mariana as a judge, and i'm very happy that we'll be voting on his nomination. also today, mark raymond hornak. i know mark not as long as i've known bob marian narcs but more than -- mariana, but more than 15 years now. he is a native of southwestern pennsylvania, just by way of a quick summery of his educational background, he got his law degreessume calm laud -- meaning the highest honors from the university of pittsburgh law school graduating second had his class. he was editor of chief of the university of pittsburgh law

review. got his college degree from the university of pittsburgh as well and was a dean's list student and a member of the honor society there. his career has been varied and significant, as a lawyer and advocate. partner in the law firm of buchanan, ingersoll, and rooney since 1982. he has specialized in civil litigation, labor, employment law, media defense and governmental representation and is a member of the firm's executive committee. he's the solicitor of the sports and exhibition authority of pittsburgh and allegheny county. and he also has been very active in his community in pittsburgh. he also represents a national television, radio publishing clients in media litigation including defamation and first amendment. prior to coming to the buchanan, inner socialtion and rooney firm, mark served as law clerk to the honorable james m.

sprouse of the united states district -- i'm so, the united states court of appeals for the fourth circuit. he as well -- mark as well has a long list of honors and achievements that i won't list today. but, again, someone who has great integrity and ability, but also someone who understands that serving on the bench on a federal district court, whether it's in bob mariana's case or in mark hornak's case, the service of that kind is public service. with that comes the responsibilities and obligations of being a public servant. both of these candidates understand that. both bob mariana and mark hornak and i'm so honored to be able to speak today regarding their nominations. i would urge a "yes" vote on both nominations. i would yield the floor.

mr. nelson: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from florida. mr. nelson: mr. president, we have a judge that will be in front of the senate, and it's my understanding it's been worked out. it is going to be by voice vote. and i just want to thank the leadership of the appropriate committee, the judiciary committee, for handing this with dispatch. in a big growth state like florida where there is such a caseload in the federal judiciary, when we have a vacancy, it needs to be a attend to rightway. fortunately, we tried -- the two senators from florida tried to take the politics out of the selection of judges by letting that interviewing process, the selection be done by a panel of prominent citizens called a

judicial nominating commission, and they recommend at least three to the two senators. the senators then interview them and let the white house know, and the white house has agreed, much to the credit of this white house, that they will select from among those that we submit. and those that we submit are the ones that came out of the judicial nominating commission. and, thus, with the selection of judge robert scola, who we will confirm today, who was nominated in may of this year, he received his bachelor's from graham, went to boston college for law school, and he was graduating cum laude, spent six years working as a prosecutor in the

miami-dade county state attorneys' office. he then practiced law as a criminal defense attorney, representing individuals and corporations in both state and federal courts. he was then appointed back in 1995 by the governor to the 11th judicial circuit court bench, where he has sat as a state court judge all the way up until today. he received his well-qualified rating from the american bar and certainly senator lube yow and i -- rubio and i have told the white house when we submitted the names from the judicial nominating commission that we certainly agreed with all of these nominees. and so with this strong tradition of bipartisan support for our judicial nominees, i

bring to the senate's attention for confirmation judge robert scola. mr. casey: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from pennsylvania. mr. casey: mr. president, i just rise for literally 30 seconds. what i failed to do when i was talking about both nominees was to thank senator too maniy, my colleague from pennsylvania. we worked together on both of these nominees at a process to arrive rat a consensus position. so i am grateful for senator toometoomey's help on this and k thankful for the staff's help as well. i would yield the floor.

the presiding officer: under the previous order, the hornak and scola nominations are confirmed and the question occurs on the mariana nomination. -- on the mariani nomination. mr. casey: mr. president, i would ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll.

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: are there any senators in the chamber wishing to vote or change their vote?

are there any senators who haven't voted who wish to vote? the presiding officer: all right, the vote is 82 yeas, 17 nays. the nomination is confirmed.

under the previous order, the motions to reconsider are considered made and laid upon the table, the president will be immediately notified of the senate's action, and the senate will resume legislative session. under the previous order, there'll be two minutes of debate equally divided between the senator from arizona, mr. mccain, and the senator from california, mrs. boxer, or their designees. order because we have two minutes from senator mccain and two minutes from senator -- oh, i'm sorry, one minute each for senator mccain and for senator boxer or their designees. so, please, order. the senator from california -- i would ask order.

mrs. boxer: madam president, could we've order? the presiding officer: yes. i would ask order. thank you. mrs. boxer: colleagues, the reason i ask for order is because this amendment affects each and every one of you and your constituents. the mccain amendment says to the states that they can't use a certain section of the transportation bill for several things, including scenic or historic highway programs, including tourist centers, landscaping or scenic beautification, historic preservation and if goes on. point i want to make is this amendment is opposed by the national association of counties, the american association of state highway transportation officials, the national league of cities, the national trust for historic preservation, the u.s. travel association. that is a nonpartisan list.

and let me tell you why. the way this amendment is drafted, historic bridges could never even be repaired. the brookly brooklyn bridge or r historic bridges could not be repaired. and we could not control erosion. we would have major problems. i would move to table the mccain amendment -- i'm sorry, i would move to table the mccain amendment -- the presiding officer: that motion is not in order while time remains. mrs. boxer: all right. the senator from arizona has one minute. mr. mccain: i've made the argument that these projects are unnecessary. we have tens of thousands of bridges that are deficient. we need to spend the money where it should be, and i hope that my colleagues will understand that these things might have been appropriate some time ago, but in this day and age, with our crumbling infrastructure, we need to put the money in the right place.

with that, i yield the balance of my time. mrs. boxer: i move to table the mccage amendment number 739 and i ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there is. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: are there any senators wishing to vote or change his or her vote? there being none, there are 59 ayes, 39 nays. the motion to table is agreed to. a senator: i second it. the presiding officer: without objection. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. harkin: i ask unanimous consent that the committee on health, education, labor and pensions be authorized to meet

in executive session on october 19, 2011 in dirksen room 106 for the consideration of a bill to reauthorize the elementary and secondary act. the presiding officer: is there objection? a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from kentucky. mr. paul: the senator from kentucky, i find it a tragedy that we are operating here in the senate by introducing an 868-page bill with 48 hours to read it, approximately 1,000 pages worth of amendments to this bill with virtually no time to read or think about the amendments. i think it's precisely what's wrong with this body that we would try to rush things through. i've been here since january and there have been no hearings on no child left behind. i have had no hearings that involve teachers, no hearings that involve superintendents, no hearings that involve principals. i think this is an affront to the process. as i go around my state and i talk to teachers, i've yet to

meet one teacher who's in favor of no child left behind. they abhor it. they hate all the stuff we are telling them what to do from washington. they want more local control. i'm one of the old-fashioned conservatives who does believe that schools are and should be under local and state control. there's no provision in the constitution for the federal government to be involved period. this was part of the republican platform for nearly 30 years, that we didn't believe in federal control. we wanted to leave local control.i met with six teachersy from madear county. they like teaching kids who have difficulty learning and have to be fought in a different fashion in order to get through to these kids. but they showed me a cute little boy, 15 years old, who has a three-word vocabulary. he's tested in world geography and the teacher is told that she's a bad teacher because the child, who has a three-world

vocabulary, did poorly on testing. this is insane, and it needs to be discussed in a rational fashion. we need to have teachers involved in the process, for goodness's sakes. principals, superintendents. i have a letter here from the american association of school administrators, the national association of elementary school principals, the national education association, the national school boards association, and the national association of secondary school principals, and they say "we hope that in getting this important work of getting policy right we will not be pushed to the side in a race against the clock." i feel pushed aside. 868-page bill and 48 hours to read it. it is wrong. all i am asking for is a hearing to listen to teachers. should we not listen to the teachers? a hearing to listen to the superintendents. a hearing to listen to the principals. let them read the bill and find out what's in the bill.

i am not going to accept what nancy pelosi said, "you can about it after the fact." that's the process here. 868 pages? when are we going to read it? after they pass it. who's been involved in crafting this legislation? i'm on athe committee. nobody asked me, nobody consulted with me, and i think that's the same with most of the people on the committee. the letter from this group also says, "we note that the proposed law is still heavily reliant on the idea of testing every child, every year through one single high-stakes assessment. there are many problems. i would be in favor of getting righted of "no child left behind"." no teachers are for t i'd like to see a survey of teachers. i would like it have the teachers do a survey of their population that says, who's in favor of "no child left behind" before we act? i would like teachers to propose amendments to my office to fix "no child left behind" if we're not going to scrap it. i would like to hear from the superintendents. what do you think of this

868-page bill we got on monday? what do you think of this bill and how can we make it better? we will not have time to hear from them because we're struggling to get through the 868 pages and another 1,000 pages of amendments. this process is rotten from the top to the bottom, and what i would ask for is that we have a hearing. let's invite teachers to washington, let's invite superintendents, let's invite principals to washington. let's find out what they think of "no child left behind" before we rush through an 86-page bill that no one -- an 868-page bill that no one mass had time to read. this is what's wrong with washington. this is the type of arrogance about the way washington works that is really making us unpopular in the public's ievment i say fix "no child left behind," repeal it or fix it. but at least give us time read the bill and i object to this unanimous consent. the presiding officer: objection is heard. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the gentleman is recognized. mr. harkin: mr. president, i'll sorry that the senator from kentucky is objecting to our

meeting. i say to my friend from kentucky, the one thing that i believe that both senator enzi and i did -- and other members of our committee on both sides of the aisle did -- to get this bill to where it is was to put aside ideology, to put aside ideology, to do what's best for our kids. i believe the "help" committee on both sides of the aisle -- senator enzi and i, on both sides -- have done everything i ible to move the bill in a considerate, logical legislative manner. we started on this last year. i say to my friend from kentucky, we had 10 hearings last year -- 10 good, long hearings. we had siewptz, we had teachers -- we had superintendents, we had teachers, we had principals, we had a broad input from across america into what they wanted in

a reauthorization bill. now, i'm sorry the senator wasn't here last year, but the senate is a continuing body. does that mean that every two years we have to start all over from scratch every time? so we had all our hearings last year. and that was cleared again with senator enzi and i. let's get the hearings out of the road and then this year we could focus on putting the bill together. so we had our hearings. i say to my friend, we brought in teachers, principals, superintendents from all over america. and then starting in january, we began a time-honored process whereby the chairman and ranking member started working on putting the bill together with our professional staff. that's why we have professional staff. senator alexander was in

involved in that, other senators were brought in, senator bennet, senator franken, others on the republican side were brought in on that. i would say this, mr. president: the senator from kentucky had every day since he was sworn in in january to come to me or to go to senator enzi and say, i'm on the committee. here's what i would like in the bill. and that would have been considered. other senators did that. i see two of them sitting here right now who came and said, here's what i'd like to have in the bill. well, i sat down with senator enzi, we discussed it, some "yes," some "no," some modifications, work it out through the process, as we went through. now, i don't know if the senator from kentucky ever went to see senator enzi about what he wanted in the bism i know he didn't come see me. our doors are open. there was no secret that we were meeting.

meeting about this. we started in january. everybody in our committee -- the staffs all knew that. so that is the legislative process. and when it's all done, we want to put together a bipartisan bill. that's what we did. i say to my friend from kentucky, it wasn't filed 48 hours ago. it was filed a weekal yesterday -- tuesday that bill was filed, it was put online. i put that bill online. so would had a whole week to look at it. and, quite frankly, what happened is we got a feedback. i say to my friend, we put the bill online, we got feedback, and as a result of that we made some final changes. that is the legislative process. and so senator enzi and i worked together on a managers' amendment to incorporate some of the objections that came in during the week to make the bill even more bipartisan.

and we filed that managers' amendment on monday morning at 10:00. but that wasn't the whole bill. i put the bhoal bill online a week ago -- i put the whole bill online a week ago use it day. it was just the managers' amendment, a fine-tuning of it before we met in markup. so i say that the senator from kentucky had every opportunity to let us know what he wanted in that bill, and i never saw him. i never saw him. he never came to me. i'm on the floor all the time. my door is open. my staff is available. my professional staff is available. and, if the senator from kentucky had segment wanted in the bill and it wasn't -- had something he wanted in the bill and it wasn't included, he has the right to offer an amendment of i wanted this committee to operate in an open manner, in a manner in which we have operated

in the past legislatively. the senator didn't have something in the bill that he wanted in, he has the right to offer an amendment and to debate it and get a vote on it in our committee. and the senator has filed 74 amendments. we had 144 amendments filed. under our rules it had to be filed 49 hours before. the senator from kentucky offered 74 amendments. well, now the senator from kentucky is objecting to our even meeting to consider his own amendments. please, someone explain the logic of that to the senator from iowa. he's got the amendments. the process is open. he can offer amendments. get them debated. get them voted on. but the senator from kentucky is objecting to us meeting in order to even consider his amendments. secondly, i heard the senator again on the floor today and

earlier when we met earlier this morning in committee to start our process of mark up the bill, said he wanted to do with "no child left behind." -- he wanted to do away with "no child left behind." that's exactly what this bill does. it gets rid of "no child left behind" and some of the narrow prescriptions and proscriptions in the bill and does in fact return a lot to local control, and we build a partnership, a partnership with the federal government and state and local governments. a better partnership than what we've had in the past. and i think that's why we have a good, bipartisan bill. again, i -- the senator from kentucky and i probably have different views on this. i understand that. that's why we have a senate. that's why we have debates. that's why we have committee meetings and markups. if i were writing the bill, i would write a completely different bill than the senator from kentucky would write.

he would write one completely different than mine. that's why we meet in committeees. that's why we harm these things out over a long process. you don't just shout the door and say, it's my -- you don't just shut the door and say, it's my way or no way. i'm the chairman, i'm willing to listen to his amendments and have him offer them. but how can we hear his amendments, consider his amendments if the senator won't even allow us to meet under the rules of the senate? i have no logical explanation for that. well, there's a lot more i could say, mr. president, but this is just -- this is just illogical. that's all i can say. it's just illogical. i see the senator from colorado on his feet. i would yield to the senator from colorado for any questions he might have. mr. bennet: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from colorado is recognized. mr. bennet: mr. president, thank you. and i have never done this in the two and a half years that i

have been in the senate. i haven't been here a long time, and i've spent a lot of time complaining about the way this place works. but i had to come to the floor to implore the senator from kentucky to reconsider his objection. and i do it not because i have a perspective on this as a united states senator. i do it because i had the honor of serving as the superintendent of schools of denver for four years of my life and have dedicated years of my life, but more importantly, seen the dedication of the people that are working in our schools. the senator speaks of the tragedy of this process. i'll stem cell what you a -- i'll tell you what a tragedy is. the tragedy is that only nine of 100 children livering in poverty in this country in 2011 can expect to get a college degree. that's a tragedy. the fact that when i became superintendent in the denver public schools, on the 10th

grade math test there were 33 african-american students proficient on that test and 61 latino students proficient on that tevment a test, mr. president, that if we're honest with ourselves -- which we're not -- measures a junior high school standard of mathematicamathmatter proficie . that's a tragedy. it is a tragedy that there are people working in our schools right now at 11:15 in colorado doing the best they can to serve our kids and we think a two-hour meet something too long. that's a tragedy. i wouldn't have drafted the bill exactly the way it's been drafted. the chairman knows that. he and i even have disagreements about some of the things in this bill. but finally, after two and a half years, there's a bipartisan piece of legislation in front of the committee that's having the

benefit of the work of the senators that are there, and we're told that meeting for two hours is too long. the senator has every right to make his objection under the senate rules, which the president has observed may need some updating. but i think if you ask yourself why is it that we have a 12% approval rating that's going down, it's because of this kind of thing. i actually looked forward to hearing the senator from kentucky's amendments. i wanted to know what they were. as the chairman mentioned, there are 146 amendments that have been offered. i have some that i've offered. only three or four. the senator from kentucky has 74 of the 140 amendments. notice two hours we met today, we considered three amendments, i think -- ored on threevment we

were debating a -- or vietnamedr voted on three. if we're going to do in this two-hour increments, my math -- i am proficient in math, thank goodness. my smaght that it would make -- my math is that it would take 60 days to do this in two-hour increments. you know why people are fed up with this place? is because they don't think the debate we're having is about them. they think the debate we're having is about us. and you know what? they're right about that. they're right about that. the teachers all across my state, all across the district that i have worked in want us to lift this burden from them. in my view, the biggest federal overreach ever in domestic policy. and that's what this bill does, not for ideological reasons, but

to help respond to the voices of our teachers, respond to the voices of our superintendent, respond to the voices of our parents who are sick and tired of the almost comical, but to them painful measures of annual, yearly progress. the idea that we're going to label all of our schools failing by 2014 because we have a completely madeup accountability system in washington, d.c. this bill does away with that t. doesn't do it in exactly the way that i would want to do it, left to my own devices, but it does it in a way that can get bipartisan support in the united states senate. so, and i mean this broadly. i'm not saying this in this case. when people see the political games that are being played here, when they see people that

are unwilling to work together, and they are killing themselves to deliver for our kids, i'm not sure there's anything more backhanded we can do. so i would beg the senator from kentucky to let us have the hearing of, the committee meeting. let us consider his amendments and all the rest. today's conversation was one of the first -- i regret to say this -- one of the first substantive conversations that i have had in a committee hearing since i have been here. and i thank the chairman and i thank the ranking member for creating a context where that could happen. let's have the conversation. i'd be happy to meet 24 hours a day to talk about this subject with the senator from kentucky. 24 hours a day every day.

because if you care about the widening gap between rich and poor in this country, you cannot sustain anything remotely approaching our -- a senator: will the senator yield for a question? mr. bennet: i will in one second. anything remotely approaching our claim to be a land of opportunity when 9 out of 100 children born in poverty can graduate with a college degree, when 91 out of 100 children who are unfortunate enough to be born poor are con straepbd to the march -- constrained to the margin of our democracy and the margin of our economy. just to be clear about it, there are 100 seats in the united states senate. when i walk in this room, i think about what if the 100 people that were here were children living in poverty in

the united states? here's how many would have a college degree that. chair, that chair, that chair, that chair, these four chairs and this one. that's it. the rest of this chamber would be occupied by people that didn't have the benefit of a college degree. mr. paul: will the senator yield for a question? mr. harkin: i believe i have the floor. mr. bennet: mr. president. mr. paul: i'm asking to yield for a question. the presiding officer: the senator from iowa has the floor. mr. harkin: again, i recognize the senator wants to, let's do this in a logical, again, orderly manner. people want to be here to speak, i think the senator from colorado made some good points. i was yielding to him for a question. i would yield if the senator from minnesota has a question. then the senator from kentucky has every right to speak. the presiding officer: the senator from north carolina. mr. burr: under the current

structure, how long before a member on this side can be recognized? the presiding officer: a senator cannot be recognized until the floor is relinquished. mr. burr: i thank the chair and i yield back. mr. harkin: i would yield to the senator from minnesota for a question. the presiding officer: the senator from minnesota. mr. franken: thank you, mr. chairman, for allowing me to ask a question. i just really want to know, because i've only been here two-plus years, but it seems to me that actually -- and from my perspective. this is my perspective -- that this committee has worked in a pretty functional way. it took a long time. we started having hearings on

this -- how long ago was it? about a year and a half? mr. harkin: my friend from minnesota, it started at least a year and a half ago. maybe a year and three quarters ago. mr. franken: okay. during this whole period i talked with you. i have asked to see the ranking member and meet with him in his office to hell him what i want -- to tell him what i wanted to see in this bill. i agree with the senator from kentucky, who talked about there's just one test at the end of the year, and the kids don't -- the teachers don't get to see the results until the kids are out the door. i think that's terrible. and i'm offering an amendment that the ranking member referred to today. and i have gone all around my state since i've been a

committee member and talked to teachers about how to -- what they want to see to fix this or to get rid of "no child left behind" and replace it with something that makes sense. that's exactly what we're doing. isn't this the normal order of things? that's my question. i went to senator alexander and met with him in his office to explain what i wanted in this. and my staff has been meeting with every other member -- not every other member's staff but every other member's staff who seems to be engaged in this on both sides of the aisle, with your staff, with the committee staff, with staff from senator enzi's office, i keep hearing

whose staff they're talking to about this amendment or that amendment or this piece that's going to be in the managers' bill. i mean, i think i have spent more time on this bill than on any other bill in my time here, and nothing has stopped me from being engaged in it. and i don't think there's anything that has stopped anyone in our committee from going back over the transcripts of the many, many hearings we had. and i do that often. so my question is: is this -- am i wrong here or hasn't this been conducted in a way that's actually as these things go, pretty functional for any member

who wants to be engaged in the process? and i think what it does -- i think there's a responsibility on the behalf of committee members. and isn't there a responsibility on the behalf of committee members to be active in the committee, to come to hearings, to be engaged in the process, to approach the chair, to approach the ranking member? isn't that part of our responsibility? mr. harkin: i say to my friend from minnesota, that i think's right, if you want to be engaged in the process of legislation, then, like i said, the senator from minnesota has talked to me many times about what he wants in the bill as well as the senator from colorado and people on the republican side have talked to me about what should be in the bill, what shouldn't be in the bill. that is the process. and i would say to my friend from minnesota that i've been chairman twice before -- not of

this committee but of the agriculture committee -- when we did major agricultural bills. one was in 2001 and the other one was in 2007. both times i worked with the ranking members, basically the same kind of process. and we got bipartisan bills through that were signed by president bush both times, 2001 and in 2007. and this is the process we used. and we let amendments be offered. we opened up. no one on the committee ever raised an objection to our meeting during the senate session. and we got our jobs done. that's the way we've always done. that's the legislative, as i said, considerate, logical legislative process i say to my friend from minnesota. that's the way we've always conducted it. what it does, it allows members, senators who are interested, as the senator from minnesota has been so keenly interested in

this indication bill, to give them -- in this education bill, to give them time, to go to phaoerbgs to go to the -- to go to me, to go to the ranking member. i say to my friend from minnesota, i'm sure we didn't put in everything he wanted in the bill, but i think the senator has the right to offer the amendments in committee. mr. franken: i really want to thank the ranking member for his -- we talk on the phone about this. we've talked over dinner about this bill. i want to thank senator alexander. i asked to come to his office, and we spent a very, very substantive session talking exactly about how i saw this, what was wrong with "no child left behind" and how we could

get essentially get rid of it and solve what it is that every teacher hates about it and what principals hate about it and what superintendents hate about it. and senator alexander and i had some disagreements on things, but, man, i think we agreed on 80% of this, and i think i had an 80% agreement -- that's senator enzi's rule. he has this 80% rule, which is that we agree on 80% and we focus on the 20%. i have a 64% rule, which is that 80% of the time we agree on 80%. and you see senator bennet laugh because he is proficient at math. mr. harkin: i didn't know if the senator from kentucky wanted me to yield to him for a question to get involved in the colloquy or not, or the senator

from north carolina. i don't know if the senator from kentucky wanted me to yield for a question or a colloquy. i'd be glad to do that. mr. paul: yes, mr. president, i do have a question. several members on the committee have said they would be happy to have meetings 24 hours a day. why don't we have a hearing on the bill? why don't we invite teachers, superintendents and principals? there's been no hearing since the last election. there is no reason why we can't. the other question you have and you need to answer is what do you say to the national association of elementary school principals, the national education association, the national school boards association and the national association of secondary school principals who say let's don't get pushed aside in this race against the clock? i'm not opposed to much of what is going to happen with the bill. i think "no child left behind" has many errors and we can fix some of them. what i'm opposed to is the process of giving us an 868-page

bill yesterday and saying take it or leave it. we need more time to read the bill. we need these organizations who are very interested in education and is their livelihood to come in and make comment on this bill. that would be an open hearings process. so anything else to me is disingenuous. mr. harkin: i say to my friend from kentucky -- and i will yield the floor very soon. i say to my friend from kentucky that -- i will say it again, we put this bill online a week ago tuesday. some of the mail that you're talking about, the letters came in after that because they read the bill. epbgt primary -- i think the primary objections in all those letters had to do with teacher evaluations and how, what we're going to do in the bill on teacher evaluations. well, that's what we fix in the managers' amendment that we laid down monday morning. i am told -- i haven't seen it

but i am told that the national education association, for example, has withdrawn from that letter because of the fix we made. and that's why you put the bill online. i said that earlier. we put it online, a lot of objections came in, we modified it in a managers' amendment to move forward on that bill. that's exactly how we do it. and i say to my friend from kentucky that we have had a whole week. again, my friend has filed 74 amendments to the bill. how can you file 74 amendments if you haven't read the bill? i mean, it seems to me if you file 74 amendments, you must have read the bill. i assume that last week, the senator must have read the bill and then filed 74 amendments on the bill. you can't have it both ways. you can't say i didn't read the bill, but here's 74 amendments. that doesn't kind of hold

together logically. so again, i will just close on this note. the senator from california is absolutely right. we're here talking about process and who's up, who's down, all of this kind of stuff. there are teachers out in america that are grappling with kids now that are under this burden of no child left behind and these a.y.p.'s, knowing that no matter how much they progress their kids in one year, they are still failing, and this bill relieves them of that, takes that yoke off of them. every one of us has heard when we go back to our states, from teachers, from parents, from administrators that this no child left behind is not good. it's got to be changed, it's got to be fixed, and that's what our bill does. yet how are we going to change it, how are we going to fix it if we're not even allowed to

meet? so again, i hope the senator from kentucky again would allow us to move forward in this process and allow us to go ahead and have our amendment processed. i say to my friend he has another shot at this bill on the floor. so we have the committee and we're going to come to the floor and amendments will be offered on the floor. that's the legislative process. no one person gets to dictate what's in this bill, not one person. not me, not senator enzi, not the senator from kentucky. no one person gets to dictate it. we're all working together collaboratively in a bipartisan fashion i think we can shape and fashion this bill and move it forward. mr. president, i do yield the floor. mr. burr: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from north carolina is recognized. mr. burr: i appreciate the recognition and say to my colleagues there are a lot of blanket statements that have been made about one's level of

participation. i have negotiated with the chairman of this committee for nine months on the reauthorization of our emergency preparedness and biodefense in this country. i know what negotiations are. i know what supplies is. i know what commitment of time is. i got this bill last friday. i will find out where it went online or which copy went online. my staff got this bill last friday. yes, we have read it. we have read it, put together eight amendments. not as voluminous as senator rand paul, but he gets that ability, just like he gets the ability to be heard. the minority's only leverage in the institution is to have an opportunity to offer amendments and to debate them. i hear what you're saying, but

based upon the time frame that you said, and you don't get the privilege of doing that when you have got to deal with the minority. and i know that the chairman who i have deep respect for has been here a long time, and he knows it, and this could have been something very easily worked out with communications on both sides of the aisle, and the fact is that as i prepared for this markup, i was told that there was an agreement and that agreement meant that the chairman and the ranking member were going to hold this bill intact. there were going to be no exceptions to it. they were going to vote for anything that was substantive, they would make sure this bill didn't change. well, that doesn't give one a lot of comfort at knowing what the outcome of amendments is going to be, regardless of the merit of the amendment, and when we started this morning, the chairman was very gracious to me. he let me say my due for about

five minutes, and i'm appreciative of it. i made it very clear to members at that time the only thing i asked them to do was weigh it on the merits of the amendment. mine was the first amendment out of the chute, and it was my best shot. i'll say right here on the senate floor, it was a damned good amendment. you know what? in lockstep, we went down the line and it proved to me there's a deal. and you know the next amendment was offered by senator franken, and i was the first one that stood up and said i disagree with the base text -- it was offered by both of you -- but i'll support it. i'm in year 17. senator franken said he spent more time on this bill than any bill ever. boy, if that's the case, that's a sad statement about how much time we spend on legislation

because you couldn't have had it more than since last tuesday, according to the chairman himself. mr. franken: would the senator yield for a question? mr. burr: i appreciate it. i will take questions at some point. mr. franken: i think that was unfair. mr. burr: i patiently sat here waiting for my own time. i will use it and then i will just the senator to stand and ask a question. so in the same statement, there was criticism of the participation. apparently, we or i or senator paul hadn't spent the time or hadn't devoted the time to this particular piece of legislation. i have been working on this for years. i think the chairman knows i'm passionate. when i get involved, it's not from a standpoint of a lack of knowledge. it's from a standpoint of trying to achieve the right end.

now, the chairman said very clearly we're not going to make this perfect out of committee. we're going to have another shot at it on the senate floor. well, let me remind my colleagues, 55 times in this congress the majority has chosen to fill the amendment tree, meaning no minority member has an opportunity to amend legislation. how can i feel good about a truncated markup process that happens four days after i physically got an 868-page bill when the caveat that i'm given is oh, but you will have another opportunity to do it on the floor. maybe, maybe not. i don't think the chairman can make an assurance to me that we're going to have an open rule on the senate floor that allows unlimited amendments.

if he can, i will yield to him for that consent. it's above your pay grade. it's above mine, too. and the reality is that decision won't be made by the chairman, it won't be made by the ranking member, and it really won't be made because somebody's trying to perfect a bill. now, i learned a long time ago coming to the senate floor and screaming, that doesn't do any good. it wakes people up in the gallery. people at home think this must be important. this is about our kids. this is about whether k-12 education works. now, there is one takeaway that we can all make. no child left behind was well-intended legislation, and implemented poorly, embraced by

very few. north carolina happened to be a state that received a tremendous amount of waivers. we got a waiver from average yearly progress because our state actually had a yardstick that was better and the secretary of education recognized that. it didn't through those waivers change any of the federal intrusion into k-12. let me explain what i mean. we have got right now about 93 education programs that are authorized, not all of them are funded. and you know what? if your system determines that you can use one of those programs, you can access that money, but if there is not a program for what your problem is, you don't get a shot at the money. i suggested through legislation that we take all of those programs and throw them into two pots of money and give states full flexibility to decide how they use the money. this bill, we talk about

flexibility. well, it does eliminate the title of 40 pieces of -- 40 programs and it throws them into six new major mega education programs. still with the strings, got to spend it the way we design it in washington, not the way you interpret it at home. and for a superintendent, that shouldn't settle real well with you. flexibility versus prescription, one way is federal intrusion into local education. the other is a partnership for education success. now, having gone with this one-size-fits-all called no child left behind, i would think that the natural swing would be, if we really want to fix education, why don't we enlist educators, superintendents, principals in this bill. the 868 pages that we're going

to debate -- and it will happen. the chairman knows that. minority rules can only last so long, and we'll be marking this bill up and hopefully it will come to the floor and we'll get an opportunity to amend it, but incorporated in this bill is 20 pages that define reading. i want you to think about that. when the claims are made that this is not federal intrusion, this is not a one size fits all, this bill spends 20 pages defining for every local school system what reading is. this is insane. i've got a simple challenge for my colleagues. what happened about the accountability of parents? and teachers and principals and elected school board and community leaders? healthy communities today have a

relatively successful k-12 education system, and in most cases it's because employers recognize the fact that that is potentially their future work force, and their educational success is that community success for survival and for advancement. what this bill does is say we're going to determine what highly gifted is for teachers. we're going to determine what success or failure is. we're going to take the place of the parent, of the teacher, of the superintendent, of the elected officials, of the business community. we're just going to take that all over. not from the standpoint of the amount of money, we're still participating at about the same level. it's about 10% of the overall cost of k-12. but if you don't play by our rules, you don't get our programs, you don't get our money, and i dare say there is not a one of us that recognizes the fact that every community

has a unique problem. where one is a school building, the next one is available highly gifted teachers. where one might be the ability to have a second language taught, the other one might be the passion of teacher for america teachers that infiltrate their system. you see, i -- i can't come up, no matter how many pages i write, with a k-12 education bill that i can honestly say trumps what i think any community that i represent could come up with on their own. if anything, i know i would be woefully short of what they could do. the answer to me is let's get them more in charge. let's empower them more. let's give them greater flexibility. let's be what we are best at, a financial partner in the success of education. as a matter of fact, we will take up an amendment at some

point that triggers the flexibility in the 868 pages. but it's only triggered if a school system accepts one of six things. one of those things is actually federally mandated firing of the principal or x amount of teachers of a failing school. how in the world could we put in federal legislation that you get the full flexibility if you're willing to go out and fire the principal or 20 teachers at a school that has been determined by washington to be a failure. this is almost surreal to me. in many ways, it goes way past where no child left behind tried to get to, which was creating a measurement tool that could be seen by all and judgments made based upon that, although it

wasn't perfect. now, what my colleague, senator paul, has asked for, quite honestly is very reasonable. take the bill, the one that we're considering, not the one that went up last tuesday and i got this email while i've been talking, the original bill was put up on line one week ago. the manager's amendment on monday. the document explaining the changes was on line yesterday. so everybody's right. the only problem is that what senator paul described, which was the bill that we're considering right now, it went up on monday. the explanations for the changes went up yesterday. and i'm sure if senator paul came up with 74 amendments, his staff has been a little busier than the seven or eight that my staff came up with. but what senator paul has asked for is very reasonable.

take this bill, not a hypothetical bill, and let's just have -- let's just have a hearing on it. not a markup, a hearing. at whatever speed the chairman can put it together. where we bring in actual educators, we bring in superintendents, we bring in school board members. we bring in a parent. that would be novel. i can still remember reading in the washington, d.c. schools when i started 17 years ago, i remember the first teacher-parent mentor meeting. i remember the expectations that i'd have a parent that really didn't care about a fifth grader's future. if they did, why would this child be so challenged to read? and what i met as i walked in and met with that parent, was

the parent of a fifth grader who said congressman, you're my son's only hope. i want him to have so much more than i do. i went in there because -- i wasn't there because of a government program. i was there because i think every child ought to have the opportunity to succeed. and you can't write that in a bill. you can't describe for every community how you get to success. if we could, no child left behind would have been perfect. because everybody believed it would have that big a change. you see, this is about not just changing a system, it's about creating passion. passion for success. i would tell you passion for success is not taking the federal government's h.r. department, which is pitiful, and saying well, let's export this to every school system in

america. that's telescope answer. the answer is for us to -- not the answer. the answer is for to us get out of the way. to empower those local officials to make the changes they need to and for the judgment to be those community leaders, those parents. we'll have a debate soon on what's highly qualified. and it's very prescriptive as to what a highly qualified teacher needs to be. in my definition, highly qualified is a pharmacist who decided they didn't want to work in the store anymore and they would like to teach chemistry in the high school but under the federal stnders standards that person can't do it because they don't have a certificate to do it and we'll codify that into law in 868 pages and all the talented folks we have around the country who could walk in

the classroom and not only have the educational foundation to teach our students but the passion to want to be there and to say it in a way that wasn't taught out of a textbook but was learned through their occupation. it's gone. it will be gone. and even though that pharmacist may not want to compound drugs anymore, if their choice is that of retirement, they'll be retired. because we've cut off something that they could contribute back into. i didn't mean to go this long but i'll be honest my patience to get the opportunity to speak i heard some outlandish comments. some that quite honestly i could take very personally. to suggest that any member had sufficient time to review this legislation, the only person that could make that comment would be one that got the bill before i did, and i think i'm entitled to have it at the same

time every other member of the committee gets it. to have an agreement that says well, we're not jest going to take amendments, you can offer them but we're not going to take them, well, ladies and gentlemen, i think that that's a black eye on the entire institution if we would adopt a policy like that, but i've seen it up close and personal already. i'd love to take the chairman at his word that we'll have an opportunity on the floor to fix this bill, but i can't go based on how the floor has run up to this time and believe there will be one opportunity for me to offer an amendment so i've got to roll my dice on the markup process in committee, and i've got to do it in a way that accommodates every member and as senator paul believes he needs more time i've got to be there to try to defend his time. that's inconvenient for people, it's going to be inconvenient.

but the truth is, our children's future is way more important than our convenience. our children's future is way too important to rush a bill. our children's future is way more important than a deal between a ranking member and a chairman as to how to make this easy out of committee so that we can fix it on the floor. i've been here 17 years. perfection is not possible in congress. but perfection should be our goal every day. when you look at what we've debated and why, you understand

why less than 15% of the american people think highly of us. i think what we're getting ready to do will have a significant impact on how that number is reduced, not how it is increased. i thank my colleagues for their patience. they certainly don't have to request time from me. i will yield back and gladly allow them whatever of their own time they'd like to take. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from colorado is recognized. mr. bennett: i would like to say to the senator from south carolina, i am well aware of his long-standing commitment to education of the kids in this country and i'm hoping you didn't take anything i said to suggest that and i think the two

of us share a loft agreement on what we ought to be doing. my issue is simply as i said the senator from kentucky has ever right to do it, my issue is like you and other members of the committee, i want to engage in a discussion and debate on the bill and i want to consider your amendments and his amendments, and offer my own, and i am painfully aware, having been in the school system, that congress was supposed to reauthorizing this -- reauthorize this bill in 2007. it's four years later because of our own feklessness, our own inability to get anything done, then every single year parents, teachers and principals keep having to put up with what is the crudest accountability system i could imagine. the only thing cruder than the accountability system was the

response of big school districts like the one i used to work in to that accountability as people tried to comply with well-intentioned but incredibly poorly thought through laws and regulations from washington, d.c. and i don't want them to have to endure one more year of this, of this meaningless accountability where, you know, we're comparing this year's fourth graders to last year's fourth graders and telling ourselves that actually makes a difference. there's a lot of good work being done in our states right now around standards, elevating them, so we quit fooling ourselves about whether we're meeting international norms when it comes to our kids. there's a lot of great work being done in colorado and other states that have come along creating a growth model so that we can actually track not -- not we but moms and dads and teachers and principals can actually track how this group of

fifth graders did compared to how they did as fourth graders, compared to how they did as third graders and compare them to similarly situated kids across the state and the country. that makes all the sense in the world compared to what we currently have. but i've sat out there in absolute dispair wondering why this town was so mean to our teachers and to our kids. isn't it a bare minimum you could reauthorize the legislation when you're supposed to in 2007? and now we find ourselves here. i thought the senator from north carolina was very eloquent this morning and today on the floor as well. and i appreciated the points that he made. my objection is a narrow one which is the idea that the right way to approach reauthorizing no child left behind, the right way to approach trying to fix this situation is to create a bump of procedural barriers that don't allow us to have a

substantive discussion about it. and i agree completely with what the senator from north carolina said maintenance ago. there is a reason we have not a 15% approval rating but a 12% approval rating. there's a reason. and i think if we could come together in a bipartisan way, reauthorize this bill, get rid of a.y.p., do some of the important things in this legislation, i hope the senator will look at one of my amendments because one of my amendments has your pharmacist in mind, if only we could get to a discussion of -- of the merits of this bill. and so i hope the senator from kentucky has left the floor, i hope my only objective coming down here today was to simply implore him to withdraw that objection knowing it's his right to do it. but i can't think of why you would do it if you wanted to change the trajectory of the work from the federal level. so i thank the senator from

north carolina, the senator from minnesota, and i will yield the floor. mr. franken: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from smin recognized. mr. franken: mr. president, i also respect my good friend from north carolina and i thank you for your vote on my amendment. and i think you're going to like some of my other amendments, too. i just want to take issue with one thing you said, and i think you said it in a moment that -- where if you thought about what you said, you probably -- probably might reconsider it. and you said that -- i had said that i've spent more time probably on this bill than on any other. and i've spent a lot of time on the affordable care act. and you said that if i had spent more time on this bill than any other, that's pathetic. and it's a pathetic commentary or sad commentary because we just got this bill the other

day. the fact of the matter is -- and i think the senator would acknowledge this -- that work on any piece of legislation doesn't start when the bill's introduced. it starts -- my work on this bill started very soon after i arrived in the senate. it started with a bill that i co-authored with orren hatch, and that's going to be an amendment. it's an amendment to recruit and train principals for high-needs schools. because we've had schools that i've seen turned around by principals. principals can do -- create the ethos of a school. they have so much to do with selecting the teachers and

transforming a school. and this would create a program where we recruit, people want to be principals in high-needs schools and have them mentored if they haven't been a principal before by a principal who successfully turned around a high-needs school. that started immediately upon my getting here to the senate. have been going back to my state and traveling around the state of minnesota talking to teachers and superintendents and principals. the senator from north carolina talked about the need to have superintendents and principals and teachers here. we had hearings.

we had ten hearings. i believe it was the other side that said please stop the hearings at that point. he talked about the transformation models, which i do have problems with. what do you do with a school that's failed? what are you going to do now with the schools in the bottom 5%? but if the senator from south carolina was there, a superintendent joel klein, superintendent of schools in -- or chancellor of the schools in new york, spoke exactly to the transformation models. and again, what works in new york certainly doesn't work in pine city, minnesota, or parts of north carolina. you have plenty of teachers available and plenty of principals available in new york city. so i think you need more

flexibility and transformation models than -- in this bill than joel klein suggests, and maybe that's in the manager's bill now. but joel klein is a superintendent and he spoke to the transformation models and he said that the transformation models gave him the ability to fix schools that were failing, schools that were dropout factories so the very thing we have been asked for here, let's have testimony from superintendents. aren't these transformation models surreal? we have had these hearings, and i would suggest to the senator from kentucky who just came in,

my -- my office will print out the transcripts of all the hearings we had, and you can read what teachers and principals and superintendents have said. we -- we really -- and i just have to say that the work that you do on these bills doesn't start when the bill hits the desk. in my case, it started two years before. and, you know, i don't think the senator actually meant -- mr. burr: would the senator yield for one second? mr. franken: for a question, sure. mr. burr: if the senator

interpreted my comments to be personally targeted at him, then i do apologize. the senator said -- and i wrote it down -- "i spent more time on this bill than any other bill ever." my criticism about the statement was i said if the senator got the bill when i did, then there is not a whole lot of time between friday when i got the bill and wednesday when it was marked up. i -- i don't question for a minute that the senator from minnesota or his staff has spent a tremendous amount of hours on education, but in defense of senator paul and what he has sought is there has not been a hearing on this legislation. there are some things in this 868-page bill that our committee has not had a hearing on, that it would be great to have the opportunity to ask someone who is an education professional.

in the absence of the ability to do that, you, i, the senator from kentucky, our staffs all have to rely on what committee staff tells us, and that is not always the most accurate thing, regardless of which side of the aisle you're seeking that information. so i -- i appreciate what the senator from minnesota has said. i think that education should be a passionate debate, and we have seen some passion here this afternoon, and i would hope that the senator from minnesota would suggest to senator harkin maybe there is a pathway where we can get predictability in the number of amendments, predictability in the time it takes to mark this up with some accommodation to the sensitivities that senator rand paul and others have raised, because i hope that the senator from minnesota would agree with me. there is not an urgency to do this this week, and if we could

when we come back from the end of october have a hearing, i think we could have a pathway to markup and completion. having said that, it probably will be a product that i couldn't support. i will aggressively try to amend, and i would be anxious and hopeful that i would have the opportunity again on the floor to try to affect its content. but if the senator will be an advocate for that, i think that there is a pathway that doesn't in any way, shape or form delay our ability in this institution to conference with the house or to present the president a bill. i would be more concerned with whether we produce the right product, and i think we can achieve that better, and i thank senate for yielding to me. mr. franken: certainly, and i -- obviously, i believe that in the markup, we will have the

discussion, a healthy discussion of every part of this bill, of every amendment, and i think the senator from north carolina is going to be so thrilled with my amendments that at the end of the day he's going to not just cast an aye vote on the bill but an enthusiastic one. my -- i don't -- i accept your apology. i don't think you said exactly what you said you said. so what you said was if the senator spent -- and it's not worth going into. the point is that you work on a -- your work on a bill doesn't start when you get the -- when a piece of legislation is written. most of the work comes before. and i -- i just want everyone to understand that who is listening

. i can't -- this bill has been a tremendous passion of mine. you mentioned passion for success. i -- i want the growth model. we had senator bennet who is superintendent -- who was superintendent of the denver schools, and a very successful one. when i did my principal bill, i went to a school in st. paul, minnesota, daytons bluff, which had been a failed school and was turned around by a successful principal, and that principal -- so i had a roundtable there. this is very early in my tenure here. and one of the principals said you know those no child left behind tests, we call them autopsies. what he meant was you take them

at the end of the year, you take them in late april, and you don't get the results until the kids are out of school, and then the results are aggregated. in minnesota, i have something that teachers -- i have something. we have something in minnesota that the teachers, superintendents and principals agree on, something called the nwea tests. what are those? they are computer-adaptive tests. what does that mean? in minnesota, very often they take these three times a year. they are computer tests. so the teachers get the results right away. the principal called the no child left behind tests autopsies because the kids are out of school, the teacher can't use it to inform instruction. if you do a computer test, you get them right away, the teacher can use the test to inform their instruction. i think that's what most parents

thought we were doing here in the first place when president bush first suggested this whole thing. secondly, they are adap tiff. what does that mean? well, that means if a kid gets a question right, keeps getting questions right, the questions get harder. if they start getting questions wrong, they get easier. it's much more diagnostic. and you can see exactly where a child is. right now, the no child left behind tests forbid the -- these assessments from going outside grade level. arne duncan, the secretary of education, said something really profound. he said that a sixth grade teacher takes a kid from a third grade level of reading to a fifth grade level is a success, is a great teacher, but under no

child left behind, the way it is now, that teacher is a failure. that makes no sense whatsoever. we have to measure growth. that's what the senator from colorado was talking about. we need to measure growth. and that's no mystery. i go around schools, and i remember being in a school in st. cloud, minnesota. i was introduced by the principal to the teacher who won teacher of the year, a math teacher. and i met the math teacher and the math teacher said growth. this is not a mystery. we have had hearings on this and we know this. we need to be measuring how much kids grow. and that will help kids that are from poor schools because they are starting on a lower level,

but if the school is good and they are increasing their growth, they will be rewarded. my daughter graduated from college. i'm looking at the pages now who are juniors in high school. my daughter immediately out of college became a teacher at a school in the bronx. 97% free and reduced price lunches. third grade teacher. she had to take her kids -- that's the first year they do no child left behind testing. she had to take her kids from here to here to this arbitrary level of proficiency in order to be considered a success, where 15 miles to the north a teacher in westchester had to take her kids from here to here. that doesn't make any sense. in minnesota, i learned from my

teachers that i have talked to that there is something called the race to the middle. what's that? well, no child left behind, the way it works now, is that there is an arbitrary bar of proficiency that a teacher is judged on, and what percentage of their kids in these different sub groups meet or exceed that bar of proficiency. well, you know what? the smartest kid or the -- the smartest kid in the class, that kid is going to pass no matter what. there's nothing you could do to that kid that won't make that kid exceed the bar of proficiency. so guess what? the teacher ignores that kid. the kid at the bottom, the most challenged kid, well, no way that kid is going to make it, so let's ignore that kid. raise to the middle.

kids right at the -- below and right above proficiency, those are the kids that are drilled, drilled and killed, as they call it in minnesota. we know what's wrong with no child left behind. we have been discussing it for a year and a half in hearings. we have been talking about it. i have been talking to the ranking member. he mentioned today these computer hp adaptive tests in the hearing -- or in the markup. these things aren't mysteries. members were welcome to come to the hearing. some didn't come. but the work on a bill doesn't start the day the bill hits the table. the work of a senator, if the

senator is a hard-working senator, is every day. it's going back to your state and finding out what teachers and principals and superintendents need. and it's going to the hearings. it's talking to the other members and to the chairman, to the ranking member, and to your staff and your staff is getting information from other staffers. not just the committee staff but from other staffers. i just don't want to leave this this -- people with the impression that we work once the bill hits the table. so, mr. chairman -- mr. president, i yield the floor and would suggest the absence of

a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: quorum call:

quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senior senator from ohio. mr. brown: thank you, mr. president. i ask unanimous consent to dispense with the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. the senator is recognized. mr. brown: i ask consent that peter wesner, a detailee from the department be given privileges of the floor during consideration of h.r. 2112. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. brown: i would like to speak to two amendments, not call them up but speak to two aims, if i cay. one is about basic civil rights and fair housing organizations and the other is about counseling and i would like to speak on both amendments, mr. president. our nation's fair housing organizations help enforce basic vieflts, something that has been important in this country for many years. they investigate housing discrimination, they educate tenants and homeowners of their rights. they fight the pernicious discrimination that targets and red lines low-income americans in communities of color.

housing discrimination not only violates our laws, it is a barrier to economic mobility. that's why the department of housing and urban development supports a program which supports fair housing groups across the country. they investigate mortgage lending fraud and predatory lending. they investigate foreclosure cases that force homeowners out of their homes, a problem in the presiding officer's state and my state and across the country. simply put, fhip hems the very organizations that educate the public and enforce the laws that protect people from housing discrimination. the program's cost-effective saving h.u.d. money as it streamlines government resources to more effectively and efficiently investigate complaints. fair housing organizations investigated 65% of the nation's complaints of housing discrimination, nearly twice as

many as all agencies combined. fair housing advocates in cincinnati, in dayton and toledo, cleveland, akron, in columbus in towns across appalachia, ohio, fight predatory lenders. for millions of americans, a barrier to security is the lateent discrimination of worthless landlords and unscrupulous lenders. without the organization, our country and economy are subject to the very discrimination that not only hurts individual renters and homeowners but holds too many communities back. that's why i'm offering this amendment to restore full funding to fhip in line with the house level. fate and federal fair housing enforcement is already stretched thin. in my home state, the state civil rights commission has only four investigators devoted to housing complainltseses. it would be devastating to cut private fair housing programs any further. this amendment is supported by the leadership conference on civil and human rights, the

national council of la raza. it is supported by ohio organizations like dayton's miami fair housing center, neighborhood housing services of greater cleveland, the coalition on homelessness, and housing in ohio, the ohio c.d.c. association, the toledo fair housing association and the homeownership center of greater dayton. own sunday -- on sunday, mr. president, the martin luther king jr. memorial was officially dedicated. it is a reminder that the brutal beatings and segregation may in fact be over. but that our fight to remove the stains of discrimination all too often continue. it continues through thousands -- continues through the fight to remove those stains continues through thousands of fair housing organizations who serve millions of our fellow americans. it continues with this body investing in these organizations. mr. president, that's the first

amendment. i also would ask unanimous consent, mr. president, to -- i mentioned the endorsements of many organizations. this is a letter from those organizations, civil rights organizations, supportive our legislation. i'd like to enter this into the record with unanimous consent. the presiding officer: without objection, it will be included in the record. mr. brown: thank you, mr. president. i would like to speak on a second amendment also, mr. president. since a peak in 2006, housing prices, as we know, in this country have fallen by nearly a third. total homeowner equity slashed in half with a loss of more than $7 trillion. some 6 million people have lost homes since the height of the financial crisis. just yesterday we heard aing leading republican presidential candidate tell an editorial board in nevada that his solution to the nation's housing crisis is to speed up -- to speed up -- the rate of foreclosures. this despite clear evidence that basic legal requirements have

often been ignored, have often gone ignored in foreclosures proceedings. this despite clear evidence that some banks have specifically targeted certain communities in specific neighborhoods for foreclosure. this despite the fact that persistent foreclosures are dragging down property values across the nation. i remember some years ago in cleveland in cuyahoga county in my state have had more foreclosures, except for the moratorium here last year had more foreclosures every year than the year before for the last 14 years. and i remember neighborhoods in cleveland where there might be only a couple of foreclosures on a street, but we knew what happened when those homes would be foreclosed on. first what would obviously happen on vandalism and stripping off the aluminum siding and stealing the pipes and the property would be degraded, and the property would be ignored. and what happened to other homes

in the neighborhood and what happened to the prices of, and the values of those homes even though people were paying their mortgage and staying in their homes. and this statement to the nevada, to the nevada newspaper, this despite the fact that a clear message from my distinguished colleague, senator mccain of arizona, senator nelson of florida, representing states like ohio that have been devastated by high rates of foreclosure. earlier this week my colleagues stood on this floor that we need to do, some colleagues said we need to do more to get people a mortgage that they can afford to make the payments on rather than throwing them out of their homes. i couldn't agree more f. we're going to strengthen our economy, we must find a stronger response to the foreclosure crisis, not rushing the process but better managing it. right now the provision of homeowner counseling is one of the most effective ways we have to deal with this crisis. i remember talking to fair housing coalitions n and

counselor organizations in immediately in toledo, dayton and all over my state telling how they were able to avert one family at a time from foreclosure. we know what that means to our state. i've seen firsthand in my state how these programs help better a mortgage payment process that helps keep homeowners in their homes. organizations like the neighborhood services of greater cleveland, the coalition of homelessness and housing in ohio, are leaders in foreclosure counseling. the department of housing and urban affairs invests in the housing counseling assistance program that supports these ohio programs and hundreds of thousands like them across the country. housing counselors provide guidance and assistance and advice to help families meet the responsibilities of tenancy and homeownership. foreclosure counseling is particularly valuable to those obviously in danger of losing their homes.

according to a study by the urban institute, homeowners who are assisted by mortgage counselors have a 60% better chance of saving their homes. think of that. if you have counseling with a professional counselor, somebody to advocate for you and assist you, there's a 60% better chance you have of saving your home than if you don't have that assistance. h.u.d. requested $88 million for housing counseling for each of the last two fiscal years, yet last year congress provided no money for this important program, a program that keeps people in hair homes -- in their homes, helps their neighbors because this house might not be foreclosed on, helps those families build equity and savings that are essential for stable houses, stable families, stable homes, stable communities. given this lack of funding, i'm particularly grateful for the work done by the subcommittee chair and ranking member in restoring funding to this program. special thanks to senator murray and senator collins.

the subcommittee worked hard to find $60 million to fund the program. i applaud them for their efforts. senator sanders has also been a champion of this effort. even with this level of funding, the demand for housing counseling skpaoedz the level -- succeeds the level of service. they are necessary to help advise borrowers preparing to purchase new homes. and they are necessary and vital to our housing economic recovery. we know to pull ourselves out of recession historically in this country, we need a vibrant manufacturing sector, especially driven by auto. and we need housing, more home construction, more home renovation, appreciation of housing prices to pull ourselves out of recession. we're doing okay on the one with auto and manufacturing. we're not doing nearly well enough for housing. i applaud my colleagues for their work on this. i appreciate their support of this program. i look forward to their

supporting the senate number in conference when it gets to conference. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. ms. mikulski: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senior senator from maryland. ms. mikulski: i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. cardin: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. mr. cardin: i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be dispensed with. officer without objection. mr. cardin: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the privileges of the floor be granted to the following member of the senator from oregon's staff, elizabeth heightsman, during the pendency. pending business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. cardin: mr. president, i've -- i know the senator from missouri is here i'm going to make a unanimous consent request that i anticipate he will object to. i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to executive session to consider the following nomination, calendar number 11 2k-rbg that the fume nation be confidence, the motion to reconsider be laid on the

table, and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate and no further motions be in order to the nomination, any related statements be prescriptived in the record, that the president be immediately notified of the senate's action and th senate tn resume legislative action. the presiding officer: snr objection? mr. blunt: i object on behalf of senator hatch and senator isakson. officer objection is heard. mr. cardin: mr. president, i certainly understand that my friend from missouri is doing this on behalf other senators, and i just want to express my disappointment that these senators are objecting to the confirmation of william j. boarman, an individual who is eminently qualified to be our nation's 26th public printer and head of the government printing office. president obama nominated bill boreman 18 months ago. the senate committee on rules and administration reported the nomination favorably in july of 2010. the nomination languished

because of the republican objections that president obama made a recess appointment on january 3, 2011, and renominated mr. boarman on january 20, 2011. again the senate rules committee reported the nomination favorably by voice vote this past may. the public printer is not a controversial position. previous printers have been confirmed without controversy or dlaivment this obstruction is unprecedented. bill'bill's career in the printg industry spans 40 yeemples he started as a practical printer trained you understand the program of the international to pooing graphical union and worked in washington, d.c. in 1974 he accepted an appointment as a journeyman printer at the g.p.o. mr. boarman was elected president of his home local 101

when he was just 30 years of analyst he later served as the national officer with the i.t.u. where he was a key architect of the merger between the i. "thank you" and the communication workers of america. he was elected to the i.t.u. he has served as an unpaid consultant to several public printers and has testified before various congressional committees regarding g.p.o. programs and policies. he is an expert in this field. he's eminently qualified. i think the members of this body know that. mr. boarman served as chairman of the i.t.u. negotiated pension plan and 125 million canadian negotiated pension plans. he has experience in management. he was among the union leaders that spearheaded the creation of the afl-cio cament stewardship program strantdz for corking capital in the federal raismghts because of his experience in the field of pension administration,

he was chosen to represent c.w.a. on the council of institutional investors. he's also servegd on the maryland commission on judicial disability and a cochair of the taft-hartley northern american study group. he has served as president of the union printers home, 122-bed nursing facility in colorado springs, colorado. i mention his background to you understand score the point that bill boarman is uniquely qualified to serve as the nation's public printer and there's absolutely no good reason to hold up his confirmation. all we're asking, mr. president, is let's bringing this nomination forward for a vote. a person who has eminent qualifications. there's no substantive objection to his confirmation. i hope my colleagues who have raised the objection will allow us to move forward. the public printer serves as the

chief executive officer of the g.p.o., the agency charged with keeping the american people informed about the work of the federal government. g.p.o. is one of the world's largest printing plants in digital factories. it is one of the biggest buyers in the world. g.p.o. disseminates the "congressional record," the federal registry, and a number of other products and services to both print and digital form. the agency has been asked to build its digital capabilities into a state-of-the-art facility. we hear all the time about making this system more transparent. mr. boarman knows how to do that. let's give him a confirmed position so we can help bring the public more into what we do here in congress. bill boarman faces the challenges of maintaining the interestdditional printing skills of an aging workforce while helping a 150-year-old organization adopt to the world

in which most documents are born digital. as bill has stated -- has said, "few federal agencies can count as their heritage the scope that the g.p.o. has performed ranging from the first pringts of the emancipation promise clamation to providing digital access to the government publications taismed the men and women of g.p.o. are responsible for that heritage." mr. president, it's past time that bill boarman, a man with over 40 years of experience in the printing industry, be considered and confirmed as the nation's 26th public printer. i urge my colleagues on the republican side of the aisle, let the senate do what it is legally responsible to do: advice and consent on these confirmations. let us vote so we can confirm this position that was first brought forward over a year and a half ago w that, mr. president, i would yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. ms. mikulski: mr. president?

the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. ms. mikulski: mr. president, i want to associate myself with my colleague from maryland regarding the nomination of mr. boarman. my colleague from maryland has offered a spirited and comprehensive description of why mr. boarman should be confidence as our public printer. i would just like to -- i want to validate everything he said. and, second, mr. foreman, we need to reno is a reformer. he has the heart of a reformer. he has the spirit of a he radio former. hayes the know-how of a reformer. and as we look at the potion a been asked to serve, we need someone who has technical competence in the field, experience in managing large organizations, and also one whose dealt with the challenges related to both delivering a

product but also those related to the workforce. i think we are doing a national disservice by not putting this man in charge so he can take charge and maintain something that is a nonpartisan job. the government printing office. it is not like he is going to be in some back room reprinting little pamphlets from the 1930's bread march. he is here to be our public printer. now, we know we're into a new age, a digital age. he's got a lot of reform to do. we know that there's workforce reform that needs to be done, but done with sensitivity, and again somebody who himself was from the rank and file. so i just think this, once again, we're playing politics with a job that certainly is not political. we have an esteemed, qualified

individual who wants to be a reformer to get the job done and who knows that we are in a more frugal atmosphere, and i think we are wasting time. we are wasting money, and we are wasting the talent of an exceptional individual. and i'm going to say this, mr. president: the more we continue to delay and be dilatorious on these appointments, why would anybody want to come forth to serve in the public domain? they often have to give you up jobs or put their jobs on hold while they're waiting for these confirmation processes. we put more sand in the gears of government and then we blame government for grinding to a halt. let's have an orderly way of dealing with confirmations and at least give the man a vote up or down, yes or no. mr. president, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.

quorum call:

quorum call:

ms. mikulski: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. ms. mikulski: i ask unanimous consent that the call of the quorum be vacated. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. mikulski: the american people are watching this and saying what are they doing? actually we're doing a lot. senator blunt and i are managing a bill and you might say there's nothing going on. there's a lot going on because we're reviewing amendments of senators. that's what all this discussion is to, see what we could take,

or there might even be bipartisan agreement. and then we're lining up how we will proceed on the next four to six amendments. again, alternating both sides of the aisle. so if people are watching, they're saying what are they doing? just what are they doing? well, we are doing a lot. we hope to, by the close of business tomorrow, finish the agriculture, commerce, justice and transportation housing bill appropriations. we're going to have some robust debate with some amendments. some are quite controversial. so, but right now we're trying to see what do we agree upon, and what we don't agree upon, how could there be a regular, civilized orderly process for having debate and then voting. we anticipate that somewhere around 5:30 or 6:00 we'll have a

cluster of votes sofplt that's kaoepbd -- so that's kind of the game plan so far. mr. president, i yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call: ms. mikulski: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. ms. mikulski: madam president, i ask unanimous consent that the call of the quorum be vacated. the presiding officer: without

objection. ms. mikulski: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the next first-degree amendments be order be called up and made pending to h.r. 2112, and the substitute amendment number 738 be the following. ayotte, number 753. crapo, number 814. moran, 815. coburn, 793. coburn, 798. demint, 763. demint, 764. grassley, 860. sessions, 810. lautenberg, 836. brown of ohio, 874. merkley, 879. bingaman, 771. gillibrand, 869. feinstein, 855. and menendez, 857.

and further, that a motion to recommit from senator lee be in order, and if offered, the motion be set aside and the senate return to the consideration of the pending amendments. the presiding officer: is there an objection? without objection, so ordered. ms. mikulski: mr. president, this means this is now the order in which we would like to proceed. these are the amendments that both sides agree should be offered in this tranche or this cluster. so we say to the senators who now have these amendments get ready to come to the floor. as i understand, senator kelly ayotte will be here to offer her amendment which will be really important, and then what we would like to do is alternate on both sides of the aisle. the gentlelady from new hampshire will offer her

amendment. we would hope then there would be a democrat, and we'll go back and forth to be able to do that. if a senator is not here, we'll move on to the people who are here. we have 16 amendments, and we would like to finish these amendments this evening. so the more that can come and be ready to offer their amendments then offer their debate. senators will be able to present their amendments and debate their amendments, but we would like to do that. so, mr. president, that's the way we're going to proceed. these are the amendments. we would alternate on both sides of the aisle. we encourage senators who have these amendments to come on over and we will call them up. mr. president, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from missouri. mr. blunt: i just want to join my good friend in suggesting we would like to see our colleagues over here.

we want -- these three appropriations bills are being handled on the floor, they are open to amendment. we haven't had appropriations bills on the floor of the senate in this way in quite a while, and we'd like to get these bills done. hopefully we can get these bills done maybe even this week and send them on over to -- to the house to talk about these bills and their bills. three bills, 16 amendments. those aren't all the amendments we expect to be offered, but we hope these amendments are offered today, and a significant number and as the senator from maryland said earlier, we expect votes on some of these amendments, maybe around 6:00. between now and then, look forward to a vigorous debate on as many of these as the sponsors can come and debate, but the agriculture bill that i'm the ranking member of, the transportation and housing and urban development bill that the

senator represents so well, the commerce, state, justice bill, are all bills that are moving forward. they are moving forward in as close to a regular process as we have had in a while, and we look forward to seeing these amendments debated this afternoon and some of them, as many of them as possible and voted on this afternoon and this evening. i'd suggest there is not a quorum here at this time, mr. president. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. ms. mikulski: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. ms. mikulski: i ask the call of the quorum be vacated. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. mikulski: mr. president, the senator from missouri is right. we haven't had a regular order for some time. the leadership on both sides of the aisle have created this fantastic opportunity. we actually are following a regular order in our appropriations. we're actually following a

regular order. this showed -- this is our opportunity to show that we can govern, that we can have a regular order, that we can move our annual appropriations together in a well-measured, well-paced, well-debated, well-scrutinized way, and i would hope that our colleagues now, many of whom have many amendments to the bill. you know, senators have lots of opinions, and opinions sometimes get translated into amendments, but we would ask our colleagues now, let's show that we can govern. come now, come to the floor, offer these amendments and show that we can move three very important bills. the one affecting transportation and housing. an important part to our economy. this is a jobs bill. putting people to work building highways and roads and housing. agriculture, an important part of our economy.

and also commerce, justice and science, which is the innovation committee, the trade committee and the advocacy for justice committee. so we look forward to these amendments and debating them. mr. president, i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: mr. inhofe: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma.

mr. inhofe: mr. president, in a little while -- the presiding officer: a quorum call is under way. mr. inhofe: i ask the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. inhofe: in a few minutes, i do want an opportunity for a clarification to talk about the l.r.a., the troops that have gone over to northern uganda and surrounding areas including rwanda and south sudan, but i will wait now because i know a lot of them are going to be wanting to speak on the subject of these amendments, but i do want to mention one thing that i think is significant because no one is talking about it, and that is you have heard me talking over the years about the overregulation that is being pursued by this administration in every area and what it's costing in terms of jobs, and i know -- i talk about this quite often, but this time i'm talking about a different area of overregulation. most of the time i come, i'm talking about what the e.p.a. is doing to destroy business in this country. i do that because i am the ranking member on the environment and public works committee.

it's a committee that has jurisdiction over the environmental regulation -- the e.p.a., and when we see what they are doing, it's something that is -- it is more serious or at least as serious as all of the deficits that are coming out of this administration. because it's chasing jobs overseas. we'll talk about that and i have talked about that before, this is a different area altogether. so we talk about the overregulation that comes from the e.p.a. and the e.p.w. committee where we have jurisdiction, but today i want to mention what's going on in the usda. in the 2008 farm bill, the usda was instructed to revisit and update the marketing regulations authorized through the packers and stockyards act of 1921. that particular act is governed by the grain inspectors, the packers and the stockyards administration. it's referred to as gipsa, and that's how i will refer to it.

that's all within the usda. and the agency is supposed to regulate and deal with the marketing practices within the livestock industry. i'm from oklahoma. that's a huge industry in my state of oklahoma. now, this provision of the farm bill was heavily debated and amended when it was considered and ultimately the usda was instructed to provide regulations for a few explicit objectives. among them were broader contract cancellation for livestock growers, the disclosure of the foreseeable future, necessary capital investments required for contract growers within their growing contract. the criteria for gipsa to determine whether the producers are treated and with reasonable and preference or advantage. now, the house has already considered this. in fact, the house has already done their ag appropriation

bill. several months after the farm bill was enacted, the one i referred to, gipsa released its preliminary rule and the rule they publish went far beyond the requirements that were explicitly stated in the law. one of the biggest problems with the rule is that it would allow gipsa and the usda to punish livestock producers and buyers for engaging in practices that it considers unfair or unjust, even when there is no proof that their practices are actually harming competition within the industry. they want to do this in the name of leveling the playing field, which we hear a lot about around here, and that playing field would be between the packers and livestock producers, but really what they're doing is regulating this industry in a way that would be prohibited -- would prohibit any real innovation or differentiation among the companies in the industry. it forces a one-size-fits-all approach to running the livestock industry.

for one, the new rule would require packers and stockyards to keep written documentation justifying any differentiation in price that one pays to different livestock producers. now, can you believe this, the usda wants stockyards to justify every pricing decision that they make. if that isn't big government, i don't know what is. the usda would require this if they did not intend to review these documents to determine whether the stockyard provided sufficient justification. now, when doing this, the usda bureaucrats will have the power to punish and fine stockyards that it believes are behaving unfairly. now, this is government determining whether they are behaving unfairly. now, my question is this -- in what other industry would this be considered acceptable or even appropriate? can you imagine wal-mart being forced to send the federal government justification for every price it negotiates with its suppliers?

no. that would be ridiculous, and i think we all understand that. and the livestock industry is no different. this is america business. this is capitalism, and the individuals participating are doing so voluntarily. no one is forcing anyone to be in the livestock business, negotiating prices where some folks get higher and some folks get lower prices. some get advantages, some get disadvantages, but it's government making that determination. that is the way it should be. another problem with this rule is that it would ban packer-to-packer sale of livestock. i really don't know why the usda wants to do this, and who cares if one stockyard sells or what it buys to another. it's none of their business. it seems perfectly american to me that this will have a particularly negative impact in my state of oklahoma. right now, we only have one pork packing plant of any size in my state of oklahoma, and the next

closest plants would be iowa, missouri or probably nebraska, i'm not sure, hundreds of miles away, and if packers or entities owned by packers are no longer allowed to sell hogs to other packers, it will force oklahoma producers to ship hogs out of the state to get them to the market. now, this would increase operating costs. it would be prohibitive. it would take them out of the market, that's what would happen. and even if oklahoma pork producers chose to ship hogs out of state, the prohibition of packers to sell animals to other packers would force producers to incorporate a middleman, to eliminate the direct sale between packers. all this would do is increase the cost of production, and that would make us in my state of oklahoma less competitive. let's keep in mind that the oklahoma pork industry only took off after the construction of a pork processing plant. in 1987, before this plant was

constructed, the annual cash receipts -- this is significant, mr. president -- for pork producers were $33 million. that was it. the pork processing plant was constructed in the mid 1990's, and the -- provided the necessary infrastructure to do this. however, the park industry, the annual cash receipts have risen more than 10-fold to $555 million in 2007. so making this processing plant less capable of serving the need of the people of oklahoma will undoubtedly hurt our industry and our consumers. unfortunately these are only a few examples of the bad provisions of the new gipsa rule. i've heard extensively from my livestock producers and i'm sure everyone else from ag states have heard about the concerns that their states have. they believe that if this rule is finalized, it will force them to completely change the

way they conduct business and no government rule should force private business to do this. especially when the industry practices that they've developed have been very effective and safely bringing meat products to the market. another problem with this rule is the usda is not publicly released the study it did to determine its economic impact and we know why they haven't. it is really expensive. several private studies that have been done and one of them estimated that the rule would reduce u.s. economic activity by $14 billion and result had the loss of over 100,000 jobs. and the usda needs to release the economic impact analysis it did and there's no justification for their not doing it. so we have made that request, we're waiting for that to happen, and, you know, the rules and the regulations, one that particularly is bothersome to me, in fact there is a

nominee for secretary of commerce, a very nice person, a fine person named john bryson. the reason i opposed john bryson, he's been very active in this whole movement on cap and trade and we all know what that is, we talked about it for ten years, we had the kyoto convention and we did not become a part of that. there have been several efforts to have bills on the floor, to have cap and trade supposedly to stop catastrophic greenhouse or global warming and now people know that the science is debunked and it's not real yet they're going ahead and doing it. if the president is able to pass these regulations, it's going to be tantamount to about a -- between $300 billion and $400 billion a year for people in america. now, i would say this: there are a lot of people out there saying well, it doesn't hurt to pass a tax increase of $300 billion if it's going to do something about global warming.

even president obama's nominee and choice and now confirmed, lisa jackson, at the e.p.a., has said in response to a question on the record, if we were to pass any of these bills whether it go back and be the mccain-lieberman bill or the waxman-markey bill, these cap and trade bills that would be -- be giving us around a $300 billion to $400 billion of the tax increase, if that happened, would it reduce emissions? her answer was no. logically, you look at it. if we do it in the united states it's not going to change the emissions because this isn't where the problem is. the problem is in china and india and in mexico. anyway, the cost of these regulations are just unbearable for our economy, and here we are with over 9% unemployment, and we're very norton my state of oklahoma because we have diversified and our unemployment rate is down at 5.5%. nationally, it's a disaster.

so regulations are a very important part of this and i just wanted to make sure, mr. president, that we say -- make it very clear it's not just the regulations that come from the environmental protection agency because this regulation that we're talking about is going to be for -- is going to be from the usda. with that, mr. president, i'll yield the floor unless there is no one waiting and if there is -- i'll yield the floor. the presiding officer: senator, a senator: senator, we're waiting for senators, would you want to wish? mr. inhofe: i'll be happy to happy to. i'll be happy to yield. ms. mikulski: why don't you proceed. mr. inhofe: thank you very much.

mr. inhofe: mr. president, i'll just do it without notes. how's that? let me -- there's a lot of confusion, a lot of people were blaming president obama for sending 100 troops into northern

uganda and i want to make sure everyone knows that i'm not a fan of president obama. he's responsible for all these regulations that are driving american business out. he's responsible for the deficit, he's actually in his three budgets had deficits each year of $1.5 trillion adding up to almost $5 trillion of deficit and it's coming not from the democrats, not the republicans, not the house, not the senate, it's coming from president obama. but in the case of sending -- and i disagreed with his position with libya by the way, sending our troops in there the way he did. i'm on the armed services committee, the second ranking member and i'm very much concerned about what's happening right now and what this president has done to our military in reducing our capability to the extent that he has. but having said that, let me say that the criticism that he's received for sending 100 american troops into northern ewe danda is not justified. let me explain what i'm talking about. this picture here is a guy whose

name is joseph kony. joseph kony is a monster. for 25 years he's been in northern uganda but he's been in other countries, too, rwanda, now the new country of south sudan, the stran african republic and the congo. those five countries is where he's been. this is what he does. rush limbaugh the other day three or four days ago was commenting that nobody knows what the l.r.a. is, the lord's resistance army and nobody knows so i'm here to tell you and tell you why those troops were sent over. it was not president obama, it was me that did it. we passed the law requiring that to be done. let me explain why. i've been active in africa for many, many years. 15 years ago, i was in northern uganda in an area called zulu and found a guy named joseph kony. this is joseph kony. he's a spiritual leader. and what he does is he goes into the villages and he abducts

hundreds thousands of young kids, usually between the ages of 11 and 14. and then he takes the girls and sends them into prostitution, but the boys he trains to be soldiers. now, we're talking about kids, 11 to 14 years old. so he -- he puts them into -- teaches them out to use ak-47's and when they graduate these kids have to go back from the villages where they were abducted from and kill their siblings and kill their parents, and if they don't do it, they come back and this is a good one right here, they come back and they have to mutilate them. i want to show you this picture first. these are all kids. see they're holding their ak-47's. i'll show you what happens if one of these kids comes back and he doesn't kill his parents, doesn't do as joseph kony said, then he mutilates the kids and the way he does it, he cuts off their ears, cuts off their

nose, cuts off their lips, cuts off thrn their hands. this guy right here, john ochoa, his hands were cut off, his ears are cut off. this one just went through it and he's still bleeding. these are kids. these are kids 12 and 14 years old. and this is what he's been doing to thousands of kids for 25 years now. so having sympathy for that, i came back and talked to some of my colleagues here and i said we're going to have to do something about this. and at that time, we were not allowed to send troops in. this has nothing to do with the -- with sending combat troops into an area. certainly this has nothing to do with what the president did in libya. but we passed a law that said that we can -- we can send assistance in to northern uganda and the other four countries, but they are specifically precluded from entering into combat. in other words the 100 troops

that went in cannot even carry a weapon. they cannot be involved by law. i put that in the law. that word, those words are there. so what we're doing is, are able to go in there and assist them in intelligence and maybe loan them a helicopter or whatever they need to take this guy out or to bring him to the international court. that would probably be a better thing for him. but that's what this guy has been doing for 25 years now and you have to go over and see it to really appreciate it. these mutual lated kids, little kids. well, anyway, i will say this, that those who are critical of me for supporting sending our troops over are ill founded in their criticism for two reasons. first of all, we already have troops all over the world in places like africa, in the continent of africa we have several thousand american troops, in a program called train and equip. it's specifically called 1206 and 1208 funding. that means that we go in and

into these countries, and we help train the unafrican nations so that as the -- the african nations. so that as the squeeze takes police and the terrorist come down through the horn of africa and spread out through the african continent, we are building five african brigades, training them so when something happens as did happen in the countries we're currently in battle we don't have to send our troops in, we're training them so they take care of their own problems. that's essentially what's happening here. now, i was in this brand-new country the other day, south sudan. we've heard about sudan, heard about khartoum, been told about all the atrocities that are committed there. and it is, makes you cry when you see what's happening. they have split off so south sudan has a separate country. i was there last week. i was the first one there in terms of members of the senate or just to cheer them on and i

had 25 members of parliament of this new country called south sudan there with me for a period of two hours. you know what they said, mr. president? they said if you really want to do something about terrorism, get this growing force, josephy kony has and help us take him out. you might ask the question because it was asked of me today on talk radio show, they said wait a minute, why is it we can't get uganda to go in and do it or congo to do it or rwanda to do it? i would suggest to you that the presidents of these three countries came from the bush. president miews of rene was a warrior in the bush and doesn't like to admit he can't take care of a monster named joseph kony by himself. paul kagame is the president of rwanda, he's a tough warrior but doesn't want admit he would

have to have help. the president of the congo, the same thing. i was able to get the three of them together and they agreed to work together with each other and asked if thee they could have some support from the united states in the way of intelligence and maybe a helicopter or two and i said yes, we passed a law and this law we passed was right here in the united states senate, there was not one senator who voted against it. i had 64 cosponsors, the largest number of cosponsors on any bill addressing a problem in africa in the history of this united states senate. so we're all all in accord and a lot of members are not courageous enough to tell the truth, a lot say we're not going to send more troops over. let me assure you these troops are going to save lives and they could very well be saving american lives. because if this terrorist movement is allowed to continue, then we're going to have another terrorist movement in that part of the world that should be getting a lot of our attention. so with that, let me repeat 0 two things. first of all we already have troops over there in training,

these troops will be doing that over there and secondly, there won't be one american troop in harm's way in northern uganda, central african republic, south sudan or any other place where joseph may be leading the reign of terror. i 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 new hampshire. ms. ayotte: i ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. ayotte: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i ask unanimous consent to temporarily set aside the pending amendment and i call up my amendment 753. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. ayotte: thank you.

the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: ms. ayotte proposes amendment numbered 753 -- ms. ayotte: i ask unanimous consent that further reading of the amendment be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. ayotte: i filed amendment 753 to h.r. 2112, the appropriations mini bus. my amendment would prohibit the use of funds for the fiscal year 2012 for the prosecution of enemy combatants in our article 3 courts. this prohibition would apply to individuals who are members of al qaeda or affiliated terrorist groups and who have participated in the course of planning or carrying out attacks against our country, the united states of america, or our coalition partners. in no other conflict have we treated our enemies and tried them in our civilian court s i believe that we need to stop criminalizing this war and that's why i have brought forward this amendment. these individuals should be

treated with military custody and tried in military commissions, and that's why i've brought forward this amendment at this time. thank you, mr. president, and i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: mrs. shaheen: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from new hampshire. mrs. shaheen: i ask that the quorum calls be lifted. the presiding officer: without objection. hurricane katrina thank you, mr. president. i am here to speak --

mrs. shaheen: thank you, mr. president. i'm here to talk about the commerce, justty, and science appropriations bill. i want to thank senator mikulski for her leadership on this and all of the members of that subcommittee who have worked on this portion of the appropriations legislation before us. given the current financial constraints that we're facing, i know that this has been an especially difficult time to be trying to address the needs in the critical areas of our federal budget, particularly with respect to commerce, science, and justice. but, aim here to speak to the section of the bill that deals with the federal bureau of prisons, and i'm here on behalf of new hampshire because we have a particular interest in this section of the legislation, because it directs the bureau of prisons to activate three federal prisons which are

currently built but are not yet open, and one of those prisons is in berlin, new hampshire, in the northernmost part of our staivment i last came to the floor last spring when we were debating the 2011 continuing resolution to talk about this issue of opening the berlin prison because it was completed and not yet opened. the prison is a medium-security prison. it was completed last november at a cost of $276 million. and since november when the project was completed, it's been costing us $4 million to maintain security at the prison to make sure that damage is not done to this new facility. we've had a warden on board since about that time, but she's

not been able to hire any of the staff she needs to activate this prison. and since that time when i last came to the floor, our federal prison system has gotten even more overcrowded. last spring i talked about the fact that our prison system was 35% overcrowded and that for medium-security facilities, it was 39% overcrowded. but since that time, we've had a net increase of 7,541 federal prisoners in our system, so now our entire prison system is 39% overcrowded and medium-security prisons are 51% over capacity. so if we're going to ensure safety, we need to begin to open some of these new facilities, and i'm very pleased that we've got language in the commerce,

justice, and science bill that would address opening these new facilities, including the berlin prison. this is a project that has bipartisan support. the new prison in berlin was started under president bush, continued under president obama. the congressional delegation in new hampshire supports the facility. it will create about 340 jobs in a region of the state that is very much in need of new jobs because it's lost a lot of its manufacturing base, because the paper industry has moved offshore. it would have an impact of about $40 million to the region of the state where it's located, which is, again, very important for a region that economically is in need of jobs and need of economic activity. the community of berlin has already spent $3 million for water and sewer upgrades, and

since 2008, the residents of berlin, local businesses, the state workforce development officers, have been preparing for the prison to open. the community and local government officials have partnered with the business community to coordinate their resources. they've been waiting for these jobs. when the new hampshire department of employment security first began reaching out to people in the north country about opportunities, -- [unaudible] -- job seekers. we have been talking a lot about job creation in this congress and now we have an opportunity to act ton this bill to get people back to work in northern new hampshire. families in new hampshire and across the country are struggling. we need the jobs this legislation is going to create. and at a time when we should be focused on reining in wasteful spending, we can't continue to

spend millions of taxpayer dollars to maintain an empty building. so this funding is good economic policy. it is good fiscal policy. and i certainly intend to support this piece of the appropriations legislation before us, and i hope all of my colleagues will do the same. thank you, madam president. couple cull madam president -- ms. mikulski: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. ms. mikulski: did the senator from -- wish to offer an amendment? mr. vitter: i would like to address the senator through the chair. the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana. mr. vitter: i just have a modification to my amendment which will take about a minute and a half. ms. mikulski: madam president, what i would like to suggest, as a way of proceeding, with the

concurrence of the other side, the senator modify his amendment, because that's a quick thing; then we'll go to the senator from idaho; and then i have some rebuttals to some of the amendments offered. does that sound like a good -- without getting any u.c.'s and all that, does that sound like a way to proceed? the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana. mr. vitter: tucks madam president. thank the chair, and i thank the senator from maryland. now i call for the regular order with respect to my amendment, number 769. and i ask that it be modified with the changes at the desk. the presiding officer: without objection, the amendment is modified. mr. vitter: mr. president, i ask for unanimous consent that senator stabenow and bingaman be added as coauthors in the amendment. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. vitter: madam president, in closing, let me just say the that this again very tightly narrows the amendment to a very specific purpose to allow safe

f.d.a.-approved prescription drugs to be reimported for individual consumer use from canada and canada only, and in doing so, this makes it a nearly identical amendment to that which was approved by the senate in the last senate on a strong bipartisan vote. i urge and look forward to that same strong support for this vitter amendment number 769. with that, i yield the floor. mr. crapo: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from idaho. mr. crapo: i ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment and call up my pending amendment -- my amendment number 814. the presiding officer: without objection. the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from idaho, mr. crapo, foyer himself and oh, proposes amendment numbered 814 to amendment number 738. on page 83 -- mr. crapo: madam president, i ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be disamsed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. crapo: i would also like to note that as cosponsors of

the amendment, senators johanns, shelby, toomey, vitter, and kirk are also supportive. the unprecedented scope and pace of agency rule making in the united states today is posing incredible uncertainty and throat our economy. americans today know that jobs is the number-one issue we face and consistently across the country americans are also recognizing that the explosion of government regulatory action is one of the huge impediments to our job-creation efforts in america. unfortunately, under the dodd-frank act, we are seeing one of the most significant rule making levels of activity that we are seeing in any part of our economy. and many of the proposed rules do not give sufficient consideration to how they will affect main street or our economy as a whole, how they will interact with one another, or frankly how they will impact

our global competitiveness. through this amendment, i focus on the cftc to send a strong message to all regulators involved in the rule-making process that we cannot afford regulations that unnecessarily burden our businesses, our comirks and our competitive position in the global marketplace. this amendment does three basic things. it prohibits funds from being used by the cftc to promulgate any final rules until the agency substantiates that those rules are economically beneficial. secondly, it adheres to congressional intent to provide end users with a clear exceptiom shough from margin requirements and sets clear bounds on the overseas derivative requirements. with regard to the processed portion of the amendment, in february when many members of the banking committee twroat our financial regulators, we strongly urged them to employ fundamental principles of good regulation in their statutory

mandate and not to is beingifies quality and fairness in exchange for speed. we had two many concerns: that the regulators are not allowing adequate time for meaningful public comment on their proposed rules and that the regulators are not conducting rigorous, quantitative analysis of the costs and benefits of their rules and the effects their rules can have on our economy and our competitive position in the global marketplace. on april 15, 2011, the office of the inspector general for the cftc issued a report of an investigation entitled "an investigation regarding the cost-benefit analyses performed by the commodity futures trading commission in connection with rule makings undertaken pursuant to the dodd-frank afnlgt" unfortunately, the i.g. report demonstrated that the cftc is not using rigorous economic analysis to shape its rule

making. in april, harvard law professor hal scott testified on urgently needed fixes to the dodd-frank rule-maying process. we also began hearing from cftc commissioners scott owe mallia and jill summers about problems with the rule-making process, specifically with economic analysis. in august, the cftc commissioners scott owe molly state that the current process of enacting laws under the dodd-frank wall street reform act is inadequate and excoriated the regulatory body for not putting together a clear rule making order and implementation schedule for public comment. again, in august, cftc commissioner jill summers stated, "i believe it is a mistake for us to begin the process without a plan to logically sequence our consideration of final rules along with a transparent implementation plan." in july, the s.e.c.'s problemsy

rule became the first rule to be successfully challenged in court for failing to analyze economic costs and benefits adequately. in the unanimous decision to vacate the rule, the u.s. circuit court judge douglas ginsburg wrote, "the commission inconsistently and opportunistically framed the cost and benefits of the rule, failed adequately to quantify the certain costs or to explain why those costs could not be qualified -- quantified, neglected to support its predictive judgments, contra diblghted itself, and failed to respond to the substantial problems raised by commenters." in this amendment, we require the cftc to fix its rule-making process by prohibiting funding for any final cftc rules until the commission jointly with the s.e.c. and other regulators publishes a schedule outlining the order in which the agencies

will consider and implement the final rules. effective market participants will be able to weigh in and be heard on how rules should be adopted and implemented. agencies will have to work together to come up with coordinated schedules for proceeding with rule making and implementation. and the agencies will have to take into consideration economic impacts, international competitiveness, the interaction of their rules, one with another, and the implications of inconsistencies in the approaches tans by different regulators. it's more important that the cftc and other regulators allow for meaningful public comment and analysis than it is to rush through rules and risk undermining the integrity of the process and diminishing the utility of this important market. secondly, we require -- we protect end users from the burdensome margin requirements of the statute.

when the dodd-frank conference was reopened to deal with the scoring issue, senators dodd and lincoln acknowledged that the language for end users was not perfect and tried to clarify the intent of the language with a joint letter stating the legislation does not authorize the regulators to impose margins on end users. those exempt entities that use swaps to hedge or mitigate commercial risk. however, regulators have interpreted the actual dodd-frank legislative language as providing authority to require end users to post margin. this amendment provides certainty for main street businesses who played no role in the financial crisis by establishing a clear exemption from excessive margin requirements. end users have emphasized the critical importance of addressing this problem. in its letter, the coalition for derivatives end users highlighted the stakes of

getting this issue right. they stated, while the dodd-frank act and implementing regulations do much to increase transparency and reduce systemic risk in the derivatives market, they include provisions that, if complemented as proposed -- implemented would impose unnecessary burdens on end-user companies. while we believe it is important to reduce risks within our markets transactions with users have not been found to pose systemic risk. our companies and our economy cannot eford to unnecessarily tie up capital that would otherwise be used to promote growth and create jobs. miller corps' he can toad these -- echoed these sentiments when it said pops and other ingredients used to brew our beers. f.m.c. and the national association of the treasurers noted this legislation addresses concerns that are of critical

importance to end users. companies using derivatives to reduce business and financial risk and not to speculate. f.m.c. and the other members of the natc support legislation enabling end users to continue their cost effective use of derivatives to manage commercial risks they take when they make investments to conduct research and development, build enveteran toers to support higher -- inventories to support higher sales and grow jobs. the third thing that the amendment does is to limit the extraterritorial reach of dodd-frank of cftc rule making to streamline regulation and protect american competitiveness. chairman johnson and congressman frank recently sent a letter to the regulators that brought up the concern that the extraterritorial imposition of margin requirements raises questions about the consistency with congressional intent regarding title 7. they pointed out that congress

generally limited the territorial scope of title 7 activities to within the united states. extraterritorial application of one nation's laws to another nation's markets and firms is especially problematic in a global market like derivatives where it is common for counterparties based in different parts of the world to engage in transactions with each other. the historical practice of u.s. regulators is to recognize and defer to foreign regulators when registered entities engaged in activities outside the united states are subject to comparable foreign regulation. given recent statements and actions by u.s. regulatory agencies, there is concern that proposals could create uncertainty as to how additional regulations could apply across borders and alter regulatory precedent. while there is bipartisan support from members of congress to encourage our regulators to work with their international counterparts to seek broad harmonizeation, there is a

growing list of noteworthy and critical items that we are seeing related to the lack of progress on international harmonizeation. the cftc and the s.e.c. are taking diverging approaches on some defensive alternatives rules raising questions about whether we can harmonize even within our own borders let alone with foreign regulators. foreign jurisdictions in europe not to mention asia and latin america have rejected many reforms such as the section 716 swap push outprovisions. it remains unclear as to whether what foreign jurisdictions will impose a margin requirement such as proposed by our regulators. simply put, the rest of the world is not following us in a number of critical areas. third parties, including market analysts and economists and academics, have also indicated that these rules will negatively impact u.s. competitiveness and growth. our fed chairman bernanke recently warned that the

extraterritorial application of margin rules could create a significant competitive disadvantage for u.s. companies. we can't force europe or asia or latin america to follow, and if our rules are finalized in the u.s. before other jurisdictions, we risk substantially harming u.s. competitiveness, growth, and financial stability. that's why this amendment sets clear bound on the overseas applications of the derivatives requirements while allowing regulators to stop systemicically dangerous transactions intended to evade u.s. requirements. madam president, in conclusion, there can be no doubt about our resolve to address the root causes of the financial crisis. but equally, there can be no doubt about our resolve to ensure that we do this with great care. failing to do so will threaten our businesses, our economy, and our competitiveness globally. i urge my colleagues to support this amendment as an important step to ensuring that while working together for the former, we do not neglect the latter.

with that, madam chair, i yield the floor. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. merkley: madam president, as provided under the previous unanimous consent order, i ask that the pending amendments be set aside so i may call up my amendment number 879. the presiding officer: without objection. the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from oregon, mr. merkley, proposes an amendment numbered 879 to amendment numbered 738. mr. merkley: madam president, i ask consent further reading of the amendment be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. merkley: thank you, madam president. i rise to offer this amendment for the consideration of this body because it's important to boosting american jobs and manufacturing and ensuring that more of our american dollars are spent here at home. when the federal government spends tax dollars, it should be looking to american companies to provide goods and services. and recently an issue came to light that gave me substantial

concern. a few months ago a bid was awarded to a chinese company to provide steel for a freight rail bridge in alaska, the tenana bridge. there was strong american competition. however, the award went to the chinese company. now, if there was a level playing field, that would be one thing. but in fact china is employing a three-tiered strategy that provides enormous subsidies to its own manufacturing, tilting the playing field considerably. the first part of that strategy is to peg its currency so that its products have a 25% to 40% subsidy, ekweuf thraopbt that subsidy -- equivalent to that subsidy. the second piece is it provides all kinds of subsidies that are not actually permitted under wto but china is doing it anyway,

and these go directly to the heart of manufacturing competition. recently a bipartisan amendment was put forward, and i want to applaud my colleagues from wyoming, senator enzi, senator barrasso. and we said, you know, china is required under the w.t.o. to post its subsidies, to notify the parties of subsidies. it's done so only once in 2006. it's in violation. and also to the w.t.o. the american trade representative is authorized to counternotify if china fails to do so, and we hadn't done so. so we called upon our trade representative to counter notify. and having interestingly, the next week -- and very interestingly, the next week we get this list of 200 subsidies that china is utilizing outside of the framework of w.t.o. to subsidize its manufacturers and compete unfairly against the

u.s. so the third part of the strategy is that china is useing central bank as the only authorized bank to control the interest rate on deposits and thereby also be able to control the interest rates on loans in a fashion that provides enormous subsidies to our competitors in china. so until recently america had stood on the sidelines and not confronted any of these three chinese strategies other than to say in some cases that are relevant to our national defense and our national transportation system, there needs to be a provision to buy products inside america. but this particular project fell between the cracks because although the funds came from the defense department, it wasn't a straight defense department program, and although it was a rail program, it wasn't a

passenger rail program. so this amendment closes this loophole. at a time when americans everywhere are searching for jobs, we should be supporting american companies that employ and hire americans, especially to make sure that american companies are not disadvantaged by this three-tiered chinese strategy that tilts the playing field against our companies and thereby destroys jobs in america. so under this amendment, freight rail transportation contracts exceeding 100,000 dollars funded in the appropriations bill would use steel, iron and manufactured products produced in america. now, there is various flexibility provided to the secretary of transportation to weigh this requirement -- waive

this requirement under one of three scenarios. that the application is inconsistent with the public interest, that the materials and products are not available in sufficient quantity or quality, or that the inclusion of domestic material would increase the price by more than 25%. now, i'm not sure that 25% is high enough, given that just pegging its currency creates a 25% to 40% subsidy for chinese products. so this may not go far enough. this may only go a small portion of the way to leveling the playing field. so, i lay it down as a marker that we should create fairness so that american manufacturers can compete. this amendment may not go as far as it should, but it is certainly a stride in the right direction. and for that reason, i urge my colleagues to support it. if we do not make things in

america, we will not have a middle class in america. thank you, madam president. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from kansas. mr. moran: thank you, madam president. i ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside and that the moran amendment number 815 be made order of the day in the senate. the presiding officer: without objection. the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from kansas, mr. moran, proposes an amendment numbered 815 to amendment number 738. on page 6 -- mr. moran: madam president, i ask unanimous consent that the reading be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. moran: madam president, thank you very much. the amendment that i'm offering today was one that i discussed

in the agriculture appropriations subcommittee. i'm a member of that subcommittee and am very interested in the topic of the appropriations for the department of agriculture. and this amendment would transfer $8 million from the department administrative account to the watershed rehabilitation program. watershed rehabilitation program is a bit broader than this, but basically what we're talking about here are p.l.-566 watershed structures. across our country, more than 1,000 structures have been built over a long period of time. many of them up to 50 years old. these structures are built for purposes of flood control, for nutrient management, for conservation, wildlife habitat, for recreation. clearly these structures have had an important component of the economy and well-being of communities and people across america now for a long time. and in fact, according to the natural resources conservation

service of the department of agriculture, these p.l.5666 structures provide agricultural benefits at their estimate of $404 million. these benefits are things like erosion control, animal waste management, water conservation, water quality improvement, irrigation efficiency, changes in land use. things like that. there is also nonagricultural benefits which the nrcs estimates at $877 million in benefits. these are associated with recreation, fish and wildlife, rural water supply, water quality, municipal water supply, recreation uses. and then there are of course particularly as we look at what's happened in our country in this season during this year, flood control. agriculture flood control by nrcs estimates is a value of $320 million.

nonagricultural flood protection, $425 million. so we're talking about flood control structures that have benefited the -- for a number of reasons about $2 billion. this amendment does not create the opportunity to construct more of those structures, but the problem this amendment addresses is that those structures are aging, and as i said earlier, many of them are nearly 50 years old. in my view, it's very much like the analogy that we have with bridges. we have focused some attention over the last several years on deteriorating bridges and infrastructure in our highway system, and we know that if we allow -- if we don't provide the maintenance, the deterioration occurs and ultimately we can have a catastrophe. that's what i'm trying to address here is my fear that in the absence of paying attention to the maintenance of these flood control structures, that we run the potential of having a disaster. not only did the benefits accrue

to agriculture and to communities and water supply and recreation, but the real thing here is about the loss of certainly property values but more importantly the loss of life. so in the absence of maintaining these structures, we run the risk that the investment that we have made over decades begins to disappear, and not only do we lose the value of the asset, we potentially lose life by those who would be harmed by the flooding that will occur in the absence of these flood control measures. so therefore a watershed rehabilitation program was created. years ago. and the problem in the funding that we have today in the appropriation bill before us is there is no money, zero money in the bill to maintain these structures, and so ours is a very modest proposal to keep the program ongoing of transferring $8 million into that rehabilitation program to

maintain those structures and prevent bad things from happening. this is probably woefully inadequate in regard to the amount of resources that should be devoted to this, but looking at the bill and looking at the structure of the bill, how we have tried to find the right priorities and the balance within the agricultural appropriations subcommittee and at the full appropriations committee, we concluded that we have the opportunity to at least put $8 million into the program. the watershed rehabilitation program is ministered by the natural resources and conservation service, and here is what it's described to do. it assists project sponsors with rehabilitation of aging project dams. only dams installed under 566 and a couple of other programs are eligible. the purpose of this program is to extend the service life of dams and meet applicable safety and performance standards. priority is given by nrcs to those structures that pose the highest risk to life and

property, and projects are eligible when hazards to life and property increase due to downstream development and where there is a need for rehabilitation to extend the planned life of the structure. what that's saying is that in many of these instances where the structure has been built, now almost 50 years ago, communities have been built up downstream, and the dam becomes even more important to protect property and life for that development. and so we are here trying to make certain that there is a level of funding for repairing or replacing deteriorated components, repairing damage from catastrophic events such as the floods we have experienced this year and upgrading the structures to meet new dam safety laws or to even demission a structure. i would guess that we are not going to fund new structures here in this congress in this fiscal environment, but we ought to at least take the responsibility of providing

money to maintain the structures that are there. and it is important, in my view, that we do so. unlike in past years, we can be assured that the money that we put into this bill will go to the highest priority projects, the dams that are in the most need of repair and maintenance. there is no opportunity for members of congress under our rules here in the senate to earmark these dollars, and so the usda, the department of agriculture through the natural resource and conservation service, will make those decisions. i know from my own state's case -- and we're not one of the states that has the most dam structures, although it's an important aspect of maintaining water in its proper place and provide wildlife habitat and conservation practices, improve the agricultural environment. those structures are important to us and we see it each and every day. in fact, just last month -- in fact, for most of the time i have been in congress, we do an

annual what i call conservation tour, looking at the role that the department of truer for the private sector, wildlife and habitat organizations, how they partner and come together to make good things happen to improve our environment, and this year we focused on water quality and water quantity. clearly this program of pl-566 structures are critical. when i talk about that partnership, it would be important for members of the senate to know that this program requires a 35% local match, so there is local money, the sponsors of these projects, these dams across our country would have to find local resources in order to make that match. and so i would ask the senate to give serious consideration. in fact, i would ask the senate to approve the amendment i'm offering today. it is something i raised in our subcommittee and raised in our full committee with the hopes that we would be able to find a

satisfactory offset. and from my view, the priority that we place on this program is one that is deserving of senate support. and, madam president, i offer the amendment as i have described. mr. bingaman: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from new mexico. mr. bingaman: madam president, i would call up senate amendment 771 and ask that it be modified with the changes that are already at the desk. the presiding officer: without objection, the pending amendment is set aside. the clerk will report the amendment as modified. mr. bingaman: i would ask that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. bingaman: madam president, this is an amendment to increase funding for the u.s. trade representative so that the trade

representative can conduct trade enforcement activities. the amendment is cosponsored by senator stabenow, and i would ask consent to add senator coons and senator brown from ohio as cosponsors as well. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. bingaman: this amendment would provide an additional $4,476,000 to the trade representative's office above the level that's provided for in the bill, and that amount is fully offset. it would fund ustr at $51,251,000. this year, that is the same level of funding that the president has in his budget request and also the same level of funding that has been arrived at in the house appropriation committee and their legislation. clearly, there is bipartisan support for this level of funding for the trade

representative's office. last week, as all of us will remember, we sent to the president three new free trade agreements, and i supported those free trade agreements because they promised to open new markets for american businesses so that we can sell more goods that are produced here in the united states. however, if american businesses and workers are to benefit from trade agreements, the u.s. needs to do more to ensure our trading partners are competing fairly. this means we had to enforce the trade agreements and u.s. trade laws. right now, we are not providing enough resources to the trade representative's office for enforcement activities, in my view. the ustr's general counsel's office has 30 attorneys in it. of that 30, 22 are staff attorneys actually involved in litigation day to day.

these two dozen people or so are responsible for preparing and prosecuting trade dispute cases at the world trade center or under the dispute resolution mechanisms in our free trade agreements. they are also responsible for defending the united states when other countries file complaints against us. this is not enough staff, in my view, to respond in a timely manner to the numerous allegations about unfair trade practices that are being committed by our trading partners. for example, the u.s. trade representative's investigation into china's export restraints on rare earth minerals has been under way for more than two years. there are many other concerns about china's trade practices, many of which have been discussed here on the senate floor today, in fact. does china provide subsidies to its companies that are inconsistent with the world

trade organization. is china unfairly closing its markets to u.s. goods or unfairly requiring u.s. companies to transfer technology and intellectual property to chinese companies as a condition of doing business in china. these are serious questions that american businesses have raised informally. in fact, the united steelworkers have formally raised these issues in a section 301 petition last year. but many of these allegations are not fully investigated because we simply have not committed the resources in the u.s. trade representative's office to do the investigations. only two attorneys in the u.s. trade representative's general counsel's office work on the rare earths and raw materials cases. ustr needs the resources to act quickly to combat unfair trade practices before u.s. industries

are irreparably harmed. the senate also recently demonstrated bipartisan support for trade enforcement when it passed the currency exchange rate oversight reform act. that was on the 11th of this month. the vote there was 63-35, and i voted for that bill as well. this amendment that i'm offering today would help provide the u.s. trade representative with additional resources to enforce the provisions in that bill as well, so i urge my colleagues to support the amendment. let me say just a few words about the offset. the amendment would propose to resinned $8 million from the department of justice asset forfeiture fund. this is a fund that contains -- this fund contains the funds that d.o.j. obtains from seizing and selling assets.

for example, speedboats that are seized from drug dealers. the department of justice uses some of these funds for law enforcement, but most of the funds are not used. the fund has had an end of year balance of more than $841 million at the end of fiscal year 2009, $974 million at the end of 2010, $701 million at the end of 2011 fiscal year. department of justice projects that it will collect more than $1.7 billion from seized assets this year. because of the excess funds in this account, in this fund, this forfeiture, asset forfeiture fund, the president's budget suggested that we rescind $620 million, and the rescission, the proposal that i am making in this as an offset

is that we add an additional $8 million so that the total amount rescinded from that fund would be $628 million rather than $620 million. this would continue -- this would leave in the fund $474 million, which i believe is an adequate amount to ensure that the department of justice has the resources it needs for its law enforcement activities, so, madam president, i believe this is a very meritorious amendment. i think it improves the very good legislation that has been brought to the senate floor by the appropriations committee, but i hope that this amendment can be approved and added to th legislation when the issue is raised for a vote. madam president, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. ms. mikulski: madam president,

first i want to thank the senator from new mexico for his comments regarding the u.s. trade representative, and the work of the u.s. trade representative's office. we do have to fight unfair and even predatory trade practices. in his cogent comments he spoke about steel. boy, we've been trying to look out for steel in my state for some time against these unfair practices. sometimes we win, most of the time we lose ground. the amendment that's offered by the senator from new mexico would, as he said, increase the funding by $4.5 million for a new total of $51 million. this is identical to what the house has. the amendment does rescind money from the forfeitable fund, which has been used for law enforcement task forces,

drugs, human trafficking, and others. i -- i'm inclined to support the amendment. i certainly support the philosophical thrust of the amendment, but we have some questions about the offset. we have to get the concurrence of c.b.o. to make sure it's budget neutral and we're consulting with my ranking member to get her thoughts and views on it. so i want to say to the senator from new mexico, i again support the thrust of the amendment, and i need to consult,, we are waiting for a comment from our ranking member who is tied up on other legislative matters, and we expect to hear from her shortly. so when we do, we'll able to talk about how we will dispose of this amendment. so i thank the senator from new mexico for his advocacy.

madam president, i wish to speak on another matter. which is an amendment that was raised, amendment 753, on terrorist prosecutions. that amendment was offered by the gentlelady from new hampshire earlier, and in order to expedite proceedings, i withheld my rebuttal and now i choose to take this time to rebut the gentlelady's amendment. i rise in opposition to her amendment. well intentioned, but there are serious objections to it. her amendment would prohibit the department of justice from trying anyone -- trying anyone charged with terrorism-related concerns in an article 3 court in the united states. i oppose the amendment for three reasons. first, the amendment is

unnecessary. the department of justice has a strong track record of successfully prosecuting terrorists in criminal courts. second, it goes beyond the law that already prohibits certain terrorist suspects from even coming into the united states, even for prosecution. this was language included in the 2011 continuing resolution and our fiscal year 2012 c.j.s. bill does carry that same language. for example, we've already dealt with someone like khalid chic mohammed. this amendment would reach beyond that and wouldn't allow prosecutions of any nonu.s. citizen on terrorism-related charges. third, this amendment is opposed by the department of defense.

eric holder and leon panetta object to this amendment. they feel that they have a working agreement on how best to try -- to try terrorists. so i would say to my colleagues that i hope that they would reject the gentlelady's amendment when it comes up. the department of justice has a strong record of successfully convicting terrorists in criminal courts. one can look at the 1993 bombing of the world trade center, the attack on the u.s. embassies in east africa and the trial and conviction of the blind sheik. over 400 terrorists have been tried and convicted since 2001. and just last week, another success, the so-called underwear bomber, farouq abdul mute alabeeb pled guilty in michigan. there were cases involving criminal convictions of

terrorists. so i would suggest that the gentlelady from new hampshire's concern that the department of justice is not equipped to try terrorists -- terrorist suspects does not have traction because the record shows otherwise. i think we have to be careful because this amendment goes beyond current law. in 2011 we passed the defense authorization act, then the 2011 continuing resolution, both of which prohibit the administration from machining guantanamo bay detainees into the united states even for prosecution. congress will have to change restrictions and law before gitmo detainees are transferred to the u.s. for prosecution or detention. senator ayotte's amendment would go beyond these restrictions to

say that anyone indicted on terrorism-related charge who isn't a u.s. citizen couldn't be prosecuted in federal courts. unnecessary court stripping. i have no sympathy for terrorists and i want to make sure that we honor international law, but we prosecute to the fullest extent possible. and what we want to be able to show that the department of justice has successfully prosecuted them and this amendment would prohibit -- this amendment would enact -- would not be about prosecuting terrorists, it would be about stymieing the department of justice. let me go to my third reason, which is secretary leon panetta and attorney general holder's opposition. they say this: defense and justice share responsibility for prosecuting terrorists. justice prosecutes in criminal

courts, defense department prosecutes in military commissions. defense and justice have a joint protocol where they work together to evaluate terrorist cases to decide where best, where most effectively to prosecute them. in light of the restrictions that congress has already made on these trials, defense department decided earlier this year to resume new charges in the military commissions. but congress shouldn't restrict the ability of the executive branch to decide where best to prosecute terrorism. understanding some of the dynamics of international law, criminal codes, codes of military conduct, to decide where best to prosecute terrorists. we don't want to set a dangerous precedent, and if defense or justice are restricted from using every tool available to

bring the terrorists to justice. so i would hope that when we vote on this amendment, we would defeat it, recognizing that the gentlelady from new hampshire wants to be sure that justice is served. and we want it, too. and the best way to serve justice is to let the defense department and the justice department decide what court or tribunal is the best way to proceed. to ensure the fairness of a trial, but to make sure that we have the best, most effective, most efficient way to do it. and i must say when one looks at the record of the defense -- the record of the justice department, in prosecuting these terrorists in civilian courts, prosecutions were achieved, convictions were obtained, and as the world watched it, justice was served.

and i'm pretty proud of that and i would hope we would defeat the gentlelady's amendment but that we be united as a congress and a senate in making sure we prosecute those who engage in any predatory activity directed to the united states of america and its citizens. mr. president, -- madam president, i yield the floor. a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from missouri. mr. blunt: i ask unanimous consent to temporarily set aside the pending amendment to offer the grassley amendment number 860. the presiding officer: without objection. the clerk will report. mr. blunt: i ask consent to dispense with the reading of the amendment. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the amendment by number. the clerk: mr. blunt for mr. grassley proposes amendment 738.

mr. blunt: i ask unanimous consent to dispense with the reading and i yield the floor. mr. durbin: madam president, i want to stand and second the remarks made by the gentlelady from maryland, senator mikulski, related to the ayotte amendment. and i think it is important for us to just reflect on recent history. it was last week that omar farouq abdel miew tap ebb pled guilty in court to trying to explode a bomb in his underwear on a flight to detroit in on christmas day in 2009. he is expected to serve a life sentence. i want to commend the fine men and women at the justice department and the federal bureau of investigation for their extraordinary work on this case. america is safer because the obama administration chose the right investigative agency, the federal bureau of

investigation, as well as our article 3 court system to try mr. abdelmutala. you would never know this from the speeches on the floor and the amendment offered by the gentlelady from new hampshire. the suggestion was, it was a big mistake, for us to consider trying a terrorist in our criminal courts. she suggests, and others have joined her in this suggestion, that all of these cases should be tried before military tribunals, military commissions. well, i'd like to put on the record here in support of what senator mikulski said earlier, the facts in this case. i can recall when senator mcconnell the minority leader came to the floor and i quote him when he said in reference to abdulmutallab, he was given a 50-minute interrogation, probably larry king has

interrogated people better than that. after that he was assigned a lawyer who told him to shut up, close quote from senator mcconnell. unfortunately, as colorful as that depiction of the facts might have been, it just wasn't accurate. it turns out that experienced counterterrorism agencies from the f.b.i. interrogated abdulmutallab when he arrived in detroit. the f.b.i., quote, obtained intelligence that proved use envelope the fight against al qaeda. i say to my colleagues, watch this ayotte amendment carefully because it says that if there's a reference to a terrorist associated with al qaeda, we can't turn him over to the f.b.i. or to the court system. he has to go to military tribunals. i'll go on to tell you that after this initial interrogation , abdulmutallab refused to cooperate further with the f.b.i. only then after he stopped talking about the f.b.i. give

him his miranda warnings which of course are required under criminal law in the united states. what the f.b.i. did in this case was absolutely nothing new. during the bush administration, the previous republican president's administration, the f.b.i. also gave miranda warnings to terrorists when they were detained in the united states. here's what attorney general holder said and i quote him, "across many administrations before and after 9/11, the consistent, well-known, lawful and public-stated policy of the f.b.i. has been to provide miranda warnings prior to any custodial interrogation conducted inside the united states." in fact, the bush administration adopted new policies for the f.b.i. that say, quote, within the united states, miranda warnings are required to be given prior to custodial interviews. let's take one example from the bush administration, richard reid, the so-called shoe bomber. he tried to detonate an

explosive in his shoe on a flight from pair toys miami in december of 2001. very similar to what abdulmutallab tried on that flight to detroit. how did the bush administration's handling of the shoe bomber compare to the obama administration's handling of the underwear bomber? the bush administration gave reid a mir rwanda warning within five minutes of being removed from the airplane and reminded him of his miranda rights four times in his first 48 hours after he was detained. if you listen to the republican senators who come to the floor, they would suggest that giving miranda warnings are the end of the interrogation. once a potential criminal defendant is advised that they have the right to remain silent, the republican senators argue you gave away, they're going to lawyer up and shut up