a debt that is the political talking point of my friends across the aisle, imagine if you try to do something simple like, say, you know, maybe we shouldn't be spending money on the most profitable corporations in the world. that's what this vote just was. how seriously can we take anybody that talks about debt reduction if they're not willing to pluck the low-hanging fruit of subsidies to a group of folks that, frankly, in missouri, i guarantee you most people i represent say are the least disesdeserving of the federal deserving of help from the federal government right now. what we're doing is borrowing money to prop up to the tune of

billions of dollars a year already wildly profitable corporations that don't have to pay us royalties because they get to deduct the royalties they pay other countries? , i mean, really, seriously, if this was a fairy tale that i was reading to my grandsons, if i was reading this fairy tale to ian or levi or isaac, they would say, this is fiction, because this couldn't be true -- but it is. that is what, mr. president, i call the definition of a special interest. that oil is so special around here, wields so much power and so much money, that it turns all the talk about deficit reduction into empty rhetoric. last year the five companies spent $38 billion boosting their share prices just through stock

buybacks. $38 billion in just stock buybacks last year. in other words, the five-largest oil companies spent in a single year on stock buybacks alone what they are claiming they need in taxpayer-funded subsidies over the next ten years. according to exson mobile's quarterly you filings, every time the price of oil goes up by a dollar, they bring in $350 million in annual profit. these companies don't need these subsidies. now, you know, i here people say, well, you know, if you don't give them the subsidies -- which, by the way, is chicken feed to them -- what? $6 billion a year, nothing, if you're banking $30 billion a quarter. i've heard people say, if we don't give them this extra help, they th the are going to quit eg

for oil and the price of gas will go up. this is so dumb. they've had these subsidies for, what? -- 30, 40, 50 years. we're paying plenty at the gas pump right now and they've got those subsidies. those subsidies are really keeping down the price of gasoline, aren't they? the former shell c.e.o. john hofmeister is on record of saying in the face of sustained high oil prices it is not an irof heed needing the subsidies to entice us into looking and producing more oil. my point of view is that with high oil prices, such subsidies are unnecessary." now, this is the c.e.o. of shell. he's admitting on the record that these subsidies are unnecessary. at the time that the shell c.e.o. said that, the price of oil was trading between $95 and $98 a barrel.

currently it's at $105 a barrel. contrary to the claims that some are make, eliminating these subsidies will not raise gas prices. last year the companies spent $70 million to lobby to keep their subsidies. that's about -- they get $30 in tax breaks for every dollar they spend lobbying. no wonder they spend that much money on lobbying. you know, i want to take people at their word, and i want to take people seriously about debt reduction. i have cosponsored spending caps with my republican colleagues. i have worked hard on reforming the way we spend money around here, whether it's contracting or earmarks. but with all due respect, i don't know how the american people can take anyone sea seriy about debt reduction if they are not willing to cut off from the

spigot the most wealthy, profitable corporations in the history of the world. how will we ever be able to look our grandchildren in the eye and say, you know, we really took care of your future by making sure that our government was fiscally balanced? how can we ever do that if we can't do this as an easy first step? can you imagine how paralyzed this place will be when we start talking about the kind of cuts that hurt people that need them? and by the way, they're willing to make those. talk about fairness, think about this for a minute: economic fairness. the ryan budget would want to hold on to more tax breaks for multimillionaires -- in fact, do more tax breaks for multimillionaires -- while they say to seniors, you know, it's -- we think it's time for you to

wrestle with insurance companies for your health care. i know what it's like to wrestle with insurance companies for health care. every american does. my mom doesn't have to. she is on medicare. gives her peace of mind. so, really, if you look at what our friends are proposing in terms of fairness and you look at the vote we just had, in missouri we'd say, that dog don't hunt. if jusit just doesn't work. so i hope, in good faith that my republican colleagues will quit thinking that we need to continue to write checks to the wealthiest corporations in the history of the planet. i think missourians -- i'm going when i fill up my gas tank when i travel around missouri, i'm going to stop people at the gas station and say, you don't think that the royalties that exxonmobil pays to another

company should be deducted from what they owe us? think about that. it's ludicrous in this financial environment we're in in the united states government. there are real people hurt being out there and we need to treat them fairly, and we can start by pushing big oil away from the taxpayer trough. and i hope my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will reconsider and that we'll get a chance to vote on this again and they can show the american people that we all get it. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. -- madam president. mr. whitehouse: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: thank you, mr. president. i -- thank you, madam president. i rise today to talk about the changes that the affordable care act is making to the way that care is delivered in our health care system. this is a topic that has not received much public attention.

instead, the public debate has largely focused on contentious flash points like the individual mandate or preposterous false claims about death panels or rationing or socialized medicine. while these contentious debates have raged on, there has been a quiet, steady, and important effort made by the health care industry, by state and local leaders rs anleaders, and by tha administration to improve our model of health care delivery. progress made on these efforts is steadily transforming the care that is delivered under our health care system from care that is disorganized and fragmented and often riddled with error, to care that is coordinated, efficient, and the high-quality care that americans deserve. and by improving the quality of

care and our health outcomes, these reforms, these delivery system reforms, promise to significantly reduce health care costs. care gets better, costs go down, a true win-win. i came to the floor today to release a report on health care delivery system reform and on the administration's progress implementing these provisions of the affordable care act. i undertook this project with the support and assistance of chairman harkin and senator mikulski, both strong advocates and experienced legislators on the types of reforms that are highlighted in the report. the report makes the case for the reforms our country urgently needs in order to tackle our health care cost problem. my report defines five priority areas of health care delivery system reform:

payment re reform, quality imriewft, administrative costs and health snftion infrastructure. and it utlines the potential cost savings in each area. it also highlights successes across the country from leading private health providers such as guise inner health systems in pennsylvania, iran mountain health system in utah to the state of vermont's blueprint for health to several examples in my home state of rhode island, which has shown great leadership. we have much to learn from these efforts and the ad fordable care -- the affordable care act gives us the tools to support this type of reform across the country. the problem is that our health care delivery system remains clumsy and wasteful. we spend more than 18% of america's gross domestic product on our health care system every year. to put that into context, the

highest any other industrialized country spends is approximately 12% of gross domestic product on health care. 18% united states of america, least efficient other industrialized countries in the world, 12%. huge proem fo room for improvem. we overspend and underachieve. the president's council of economic advisors estimated that over $700 billion a year can be saved without compromising health outcomes. the institutes of medicine put the savings from these kind of reforms at $765 billion a year. the new england health care institute projected $850 billion in savings annually, and the lewin group and former bush treasury secretary paul o'neill have estimated the savings at $1 trillion a year.

whichever is accurate, this is clearly an enormous opportunity, and it's right before us. we can achieve better results for american patients and families and spend less to do it. as i said, the solutions fall into five priority areas: payment reform, primary and preventive care, measuring and reporting quality, administrative simplification, and health information infrastructure. these solutions do not cut benefits. they do not increase premiums. instead, they realign incentives to reduce or get rid of overpriced or unnecessary services, inefficiently delivered care, excessive administrative cost, and missed prevention opportunities. in this report, we outline actual savings and care improvements that can be found in each priority area. for example, payment reform

refers to the new payment reform models that pay doctors more for egetting better results, as opposed to for ordering more procedures. in 2010, blue shield of california dla collaborated with hill physicians medical group and california's largest hospital chain on a private project for the retirement system. the pilot promise focused on imriewfdz coordination of care while sharing clinical and case management information across medical facilities and among physicians. in its first year, the blue shield pilot program reported impressive results. readmissions were reduced bier 15% -- by 15%. hospital days were reduced by 15%. in-patient stays of 20 or more days were reduced by 50%, cut in

half. all saving millions of dollars. in primary and preventive care -- well, as a country we don't devote nearly enough resources to primary care and prevention. only 6% to 8% of health care spending goes to primary care, to your regular doctor appointments. that is less than the percentage that goes in private insurance to insurance company overhead. according to the centers for disease control and prevention, to give an example, when colorectal cancer is found early and treated, the five-year survivor rate is 90%. but screening rates for colorectal cancer are low. the national health interview survey found that i 2005, only half of the population 50 or older received recommended screening for colon cancer. the american cancer society has found that increased colorectal

screening in the premedicare population could save lives and reduce subsequent medicare treatment costs by $15 billion. -- over 11 years. on measuring and reporting quality, we don't do this anywhere near well enough. nearly one in every 20 hospitalized patients in the united states gets a hospital-acquired infection. this is very expensive, and it is preventable. a hospital-acquired infection should be a never event, yet they cost our health care system approximately $2.5 billion a year in harmful costs we could avoid. administrative simplification. the proportion of the u.s. health care dollar that is lost to administration has always been high relative to our peer countries. and the cost of administration

by insurance companies is not only high itself, but it creates a shadow cost imposed on providers who have to fight back against the insurance company claims denial apparatus and that cost is probably even higher. a study published in "health affairs" documented that i physicians spent on average 142 hours annually interacting with health plans, totaling nearly 7% of total health care costs. and that's just thephysicians' time. that doesn't count all the nonphysician office staff dedicated to administration and chasing the insurance companies. last, health insuranc informatih nomg. it is the essential underlying framework for health care delivery system reform. it is the foundation on which other delivery system reforms can be built. in 2000, the institute of

medicine estimated the number of deaths resulting from medical error as high as 98,000 american deaths annually. the most common cause of those preventable injuries and deaths in hospitals was medication errors, which can be reduced dramatically through the adoption of computerized physician order entry systems, health information technology. the five reform areas my report discusses synchronize with one another, and there is a growing national movement of providers and payors and states who recognize their critical importance. focusing on quality rather than quantity, focusing on efficiency rather than volume will better serve not only their patients but their bottom line. the report i'm releasing today looks at 45 provisions in the affordable care act that promote these delivery system reforms. from the discussion, you wouldn't know that virtually a third of the affordable care act

was about these delivery system reforms because they've been noncontroversial, but they're in there and they're important. the report also assesses the administration's progress in implementing them. we found that the administration has already implemented 25 provisions fully and made significant progress on two others. the complexity and sheer number of reforms included in the law make this accomplishment in a relatively short period of time noteworthy. and in addition to the hurdles presented by our fragmented health care system, there has been resistance in congress to the administration's implementation efforts that has also created barriers. for the 20 delivery system provisions that have not yet been implemented, lack of congressional funding is a significant factor in delaying their forward progress. in these reform provisions, the affordable care act is supporting and building upon the efforts undertaken by the private sector, by realigning

incentives in the health care system to support private-sector efforts. a broad array of pilot and demonstration programs have been launched from which best practices will be deployed nationwide. the process to get to a more sustainable path will be one of, as c.b.o. director elmendorf said, experimentation and learning. it will be a process of innovation. the affordable care act improves the conditions that allow that innovation to take place and it has the mechanisms needed to propagate those reforms widely throughout the system as quickly as possible once they're proven effective. american ingenuity can overcome our toughest challenges, not through command and control but through dynamic, flexible and persistent experimentation, learning, and innovation. we are at a fork in the road on our health care future. one path we could travel is to protect the dysfunctional status

quo and cut benefits to pay for the waste. that's the way a lot of my colleagues want to go. the other way is to shift incentives so that we innovate towards better, safer health care which costs less. we need to trust as americans that the path of innovation and experimentation is the right one and not give up on these efforts last year, george halverson, who is the c.e.o. of kaiser permanente and knows a little something about health care, said it this way. i quote him -- "there are people right now who want to cut benefits and ration care and have that be the avenue to cost reduction in this country and that's wrong," he said. "it's so wrong, it's almost criminal." he continued, "it's an inept way of thinking about health care." the affordable care act has the troolz that enable providers -- tools that enable providers to

focus on quality rather than quantity, efficiency rather than volume, and patients rather than their bottom line. to avoid the inept way of thinking about health care. as i close, let me say that throughout the process of writing this report, i found one thing to be glaringly absent and that is a cost-savings goal set by the administration for us to be reaching towards on these delivery system reform provisions. in 1961, president kennedy declared that within ten years, the united states would put a man on the moon and return him safely. this message was clear, it was direct, and it created accountability. as a result, a vast mobilization of private and public resources occurred to collaborate in innovative ways to achieve the president's purpose. while the issue facing our

country in health care is different, the urgency and the need to mobilize the public and private sectors toward improving quality and reducing cost is the same. so i challenge the administration to set a cost-savings target for delivery system reform. a cost-savings target will focus, guide and spur the administration's efforts in a manner that vague intentions to bend the health care cost curve will never do. it also would provide a measurable goal by which we can evaluate our progress. a clear and public goal will help make this vision of our health care system a reality. it will drive forward progress and it will generate momentum to achieve that goal. so i urge the administration, set a goal that you are prepared to be accountable to meet. when president kennedy announced

in september of 1962 that america would strive to put a man on the moon, he said, "we choose to go to the moon in this decade not because it is easy but because it is hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone and one which we intend to win." we need to face the challenge posed by the rising health care costs in our system. we need to recognize that we cannot postpone finding a solution. we can win this challenge. we can drive our system toward a sustainable path of higher-quality care and improved outcomes, and we can do so by setting clear goals and supporting the measures in the affordable care act that propel us in that direction. thank you, madam chair. i yield the floor.

mr. durbin: madam chair? the presiding officer: the senator from illinois. mr. durbin: i have ten unanimous consent requests for committees to meet during today's session of the senate. they have at approval of the majority and minority leaders. i ask consent these requests be agreed to and be printed in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: madam president, i want to speak for a moment to the issue that was raised by my colleague from missouri. senator claire mccaskill came to the floor to take note of the vote that just finished, the roll call that just finished. it was on a measure offered by senator menendez of new jersey. pretty straight guard. here's -- pretty straightforward. here's what he said. the federal tax subsidies to the biggest oil companies in america of $4 billion a year should end right now. the money in those subsidies should be used to develop other forms of energy good for our future, clean for our environment, lessening our dependence on foreign oil, and the balance should be put into reduction of our deficit. $4 billion a year going to the

five biggest oil companies in america. how are they doing? we all know how they're doing. last year again they broke all records in the history of american business, reporting profits of $137 billion. the notion here that we would take away $4 billion from these oil companies and put it into deficit reduction and energy research that could be good for our future seems like a given. in fact, it seems so easy that when we had a vote earlier this week to bring this measure up, over 90 senators voted "yes," let's go to it. what happened on this vote today? we needed 60 votes which sadly has become the norm in this chamber, we needed 60 out of a hundred senators to say, stop the fat-cat subsidies to the oil companies. couldn't get it. got exactly one republican senator to vote with us. one. it's a sad reality here that

many of the same senators who wax eloquent on the floor about our deficit and what to do about it, when it comes to a simple, straightforward vote to stop this wasteful, unwarranted subsidy to the most profitable companies on earth couldn't bring themselves to say no to big oil. meanwhile, families and businesses all across chicago, illinois and america are paying more and more at the pump. last sunday i saw my first one. hang on, america, you're going to see one, too. $5.03 a gallan. downtown chicago at a b.p. station. hang on tight, there's more to come, from these oil companies who will then turn around and report the biggest profits ever in american business history. so we pay at the pump and we pay with our taxes. what's left? here was our chance to stand up and do something. $4 billion isn't going to change

the oil industry and it isn't going to change washington, but at least it was a statement about where we stand when it comes to age-old indefensible tax subsidies to the biggest companies, most profitable companies in america. couldn't bring ourselves to do it. couldn't do it. i agree with senator mccaskill these folks who get up here and wail and cry about the deficit, call this roll call up, ask them, where in the heck were you when we had one chance -- one chance -- to do something positive. it's not the disappointment of the week. there are two others that trompt it. i have to tell you, it is hard for me to believe that again we were unable to get a bipartisan group together start the conversation about postal office reform in america. it is the most honored federal agency. when people are asked across america, what agency of government do you have the positive feeling about? it's the post office.

oh, they make jokes about it -- we all do -- but we know in our heart of hearts it's the best postal service in the world. we can still take an envelope and for less than 50 cents put it in a box and be confident that in a matter of a couple days or three, it's going to be delivered in the lower 48. there aren't many countries on earth that can even get close to making that claim for less than 50 cents. it's so good that the so-called package express folks who were trying to make this a private-sector undertake, -- undertake, they use the post office, they use the post office because of the efficiency of their delivery for the last mile of driferry. so we have a problem. fewer people are using first-class male. they're using epayer. revenues are down. postal employees are down to around 600,000. those who are retired are around 450,000. we need to bank money for retirees in the future. we're facing the need to make some hard choices about the

postal service. the postmaster general came to my office, it was about five months ago now. we sat down with monday done hoe and said -- mr. donohoe and said before you make harsh decisions about the postal service, closing post offices, reducing mail deliveries and the like, before people's jobs are on the chopping block, or at least in question, give congress a chance to at least come up with a better approach. historically, that was a challenge congress always accepted because we knew when it's something that big and important as a postal shfs which is enshrined -- service which is enshrined in our constitution, it's our job. we're supposed to do that work. so i asked him to postpone, if he would, until may 15 any closures of facilities. so the house and the senate could have a chance to act. and i've been waiting. it's been hard to get into the senate calendar. this week was our chance. senator harry reid said, we're

going to bring it up because it's an important debate. we need to get together. and we called the bill on the floor to move to this debate on the post office. to their credit, the democratic -- independent democratic chairmen of the jurisdictional committee, senator joe lieberman of connecticut, and the republican ranking member, senator susan collins of maine, both voted to move to this measure. i felt good about the fact that they were working together, along with tom carper of delaware and others in a bipartisan effort to make this post office what we need it to be. i have confidence in senatos lieberman and collins because they have done some historic work in the past when it came to reforming our intelligence agencies after 9/11, of two of them did it. and i credit them many times publicly for their bipartisan cooperation. here we have another chance.

we're -- we were going to bring the postal service bill to the floor and we failed to get 60 votes, couldn't get those on the other side of the aisle to even engage in the debate on postal service reform. now we're going to be gone for two weeks. when we return it will be closer to may 15 and more challenging to get anything done. those two disappointments that we couldn't cease $4 billion in savings on the deficit, that we wouldn't accept our responsibility to deal with postal service reform, i'm afraid it's been matched and trumped by what's going on in the house of representatives. think about this: two weeks ago we passed a bill on the floor of the senate, a bipartisan bill for the federal transportation bill. when it comes to our economy and its future, to's hard to think of anything more important than investing in highways, mass transit, airports and ports, rail lines to make sure that we have an economy ready to compete in the 21st century, that businesses can locate an american with the confidence their products can move to the

markets as quickly as possible. this bill comes up every five years and it is a political piece of cake. democrats and republicans agree, we all have needs in our states and districts. and we always come together with a bipartisan bill. we did in the senate. two senators on the political spectrum, couldn't be farther apart than barbara boxer of california and jim inhofe of oklahoma. but you know what? they accepted their political responsibility, came up with a bipartisan bill. 74-22 it passed the senate. bipartisan federal transportation bill. meanwhile, what was happening in the house? the house was just one crash after another. their first highway bill went nowhere, rejected. their second highway bill, they wouldn't even call for a vote. time passed and more and more of these measures were falling apart. they withdrew the chairman of the committee in the house in charge of it, said we're going

to put somebody else in. brought in another name. i couldn't keep up with it. the speaker of the house and the house republican caucus made a dog's breakfast out of this federal transportation bill. and now today, to add insult to injury, they not only wouldn't call our bipartisan bill -- that's all we've asked for. i see senator boxer on the floor here. all we've said is bring the boxer-inhofe bill to a vote in the house. it's a bipartisan bill. it's good for this country. for goodness' sake, vote on it. no, we're not going to do it. if it isn't the house republican bill, we're not going to consider it. what do they do instead? senator boxer can explain to you what they did instead. they said we're just going to kick the can down the road. we'll extend the highway taxes for 09 days. we'll get -- for 90 days, we'll get back to it later. just extending it for 90 days no harm. wrong. state after state, county after county will tell you this 90-day extension freezes efforts to

build projects across america, and will cost us at least 100,000 jobs. the number may be much larger. but at least 100,000 jobs. do we need jobs at this moment in time in america? i should say so. in the midst of a recovery from a recession, one of the areas hit the hardest is the construction industry. and it isn't just a matter of the workers out there on the job. it's all their suppliers, truckers and truck drivers and material men, all of them are now going to be put on hold because the speaker of the house refuses to call a bipartisan senate transportation bill for a vote. that's all we asked. up or down, call it for a vote. you know why he won't call it, madam president? because it would pass. it would pass. to his skpwasment. well -- to his embarrassment. he got his way, i guess. he's going to send us a 90-day extension, the alternative from

letting the highway fund pass. not a reasonable one, not one any of us would embrace. but what a wasted opportunity. my colleague sitting right here, my good friend -- we've been in this business, house and senate, for a long, long time -- poured her heart and soul into that federal transportation bill. she accomplished what nobody thought she could. when she said she was going to sit down with senator jim inhofe of oklahoma and work it out, we said, yeah, i bet that works. the two of them are so different. but when it comes to this measure, they see eye to eye. they worked it out. i'm proud of what they did. i didn't like everything in the bill, but nobody does. but i voted for it saying it's bipartisan, it moves our country forward, and it creates almost three million jobs. the boxer-inhofe bill creates almost -- and saves -- almost three million jobs. important at this moment in our history? you bet it is. if you're not in favor of creating good-paying jobs right here in america for american

families, what the heck are you doing in this business? and instead the house said, no, we will not even let you vote on this measure. house democrats tried the entire week to get this measure up, even a few -- just a few -- house republicans spoke up and said bring it up for a vote. it wasn't good enough. i know that the senator from california is here, and i want to give her a chance to say a word about the impact of the measure that just passed the house of representatives. she has gone in it, in many cases state by state to measure what it means to just extend the highway trust fund rather than to pass a bill that can create and save up to three million jobs. she told me in my state it was something like 4,000. mrs. boxer: more than that. about 4,500. mr. durbin: 4,500 jobs lost right now because speaker boehner refuses to call this bill. that's the reality. that's the reality. is it any wonder that the

approval rating of congress is in single digits, when you take a hard look at what this does to our nation, at a time when we need congress to work together, the speaker won't call the bipartisan bill from the senate. the senate won't take up postal reform. the senate refuses to even cut the $4 billion subsidy to the biggest oil companies in america. you know, it's a disappointment to me because many of us worked hard to come here. i feel honored to have this job and feel a responsibility to the people we represent. i think the senate on those two votes i mentioned, and the house with their action today has let the people of this country down. i'd like to yield now to the senator from california. i have another statement to make, but i want to give her a chance. i yield. mrs. boxer: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from california. mrs. boxer: i ask unanimous consent to speak just about five minutes, and then return the floor to senator durbin.

the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. boxer: i was going to wait until the house actually sent over this extension before saying anything, but i was so impressed with senator durbin's explanation that i felt i should come to the floor and thank him so much, his leadership on this. and also, madam president, your concern, your deep concern for your state which actually has the largest job loss numbers because they're being very conservative about what they do on the ground. because people don't understand -- not everybody understands the way the transportation programs work in our states. the federal government pays for about 75% of many projects, the state 25%. but the states go out and they front the money, madam president, and then they get, they bill the federal government. well, the signal that has been sent from the house today is a disastrous signal, because it is

a signal to all of our states that they better beware, because there's no guarantee they'll ever get those funds back from the federal government. you know, i love it when we make history here, but i love it when we make good history here. but today by the house's action, i believe they become the first house of representatives ever to allow this highway trust fund to go bankrupt, because right now the fund is not sufficient and has to be filled. that's why part of the wonderful result of the senate bill is that we have four committees working -- i so appreciate getting a lot of credit. senator inhofe appreciates it as well. but we actually had four committees that did the work. senators johnson and shelby over at banking. and we had senators rockefeller and hutchison over at commerce.

but a very tough job was given to senator baucus, and he worked hand in glove with republicans, particularly senators like senator thune, to come up with a pay-for. well, here we have an extension with no revenues in it, madam president. so naturally your state is very worried, and out of our states. and i'm going to quickly go through the -- what we know so far. we know that illinois is having big trouble because their contract letting cannot go forward in 12 particular jobs, and that's going to result in a scale-back of 4,500 jobs. right now. they're scaling back right now. as senator durbin said, at a time when we need jobs. north carolina, 41,000 jobs that cannot be filled. nevada, 4,000 jobs. maryland, 4,000. michigan, 3,500.

and i see the great senator from rhode island here. we got word from your director, mike lewis from the rhode island department of transportation, that there are job delays. it looks like 1,000 jobs won't be filled. west virginia, 1,200 jobs. we are -- we're in trouble. and you know what? it's like taking a hammer and hitting your head. why do you do it? you don't have to. they don't have to do this. they are wreaking havoc on the nation with this extension. and chairman mica said today, this must be the last extension. fine. it shouldn't even be an extension. they should take up and pass the senate bill. how many bills do we have that have 74 votes in favor? and if senator lautenberg hadn't been at a funeral, it would have

been 75. three-quarters of the united states senate came together around this bill. the house is wreaking havoc on the nation. right now you could fill 14 super bowl stadiums with unemployed construction workers. 1.4 million. and why are they doing it? because they don't want to deal in any way with the democrats. senator inhofe and i were so thrilled to work together. i see the senior senator from alaska, who helped us draft our bill. helped us with senator begich. they crossed party lines. we have a great bill. is it perfect? of course not. is it strong? yes. is it paid for? yes. will it protect 1.9 million jobs and create an additional million? yes. that's great news. but the house, you know, has decided the only people in america not to get this is the house of representatives over there, the republicans. and i see my colleague here. i'm glad to yield to him.

mr. whitehouse: i wonder if the senator will yield for a question. the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: setting aside the issue of the house's inability to govern, but focusing on this highway question, it's now the end of march. if we go 90 days, 30 days takes us through the end of april, 30 more days takes us through the end of may, 30 more days takes us through the end of june. there is a seasonal component to getting this work done, is there not? what is the effect of this entire industry, our entire highway road and bridge industry having no certainty about what their funding is going to be until practically the 4th of july, with the instruction season then underway -- with the construction season then underway? mrs. boxer: the question is very important. this is the worst possible time. because now if you can't enter

into new contracts, you lose the building season. and it is particularly brutal right now on the businesses and on the workers. my friend is exactly right, it is terrible timing. and let me just be clear here. the presiding officer: the senator has consumed five minutes. mrs. boxer: i'd ask for an additional one minute. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. boxer: let me be clear here, this is a 90-day extension, i say to my colleagues, without any hopes of them finishing their work. they didn't say in the 90 days they'd get the job done, get to conference and get the bill to the president. they're just saying 90 days with no commitment to go to conference. so i'm going to come back here. we're going to attempt to attach the senate bill to the extension. and, madam president, i hope you'll have the opportunity to work on that with me, because our states are counting on us, and we have to be strong, and we have to keep fighting for one simple premise.

that the house should have the right to vote on the senate-passed bill. i'm very proud to be here. i will be here this afternoon as long as it takes. we're going to try to attach the, i say to my friend from rhode island, i hope he can be there. my friend from illinois, as soon as we get the extension which makes no commitment to go to conference, we're going to try to attach the senate bill to the extension and send it in to conference. and i hope my friends will be here to help me with that. i would yield the floor. mr. durbin: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from illinois. mr. durbin: i skee my friend and colleague from alaska is often the floor and i would like to yield to her. the presiding officer: the senator from alaska. ms. murkowski: thank you, madam president. i appreciate the courtesy of my colleague from illinois, and i also will follow on senator boxer's comments in the importance of this the highway transportation bill. i think we recognize that while far from being perfect durnl a

not convinced that we develop any perfect legislation around here -- it is an extraordinarily good-faith effort, a very strong bipartisan demonstration in this body, deserved to have this support. i applaud her and senator inhofe for their work on that. mrs. boxer: thank you. ms. murkowski: madam president, just very briefly, i wanted to take a few minutes this morning to speak about an event that just happened outside on the lawn of the capitol here about maybe 50 or 60 alaskans and want-to-be alaskans gathered in a rally, a march that we have entitled "choose respect." and this is an effort that has stemmed from the actions of our governor in alaska to really shine the spotlight on domestic violence and sexual assault and to come together as communities, as a state, to really speak up and to turn around the

statistics that are so devasta devastating in our state when it comes to domestic violence, sexual assault. so for the past few years the governor has kind of led the charge in organizing rallies in the state of alaska, in the last week of march. in the state this morning there will be 120 different rallies going on in communities like anchorage and fairbanks, our larger communities, but also in smaller villages, kuslia, tanina, communities where the numbers are small but the passions on the issues, i think, are very, very, very strong and robust. the governor has commissioners in barrow, in tanin aivmentna, , all leading the march t to stand

up and speak out about domestic violence. i want to acknowledge what the gopher has done -- what the governor has done to spotlight this through this "choose respect" initiative. we've got great alaskans standing together and again a real commitment to make a difns. unfortunately, you've heard me say this before, in a state like alaska where i think we have unharrell hunparalleled beauty,o have an ugly side to our state has manifested in statistics that we see with violence begins women and particularly violence against native women. violence against native women has reached epidemic proportions. we're at a point where two and a half times higher native women experience domestic violence, sexual assault at rates two and a half times higher than other

races. in the lower 48, women on reservations are nearly ten times more likely to be murdered. systematic legal barriers show insufficient law mechanisms result in women and children living in fear. in alaska nearly one in two women have experienced partner violence, one in three have experienced sexual violence. overall, nearly six in ten alaska women have been victims of sexual assault or domestic violence. this is absolutely unacceptable, and this is the reality that we're living with as a state now. it's absolutely unacceptable. alaska's rate of forceable rape between 2003 and 2009 was 2.6 times higher than the national rarity. -- than the national rate. we see about 9% of alaskan mothers who reported physical abuse by their husband in the months prior to pregnancy. these are horrifying statistics,

madam president. and it takes me to the issue of violence against women, vawa, the bill we have been tock talking about, hopeful bringing to the floor soon. a measure like this i think, is incredibly important for us to stand behind -- women, men, doesn't make any difference if you are from a rural part of the country or an urban part of the country. it is an issue that i think we know rips at the heart of who we are. in so many of the alaskan villages, victims of domestic violence and sexual assault face some pretty unique challenges, and they're horrific challenges. it may be that there is no full-time law enforcement presence. there's no local justice infrastructure. we have -- in many situations where villages are landlocked -- there's no roads in, the only way in and out is by airplane, so you've got a situation where

you can have an individual who has been victimized, no law enforcement presence in the community whatsoever; it may take state troopers days -- days -- to be able to respond to an incident, depending on weather conditions. so imagine yourself in that situation. you've been a victim of domestic violence, you seek help, there is none in the village, and no way away from your perpetrator. i think we recognize that one thing that we must do is make sure that there is a safety net available to address the immediate survival needs and the survival need of the children in the short-term. only with this level of confidence can one gather the courage to leave an abusive situation. one final comment on vawa, and then i will yield to my colleague, who has given me the courtesy of o the floor right n.

i think we recognize in alaska that the violence against women act does offer a ray of hope, if you will, for those who not only are the victims but those who help assist the victims of domestic violence and sexual assault in our villages. it will provide for some increased resources to our rural and to our very isolated communities. it will help to establish a framework for the alaska rural justice commission, which has been a great venue, i think, to make sure that we're all understanding what the tools are and how we adapt to those tools. and it also recognizes that alaska's village public safety officer program is considered as that law enforcement so that the vawa funds can be directed to providing full-time law enforcement presence in places that have none. we've got a lot of issues that we need to work through. we believe that the reauthorization of vawa will help us with that. so as we join with other

alaskans in the state and here in washington, d.c., to choose respect for all women, for all in our communities, i think it's important that there are some tools here that we can put in place to help not only the people of my state but victims of domestic violence where ever they may be. and with that, madam chair -- madam president, i that unmy freeing colleague from illinois -- i thank my frien my colleagum illinois for yielding and i turn it back to him. the presiding officer: the senator from illinois. mr. durbin: the senate is not a place for sprinters, only long-distance runners because sometimes you need patience behind human endurance to see an idea that you feel is meritorious finally get passed by the united states senate and maybe even the house or maybe even signed into law. sometimes it happens quickly. more often, it takes a long

time. my personal example is the dream act which i introduced 11 years ago. this was legislation that addressed a problem that i learned about in my chicago office. we got a phone call and a phone call was from a mother. she was korean-american and she ran a dry cleaners. in chicago, 75% or more of the dry cleaning establishments are owned by korean families. she had come to this country years before, brought her little girl with her, and then raised a family, and she became an american citizen. fast-forward to her little girl who became a musical prodigy, in fact was in demand at some of the best music institutions in america -- juilliard school of music, the manhattan conservatory of music, offering her admission to come and develop her skills as a concert

pianist. as her daughter filled out the form to apply to these schools, she turned to her mother and said, now, when this says "nationality" here, what should i write? and her mother said, i don't know. we never filed any paramilitaries for you after you came -- we never filed any papers for you after you came to america. the daughter said, what can we do? the mother said, we can call durbin. we called the immigration service. they said, when a child is brought to this country and through no fault of their own is downlted, the law is -- is undocumented, the law is clear: they have to leave for ten years. they can't be here. i thought to myself, this girl did nothing wrong. mom and dad didn't file the papers and here she is in a predicpredicament. so i introduced the dream afnlge dream act.

if you came to the united states as a child, if you've been a long-term u.s. resident, if you have good moral character if you graduate from high school, and you either complete two years of college or serve in the u.s. military, we will put you on a path to become a citizen of the united states. you have to earn it. we're not going to give it to you, but we're going to give you that chance. just because mom and dad may have done an illegal act, we will not hold you as a child responsible for it. the net result of this bill, when it becomes law, will strengthen our military -- and we have the support from military leaders all across the united states; they want these young men and women to enlist; they'll bring diversity to the military and talent. it'll also mean that they'll be contributing to america with their higher education. they're going to be tomorrow's doctors and engineers, soldiers, and teachers. we don't want to lose their

talents. we don't want them educated in america for 13 years and then cast aside. we want them to stand up and be part of our future and make us a stronger nation. keep in mind that for mous mostf these students it comes as a shock ch they finally ask the questions and get the answers and realize that the flag they have been pledging aple allegiao every single day is not the flag of their country. they are people without a country. that's what the dream act is about, to give them a chance. we've asked the administration -- the obama administration on a bipartisan basis not to be deporting these eligible young people, for they've done nothing wrong. if they do something wrong, it's another story. but if they do nothing wrong, don't focus on deporting them. what we are trying to do is to give them a chance to earn their way to the american dream. i think the administration's new

deportation policy is sensible, and i think these young people deserve a chance. but i can give these speeches for a long time, and they don't mean much until you meet the dream act students. let me show you two of them. two handsome young men from illinois. carlos and raphael robos. i met them both o they were brought to the united states when they were children. today carlos is 22, raphael is 21. they grie grew up in suburban chicago, in my home state of illinois. they graduated from palatine high school where they were both honor students. in high school, carlos was capital of the tennis team and a member of the varsity swim team. he volunteered with palatine's physically challenged day wherever day he helped to feed lunch to special-needs students. carlos graduated from harper community college and is now

attending loyola college in chicago. his dream is to become a teacher. do we need more good teachers in america? you bet we do. listen to what one of carlos' high school teachers said about him. "carlos is the kind of person we want among us because he makes the community better. this is the kind of person you want as a student, the kind of kid you want as a neighbor, the kind of kid you want as a friend to your child, and most germane to his present circumstance, the kind of person you want as an american." one of carlos' college professors wrote and said, "he is very simply the finest student i've ever had the opportunity to mentor." raphael, his younger brother, has a lot in common with carlos. in high school raphael was capital of the tennis team and a member of the varsity swim team and soccer team. he graduated from harper community college -- understand, these young men would attend college in america with no federal assistance, none.

they've got to pay for it out of their pocket. so he graduated from harper community college, now at the university of illinois in chicago where he's majoring in ararchitecture. here's what one of his teachers said about him. "he is the kind of person i've taught in my social studies class. an moron that comes to this country and makes it better for others forkers. he makes it better. during my 28-year career as a teacher, i would place raphie in the top 10% with all the kids i've had contact with. "quution here is the point. they are both placed in deportation proceedings. i asked the administration to consider their request to suspend their deportations and they agreed to do t for the time-being. i think it was the right thing to do. carlos and raphael are represented by lawyers,

volunteer lawyers, in chicago. after i met them, they sent me a letter asking members of congress to support the dream act and here's what they said. "we ask you today to see it in your heart to do the right thing, to listen and reward the values of hard work and diligence, values that made america the most beautiful and prosperous country in the worldment. that we're sure got you as members of congress to where you are in life. these are values we have come to respect in the american people. we will continue to uphold these values until the last of our days, i would hope eventually as disins of the united states, a country we believe is our home." so i ask my colleagues, who are critical of the administration's deportation policy or have difficulties with the dream act, would america be a better place in carlos and raphael are deported? of course not. these two young men grew up here. they were educated here. they have done well here. they have earned their way here. they want to be part of our

future. and they are not isolated examples. there are literally thousands of them just -- just like carlos and raphael across this country. madam president, when i introduced this bill 11 years ago and i would give a speech like this and leave a hall, i could count on, if it were nighttime -- i could count on someone standing by my car quietly as i approached and started to leave and they would ask me, senator, can i speak you to for a minu -- for a minute? sure. "senator, i'm one of those students." they were afraid of being deported if they raised their hand and identified themselves at the meeting. that has all changed now and it's changed for the better. these young men and women are courageously stepping forward to identify themselves. it is no longer a mystery of who they are or what they want to be they are real flesh and blood. they are children. they are the people that you sit next to in church. they're the folks who are working hard next to your son or

daughter in the library at school. you're cheering them on on the football field. you're watching them lead the u.s.c. marching trojan band. you're watching as they're aspiring to become tomorrow's scientists and engineers, doctors and lawyers and teachers. they deserve a chance, and we should give them that chance by passing the dream act. i hope that my colleagues will consider doing that as quickly as possible. they want peace of mind and they want a future, and we need them in america's future. madam president, i ask consent that the next statement i'm about to be making be placed in a separate part of the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: madam president, in the last few years, we have seen dictator after dictator tumble across the world. qadhafi in libya, bin ali in tunisia, mubarak in egypt, sali in yemen and eventually bashir assad in syria. yet there's one dictator that hangs on.

he's the last dictator in europe. you may not be familiar with his name but they certainly know him in neighboring countries. he's the strongman president of belarus, alexander lukashenko. for more than 20 years, he has ruled belarus with an iron fist, using a barbaric combination of repression, intimidation and torture to maintain power. he is so bold as to continue to call his security services the k.g.b. can you imagine? in today's world, calling your security service the same name as the dreaded security service of the soviet union, the k.g.b.? under lukashenko's rein, elections have been consistently rigged, arrests have been made for political purposes, and the public's basic freedoms of speech, assembly, association, even religion, which we take for granted, are severely restricted this is victor -- pardon me,

alexander lukashenko, the last dictator in europe. the president of belarus. on december 19, 2010, lukashenko was given an opportunity to ease the iron grip of his police state and move closer to democracy by holding a legitimate presidential election. he couldn't bring himself to do it. he orchestrated a fraudulent election and then he turned on -- turned around on the day of the election and arrested all of his opponents who had the audacity to run against him and threw them in prison. how about that? i was in belarus shortly afterwards and met with their families. these people were distraught, beside themselves about what had just happened. one of these detainees who was eventually released came and saw me in november. alex mikalovic, one of the presidential candidates, who had been arrested, tortured and denied basic legal rights for months. recently given political asylum

in the czech republic, where he continues to fight for human rights in belarus. his wife and daughters, whom i met in minsk in belarus are still being harassed by the k.g.b. as of today. mikolovic and others from the hundreds that were imprisoned or released were not so lucky. stukovic, a president candidate, was sentenced to six years and can barely receive the medical assistance he needs. andre sanekow, another presidential candidate, sentenced to five years if prison for having the boldness to run against this dictator. a number of other activists, political activists, who engaged in political activity which we take for granted in the united states have been languishing in prison. i thought about it this week. as the demonstrators gathered in front of the supreme court marching back and forth with signs, how we take that for granted. you try to do that in a country like bell riew you'll end up in -- belarus, you'll end up in prison. thank god the united states has

a much better standard when it comes to basic rights. here are the names of some of others in prison. mr. duskovic, edward palvo. sinister bondrenka. alex bonoski, mick call orkovic. authorities frequently tortured these activists, trying to pressure them to sign letters admitting a guilt that doesn't exist. but i want to speak about something that's going to come up where belarus and lukashenko are going to become international celebrities. on february 16, mikolovic, who i mentioned earlier, was one of 13 that picketed the headquarters of prague-based automobile company skoda, a subsidiary of volkswagen. why did they picket skoda? skoda is one of the major sponsors of the international ice hockey federation's world championship and has been for the last 19 years.

in fact, skoda's, this automobile company's relationship with the hockey federation, is one of the longest lasting sponsorships. and much to the disbelief of the rest of the world, the international ice hockey federation has chosen to host its championship in belarus. why? because lukashenko, the dictator, is such a big fan of hockey. all the while political prisoners, including presidential candidates, will be languishing in prison because of this dictator. companies, such as skoda, nike, and reebok were among the major corporate sponsors of this federation championship in belarus. last year, i joined congressman mike quickly of chicago -- quigley, a national hockey league hall of famer, and wrote to the ice hockey federation president, renee fisell, urging the games in belarus be suspended until the political prisoners are released.

how can anyone celebrate the excitement of world class sports championship when people are languish not guilty prison for their political beliefs -- languishing in prison for their political beliefs? they ignored our request. i spoke to u.s.a. hockey which represents the united states in this federation. they paid no attention. it turns out the international ice hockey federation will be meeting next month in finland. belarus is going to be on the agenda. it should be. it should be at the top of the agenda. the honor of hosting this prestigious international sporting event in a country where the president is regarded as europe's last dictator is hardly a reflection of the quality of the sport that is involved. an ardent fan of ice hockey and the head of the belarus national olympic committee, rewarding lukashenko with the 2014 world ice hockey championship ignores his regime's atrocities. i've tried to reach out to skoda, owned by volkswagen, and nike and reebok and other sponsors to let them know that

their image is at stake, too, if they validate this dictator's policies and give honor to a country which doesn't recognize the basic freedoms. this photograph here is a photograph which shows the skoda c.e.o., winford vahland in the center, along with the hockey federation president, faesal on the right as they celebrate skoda's commitment to sponsor the world championship through 2017. skoda contends that its sponsorship of the event does not indicate approval of what's going on in belarus. simply their dedication to hockey. that doesn't show much courage. lukashenko's preparations for this ice hockey tournament indicates that belarus is expecting a lot of visitors and a big economic boost. i'm once again calling on the international ice hockey federation, in their meeting in finland, for consider this matter at the top of their agenda and to suspend their plans to hold the federation

championship in belarus in 2014. there are many other countries around the world more than anxious to join them and make this a championship well deserving with a host country that is one we can be proud of. my feelings about this are not alone. the european union recently widened sanctions against lukashenko and his cronies. lukashenko promptly recalled his byelorussian representative to the e.u., after which e.u. ambassadors were withdrawn from belarus. after a summit in brussels earlier this month, lukashenko, never at a loss for words, criticized the european union politicians and railed on the german foreign minister, guido vestervel, the first openly gay minister in germany. president lukashenko said, "it's better to be a dictator than be gay." that's a quote. he went on to say, byelorussians deserve to host the world championship in 2014. now, that's incredible.

what sports organization wants to validate those comments? i want to close by saying that i hope that the international ice hockey federation's annual congress will make the right decision in may. i hope that its corporate sponsors will feel a little uneasy being associated with dictator lukashenko and his policies in belarus. i hope they will suspend the 2014 championship unless the political prisoners are at least released and that other international sporting groups, such as the international cycling union, follow their example. i want the united states, in partnership with the european union, to continue to place pressure on lukashenko to open up his political system and to stand by the byelorussian people in their efforts to bring justice to their country. thank you, madam president. and i yield the floor. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from north carolina.

mrs. hagan: madam president, i ask to speak as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. hagan: thank you, madam president. madam president, i come here today to pay tribute to senator barbara mikulski on becoming the longest serving woman in the history of congress. first and foremost, i feel deeply privileged to be able to serve alongside senator mikulski she blazed a path that allowed the rest of us and people like me to be here today. and along the way, she distinguished herself as not only a leader and tenacious advocate for the people of maryland, but for all americans. senator mikulski's path to the u.s. senate prepared her well to be an effective fighter for her constituents. ever the dedicated public servant, senator mikulski worked as a baltimore social worker, community activist and as a city council member. she brought an urgency and an unrelenting commitment to service to her work and the people she represented. it can be seen in the legislation she has fought for and the causes she has

championed during her 25 years in the senate. i'm proud to say that the first bill i cosponsored when i came to this senate three years ago was one of senator mikulski's, the lilly ledbetter fair pay act. this bill, which ensures that no matter your gender, race, national origin, religion, age or disability, you will receive equal pay for equal work. the fight to get it signed into law is a perfect example of the tenacity and sense of fairness that drives barbara mikulski. i'm particularly grateful to her for her mentorship. on the day i was sworn into the senate, i was standing in the back of the chamber waiting to walk down to the well. my colleague from north carolina, senator burr, was with me. senator mikulski came up to me and said, "who was going to escort me to the well to be sworn in?" and i obviously said my colleague from north carolina. she said, well, you need a woman , too. and with that, i was both humbled and honored to have her

escort me down the chamber aisle to be sworn in as a united states senator. her generosity in sharing her experience and her expertise did not stop on that day. she's always encouraging, supportive and eager to foster a spirit of teamwork, and i especially appreciate that senator mikulski embraces the need for bipartisanship, which no doubt is why she is and has been so effective, accomplished, and widely respected. everyone knows well and respects senator mikulski for her advocacy on behalf of women and families. in this regard, she is truly a role model. during the d -- debate on health care reform, her tireless fight to ensure that women's preventative services, including screenings for breast and cervical cancer, would be covered with no out of pocket expenses. her ability to see and understand people's niedz is -- neerdz is clearly reflected in her spousal anti-impoverishment

act which protects seniors across the country from going bankrupt while paying for a spouse's nursing home care. it is no wonder that she is beloved not only in the third district where she represented ten years in congress but by all the people from maryland whose interest she fights for every single day. as one of the 17 women now serving in the senate, it's hard to imagine what it must have been like when she arrived here 25 years ago as one of two women. i'm grateful that she and the other female senators have paved the way. barbara mikulski is the dean of the women senators, and her bipartisan women's dinners are among my favorite senate traditions. i thank senator mikulski for her leadership and strong belief in the empowerment of women in our communities and in public office. for those of us who came to washington to make a difference, barbara mikulski has set a very high bar. i congratulate senator mikulski for this extraordinary and historic accomplishment, and i look forward to many more years of serving alongside her.

madam president, i would also like to speak for a couple of minutes on the highway transportation act. i come to the floor to express my support for passing the senate bill before the current transportation authorization expires this saturday. it would create and sustain nearly 41,000, 41,000 jobs in north carolina. and across the country, close to three million jobs. earlier today, the house passed a short-term 90-day extension. unfortunately, passing another stop-gap extension is not the solution that businesses, states and the entire country needs. short-term extensions create instability and uncertainty in funding, and without that certainty, states like mine in north carolina, we can't plan or move forward with projects which jeopardize tens of thousands of projects and millions of jobs in america. once again, that's 41,000 jobs

in north carolina. upgrading our infrastructure is not a democratic or a republican priority. it is truly an american priority. the senate transportation funding bill makes critical investments in transportation and infrastructure in north carolina and across our nation. the return on investment is high. moody's estimates that for every $1 spent on infrastructure, our g.d.p. is raised about $1.59. additionally, for every $1 billion spent on infrastructure, 11,000 to 30,000 jobs are created, jobs that north carolina desperately needs. failure to pass the senate transportation bill could put these millions of jobs and $1.2 billion worth of north carolina construction projects in jeopardy. this transportation bill that we're talking about is truly an economic engine. my state currently receives 92 cents for every dollar we pay into the highway trust fund. this new legislation would

ensure that at least 95% of the payments we pay in that would come back to our state, nearly 3% more than we currently receive. maintaining and upgrading our infrastructure is not just about creating jobs in the construction sector. it's really the lifeblood of our communities. we need to make sure that businesses have roads to access their plants and factories, rail, ports and airport runways to export goods across our globe and to keep pace with a 24/7 global economy. to put this in a global perspective, china currently spends four times as much on infrastructure as we do in the united states. we can't allow this to continue. this is about staying competitive and leveraging commonsense investments that will enable our economy to grow. this transportation funding bill will be used to improve our roads, bridges and mass transit systems, projects that will put north carolinians back to work

and help american businesses compete in our global economy. i urge my colleagues to take up and pass the senate transportation funding bill without delay. madam president, i yield the floor. a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from north dakota. mr. hoeven: i ask to speak as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. hoeven: madam president, i rise today to introduce bipartisan energy legislation, the domestic fuels act. this legislation is designed to help hard-working americans with the high fuel prices, the high gas prices they are paying at the pump. this is legislation to truly help us do all of the above when it comes to producing and providing lower cost energy for american consumers, for american businesses and to fuel our economy, to help create jobs and

also to create greater national energy security. it is part of what i believe that we need to do to truly have an energy security plan for our country, so i'd like to take just a few minutes to talk about the domestic fuels act. i'm going to start with a quick review of gas prices. as we all very well know, gas prices are high and they continue to go higher. aaa this week indicated that the national average price of gallon -- for a gallon of gasoline is $3.91 a gallon, national average, $3.91. now, gasoline prices over the last three years since the current administration took office have gone up -- have more than doubled, more than doubled, from about roughly $1.87 to, as i say, national average today of more than $3.90. i believe there are nine states

right now where on average gasoline is more than $4 a gallon. in chicago, for example, i believe it's about $4.68 a gallon. over here, i just checked not too long ago, i think it's $4.39 a gallon just a few blocks here from the capitol. this puts an enormous pressure, enormous strain on american consumers, on hard-working americans every day being forced to fill their car at the -- at the gas tank and spending glows to $4, and some predictions are that later this summer it may go to five dollars a gallon. so clearly we have got to find a way to help with gasoline prices across this country. and what it comes down to is supply and demand. more supply creates downward pressure on gasoline prices. more demand, of course, pushes prices higher. so we have got to find ways to

increase the supply and increase the supply in a dependable way. and that means not only increasing supply now but having policies in place that increase supply now and in the future. we need to send signals to the market that we are serious about growing our supply of energy, of all types of energy. certainly gas and oil, but all types of energy in this country as well as working with neighbors that we can count on like canada to produce more supply to help reduce the price of gasoline at the pump, and frankly to help reduce the supply -- or the cost, excuse me, the cost of all types of energy to really help get this economy going, to have more national security, to have more jobs to put the 13 million people who are unemployed back to work. energy is a key aspect of creating the type of economic environment that's going to help us do that.

this chart shows our current level of crude oil production in the country. this is -- the first bar shows that between ourselves and with canada, that we produce just under 10 million barrels of crude and crude equivalent right now. so in north america, canada and the united states, just under 10 million barrels of crude today. that comes from not only conventional drilling but from oil shale, from tight oil, oil sands, offshore, all these different sources. under the current policies we have, you can see by looking at this next bar that over the next 15 years, the supply of oil and gas coming from canada and the united states will shrink. under the current policies and the current approach, without the kind of energy policy we need in this country, we actually will have less oil and gas from canada and the united states over the next 15 years.

so the key is this -- we really have to implement the kind of energy policy in this country that will help us produce more energy. more oil and gas, more energy from all sources, traditional and renewable. that's exactly what we are talking about today with this domestic fuels act. the third bar on this chart shows that just from oil and gas, just from oil and gas, with the right kinds of policies over the next 15 years -- and this is a 15-year time frame -- we can produce more oil and gas in canada and the united states than we consume. so before you bring in other types of energy -- biofuels, any other types of energy, any type of renewable energy you want to include, just from oil and gas with the right kind of policies, in canada and the united states over the next 15 years, we can produce more energy than we

consume. think what that means in terms of helping bring down the price of gasoline. think what that means in terms of creating jobs in our country. think of what that means in terms of national security not needing to depend on crude oil from the middle east. think how important that is. and that's just with the right kind of policies to develop more oil and gas. of course, we can develop all the other types of energy resources as well. so my point is let's not take 15 years to get this done. let's have a plan for national energy security that gets it done in the next five to seven years. and there is no question that we can do it. we can absolutely do it. how do we do it? very straightforward, very simple, very common sense. when we talk about producing all of the above, let's actually produce all of the above. let's not say all of the above and then block energy

production. let's have the kind of energy policies in place, traditional sources of energy, renewable sources of energy. on a bipartisan basis, let's put the type of policies in place that will truly help us to energy security in this country, and let's do it over the next five to seven years. let's increase oil production in the united states and canada. let's have the policies that help us produce more oil onshore and off. let's increase natural gas production and usage. and again, let's join with canada to do this north american energy security. between the united states and canada, we have incredible potential. we're the closest friends and allies in the world. let's work together. let's tap that amazing potential. let's increase the use of renewable fuels that we produced right here at home, we can do that with a market-based approach. so let's increase our use of renewable fuels with market-based approaches that work.

and let's use technology to drive energy production, produce more energy and to do it with better environmental stewardship. we can do all of these things. so when we talk about an energy security plan or the path to energy security in our country, these are very commonsense steps. i have bills, other members of this body, bipartisan basis. we have bills to do all of these things, increase oil production, increase use of natural gas, increase use of renewables and use technology to drive not only more energy production but do it with better environmental stewardship. in fact, let's just talk about a couple of those. one of the things that i put legislation -- submitted legislation to do is to improve the keystone x.l. pipeline. it's been an issue that has been very much in the national discussion. it's gotten a lot of attention, but it's a very straightforward

concept. it simply says let's develop the infrastructure in our country so that as we produce more oil in canada -- and canada, by the way, has the third largest oil reserves in the world. number one is saudi arabia. number two is venezuela. number three is canada. so let's work with canada to tap and use more of that oil. if we don't, it's going to china. but we can do it. we simply have to develop the infrastructure and work with canada. well, what's the opposition to that oil development been? well, a number of arguments have come up, but the main one really behind it is that some people say well, we just don't want to produce oil in the oil sands, just don't want to do it. the concern in their opinion is greenhouse gas, and it has about a 6% higher greenhouse gas emission than conventional drilling, conventional production. but the important point here is going back to the last bullet

that i mentioned in this national energy security plan is let's use technology to produce more energy with better stewardship. what i mean by that, when we talk about the oil sands, rather than using the current excavation method, 80% of the new development is going to insitu. that is essentially drilling. so you have basically the same footprint, the same greenhouse gas emission as conventional drilling for oil and gas. so let's use that new technology to produce more energy, more oil in the canadian oil sands and not only produce more energy but do it with better environmental stewardship so now we're getting oil from a dependable friend and ally, canada, rather than getting 30% of our crude from places like the middle east and venezuela.

it's just common sense, and we win with more energy at a lower cost, we win with job creation, and we win with better environmental stewardship. we just need to get the right policy, the right law, and the right approach to how we regulate these things in place. that's what the domestic fuels act is all about. it is an example of exactly how we do just that. the domestic fuels act essentially says all right, when you pull up to the gas station, you should be able to get whatever fuel provides the best energy -- provides what you need at the best possible price. it is about consumer choice, and it is about lowering the cost at the pump. right now when you pull up, very often the petroleum retail marketer has multiple tanks in order to produce -- or to

dispense various types of fuel. it might be traditional gasoline from petroleum, it might be after some blend of petroleum and ethanol. he might have biodiesel. and increasingly, service stations, gas stations are looking to market natural gas. but think about it. if they have to have a different set of tanks, different set of piping, and a different dispensers for each type of fuel, then they have to make a choice, don't they? they can maybe offer gasoline from petroleum, they can maybe offer some ethanol blend, they can maybe offer biodiesel, or maybe they try natural gas, right? but if they have to have tanks and pumps and piping for each one, think of the cost. hundreds of thousands of dollars. so how do you get consumer choice? how do you get consumer choice

in there? also, how do you get the lowest price? if petroleum-based gasoline versus ethanol based is cheaper, well, then maybe he wants to be offering straight petroleum, not have a blend. but if he can mix it with ethanol, even up to e-85, and that's cheaper i may want to offer that. if he wants biodiesel rather than traditional diesel or if he wants to offer natural gas, you have trucks and buses particularly in urban areas using natural gas, how does he do it? and that's just the point. what this act provides is that the e.p.a. has to streamline the process so that -- that service station, that gas station can use his tanks and his equipment, his existing tanks and equipment so he can decide to offer any one of those products, any one of those products. now you've got more consumer choice and you've got a way to drive down prices at at the

pump. drive down the cost of gasoline, drive down the cost of biofuels, drive down the cost of natural gas, whatever it is. consumer choice, lower prices. and that extends back through the production chain as well. now if i produce ethanol, if i produce biodiesel, if i produce gasoline, if i produce natural gas, i know i'm going to be able to market those products to consumers. this is about looking to the future instead of looking to the past. this isn't about government spending any more money. this is about government empowering industry, empowering entrepreneurship, empowering the energy sector, empowering our consumers with choice and lower costs at the pump. and it's just common sense. it's just common sense. we give the marketer a way to market whatever product makes the most sense at whatever best serves his consumer at the best price. we give him liability protection so he knows he can go forward

and offer these different products without worrying about being sued and losing his livelihood so he's willing to do it and we provide a clear and simple pathway so he knows what he has to accomplish in order to best serve his consumers and build his business. this is about the right kind of legal framework. this is about the right kind of legislation that is clear, understandable, and empowering. this is how we get government working for people rather than people working for government. this is how we build the right kind of energy future based on all of the above. this isn't about just saying hey let's do all of the above wit comes to energy development. this is about doing it. this is about making a difference for the american consumer and we can do it. this legislation is bipartisan legislation. i'm very pleased that senator roy blunt of missouri is cosponsoring it with me along with amy klobuchar of minnesota, mike crapo of

idaho, and i believe that we'll have many others joining us on both sides of the aisle. also we are also working with representative john simpson cuss in in the house who will be introducing companion legislation as well. the other point i want to make is concluding we have broad-based support from people -- from companies who work in the traditional energy sector as well as the renewable energy sector who make the equipment to dispense gasoline and other types of fuel products, and the people who sell gasoline and all types of fuel. they're all on board. let me give you an example. from the renewable fuels energy sector we have the renewable fuels energy association has endorsed this legislation and also growth energy. from traditional oil and gas, the american petroleum institute has endorsed this legislation as

has desoro corporation and exxonmobil and many others. from the gas station service station end, the marketers that actually dispense the product, endorsing this legislation is the national association of convenience stores. , the society of independent gasoline marketers of america, the petroleum marketers association of america, and the national association of truck stop operators. and from the people that make the equipment, the manufacturers that make the equipment, we've received endorsements as well, the american fuel and petrochemical manufacturers, and also the outdoor power equipment institute. look, everybody's on board with this. now we need to get to work and get it in place. this is about building the right kind of energy future for our country. we've got to get going. gasoline prices are $4 at the pump and they're going higher. and we could do something about it and that's exactly what we need to do.

and i urge my colleagues to join me in this effort on behalf of the american people. madam president, with that i yield the floor. i also note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: the presiding officer: the senator from iowa.

mr. grassley: we're in morning business, right? the presiding officer: yes, we are, senator. actually we're on -- we're in a quorum call. mr. grassley: i ask the calling of the quorum be suspended. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. grassley: i ask to speak for 15 minutes as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. grassley: supreme court justice ginsburg on a recent trip to egypt made comments that garnered public notice. she said -- quote -- "i would not look to the u.s. constitution if i were drafting a constitution in the year 2012. i might look at the constitution of south africa" -- end of quote. she also spoke favorably of the canadian charter of rights and freedoms and the european convention on human rights. although some people have criticized justice ginsburg for speaking negatively about the u.s. constitution while abroad, i think she has a right to say

what legal documents countries that are now writing constitutions should consider, but i do not agree with her that those other constitutions are better examples of constitutions today than the united states constitution is. some people have criticized justice ginsburg's preference for the other constitutions she named, have focused on the positive rights contained in those documents. some of those constitutions like south africa protects the right to -- quote -- "make decisions concerning reproduction"-- unquote, to -- quote -- "inherit dignity" -- end of quote and the right to have an environment protected -- quote -- "through reasonable legislative and other measures that prevent pollution and environmental degradation." the european convention on human rights guarantees the right to

education. of course none of these constitutions contains anything like the second amendment right for the citizens to defend themselves. our constitution is all about limiting the power of government. americans do not fully trust the power of government, and americans insist on rights that are protected against government action. in other words, our constitution was intended to last for centuries with the same meaning even as those principles were applied to new situations. our judges should reflect that philosophy, which is at the heart of our constitution. and if other countries feel differently, that is their right. but i think praise for those foreign constitutions rather than our own raises a much more serious issue -- the role of the judiciary. our constitution made the

judiciary that was the least dangerous branch -- that's what hamilton said -- policy is to be made by elected officials who answer to the voters and can be replaced, whereas judges under our constitution cannot be replaced. they have a lifetime position short of impeachment. but the foreign constitutions that were named create a much different judiciary. the canadian supreme court has stated that their charter of rights and freedoms -- quote -- "must be capable of growth and development over time to meet new social, political, and historical realities often unimagined by its framers." continuing to vote -- quote -- ,"" the judiciary is a guardian of the constitution and must in interpreting its provisions bear these considerations in mind" -- end of quote. the european convention has been interpreted by the european court of human rights to be a --

quote -- ""-- unquote living document. mr. president, these are explicit statements that justice ginsburg preferred constitutions constitutions -- madam president, these are explicit statements that justice ginsburg's preferred constitutions are -- quote, unquote -- ," living constitutions. a living constitution is one thing in which the meanings change over time. judges decide that new circumstances requiring a living constitution to mean something that it did not mean some time before. they say that the constitution must keep up with the times. a living constitution can mean whatever judges want it to mean. completely contrary to what our forefathers had in mind when they wrote our constitution. our constitution then is not a

living constitution. judges are not to make up its meaning as they go along over time. even president obama's supreme court nominees told us that the role of a judge under our constitution is not to interpret words however they believe new circumstances might warrant. it's the law all the way down, quote, unquote, justice kagan said. we should be skeptical of living constitutions that open the door for judges to impose their values, not those of the framers of the constitution, on the citizenry of this country. the canadian charter says that it -- quote -- "guarantees the right and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a

free and democratic society" -- end of quote. the canadian supreme court interprets that provision in light of a highly generalized four-part test that invites judges to insert their own policy preferences. similarly, the south african constitution provides that its rights can be limited if they -- quote -- "are reasonable and justifiable in an open and democratic society based on human dignity, equality, and freedom" -- end of quote. it tells courts explicitly to apply a six-part subjective balancing test that allows judges to interpret this provision however they want. how would you like to live under a constitution like that? these constitutions that justice ginsburg endorses invites judges to rule however they want on any question of rights.

so that is not consistent with traditional american notion of the rule of law, of a government of laws, and not a government of people. some judges may prefer constitutions in which judges are free to displace democratically -- democratic decisionmaking on policy questions that are to be decided by elected representatives of the people under our constitution. i do not. our constitution does not. we do not live in a government of, by, and for the judiciary. but no one should think that the canadian or the south american -- or south african constitutions fully protect rights that americans think are precious, such as freedom of speech. under the canadian charter, reasonable limits of free speech including prohibiting so-called

hate speech against a group. finally, madam president, it is important to recognize why some of us on the judiciary committee continue to press judicial nominees on their adherence to the constitution without reference to foreign law. for instance, justice breyer has stated that foreign judges also interpret -- quote -- "texts that more and more protect basic human rights" -- end of quote. he has stated that he looks to the decisions of the european human rights court and to canadian cases as well because they are, quote-unquote, relevant even if they do not control. he says this -- quote -- "we can learn something about our law and our documents from what happens elsewhere."

end of quote. what justice ginsburg did was to make very clear that which had only been implied in the past. making very clear that there are some in this country who feel that our venerable constitution is outdated. if they treat that document as it was written and understood by the framers, then their decisions will often lead to results that they do not like as a policy matter. but if they can cite decisions from foreign courts that interpret constitutions that contain all kinds of different rights and they give judges unbridled power to make policy decisions at the expense of the elected representatives of the people, then they can reach decisions that our constitution otherwise would not allow. it is not simply a disinterested

survey of what other courts around the world are doing. it opens the door to a search for preferred liberal activist outcomes. these are the very high stakes at issue when we discuss whether it is appropriate for judges to cite and rely on foreign law in interpreting the united states constitution. we need to preserve, protect, and defend the constitution of the united states. we need to preserve, protect, and defend the rights of earns american -- of american citizens. justice ginsburgs and others who have a judicial longing for other constitutions that protect different rights and give unelected judges power that under our constitution self-governing people exercise

themselves, i tell those judges, including justice ginsburg, that is the wrong approach. i yield the floor. i yield back the balance of my time. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. brown: mr. president in. the presiding officer: the senator ohio. mr. brown: i ask to dispense with the quorum. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. brown: thank you. i ask unanimous consent to speak up to 10 minutes -- five minutes in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. brown thank you, mr. president. mr. brown: thank you, mr. president. i heard the remarks from my senior senator from missouri, claire mccaskill, who sits next to me. i was intrigued by her response to the vote that had just taken

place on -- from my colleagues who preach every day about deficit reduction. they had, as senator mccaskill said, they had an opportunity to pick the lowest-hanging fruit there there is, take away the tax breaks and the tax dollar subsidies that go to the oil doctorinterests in this country. taxpayers are spending hard-earned tax dollars coming from workers in dayton and springfield and akron and canton that go directly to the most profitable industry in the history of the world perhaps, and that's -- particularly the big five oil companies making billions afned billions and billions of dollars. yet we are just simply saying that's okay to give them those kind of tax breaks and tax subsidies. that's even putting aside the fact that every time there's a pipeline outage, every time there is a fire at a refinery,

every time there is turmoil in the middle east, the oil companies appeared speculators use it as chance to spike up oil prices. it's like clockwork. if there is a fire at a refine refinery, prices go up. if there is an outage at a refinery, prices go up. it is time, as the presiding officer's bill will do -- who's led this effort to get the department of justice to put the government on the side of the consumer, as senator mccaskill said on it low-hanging fruit to save tax dollars is really obvious and on the other side to make sure that we go after the speculators when they rip us off. these speculators, according to a recent study, 56 cents of every dollar -- 6 56 cents of every gallon of gas that you pay

goes to the hedge fund speculators. that's about $10, $12, $15 a tank, depending on the type of car you drive. on the one hand we're not saying no more tax breaks. on the other we're not saying to the speck lairtz, stop this. you're not going to getaway with this anymore. the government has got to be on the side of the middle chase here and fight back. i thank the president. i yield the floor. ms. landrieu: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana. ms. landrieu: thank you, mr. president. i'm going to speak for about 10 minutes and someone else comes to the floor, i'll be happy to even shorten that opportunity. but i had to come to the floor, mr. president, to support the leadership of senator barbara boxer and senator inhofe from oklahoma who have worked, mr. president, for over a year

to bring a very balanced and fundamentally important and essential infrastructure bill to the floor of the house. now, we have many arguments on this floor. we've been arguing about judges. i heard senator grassley give a pretty tough speech about his opinion of some of our supreme court justices. i don't agree with much what he said, but he's entitled to his opinion, and we have those debates, and they're good people on both sides. we're debating oil taxes and whether the oil industry is paying too much or too little. so you can have arguments about that. but even -- even our children in kindergarten, even our citizens who don't pay attention to some more difficult arguments understand roads, bridges, and mass transit. they understand hard-hat jobs. they see people every day laying

bricks, pouring concrete, going to work at steel mills and, you know, factories that produce the materials that build our infrastructure. they drive over potholes, mr. president, all day long. they ride down the interstates with 18-wheelers whizzing by them in smaller cars, because they're trying to be more fuel-efficient, with their heart in their chest, with their children in the back seat, and they look up to congress, to the house of representatives, and say, where is our transportation bill? is this isn'this isn't a transpl that was voted on by one body. this transportation bill that the house refuses to even consider was built by one of the more progressive and one of the most conservative members of this body. it was voted on almost

unanimously out of committee, brought to the floor of the senate just a couple of weeks ago, and received over 75 votes in a body that can't decide about our judges really, we can't decide about the post office, we can't decide about oil and gas taxes. but 75 of us said we are tired of running our highways and our transit on 90-day, 30-day, 60-day extensions. i think this is the 27th or 26th short-ter short-term extenn since 2009. what kind of way is this to run a government? for the other side of this building that talks about let's put business practices to work, let's be more efficient in the way we operate, let's operate more like a business, do you know, mr. president, any

business in america, large or small, that operates with a 90-day vision? do you know one? i don't know one. i mean, i understand businesses have 60 -- you know, six-month plans and a year, but they always have a five-year-long plan. i don't know one business in america that operates on a 90-day plan. so here we are at the ninth hour again. we have a bill. we produced a bill. now, if the house had a bill -- you know, i'm a centrist, so if the house had a bill, i'd be working with the middle of the road over there trying to say, well, this is what your bill does, this is what our bill does, let's just -- you know, we can't have our way completely here in the senate, although i'd like to have our way more of the time. but i understand. they don't have a bill, mr. president. they don't have a bill to

negotiate because they can't even get a bill together among the three committees of jurisdiction over there. again, if they had a bill, i know that senator boxer, senator inhofe would be happy to negotiate. maybe they'd want a four-year bill, we'd want a two. maybe we'd negotiate it at three. they don't like the mass transit portion. we like the mass transit portion. we could come to some terms. they don't like the way the formula works. we like the general way the formula works. we could come to some terms. i understand that. but what i don't understand, what no one in the country understands, what the mayors are having a hard time understanding, the governors are having a hard time understanding and businesses that operate in my state represented by the chamber of commerce, the nfib, and to mainstream alliance of small business -- from the left, to the center, to the right -- don't understand is how you

don't have a bill at all and you haven't been able to put one together for -- we've now been in this congress for a year and a half? -- you've had one and a half years to put a bill together, and you've yet to come up with one, so we put one together that looks pretty good. i mean, it it's -- no one that i know of from any group has said anything really bad about our bill. i mean, it's pretty, you know, plain, i mean, in one sense that it's not changing the course of western civilization. it's not -- it's just trying to fund roads, broidges, and transit that are just fundamental to the operations not only of our government but our economy and, frankly, the economy of the world. because without highways, it's hard to import or export products. so, this bill has impacts way beyond even america.

so for the life of me, i cannot understand how the house of representatives is going to leave and go on vacation and think they have done their job by giving us another 90-day extension. now, i don't know what the leadership is going to do. but i want my vote recorded as "no." i'm not going to hold up everybody here over the holidays, but i want to say, i want my vote recorded as "no." i am not going to continue to support 30-day, 60-day, 90-day extensions to a transportation bill which really in the scheme of things should not be that complicated to pass. there are other things much more controversial that we could be, you know, really having very sear just debates about. building highways and roads and transit shouldn't be one of them. and we're hurting jobs, mr. president. we heard the republicans -- and i can't blame the republicans in the senate. i think they have really been

for the most part really terrific, actually, in working with senator boxer and they've even given a majority of the voavment sgoat. so i guess real - really my focn the republicans in the house. i don't think they have taken the time to look at the senate bill and to see how really balanced it is. and one part i wish they'd really read -- and that's the part i want to talk about for the next five minutes -- and i know other senators are here to speak -- i hope the gulf coast members from texas, louisiana, mississippi, alabama, and florida -- and together that's a pretty big coalition. i don't know the total number, but i think it's got to be over 75 members from texas, louisiana, alabama, mississippi, and florida. i hope they would read the section of the transportation bill that talks about the restore act, because i've spent a great deal of time over here with my good friend and

wonderful leader, senator shelby, with senator boxer, with over 300 organizations for over a year to build a bill that's now part of the transportation bill that in addition to building highways in florida and transit and roads in alabama, mississippi, will also for the first time in the history of our country -- first time -- direct a significant portion of penalty money, paid by a polluter, b.p., that polluted the gulf coast -- good company in some ways, really messed up that well, though, really messed up that well. and they just spilled gallons and gallons and 5 million barrels of oil. we have shrimp that are coming in our nets with no eyes. we have turtles that are washing up on our shores dead.

we have research needs in the gulf coast that we've, there's been no time in our history where we've needed that money more. so my question is to the gulf coast republican members, and democratic members: what is it about this bill that is driving you so crazy that you can't accept $10 billion that the federal government is trying to give you? because that's what could restore, could potentially send to the gulf coast, a portion of the fine. we don't know whether that fine is going to be $5 billion or $10 billion or $20 billion. burr we know it's -- but we know it's going to be substantial because under current law they have to pay $1,000 for every barrel spilled or $4,200 if it was gross negligence. so in the senate transportation bill, this body, again, in a very infrequent show of

bipartisan support and concern for the gulf coast, america's energy coast, understanding the great erosion that's taken place in the delta of louisiana which drains 40% of the continent, understanding that so much of our shipping and seafood industry relies on this coast, not that the other coasts are not vitally important, and the underinvestment that's been made -- 75% of the senate basically stood up and said, okay, let's redirect this penalty money to where the injury is. that is the restore act, and that's in the senate bill that we sent over to the house, which they have absolutely just rejected. so i don't know what magic there is about this next 90 days. but i know what i'm going to do. i'm going to register my vote as "no." and then i'm going to go home and i'm going to work harder in louisiana and along the gulf

coast to explain to the people of our region how much is at stake by getting a longer-term transportation bill -- two years maybe is not as long as we'd like to have but it's better than 30 days. it's better than 60 days. it's better than 90 days. and i'm going to go ask and explain that not only is the transportation bill vital for louisiana's project, but for approving the restore act, which i know that the house has indicated their support for. they have indicated the support for the concept of the restore act. but the act itself is in the transportation bill. so, i'm going to wrap up. there are other members on the floor that are speaking. and i thank the leader, barbara boxer, who's here, and there are other members, to speak. but for 90 days let's get back to work and go for a long-term transportation bill that's a real jobs bill that will help the whole country, but particularly the gulf coast with

the restore act. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the republican leader. the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: mr. president, i see the republican leader is on the floor, and i understand that there may be a unanimous consent that is propounded. and i can offer some remarks in the context of an objection and a counterproposal if the minority leader would like to proceed now. mr. mcconnell: to the senator from rhode island, i'm not the one who's going to be asking consent. mr. whitehouse: well, i would like to join the -- i'll yield to the majority leader as soon as he seeks the floor, which i guess is now. so i'll yield to the majority leader.

mr. president? until i get a signal from the majority leader that he will seek recognition, at which point i will yield, i wanted to -- the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. whitehouse -- i wanted to follow in the -- mr. whitehouse: i wanted to follow in the footsteps of senator landrieu from louisiana and reflect my own dismay and dissatisfaction with the situation that we are in right now. the house extension on the highway bill, which we're going to be asked to proceed with, is going to cost, as far as the estimates i can see so far, around 100,000 jobs. that is damage to our economy that is a self-inflicted wound. more specifically, is a

house-inflicted wound. i would very much like to see the senate fight to force action on the senate highway bill, bipartisan bill, with weeks of amendments, and fully paid for; a serious bill, instead of inflicting this kind of damage on our economy with a short-term extension. does the majority leader seek recognition? allow me to -- mr. reid: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent senate proceed to h.r. 4281, the surface transportation act. it is the extension act which was received from the house. it is now at the desk. that the bill be read three times and the senate proceed to vote on that matter. the presiding officer: is there objection? mrs. boxer: reserving the right to object. the presiding officer: the senator from california. mrs. boxer: and there are several of us who reserve our

right to object. what the house has done is guarantee job losses for this country. already they're dithering on the senate bill, not taking it up for a vote, has cost about 100,000 jobs. thousands of businesses are at stake, and eventually we're talking about three million jobs at stake. and the fact that they would do this without any commitment to get to conference, without any commitment to finish their job and run off on vacation is the reason i'm reserving the right to object. so i ask that the unanimous consent request be modified so that an amendment which is at the desk, the text of s. 1813, the surface transportation bill, passed by the senate on march 14, 2012, by a large bipartisan majority vote of 74-22, be agreed to. the bill as amend be read a third time and passed, and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table.

the presiding officer: is there objection to the request for modification? mr. mcconnell: mr. president, reserving the right to object. the presiding officer: the republican leader. mr. mcconnell: the problem with accepting the boxer amendment is that it would shut down the federal aid highway program, which means states wanting reimbursements for projects will not get paid. it would cause additional nervous state department of transportation directors to cut back further on work because there will be no reimbursements on federal projects. and it would cause the highway -- cost the highway trust fund $100 million per day for any day the gas tax is not collected, thereby adding to the deficit. therefore, i object. the presiding officer: objection is heard. is there objection to the original request? the senator from maryland. mr. cardin: reserving the right to object. i was listening to the distinguished republican leader. let me just challenge some of the assumptions that maybe we can get to a consent here.

i am very confident in talking to members of the house of representatives that there's ample support to pass not only the bipartisan surface transportation bill that passed this body by an overwhelming vote, but a consensus bill that came out of our committees by unanimous vote in both the environment and public works committee and the banking committee. there is general agreement that this bill should be enacted into law. so i am confident that if the speaker of the house brings this bill to the floor, of the house of representatives, it will be passed. there's adequate votes for it. here's the problem, to my friend, the distinguished republican leader. if we pass another short-term extension, we're going to lose jobs. in my own state of maryland, we can't let the contracts on major maintenance contracts with a 09-day extension. -- with a 90-day extension. we can't move forward with the

planning of our highways, bridges, transit system with another short-term extension. this takes us to the middle of the summer. we lose the construction season on getting transportation work done. so i would just urge my -- the distinguished leader that we do have the opportunity to pass the bill right now today. and if we stand firm and tell the house of representatives that we want to do what's right for the american people, that in the senate we had a bipartisan bill, a consensus bill. what's happening in the house is extremely partisan. let's get together on the most important jobs bill that we can pass. it's thousands of jobs in maryland, and it's millions of jobs in this nation that are affected by passing a surface transportation. so that -- i'm hoping that i convinced the distinguished republican leader. i ask unanimous consent that a request be modified so that an amendment which is at the desk that the text of s. 1813, it the

surface transportation bill, passed by a large vote of 74-22, the bill as amended be read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be laid on the table. the presiding officer: is there objection to the modification? mr. mcconnell: mr. president, reserving the right to object. the presiding officer: the republican leader. mr. mcconnell: i'll spare the senate the repetitious -- repeating my remarks with regard to the initial boxer modification. but the principles remain the same. i object. the presiding officer: objection is heard. is there objection to the original request? mr. whitehouse: mr. president, reserving the right to object. the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: mr. president, i would like to join my colleagues in trying to find a way to attach the senate bill which passed this body better than three to one, better than three to one, with a huge bipartisan majority, which is a

good bill, which was paid for, which had weeks of collegial work back and forth with bipartisan amendments, which is a serious bill, which every major business group in the country, which every major labor union in the country, which even environmental groups are supporting, and which, as the senator from maryland has said, would virtually certainly be passed by the house if the speaker would only bring it up. but for partisan reasons, the house has refused to even bring it up for a vote. and instead they've sent us over this extension which will cost 100,000 jobs. it is my view that if we can send it back in this form, we will not experience the parade of horribles that the distinguished republican leader has suggested because it will not come to that point. they will in fact pass the senate bill. we will have a real highway bill, not a partisan extension that kills 100,000 jobs. it's 1,000 jobs in my home state

of rhode island. we're over 10% unemployment. this is a self--inflicted wound that hurts rhode island, that hurts my home state. it makes no sense. and, therefore, i ask again -- and i apologize for coming back to this, but i think it's really important that we try to defend this body, which has worked well together, which has made a sensible, serious bill from being infected by the dysfunction that is presently taking place in the house and that this extension is a representation of, that dysfunction. so i again ask unanimous consent that the majority leader's request be modified so that the amendment at the desk, the text of our highway bill, senate 1813, be added to the bill, that the text be agreed to, the bill as amended be read a third time and passed and the motions to reconsider be 4r5eud upon the table. i thank the majority leader and minority leader for the

modification. the presiding officer: is there objection to the modification? the presiding officer: i object. -- mr. mcconnell: i object. the presiding officer: objection is heard. the senator from new york. mr. schumer: i'm not going to object. i want to just say, just reiterate the comments of my colleagues from california, maryland and rhode island, and i know my colleague from louisiana will say the same. we had a broad bipartisan bill here. transportation, highways are a linchpin of our economic recovery not only in the jobs that they create now -- rebuilding and building highways -- but in making our economy more efficient. china is building four times the infrastructure we are. india is building, i think, more infrastructure than we are. and here in the senate, to the credit of both sides, we have a broad bipartisan bill that moves us forward. it's not everything i would want or any of us would want. put together masterfully by senator boxer and senator

inhofe, political opposites, and the house, in its paralysis, because there's a small group who, frankly, don't believe the government should be an infrastructure at all, tie it in a knot and force us, with the awful choice of either shutting things down, because they're not going to budge, or just renewing an old bill which needs updating, which throws people out of work. they are creating paralysis in this country. in the case of infrastructure and in many other cases. the public wants to know why the country isn't growing at a greater rate. it wants to know why there is such high unemployment in the construction industries, look at the ideologues over there and their refusal to face reality, to deal with their colleagues

and to put our -- put this country -- not us -- in a like it or leave it position. this 90-day extension is not the way to go. the way to go is to pass the senate bill, and i hope that those on the other side of the aisle pushed by outside folks from both business management and all across the country will see the error of their ways and change their ways over the next few months. i thank my colleague and yield the floor. the presiding officer: is there objection to the original request? ms. landrieu: reserving the right to object. the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana. ms. landrieu: and i might object, mr. president, because i think this is a very serious matter. reserving the right to object, because as the majority leader well knows, if we would follow senator boxer's leadership,

sending back to the house the senate bill, we would not only not lose any jobs, we would create 1.9 million jobs, and for the restore act, which is very important to the gulf coast, it would create another 300,000 jobs. the only action that is going to lose jobs is the action that we are being basically forced to accept right now sent over by a partisan house of representatives to go to another short-term extension. this country, mr. president, doesn't need short-term extensions. it needs long-term answers, and it needs jobs they can count on. every business in america relies on this transportation bill. we have been now going to short-term extensions for three years. it's time to stop, and i want my leader to know who is on the floor i may object in the next

few minutes, but i absolutely will object to any other short-term resolution on this bill for as long as this congress is in session. this is enough. now, had this bill gotten out of here with just democrats on it, i'd say, you know what, we don't have a leg to stand on because we don't really have a balanced bill and we can't really jam this down the other side. but this bill got out of here with a 75 or 76 votes. now two years is not five years but it's better than three months. it's a bill that you could pass that we can build on. it's a bill that people could go to sleep tonight knowing that they have a job tomorrow. so i really object to the majority -- minority leader's comments about this bill if our

action is going to lose jobs. we have been here working hard to save jobs. i hope that the republicans when they go home they will hear from the business community, from the right, the middle and the left. they will hear from environmental groups. what are you guys doing? and the final thing i want to say, mr. president, is i am objecting. if the house had a bill, then this would be a negotiation between two bills. the problem here is they don't even have a bill. how do you negotiate with a group that doesn't have the bill? they have ideas, they have philosophies, they have platforms and they have speeches. but they don't have a bill. we couldn't negotiate with them if we wanted to. there is no bill. that's why we're telling the country look, i don't know what their problem is, they have many, but we have a bill. so if they can't get their bill together, take the one we put together. but no, that's too simple for

them. so i am reserving the right to object. i'm going to listen to what my leader has to say and i might object. i know everybody wants to go home, i know we want to have this unanimous consent, but my state not only has its transportation money wrapped up in this, it has its hope for the future wrapped up because the restore act is in that bill, and for the first time this senate stood up since i have been here and said you're right, gulf coast, you do a lot, you have been injured a lot, we're going to help you, so that bill is in there, too, which is why i'm really hard pressed to say i will go for a 90-day extension. so reserving the right to object, i ask unanimous consent the request be modified so that an amendment which is at the desk, the text of s. 1813, the surface transportation bill passed by the senate on march 14 by a large bipartisan majority of 74-22 be agreed to, the bill as amended be read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider be laid on the table.

the presiding officer: is there objection to the modification? mr. mcconnell: i object. the presiding officer: objection is heard. is there objection to the original request of the majority leader? if not, so ordered. the clerk will report. the clerk: h.r. 4281, an act providing an extension of federal-aid highway, highway safety, motor carrier safety, transit and other programs funded out of the highway trust fund, pending enactment of a multiyear law reauthorizing such programs. the presiding officer: the clerk will read the bill for the third time. the clerk: h.r. 4281, an act providing an extension of federal-aid highway and so forth. the presiding officer: the

question is on passage of the measure. all in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the measure is passed. mr. reid: mr. president. the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. reid: it has been a difficult time for everyone, and i would hope and that we have what we -- none of us wanted. it passed here in the senate by a very nice bipartisan margin. i would hope that during the easter recess that the house will be able to come back with something that they can -- as senator landrieu mentioned, at least have some piece of legislation to give to us and try to work to a conclusion or accept our bill, which is our preference. so i appreciate very much the comments of my colleagues and appreciate their patience and understanding of the situation

we find ourselves, which is not a good one. the presiding officer: the senator from california. mrs. boxer: mr. president, i know my colleague, senator collins, has been waiting to speak. i just want to speak very briefly, like a minute. let's be clear with what just happened. what just happened is the house sent us a 90-day extension of our transportation programs with not one dime of revenue in there to fund those, and the highway trust fund is on the road to bankruptcy. so they are the first in my memory, the first legislative body here in the capitol to ever extend for this period of time without a dollar, which means an acceleration of bankruptcy of the trust fund. what else did they do? they just guaranteed 100,000 people that they are not going to get their jobs, and they guaranteed hundreds of businesses they are not going to get their jobs, and they sent out a signal that america should

be ready for hardship because they didn't even have the decency to put in that extension a written commitment to produce a bill, to get to conference with us and to get a bill to the president. oh, no. they run off on their vacation and leave people twisting in the wind. well, i want it to be known, i am one of the chairs who worked on this. there are many other people who were fantastic on this bill from both sides of the aisle, and i know, i spoke to senator inhofe today about this. we want this bill done, and i'm going to use every tool at my disposal as one united states senator to keep the pressure on the republican house. speaker boehner, you are not speaker of the republicans. you are speaker of the house. reach your hand across the aisle like senator inhofe reached across the aisle for me and i

reached across to him and jay rockefeller reached across to senator hutchison and she reached across, and tim johnson reached across to shelby and he reached across and max baucus had an array of republicans work with him over there in the finance committee. we know we can do this, but what the house has done is send a very clear message of job loss and hardship. it is unacceptable, and i look forward to working on this every sirnl day. now we have 90 days. tomorrow it will be 89, 88. we're going to count down and we're going to keep the pressure on and we're not going to let this transportation program go up in smoke, because it has been in place since dwight eisenhower was president, and it's a sad day for america today, a very sad day. but we never give up over here, and james inhofe isn't going to give up, and we're going to fight hard to get a bill. thank you. i yield the floor.

ms. collins: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from maine. ms. collins: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that i be permitted to proceed as if in morning business for up to 15 minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. collins: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, during the past week, the supreme court heard arguments on the constitutionality of president obama's health care law. this week also marks the two-year anniversary of the president's signing that law. now, mr. president, there is no question that our health care system required and still requires significant reform. in passing this law, however, congress failed to follow the hippocratic oath of first do no harm.

the new law increases health care costs, hurts our seniors and health care providers and imposes billions of dollars in new taxes, fees and senlts. this in turn will lead to fewer choices and higher insurance costs for many middle-income american families and most small businesses. the opposite of what real health care reform should do. i find it particularly disturbing that president obama's health care law does not do enough to rein in the cost of health care and to provide consumers with more affordable choices. in fact, medicare's chief actuary estimates that the law

will increase health care spending across the economy by more than $300 billion. the nonpartisan congressional budget office says that the law will actually increase premiums for the average family plan by $2,100. moreover, a recent report issued by the c.b.o. found that the new law will cost $1.76 trillion between now and the year 2022. that is twice as much as the bill's original ten-year price tag of $940 million. the new law will also mean fewer choices for many middle-class americans and small businesses. all individual and small group

policies sold in our country will soon have to fit into one of four categories. mr. president, one size does not fit all. in maine, almost 90% of those purchasing coverage in the individual market have a policy that is different from the standards in the new law. i'm also very concerned about the impact of the law on maine's small businesses which are our state's job creation engine. the new law discourages small companies from hiring new employees and from paying them more. it could also lead to onerous financial penalties, even for those small businesses that are struggling to provide health insurance for their employees.

according to a gallup survey taken earlier this year, 48% of small businesses are not hiring because of the potential costs of health insurance under the new law. the director of the congressional budget office has testified that the new health care law will mean 800,000 fewer american jobs over the next decade. mr. president, even when the law tries to help small businesses, it misses the mark. for example, i have long been a proponent of tax credits to help small businesses afford health insurance for their employees. the new credits for small businesses in the health care law, however, are so poorly

structured and phased out in such a way that businesses will actually be penalized when they hire new workers or pay their employees more. moreover, they are temporary. the tax credits are temporary and can only be claimed for two years in an health insurance exchange. i'm also very concerned that the new law is paid for in part through more than a $500 billion cut in medicare, a program which is already facing serious long-term financing problems. it simply does not make sense to rely on deep cuts in medicare to finance a new entitlement program at a time when the number of seniors in this

country is on the rise. mr. president, we need to fix and save medicare, not add to its financial strains. moreover, according to the administration's own chief actuary, those deep medicare cuts could push one in five hospitals, nursing homes, and home health providers into the red. i'm particularly concerned about the impact on rural states like maine. many of those providers could simply stop taking medicare patients. that would jeopardize access to care for millions of our seniors. mr. president, it didn't have to be that way. the bitter rhetoric and the

partisan gridlock over the past few years have obscured the very important fact that there are many health care reforms that have overwhelming support in both parties. for example, we should have been able to agree on generous tax credits for self-employed individuals and small businesses to help them afford health insurance. that would have reduced the number of uninsured americans. we should have been able to agree on insurance market reforms that would have prevented insurance companies from denying coverage to children who have preexisting conditions. that would have permitted children to remain on their parents' insurance policies until age 26, that would

require standardized claim forms to reduce administrative costs, and that would allow consumers to purchase insurance across state lines. those are just some delivery system reforms that reward value over volume and quality instead of quantity. we should be able to agree on reforms that increase transparency throughout the health care system so that consumers can compare prices and quality more easily.

i know that the presiding officer's state and dartmouth college in particular has done a great deal of work in this area, as have many health care providers and many hospitals in the state of maine. they're experimenting with new delivery models that will help them better control chronic disease treatments, which in turn will not only improve the quality of health care but also help to lower costs. and we should be able to agree on ways to address the serious health care work force shortages that plague rural and small-town america. simply having an insurance card will do you little or no good if there is no one available to

provide the health care. in short, mr. president, i believe that we made -- that congress made a real error in passing obamacare. we should repeal the law so that we can start over to work together in a bipartisan way to draft a health care bill that achieves the consensus goals of providing more choice, containing health care costs, improving quality and access, and making health care coverage more affordable for all americans. thank you, mr. president. i would yield the floor and suggest 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 alabama. mr. sessions: i would ask consent the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. sessions: i would ask i be allowed to speak as if in morning business for up to 15 minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. sessions: i'm here today to share a new and stunning revelation unearthed by my staff on the senate budget committee. part of my responsibilities as the ranking member is to look at the long-term costs of legislation, so we wanted to ascertain the long-term costs of the president's health care bill, and i mean the kind of long-term cost analysis that's

been going on for a number of years with regard to medicare, social security, medicaid over a 75-year period. i was floored by what we discovered, but first let's put a little context. president obama told the american people repeatedly that his health care bill would cost $900 billion over ten years and that it would not add one dime to the public debt. but we have shown that the cost score for the first ten years of implementation when the bill is fully implemented is actually $2.6 trillion, almost three times as much. in addition, the offsets used to reduce the law's official costs were enormous and phony and, as i have discussed before and will detail again at another time, these are unacceptable offsets.

so you've heard the cat's story of mr. mistopholes, the napoleon of crime. i say this bill is the in a napn of criminal offsets. the more we learn about the bill, the more we discover it was even more unaffordable than was suspected, so over a period of about three months, our staff has worked diligently to estimate the new unfunded liabilities that would be imposed by the passage of this legislation. this is not the total cost of the bill, but the unfunded mandatory coverage obligations incurred by the united states government on behalf of the united states people over a period of time. an unfunded obligation is basically the amount of money we have to spend on a mandatory expense that does not have a funding source, that we don't

have the money to meet. it's money we don't have but money we're committed to spend. it's this kind of long-term unfunded obligations that have placed this nation's financial situation at such great risk. it's a thing that's called witness after witness after witness before the budget committee of which i am ranking member that tells us we are on an unsustainable path. that means money we will either have to print, borrow or tax to meet the obligation we would incur as a people as a result of the passage of this bill. for instance, it is widely agreed that social security has an unfunded liability of $7 trillion over 75 years. that's an enormous sum. it's double the entire amount of

the united states budget today. so my staff used the models that are used by the center for medicare and medicaid services. they have talked with these individual experts about these numbers and worked diligently to come up with a figure using appropriate methods. that figure, using the administration's own optimistic assumptions and claims about the cost of the law, is an incredible $17 trillion that would be added to the unfunded liabilities of the united states over the next 75 years. that is more than twice the unfunded liability of social security. now, i want to emphasize this $17 trillion figure is not an estimate based on what we think the bill will really cost if all

the administration's claims and promises that were to be proven false. certainly there have been matters proven false already, but we have used the administration's own figures, so the unfunded liability is almost certainly not going to be less than $17 trillion, but if any more of the administration's claims unravel as so many have already have, the cost of the program's unpaid obligation would rise radically higher than the $17 trillion. for instance, the former c.b.o. director douglas holtz-eakin, an expert widely respected in these matters said that millions of more individuals may lose their current employer coverage and may be placed into the government-supported exchanges than we had currently projects, than the administration has projected. i didn't follow

mr. holtz-eakin's arguments or his concerns. we took the administration's assumptions. so let me briefly explain some of what now comprises this additional $17 trillion in unfunded obligations. $12 trillion is for the health care law for the premium subsidy program. you see the law created new regulations that driving up the price of insurance for millions of americans. the writers of the law knew it would inflate the cost of insurance premiums to do so, so to cover that cost, they had to include new government subsidies so people could pay for their more expensive insurance. on made -- onto the medicaid, this new health care law has added another $5 trillion to its unfunded liabilities. this is on top of the substantial unfunded obligations

at the federal and state governments have already had the take -- had to take on in order to support medicaid, and they have protested vigorously to us, warning of these additional deep expenditure requirements that are falling on the states. and these figures don't even account for the dozens of new bureaucracies that will be created to implement the president's health care law or the expansion of the bureaucracies. those costs are not included in the $17 trillion or the cost estimates that the administration has used for the bill. for instance, the i.r.s. has requested 4,000 new i.r.s. agents at $300 million in additional funds for their part in implementing the new law. at a time when we should be trying, we have to shore up programs that are threatened by

default, medicare, social security, medicaid, this health care law adds an entirely new obligation, one we cannot pay for. and puts the entire financing of the united states government in jeopardy. we don't have the money, we don't have another $17 trillion in unfunded liabilities that we can add to our account. we have got to reduce the ones that we have. this has been obvious for a decade, several decades. people have talked about it repeatedly. instead of doing something about those programs that are headed to bankruptcy, we add under this president's determined insistence on a straight party-line vote one of the largest unfunded mandates in history on top of what we already have. how can we possibly justify

this? it cannot be justified. this bill has to be removed from the books because we don't have the money. there are a lot of other reasons. that's one of them. it's inescapable. it would be absolutely irresponsible for this congress to maintain a law that would run up this kind of debt, two and a half times the unfunded obligations of social security, and we are worried about our children being able to have their social security checks on time? this is not a little bitty matter. it's important. i will be sending a letter to the g.a.o., the the government accountability office. they do these kind of scoargs over 75 years. we'll ask them to construct their independent estimate of the unfunded health care law obligations. i believe they will be similar to the ones my staff has produced. i hope they are better, but i'm afraid they're not, and even if

they come close to what we have calculated, it's pretty clear that the money that will be coming in could be far less and the obligations could be far more than are being projected, as mr. holtz-eakin and others have said. so it's an urgent matter. i plan to come to the floor in coming days to continue to explain the true fiscal cost facts about this legislation. and there are many other serious problems with it. the bill is unpopular, it is unaffordable, it is unconstitutional, it's got to be repealed. i thank the chair and would yield the floor. nor senator madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from delaware. a senator: i ask consent to-to-speak as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without

objection. mr. carper: thank you. i feel compelled to say a word or two on the heels of our colleague from alabama, who i is salute as he heads off into the setting sun. i wish you a good break. but i want to say -- when i was in the navy back during the vietnam war when we weren't flying a lot of missions off the coast of cambodia and vietnam, we flew a the love missions in and out of other countries, including japan, and i've always had an interest in japan in terms of the way they provide health care. and one of the things that's intriguing to me about japan and the way they provide health care is, they spend half as much money for health care as we do. they spend 8% of gross domestic product. we spend 16% of gross domestic product. they get better outcomes, everything from longer life expectancy to lower lives of infant mortality, and they cover everybody. they cover everybody. it is not socialized medicine.

they have private health care delivery system and private health insurance companies, as well as we dovment but the dovm. bur ghebut they get a better ret than we do. and it is not a competition. we have our businesses that are competing with the japanese, fraingdzlandfrankly with other s well. it is not a fair fight. it is like having one arm tied behind our backs. for years presidents, members of congress, democrat and republican, have talked about this challenge, the fact that we spend so much more money for health care than a lot of the rest of the world and we don't get better results. in a lost cases, we get worse results and we don't cover everybody. that's not very smart. but for years, for decades, nobody rulel really took it on a serious way. the clinton administration, it happened during the clinton

administration, but i would have liked to have had reform on health care when we took it up during the early part of this current administration. a lot of people are focused on the independent mandate, is it constitutional, unconstitutional? i'm not a lawyer. i stud studied a little economi. when i got out of the navy and moved to delaware to get an m.b.a. on the g.i. bill i studied a little economics but i don't pretend to be a lawmplet b-- alawyer. if you expect us to write health insurance for folks with preerntion you've got to make sure that the pool of people we have to cover includes people that are not just -- that have preexisting conditions, not just people that are sick or have illnesses or conditions that are expensive to treat, you've got to make sure that we have a pool of people to insure that includes some healthy people.

some countries mandate for everybody that have coverage. we didn't want to mandate everybody to have coverage but we wanted to incentivize people, including healthier young people like my sons, to make sure they end up in that pool, at least some of the young men and women end up in that pool, some healthy people end up in that pool. but part of the request of the health insurance industry in return for doing away with preexisting conditions, was to make sure that a lot of healthier people are going to end up in that insurance pool. the way we decided to do it in the health care bill, law is rather than just mandate that people have to get coverage, say we want to incentivize you and if you choose not tha to, that's your business. if you happen to be poor, we're going to provide assistance to you. but if you're not poor and you

have the financial means, we'd like for you to go ahead an get coverage. we're not going to mandate it. but the first year that you have means to have coverage and choose not to there will be a fine or penalty of some sort, maybe a couple of hundred bucks. but that will go up several hundred dollars in order to encourage people to get the coverage. at the end of the day, some people say, you aren't paying $600 or whatever it ends up being, instead of paying this fee, why don't i just go ahead an get health insurance coverage? the idea is to provide some plans that are reasonably affordable for folks to take advantage of. so that's the issue -- the main issue. the supreme court will decide whether under the constitution, the commerce clause -- just like how we impose under law people to get social security, can we say we'd like people to get covered for health care?

we'll see how it works out with the supreme court. they've heard the arguments this week and i'm sure the arguments will continue on the airwaves and in town hall meetings and on television in the years -- in the months to come, and maybe beyond that, who knows? but the heart and soul of the health care reform legislation has less to do with mandates, for me, than it does with how do we get better health care outcomes for less money? for me, that's the key. how do we get better health care outcomes for less money? and we don't have to look to japan or other countries to figure that owvmen out. we have to look to places like minnesota, the mayo clinic, ohio, the cleveland clinic, pennsylvania health care system, the california kaiser permanente? what do they have in common? they get better outcomes for tens of millions of people, better results for less money. how do they do it? well, they have figured out what

works, and they do more of that. and they figured out what doesn't work. they get better outcomes for less money and do less of that. people get sick, all right, go see a doctor, go see a nurse. they have visits, they get shots or they get lab tests, they have lab tests done, x-rays, m.r.i.'s, that's the way we've done if for years, including in medicare and medicaid. much smarter ideas come out of cleveland clinic, huge health care delivery system in northern ayatollah; mayo clinic, kaiser permanent takers mostly in california. that's what they do. they don't just incentivize health care providers, doctors, nurses, hospitals, to work on people when they're sick; their incentive works entirely ditch. what they do in those places is they focus on how do we keep people healthy? how do we provide the incentives

not just to the doctors, hospitals and nurses to keep people healthy, but how do we incentivize the patient, the person whose health is at stake here, how do we incentivize them to take personal responsibility for their own health care? in my mind, that is the heart and soul of health care reform right there. the things that work are large purchasing pool. we have an 18 million purchasing pool for us. we're part of, members of congress, our staffs, all federal employees, federal retirees are dependent, part of a huge purchasing pool called the federal employees' health benefit plan, like 8 million people. we don't have 8 million federal employees, but you have 8 million people when you add in retirees and so forth. we're part of this big health purchasing pool and we get lower prices -- not free, we pay about 28% of the price of our premiums as federal employees, as servants, if you will -- and our

employers, the taxpayers, pay the other 72% or soavmen so. but what we're going to do is provide the opportunity for individuals, for families, for businesses, small and mid-sized businesses all over the country in less than 24 months to be able to join a similar kind of purchasing pool. we're going to start them up in every state -- new hampshire, delaware, alabama, every other state will have the opportunity to have their own large purchasing pool, to be able to take advantage of lower administrative costs -- our administrative costs for our federal employees' health benefit plan, $3 oust ever out y $100 for cost of premium, $3 oust every $100 of premium cost goes to administration. you compare that to other plarntion it'plans,it's more li. a large purchasing pool. we're going to have them available in every state. the other thing we have going for us in the federal employees'

health benefit plan, every hundreds -- and we use private health insurance plans; it's not -- no yo, we're not using socialized medicine. all the health plans in the country can sign up and say, you know what? we want to be able to offer our plans to the federal employees, retirees, and we can choose among them. there's a lot of competition among those health insurance companies. and we get to benefit prosecute tha-- and weget to benefit from. it improves the range of opportunities. the other thing i like, madam president, about the law -- you know, entrance cannot be made across state lines. in delaware we're bound on the west by maryland, the north by pennsylvania, the east by new jersey. when we established our own health insurance pool in 20914, we're not going to have a huge

insurance pool. but what we have under the law is the opportunity to create an interstate compact between delaware and maryland or delaware and pennsylvania or delaware and new jersey and have a multistate or maybe all the above -- have a multistate purchasing pool or exchange. we want to have a bigger pool, increase the competition, drive down the cost. in health care that would be available in delaware, could be offered d-- plans could be offen delaware, pennsylvania, new jersey, maryland. it would be a better deal for the consumer. that is another part of the heart and soul. two things i'll close with on this side and then turn to what i real claim to the floor to talk about. but i was inspired by my friend from alabama. in terms of the key reforms in the health care legislation, number one, move away from fee-for-service. just paying for treating people when they ar they are sick, miga

system like we have at mayo, cleveland clinic, kaiser permanente where they actually focus on how do we keep people well, focus on prevention, focus on well, in focus on treating people in a coordinated process as a team. the other key element here is this idea of creating these large purchasing pools and trying to incentivize people to be part of the health care delivery system by taking better care of themselves. those are the two keys. now, what i really came to the floor today for, madam president, is to have this drink of water. and to switch gears and to talk a little bit about gas prices. madam president, i don't know what kind of vehicle you drive most of your miles in in new hampshire. most of the miles i drive and have been driving in delaware for now 11 years is in a chrysler town and country minivan. when i stepped down as governor in january of 2001, my old

chevrolet corsica was old and my wife said, don't you think it is time to get something you? i took my olderson older son, cr out. we went out and drove porsche, ferrari and we bought a 2001 town and chrysler minivan, which he laments to this day. fast-forward, we had a meeting yesterday morning with the c.e.o. of chrysler-fiat. i mentioned when we bought this vehicle when i stepped down as vehicle and 11 years later -- later this week the odometer will have the numbers 300000 and counting. going to go over 300,000 miles. built in this country, terrific

vehicle. but when i stopped and got gas last week -- and we pay about $3.81. the prices continue to go up and posly up, sometimes down and back up again. and what i'd like to do is talk a little bit about how i got gas prices and how it puts pressure on all budgets, cluck the budgetbudget-- including the buy own family. we drive that vehicle a whole lot and hopefully will drive it a few more miles before it is ready to sit more in the driveway and take a rest. i want to begin by acknowledging, madam president -- i lair - hear -- i go home ey night and talk every night and morning -- i history a whole lot -- i hear a whole lot directly from the folks i represent about concerns about gasoline prices at the pump and the kind of pressure it puts on their budgets within their own families.

i understand that gas prices are at their peak, actually have been higher than this. a little over $4 during part of the bush administration. but this is as high as they've been for sometime. it puts a strain on american families, puts a strain on american business, and threatens to impede or slow down our economic recovery, which is actually moving at a pace pretty well. unfortunately, the solution is not as simple as some would suggest. if it were, we would not be having this discussion every year or two around the same time. i am asked sometimes why don't we just drill more in this country because some assume that higher gas prices at the pump must mean that we have slowed down or stopped drilling here at home, and many are surprised by the answer. the answer is this -- we are drilling more in america. in fact, i believe -- correct me if i'm wrong, madam president, but we are drilling more in this country than we have at least the last eight years.

and because we are drilling more, the u.s. is now a net oil exporter, not a net oil importer. and this country which for years we said we are the saudi arabia of coal, we're now on our way to becoming the saudi arabia of -- of natural gas and as we have opened up for drilling additional acres, onshore, offshore, off alaska and the gulf, we are in a position to become a net oil exporter. now, the administration, the obama administration, has made available millions of acres for oil and gas exploration the last year or two. approving more than 400 drilling permits since the new safety standards were put in place. these safety standards you may recall were implemented to make sure we didn't have a repeat oil spill disaster like the b.p. oil spill that occurred almost two years ago today. we have been joined here on the floor by senator nelson from florida who remembers all too

well the oil that washed up in places like pensacola where i did some basic training on my way to becoming a naval flight officer, and the kind of headaches that -- but since we got that straightened out, puts tighter restrictions for drifg safeguards. 400 or so drilling permits just since then have been put in place with stronger safety standards. as a result, we have a record number of oil rigs operating right now, more working oil and gas rigs in the west than oil combined. with the changes that have been made, the increases in permitting in the last year or two, we now have a record number of oil rigs operating right now. more working oil and gas rigs than the rest of the world combined, combined. and yet of the millions of acres the government has allowed, our government has allowed for oil and gas development, only 25% of those acres are being used for production. we had a chart here that demonstrates that rather

graphically. if you will, think of all this as the millions of acres that are available for oil and gas development in this country. of all these in the orange, we have the percentage that are producing acres. we actually have permits for the oil and gas companies could be drilling, 25% of these producing acres, and 75% of these are nonproducing acres. it's not because people are drilling and coming up with a dry hole. in many cases, they are not drilling. keep that picture. you know the old saying, a picture is worth a thousand words. this is worth at least 500. maybe even more than that. mr. nelson: would the senator yield for that point? mr. carper: i'm happy to yield. mr. nelson: would you believe that in the gulf of mexico, of all the production there, that the percentage is even worse in all of those acres that are under lease, which are 32 million acres -- mr. carper: just in the gulf.

mr. nelson: just in the gulf. 32 million acres. and guess how many acres are actually drilled and producing? mr. carper: eight million. mr. nelson: six million. so 26 million acres are under lease in the gulf of mexico and are not being produced. mr. nelson: thank you for that. mr. nelson: wouldn't it suggest that they ought to use it or lose it? mr. carper: certainly would. thank you for sharing that point with us. here we are. more drilling in america, onshore and offshore. we're no longer a net oil importer. we have 75 million acres that are leased and have yet to be tapped. a lot of those done in the gulf as senator nelson suggested. yet american consumers are still paying more at the pump. all the while the five largest oil companies, b.p., chevron, conocophillips, exxonmobil, royal dutch, shell group, they did pretty well. they made about $137 billion last year.

and to top it off, these companies receive billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies to drill for oil and gas even as they are making very healthy, i think, record-breaking profits. now, this doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. but let me just stop. i want to be clear on this one. i don't begrudge, i don't think any of us should begrudge the oil and gas companies their success. they have a fair amount at risk when they drill for oil and gas. it's not a business without risk. but this is also a business with enormous payoffs, enormous rewards for assuming those risks. but i do question giving away billions of taxpayer dollars in drilling subsidies at a time when we're running record federal deficits, to establish and really establish in successful industries that i don't think need a whole lot of financial incentive to drill more in this country. if you can make a hundred bucks a barrel or 110 bucks a barrel,

that's a pretty good incentive, at least in my mind. why, because at the end of this day, it's not the solution. we can't just drill our way out of the situation that we're in. i'm told that today america consumes some 19.5 million barrels of oil every day. the primary reason that amount is so high is because americans have very little choice at the pump. and until recently, we had very little choice in the show room, the automotive show rooms. that's changed rather dramatically. in five years, it's going to change a whole lot more. but we can choose between oil and oil. most of the time, we pull into a gas station to fill up. basically, every american driver's dollars are a foregone conclusion to the oil industry, so what do we need? what do we need to do about this? well, how about some choice? if we can give americans a choice. on the chart we have here, we have solar. some of the new vehicles that are actually being made actually have solar panels, believe it or

not, on their roofs. here we have wind. harnessing a lot of wind around the country. hopefully before long we'll harness it off the east coast, from north carolina up to maine to provide electricity. it will help provide the juice that they need to release hybrid electric vehicles that are being made more and more. we have nuclear. we have a lot of nuclear in the mid-atlantic and the northeast that can provide electricity, if you will, the juice for those hybrid electric vehicles. and here we have companies like dupont in our state working with b.p. to actually create not corn ethanol but ethanol, cellulosic ethanol out of corn stovers. what is that? that's the stalk, the corn cob, the leaf of the corn. really create a fuel called biobutanol that we will hear about in coming years that has better density than corn ethanol, it mixes better with gasoline than corn ethanol. it actually travels through pipeline. it's all the things that corn

ethanol is not. that's the kind of stuff we ought to be doing. we should be incentivizing, not only having been involved in the ready of that -- r&d of that stuff but encouraging its use. i think market forces will take it from there. but whether the choice is natural gas, converting large diesel vehicles into using natural gas, electricity from clean energy or biofuels, or nuclear. for the first time in 30 years, the nuclear regulatory commission has just approved the construction of two nuclear power plants. we went 30 years without building a new nuclear power plant. two are under way down in georgia. they use a new design called ap- 1000. also approved by the nuclear regulatory commission. the nuclear design is literally one that shuts down a nuclear plant. if you have a hurricane or if you have an earthquake, if you have a tsunami, basically it shuts itself down. we don't have to worry about the problems they had in fukushima where they lost communication, where they lost the pumping

station, where everything that went wrong could go wrong. these systems all basically shut down by themselves. it's a much smarter approach. it's the way the two new power plants in georgia are going to develop. that's part of the solution as well. but we need investments in new fuels and investments in new vehicles and new infrastructure to use these new american-made alternative fuels. we already have vehicles that can run on biofuels, on natural gas and electricity. had the folks from the u.s. navy in the other day. some people from down in florida. we are flying navy and air force airplanes using a 50-50 mixture of jet fuel and biofuel. pretty cool stuff. and with no degradation in performance. we just need to make those vehicles, whether they are aircraft or cars, trucks and vans, make those vehicles and the fuels for those vehicles more available to the american people, in this case our armed forces. we just need a choice. we need a greater choice than what we have had. the bill offered by senator

menendez actually starts to give us that choice. a.m.a. getting close to the end here, senator nelson. let me say instead of giving billions of dollars in -- to oil companies to continue what they are already doing, what don't we just put some federal dollars in to work to allow real choices at the pump. and it turns out some of the folks are really doing some cutting-edge work on this, turn out to be some of these oil companies. some of the best biofuels work is being done by outfits like b.p. and like shell. rather than incentivizing just to drill more, why don't we incentivize them to come up with alternative and biofuels and other kinds of renewable forms of energy. they shouldn't be cut out of that. they are energy companies. they are not just oil and gas companies. incentivize them to create energy. i wanted to, if i can, just go back a couple of years. i want to go back to 2002. 2002, i'm told that -- oh, gosh, from 2002-2010, chevron spent

something like roughly $4.5 billion globally from -- globally. from 2002-2010, they did on research and development for renewables and alternatives including geothermals, biofuels, wind and solar on energy-efficient measures. that's about $4.4 billion. in 2010 alone, exxonmobil invested about $67 million in research and development of oil alternatives, mainly in algae research that same year, b.p. spent $284 million. conocophillips spent something like $34 million on administration and alternative fuels. again, the idea is these oil companies, they are doing r&d. why don't we incentivize them to do some r&d for renewable fuels, not for oil and gas? when they have oil and gas, $100 a barrel, $90 a barrel, they don't need a whole lot in terms of incentives to drill. let's incentivize them to do the

renewable fuel. okay. rather than -- let me just -- i want to be mindful of our time, be mindful of my colleague waiting here. let's -- in closing, let's say let's put federal dollars into choices at the pump that are developed here in america. i'll say that again. we're taking money from the treasury, we're using that money to incentivize the creation of more energy, in some cases more fuel rather than just incentivizing creation of a traditional fuel, if you will, that comes out of the ground, the oil. why don't we incentivize some of those same oil companies, a bunch of folks that aren't oil companies to create renewable fuels, the kind i just mentioned, that will be produced here in america, that will help us lower our costs and create jobs while they're doing it. if -- if we want an apple today, when is the best time to plant a tree? the best time to plant a tree is probably ten years ago. perhaps six years ago if you really nurture and care for that tree. well, that's what we are dealing

with here today. we need to start investing today for the choices of lower utility costs at the pump tomorrow. just like building the keystone pipeline which is -- is supported by some, opposed by others. the southern part of that is actually under way. the rest is going to be going through an approval process that should be worked out within the next year. that's not going to solve the price at the pump today. what we have to need is what we call all of the above approach, all of the above approach. it includes nuclear, includes offshore, onshore wind, biofuels, solar, natural gas and big diesel vehicles that we transform to take natural gas, all the above, and that's what we need to do. we need to nurture new investments for alternative fuels so we can see the economic gains sooner rather than later. i think senator menendez's legislation does that. that's why i am calling on my colleagues to support that kind of approach, whether it's this particular approach or something that's similar to that. and that pretty much wraps up what i want to say. i want to thank my friend from

florida for being a voice of reason on these subjects. this is a guy who is really good at just using some common sense. i will close with this. my dad was a naval flight officer -- not naval flight. he was a naval chief petty officer for many years, for 30-some years. he used to say to my sister and me, just use common sense. we must not have had much as kids because he sure said it a lot. i think the commonsense approach here is an all of the above approach. we need to do all of the above. we need to incentivize the oil companies and a lot of other folks not just to drill for oil but to make sure there are good alternatives to that. with that, i yield to my friend and colleague and bid you adieu. thank you. mr. nelson: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from florida. mr. nelson: madam president, i came to the floor to talk about an outstanding citizen in our state, but before i do, while my colleague is here, i just want to thank him for a very well-reasoned statement. what we need is overall income tax code reform.

my colleague from delaware and i have the privilege of sitting on the finance committee, and even though the prospects for tax code reform are very slim between now and the election, perhaps shortly thereafter we can really get about the seriousness of tax code, making it more fair, more simple, taking revenue that otherwise escapes the treasury because it goes into all these tax preferences called tax expenditures, tax loopholes, and use that revenue to simplify the tax code and to lower everybody's rates. including the individual rates and the corporate rates. now, that's imminently common sense, and the reason i want to point this out right now is because our friend from delaware

has just pointed out one of those loopholes. in an industry that is certainly not hurting because the five top oil companies in the last quarter, that's 90 days, had profit, not revenue. the five top north of $25 billion. for five companies for 90 days. not revenue, profit. now, we don't begrudge them the profit. but should there be these tax preferences that have been etched into the tax code over a century that, in fact, allow this industry to have tax preferences, or in other words deductions of $4 billion a year?

now, i would think that would be a place we could start on tax preferences. you're obviously not going to get it in the context of the politics of an election, and you're not going to get it in an isolateed vein. we're going to have to look at the overall tax code and start making it more fair for the american taxpayer. i dare say that there is not very many american taxpayers who think that the i.r.s. tax code is a fair code. or simple. and as a result, i want to thank him for his ee lewis -- elucidation of what is a place we could start. it's not right or left, it's not r&d, it's common sense. one other thing that i would add to the senator's excellent

presentation, and that is that as gas creeps higher and higher, and in parts of florida, it is now four bucks a gallon, and that oil is being sold on the international marketplace something like $120 a barrel, how much of that is from speculation of people who buy and sell oil contracts for future delivery that are not users of the oil like an airline that would clearly have reason to want to lock in a fixed price for oil in the future as a hedge against that price of oil going up and up, because they're going to use that oil as fuel in their airline. these are the ones thae

merely flipping like hamburgers, the contracts over and over, which has a tendency to raise the price of oil. the price of a barrel of oil as it rises, then clearly is going to affect the price that we go into the gas pump and put in our gas tank. and so, if we would just start using some common sense and approach these things and do it in a fair way, i think we could get along so much better, and the american people would feel so much better about their tax cut. and so i want to thank the senator for his presentation. mr. carper: if my friend would yield to me for one more minute. mr. nelson: certainly. mr. carper: a lot of people go out this time of year and buy new cars, trucks and vans. traditionally spring is when people shop for vehicles. go back a couple of years --

2007, 2007 we sold 16 million cars, trucks and vans in this country. 2009, as we have fallen into the great recession, car sales, trucks fell to nine million units. from 16 million to 9 million in less than 24 months. that's changed now. we're on our way. as we noted sergio marchion tph*e, the c.e.o. of chrysler, said they were on their way to record profits, the money we invested in as taxpayers, people are going out to start to buy vehicles again, the average life of a vehicle most people own is 11 years. this is a time when people are thinking about starting to trade in their vehicles or buy something more energy efficient. unlike five years, people could go into any chrysler, ford dealership, ford labels as well, and buy vehicles that bet 30 -- that get 30, 35, 40 miles per gallon and more.

we find that finally the availability of credit has come back. i would say for people who have the availability, who think about trading up, this is a great time to do it. great vehicles, great quality and much better fuel efficiency. that's part of the solution as well. so thank you. mr. nelson: i want to thank the senator for pulling up the chart that showed the amount of acres that are under lease and the minuscule portion of those acres. this is domestic production. we all know that domestic production has shot up in the last three years considerably. and yet, of that domestic production, there's still so much capacity that is already leased out there. and i used the example of the gulf of mexico. in the central and the western gulf, there are 32 million acres under lease, and only 6 million acres of that 32 million are

actually drilled and produced. and so, there's ample opportunity for additional domestic energy production on top of the substantial increase of production that has occurred over the course of the last several years. so if we'd stop fighting about all this stuff, if we'd stop beating each other over the head politically with this stuff and really get serious, you remember senator carper, when you and i were young congressmen, we had a good example of leadership. we had tip o'neill, the speaker in the house, and we had bob michel, the head, the republican leader, and the two of them, they'd get into their fights, but they were personal friends. so that at the end of the day

when it was time to stop talking and get together and build consensus to get a workable solution, they could do it. we need that kind of model operating in washington, d.c. and state capitols around the country. and so i thank the senator for his presentation. madam president, i came to the floor today because i want to congratulate a floridian, rosemary armstrong, along with her husband, sandy wineberg. i want to congratulate rosemary because she's been such a longtime advocate of pro bono legal work in our state. she is a marvelous lawyer, a graduate of columbia. and why she is to be

congratulated at this point is that she has received the 2012 tobias simon pro bono service award. it is the highest honor in the state of florida, florida bar for pro bono legal work in our state. this year marks the 30th anniversary of the tobias simon award, and it was named after the well-known civil rights attorney in florida. and the award honors the work of private lawyers for 30 years now who provide free, voluntary legal services to the poor. and over the past 25 years, rosemary has used time, she's used her talent to provide those pro bono legal services. she's volunteered with the tampa

bay area legal services volunteer lawyers program since 1986. she has donated 1,200 pro bono hours directly to serve those in need. she was elected to the bay area legal services board, and she served as a board member for 22 years. and she has served as president of that board for three years. and rosemary has handled so many cases in so many areas of the law, including elder law, housing, and juvenile dependency cases. after of particular note is the significance of her work with victims of domestic violence. rosemary was recognized last year for her work with the

florida bar's presidents pro bono service award. and this award is further recognition of her commitment and dedication to making sure everyone is well represented when they have to go through the legal process. she is supported by her family. she's supported by her husband, her fellow lawyer, sandy wineberg. again, congratulations rosemary for receiving the tobias simon pro bono award. madam president, i yield the floor, and i would suggest the absence of a quorum. quorum call:

quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. harkin: i ask that lucy stein -- the presiding officer: we're in a quorum call. mr. harkin: i'm sorry. i ask the proceedings under the quorum call. i ask that lucy stein and sarah neumann be granted floor

privileges. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. harkin: i've come to the floor today to speak about a truly remarkable american. a truly remarkable visionary, a dreamer, an adventurer, a doer, most importantly a young man who has devoted himself to service to others, far and above the normal call of duty. the young man's name is matt rutherford. this is matt rutherford, and i'm going to tell but him and his remarkable adventure and his feat that's been unparalleled. he's a 38-year-old ohioan and here's what he's been doing since june the 13th of last year. on june the 13th of last year, he set sail in his 36-year-old, 27-foot alban vega boat named st. brendan. he left annapolis, maryland,

june the 13th of 2011 and is attempting to sail nearly 25,000 miles, from annapolis, maryland, up the east coast -- up the east coast, all the way around labrador, newfoundland, up by greenland, through the northwest passage, all the way over to alaska. and then from alaska all the way down to cape horn, around cape horn, up south america and back into annapolis. now, what's so remarkable about that? well, it's never been done before. he's doing it solo. and he's doing it nonstop. think about that. he has never touched land and has not stopped since he left

here 289 days ago. the -- it's taken him through some of the earth's most treacherous oceans, the arctic ocean, the oceans up around alaska, the allusion st -- the aleutian straits, of course all around the pacific, around treacherous cape horn, and all in a 27-foot boat, the kind of boat that most sailors would maybe be comfortable on off the eastern shore in the chesapeake bay but not on a journey like that. as i said, he has not set foot on dry land for the entire journey. a remarkable adventure. now, if you want to learn more about him, you can go to his web site, which is called solo theamericas.org. so it's www.solotheamericas.org.

and you can read all about his amazing journey. and he updates it. the last update was yesterday that he had updated his journey. he's right now east of cuba and the dominican republic, right down here. and he's -- his last posting was he's called it homestretch. he hopes to enter the chesapeake bay by april the 12th, make his first landfall in nearly a year at annapolis on april the 13th. the scott polar institute in cambridge, england, has recognized him as the first person in recorded history to make it through the fabled northwest passage. alone, nonstop and on a small sailboat. never been done before. you'd think that would be enough no, he has continued on his incredible, remarkable journey. now, you might say, well, why he is doing that? he's just doing it to set a record. well, he has set a lot of

records already. but why is he doing it? he's doing it to raise money for the chesapeake region accessible boating, crab for short. chesapeake regional accessible boating. it's an annapolis-based organization to provide sailing opportunities for the physically or developmentally disabled people. for kids and young people who are disabled but who would like to sail. and this organization, the chesapeake region accessible boating, does just that, it provides them that opportunity. i had the privilege of talking to matt rutherford last week. he called me on his satellite phone. it was an exciting phone call for me because i've watched. i don't know matt rutherford personally but i've watched his journey and, of course, i'm very enthused about the chesapeake region accessible boating organization. so in talking with him by phone, i was really impressed by his

courage, his character, his audacity. above all, i'm impressed by the fact that he's doing this in a cause larger than himself. to make it possible for more people with disabilities to share in his passion for sailing. helen keller once said, "it's a terrible thing to see and yet have no vision." well, matt rutherford has the gift of sight. he also has the gift of vision and indomitable courage. he's one of those remarkable human beings who dream big, who are driven by big challenges, who refuse to accept the limits and the boundaries that so-called reasonable people want to place on you. and what's more, he's placed himself in the service of others less fortunate than himself. mr. president, as the lead sponsor of the americans with disabilities act, i'm particularly impressed that matt is using his voyage to raise money for -- to help people with

disabilities to partake in this one pasttime of sailing, something i have enjoyed all my adult life since i was in -- since i was in the navy. he's doing this so that children and adults can have this same opportunity. because, you see, the reason i'm so enthused by this is that one of the fundamental aspects of the a.d.a., the americans with disabilities act, is that people with disabilities should be able to participate fully in all aspects of society and that includes access to recreational opportunities like sailing, which can be exhilarating and empowering for children and adults with a wide range of disabilities. so i salute matt rutherford for his courage, for his love of sailing, and being willing to share that with the disability community and for using this adventure, this almost

death-defying trip -- i mean, for anyone who knows what it's like to be on a 27-foot boat, to go from here all the way down to cape horn? that's incredible. any one of numerous storms or anything could have sunk his little boat. he's had a lot of different adventures. he sprung a leak. he's been working on that leak ever since someplace around in here, south america, he lost an engine, so he no longer has an engine. and he keeps patching his leak all the time. every day he has to patch his leak. so he's fighting a leak every day in his boat. and, again, just going around cape horn with the -- with the tremendous waves and cross-currents around cape horn, to take a small boat through there single-handedly, as is, --

is, as i said, death defying. right up here around the coast of brazil someplace, he almost got ran over by a freighter. at night. he was -- he gone to sleep for a little bit. he has a light on his boat so that people can see him at night. and he woke up and he said he looked out and he saw this red light and a green light. with nothing inbetween it coming at him. well, it was a huge freighter, and as you know, red on one side, green on the other bearing down on him. he turned and it missed him just by a few feet and almost sunk him in the bowel wave of the freighter that went by. so that's -- that's the kind of of -- kind of things that matt has lived with almost every day for 289 days. so, anyway, he has great skill, great courage. he's making a difference. and he's going to make a difference for a lot of -- a lot

of people. i especially think of young people with disabilities who would like to sail and because of this on, the chesapeake regional access boating -- accessible boating, they will have that ability to do so. so again, mr. president, i -- this is one of the great -- this is one of the nice things that we see here happening in america you know, if you think that there aren't those individuals with that individual kind of courage to take on the elements, to risk their lives, well, we still have them. and matt rutherford is -- stands in the line of great adventurers in our history. i applaud him for his vision and spirit. i wish him safe passage on his homestretch and the final leg of his epic journey. i would say that he joins the ranks of joshua slokum, who on spray was the first person to

circumnavigate the globe solo. joshua slokum wrote a wonderful book, "sailing alone around the world." he did it before the turn of the last century. he did it in 18 -- in the 1890's. or the next great person that sailed alone, sir francis chichester on gypsy moth iv not too many years ago who circumnavigated the globe. so you can afternoon to joshua slokum and sir francis chichester on gypsy moth iv, matt rutherford, solo and nonstop. has never been done before, may never be done again. and he's doing it for the best of all reasons. courageous young man, matt rutherford. he's going to be back, as i said, hopefully by april the 12th. i hope to meet him.

i've never met the young man but i've followed his journey and his courage and it's the kind of person that just gives heart and spirit to all of us, to know that there's nothing that we can't do if we set our minds and our hearts and have the willpower and the courage to take it on. so i hope meet him when he comes back. again, mr. president, a young man of great courage. and i say i hope -- the hope the homestretch is one with fair winds and a following sea. mr. president, with that, i yield the floor. and i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. harkin: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. hark i object: i ask that further proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. harkin: and, mr. president, i ask that my following remarks appear at the ends of my remarks i just made before previous to putting in the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. harkin: mr. president, i mentioned that matt rutherford was doing this for the chesapeake regional accessible boating organization that provides boating for people with disabilities. i would urge anyone who's bad in this -- i would urge anyone who's interested in this and to see what a great organization this is, they can go to their web site, it's just very simple, crabsailing.org.

crabsailing.org. and it's just a great organization that helps people with disabilities take up sailing and learn the art and the craft of sailing. so, again, mr. president, a remarkable young man, a remarkable journey. and, again, i wish him fair winds and a following sea in his homestretch. mr. president, with that, i yield the floor and i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

s s quorum call:

mr. durbin: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from illinois. mr. durbin: i ask consent to speak in morning business. the presiding officer: we're in a quorum call, sir. mr. durbin: i ask consent to suspend the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: and then consent to speak in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: mr. president, last week the consumer financial protection bureau reported that outstanding student loan debt in america has hit the $1 trillion mark. student loans. the cfpb official was cited by bloomberg news saying excessive student debt could slow the american economy's recovery. the housing market, particularly when young people when repaying money for their education can't

afford to buy a home. massive student debt is affecting the consumer's ability to purchase goods and services. yesterday the subcommittee on financial services and general government had a hearing. treasury secretary geithner came in talking about it. while the overall growth in student indebtedness is troubling, the most pressing concern is private student loans. secretary geithner recognized private student loans do not come with any of the consumer protections that federal loans do. private student loans are far riskier. federal student loans have fixed, affordable interest rates, 3.4%. they also have a variety of consumer protections. federal loans have forebearance in times of economic hardship and manageable repayment options such as income-based repayment plans. private student loans, on the other hand, often have high variable interest rates. some have been quoted at 18%, a

kind of rate you're careful of when it comes to your credit card. they have hefty origination fees and a lack of repayment options. private lenders have targeted low-income borrowers with some of the riskiest highest-cost loans. in many respects private student loans are just like credit cards, except unlike credit card debt, private student loan debt can never be discharged in bankruptcy. in 2005, congress changed the bankruptcy laws. i want to make a point here, i voted against it. congress changed the bankruptcy law and included a provision making private student loan debts nondischargable in bankruptcy except under the rarest of circumstances. i've never found one that has really qualified. that means that students are stuck with their loans for life. while the volume of private student loans is down from its peak just a few years ago when it amounted to 26% of all

student loans, private lending is still aggressively promoted by the for-profit college industry. the project on student debt reports that 42% of for-profit college students have private loans in 2008. that's up from 12% just five years earlier. 12% to 42%. for-profit college students also graduate with more debt than their peers who graduate from public or private nonprofit colleges. many for-profit colleges employ a business model that steers students into private student loans because of the 90-10 rule. for the record, private for-profit schools can only -- only -- receive 90% of their revenue from the federal government. they are the closest darned thing to a federal agency you've ever seen except they're making millions of dollars at the expense of the government and

unsuspecting students and their families. so to find the 10% of nonfederal money, private student loans. get the students to sign up for 10% of their education in private student loans, even if they qualify for federal loans, which are a much better deal. the 90-10 rule that requires at least 10% of their revenue from nonfederal student aid sources makes this an imperative for many for-profit schools. as a result many students are encouraged to take out private loans when they're still eligible for federal loans. and even when the lenders know the students are going to default. schools comply so schools can comply with the 90-10 rule. kerry shab contacted my office seeking relief from her student debt. she receives a bachelor's in art from the international kabgd design and -- academy design and technology, a for-profit college.

when she spoke to an admissions representative, she was enrolled almost immediately. looking back, she says the school, they take whoever is willing to pay. she was assured she would be able to obtain a position in her field that would help her pay off her student debt. reflecting on her experience, she said i was young. i didn't understand how much i would owe or what the loans were. i trusted the school. after completing her b.a. program, she decided she would pursue a masters in her field. what she found out shocked her, no school would accept her degree. it was a worthless diploma. with no job, no future in her chosen field, she had $58,000 in debt. she decided to switch careers entirely so she would be able to pay off her student loans. she currently attends oakton community college for nursing. she's unable to get a mortgage because of her old student loan debt of $58,000. worse yet, her parents, trying

to help her out, took out $19,000 in loans to help pay her tuition. her parents are currently in chapter 13 bankruptcy, but that loan won't be discharged. we need to begin now to address this looming student debt bomb crisis. we need to protect students and prevent more students from stepping into the same traps that have caught so many others. today senator tom harkin of iowa and i are introducing the "know before you owe" private student loan act of 2012. here's what it says. it requires the prospective borrower's school to confirm the student's enrollment status, the cost of attendance and the estimated federal financial aid assistance before the private student loan is approved. often students haven't applied for federal student loans before they're asked to apply for private student loans, which are