electrification is great because -- we have been funding -- we have some pretty spectacular breakthroughs. one announced -- will decrease the cost twofold and maybe more. biofuel. very aggressive program in the previous administration but continuing to diversify that supply. so these are the things we are very focused on because we understand the economic impact that -- and our economy. ..

lot, long way to becoming less dependent on oil and will help the american economy, and the american consumers. >> thank you. >> thank you for putting a very human face on what a lot of american families are feeling at the pump and with her own family budgets. >> chairman, thank you. i realize we're at the end, i just want to highlight three issues that questions will be submitted for the record, mr. chairman, that i have a particular interest in. one is the issue of the safety culture at the waste treatment facility. there was a d.o.e. office of health and safety security investigation last year report,

very concerned about the systemic problem that continues to persist and have an interest in that question. relative to use fact, i realize there was an agreement between the department $44 million relative to the tailings as well as in return enrichment services. the question in particular i have is what happens if the cost of the government long-term for those, i'll strip the $44 million of liability to the taxpayers pick that up or does usac pick up that additional liability? and the last question is, i realize the administration is looking for transferred authority for 106 mentors but the question i would have is, where will the $106 million be transferred from? should the authority ever be granted. i appreciate the in chairman to indulge and. >> let me associate my feelings with mr. viscosity. there's a number of outstanding questions which will put into the record, not the least of

which you still have i think $550 million unobligated in terms of the 705 stimulus loan guarantee money, and a lot of, yes, i believe that's the amount. a lot of that money went out the waning months of the programs authority, and you, you know, personally a proof of that. can you sort of get the committee some assurances that that money and the programs it went to have better oversight than per of of the other row grants that were initiated? >> well, how do you want me speed is how would you like to characterize -- there were some lessons learned. >> there are always lessons learned in life, and certainly as noted in my senate testimony, we are continuing to improve how we administer the loan.

but i wouldn't characterize what happened at the end, we were very careful in how we -- so i think you're talking about the conditional loans and that obligation. how are you monitoring. >> so, what we have been doing since i think 2010, made 2010, setting up a different section within the loan program, but to look for changes in anything that materially affect company and the environment the companies in. so it's not only, certainly if you look at the loan agreements that we have, there are very careful milestones coming up before the next part is metered out, but in addition to that, as noted in the solyndra case, there was a very, very rapid

change in the whole ecosystem of photovoltaics. the price dropped by roughly 80% in the three years, one quarter to one-fifth of what the solar modules are doing. when that happens, the good news is there's very rapid technology developed that was occurring during that time and will continue to develop. the bad news is that, you know, not all companies -- >> are you laying blame for the disaster on things that occurred in china? how about oversight? >> i'm saying that when prices vary that much, in a commodity product, that a lot of companies can be swept up by that. >> that's all the more reason for oversight. >> exactly, i agree with you. >> the point of my question, so we continue to monitor what was

approved. >> right. the economics and as the business changes, if there's that, effectively something like that happens, we have to be very, very conscious of that, and we monitor these things very, very closely. and so -- >> we are counting on you, and, obviously, i think a lot of the public confidence issues that are mentioned in my initial opening statement rests on the type of assurances you're giving us this afternoon. this is your lucky day. this is your birthday, and your wedding anniversary. we have some votes which means we will not reconvene, but we have a lot of questions for the record, and we hope that we can get responses back in good order. we look forward to cooperation from the south, in that regard, and i may say for the record its members have any additional questions, i think they have, requisite 24 hours to get them in to be submitted to the department of energy. so mr. secretary, i'm a half of

the committee we thank you for your time and that of your staff this afternoon. >> inc. you. >> we stand adjourned. >> [inaudible conversations] >> even a person who is a senator, even a person now is president of the united states faces a predicament when they talk about race. they face all sorts of predicaments. they face the fact that there are some, a number of americans who are racially prejudiced. they face the fact of a much larger portion of the american populace wants to deny the realities of race, even now. >> sunday, harvard law school

professor randall kennedy on racism, politics and the obama administration. the rhodes scholar is the author of five books and he will take your calls, e-mails and tweets for three hours live on "in depth" on book tv on c-span2. >> you are watching c-span2 with politics and public affairs. weekdays feature live coverage of the u.s. senate. on week nights watch key public policy events. every weekend the latest nonfiction authors and books on book tv. you can see past programs and get our schedules at our website, and you can join in the conversation on social media sites. >> secretary of state hillary clinton will be testifying later today about the state department's budget at a hearing of the house foreign affairs committee. this follows yesterday's appearance before a senate committee. here's a half our portion of that hearing.

>> [inaudible conversations]

>> the hearing will come to order. madam secretary, welcome back to the committee. as always, i think you know this, a great pleasure for us to welcome you here, to have you here, and it's enormously helpful for us obviously to hear your thoughts, especially at a time when we are facing so may different challenges, and at the same time i think present with so many opportunities. the demand were u.s. leadership i think has never been higher, whether because of the issues raised by the arab spring, by nuclear proliferation, climate change, particularly the challenge of iran and the middle east. budget realities, however, have placed a premium on projecting u.s. power. not only effectively but efficiently. i think then more in recent

moments, we need a smart, coordinated and strong budget in order to safeguard the american people. and particularly to fund the administration's pursuit of opportunities and to face the challenges that we are all too well aware of. obviously, for anybody running for office, and i know you know this, madam secretary, cutting foreign aid, talking about some comparison between some particular community at home where you're standing at at our commitment abroad is a pretty easy applause line on the stump. and needless to say, it is good foreign policy to correct an unsustainable fiscal course. so we need to do what we need to do in order to put our house in order. but at the same time, it seems to me that our expenditures on

diplomacy are really miniscule compared to the return on investment. our international affairs budget is, in my judgment, a smart investment that ultimately yields outsized returns and saves us money over the long haul. there's nothing conservative about starving our foreign policy budget of a few billion dollars today in order to spend a trillion dollars later on, when an otherwise avoidable crisis strikes or add crisis looms. this year's budget request reflects very difficult decisions and some obvious trade-offs. i commend the administration for identifying programs where we can save money for deepening reforms at state, usaid, and for leveraging u.s. funds in multilateral forums. we also all know how crucial our military is to our national

defense, and i think everybody on the committee and the administration shares the belief that we would never hesitate to use force when necessary. are clearly smart and able to diplomacy and development policy can neutralize threats before they become crises. and can manage crises and threats escalate. and to assure security and stability after conflicts are resolved. and all of this could be done at a fraction of the cost of military deployment. diplomats and the element experts support counterterrorism efforts this moment in countries like yemen, somalia, pakistan, afghanistan. and programs to destroy small arms, shoulder-fired missiles that deprive her enemies of the tools to attack us. teaching foreign military officers, american values and skills, create capacity so we can play together and share burdens. training for law enforcement, counterterrorism officials and

american invested techniques, increase their capacity, their capability and our security. and implementing stricter export controls, training international weapons inspectors, securing our borders, allows us to guard against the most pernicious of threats and the threat of weapons of mass destruction and terrorism. so the stakes are enormous in the coming years. we will have great opportunities to build and refine our relationships around the world, particularly in the middle east. the region is moving in many different directions, but one thing is clear. it is transforming before our eyes. as you know, madam secretary, i recently traveled in the middle east, a number of days in the region, and quemoy more convinced than ever of both the opportunities that exist about the people of the middle east seek their legitimate political and economic aspirations, but

also a renewed sense of the fragility of this moment, and the urgency of our engagement in that region. so i truly fully share your perspective and the goals of the middle east, north africa incentive fund, which make sure that we have the tools and the flexibility needed to act proactively and to get vantage of opportunities when they arise. i look forward to continuing that conversation with you to make sure that you have those tools, and also to try to ascertain the best way forward with respect to the north africa senate fund in the middle east to support lasting change, and the continued hope that we all share for a renewed effort in the middle east peace process. we all know the difference that the united states can make. our efforts fascinate children, combat climate change, engage at-risk youth, our global

presence also does something else. it creates jobs, through opec loans in multilateral forums we both live the economy is a low income simultaneously, and this is important for americans to understand terms of her own interests, we open markets for american businesses and recognize the connection between promoting our business and creating jobs elsewhere. energetic global leadership is a strategic imperative for america. not the favor that we do for other countries. it is who we are. it is in the american dna. from the marshall plan to our response to the earthquakes in haiti and the floods in pakistan. it strengthens our security and that makes us stronger at home and in the world. and as we carefully watch our expenditures, we also need to scrutinize the cuts that have been proposed. so we look forward to your comments this afternoon, madam

secretary, and for talking throughout the year about the state department's priority. senator lugar. >> mr. chairman, i join you in welcoming secretary clinton to the committee once again. we look forward to discussing the administration's foreign policy priorities, and budget requests for fiscal year 2013. since your visit last year, the american economy remains under great stress. the unemployment rate stands well above the historical standards at 8.3% nationally, 9% my home state of indiana. the close of 2011, nearly 49 americans were still looking for work and millions more are underemployed. the united states national debt has risen above $15 trillion, posing extreme economic risk for our country. american families continue to bear the brunt of these economic

uncertainties. within this context, the administration's request for resources must be prioritized to meet the requirements of budget austerity. while addressing the vital national security objectives the chairman has so well outlined. this past year has also brought further uncertainty overseas. people in north africa at least are marking the anniversaries of their protests. the protest for democracy and accountability from their leaders. for some, these anniversaries have been celebrations of a break of a troubled past. for others, they are a reminder that progress remains buried elusive. in syria, the world continue to bear witness to the violent repression by the assad regime against the syrian people. this tragedy unfolds daily, bringing with it an increasing death toll. after the rig credible veto and

the security council by russia and china earlier this month, the u.n. general assembly voted overwhelmingly, as did the united states senate, to condemn the syrian regime's brutal force. our government must pay special attention to syria's weapons of mass destruction. on egypt, the difficult transition to a democratic civilian government has been marred by changing type length, protest and sectarian violence. given this tentative transition, when resources or what resources should be spent on building institutions, it is certainly our debate and as disheartening as the egyptian authority which used to harass the work of civil society organizations. focused on elections and government transparency. i look forward to secretary clinton's update on efforts to

secure the release of those facing trial before the work on behalf of democracy. we face the ongoing stress peace and global economy imposed by arendt. as iran's government continues to flout the will of the international community for a verifiable end to its nuclear weapons program. the most recent inspections by the iaea failed and iran refusing to address the iaea's questions or to grant inspection, access to the sites. the iranian nuclear program is a grave threat to our close ally, israel, into her own own security interests. growing understanding of art this crisis may lead to military conflict. has helped push oil prices well above $100 per bill. and increasing number of americans are paying $4 or more per gallon of gasoline.

and most analysts believe prices will go higher. i have talked about the risk to the united states national security of our dependence on foreign oil. i appreciate secretary clinton's recent reorganization in this regard, which elevates the promise of security within the state department. and i complement you on this really remarkable endeavor. but given the intensity of multi-crises in the middle east and the uncertainty and the threats to our oil supply, is there not limit to the current crisis with iran? as income principle that the president has rejected approval of the keystone xl pipeline. few national security nations the past several cage more clearly at odds with court, united states interest than the president's pipeline delay. prospect that iran could

obstruct oil flowing from the straits of or move or even a relatively short period, underscored the importance of having safe and secure dual supplies for the united states. the iranian threat is intensified by it's going allies with the chavez regime in venezuela, which chooses to support iran with its own oil supply disruption during a conflict. our government should explicitly warn venezuela the united states would regard such a threat to the united states security interests. today's high oil prices are typical for american families and american businesses. yet without action the worst is likely to be many years down the road. even if every nuclear program is halted without resort to welfare, mid east oil supplies will remain at risk from political manipulation, conflict and terrorism. a serious sustained oil supply disruption could cripple our

economy. over time we know rising oil demand from china, india, and other emerging economies will reduce america's capacity and stressed oil american supplies. in the keystone xl pipeline is one of best means at our disposal to help overcome future difficulties now. moreover, the decision to delay sends a signal to markets and overseas enemies that we are not serious about ending the united states energy dependent. pricing today and incorporates extra pages of future supply. we must not leave any doubt that this country will break its oil dependence on stable and friendly regimes. that requires the united states government to support domestic drilling, requires stronger supply relationship with reliable allies like canada that requires more alternative fuels, and it certainly requires innovation to do more with less

fuel. while bolstering oil security, the keystone xl pipeline would create up to 20,000 new jobs for americans, reduce passionate virtually no cost american taxpayers. the administration in my judgment should reverse course, and i would encourage secretary clinton to recommend to the president that our national security interest to immediately improve the keystone xl pipeline. in closing i'd like to express my appreciation for the dedicated men and women serving in roles within the state department and usaid. in an inner of declining resources, we're asking them to do with very difficult and wide ranging challenges, often at even greater risks, we're asking them to reduce threats from weapons of mass destruction, help mitigate epidemics and food insecurity, watch over the united states business interests and travelers, promote democracy, and assist in

combating terrorism. we are asking them to achieve these united states foreign policy goals and innumerable others in a global environment that is increasingly dangerous for a diplomatic personnel. we are very grateful for your willingness to serve your country. we are grateful for your willingness to serve our country, and we greet you again and look forward to your testimony. >> thank you, senator lugar. madam secretary, the floor is yours, and we welcome your comments. >> thank you very much, and i greatly appreciate chairman kerry, ranking member lugar, members of the committee, to be here once again to have this opportunity. and i want to thank you for the support that this committee has given to the state department and usaid over the last three quite consequential and unpredictable years, and i especially am grateful for the very kind words about our diplomats and development experts are serving around the

world, some in very difficult circumstances. you have seen the world transforming right before your eyes, from air of revelations to the rise of new economic powers, to a more dispersed but still dangerous al qaeda and terrorist network. and in this time, only the united states of america has the reach, resources and relationships to anchor a more peaceful and prosperous world. the state department and usaid budget, we discussed today, is a proven investment in our national and economic security. but it is also something more. it is a down payment on america's leadership. when i took this job i saw a world that needed america, but also one that questioned our focus and our staying power. so we have worked together to put american leadership on a firm foundation for the decades ahead. we have ended one war, and are

winding down another. we have submitted our place as a pacific power. we've also maintain our allies across the atlantic. we have elevated the role of economics within our diplomacy, and we reached beyond governments to engage directly with people with a special focus on women and girls. we are updating diplomacy and development for the 21st century and find ways to work smarter and more efficiently. and after the first quadrennial diplomacy and develpment review, we created two new bureaus, taking the work we are already doing on counterterrorism and combined it with other assets within the state department to create a much more focused efforts on counterterrorism, and on energy. and i really commend senator lugar, because it was his idea, it was his talking with me when i was visiting with him prior to my confirmation that made me determined that we would

actually accomplish this. when we organize our assets into a bureau focus on fragile states. now, like many americans in these tough economic times. we have certainly made difficult trade-offs and painful cuts. we have requested 18% less for europe and eurasia and central asia, preserving our most essential programs and using the savings are more urgent needs elsewhere. we are scaling back construction of our embassies, improving procurement to save money and taking steps across the board to lower costs. our requests of 51.6 billion represents an increase of less than the rate of inflation, and just over 1% of the federal budget. this is coming at the very same time that our responsibilities are multiplying around the world. today, i want briefly to highlight our five priorities. first, our request allows us to

sustain our vital national security missions in iraq, afghanistan and pakistan, and reflects a temporary extraordinary costs of operating on the front line. as president obama has said, the tide of war is receding, but as troops come home, thankfully, civilians remained to carry out the critical missions of diplomacy and develop an. in iraq, civilians are now in the lead, helping that country emerge as a stable, sovereign, democratic party. this increases our civilian budget, but state and usaid are asking for only one-tenth of the $48 billion the u.s. government spent on iraq. >> leaving this before the senate foreign relations committee. you can see the rest of her testimony online at c-span.org. she will be back on capitol hill discussing the state department budget before the house foreign affairs committee. c-span3 will carry it live starting at 1:30 p.m. eastern. it will also be on c-span radio. while the u.s. senate continues

working today on its transportation bill, that bill has been stalled during negotiations over unrelated amendments. and now live to the senate floor. the presiding officer: the senate will come to order. chaplain dr. barry black will lead the senate in prayer. the chaplain: .let us pray. .eternal god, our comfort and guide, as we begin this day in the forward march of history,

we pause to acknowledge your sovereignty and power. your unfailing love and mercy continue to sustain us, and we put our hope in you. today, fill our lawmakers with your wisdom, enabling them to shoulder the demands of decisions, the strain of conflict, and the uncertainties about tomorrow. let your justice guide their thoughts and your righteousness direct their steps. fill them with your joy and use them for your glory. make each of us a blessing

and not a burden, a lift and not a load, a delight and not a drag. we pray in the name of our lord and savior. amen. the presiding officer: please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance to the flag. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. the presiding officer: the clerk will read a communication to the senate. the clerk: washington, d.c., february 29, 2012. to the senate: under the provisions of rule 1, paragraph 3, of the standing rules of the senate, i hereby appoint the honorable

kirsten e. gillibrand, a senator from the state of new york, to perform the duties of the chair. signed: daniel k. inouye, president pro tempore. the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. reid: following leader remarks the senate will be in morning business for an hour, the republicans control the first half and the majority the second half. following that morning business, senate will resume consideration of the highway bill. we continue to work on a process to complete action on this bill. we're going to have to do that. if we can't get an agreement to move forward on this bill, i have no alternative but to try to stop the filibuster that is taking place. i hope we don't have to do that. we've agreed to work on amendments that aren't relevant or jer main, senator durbin, the whip, has worked on side by sides and other amendments, so we're ready to move forward but we can't do it unless we get some basic cooperation and it's a shame if we can't move forward on this bipartisan bill.

i ask consent floor privileges be permitted to andy reamo and jesse holiday during today's session of the senate. the presiding officer: without objection. under the previous order, the leadership time is reserved. under the previous order, the senate will be in a period of morning business for an hour. senate permitted to speak therein up to 10 minutes each with the time quite quite the leaders or their designees, with republicans controlling the first half and the majority controlling the second half. mr. durbin: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from illinois. mr. durbin: i suggest the absence of a quorum. before i do, could i make, an inquiry, will the time be running on the minority party's half-hour? the presiding officer: the senator is correct. mr. durbin: i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from south dakota. mr. thune: madam president, i ask unanimous consent the quorum call be lifted. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. thune: madam president, back in 2008 then-senator obama said that under his policies, energy costs would necessarily, and i quote, skyrocket. skyrocket. end quote. and that he would, and i quote again, have preferred a gradual adjustment to higher gasoline prices. so he indicated at the time that under his policies, energy prices were going to go up. he mentioned that he would like a more gradual adjustment, but when he talked about those policies, he said that energy costs would necessarily, and i quote, skyrocket. well, i think we now know, madam president, which of the

campaign promises that the president has kept. because we have seen energy prices skyrocket for most americans. in fact, gasoline prices have doubled under president obama's watch. if you look at january of 2009, the price per gallon of gasoline was $1.85. today it's $3.73. and some analysts are predicting $5 a gallon gasoline by may of this year. today marks the 2th straight day -- 24th straight day of gasoline price increases. now, the problem with all this, madam president, is that the president rhetorically when he goes out and talks about energy says that he wants an all-of-the-above strategy. we always say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and obviously that is a phrase many of us as republicans have been using some time. we talk about an all-of-the-above strategy that includes coal and biofuels and

solar and wind and all of those things. the problem with what the president says is his actions say that he really means none of the above. he says all of the above but means none of the above. because the president has taken unprecedented steps to restrict access to america's affordable and reliable sources of oil and natural gas. president he is obama's natural gas policy are increasing costs in this country. his administration is pursuing regulations that will increase the cost of energy production and stkoeu jobs. madam president, more domestic production of energy in this country equals lower prices at the pump and more american jobs. now, the president's statements have been punctuated, if you will, or reinforced by members of his administration. again, i go back to 2008. dr. steven chu, who is now president obama's energy secretary, said at the time -- and i quote -- "somehow we have

to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in europe." think about that, madam president. somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in europe. if you look at the levels in europe, i think even at that time you were talking about $9 to $10 per gallon of gasoline. so you have members of his very administration suggesting, madam president, even back then that part of strategy, the energy strategy was to increase prices. think about that. as having an energy strategy that is actually going to drive up the cost of energy to people in this country. yesterday in testimony before the house appropriations committee, now-secretary chu, who said back in 2008 that somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in europe, was asked: is the overall goal to get the price of

gasoline down? that was asked by a member of the house of representatives, again, as secretary chu was testifying in front of the house appropriations committee. is the overall goal to get our price of gasoline down? this is what the secretary said: no. the overall goal is to decrease our dependency on oil to build and strengthen our economy. well, madam president, when you are doubling, literally doubling the price per gallon of gasoline, how does that strengthen your economy? small businesses are faced every single day with high costs of energy. it's an important part, important component of running a business in this country. energy is probably one of the most important costs that people are going to deal with. it certainly is in my part of the country where i represent an agriculture economy. american families are looking at gasoline prices that literally have doubled since this president took office. yet, here his secretary of energy, the very guy who is to guide energy policy in this

country, in front of a house committee as recently as yesterday, when asked about the overall goal, says one of the overall goals is to -- whether the overall goal is to get the price of gasoline down. he said no. it squares perfectly what he said four years ago when he indicated that we need to figure out how to somehow boost the price of gasoline to the levels in europe. that is an amazing, amazing statement. i think probably almost incomprehensible to the american people in terms of what it means to their daily lives, because they are the people who ultimately in their pocketbooks have to deal with the consequences of bad policies and bad policies that raise the price of energy in this country makes it more difficult for them to balance their budgets and to be able to continue to enjoy a standard of living and a quality of life in this country. yesterday president obama's secretary of the interior, ken salazar, defended the obama administration's failure of an energy policy when testifying

about the senate energy and natural resources committee. he said this: we have an energy strategy and a policy that we've been working on from day one. and we believe it continues to show good results. think about that. we have an energy strategy and a policy that have we've been working on from day one. we believe it continues to show good results. i don't know how you can argue that doubling the price for a gallon of gasoline is a good result and literally taking areas out of production in this country that could be yielding energy that would help reduce the dependence we have on foreign sources of energy, drive down the price at the pump and create american jobs is a good result. i don't know how you can argue that the things that have happened here in the, during this administration's time in office have been anything but disastrous for the american people, for american business and for the continued dependence that we have on foreign sources of energy. we all know president obama rejected the keystone pipeline

which would have created 20,000 shovel-ready jobs and delivered up to 830,000 barrels of oil per day from canada, america's largest trading partner. president obama has reduced the number of new offshore leases by half. by half. president obama has blocked exploration and production on 97% of offshore areas. 97% of those areas that could be useful in helping meet america's energy needs have been put off limits by this president by their policies which have blocked exploration and production in those very areas. under the obama administration, new permits to drill in federal onshore and offshore areas have declined by 40% to 50%. that, madam president, is the president's record on energy. so how his secretary of the interior could come up and say that their energy strategy shows good results is beyond me. it is completely at odds with the reality and with the facts,

madam president. the obama administration is implementing a backdoor, national backdoor energy tax, unregulated precedents of greenhouse gas emissions under the clean air act. president obama specifically targeting the oil and gas industry with new regulations such as new source peformance standards boiler pha*bgt, tier 3 gasoline standards that could drive up the cost of gasoline by up to 25 cents a gallon. the raise of operating costs by $5 billion to $13 billion annually, lead to a 14% reduction in u.s. supplies and force as many as seven u.s. refiners to shut down, the tier 3 gasoline standard the administration is proposing. time after time again opportunity after opportunity missed, this president continues to put policies in place that make it more difficult, more expensive to create jobs in this country and that raise the cost of doing business by raising the

cost of energy and raising the cost that every american consumer has to deal with in the form of higher gasoline prices. so when he says that he supports an all-the-above energy plan, his policies tell, madam president, a very, very different story because his policies have discouraged increased production of oil and high oil costs are indeed a key driver of gasoline costs. republicans support a real all-the-above strategy that includes production in all the sources of energy, includes support of projects like the keystone x.l. pipeline. and we've got to have a robust energy plan that's tpoubgd on increasing -- focused on increasing areas of domestic production that would send a strong signal to energy markets around the world and make america less vulnerable to skyrocketing gasoline prices. it's interesting, madam president, that the response up here on capitol hill to this spike in gasoline prices that we have seen here over the

past several days is along these lines. there was a letter that went from senator schumer to secretary clinton a couple of days ago in which he talked about the skyrocketing fuel prices, directly linked those to the global energy market, but suggested that the solution should be urging the state department to work with the government of saudi arabia to increase its oil production to its actual capacity of 12.5 million barrels to help stabilize markets. so instead, instead of developing american resources and actually doing something that would lessen the dependence that we have on these foreign sources of energy, the solution proposed by some of our, at least our democratic colleagues is to go to the, have the secretary of state, hillary clinton go to the saudis hat in hand and to beg them to increase daily production by 2.5 million

barrels. ironically, at the very time that they are blocking policies that would help generate that same 2.5 million barrels a day right here in the united states and stabilize world markets. in fact, if you look at many of these areas that are off limits to production today -- north slope of alaska, the atlantic outer continental shelf, eastern gulf of mexico, the pacific outer continental shelf, the keystone x.l. pipeline -- if you add up, madam president, the amount of production that that would bring to our country, it adds up to 4.5 million barrels per day. 4.5 million barrels a day of additional energy production that we could being benefitting from and enjoying in this country at a time when we're seeing gas prices literally double. and of course in accordance with the president's promise when he was running for office that prices were going to skyrocket, it shouldn't come as any surprise. but these energy policies

implemented by this administration have literally created a situation where we're now having to go and ask the saudis, please, please, would you please give us an additional 2.5 million barrels of oil a day instead of opening up the areas in this country that could generate up to 4.5 million barrels per day if we would simply develop the resource that is we have in this country and quit blocking, quit blocking the access to these important energy resources. madam president, this is a fairly straightforward issue to the american people. one, because it hits very squarely in their everyday lives. the pocketbook issues are issues, the bread-and-butter issues are issues people discuss around their kitchen tables every day, are the issues that i think are most important to americans particularly right now in a down economy with a high unemployment rate. and certainly what we're seeing in terms of energy costs makes

worse that situation for american families. in fact, the payroll tax holiday which was extended a couple of weeks ago will actually be eaten up. any savings that might be achieved to the american families' pocketbooks will literally be eaten up simply paying for the higher cost of gasoline that is going to be imposed on every american family as a result of these higher prices, again, that are simply a matter of us not having enough supply. this is a market situation. gasoline is a global commodity. it is something that when you have more supply, it brings the price down. and when you've got more domestic production in this country, it means two things. it means lower prices at the pump for american consumers and it means more jobs for american workers. and blocking access to american sources of energy production means higher prices at the pump for american consumers and fewer jobs for american workers.

it is that straightforward. it is that simple. the american people understand that. and that's why the policies that this administration is pursuing, and clearly, madam president, from the statements that are being made by these members of the president's administration, from secretary chu to secretary salazar to the president himself, suggest -- suggest -- if you can believe this, unfathomable i'm sure to many americans, that it is intentional to actually push those prices hire. that is what secretary chu said in 2008. we need to boost our prices to the level that we're seeing in places like europe. i think the american people believe differently about that. i believe they deserve better. they want policies that will lower the cost of energy in this country, make america less dependent upon dangerous foreign regimes. i know many of us here, republicans in the senate, are ready to go to work on putting those policies in place if the president and his allies here in the united states senate will give us that opportunity. madam president, i yield the

floor. mr. mcconnell: madam president? the presiding officer: the republican leader. mr. mcconnell: i want to associate myself with the remarks of the senator from south dakota and follow up as, in that regard. yesterday i came to the senate floor and explained how the president's ideological outlook on the policies that have grown out of it will only continue to drive up the cost of gasoline at the pump. and after i spoke, the president's energy secretary seemed to confirm it when he told a congressional panel that the department of energy isn't working to drive down the price of gas. they're working to wean us off of it altogether. and that high gas prices add urgency to those efforts. in other words, high gas prices actually help the administration achieve what it is trying to achieve. what i suggested yesterday and what i'm suggesting again this morning is that we look at statements like this and many others from the president and some of his top advisors in the past along with the president's actual policies when it comes to assessing the current situation

at the pump. not the speeches he gives when he starts feeling the political heat for it. because he can't have it both ways. so once again, here are the facts: the president continues to limit offshore areas to energy production and is granting fewer leases on public land for oil drilling. at the same time he he has encouraged other countries like brazil to move forward with their offshore drilling projects. the obama administration continues to impose burdensome regulations on the domestic energy sector that will further drive up the cost of gasoline for the consumer. he's proposing raising taxes on the energy sector, a move that the congressional research service has said would drive up costs. and as we all know, he flatly rejected the keystone x.l. pipeline, a potentially game-changing domestic energy project that promises not only greater independence from the middle eastern oil but tens of thousands of private-sector

jobs. all of these policies help drive up the cost of gasoline and increase our dependence on foreign sources of oil, but perhaps none is as emblematic of the president's simplistic and punitive approach to energy policy as the last one. the president simply can't claim to support comprehensive approach to energy while standing in the way of the keystone pipeline. doesn't make any sense. it's either one or the other. now, most americans understand that. and that's why many of us were pleased when the company that's sponsor for building keystone said it plans to move forward with the southern portion of the pipeline despite the administration's decision to block the northern portion to alleviate a bottleneck in cushing, oklahoma. they're not going to let this administration punish them or the rest who want to build this pipeline. asked about the impact of delays, the company's president

and c.e.o. they were part loy li to plame for the spike in gas prices which is presumably why the white house came out in support of the move. but the hypocrisy is really quite stunning. i mean how could the white house that is single-handedly blocking one half of the pipeline to appease a extreme segment of its political base now claim to support the southern half of the same pipeline? well, the short answer is they don't have the authority to block the southern half so they think by claiming to support it, then can get doctor for people for being on both sides of the issue. but if keystone is good for america and good for jobs, the president should just come out and support the whole pipeline. with gas prices literally skyrocketing and growing turmoil in the middle east, we can't afford another year of foot dragging. it's time for the president 0 to move quickly to approve the entire keystone x.l. pipeline. this is literally a no-brainer.

an overwhelming majority of americans support the keystone x.l. pipeline in its entirety. the president should listen to them. instead of lecturing the american people about his idea of fairness, he should spend a little more time thinking about what most americans think is fair. look, most americans don't think it's particularly fair that the president of the united states is blocking them from tapping into our natural resources, even as he uses their tax dollars to prop up failing solar companies like solyndra and hand out bonuses to the executives that drive them literally into the ground. most americans don't think it's fair their president would want to crief up -- drive up the cost of gasoline they need to get around every day and build their families and their businesses and their lives even as he's directing more and more of their money to risky solar schemes in his own

administration. these risky solar schemes his own administration says sometimes fail. well, the american people don't ask for much but they do expect to be able to go out there every day and try to build a future for themselves and for their families without their own president throwing sand in the gears. and whether it's guy gas prices -- high gas prices or government regulations or higher debt, the american people are tired of bearing the burden, so this president can build an economy in which washington calls all the shots. yes, americans want lower gas prices, and yes, this president's policies are hurting. but let's be clear about something. this debate isn't just about gas prices. it's about a president who wants to impose a definition of fairness on the american people that most of them simply do not accept.

madam president, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from utah. mr. hatch: madam president, i ask unanimous consent that i be permitted to finish my remarks, that i be granted enough time to do so. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. hatch: thank you. madam president, the first three years of president obama's administration were a frenzy of activity. he pushed the stimulus, he spent over a year pursuing his health care law, he forced through dodd-frank, imposing historic regulations on the banking industry, even the economist magazine has found fault with that. yet at a time when the nation was in economic free fall the president chose an agenda of more regulation and higher taxes. the president ignored private sector job creation in the primacy of economic growth and nowhere was this more evident than with respect to energy policy. president obama has failed entirely to address one of the

greatest obstacles to the economic growth, and that is high energy prices. today he claims that he is for an all of a sudden approach to energy. all of a sudden facing $5 gasoline, weak job creation and the presidential election, he claims to have found religion on energy production. but whether we look at oil, natural gas, or the keystone x.l., the american people are not buying this conversion story and i certainly agree with our distinguished minority leader in his comments this morning. the national crisis for which the american people should hold him to account. yet his inability to put jobs ahead of his radical and unrepresentative environmental base has particular implications for the citizens of my state of utah as well. days after announcing in his state of the union and -- quote -- "all-of-the-above strategy

that develops every available source of american energy"-- unquote, they cut lands in the west for oil shale development by 75% and proposed a 50% royalty hike on domestic energy production on public lands. whether it is closing off more federal lands to american energy production or saying no to the keystone pipeline, this white house has shown it's more focused on appeasing its extremist ideological allies than putting forward a energy strategy that works for utahans and americans everywhere. with gas prices on the rise the american people deserve action, not more campaign speeches. and i might add, from the most anti-american energy administration in our nation's history. when it comes to energy policy, the president is a man divided on almost all economic policy his answer is tax the rich more.

taxing the rich more is his go-top option for reducing the deficit, paying for obamacare, and paying for new roads and bridges. higher taxes are a matter of fundamental fairness, the president claims, but when it comes to gas prices, the president sides with the 1%, the folks who would benefit most from increased energy production are blue collar workers and middle-class families. hier high energy prices hit the wallets of lower income americans the hardest. middle-class americans are more likely to have longer commutes and bigger cars than wealthy urban citizens. the pass-through cost of high fuel prices hits the grocery budgets of all americans, and the jobs that never materialize due to the failure to develop energy resources undermine every blue collar american. the president's claims to be for fairness and the agallon tehran -- he claims to be for fairness and an agallon

tehran -- egalitarian economic policy but his energy policy is regressive, putting the burden of his environmental agenda on the backs of the middle class. the situation got no better with the budget the president submitted with his long delayed proposal with business tax reform. rather than advance an enemy agenda that would spur production, lower prices and create jobs, the president continues to advocate for increased taxes on oil and gas production in the united states. on march 3 of last year, the congressional research service concluded that at the present time's are proposals would -- quote -- "make oil and natural gas more expensive for u.s. consumers and likely increase foreign dependence"-- unquote. the same holds true today. these decisions are based in political appeals to his elitist base rather than interest in developing sound energy policy. for example, in his budget the

president cites the following for his reason -- as his reason for repealing tax incentives for oil and gas production. -- quote -- "special gas treatment of working interests in oil and gas properties distorts markets by encouraging more investment in the oil and gas industry than would occur under a neutral system"-- unquote. give me a break. the reason the president opposes current tax policy for oil and gas is because he opposes distorting markets? the energy information administration reports that in fiscal year 2010, $14.7 billion in energy-specific subsidies went to advance renewable energy compared to $4.2 billion in energy-related subsidies that went to advance fossil fuels. in other words, there are three times as many government subsidies going to renewable energy than there are going to oil, gas, and coal combined. now, that's what you call

distorting the market. contrary to the president's presentation, these are not tax loopholes that need to be closed. the term "tax loophole" implies that a tax incentive is susceptible to an exploitation of an unintended benefit, while the tax code has some tax loopholes we must clearly eliminate, the tax expenditures that benefit oil and gas companies were intended to incentivize a particular activity or behavior. for instance section 199 of the certainly revenue code includes an incentive for the domestic production of oil and gas. this is no loophole. congress on a bipartisan basis understands that without this incentive, we could see an enormous reduction in employment, and it is simply inaccurate to state this incentive adds little to our economic or energy security. the american people need to understand that repeal of this policy will only increase our

dependence on foreign-produced oil. but this does not seem to bother the president one bit. on march 20 last year the president told a group of political and business leaders in brazil that we -- quote -- "want to help with technology and support to develop these oil reserves safely, and when you're ready to start selling, we want to be one of your best customers"-- unquote. as hard as it is to believe, the administration does not even seem to share the desire of the american people for lower energy prices. the president's secretary of energy, secretary steven chu, has stated -- quote -- "we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in europe"-- unquote. madam president, gas prices in europe are $8 to $10 a gallon and that's that is where environmental activists want gas prices to be for americans. even president obama stated in 2008 that he would prefer a

gradual adjustment to high gasoline prices just maybe not a quick spike. the president claims that he is for an all-of-the-above energy policy so long as it does not include offshore drilling, drilling on our western lands, the development of energy in alaska, and the keystone pipeline. reading of his all-of-the-above approach is some of the above, and only those that are poll tested and approved by environmental activists. this is terrible tax policy. it is terrible energy policy. and it is terrible economic policy. unfortunately, it is all we have from this administration. the reality is that our country relies upon oil and gas because it is dependable, abundant, affordable, and domestic. raise taxes on american companies that produce oil and gas will be felt by all americans, not only at the pump

but also through a dereece in dividends through many middle-class shareholders. this is the wrong prescription for our ailing economy. for this administration, the goal remains not lower energy prices but the liberal dream of getting america off of oil. just the other day, the president's secretary of energy acknowledged that the overall goal of his department is not to lower the cost of traditional energy but to decrease dependency on oil. for what it is worth, this commitment to restricting domestic production is a policy that divides my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. they know that the president is putting the preferred lifestyle policies of wealthy urbanites ahead of the needs of blue collar and union workers and middle-class americans. they know that the decision by the president to kill the keystone pipeline put environmental interests ahead of

workers, commuters and families. president obama has traded in the hard hat and lunch bucket category for a hipster fedora and a double skim latte. he has put liberal dreams ahead of the reality that americans have been struggling for years. the nation's unemployment rate has been above 8% for 36 straight months. the average duration of unemployment was 40.1 weeks in january of 2012. yet the president and his allies in the senate have helped to kill projects that would undeniably lead to the creation of hundreds of thousands of high-paying american jobs. gas prices have now risen for 20 straight days. gas prices are now up 30 cents over the last month and 18 cents in the past two weeks. and 100% since he took over. we are cruising toward $5 a gallon gas and the president resists any long-term solutions

to these rising energy prices. the american people deserve better than this. they have waited three long years for serious energy -- for a serious energy agenda from this president and if he does not address this energy crisis soon, in less than a year the american people will be looking to another president to promote an energy program that will finally create jobs and lower the cost of energy for all americans.s look, we have the energy within our country's boundaries and offshore that are still within our country's boundaries. we have the energy that is just begging to be developed, that would help us to make it through these trying times. and at the same time maybe help in some of the other forms of energy development that not only the president would like, but i

would like and others as well. but we have got to have as low-cost energy as we can possibly have. and we're not going to get it under this president. we're not going to get it under this administration. and i hope my colleagues on both sides of the aisle wake up and realize that we're putting our country right down the drain. i just saw this last couple weeks the "congress" magazine, front page of that magazine criticizes us for the overregulatory nature of our economy and of our government. we're making it so it's almost impossible for businesses to really make the money and income that they need to make to have high-paying jobs in this society. yet, all we hear are various approaches that really don't work. madam president, we can solve our own energy needs. we have between 800 billion and

1.6 trillion barrels of recoverable oil and oil shale in utah and colorado. we have billions of barrels of oil in anwr up in alaska, billions of barrels of oil in other sites in alaska. fortunately we found oil in the balkans in north dakota. the only reason we've been able to drill there is because it's private land. fortunately we found some big place down in texas. again, the only reason we're able to do that there is because it's private land. you can't get the permits and the ability to drill on public land or even develop oil shale on public land. yes, it would cost us more per gallon, more per barrel to develop that oil, but it would also bring down the intense problems that we have in trying to find enough oil and gas to keep our country moving, moving ahead and continue as the greatest country in the world. we have got simply to get this

administration to wake up and realize there are many ways we can solve our problems. many ways. we also are awash in natural gas. a lot of people have been saying we need to develop our natural gas. we need to convert those eight million trucks to natural-gas vehicles. we need to develop a natural-gas grid. and we need to develop more of our energy resources than we're developing now. and we can do it. america can do it if we get the government off the backs of those who produce energy. and i hope and pray that democrats and republicans alike will lock arms, get together and let's solve these problems for our country regardless of what this president whorbgs doesn't seem to know exactly what to do or how to do it. madam president, this is a crucial time for our country. there's no excuse for us to be in the mess we're in. and a lot of it is because of the poor energy policy of this administration. madam president, i yield the

floor. the presiding officer: the senator from michigan. mr. levin: madam president, there's been a great deal of conversation recently about the need to close tax loopholes. this is a welcome development for those of us who have gone after these loopholes for years. it is particularly timely as the public is focusing more and more on how tax loopholes distort economic incentives and often benefit the wealthiest among us at the expense of most u.s. taxpayers. last week president obama released a framework for business tax reform that took aim at many corporate tax loopholes. i look forward to working with the administration and with our colleagues in the senate to make real reform a reality. reform that brings greater fairness to the tax code, eliminates incentives for moving jobs and assets overseas, restores revenue loss to

unjustified tax loopholes and helps us reduce the deficit without damaging vital programs for education, transportation, health care and national security. one recent and very public announcement illustrates dramatically our tax code's distortions and the need for reform. at the center of this story is facebook and its founder and c.e.o. mark zuckerberg. mr. zuckerberg and his company have become a remarkable american business success story. as part of that success, facebook is in the process of making its initial public offering of stock. the public documents that facebook is required to file as part of that offering tell another compelling story about one of our tax codes unjustified corporate loopholes. according to its filings, when facebook goes public,

mr. zuckerberg plans to exercise options to purchase 120 million shares of stock for six cents a share. mr. zuckerberg's shares obviously are going to be worth a great deal more than six cents each or a total of about $7 million. it will apparently be worth in the neighborhood of $5 billion. now here's where the tax loophole comes in. under current law, facebook can perfectly legally tell investors and the public and regulators that the stock options that he received cost the company a mere 6 cents a share. that's the expense shown on the company's books. but the company can also perfectly legally later on file a tax return claiming that those same options cost the company something close to what the

shares actually sell for later on, perhaps $40 a share. and the company can take a tax deduction for that far larger amount. so the books show a highly profitable company, profitable in part because of the relatively small expense that the company shows on its books for the stock options it grants to its employees. but when it comes time to pay taxes the loophole in the tax code allows the company to take a tax deduction for a far larger expense than they've shown on their books. in addition, facebook is allowed by law to carry back the so-called loss arising from this deduction for two years into the past, which means that it can claim a tax retprupbd for the -- refund for the income tax that it has paid over the past two

years, a refund that the company estimates at $500 million. so instead of paying taxes to the treasury, this profitable company will claim a hefty refund on the taxes already paid. but that's not all. the company says that it will, as allowed by law, also carry forward the so-called losses arise tpr-g this tax de -- arising from this tax deduction for over 20 years into the future, thereby reducing any tax that it owes in the years ahead. altogether this loophole could give facebook a tax break of up to $3 billion. the end result is that a profitable u.s. corporation, a success story, could end up paying no taxes at all for years, even decades. i emphasize that facebook's actions are within the law. as with so much of our tax code,

it's not the lawbreaking that shocks the conscience. it's the stuff that's perfectly legal. for years my permanent subcommittee on investigations identified this stock option loophole and tried to explain its cost, its unfairness and why it should be closed. facebook's $3 billion tax break brings the issue into sharp focus. and again, the stock option loophole allows corporations to compensate their executives with stock options, report a specific stock option expense to their shareholders and then later take a tax deduction for typically a much higher amount. stopl -- stock option grants are the only compensation where the tax code allows companies to claim a higher expense for tax purposes than it shows on its books. our subcommittee found that the difference between what u.s. corporations tell the public and

what they told the i.r.s. was as much as $61 billion in one year. facebook's use of this loophole is the most pointed i will strays yet of the -- illustration yet of the cost of this loophole. it's difficult to get our minds around a $3 billion tax break for a single corporation. just how big is it? consider this: in 2009, the most recent year for which i.r.s. data is available, taxpayers from 11 states in our union sent less than $3 billion in individual income tax revenue to the treasury. how does this make any sense? after all, american taxpayers are going to have to make up for what facebook's tax deduction cost the treasury. that $3 billion is either going to come out of the pockets of american families now or it will add to the deficit that they're going to have to pay for later. what could our nation do with the $3 billion that it will lose

when facebook exploits the stock option loophole? reduce the federal deficit, pay for programs that protect our seniors and veterans, put cops on the beat or teachers in the classrooms. $3 billion that facebook will get in tax deductions would more than triple the budget of the small business administration which seeks to help american entrepreneurs create jobs and grow the economy. $3 billion would pay for the pentagon's budget for housing our military families for a full two years. it would pay the budget of the national institute of science and technology for four years. it would more than triple what we plan to spend helping homeless veterans next year. it would pay six times over for the 24 reaper unmanned aerial vehicles that the air force plans to buy next year. some are going to grew that facebook's tax break is offset by the fact that mr. zuckerberg himself, as well as the other executives who are receiving stock options, will pay taxes as individuals. as various news reports

indicate, mr. zuckerberg will face a substantial tax bill on the $5 billion in compensation that he's about to receive, perhaps in the nape of a $2 billion tax bill. but it is unlikely that the individual taxes that mr. zuckerberg pays will offset the tax revenues lost to this loophole. but the treasury receives from mr. zuckerberg on the one hand, it will return and then some to his company with the other hand. we also should remember that mr. zuckerberg's financial future is closely tied to that of his company. the value of the options in his retained interest make that clear. to the extent that his corporation benefits, and as i've shown, facebook will benefit handsomely from the use of this loophole, mr. zuckerberg stands to benefit as well. put simply, some of that big tax bill that he faces right now will come back to him through

the corporation that he will still own a huge part of and will control. now, madam president, our tax system is built on the principle that businesses as well as individuals ought to help pay our nation's bills. corporations impose plenty of costs on society, from environmental disasters, financial bailouts, product recalls and more. businesses also want and need government services, including efficient transportation systems, patent protections, even federal loan guarantees. paying those costs is why we have a corporation income tax to begin. businesses and sreuts are required by law -- and individuals are required by law to contribute and should do so to meet their civic obligations and pay their fair share. there is no reason why facebook and the other corporations who use this tax loophole should continue to receive these windfall tax deductions. senator conrad and i earlier

this month introduced s.2075, the cut unjustified tax loopholes act, or cut loopholes act. this bill, similar to the legislation that i've introduced in the past few congresses, would close this loophole. under our bill, corporations would no longer be allowed to claim tax deductions for options that are larger than the expense that they report to their shareholders and the people considering buying their stock. it would also subject stock options to the same $1 million cap on deductions for skaoufp compensation that now -- executive compensation that now applies to other forms of compensation. at the same time, and this is important to know, madam president, it would -- our bill would leave unchanged the way the law applies to individuals who receive stock options. and it would leave unchanged incentive stock options that are used often by start-up companies. we would not affect that.

the stock option loophole should have been closed long before mr. zuckerberg's extraordinarily lucrative options became public. but surely the case of facebook illustrates to the senate, to the congress and to the american people that we must close this loophole. i've spoken today about one corporate tax loophole, but there are many, many more. the momentum has never been stronger for tax reform. it brings more fairness to the tax code. reduces the deficit, and protects important priorities. and i look forward to working with our colleagues and with the administration to turn that momentum into real reform. madam president, i thank the chair and i yield the floor. and i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from new york. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent the quorum be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: madam president, i rise today to us is the amendment to the surface transportation bill offered by my friend and colleague from missouri, senator blunt. for reasons beyond me, the other side has demanded a vote on birth control. it seems they wish to debate whether we should take away access to contraception for millions of women. mr. president -- madam president, cooler heads

are not reveiling on the other side of the aisle these days. there are some wiser voices on their side who do seem to regret they are having this debate, but they are the minority. just this morning the senior senator from alaska is quote in "the new york times" expressing exasperation of her party's push of her party's push to roll back contraception, saying -- quote -- "i don't know where we are going with this"-- unquote. i sympathize. there is no good answers where the other side is going, except perhaps to the 19th century. the whole debate is an anachronism. the whole country progressed whether or not to allow birth control a long time ago. yet here we are in 2012 and some in the republican party suddenly want to turn back the clock and take away contraception for

millions of women. make no mistake, that's what this debate is about. as backward as it is. i keep hearing this measure being referred to as the blunt amendment, named after its sponsor, my friend, the senator from missouri. we should instead call it for what it will be, an attempt to take away for millions of women birth control. we should call it for what it will be, an attempt -- mr. president, if this amendment passes, it would ban contraception coverage for any woman in america whose boss has a personal objection to it. the measure would force women to surrender control of their own health decision to their bosses. that concept is not merely

quaint or old fashioned, it is dangerous and it is wrong. according to the department of health and human services, some 20 million american women could be cut off from health services by this proposal. the other side doesn't want the debate framed in those terms because they know it makes them look silly. so instead, they're spinning. in the last week, there have been op eds penned by the junior son-in-law ?or from missouri, all seeking to frame this about protecting religious liberty. the debate may have been about religious liberty for a time but some on the other side have overplayed their hand. they may have started out seeking protections for religious affiliated employers, but now they just sense a ripe time to make headway on a far-right social agenda. the debate reminds me of a famous quote our former

colleague, dale bumpers, used to invoke, a quote by h.l. mengen who said when someone says it's not about the money, it's usually about the money. when the other side tries so hard this isn't a debate about contraception, that's how you know this debate is precisely about contraception. the amendment's not about religious liberty. the truth is religious institutions have always been exempt under the law from certain coverage requirements. under the president's compromise, an even larger set of employers, those with a religious affiliation like certain hospitals and schools, also will not have to pay for contraception coverage. it will instead be covered by the insurance company. the president's compromise has been widely embraced, including by many of the same church-affiliated organizations that expressed concern originally. the administration is working on a solution for self-insured employers. i'm confident they'll find a way

that works for everyone. the amendment being voted on tomorrow is not responsive to any real concerns about religious freedom. its reach extends far beyond church organizations that legitimately seek considerations based on conscience. i wants to let any employer in the country decide to cut off services for any reason whatsoever. under the guys of religious -- the guise of religious liberty, some on the right are trying to accomplish a political goal. banning contraception for widely. this is a goal the other side has been pursuing for a while now at the state level. at the heart of many of the personhood proposals being advanced in state legislatures is an attempt to cut off women's access to certain forms of contraception. some republicans in the senate now seem to want to nationalize this -- this are fringe debate.

it's not a political winner. even the house republicans seem to have the good sense not to bring up the amendment on the floor of their chamber, but here the other side is pushing ahead with the ban. it is so far-reaching, it has stirred a wide collection of health organizations to speak out against it. these are groups like the american academy of pediatrics, the american congress of obstetricians and gynecologists, the march of dimes, easter seals. these are groups with no agenda other than protecting the health of those they serve. in a letter these groups sent earlier this week they pointed out the wide variety of services that an employer could decline to provide like child vaccinations and mammograms. it is true that all these services and more are threatened by this amendment, but are

republicans against child vaccinations and mammograms? i doubt it. so let's admit what this debate is really about, and what republicans really want to take away from millions of american women. it is contraception. we should call this debate and this amendment for what it will be, for millions of women whose boss may have a personal objection, this is a contraception ban. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. i yield the floor. a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. mr. cardin: madam president, i arise today to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the war of 1812 and "the star spangled banner" and to honor the men and women memory of all americans who came together in america's second war of independence, particularly those fallen heroes who gave their lives during the

conflict. it is important that americans recognize the service and sacrifice of all those who have worn the uniform of this nation on behalf of the united states senate i want to thank the millions of brave men and women who have served in the united states armed forces and risked their lives for our nation including during the war of 1812. the war of 1812 confirmed america's independence from great britain in the eyes of the world. before the war, the british had been routinely imposing on american sovereignty. they had impressed american her chart seamen into the british royal navy and forced illegal and unfair trade rules with the united states and allegedly offered assistance to american indian tribes who were attacking frontier settlements. in response, the united states declared war on great britain to protest these violations of free trade, sailors' rights and sanctioning raids on american land. after two and a half years of

conflict, the british navy sailed up the heart of the chesapeake bay with a combined military naval forces in august, 1814 attacked washington, d.c., burning to the ground the u.s. capitol, the white house and much of the rest of our capital city. less than three weeks later, the british set their eyes upon the next prize, the strategic port city of baltimore, maryland. american are forces primarily made up of citizens of baltimore prepared baltimore city's defenses. marylanders fought the british army during the battle of north point and helped repulse the british navy from fort mchenry during the now infamous battle of baltimore. i want to point out that the american forces during the battle of north point were volunteer militia, heavily outnumbered by the highly trained british infantry, managed to delay the british forces long enough for 10,000 reinforcements to rerife --

arrive, preventing a land attack against baltimore. the british assault also failed at sea, following 25 hours of intense british naval bombardment at fort mchenry, the american defenders refused to yield, and the british were forced to depart. during the bombardment, an american lawyer, francis scott key, who was being held on board an american flag of truce vessel in baltimore harbor, beheld by the dawn's early light the american flag still flying atop fort mchenry. key realized that the americans had survived the battle and stopped the enemy advance. moved by the sight of the american flag flying over fort mchenry, he -- he composed the poem called "the defense of fort mchenry" which was later set to the music becoming "the star spangled banner" that officially became the national

anthem on march 3, 1931. mr. president, we will be celebrating this weekend the 82nd anniversary of "the star spangled banner" becoming the official national anthem of our country. the flag that flew over fort mchenry is now a national treasure on display at the smithsonian institute, an insphraition separation to all americans, a very short distance from where we are today. the war of 1812 confirmed the legitimacy of the revolution and served as a critical test for the united states constitution and newly established democratic government. our young nation battled against the largest, most powerful military on the earth at the time, and emerged with an enhanced standing among the countries of the world. a new generation of americans too young to remember the victory of the revolutionary war were inspired by francis scott key's poem to take pride in our nation's flag which embodies our universal feelings of patriotism and courage. as a marylander i am proud of

the role my state played in the war of 1812 and i've been involved in legislative efforts to bring greater attention to this bicentennial celebration. my colleague and i were sponsors of the commemorative coin act signed into law by president obama in august, 2010, directing the united states mint to create coins commemorating this important anniversary. these gold and silver coins designed are emblematic of the war of 1812 particularly the battle of baltimore that form the basis of the lyrics to our national anthem. the coins are set to go on sale in march and sold only during this year. the surcharges from these commemorative coins will provide support to the maryland war of 1812 bicentennial commission to conduct activities, assist in educational outreach and preserve sites and structures related to the war of 1812. i'm also planning to introduce with my colleagues a resolution

to mark this occasion to celebrate the heroism of the american people during the conflict and to recognize the various organizations involved in organizing commemorative events in maryland and throughout the united states in the coming year, including the united states armed forces, the national park service and the maryland war of 1812 commission. as we recognize all these ongoing efforts during this commemorative period i encourage all americans to remember the sacrifice of those who gave their lives to defend our nation's freedom and democracy and to join in the bicentennial celebration of our victory in the war of 1812. with that, mr. president, i would yield the floor. and suggest the absence of a quorum -- i would yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from california is recognized. mrs. boxer: mr. president, could you tell me what the pending business is? are we on the transportation

bill at this time? the presiding officer: the majority has four minutes left in morning business. mrs. boxer: then i would note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: quorum call:

s quorum call: mrs. gillibrand: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from new york is recognized. mrs. gillibrand: i ask the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. the senator from new york is recognized. mrs. gillibrand: thank you. it's great -- it is with great disappointment and bafflement that i stand here yet again in the year 2012 to draw a line in the sand against another outrageous attempt to roll back women's access to basic health care services. after insisting that we debate the long-settled concept of providing access to birth control when 99% of american women use this medication at

some point in their life, many of whom use it not even for contraception, republicans have chosen to take another extreme step to roll back all women's health care rights. so instead of talking about how to grow our economy, we are wasting time on the latest overreach and intrusion into women's lives. when will my colleagues understand this very nondebatable fact, that the decision of whether a woman takes one medicine or another or what type of health care she should have access to should not be the decision of her boss? a commonsense, simple principle that bosses and employers should not make these very personal decisions. what could be more intrusive than that? let me be clear. this debate, as you said, senior

senator from new york, mr. president, as you said in your remarks, this has nothing to do with religious freedom. you don't have to take it from me. take it from the supreme court. take it from justice antonin scalia, one of the most conservative justices of our supreme court. in the majority decision in 1990, employment division v. smith, justice scalia wrote we never held an individual's religious belief excused him from kpwhraoeupbs *f compliance with an other wide valid law prohibiting that the state is free to regulate. that is what we're seeing here. employers cannot pick or choose which laws they're going to follow. employers can't pick or choose if they want to follow this labor law or that labor law. they have to follow the law. this extreme amendment republicans are bringing up for a vote today makes it clear as day, this is a political and identify i don't see -- ideological overreach, not a

religious issue. the fact they want to provide all religious from providing care for women. the blunt amendment would allow any insurer or employer to provide coverage for any health care service otherwise required under the health care act jeopardizing vital health care for millions of americans, services like prenatal care that help our babies survive. fertility treatments, testing for h.i.v., mental health service, screening for type 2 diabetes, vaccinations, coverage for any or all of these services and countless of others could be denied to any person under this radically broad amendment. this amendment isn't just dangerous for women. it's also dangerous to our children and children's health groups are opposing this amendment because vaccines could be denied on the basis of personal beliefs. and denying childhood preventive

care could negatively influence their health as adults, adding billions of dollars in additional health care costs throughout the lives of these children as they grow. we will not stand for these attempts to undermine the ability of a woman to make her own decisions about what is best for her and what is best to protect her children. if our republican colleagues want to continue to take on this issue head on, we will stand here as often as necessary to draw a line in the sand and to make it known that in the senate we oppose these attacks on women's rights and women's health. and even if house republicans aren't going to allow women's voices to be heard in their hearings, women's voices will surely be heard all across our country. it's time to agree that women deserve access to preventive health care services regardless of where they work and who their boss is.

and it is time to agree to get back to work on legislation that can create jobs and get our economy moving. that is what the american people want us to be debating. that is what our mission should be here in congress. and that is where our sole focus should be, not on undermining protections and well-being for america's women. i suggest the absence of a quorum. mrs. boxer: could i ask the senator to yield on her request? mrs. gillibrand: i withdraw my request. mrs. boxer: thank you. i wonder if we are now on the transportation bill. the presiding officer: morning business is closed. under the previous order, the senate will resume consideration of s. 1813, which the clerk will report. the clerk: calendar 311, s. 1813, a bill to reauthorize federal aid highway and highway safety construction programs and for other purposes. mrs. boxer: mr. president, as

you relinquish the chair to your colleague from new york, i want to thank both of you for your amazing leadership in every issue we turn to today. i want to say to senator schumer, his work to help us bring this transportation bill to the floor is exemplary. and he knows, as senator gillibrand knows, and every one of us knows that we cannot have a strong economy if we can't move goods, if we can't move people, if commerce comes to a halt. so we have to pass a transportation bill to make sure that our highways are adequate, our bridges are safe, our commerce can move and our transit systems can carry people from one place to another. i want to say to my colleague who is now sitting in the chair, senator gillibrand, that i listened to her remarks, and i am very touched by them. she talks about women's voices,

and she is dedicated to ensuring that they are heard. and let me assure my friend that her voice has been heard on this and so many other important issues. and it's an effective voice. and she was the one who came to me when the republicans started to say they didn't think it was necessary for women to have access to birth control with no co-pay through their insurance and said "barbara, do you understand that a full 15% of women are prescribed birth control pills because they want to avoid ovarian cancer? they want to make sure that a christ on an ovary -- a cyst on an ovary doesn't get out of control. they want to avoid debilitating monthly pain. and even it is used for terrible skin conditions." so when we hear our colleagues talk about birth control as if it's some unnecessary prescription, although you never hear them say it when it comes

to viagra, i would note, let me point out it's necessary. and we will be on our feet day after day and month after month and hour after hour and minute after minute, because we're not going to let them take away medicine from women. oh, no, they're not. they won't. and the women of this country won't have it. they are engaged in this debate. they understand it. and my friend from new york has been an incredible voice. so here we are now, we're on the highway bill. you may wonder why is it that the senator from new york came and talked about the issue of birth control and women's health when we're on a highway bill. well, here's the news. my republican colleagues are so intent on taking away women's rights, rights to health care, that they insisted on having a

vote to take away those rights before they would allow a highway bill to move forward. can you imagine? and i think it appropriate that at this point i pay tribute to my colleague, senator olympia snowe, who has been an amazing colleague, who has been a voice of reason, a voice of progress over the many, many years she served. and i have served with her in the house, in the senate. i don't know, decades, and i will miss olympia snowe. but let's listen to what she said. she said this place has become so polarized, we can't move forward. and i would submit to you, madam president, that the situation we find ourselves in at this moment is exhibit a on why someone like olympia snowe is saying, you know, this has been a privilege and a wonderful

thing, but i think i'm going to move on. because here we have a highway bill that is completely bipartisan, and again my colleague in the chair from new york, senator gillibrand, is a very important member of the environment and public works committee. we passed a bill out of our committee with a vote of 18-0. we had 100% support in a polarized time because everybody understands we have to make sure we have a number-one transportation system. a class "a" transportation system in this great country of ours. a vision that was first brought to us by dwight eisenhower in the 1950's when he said we have to be able to have a network of national highways. and so here is a bill that comes out of the e.p.w. committee, environment and public works committee, 100% bipartisan.

the section that dealt with banking comes out of the banking committee, 100% bipartisan. it comes out of the finance committee very bipartisan. not 100%, but very. and in commerce it had a problem which we have rectified, and it is now bipartisan. so four committees have done their work on the transportation and highway bill. and all of them have been bipartisan. so we come to the floor -- i think this is now the third week or the second week on the bill. second week on the bill. and we have gone nowhere. because in order for us to move forward, the republicans are insisting on a vote to take away women's health care. and so senator reid said to them, fine, we'll vote on it thursday morning. but let it be known throughout this land what is going on. sometimes people tune in and they say it's so complicated, i

can't follow it. hey, it's not complicated. here's where we are. we have a bipartisan bill, 2.8 million jobs are at stake. we have tpo do it. the -- we have to do it. the transportation bill is going to expire, the authorization, so we won't have any program in place march 31. we have to do this work. and we can't move forward unless we have a vote on a polarizing amendment. a polarizing amendment. how did it come about, this polarizing amendment? it came about because we passed the health care law that made some incredible breakthroughs. and two of the biggest breakthroughs, i think, in that bill is that we for the first time said to insurance companies and employers, when you provide insurance for your people, it must include a list of essential

health care benefits and preventive health care benefits. let me read you the list of essential health care benefits that the people of america are going to have unless the blunt amendment passes and takes this away. okay? this is the list of essential benefits that the blunt amendment would take away. emergency services, hospitalization, maternity and newborn care, mental health treatment, preventive and wellness services, pediatric services, prescription drugs, ambulatory patient services, rehabilitation services and devices, and laboratory services. these are categories of services that health insurance plans must cover under health care reform. but if the blunt amendment passes -- and we know it started

because of birth control, but it has reached beyond that to every single essential health benefit that any employer in this nation, if blunt passes, could say i don't want to do any of these. i don't want to do some of these, because i have a moral objection. so if you work phon an employer who believes that prayer is what we need to cure illness -- bends and, by the way, that's their right; i would fight for their right to believe that -- they would be able to, however, tell you that that's their choice. now, the other thing the blunt amendment does is says that no more preventive health benefits will be required. under the law, these are the

preventive health benefits that are required to be offered you to. and, madam president, you don't have to take them if you're an employee who has an objection to any of these things. you don't have to do it. but they have to be offered you to, all right? breast cancer screening, cervical screr screening, hepatitis a and b vaccine, measles and pumps vaccines, colow recognize trail cancer screenings, diabetes screenings, cholesterol screening, blood pressure screening, obesity screening, tobacco cessation, autism screening, hearing screening for newborns, sickle cell screening for newborns, flouride supplements, tuberculosis testing for children, depression screening, osteoporosis screening, flu vaccines for children and elderly, contraception, because we mow it prevents unintended pregnancies and it prevents abortions and it prevents

illness because 15% of people take it to prevent illness, cancer, and such; well-woman visits,h.p.v. testing, s.t.d. screepg, h.i.v. screepg, breast feeding support and supplies, domestic violence screening, gestational diabetes screening. all of those you don't have to take. if you don't want to take contraception, you say, no, i don't want to take that. if you don't have to have your child take a vaccine, you don't have to. but that's what's required. under the blunt amendment, let's be clear, any employer who simply says they have a moral objection can say, sorry, you see this list? we're not going to do six or seven or eight or ten things on it -- for example, obesity screening, we don't feel that's your problem. i have a moral objection.

colorectal screenings, i have a moral objection to that because, again, my religion says it doesn't do any good. so, this is why blunt is so dangerous. it is about denying women the absolute right to have contraception offered to them. does that, but it does a lot more than that. so, again, we're on a highway transportation bill. it's 2.8 million jobs. it came out of four committees. it is bipartisan. it will keep this country moving. it will keep this economy going. madam president, i want you to imagine one super bowl stadium filled with people. think about twha looks like in your mind's eye. one super bowl stadium, every seat filled. and now i want you to imagine 15 of those stadiums filled. that's how many unemployed

construction workers there are in this great country today. yes, we're making progress. yes president obama took us out of the worst recession since the great depression that he inherited. yes, he turned it around. but he and we say, we've got to do more. we can't just say, because we're now creating jobs, it's enough. it's not enough. the president knows it. we know it. we were bleeding 800,000 jobs a month when he took over. we were bleeding. and now we've stemmed it and we're creating a couple hundred thousand jobs a month, 100,000, 200,000. thank goodness. and we've created, since the last six months or so, hundreds and hundreds of thousands of jobs. now, here's the point: why on earth would we take a u-turn here, as we're on the

road to economic recovery, as we're on the road to a bill that is absolutely necessary, and take up the issue of women's health? i'm telling you, i feel it is radical. i feel it is taking us backwards. i feel it is hurtful to women, and i call on every woman, regardless of political party, make your voice heard against the blunt amendment. you are being attacked here. what the president did in dealing with the issue of contraception showed the wisdom of solomon. he basically said, if you are a religious institution and you have an objection to offering contraception, you don't have to do it. so 335,000 churches are exempted from this. i feel sorry for the employees who may not agree with the church, but they work for the church, and, therefore, that's the rule. they's the rule.

-- that's the rule. religiously-affiliated hospitals and universities raised a question. you know, they serve a broad array of people. they hire a broad array of people. not just people of one faith but people of many faiths and many points of view. and they raised a question and said, well, we don't feel comfortable. and the president said, let me say what i can come up w and he came up with a compromise that has been embraced by catholic charities, catholics united, the catholic health association. the only group that doesn't support it are the bishops. but if i could respectfully say to them, they don't deliver the health care services. catholic charities does, the catholic health association does -- they represent thousands of providers. so they have embraced the president's compromise.

but not my republican friends. they didn't, and they want to cause trouble, and take away the ability from women to have access to contraception, without a co-pay, while they support supplying viagra to men. it really is stunning. and i think this rippling across the land. and i don't know if we have the photo -- i don't think we have it on the floor -- of the group -- the last panel that was held in the house where -- and my friend from new york talked about it, reaction to -- this is a picture. this is a picture -- a picture is worth 1,000 words. this is a panel, a panel on women's health focused on contraception. where are the women?

where are the women? one, two, three, four, five men, and they're talking about women's health care. not one of them ever had a baby. not one of them ever had a monthly cramp. and they're talking about women's health care like they know all about it. and the chairman, chairman issa, didn't see immediately there was a problem? there was a woman sitting here, and she asked to be heard. she said, i have a story to tell this panel. oh, no. he didn't want to hear from her. he said she wasn't qualified. and you know what they are story was? it was about how a friend of hers was denied the contraceptive pill and instead developed terrible tumor on her ovary. and he didn't think that was worthy of discussion.

this issue is rippling through the land. and it says everything to me. and we -- in the senate -- we women of the senate, we are not going to allow this to go unnoticed. that is a symbol of what's happening to women in this country. in the states, the very states they're passing legislation that some have dubbed "state rape." because it would require a woman to subject herself to an invasive vaginal probe without her consent. now they're backing off. that was the bill that almost passed the virginia legislature. now they've said, okay, it's a sonogram. there's another way to do it. and it took women crying out and

saying, wait a minute. are you kidding? and they're backing off. well, they better back off all of this because this is the 21st century. and women should be trusted and respected and honored and believed. when you tell a woman that she needs to be lectured by some stranger on her own personal decisions, right away you are questioning her worth. so the issue goes so far beyond the ability to obtain birth control pills. the issue goes so far beyond that. it really does. and you can stand up here and say, it's not about women's

health. it's really about religious freedom. as patti murray, my colleague from washington -- as patty murray, my colleague from washington has said, when they say its not about contraception, it's about contraception. and others have said, when they say it's not really about the money, it's really about the money. when they say, oh, it's not really about politics, it's about the politics. and this is about contraception, making it really difficult for women who don't have the means to have some sense of control over their reproductive lives. and to be able to access a pill that could help them live a healthier life and live longer and free of pain. so they'll come here and they'll say, oh, senator boxer, this is isn't about contraception. it's about religious freedom. the president has taken care of

the religious objections. i described how he did it, and i'll say it again. he said, if you're a religious institution, you don't have to provide contraception. if you're a religiously affiliated institution, there will be a way for a third party to deal with it. the catholic health organization supports it, catholic charities. he has come up with a compromise. there's no reason to have this polarizing debate. everybody should have religious freedom, including the employee -- including the boss, including -- everybody should have religious freedom. so no one understand the president's plan is -- so no one under the president's plan is forced to do something they don't want to do. we just want to make sure that when the institute of medicine tells us that availability to contraception saves lives and protects your health, you get a chance to get it, if you want

it. and if you don't, you don't have to get it. of course not. of course not. so, again, i'm going to end where i started, talking about my colleague olympia snowe. retiring, not running again because she said, we're so polarized here. and this is exhibit 1. we're on a transportation bill that's bipartisan, but the other side can't let it rest, can't let it go, can't move forward on it, can't move to make sure that our businesses and our workers have a brighter future. oh, no. they have to delay it. by the way, not only would this birth control amendment and women's health amendment -- by the way, not only with this birth control amendment and women's health amendment, but with other amendments that have nothing to do with the subject. and it's what makes the american people think, what are we doing

here? what are we doing here? i want to show you some charts that deal with the transportation issue right now. so i'm going to ask if my staff could join me here. and i want to continue talking about olympia snowe for a minute. i went through some of the issues that i worked with her on, and i want to talk about them for a minute. olympia and i wrote the passage of the bill of rights and we were very strong because tbhie that our -- because we knew that our constituents were getting stuck on the tarmac for hour after hour, kids screaming, no food, nightmare scenarios, excessive periods of time, and we thought passengers deserved a bill of rights. we worked with outside groups, some wonderful people. and lo and behold, it passed as part of the f.a.a. bill that finally got enacted. we didn't get 100% of what we wanted but we got 90% of what we

wanted, and i was proud to work with her. in 2009 following a tragic buffalo commuter plane crash, which i know the president of the senate remembers, olympia snowe wrote a bill to implement the recommendations of the national transportation safety board to make sure that these pilots get enough rest and that they're well-trained and we were very pleased that that moved forward. we worked together, olympia and i, and purpos on purple heart fs to make sure that the purple heart included prisoners of war who died in captivity and they could get that to bless their memory. we worked together against the global gag rule. we worked together and wrote a letter to the president -- president obama -- asking him to appoint a woman to replace

justice david souter, and i'm going 0 ask if i could place this in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. boxer: because i'm so proud of this letter we wrote together. we said, "the most important thing is to nominate an exceptionally well-qualified person to replace justice souter. women make up half our population but right now hold only one seat out of nine. this is out of balance. in order for the court to be relevant, it needs to be diverse and better reflect america" and then of course the president nominated sonia sotomayor, and we're very excited about that. so it was wonderful to work with her on that. we worked together on respecting human rights in tibet and led 27 senators in a letter to the clings leader asking that the tibetans be respected. and women in afghanistan, we worked together to ask afghan leaders to revise a law that would legalize marital rape and

impose other taliban restrictions on should iite women in -- on shiite women in afghanistan. this is just a partial list of what i worked -- issued i've worked with olympia on. and i will do a longer tribute at a later time. but again, as i heard this, i would filled with sad -- first i was worried about her health. i hoped she was okay and she clarified that she was. she'll always work on issues because she's so good at looking at a problem an solving it and not thinking first, is this democratic, is this republican, where does it fall on the political scales? and i have appreciated the ability to work with her on so many of these important issues that have come before us. and i think the senate should take a minute to think about this in relation to this bill. the whole world is watching us. when i say that i don't mean the

whole world literally. why do i say that? because 1,000 groups have endorsed us moving ahead with this bill. here it is. a coalition of 1,075 organizations from 50 states. here's what they said about this transportation bill. "there are few federal efforts thatrrival the potential of critical transportation infrastructure investments for sustaining and creating jobs and economic activity ..." this is what they wrote. so they know that this is the way to sustain and revive economic activity. this is what's at stake. right now, 1.8 million jobs are created because we have a transportation bill. madam president, that bill ends march 31, so is.8 million jobs are at -- so 1.8 million jobs are at stake if we don't act. and, because of the way we wrote our bill and leverage funding

and this gained great bipartisan support, we have greatly increased the tifia program, which -- the transportation infrastructure financing program -- which leverages funds by 30 times. so we believe we will see another 1 million jobs created. so we're talking 2.8 million jobs are at stake, and we have an amendment on winl's health. -- on women's health. and i just keep going back to how insane that is. i also want to note again how many unemployed construction workers -- remember i told you that 15 stadiums could be filled with unemployed construction workers. this is the number. 1.48 million construction industry workers unemployed, and the unemployment rate is 17.7% among construction industry, whereas the national unemployment rate is 8.3%. we know the housing sector is still having major problems

getting out of the funk it's in. it's tough. so we have to do this bill. and i have a picture just in case your mind's eye wasn't able to conjure it up. here is the picture of that stadium filled with about 100,000 people. so 15 of these would basically reflect the unemployed workers. now, who are these groups that are supporting us and are they bipartisan? oh, my goodness, i don't think i could share with you a more bipartisan list of organizations than the aaa, the american association of state highway and transit officials, the american bus association, the concrete pavement association, the council of engineering companies, the highway users alliance, the american moving and storage association, the american public transportation association, the american road and transportation builders association, the american

society of civil engineers, the the -- it goes on and on. the trucking association, metropolitan transportation organizations, commercial vehicle safety alliance, governors highway safety association, international union of operating engineers, motor and equipment manufacturers, national asphalt pavement, national association of development organizations, u.s. chamber of commerce, national stone, sand and gravel, national construction alliance. oh, it goes o. that's just a partial list of those 1,000-plus organizations. when we started our bill, madam president, you remember we made history because we had richard trumpka, the head of the afl-cio, sitting next to donnelly, tom donnelly -- donahue, sorry -- correct me -- donahue, the head of the chamber of commerce. donahue and trumpka, the odd couple. they're fighting and arguing on everything. they come together in front of our committee because they know

we will all benefit, all of america benefits when we do a bill like this. so i think i've shared with you a lot but there is one more thing. if we allow this bill to go away and we are stuck with an extension, because the transportation fund is not collecting enough gas tax revenuerevenues because -- thera good news reason -- we're getting better fuel economy and we're taking more public transit so the gas tax is not coming in at the rate it normally does. we will be down 35% in the fund. so right away, right away, 631,000 jobs are down. so what's so great about our bill is it's four committees,

including the finance committee, who filled the hole, filled the gap in a way that was bipartisan. so our story is a great story to tell. if i had to tell my grandkids, i'd say, "once upon a time, there was a time in america when we didn't really have a national road system, but a republican president named dwight eisenhower had a vision. he was a general. he knew it was important to move things in a reliable way, and he had a vision of a national transportation system. and everybody in the country said, what a great idea, and we started to have a bill every few years to authorize a highway fund. and then somebody came up with the notion of it being funded by the users so that the gas tax would go, part of it, to this fund and we would have enough in that fund to build our highways, our bridges.

and then later on, our transit systems. people said, you know, we have a lot of wear and tear on the roads. what if a lot of people took transit, got out of their cars, it would be better for the air quality, it would be better for -- for everybody, for the state of the roads. and so now it was married up, highways and transit and bridg bridges. and now we have to -- we have to live up to that legacy and not bog this bill down with birth-control amendments and women's health amendments and amendments about egypt or anybody else. there's time for that. we don't -- we don't mind those battles but not on this bill. and infrastructure is the name of the game and we all know it, republicans and democrats. so i say, let's stop playing games with this bill, please. let's dispose of this birth-control amendment, this

women's health amendment. it doesn't belong on here but if that's what it takes to get us off that, fine, let's go. it will be polarizing, as olympia snowe -- i'm coining her term -- it will be polarizing, it will not be pretty, but we'll dispose of that and then we'll move on to this bill. and i hope we won't have to face five, ten, 20, 30 unrelated amendments. i hope we can get it down to a small number and move on, pass this bill, lift up the workers, lift up our businesses. every dollar almost, most of the dollars goes straight to the private sector here through our states, through our local entities. and let's hold our head up high when we go home. so when give to the supermarket, i don't have people coming up and saying, "what is going on over there? birth-control on a highway bill? what, are you kidding?" i don't want to have those

conversations every time i go to the supermarket. "what are these guys thinking," they say? i say, i don't know, i can't speak for them. i think it's a -- an agenda that appeals to the far right of this nation. it's not a mainstream way to go. and -- and in closing now i will say, for those who say republicans and democrats never work together, that is not true. senator inhofe and i are as far away from each other politically as two human beings can get. but we teamed up, we put aside our ideologies, we put aside our pet peeves, we put aside, you know, perhaps things that we in our heart really wanted to do on this bill, but we put them aside and we met in the middle. he was over here and i was over here and we ended up right in the middle and we said, we can do this. we proved that we can do it, and it was a challenge that was put

to us by both our leaderships and we met that test. and other committees met that test. so here we are. so now are we to say to committee chairs and ranking mez members, republicans and democrats alike, forget about it, you know? it's not worth it? work your heart out? i paid tribute to my staff, my democratic staff, to senator inhofe's republican staff. they worked night after night after night to come together on this bill. and then we were given another assignment two weeks ago, to try and resolve the germane amendments and they have come together and they hav they haved i don't know how many but dozens of amendments. so is the message here, work your little hearts out, you know, have your staff give up their -- their nights with their family and -- and come up with a bipartisan bill and all of a sudden have it subjected to some polarizing amendments?

that have nothing to do with the subject? please. let's not see this bill go down, because if this bill goes down, let me tell you, i, for one, will go to, really, as many cities as i can and counties in this country and tell the truth about what happened. there's no reason for us not to get this done. and when you have the chamber of commerce working with the afl-cio, you have, you know, republican leaning business organizations working with democratic leaning worker organizations all throughout this country, over a thousand of them -- and i talk to them every week to say thank you to them for keeping the pressure on all of us to keep moving forward -- when you have that kind of bipartisanship in our committees, when you have that type of bipartisan bill on the floor, when you have that type of bipartisan support in the country, it's time to move forward and get the job done for

the american people. i thank you very, very much, madam president, and i think i have one matter of business here and then i'll yield. madam president, i have five unanimous consent requests for committees to meet during today's session of the senate. they have the approval of the majority and the minority leaders. i ask unanimous consent that these requests be agreed to and that these requests be printed in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. boxer: thank you so much. and seeing no one else here, i would note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.

quorum call:

quorum call: a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from wyoming. mr. barrasso: thank you, madam president. madam president, i ask the gorm calling vished. the presiding officer: without objection.

mr. barrasso: thank you. i come to the floor today, as i do week after week, to talk about the health care law and offer a doctor's second opinion about this health care law. i do that as someone who's practiced medicine in wyoming, taken care of families across the cowboy state for a quarter of a century, and i do at that bade because we are now's a pproaching the second anniversary of the president's health care law and, as predicted by many of on my side of the aisle, the negative results continue to roll in and billions of taxpayer dollars continue to roll out. each week we learn more about how this law is going to break another one of the president's promises. he made a lot of prornlings -- f promises, one of which, he said, it will not add a dime to the deficit. it is now clear that the democrats in congress completely

underestimated, certainly vok vocally, how much the president's new entitlement program is going to cost the american people. and i come week after week because nancy pelosi said, first you have to pass it before you get to find out what's in it. well, this past week a story came out that talks about the high-risk pools designed and established to cover people who weren't able to buy health insurance in the individual market prior to the health care law. the goal was admirable. the plan, though, that they came out with was horrible. first, the new obama high-risk plans created more bureaucracy, more government, and it undermined what states like mine in wyoming were already successfully doing. next, the white house and the democrats who crammed this bill through congress and down the throats of the american people, well, they set aside $5 billion for this program.

the money was supposed to last, they said, until 2014 with no problems. the bad must is that the medicare's chief actuary, the official who efficientlily tracks the -- who officially tracks the spend 245g goe spendn as a result of this law, he estimates that the spending could run out quicker than predicted. "medical costs for enrollees in the health care law's high-risk insurance pools are expected to who are than double initial predictions." more than double the initial predictions by the democrats who voted for this health care law. so, the cost for enrollees are expected to be more than double when the white house and the democrats preducted when they drafted -- predicted when they drafted the law, as the american people remember, behind closed doors. the president promised, oh, this would be open. c sprain will bc-span will be ae

debates. everything was done behind closed doors. yet our debt as a nation continues to skyrocket. it is completely unsustainable and it is irresponsible. and it could have been prevented if the white house and congress had just let the american people participate in the process. so here we are two years later, a second anniversary coming up of a health care law, and a law that the american people are now learning what is in it, because as nancy pelosi said, first you have to pass it before you get to find out what's in it. the american people also know that this administration and this president and this congress used about every budget trick and accounting gimmick in the book to turn it into law. they ignored the real costs. they ignored the red flags, and they ignored realty. two years later the american people understand that we cannot afford the high cost of the president's health care law and

health care mandates. the longer this stays in place, the more expensive it will get. and that's one of the reasons that americans from both sides of the aisle are speaking out against this health care law. when i say "both sides of the aisle," yo i want to talk abouta recent "uastoday/gallup poll" -- "health care law routeing obam obama." madam president, my concern is that the health care law is hurting the american people. that's what the impact of this law is. it is hurting the american people. what the poll shows is that the clear majority of registered voters call the bill's passage -- quote -- "a bad thing" -- and they support its repeal if a republican wins the white house in november.

11% of voters in battleground states say the law has actually helped their families, but 15% say that it has hurt. looking ahead shall they predict that by a number of 24% to 42% -- 2-1 -- that the law will make things worse real estate than better. americans overwhelmingly beeive that the individual maned, which is a principle key part of the obama health care larks the individual mandate is unconstitutional, the mandate that every american must buy insurance. americans believe it is unconstitution by a margin of 72% to only 20%. an overwhelming number of americans believe what this senate and the house, under democrat control and the president in the white house, barack obama, have forced down the throats of the american people, they believe -- and i agree with them -- that it is unconstitutional. even a majority of democrats and

a majority of those who think the health care law may be a good thing believe that that provision that people across the country be forced to buy health insurance or to buy any product is unconstitutional. so instead of heaping more debt onto the backs of the american people, we need to repeal the law. we need to replace it with health care reform that allows americans to have a bigger day, a patient-centered health care approach. it is interesting because when you look at this "usa today" article, there is a picture of a family, a father, mother, three children, robert hargrove of sanford, north carolina. he said, you've the g.a.o. to have insurance or pay a penalty -- question mark. that's not the way the country was set up. that tells the story that i heard around the state o state f

wyoming. they remember the president's promise. he promised, one, that the cost of nuns for families would go down. president promised it would go down by $2,500 per family per year. that's not what the american people have seen since it hahaspassed. they remember the president saying if you like the insurance you have, you can keep it. that's not what the american people are finding out. broken promise after broken promise. now with "the washington post" reporting that the high-risk pool doubling the costs that were predicted -- once again the president's promise that it wouldn't add a dime to the deficit: another broken obama promise. here we are. gy to town hall meet, visit with empooh, ask for a show of hands. how many of you believe, under the president's new health care law, that your costs are going to go up?

every hand goes up. obviously they don't believe what the president has told them. and how many of you believe that as a result of the new health care law that actually the quality of your care and the availability of your care will go down? again, every hand goes up. it's not what the president promised the people of this country. and that's why when the "usa today" headline on monday says "health care law hurting obama," my concern, mr. president, is that it is hurting the american people. people asked for health care reform in this country. what they asked for was care they need from the doctor that they want at a cost they can afford. this health care law has provided none of those things. this health care law is bad for patients, it's bad for providers -- the nurses and the doctors who take care of those patients -- and it's terrible for the american taxpayers. and that's why i come to the floor week after week with a

doctor's second opinion, saying it is time to replace this health care law with reforms that will put health care under the control of patients, not insurance companies, not government, but under the control of patients. thank you, madam president. i yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: