proposal was to allow unions to find -- create microunions within the same working body where you could have a plethora of unions in one store all to fracture and fragment the ability of a business to cross-train and compete effectively. it's an assa assault on the free enterprise system and circumvents what the founding fathers intended us to do. we have a legislative branch with the senate and the house and a executive branch and we have a court system. the president makes initiatives to go through the legislature. the legislative body passes laws. ultimately the courts are the arbitrators of either one or both decide the chalgt the rule of one or the executive order of another. that's the way it should be. late rite now we have a two-legged stool in america. we have a judicial, an executive branch, trying to run a country. we know what happens to two-legged stools. they fall over. i talked to a group of business

people this morning who talked to me about the uncertainty of doing business in america today. all of it didn't have to do with things like ambush elections or things like specialty health care movements or things like special posters to promote unionization in the workplace. but they were part of it. and the continuing regulation that comes from the administration through the department of labor through the labor relations board, and a plethora of other organizations are making it difficult for america to do business in a time where it's essential that we do business. when the stimulus passed 18 to 24 months ago maybe 30 now it was designed toably unemployment down to 6%. it remains above 8%. one of the reasons is the deployment of capital by business is not taking place because of the uncertainty of the workplace and what lies ahead. whether it's health care, whether it's ambush elections whether it's car check whatever it might be. so i come to the floor to commend the senator from wyoming for taking an initiative that's available to the united states

senate to bring a resolution of disapproval forward for a resolution of an executive branch body that circumvents the legislature itself. i hope he is successful in sending the message it's time to take american politics and american justice and american legislation back to what our founding fathers intended. let's stop trying to take a playing field that has been level for 75 years where we've had the greatest labor management relations of any history in the world let's not put them into a situation where we're add adversaries like we were 75 years ago. let's stop the ambush election, stop the specialized unionization let's stop all of this and return to the laws that have worked for three quarters of a century. three quarters of a century is a great test of time. no reason now through appointments by regulatory bodies to change the history of the senate, the history of the court system, and i end by quoting a president of the united states, a democratic president of the united states,

a president of the united states on april 21, 1959, united states senator john fitzgerald kennedy in his campaign for president declared elections should have at least 30 days between their call and the vote so employees can be fully informed in their choices from both sides of the issue. if it what was right for john kennedy on april 21 of 1959, it's right for the united states senate today on april 24, 2012. and i commend the senator from wyoming on his presentation, his intensity and his ability to bring this issue before the american people and before the floor of the united states senate. and i yield back my time. mr. harkin: mr. president inquiry, how much time is remaining? the presiding officer: the senator from iowa has 20 minutes. the senator from wyoming has 12

minutes. mr. harkin: first mr. president, i have six unanimous consent requests for committees to meet during today's session of the senate. they have the approval of the majority and minority leaders. i ask unanimous consent these requests be greenwood grooth and printed in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. harkin: a couple things i want to bring up here in response to some of the statements that were made here on the floor. first of all i want to make it very clear that the nlrb has griewp lusly followed all legal and procedural requirements for rule making under the administrative procedures act and by increasing the use of rule making has been the most inclusive and transparent board are in history. in history. this process has given all sides abundant opportunities to provide input to the nlrb. there is opportunity for written comments written responses to other comments and even a public

hearing. again, i want to point out there is no requirement in the administrative procedures act to facilitate a dissent even though there isn't the nlrb's traditional practices give member haste the opportunity to -- hayes the opportunity to dissent and he was given that chance but these practices do not allow him to filibuster or run out the clock to thwart the actions of his colleagues. again, the board filed a notice of proposed rule making on june 22 2011, provided 60 days for filing public comments, received over 65,000 comments, of which i might note all but 200 were form letters. 65,000 comments, all but 200 were form letters. but still 200 considering a wide range of views stakeholder input. the board arranged an opportunity for staff from

member hayes' office to brief congressional staff on his dissent from the notice of proposed rule making. and again although not required to do so the board provided an opportunity for oral public comments at a hearing conducted on july 18 and 19, 2011. in which over 60 labor and management lawyers public interest groups and labor organizations, workers and other related constituents participated. the board provided an additional 14 days following the 60-day comment period in which to file written reply comments. again, this is not required by the a.p.a., the administrative procedures act or any other law. and then the nlrb held a public vote on a final rule on november 30 published the final rule in late december. quite frankly under the administrative procedures act that all other agencies follow, the nlrb bent over backwards to be transparent and to allow

dissent. now, i've heard ited is that member hayes was not allowed enough time. he had his first dissent but from june the 22nd until november mr. hayes had all that time to file dissent if he wanted to, to write a dissent. i mean that's not enough time to write a dissent? seems to me that's more than enough time. but that was not done. so i just want to make it clear. i think mr. hayes was given more than enough time to write his dissent if he wanted to. he wrote --, did he write one dissent over the proposed rules, he had the opportunity from june 22 until november. again, the a.p.a., the administrative procedures act under rule making not doesn't entitle him to have a dissent but the board allowed him to have a dissent if he wanted to.

they had access to public comments on the proposed rules were given summaries and copies of specific comments the other members found informative. his office had months to incorporate those comments and write a second dissent but chose not to. that was his own choice. that was his own choice. he was not prevented from doing so. that was his own choice. now, again the -- well, there's a lot of little items like that that i think are kind of being misinterpreted, but here's the essence of it right here. here's the essence of what this is all about. stripped of all the followed rol and all of had -- rold arol and all -- followed arol and what board member was for card check and who wasn't, and on and on and on, this is what it's about right here, this statement. this says martin levitt who was an antiunion consultant for

management. he wrote a book called "confessions of a union buster" public be lished in 1993. confessions of a union buster. here's what he said. "challenge everything, then take every challenge to a full hearing. then prolong each hearing. appeal every unfavorable decision. if you make the union fight drag on long enough, workers lose faith, lose interest, lose hope." that's what it's about. that's what it's about. it is about denying people their right under the national labor relations act to fairly, fairly and expeditiously have a vote on whether or not to form a union. this is not new. this has been going on -- this has been going on since the 1940's and 1950's, since taflt heartily.

there have been -- taft-hartley. there have been forces since the adoption of the national labor relations act in 1935, forces that want to break unions. they opponent don't want to give workers the right to have a voice in collective bargaining. they'll go to extreme limits to deny union members their rights. they'll do everything they can to break up unions. taft-hartley was if first of -- the first of that and we've had several things since that time. but, again i think our job here is to try to make it a level playing field as level as possible anyway, and to give workers a right a right that is not just a right in name only or in words but a real factual real right. to form a union and have the election without challenging

everything taking every challenge to a full hearing prolong each hearing appeal every unfavorable decision. if you make the union fight drag on long enough, workers lose faith, lose interest, lose hope. i might add you drag it on long enough, and it gives the employer every opportunity to intimidate to intimidate workers so they won't join a union. to maybe fire people who are active in the union organization drive, but find some reason why they should be fired anyway. that's what this is about. what the nlrb has finally done is said -- and through an open process, through a rule making process, through perhaps one of the most open, transparent processes in history of the national labor relations board what they've said is let's have a system whereby certification votes can be held within a reasonable amount of time. there was no time limit put in

there. there is no seven or ten days. that's what mr. hayes said in his dissent. he just plucked that out of thin air. actually he got it from the card check, from the employee free choice act. but that's not in the bill. that's not in the ruling, i should say not in the ruling at all. and most people that have looked at it have said, well, it makes -- may shorten it to 20 to 30 days, somewhere this in there. seems to me that's fair enough. that's what this is all about. and i hope senators when they vote will recognize that what the board has done is it's taken that unfair -- unfair process that we've had for so long and made it more fair for everyone. i will point out one last time that the procedures that the nlrb has come up with, what's under fire right now from the

other side, applies to certification votes also applies to decertification votes. if a company wants to decertify a union then the union can't drag that out day -- months at a time to drag that out for decertification. so seems to me on both sides certification, decertification, you have a level playing field and neither side can drag it out interminably to frustrate the real desires and wishes of the workers. mr. president, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from wyoming. mr. enzi: i'd yield eight minutes to the senator from south dakota. the presiding officer: the senator from south dakota. mr. thune: thank you. i commend the senator from wyoming for his great work on this subject. as americans know firsthand mr. president, we continue to struggle with an economy that's not performing well or meeting

the needs of workers. the unemployment rate remains about 8%, as has been the case for the last 38 months. much of this can be attributed to a lack of certainty on the part of employers. one need look no further than the regulatory policies being pushed by this administration to understand why job creators are not creating jobs. in 2011, the technically independent national labor relations board published the final rule on representation case procedures better known as the ambush elections rule. this new rule could allow a union to organize an election in as little as 10 days. this new rule is the most drastic and sweeping modification to the union election process in more than 60 years. according to the national labor relations board the median time in which an election is held is 38 days. in 92% of all elections occur within 56 days. in fiscal year 2011, the national labor relations board reports that 71.4% of unions won

their elections which is up 3.5% from fiscal year 2010. it is hard for one to claim mr. president, that union elections are being held up unnecessarily with these sorts of track records. the changes put forth by the nlrb will radically change the process of union organizations and limit employers' ability to respond to union claims before an election. thereby stifling debate and ambushing an employer and employees. employers use the time after an election petition has been received to ensure compliance with the national labor relations act to consult with human resources professionals and to inform their employees about the benefits and short comings of unionizing. it's nearly impossible for a small business owner navigate the regulations of the national labor relations act without the assistance of outside counsel which will be hard to find in ten days or less. on april 21 of 1959,

then-senator john f. kennedy stated -- and i quote -- "the 30-day waiting period is an additional safeguard against rushing employees into an election where they are unfamiliar with the issues"-- end quote. it appears that rushing elections is exactly what the nlrb and big labor are hoping for. after all unions win 87% of elections held 11 to 15 days after an elections request is made. the rate falls to 58% when the vote takes place after 36 to 40 days. now, on a decision as important as whether or not to form a union, workers should have the opportunity, mr. president to hear whether from both sides free from pressure one way or the other an opportunity that the nlrb's recent decision would take away. in addition to ambushing employers with union elections the nlrb has now decided to recognize microunions. the nlrb ruled so long as a unit

consists of an identifiable group of employees the nlrb will petroleum it is appropriate. what does this mean for small businesses? this means your local grocery store, there could be a cash sheers union -- cashiers union, a produce union a bakers union and the list goes on and on. microunions coupled with ambush elections could cause one small business to deal with several bargaining units in the workplace and little time to no time to raise concerns against such actions. the supreme court mr. president has expressly stated -- and i quote -- "an employer's free speech rights to communicate his views to employees is firmly established and cannot be infringed by a union or the nlrb." the recent actions of the nlrb have all but silenced any freedom of speech once enjoyed by employers. for the state of south dakota, increased unionization will mean higher costs for the health care industry driving up health costs

for hospitals and consumers. it would also mean higher costs for holtzs, tourism small -- hotels tourism small businesses and other service industries. the federal government should not be acting to slow or hinder job growth in our current economy but should instead be looking for ways to foster job growth. in addition to radically changing the way in which union elections are organized the nlrb promulgated a rule requiring most private-sector employers to post a notice informing employees of their rights under the national labor relations act. i believe that this is yet another example of federal overreach by this administration that benefits their special interest allies at the expense of american businesses that are currently struggling to create jobs which is why i introduced the employer free speech act last year. if enacted this legislation would prohibit the nlrb from requiring employers to post a notice about how to establish a union. i'm happy to report on -- that on

april 17 in 2012, the d.c. circuit court of appeals agreed with me and has stopped the nlrb from enforcing this unnecessary and burdensome rule. this administration is making a habit of using regulatory policies to strengthen unions and harm the economy. in these difficult times the last thing government should be doing is putting roadblocks in front of american businesses as they attempt to do their part to turn our economy around and to create jobs. in the 74 years of the nlrb's existence prior to 2009 the board had promulgated just one substantive rule. it is time that the nlrb returned to its main function, which is to act as a quasi-judicial agency. these actions by the nlrb further push our government down a dangerous path, one in which decisions no longer lie in the hands of those elected by the people but by unaccountable

bureaucrats sitting in washington disconnected from people. for these reasons and many others i'm supporting senate joint resolution 36 and i want to encourage my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to stand with american employees and employers and to vote to stop the nlrb from moving forward with what is a misguided and deeply flawed ambush election rule. and i congratulate the senator from wyoming for getting this on the floor and giving us an opportunity to debate it. mr. president, this is yet another example of an administration that seems to be bent upon creating more excessive, overreaching regulations, making it more difficult and more expensive for american small businesses to create jobs and to get this economy growing again. mr. president, i hope my colleagues will join me in voting to stop this from happening and i yield the floor.

mr. harkin: mr. president?

mr. president, i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. harkin: how much time is remaining on both sides? the presiding officer: we're in a quorum call. mr. harkin: i'm sorry. mr. president, i ask that further proceedings urn the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. harkin: how much time is remaining, mr. president? the presiding officer: will the senator suspend.

the presiding officer: five minutes for the majority three minutes for the minority. mr. harkin: all right. mr. president, i will -- i'll obviously yield to my good friend senator enzi, for his closing remarks but i just again want to point out that this ruling by the nlrb is eminently reasonable. they went through rule making. as i've said before, one of the most transparent boards we've ever had in history. rather than going through the adjudicative process they went through rule make, -- rule making, comment period. people were allowed to come in, which isn't even required by the administrative procedures. mr. hayes was allowed due time for filing dissents and he chose not to do so for whatever

reason. so everything was complied with. in fact, they bent over backwards to do more than what the administrative procedures act requires under rule making. so that's number one. number two the essence of the rule is eminently fair. it applies both to certification and decertification. there is no ten-day -- i keep hearing this ten-day thing. mr. president hayes put that in his dissent but there's nothing in the rule that requires a ten-day election. nothing. period. lastly again what is this all about? i will say it one more time, this is what it's about. this is it. this is mr. heart inj. leavitt who wrote a book, "confessions of a union buster." he was a consultant to businesses who wanted to bust unions or didn't want to have unions formed and here's what he said in his book. here's the way that they should do things if they don't want to have a union. "challenge everything then take every challenge to a full hearing. prolong each hearing.

appeal every unfavorable decision. if you make the union fight drag on long enough, workers lose faith, lose interest, lose hope." that's what it's about it's about establishing a level playing field now so that workers do, indeed, have their full right not a paper right -- not a paper right but a really full viable right to form a union and to have an election within a reasonable period of time. with that, mr. president, i yield the floor and if my friend needs some more time, i'll yield him whatever time i've got remaining. mr. enzi: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from wyoming. mr. enzi: i want to thank the chairman for the gift of time. there's nothing that's a greater gift than that. of course, i would like everyone to vote for my resolution of disapproval.

this was not -- this did not go through a process that was open and transparent. in fact, there was only one person that voted for this that was confirmed by the senate. there were two people that voted for it. the other one was lost in a bipartisan way. the ability to be on that committee so it was the one person that was confirmed by the senate is making this rule. and there was also one person confirmed by the senate that was against it, so it was a one-to-one tie. -- it was a 1-1 tie. that would normally defeat anything. and the biggest thing that's being taken away in this, the biggest thing that collapse the time -- collapses the time down to a polar ten days, the biggest -- to a potential ten days, the biggest thing is eliminating the preelection hearing. that's when the employees the employees get their fairness of finding out exactly who's going to be represented who's going to be part of their unit and get any of their questions answered about this organization that's

about to receive their dues. it seems like the employees for fairness ought to have that right. it also ought to for the employers to have that right especially small business men to have the time to get it together so they're not environmenting any of the national labor -- violently any of the national labor relations board's rules that they can easily step into and be in big trouble during one of these elections. i urge all of my colleagues to support this resolution of disapproval and stop the national labor relations ambush election rule. this vote will send a message to the national labor relations board that their job is not to stack the odds in favor of one party or another. under this administration or another. but to fairly resolve disputes and conduct secret ballot elections -- elections. we've heard from several speakers on the other side of the aisle that this debate and vote are a waste of time. debating the merits of this regulation is not a waste of time for the millions of small

business people and millions of employees that are going to be negatively impacted by it. in fact, once it goes into effect next week, next week, i believe that all of us will be hearing from unhappy constituents and asked what we did to stop this legislation and we will be asked. the contention that we should not be able to raise concerns about the national labor relations board's ambush election regulation before it goes into effect sounds a lot like the national labor relations board what they are trying to do to small businesses and employees who have questions about a certification election. this regulation will take away the right to question whether the appropriate employees are in the bargaining unit or whether it includes supervisors and managers that should not be in the union or whether it leaves out a group of employees that should be in the union because they have similar jobs and if they are spliewded, they will probably lose jobs against the newly unionized employees. this regulation takes away the right to present evidence and

testimony at a preelection hearing and to file briefs supporting a position. because of the congressional review act we senators have had the opportunity to present evidence and have debate. that's a privilege the nlrb is taking away from many small employers and employees and that will lead to some suffering of the employees. so i urge my colleagues to vote for the motion to proceed to s.j. res. 36. again, it's a congressional privilege and we should take advantage of it. it's a chance to send a message that we want all of our boards to be fair and equal. i thank the chair and yield the balance of the time. the presiding officer: under the previous order the senate will resume consideration of the motion to proceed to s. 1925.

mr. enzi: mr. president i would yield back any remaining time. the presiding officer: time was yielded back. the senator from arizona. mr. mccain: mr. president i wanted to discuss one of the amendments that i believe we will be voting on later on, and basically what it does, it establishes a brac-like process in order to consolidate redundant, underutilized and costly post offices and mail process facilities. now, mr. president we found over the years that congress was

politically unable to close a base or a facility that had to do with the military. so we adopted a process where a commission was appointed those recommendations to consolidate excess and underutilized military bases was developed and congress was given an up-or-down vote. this is sort of based on that precedent. the bill before us clearly doesn't offer any solutions. according to "the washington post" editorial -- quote -- "the 21st century postal service act of 2011 proposed by senators joseph lieberman and

susan collins and passed last week by the senate committee homeland security government affairs -- quote -- " is not a bill to save the u.s. postal service. it is a bill to postpone saving the postal service." i agree with "the washington post." i usually do. the services announcement that it lost $5.1 billion in the most recent fiscal year was billed as good years. that's how dire the situation is. the fact that they only lost $5.1 billion. the collins-lieberman bill transfers $7 billion from the federal employee retirement system to the usps to be used for offering buyouts to its workers and paying down debts can stave off collapse for a short time at best. nor do the other measures in the bill offer much hope. the bill extends the payment schedule for the postal service to prefund its employee retirement benefits from 10 to 40 years. yes, the funding requirement is onerous, but if the usps cannot

afford to pay for these benefits now, what makes it likely they will be able to pay later when mail volumes most likely have plummeted further? the bill also requires two more years of studies to determine whether a switch to five-day delivery would be viable. these studies would be performed by a regulatory body that has already completed a laborious inquiry into the subject of process that required almost a year. "the washington post" goes on to say this seems a pointless delay, especially given that a majority of americans support the switch to five-day delivery. finally, they go on to say there is an alternative a bill proposed by represented darrell issa that would create a supervisory body to oversee the postal service finances and if necessary negotiate new labor contracts. the bill is not perfect but offers a serious solution that

does not leave taxpayers on the hook. so we now have a legislation before us that makes it harder if not impossible for the postal service to close post offices and mail processing plants by placing new regulations and limitations on processes for closing or consolidating mail processing facilities, a move in the wrong direction. it puts in place significant and absolutely unprecedented new process steps and procedural hurdles designed to restrict usps's ability to manage its mail processing network. additionally the requirement to redo completed but not implemented mail processing consolidation studies will ultimately prevent any consolidations from occurring this calendar year. mr. president, what we have to realize in the context of this

legislation is that we now have a dramatic shift technologically speaking as to how americans communicate with each other. that's what this is all about. we have now -- we now have the ability to communicate with each other without sitting down with pen and paper just as we had the ability to transfer information and knowledge by means of the railroad rather than the pony express. so we now have a -- have facilities that are way way oversized and unnecessary and we are facing a fiscal crisis. according to the postal service -- quote -- "the current mail processing network has a capacity of over 250 billion pieces of mail per year when mail volume is now 160 billion pieces of mail.

so we now have the overcapacity of nearly double what is actually going to be the work that the postal service does, and all trends indicate down. more and more americans now now acquire the ability to communicate by text message and twitter and many other means of communications. so to somehow get mired into, well we can't close this post office, we have to keep this one open, we have to do this. we have to realize it in the context that the u.s. postal service is now a large portion of their business is conducted by sending what we call -- quote -- junk mail, rather than the vital ways of communicating that it was able to carry out for so many years. the postal service has a massive retail network of more than

32,000 post offices branches and stations. it has remained largely unchanged despite the declining mail volume and population shifts. the postal service has more full-time retail facilities in the united states of america than starbucks mcdonald's, u.p.s. and fedex combined, and according to the chief government accountability office approximately 80% of these retail facilities do not generate sufficient revenue to cover their costs. that's what this debate is all about, and i hope that my colleagues understand, we are looking at basically a dying part of america's economy because of technological advances and we basically in this legislation are not recognizing that problem. when 80% of their facilities don't generate sufficient

revenue to cover their costs then any business in the world in the united states of america would rightsize that business to accommodate for changed positions. this bill -- situations. this bill does not do that. it continues to put up political roadblocks that prevent tough but essential closings and consolidations. i grieve for the individuals who took care of the horses when the pony express went out of business. i grieve for the bridle and saddle and buggy makers when the automobile came in. but this is a technological change which is good for america in the long run because we can communicate with each other instantaneously. so we have a postal service that thank god for all they did all those years. in fact, to the point where they were even mentioned in our constitution, but it is now time to accommodate to the realities

of the 21st century and the taxpayers cannot continue to pick up the tab of billions and billions of dollars. again, last year, it lost only $5.1 billion which they suggested was good news. so all it does, this bill, it places significantly and unprecedented new process steps and procedural hurdles designed to restrict usps's ability to handle its mail processing network. in addition, their requirement to redo completed but not implemented mail processing consolidation studies will ultimately prevent any consolidations from occurring this year. so what do we need to do? we obviously need a brac. we need a group to come together to look at this whole situation

find out where sufficient sis need to be made, as any business in america does, and come up with proposals because congress does have a special obligation and have the congress vote up or down. this bill will continue the failing business model of the postal service by locking in mail service standards for three years, which are nearly identical to those that have been in place for a number of years. the clear intent of this provision is to prevent many of the mail processing plant closures that the postal service itself has proposed as part of its restructuring plan. it also prohibits the postal service from moving to five-day mail delivery for at least two years with significant hurdles that must be cleared before approval even though the postmaster general has been coming to congress since 2009 and asking for this flexibility. one of the largest single steps

available to restore usps's financial solvency would save the postal service at least $2 billion annually. now, how many americans, how many americans, if you told them that we would save them the taxpayer dollars because they are on the hook, $2 billion a year if you went from six-day to five-day mail delivery? i guarantee you that the overwhelming majority of americans do support a five-day delivery schedule rather than six. this, of course, kicks the can down the road. the bill calls -- also has at least five budget points of order against it, about which the ranking member of the budget committee came to the floor yesterday and spoke about. so the back-like amendment is essential in my view to moving in process forward.

i don't know how many more billions of dollars of taxpayers' money is going to have to be spent to adjust to the 21st century. and there is no business, there is no company there is no private business in america that when faced with these kinds of losses wouldn't restructure. and they would restructure quickly because they would have an obligation to the owners and the stockholders. we are the stockholders. we what are the -- we are the ones we are the ones who should be acting as quickly as possible to bring this fiscal calamity under control. the g.a.o., the government accountability office, states the proposed commission on postal reorganization could broaden the current focus on individual facility closers which are often contentious time consuming and inefficient to a broader networkwide restructuring similar to the bracc approach and other

restructuring efforts where this has been used expert panels have successfully informed and prevented -- and permitted difficult restructuring decisions, helping to provide consensus on intractable decisions. as previously noted the 2003 report of the president's commission on the usps also recommended such an approach relating to the con consolidation and rationalization of usps's mail processing and distribution infrastructure. you know we pay a lot of attention to the government accountability office around here and this is also something that the government accountability office recommended as well. in addition, g.a.o. reviewed numerous comments from members of congress, and employee organizations that have expressed opposition to closing facilities such concerns are particularly heightened for

postal facilities identified for closure that may consolidate functions to another state causing political leaders to oppose and potentially prevent such consolidations. we should listen to the government accountability office, take politics out of this delicate process and move forward with their recommendation. our proposal would be come foesed of -- composed of five members appoint bead the president with input from the house and senate with no more than three members being the same political party. the postal service in con sol -- in consultation with the postal regulatory commission will be required to submit a plan to the bracc-like commissioners on closures and colonel sol dayses which will include a list of proposed schedule estimated annual cost savings, criteria and process used to develop the plan, methodologist and assumptions used to debris i've the estimates and any changes to processing transportation, delivery or other postal

operations anticipated as a result of the proposed closures in consolidation. the commission will be required to publish in the federal register the definition of -- quote -- "excess mail processing capacity" with a period of public comment. after receiving the plans the bracc-like commission will be required to hold at least five public hearings, finally it will be required to vote on the recommendations with the concurrence of at least four of the members and submit the recommendations to congress, and any recommendation will be a subject of a congressional vote of approval or disapproval. the amendment recognizes the fact that the current business model for the postal service is no longer viable. if we continue to act in an irresponsible way by putting up political roadblocks, the american taxpayer will be the one that ultimately suffers in the form of higher postage

prices and bailouts. we should make hard choices now so that future generations of americans will have a viable postal service. mr. president, i ask unanimous consent "the washington post" editorial a failure to deliver solutions to postal service's problems be included as part of the record. so mr. president, i don't know what the ultimate result of the votes here in the senate will be. i do know that if it passes it will be strongly opposed in the other body in the house of representatives. if it is passed and signed into law, we will be back on the floor within two years addressing this issue again because this is not a solution. this isn't even a band-aid. it is a proposal that will do business as usual and an abject failure to recognize that there's technological changes that make certain practices

obsolete and that's what this is all about and it's painful yes. is it difficult? yes. but the overall taxpayer obviously i think wants us to act in a fiscally responsible manner. mr. president, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut. mr. lieberman: mr. president knowing that we're scheduled to go out at 12:50 i want to ask unanimous consent that we stay in session for no longer than ten minutes more we sew we'll break at 1:00 p.m. for senator collins and i to respond to senator mccain, hopefully sooner than that. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. lieberman: i thank the chair particularly since the chair will be occupied by the distinguished senator from montana between now and then. mr. president, i want to respond to the statement my friend from arizona made. very briefly a couple of big points the first is that senator mccain i think has declared the postal service of

the united states dead much too prematurely. he compares it to the pony express. of course the electronic mail and other changes have occurred but today every day the postal service delivers 563 million pieces of mail, every day. there are businesses and individuals all over our country that depend on the mail. the estimate is that there are approximately eight million jobs in our country most of them of course almost all of them in the private sector, that depend in one way or another on the functioning of the u.s. postal service. so it's not fair, it's not realistic to speak as if the postal service is dead and gone and come to essentially bury it with the mccain substitute. i cannot resist saying that senator collins and i come not to bury the u.s. postal service but to change it but to keep it alive and well for -- for --

forever really because it's that important to our country. secondly senator mccain speaks as if the substitute legislation, 1789 that we're proposing, bipartisan legislation, does nothing that it's a status quo piece of legislation. it's not even a band-aid on the problem. we all know, we've talked about it incessantly since we went on this bill that the postal service is in financial difficulty. incidentally, i want to say there's not a dime of taxpayer money in the postal service. ever since the postal service reforms occurred, it's totally supported by ratepayers basically people who buy the services of the postal service with very -- two small exceptions which are small one to pay for overseas ballots for members of the military so they can vote and another a special

program to facilitate the use of the mail by blind americans. so -- but it's got a problem. $13 billion lost over the last two years. this proposal of ours, senator collins, senator carper and senator scott brown it's not a status quo proposal. it makes significant changes. there are going to be about 100,000 fewer people working for the postal service as a result of this bill being passed. there will be mail processing facilities that close. there will be post offices that will be closed. and/or consolidated. there will be new sources of revenue for the postal service. bottom line, the u.s. postal service itself estimates that our legislation if enacted as it is now will, as it's phased in over the next three to four years, by 2016 will save the postal service $19 billion a

year. this isn't a band-aid. this is a real reform. a real transformation of the postal service to keep it alive. $19 billion. and let me put it another way. this is a bipartisan proposal. we've worked on it very hard to keep it bipartisan. we think it can pass the senate and it can ultimately be enacted. if senator mccain's substitute were to pass, nobody thinks it's going to get enacted into law. it won't. certainly the president of the united states won't sign it. then nothing will be done and what will be the effect of that? that the post office will go further and further into debt and deficit and the postmaster will be faced with the choice of either those enormous debts and deficits or taking steps that will make the situation worse that our bill through a reasonable process is trying to avoid which is a kind of shock

therapy whose effect will be, as the mccain substitute would be to actually drop the revenues of the post office and accelerate its downward spiral. and i think the two numbers to think about the ones come from the post office itself, from the postal service by 2016 if we do nothing the postal service will run somewhere between $20 billion and $21 billion debt -- deficit annual deficit. if we pass this bill and it's enacted into law that deficit will be down to around $1 billion, a little more, and heading toward balance in the years that follow. so i urge my colleagues to vote against the mccain substitute and the bracc amendment which i think is not necessary it's not necessary for us in congress to give up and give in. we've got a good resolution to the problem here and

incidentally if we get this enacted i think we'll send a message to the american people that we can face a tough problem in a public service deal with it in a reasonable way ask people to sacrifice but keep a venerable and critically important american institution alive and well. i thank the chair and i yield the floor to my distinguished ranking member. ms. collins: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from maine. ms. collins: thank you mr. president. mr. president, i'm only going to speak very, very briefly. i want to shine a spotlight on a provision of senator mccain's substitute that has not yet been discussed that actually raises constitutional issues. now, all of us believe that the labor force of the postal service is too large and

unfortunately, will have to be reduced, and we do that through a system of buyouts and retirement incentives, through a compassionate means very similar to the way that a large corporation would handle the downsizing of its employees. but senator mccain's alternative takes a very different approach. it would have this new control board that would be created to impose on the postal service an obligation to renegotiate existing contracts to get rid of the no layoff provision. mr. president, i will say that i was very are surprised -- sprieched when the postmaster general signed the kinds of

contracts that did he this spring but the fact is that senator campaign's amendment section 304 which amends section 1206 of existing law requires existing contracts to be renegotiated. that creates constitutional questions. the potential constitutional issue derives from the contracts clause of article 1 which prohibits states from passing laws impairing the obligation of contracts. well, of course this provision does not apply to the federal government the congressional research service has explained in a memorandum to me on this topic in july of 2011 that the due process clause of the fifth amendment has been held to

provide some measure of protection against the federal government impairing its own contracts. and i would ask unanimous consent that the c.r.s. memorandum that i just referred to be entered into the record. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. collins: there is also a supreme court case, lynch versus the united states, that makes clear that the due process clause prohibits the federal government from annulling its contracts and the united states is as much bound by its contracts as are private individuals. there are other court cases as well. and i'm going to put a longer statement into the record with -- with the permission of the chair i'm seeking unanimous consent that causes

causes --. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. collins: bottom line, i'm concerned if the postal service is forced by the mccain substitute to reopen and renegotiate current collective bargaining agreements, that the courts would find the postal service in breach of those agreements and force it to pay damages and also that it would be found to be unconstitutional. the approach that we have taken does not raise those continual concerns. it does not have -- does not raise those constitutional concerns. it does not have congress stepping in to abrogate contracts which is a very serious and potentially unconstitutional step for us to take. finally, mr. president, i would say i would agree with everything my chairman has said. senator mccain's amendment

does not address the true problems of the postal service. instead, it assumes that the postal service is obsolete, that they cannot be saved and that we should just preside over its demise. i reject that approach. thank you mr. president. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the senate stands in recess until 2:15 p.m. >> the senate has just recessed for party lunches. earlier, they discussed whether to move forward on national labor relations board union elections. the senators will vote when they return at 2:15 eastern. after the vote the plan is to start working on a bill to change the u.s. postal service. nearly 40 amendments are standing by with a 60-vote majority needed for passage of amendments in the final bill. live coverage when the senate

returns here on c-span2. and to find out more about the 112th congress buy the c-span congressional directory. you'll find each member of the house and senate, contact information, district maps and committee assignments. pick up a copy for $12.95 plus shipping and handling online at c-span.org/shop. >> you're watching c-span2, with politics and public affairs. weekdays featuring live coverage of the u.s. senate. on weeknights watch key public policy events and every weekend the latest nonfiction authors and books on book booktv. you can join in the conversation on social media sites. >> people understand or have -- >> we're going live to the national press club to hear from interior secretary ken salazar, expected to discuss the interior department's plan for streamlining land-based journal

permits and other issues. this is just getting underway. >> he was born and raised in colorado with no electricity and no telephone. so the focus was on hard work and a deep appreciation for the land. after a stint in the seminary he wound up going to college -- [laughter] getting a law degree and being asked to work as legal counsel for colorado governor roy roamer. salazar reportedly said, i'll do it for one year because i don't want to be in politics. as the story goes, his political career was mapped out by a political mentor on a napkin in the back room of a tamale shop. he served as colorado's attorney general, u.s. senator and now secretary of the interior where he oversees public lands including the national park system, the fish and wildlife service, the bureau of land management, the u.s. geological survey and offshore drilling. perhaps his biggest challenge is

finding the balance between preserving natural resources and using them to create energy. at the beginning of the administration salazar was along with president obama's appointments at energy and epa part of what some dubbed as the green dream team. he quickly warned the oil and gas industry that public lands were no longer a candy store and that we can't drill our way to energy independence. now after more than three years at the helm, salazar has learned that keeping the lid on the candy jar and responding to natural and manmade events such as the bp oil spill is no small task. when the bp-operated deepwater horizon oil well exploded two years ago and 53 gallons of oil spilled into the gulf every day, environment was loudly criticized the interior department, and even the president said the cleanup was moving too slowly. today gas prices top $4 a gallon in some places and the obama

administration is under pressure to boost u.s. oil production. this week the interior department announced a plan to streamline permits for land-based drilling, and last week salazar moved a step closer to allowing five mapping surveys off the atlantic coast to determine what oil and gas resources exist in that area. when salazar appeared with president obama to accept the nomination as interior secretary, he created some buzbee wearing a cowboy hat at the white house. even after all these years in washington, he wears his stetson so frequently that almost every profile piece makes some mention of that. so this introduction wouldn't be complete without saying something about that hat, and i must say even though you didn't wear your hat today because we are indoors, mr. secretary, welcome to the national press club. [applause] >> thank you very much. thank you very much, therese

for that kind introduction and for being president of the national press club. i understand it's also a political place where you have to run for office and she won having two other points that she defeated, so she's no stranger to politics. to ellison fitzgerald, thank you for being a part of this and for being the chair of the speaker's committee, and to deborah, thank you for helping put this event together. to all the head table, to members of our team who are here and people i have worked with for a long time mike sorhan i remember him covering the 2004 senate race so today many my honor he wore a shirt that had pete cors. [laughter] so i want to speak about energy issues that are so important to our nation and which all of you

are working on today. now, it seems that the conventional wisdom says that our nation is deeply divided over energy policy. i don't have to tell you that. if you were to pick up a newspaper, it would certainly appear that the division is seen everywhere. almost every day you have someone putting out a three-point plan for $2 gasoline or claiming that there's a secret agenda out there to shut down energy production. but the reality is that overwhelmingly americans agree on energy. frankly, if you can just get beyond washington and you talk to folks directly, you hear the same things that i hear over and over about what our energy challenges are and how we must tackle them. americans know what they want. americans want to cut our reliance on imported oil. they know that a lot of factors

effect gas prices including world markets and international events and that, unfortunately unfortunately, there is simply no silver bullet in the near term. americans also agree that we need to broaden our energy portfolio. they support conventional energy, yes, but in state after state all across this country what we have seen, the states have been moving to vote in more solar, more wind, more geothermal and more biofuels energy production into the mix. americans want to see continued expansion, yes, of offshore drilling, but they also believe that you need to choose the right places for that drilling to take place and that you need to enforce strong safety standards to protect people and to protect the environment. and by large margins people see stronger fuel economy standards for vehicles as a good thing.

the proof is in the cars they are buying. for the first time ever, gm in march sold more vehicles than they have ever sold that are fuel-efficient vehicles, 100,000 cars. 100,000 cars that can make more than 30 miles to the gallon. now, that's a remarkable achievement. 40% of gm's monthly sales are now in fuel-efficient vehicles. who would have imagined that five years ago? now, there is also this imagined energy world, the energy of maybe a world of fairy tales and i would say falsehoods that we often see here in washington d.c. and it's in that imaginary world where we see the continuing and growing divide in the energy debate in america. but the divide is not among ordinary americans, it is between some people here in

washington d.c. it is a divide between the real energy world that we work on every day and the imagined fairy tale world. to be sure, the imagined energy world is an invention of cam pape years -- campaign years and political rhetoric. it is a place where you hear cries of drill, drill, drill. notwithstanding the fact that most of the outer continental shelf resources in america's oceans are open for business. and two-thirds of the public plans that industry has leased are simply sitting idle, some 50 million acres. it is a place where up is seen as down where left is seen as right, where oil shale seems to be mistaken every day in the house of representatives for

shale oil -- [laughter] where record profits, record profits justify billions of dollars in subsidies and where rising oil, u.s. production and our falling dependence on oil somehow, somehow add up to bad news. one member of congress went so far as to say that the jobs from solar, wind and biofuels are somehow phony, that if technology is new, it somehow is not real. president obama got it right when he pointed out that if these folks had been in charge when columbus set sail, they would have been the charter members of the flat earth society. now, the good news is that the imagined energy world is

actually very small. i think you can actually find its edge the end of it, when you walk out of the house of representatives. [laughter] kind of at the very end there. now, for those of us who spend our time working in the real energy world let's talk about the reality that we work on every day with this great team at interior and my other colleagues on the cabinet and in the white house. without question we face serious energy challenges in this country. we know that today and we've known it for a long time. gas prices are taking on a real toll and creating a real pain on family budgets. our economy is still vulnerable to the ups and the downs of world oil markets as they have been for the 12 oil spikes that we've seen since the formation of opec. but because so many americans

including industry and environmental and conservation organizations but especially the american people, are results-oriented, an all-of-the-above energy approach is the right approach and our nation has made remarkable progress over the last three years. industry government investors scientists and stakeholders all te serve credit -- deserve credit. on the broadest scale u.s. gas production is at an all-time high. gas production is at an all-time high. and oil production, oil production is at an eight-year high. eight-year high. total oil production from the lands which we oversee with the department of interior have increased 13%, 13% over the

first three years of this administration, and that's compared to the last three years of the prior administration. now, something that i worked on for a very long time is to get rid of our dependence on foreign oil. so we in america, in the heartland of america and the rockies of america where i come from are proud of the fact that oil imports have gone down every single year since president obama took office. thanks to the booming u.s. oil and gas production and more efficient cars and trucks and a world class refining sector that last year was a net exporter for the first time in 60 years, we cut net imports by 10%. that's a million barrels a day in the last year alone. imagine that. a million barrels a day less

being imported into the united states of america. line up those million barrels on a part of the intertate highway or -- interstate highway or in a number of warehouses a lot of oil. cut a million barrels a day in the last year alone. now, we all know oil and gas is very much a part of our energy portfolio. we have embraced it, and it will continue to be part of our energy portfolio. but we also know that renewable energy and the new energy frontier are something that is important for the people of america. renewable energy production has now doubled over the last three years. renewable energy production has doubled over the last three years. and on public lands we are well on our way to meeting the president's goal of permitting 10,000 megawatts of large-scale, renewable energy power by the end of the year. we'll power millions of american

homes through that renewable energy effort that bob abbey and the people at blm, steve black, and so many other people have worked on over the last three years. all of these trends show the gathering strength of an american energy economy, but they also reflect the practical problem-solving mindset that we are bringing to bear at all levels of our decision making. you know when president obama asked me to come and run the department of interior he sent me here to fix problems, to help us find solutions for the long term on problems that had escaped solution from people who had been in my position and people who had served in the white house for decades and decades in the past. so let me give you three concrete examples that help illustrate the problem-solving approach to energy that i believe is the hallmark of this administration.

first, and the story here is well known to all of you because you worked on this matter, let's look at offshore oil and gas safety. jennifer or, you have followed this, so you know the details of what has been going on over the last three and a half years. deepwater horizon shook the confidence of americans in offshore energy in offshore energy development. you all remember, and i believe ha most americans -- that most americans remember, that sight of 50,000 barrels a day spewing out endlessly into the gulf of mexico. now, witnessing that oil spew at that level for 87 days could have easily prompted the public to say, no more. no mas. that's it. no more oil and gas development in america's oceans, it's too dangerous. but we knew that oil and gas was

very much an important part of our energy security and our economy. and so we had to move quickly as we did to aggressively strengthen safety standards and environmental protections. we had to insure that companies drilling in the deep water miles below the surface of the ocean were prepared to drill with, to drill safely at those depths under the sea. we had to make sure that they were prepared to deal with another blowout if one should occur. and we had to take an organization that had been created long before there was deep water production and deconflict the three missions that existed in the minerals management service. we had to deconflict those missions into strong and separate agencies which have become world class agencies in the work that they do. industry for its part also had

to answer our call to raise the bar. today drilling act -- activities in the gulf are now back to pre-spill levels, and the u.s. is now positioned as a global leader in offshore oil and gas safety. that's true whether i visit petro brass and the energy leaders in brazil as we host, co-host another international forum on offshore safety in norway this june. so it's been good, but the bar has been raised. that's good for domestic production in america's oceans, and it's also good for industry as a whole. and at the end of the day, it's good for american energy security. now, our results-oriented approach doesn't just stop in the oceans of america where we see, oversee hundreds of millions upon hundreds of millions of acres. it also goes to the onshore

areas where we have oversight of some 700 million acres of the lands that belong to the american people. so we have moved on a reform agenda in that area as well. you can see the benefits of our practical, results-oriented approach in our oil and gas leasing in the onshore. when we took office, the onshore oil and gas leasing program was, frankly, in a disarray. it was in a disarray. imagine this: nearly half of all leases, half of all leases on public lands were protested. put into the framework of endless litigation. projects with thousands of wells were simply stuck because they could not move forward. and at the end of 2008, the previous administration even

offered some areas near arches national park where just in the last few days i was looking at a commercial from the state of utah. they were advertising the great wonders of utah and arches national park. that program at the end of the last administration had become so highly devisive and unnecessarily controversial. and so when we moved in we said we're going to move forward with oil and gas production on the onshore, but we also said that we would restore to work towards certainty and to reduce conflict in the development of oil and gas on our public lands. so our offshore leasing reforms have helped. they've helped bring the public into the leasing process earlier. we call it the smart from the start approach. so that fewer leases end up in court and endless litigation. we work to resolve the

controversy on some of the largest oil and gas projects in the west including for more than 3,500 new wells just in one state, in anadarko's greater natural buttes project in the state of utah. it's 3500 gas wells that will move forward because we are fixing problems. in another part of the world through the interagency effort which is led by deputy secretary of interior david j. hayes, the united states government under president obama's specific direction is closely coordinating its energy permitting activities in alaska, and it's to a good result. and we are working to deploy a new system for processing drilling permits on blm lands. we expect to reduce permitting times by two-thirds. we expect to reduce permitting

times by two-thirds. now, this is a common theme there is a common theme in all this to all of us, and that is tackling a problem head on, getting it done right and then moving on to the next challenge. because we know there are other challenges ahead. so offshore ocean energy development in the united states, onshore and the many reforms that we have brought into place. and the last area where we have spent a very significant amount of time is in the renewable energy world. as of early 2009 when i first came to the department of the interior on the 21st of january of that year not a single large-scale solar energy project had been approved for construction on the public lands of the american people. offshore cape wind had been a process disaster from day one,

languishing for eight long years in if a process that seemed to have no end. since 2009, however, we have moved in a new direction achieving results. we've authorized 29 utility-scale solar, wind and geothermal projects on public lands. i've been there and have seen these projects rising out of the desert. they will make believers out of the skeptics when we can catch the power of the sun. and these projects are built they'll provide over 6500 megawatts of clean power for over 2.3 million american homes and they will create thousands of jobs as we grasp the new energy frontier. we also have approved cape wind at the department of the interior, and even more importantly than cape wind, what we have done is on the atlantic and even in places on the pacific working with the governors of those states we

have from the ground up built an offshore wind-leasing program for the united states. none of this would have happened if not for the teams of people we have deployed to help make sure government reviews are coordinated and done in a timely basis. i'm very proud of what we have done on this new energy frontier and i believe that it will be a lasting legacy for the american people. now, i began my remarks today by suggesting that there was a widening gap between the real energy world that i work on every day which we have made so much progress over the last three years and the imagined fairy tale world of the falsehoods of a campaign year and a political season. now, i want to be realistic about what we can expect from this house of representatives

but i do believe that there are some things that they could work on, some low-hanging fruit that should and could be passed even this year. this house of representatives should put the energy security of the united states of america ahead of the politics of the time. and i'll mention just three items. there could be many more items that they could work on to help us get to this energy future. but first i believe congress should move immediately to codify the reforms we have implemented since the deepwater horizon disaster. it's inexcusable that congress has yet to enact one piece, not one piece of legislation to make drilling safer. now, for the american people for all of you, for those of us who lived through that crisis it would seem to me to be a

clarion call to action. what is it that we should do as the united states of america to make offshore drilling more safe? by early days in this administration and testimony before the senate natural resources, house natural resources, the house natural resources committee, they said ocean energy is such an important part of america's energy portfolio that we should indeed have organic legislation that codifies what this agency does on behalf of the american people. it wasn't done then, and can even since the deepwater horizon it still hasn't been done. the oil spill liability caps that have been in place for such a long time at $75 million are still the same today as they were before the deepwater horizon spill.

some people may have amnesia about the deepwater horizon and the national crisis that we had to live through. i don't have that amnesia. i don't believe that the american people have that amnesia. and i do believe that the american people want the united states house of representatives to act on responsible energy legislation. and one of those aspects of responsible energy legislation would be to codify the reforms that we have implemented in the executive branch. number two not trying to give a laundry list of 100 things because i'm not sure that they can get it done. [laughter] so these are simple things. codification of much of what we've done in some liability reforms that we have proposed and endorsed, they ought to be able to get that done. should be able to get that done in 48 hours. but there's a number of other things that they could do. we are working with the congress right now on legislation that's needed to implement an agreement

that we reached with mexico to open the trans-boundary oil and gas reservoirs for development. the agreement would terminate a moratorium on drilling along our maritime boundary and provide a framework for new expiration and development in an area the size of delaware. we estimate the area or contains up to 172 million barrels of oil and over 304 billion cubic feet of natural gas. that agreement came about as a result of some very hard work between people in the department of interior and the state d. and the mexican -- the state department and the mexican government. and it culminated in a signing that was attended by president philippe calderon in mexico, and at the g20 meeting very recently. the agreement was signed by secretary clinton and secretary

espinosa from mexico. well, some people say mexico moves slow but in this case the mexican legislature has already approved the agreement. we shouldn't have to wait to act on the agreement here either. congress should act on approval of that trans-boundary agreement through implementing legislation. it'll be good for the energy security of the united states of america. it also would be good for the entire gulf of mexico because it is, after all, only one pond. it is a pond which is, frankly, shared mostly between the united states and mexico. and it's a place where we know we have the largest proven reserves of oil and gas in our country. so those are two simple things that the congress, i believe, could do, you know? codify what we've already done

on offshore safety approve an agreement that we've worked on very hard in the gulf of mexico and the maritime boundary. but i believe they might want to do a few other things, you know? i believe americans also want to see congress implement a policy that makes for a long-term sustainable renewable energy economy. that includes making tax credits for renewable energy generation permanent and refundable so there's financial certainty. and so we don't face the boom and the bust that many of us witnessed in the 1970s with solar power. and we need a clean energy standard where moving forward with our own in the executive branch, but it would be good if united the united states congress would pass a clean energy standard that would provide the signal to the investors that they need.

if that signal were begin, there would be billions of dollars of capital that would move off the sidelines and to the new energy frontier. now, is it likely that congress will rise to the occasion this year? that they can do those three things and, perhaps, we had the kind of bipartisan effort that we have seen before in 2005 and 2007 that we could get to some real energy legislation? i would hope so. i would hope that the congress can see that the needs of the american people are first and foremost as opposed to the politics of the day. i think that those who have stood in the way of solutions are going to find the ground shifting under their feet. the energy world is changing with or without them. whether it's our oil and gas technology our solar power plants, the pace of american innovation is simply staggering.

the united states is determined to lead the new energy world. the president is determined to make sure the united states leads this new energy world for the united states. so it's no longer a question in my mind of whether you support renewable energy or conventional energy or whether you favor the environment or you favor the economy, the american people have already decided to take an all-of-the-above energy approach. the all-of-the-above energy approach is what we have been implementing and will continue to implement under president obama. if there's a choice to be made still, it is whether you are going to be a part of that bright and promising energy future, or whether the politics of the moment are going to see us have a repetition of -- we have seen the failed energy

policies of past decades. many of you here will remember the formation of opec and president richard nixon calling upon the nation to move toward energy independence. you'll remember president jimmy carter talking about moving forward with the moral imperative war as we sought energy independence. you'll remember the formation of what then was called seri became the national renewable energy lab in golden colorado. and everyone here should remember well the oil and gas price shocks and gas shocks that we have seen since the 1970s. every time they come around t t -- it's the same old, tired bumper stickers solutions. we're not into that business

we're into the business of real solutions, not imagined or political solutions for america's energy security. and with the work that we have done over the last three years and three months, we have laid a very solid foundation for america to finally get to an energy security that is worthy of the people of this great cup. thank you all -- of this great country. thank you all very much. [applause] >> is there any compromise possible between the republicans and democrats on energy policy ahead of the elections? >> i think that there is always that possibility. you know, i look, you know i was a member of the united states senate. i have great friends on both the democratic side and the republican side have great

friends in the house of representatives on both sides. and i remember well being part of the coalitions that put together the 2005 energy act and the 2005 energy act. i remember the great work of senator jeff bingaman working hand in hand with senator pete domenici, and we did some great things together. and so the polarization that we see now in the united states congress, especially in the house of representatives, is troublesome. i think the view of just saying no is absolutely the wrong thing to do. what they ought to be doing is saying we have significant energy challenges here in america, gas prices and the oil and be gas future of -- oil and gas future of america are tremendously important, and there are a number of things we could do. so instead of spending their time politicking and trying to get an upper hand through a

imagined world what they should do is to work on real solutions. >> what do you say to critics who say that the u.s. is not issuing oil drilling permits quickly enough? >> you know, i think that you'll find critics that will make those false charges against this administration but frankly just over the last three years 15,500 permits have been processed through the bureau of land management. just in the last few years, we have done, we have lived through a national crisis in offshore energy we've issued now over a hundred permits to drill in the gulf of mexico and the gulf is back. and so those critics simply don't know what the facts are, and i think it's another example of the falsehoods that are being spread in this political season.

i was with the governor a republican in north dakota and two senators -- one a democrat and one a republican -- in the fort birch hole reservation as we looked at what happens happening in the bakken formation and the development of oil and gas there where we really look at the bakken as having as much oil perhaps, as what we now find in saudi arabia. i was there three years ago and remember that senator dorgan and senator conrad took me to the fort birch hole reservation, and they said we have a problem here, the government isn't working, permits aren't being issued, so there's no oil and gas development taking place in this million-acre reservation. we set up a permit process to try to breakthrough a bureaucracy that simply wasn't working at the end of the last administration. today, when you go out to the fort birch hole reservation, 200 permits have been granted. oil and gas activity is being seen everywhere.

in indian country alone where there are millions and millions of acres of potential development, the oil development and production just on indian lands has doubled doubled in the last three years. and so those who say we are not issuing permits, frankly they're simply wrong. >> how has the obama administration improved oil production in the u.s. and is it lowering gas prices for american families? >> on the oil and gas production as i said in my comments, we are producing more oil than at any time since 2003 here in the united states of america. those are just the facts, and those are just the facts. and more gas is being produced in the united states than at any time in our history. and when one looks at the question of production from public lands where we have

critics who say we aren't doing enough on public lands, we are now producing 13% more oil off of our public lands than was being produced three years ago. so we're doing as much as we can to make sure that we are implementing the all-of-the-above energy strategy. at the end of the day, we all know that we cannot drill our way to energy independence, and those who have tried that approach in the past frankly, are responsible for the failed energy security policies of the united states last 40 years. because they have not taken the kind of approach that president obama and we are taking which is an all-of-the-above energy approach knowing that we need all the sorts of energy to power the american economy. >> gasoline exports are up.

squeezing supply and keeping prices high. shouldn't american oil serve americans first? >> well american oil is serving americans first because the oil that we're producing here is what we are using to power our economy from the gulf of mexico alone today about 30% of all the oil and natural gas that we produce in the united states comes from the gulf of mexico. and it is consumed here in the united states. so the energy that we are creating here in the united states is partly responsible for the fact that last year alone we imported less than a million barrels a day than we had in the prior year a million barrels a day. so the energy that is being produced here is, in fact being used here in the united states. on the issue of gas prices as everybody here in this audience knows, it is determined through global economics. no one has the ability -- not

even harry potter, okay? -- [laughter] to simply wave a magic wand and say we're going to have gas prices at $2 $2.5 or $3 a gallon. it doesn't work that way, it really doesn't happen that way. and that is the point that i hope most americans understand. there's no silver bullet, no magic wand. and if we're going to find our way to addressing one of the very most important, fundamental questions of the security of the united states, you need to have an energy framework and an energy policy in place like the one that president obama and his team have put into place. and that's an all-of-the-above strategy that understands oil and gas as part of our energy future, renewable sources like wind and gee no thermal opening up a chapter that had been closed for such a long time with

nuclear. we now have the first four commercial biorefine be ris where we are going to see vast biofuels but it's an all-of-the-above energy strategy, and we need to stay the course in order to get us to the place where the american people are not subjected of the ups and downs that we've seen in the united states for the last 40 years. >> are gas pieces out of control, will they will recede? someone here visited greece x it was at $9 per gallon. are we headed in that direction? >> you know we do not think anyone can speculate what happens with respect to oil and gas prices because they're set

on the global economy. what we see happening today are the the influences first of unrest in places like the middle east and iran which disrupt the markets and allow the futures markets to play on some of what they see the unrest around the world. and secondly, the huge demand that you start seeing in places like china, india and brazil where you have lots of people who want to be just like people here in the united states. they want to have their vehicles and they want to be able to drive their vehicle. so the unsettled nature of conflicts in the middle east and the global economy really has led to these price hikes that we have seen year to date. so where it will all end no one knows, but what i do know is that the all-of-the-above energy framework is what we need to stay the course on in order for

us to avoid the kind of upheavals that we've seen since the formation of opec gulf war one, gulf war two and other events that have transpired since the early 1970s. >> i'm told that this is breaking news, the justice department makes its first arrest in the bp oil spill. a former bp engineer. do you expect more people to be brought to justice? >> that's breaking news. i've been up here with you. let me just say that the united states has been committed from day one to make sure that we are holding bp and others accountable for what happened in the gulf of mexico. the department of justice, obviously, is involved in the criminal end of that. we're involved in the civil end of that with the justice department as well. and what i can assure the people

of this country is that attorney general holder and our team who has been working on making sure that bp and other companies are held accountable will, in fact, be held accountable. the laws and regulations that are on the books as our reports have shown including the joint investigation between our department and homeland security, there were in our view, a number of laws and regulations that were, in fact, broken. so people and companies will be held, will be held accountable. >> bp had at least two criminal felony convictions for safety and environmental crimes and is facing more for the 2010 gulf oil spill, yet your department continues to allow the company to drill in u.s. waters. should there be a three strikes and you're out policy for companies just as there are for individuals? >> our approach is to hold

companies accountable making sure that they are meeting the standards that we have imposed. so if you look at what's happened in the oil and gas world, especially in deeper waters, we have an approach which is, essentially, based on a three-legged stool. one of them is prevention. nobody wants to see blowouts like the one we saw at macondo before. if something like the blowout were to happen again we want to make sure that we can move in swiftly and that the situation can be contained. and the third is oil spill response. you have an oil spill, we want to make sure that we have the ability to be able to respond effectively to an oil spill. and so working with industry, with companies that have now been formed like the marine well corporation and helix, we have made huge progress in terms of the preparedness on oil spill response as well as containment and led largely by our agencies

and the ocean energy advisory committee which i have put into place, we are moving forward to make sure that we have good laws that can be followed and we will keep people accountable for them. now, with respect to the question on bp our expectation is bp will be held accountable for what it has done in the past in the future. bp will be held accountable to meeting standards that we promulgate through the rules and the permitting processes of the department of the interior. >> what would you do differently if there was another oil spill? >> we would move with the same sense of urgency. you know production in our oceans at depths of 5,000 10,000 feet are not risk-free. there was always risk there. but the components of a plan that we have put into place, i

think, would give us an ability to respond very quickly. because now you have, for example, caps that have, containment caps are readily available that could come in and could be used to stop a well like, that would be an out-of-control well like the macondo well. so we are much better prepared today than we were before. part of our effort also, has been to try to make sure that the lessons we have learned here are lessons that the rest of the world can also look at and hopefully, follow. because the oil and gas world is a global industry, so what's happening today in brazil, what's happening offshore in nigeria and other places around africa, there are huge reserves of oil but in the very deep water it's important that the

standards and the efforts we have underway here in the united states are also learned by other nations. so we have worked to make sure that we are engaged in the international world to assure that the kind of disaster that the bp oil spill brought to this nation is not the kind of world disaster that we will see again. >> since the deepwater horizon disaster, are you being more strict on denying drilling permits based on safety and environmental concerns? >> yes. we have new sets of regulations that have been put into place. the permit reviews are rigorous. we make sure that any company that is going to be operating in the waters of the united states is complying with the rules that we have set out and so we are in a much better place today than we were before the macondo

well blow up in the gulf of mexico. >> how confident are you that drilling in arctic waters near alaska will go forward this summer now that its oil spill response plans have been approved? >> we are still in the process of moving forward with the evaluation of the applications to drill for shale in the ark tucker and -- dark tick and in the united states -- arctic and in the united states, and we'll make those decisions soon and in a timely manner. if decision is made not to move forward, it would be because of the fact that we don't find compliance with the requirements that we have imposed at the department of interior through the bureau of safety and environmental enforcement and through the bureau of ocean energy management, two agencies which i created. if, on the other hand, the decision is made to move forward with the exploration of those

arctic seas it will be done under the most conscious and watched-for exploration program in the history of the world. we need to recognize that we have already seen close to 30 exploratory wells prior times drilled into the chuck g seas. if we move forward part of what would happen is we would be gathering additional information about those arctic seas so that then we as an american public and an american government can make decisions on how best to move forward. >> senator david vitter blocked a pay raise for you because he said you weren't approving enough oil-drilling permits. do you believe this was an attempt at extortion? [laughter] >> you know, senator vitter and i came to the senate at the same time in 2004.

i don't know what his motives are, but i can just say to anybody who's watched that debate that i don't do this job because of the money i get paid. i do this job because it is sing lahr -- singularly the best job in the united states of america on this cabinet, and i enjoy fixing problems for the american people, and we have made tremendous progress in the last three years. and so that's what i focus on every day. >> the interior department has been promising new regulations for hydraulic fracturing on public lands for months but the rules have yet to materialize. what's the current status of these regulations, and why has it taken so long for them to be released? >> natural gas is a very important component of america's energy future. the president has endorsed natural gas even during, in the campaign of 2008 when he spoke

about the importance of trying to move forward with the alaskan natural gas pipeline, and so we are strong believers in natural gas as a way to power our economy. we know and believe that we have a supply which is an american supply and frankly not as expensive as oil today which could power the economy of the united states for the next hundred years. so we will move forward and continue to cheerlead and push forward for a robust natural gas agenda for the united states. now, at the same time as we move forward with the natural gas agenda for the u.s., it's important that people understand that unless we do it safely and we do it responsibly, we could essentially create the achilles heel for this great promise of the united states in terms of domestic energy supply. so the common sense rules, and they are very common sense rules

that we are putting forward, are the ones which director abbey has held hearings all over the country on there have been tribal consultations on, and they will involve making sure there's disclosure of fluids, it will involve well bore integrity so you don't have contamination of water quality for drinking water supplies it will involve making sure that the water that comes back, that there are monitoring requirements and all that. but the finality of those rules has not yet been achieved. we are in the process of working through the final details of all that. but i would note that we are not the only ones that have been involved in making sure that hydraulic fracturing is one that can be done in a safe way and that has the support of the potentially-affected public. if you look at the state of colorado, we now have a new set

of rules that require disclosure. if you look at the state of wyoming, one's a democratic governor, the other's a republican governor. wyoming has moved forward with a common sense of hydraulic fracturing rules. so we will move forward with a common sense set of rules once we complete the refinement of those rules which director abbey and the assistant secretary and others have been working on. >> we are almost out of time, but before asking the last couple of questions, we have a couple of housekeeping matters to take care of. first, i'd like to remind all of you about our upcoming luncheon speakers. on may 4th mike rizzo, general manager of the washington nationals. may 30th the chief executive officer of girl circuit courts of the -- girl scouts of usa talking about the 100th anniversary of girl scouting, and on june 4th the gerald r. ford journalism awards with

chris matthews will be here at our club. second, i'd like to present our guest with our traditional npc mug. [laughter] [applause] and a couple of quick last questions. do you know when the washington monument will reopen for visitor? [laughter] >> we're working on it very hard and i think it will be maybe a year or so out by the time that the construction takes place. >> since you once said you didn't want to be in politics do you sometimes wish you didn't go beyond that one year? [laughter] >> i think my family might have the opinion that i would have been home more than i am if i hadn't gone into the public world, but i will say this, you know, at the end of the day when i speak with allison and debbie and you, therese, the fact is that we have so much to

celebrate in terms of what the united states stands for in the world and what we stand for here in our own country. and i i was just back home celebrating my mother's 90% birthday -- 90th birthday, and she had a smile on her face, and i think back on her generation and how wonderful they were. she, at the age of 19 found a way to get on the train to come work here in washington, d.c. at the war department for five years. my father served as a staff sergeant in that war and required us to make sure we buried him in his uniform of world war ii because he was so optimistic about what this country could do. so i think in these times of great division and polarization of our world that we ought to hearken back to that generation that did so much and gave us the opportunity to become really the beacon and the hope of opportunity for all of america, but all of humanity.

and that really is so much of what is the, hangs in the balance today as we deal with people who are wanting to deal with the imaginary world and the unreal world of politics and those of us who are in the trenches trying to make the world a better place. so my answer to the question is that i am very proud of the decisions that i've made and i am very proud of my state of colorado that elected me twice to serve as the attorney general of that state and who elected me yes, as a u.s. senator and who beat pete cors/mike sorhan in that very storied election of 2004. [laughter] >> how about a round of applause for our speaker? thank you all for coming today. i'd also like to thank the national press club staff including its journalism institute and broadcast center. finally, here's a reminder that you can find more information about the national press club on our web site, and if you'd like

to get a copy of today's program, please, check out our web site at w. www.press.org. thank you, we're adjourned. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> the senate's still in recess for weekly party lunches but they'll return live in about 15 minutes to continue work on whether to move toward on a

measure dealing with the national labor relation board's rules for union elections. senators plan to hold a procedural vote when they return. also today work continues on legislation changing the u.s. postal service. close to 40 amendments need to be considered with a 60-vote majority needed for final passage. live senate coverage continues here on c-span2 when members gavel back in at 2:15 p.m. eastern. in the his new book, "the riot within," rodney king recounts his life in the days and years following the video recording of his beating by the los angeles police on march 3 991. mr. king looks back at the riots that occurred after the acquittal of four officers and talks about his own legal problems and alcohol addiction. see his comments live today at 6:30 p.m. eastern on booktv.org. >> for this year's student cam competition, we asked students to submit a video telling us

what part of the constitution was most important to them and why. today we're going to be visiting lynchburg, virginia to speak with andy a 12th grader at central virginia governor's school. good morning, andy. >> good morning. >> the topic of your video was article v. can you explain what article v is? >> article v is, basically, the constitution's process for changing itself. so what article v does, it says that whenever congress deems it necessary, congress may change the constitution in order to fit the current needs of the society. so whenever that's thought of as necessary, either the congress or two-thirds of the states propose an amendment, and can then the states -- and then the states are required to ratify it three-fourths of the states are required to ratify it in order for that change to come

into the constitution. >> how did you come to choose this as your topic? >> well, i think i think article v is really, it exemplifies the american value. i think within the american dream is this idea of progress and what better way to show progress than through the change that has been made, the changes that have been made to the constitution in the last 200 years. through the amendment process we've had an enormous expansion of suffrage for women, for african-americans, for people outside of, you know the continental united states. and i think it's important to remember that we started as a very different nation than what we are today, and i think i

chose the topic because it really is the most american article in our constitution. >> you mentioned the genius of the framers in including article v in the constitution. what did you mean by that in. >> they weren't going to get it all right, so they built in this process for change so that as the country evolves, so can the document by which we live by. and i think that really aside from, you know, some of the great things that they wrote down, you know bicameral legislature, other things like that, i think that was the real genius of the framers. >> and you interviewed some experts. how did they help further your understanding on article v? >> i think more than anything they provided a round view of a very controversial topic. they obviously, had very

different view on it, but i think the importance of being objective in a documentary, um, is exemplified by the very different experts that we interviewed. >> and what would you like others to take away after watching your documentary? >> i think more than anything i'd like people to understand that what i've been saying the framers didn't get it all right, and the framers knew they wouldn't get it all right. we have this view of the framers in our society that they were angelic beings that knew all, and i think that's somewhat irresponsible. because they really didn't, and they knew it. so they built in this system for change so that america would last. and for the last 200 years, it has. >> thank you so much for joining us andy and congratulations

again on your win. >> thank you so much. >> and here's a portion of andy's video, "america over time." >> i believe the desire for progress is an intrinsically american value. over the last 200 years, we've stumbled through a lot of messes, but still we continue to talk about the problems at the surface, and all while perpetually up yolding the power of the constitution. but the power of the constitution is its ability to live in society, warranted by the inclusion of the amendment process in article v. >> if there had not been an article v there would not have been a constitution because many of the leading citizens, foremost among them thomas jefferson, would not have supported the constitution without article v. >> but i know, also, that laws and institutions must go hand in hand. the progress of the human mind as that becomes more developed, more enlightened as new discoveries are made, new truths

disclosed, manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also and keep pace with the times. let us provide in our constitution for its revision at stated periods. >> you can watch this video in its entirety at our web site studentcam.org. and continue the conversation on our facebook and twitter pages. >> the senate returns in about ten minutes at 2:15 p.m. eastern to continue work on whether to move forward on a measure dealing with national labor relations board rules for union elections. senators plan to hold a procedural vote when they return. earlier today senate majority leader mitch mcconnell came to the floor to criticize president obama for blaming economic issues on big oil millionaires and the weather. we'll show you some of his comments now. in short order. mr. president, on another

matter it's no secret that most americans are tired of candidates for political office who make promises they don't keep. and who can blame them? for years politicians have been going to washington promising to make government more effective and more efficient to balance the books make life more secure and restore americans' confidence in their country again. and time and time again they've either failed to get it done or didn't even really make the effort in the first place. but, frankly it's hard to think of any politician who promised more and deliver less than our current president. he was the one who would erase divisions and bring people together. he was the one who would erase politics as usual and bring in a new era of harmony. a lot of people believed him.

naturally a lot of them are more jaded now than ever. they're jaded because a candidate who said he was different turned out to be just another politician who seems more concerned with reelection than reform. not only has he failed to step up to the challenges we face, he's actually aggravated them. social security, for example, is now expected to go broke three years sooner than we expected. the tax code is more complicated than ever. the national debt is bigger than any of us could have imagined. health costs are higher. gas prices are up. millions can't find work, and even most college graduates those best-equipped to step into the modern economy either can't find work to match their skills or just can't find any work at all. so instead of fixing problems, he's made them worse. and what's he doing now?

well, the president who was supposed to change the direction of the country now wants to change the subject. he spends his days running around the country blaming whatever doesn't happen to poll well that day for the consequences of his own policies. he spent two years expanding government and constricting free enterprise and now that the results are in, he spends his time pointing the finger at others for problems that originated right in his white house. it's the millionaires, i.t. it's the banks, it's big oil it's the weather, it's fox news, it's anything but him and it's absurd. i mean, if you believe that a president who got everything he wanted for two years -- two whole years -- has nothing to do with the problems we face, then i've got a solar panel company to sell you. tthe president spent two years

reshaping america in the image of western europe, and now he wants us to believe that the fact that our economy is performing like a western european economy has nothing to do with it. nowhere is this more apparent than in the challenges facing the young people in america today. as we all know, one of the defining characteristics of western european economies is high unemployment rarity, particularly among -- rate, particularly among young people, and recent college graduates includingish growth, inflexible labor -- sluggish growth, inflexible labor laws are two of the main reasons people have been locked out of the labor market in those countries literally for years. today unemployment is above 20% in the european union among young people. some of this is no doubt a result of the european debt crisis but the more fundamental

problem is decades of policies rooted in the same big-government vision that the president has been busy imposing right here in the united states. it's hardly a coincidence that as president obama has tried to reshape the united states in the image of western yiewrntion europe, ours own youth unemployment rate has been stubbornly high. that's what happens when you increase regulations on businesses that hire college graduates. that's what happens when you impose health care mandates on them. that's what happens when you impose new labor rules like the one that senator enzi is leading the charge against this week that make it even cost litter for business -- costlier for businesses to hire. and we see the long-term effect of this in europe. unless this president changes course we'll see the same lack of opportunity for young people right here. so today the president will bring his latest poll-tested message to the students at the university of north carolina, and i'll sure he'll give a

rerousing speech -- he'll give a very rousing speech. i'm sure he'll also express his strong support for things all of us already agree on. but what he won't talk about is the extent to which the decisions he's made are limiting their opportunities in the years ahead. some of them already see this. i mean, you have to think that most of these students are sharp enough to put this president's rhetoric up against his record and to conclude that it just simply doesn't add up. as the promises of this president's campaign collide with real life, i think young people across the country will realize they got sold a bill of goods. and the next time they're promised change, they'll know enough to kick the tires first.

>> i've always cared about the country, and the greatest generation, writing that book, gave me a kind of a platform that was completely unanticipated. so i thought i ought not to squander that, so i ought to step up as not just as a citizen and can as a journal itself but as a father and be a husband and a grandfather, and if i see these things, i ought to write about them and try to start this dialogue which is what i'm trying to do with this book about where we need to get to next. >> in his latest "the time of our lives," tom brokaw urges americans to redefine the american dream. and sunday may 6th your questions for the former anchor and managing editor of nbc nightly news. in his half dozen books, he's written about the greatest generation the 1960s and today. in depth sunday may 6th, live at noon eastern on c-span2's booktv. >> the senate will be returning

from it recess in just a few minutes to continue work on whether to move forward on a measure dealing with national labor relations board rules for union elections. the senators will hold a procedural vote very shortly. where where we have a really close vote then we'll

extend it because that's what tradition has been here. so i repeat, everybody be here or you're going to miss a vote if you're not here at the end of the time. ask for the yeas and nays on this matter. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. sphoo vote: vote: vote:

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: are there any senators in the chamber still wishing to vote or to change their vote? if not the yeas are 45, the nays are 54. the motion is not agreed to. mr. reid: mr. president. the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. reid: i ask consent we resume consideration of the post office bill. the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. reid: i said under the previous order, i ask that we rule consideration of the postal bill. the presiding officer: is there objection? under the previous order, the clerk will the clerk will report the pending business. the clerk: calendar 296 s. 1789 a bill to sustain and

transform the united states postal service. the presiding officer: the senator from alabama. mr. sessions: mr. president i appreciate the good work of our colleagues on this legislation. unfortunately, the legislation spends $34 billion all of which would be borrowed, all of which adds to the debt of the united states, and is contrary to the budget control act limitations that was passed just last august. it's really a grievous problem. it's not one that can be avoided lightly. the presiding officer: the senate will be in order. mr. sessions: mr. president, it's a very grievous problem. just last august we agreed to certain debt limits, the amount of debt we would incur and add to the united states treasury and it was a fought-over

agreement but we reached it and we stood by it and we, i believe, have a moral obligation to not mislead the people who elected us when we said we intend to stay by the limits on increasing debt. this bill increases debt above that limit. the congressional budget office scores it as adding $34 billion in debt to the united states. chairman conrad has certified a budget point of order is legitimately placed against it. if -- i would expect we would have a motion to waive the budget point of order. i would expect there might be a motion to say well, we don't agree with the c.b.o. or somehow this is so important we need to add to the debt anyway. but colleagues, if we mean what we say if this time in history we begin to at least stay within

the limits we agreed and don't want do that, then i think we have lost further credibility with the american people. so i don't -- i respect the work of the colleagues on the bill but i think we're setting a great precedent here. a matter of importance for our own integrity and the fiscal stability of america and i believe it's important that we adhere to that -- that limit. so mr. president the pending measure, amendment 2000 to s. 1789 the 21st century postal service act would violate senate pay-go rules and increase the deficit. therefore i raise a point of order against this measure pursuant to section 201-a of s. con. res. 21, the concurrent resolution on the budget for

fiscal year 2008. the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut. mr. lieberman: i thank the chair. pursuant to section 904 of the congressional budget act of 1974 and the waiver provisions of applicable budget resolutions i move to waive all applicable sections of the act and budget resolutions for purposes of the pending amendment for reasons that we described in the debate that we had here on the floor yesterday, the u.s. postal service says this bill will in fact save $19 billion a year. and i ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. mr. lieberman: i ask unanimous consent the vote on this motion to waive be placed at the end of the list of amendments that be in order to vote on now.

mr. sessions: by object, mr. president. the presiding officer: objection is heard. mr. lieberman: mr. president if i may if we're going to vote now and senator collins and i spoke to this at great length yesterday the c.b.o. score that my friend from alabama cites is a real misreading of the effect of this legislation. it's the kind of form of accounting over the reality of budgeting. and the bottom line is that the u.s. postal service itself -- >> mr. president the a senator: mr. president the senate is not in order. the presiding officer: the senate will be in order. mr. lieberman: this bill, if this bill is adopted s. 1789, and it will be phased in over three years the postal service

will save $19 billion annually. and to me, that's what this is all about. no deficit a saving, i ask my colleagues to support the motion to waive the point of order. i would yield to my ranking member for further statement. ms. collins: thank you mr. president. mr. president, the score for the substitute is incredibly misleading. as the postal service has told us this bill would save the postal service $19 billion and that would return it to profitability. the problem is the unique status of the postal service in that it is off budget for operations but on budget for workers' benefits accounts. this is true dispute the fact that these -- this is true despite the fact

that these accounts that the postal service pays into are not funded with tax dollars. the postal employees are contributing. the postal service from its revenue is contributing. mr. speaker -- mr. president, could we have order, please. the presiding officer: the senate will be in order. the senator from maine. ms. collins: thank you mr. president. for the retirement account, we are not talking about tax dollars from the postal service. these are contributions from the postal employees and by the postal service from its revenues. but because of the unified budget, it is considered to be an on-budget status for these benefit accounts. most likely because they're

shared with other federal agencies that are using tax dollars. so i urge my colleagues to vote for the motion to waive. if they do not and this bill falls, it will spell the end of the postal service. mr. lieberman: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut. mr. lieberman: very briefly i join my colleague in saying that if this point of order by our friend from alabama is sustained and this bipartisan bill therefore, is not able to be brought up the effect will be that the post office will continue to run ever greater surpluses to a point where they, in fact, will have to turn to the treasury, which they're not doing now to bail them out. this is a responsible answer to a problem and a bipartisan one.

i urge my colleagues to vote to support the motion to waive the gentleman's point of order. i would yield to the senator from delaware. the presiding officer: the senator from delaware. mr. carper: mr. president could we have order please. mr. carper: colleagues, i hope you'll listen to what senator collins said with respect to the way this has been scored. it's a very, very important point. as much as anybody in this chamber, i'm interested in reducing budget deficits. as much as anybody. and i just want you to keep in mind maybe three -- these three points. one, for a number of years, the federal -- the postal service has overpaid its obligation into the federal employee retirement system. $12 billion to $13 billion overpayment. they're owed that money. they should be given that money. they're going to use that money to help 100,000 postal employees eligible to retire to retire. they're going to use that money to pay down their debt, $13 billion of debt, almost wipe

it out. they're going to use that money for this purpose. c.b.o. scores that as something that makes the budget deficit bigger. well if they overpaid the money into the federal employee retirement system, they ought to get it back and they shouldn't just waste it, they should use it to get people who are eligible to retire, who want to retire to retire. they should use it to pay down a $12 billion line of credit to the federal government. one. second point i want to make's a great point and offered by senator lieberman. if we do nothing we get to may 15 the postmaster general the postal service is free to close post offices across the country. 3,700 of them. they're free to close as many as 200 to 300 mail processing centers across the country. we think there's a smarter way to do it and it's in this legislation. the last point i'd like to make is we're going to have the opportunity over today and tomorrow for all of us to better understand the amendments that have been agreed to and offered by both sides what's been agreed to, what's been folded into the managers' amendment and actually have a score to frankly have a lot more

confidence in and that's from the postal service themselves. the postal service today tells us they're going to lose $23 million. they lost that much yesterday. they're going to lose that much tomorrow and the next day and the next day and the next day. they owe $13 billion to the treasury. and what i think is the more important number for us to keep in mind is when we finish our work here today and tomorrow, look to see what does that mean for the postal service in terms of their operating deficit? on a daily basis? and where are they going to be in terms of repaying their obligation to the treasury by 2016? that's where we should keep our eye on the ball. and i would urge you not to vote for this. give us a day to work its will, for the body to work its will. if we haven't made any progress, then vote against it. i would say to a bunch our colleagues well-intentioned -- not a burchl, several of our colleagues well-intentioned, that are literally going to drive up the cost and make it harder for the postal service to move toward a balance situation to a solvent situation. i would urge you, some of these

amendments are offered by people that frankly we love and it's hard to say no to them. in this case, i would consider that maybe the greater devotion should be to the -- the taxpayers of our country the people in work for the postal service and their customers. thank you very much. mr. sessions: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from alabama. mr. sessions: mr. president i really appreciate senators who've expressed their disagreement on the budget point of order but even if you disagreed over the $11 billion there's $23 billion additional spending that's borrowed -- will be borrowed over the decade according to c.b.o. and with regard to the $11 billion, that money will be borrowed and given to the postal services. it increases the debt of the united states and therefore c.b.o. scores it as a violation of the debt limit in the paygo provision. it clearly is. so we are not saying you shouldn't have a postal bill. let's vote.

let's stand firm with the debt limit agreement we had in august let's ask our good committee to produce a bill that's paid for in some fashion. we spend $3,700 billion in this united states of america. we need to find about $3 billion a year to fund their proposal to solve this problem. that's what we should do. we are at a defining moment. there's no middle ground. i say vote to sustain the point of order. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. sanders: mr. president, for a very long time now in a bipartisan way a number of people have come together to save the united states postal service. and senator lieberman and senator carper and senator collins and senator brown have worked very hard many others have worked very hard because if the postal service goes under

or is dismembered, we are talking about 8 million jobs in this country small business people who are dependent on a strong postal service. postmaster general originally was talking about shutting down 3,700 rural post offices in every state in this country and i hope that members understand that a post office in a rural town is more than just a post office. that post office disappears, in many cases that town disappears. postmaster general was talking about significantly slowing mail delivery standards shutting down half of the processing plants in this country. and over a short period of time eliminating 200,000 jobs in this country over a short period of time. so i would hope that we could proceed have a serious debate

on these issues hear all of the amendments, but at the end of the day i would hope that we would go forward and save the united states postal service. mr. corker: mr. president? mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mr. corker: mr. president i too, want to thank the two lead -- the chairman and the ranking member of this committee, for bringing something to the floor and senator carper, for bringing something to the floor that's bipartisan. and i applaud that and i applaud the fact that the committee process is working. but the fact is, we did set a top-line number when the country almost shut down last august the 2nd. and in one of the very first pieces of legislation that we passed the highway bill, we violated that budget cap. now, it wasn't by much but we violated it. now we have a bill that violates it by $34 billion. and what i would say is, if the

post office is that important to this nation if it has bipartisan support shouldn't we figure out a way to deal with the post office in such a way to stay within the budget constraints that we've laid out? it seems to me that people that are very popular in this nation are it is very things that we ought to make choices about and eliminate else else if we want to spends money in this way. now, i'd like to is he a bill that's far more reformed and i think if we did that, the tab on this would not be $34 billion above the budget. but what i would say everyone here i mean, our credibility is going out the window. 64 of us signed a letter to the leader and to the president asking that we deal in a real way with deficit reduction. the country almost shut down. the world watched. we established a top-line

number. and here we are for something that we like, we're violating that. we're losing all credibility with our citizens, the citizens that we represent we're losing credibility in the world. and to me, if you're going to produce a bipartisan piece of legislation it ought to be one that lives within the bipartisan agreement that we had regarding what we're going to spend in this nation. a senator: mr. president? ms. landrieu: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana. ms. landrieu: mr. president, i want to add my strong voice to support the lieberman lieberman-collins-carper position and senator brown has also been a great leader in this bipartisan effort to save the post office and put it on a more sound financial footing. not at the expense of taxpayers generally but the users of the post office. this is about rural towns in america. this is about small businesses

everywhere that rely on the post office to get basic business done. don't vote wrong today. give the post office a chance to save itself. that's what we're doing here. we're giving rural communities a chance to fight and to be part of a growing economy. we're giving small businesses the opportunity to stay in business. don't cut them off today. let this debate go forward because we are trying to do the think the ling, the fight fiscally responsible direction. and i see the colleague from massachusetts who's been a very able leader on our -- in our efforts. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from massachusetts. mr. brown: thank you mr. president. and thank you to the gentlelady that just spoke regarding this very important issue. this is something that it's ratepayer cost, it's not taxpayer dollars. it's something that we've been working on now for a couple of months and now all a sudden here

we are at the end hour and everybody's saying, oh, by the way, we can't do it. bottom line is, if we don't do this and we don't pass it, we're not going to have a post office. this is something that, you know, we recognize there's a new business environment that the postal service operates under but one that is focused on sustainment. and if we don't give them the tools to actually do that, then we are going to be losing the post office. and, you know, there's a misconception somehow out there that there's a bailoutgoing on. these are dollars that are ratepayer dollars. they're not taxpayer dollars. and our bill does not prevent the postal service from making changes or streamlining operations but ensures that it rolls out changes in a deliberate and responsible manner. it's fair to the employees gives postal customers the ability to continue to use the service, provided short-term relief without taxpayer funding. that federal employee retirement system overpayment between $7 -- that fers overpayment between

$7 billion and $10 billion, is a no-brainer and it provides long-term relief as well. curb-side deliveries, reducing that, health care, it focuses its primary attention on the work first cost. and the controversial postal cloash yours the five-day, the six-day, listen, both sides are highly charged on this issue. fillly understand that. had they been involved in the conversations upwards of 400 hours between members and staff working on these things, we could have actually worked through those instead of once again waiting until the late hours to get on this. but once again i am with the lieberman-carper-collins obviously, and my effort to continue to move this bill forward so we can have a good conversation about how to reestablish that trust between the american ratepayer taxpayer and the postal service. we need to do this. it's very, very, very important for us to do this today. we need to move on and focus the

things that matter and this matters. i want to make sure that i can send my mom a card. i want to continue to make sure that we can continue to keep our people employed. i want to make sure we have an sniewnt that's going to be viable into the next century. so i would hope that we would move forward and i yield the floor. mr. lieberman: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut. mr. lieberman: very briefly i thank senator brown from massachusetts on his statement and his work on the bill. this point of order puts the whole bill in jeopardy. right at the beginning of the debate and the votes forces members to decide whether they want to deal with this crisis in the postal service. and i think it tests congress again, in this case the senate. are we going to face a real problem and one of the iconic areas of american public service, the postal service which can't continue to do

business as it is now. and this bill will force it to change in weighs that are significant, but will still keep it alive. or are we going to turn away from the problem, which would be the effect of sustaining this point of order? it would also cut off the debate. we got 39 amendments pending. this bill may change as the debate goes on. the final vote on passage of the bill will require 60 votes. so don't cut it off now. let us have this debate and prove to the american people that we can take on a problem and in a bipartisan basis fix it. i urge my colleagues to vote for the motion to waive the -- a senator: mr. president? mr. president? mr. president? mr. sessions: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from indiana.

mr. coats: i think there is merit in the discussion that we vote now or vote later. s important thing is we vote on this budget point of order. it is not as if the entire process of trying to fix the post office is going to collapse if we take this vote and it succeeds. all we're asking is that we find a way to pay for it. this senate agreed last august in the budget control act that we were not going to exceed these limits. that we would find, if there was something essential that needed to be done, and if that's the case shortly to be made here, at least we would stay within the confines of what we agreed to do. this is the second time now, i believe, maybe more, that we have violated that agreement. what do we go home and tell our people? well, this was so important to save some post offices that we had to violate an agreement which was agreed to by a strong majority here to save the country from default. and there are priorities.

it's impossible for me to understand why we can't in this government that spends over $3.7 trillion we can't find a way to scare up $34 billion over a ten-year period of time to cover the cost that this bill is going to lay on us. and so, i would urge, whether we vote now or vote later on the senator from alabama's point of order, that we consider this. we've got a recess week coming up. staff can go together and dig out $34 billion of cost savings that we can apply to this. then we don't have to worry about going home and telling people we didn't keep our word. we lied to you in august. the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. coburn: i sat on this committee. i voted on the last postal reform bill. i'm not unfamiliar with the issues. i think the question before us

is why can't we do both? why can't we fix the post office at the same time if the c.b.o. says that. our answer always is we want to fix the post office but don't want to make the hard choices on how to do that. my colleagues have done great work. there are parts of this bill i don't agree with. there are parts i want to amend. i think we ought to move forward with. the ultimate question s. will we do what's best for the post office and what's best for the american people? doing what's best for the post office and the american people, is there any cost the c.b.o. says it will violate the budget agreement, we ought to pay for it. i will come up with easy ways to pay for this bill just through the duplication reports we've gotten from the government accountability office. we all know it's out there. we all know there's $100 billion at least we can come up with by consolidating programs or mandate they be consolidated. it's not a matter of not finding the money. it's a matter of whether or not

we have the will. we're on a course with collision with history that says we're not going to succeed if we don't get our budgets under order. i agree it's hard to stomach sometimes what the c.b.o. tells us. it doesn't fit with common sense. when it works for us, we use it. when it works against us, we say it doesn't matter. the point is they said this. this is the budget point of order. and i think we can do both and i think we ought to do both. i yield the floor. ms. collins: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from maine. ms. collins: mr. president let me repeat to my colleagues one more time: there are no taxpayer dollars authorized by this bill or appropriated by this bill. the score is caused by the unique status that the postal service accounts have within the unified budget. the operational accounts are off budget. the employee health benefits and

retiree accounts are on budget because they, those accounts are also used by federal agencies. let me again quote from the inspector general who explains the system very well. he says "the source of the federal employee retirement funding comes from two streams of revenue. first, the u.s. postal service contributes 11.9% of the employee salaries to the fund, and the employees contribute .8%. the postal service contribution comes from revenue paid for postage. and this money comes from ratepayers. the employee contribution is made in exchange for it to fund

benefit." there are no tax dollars authorized or appropriated by this bill. it is a quirk of the way the unified budget works. and that is why we should vote to waive this point of order. we are not talking about taxpayer dollars here. thank you mr. president. the presiding officer: the question is on the motion to waive the point of order by the senator from alabama. the yeas and nays are ordered. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: does any senator want to change their vote? seeing none, on this vote, the yeas are 62, the nays are 37. three-fifths of the senators duly chosen and sworn having voted in the affirmative the motion is agreed to. mr. lieberman: mr. president i move for reconsideration and ask that the motion be laid on the table. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. lieberman: i thank the chair. i thank my colleagues. we had kind of an existential vote at the beginning. which i didn't expect. now we can proceed -- the presiding officer: the senate will be in order. senate will be in order. mr. lieberman: now we have 39 amendments pending. i hope we can proceed expeditiously. i hypocrite hope some of our colleagues will agree to voice rotes. some of these we agreed on.

and we're prepared to accept them. so i hope our colleagues will allow us to do that by consent. but now we can proceed with the first amendment.

mr. tester: i skull up my amendment number 2856 and ask that it be modified with the changes at the desk. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection the amendment as modified will be reported by the clerk. the clerk: mr. tester for him sieved and others proposes an amendment numbered 2056. mr. tester: i ask that further reading be dispensed with. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. tester: mr. president amendment number 2056 simply requires the post office to consider some pretty basic things like whether there's economic savings when it comes to closing of the a post office center. the presiding officer: there will be two minutes of debate on each side equally divided. there will be two minutes on the motion equally divided. mr. tester: i'll start over. amendment 2056 requires the post

office to take some pretty common sense things like consider things like economic savings before they shut down a post office or mail-processing center. it also requires the post office to take into account retail service standard. that means the post office would not be able to leave a community without consideration of basic services. if the post office does not meet these criteria, the postal regulatory commission can review and reject the postal service's proposal. this amendment adds some much-needed teeth to an amendment that senator moran and i offered when it was before committee. i would like to see the remainder of my time to senator levin. he is not heemplet i'll take the manyder then. this is a commonsense amendment that allows a lot of the post offices that are going to be closed to have another set of eyes opposed as to the regulatory commission taking another look. with that, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the

senate will be in order. the senator from connecticut. mr. lieberman: mr. president i support senator tester's amendment. it simply creates safeguards to ensure that the post office when it closes -- the postal service when it closes a post office does so as a result of a process that is transparent and takes into account the unique needs of communities, particularly small towns and rural areas. this does not stop the decision-making process at the postal service to change the postal service. it makes it transparent and fair. mr. president, if i may at this time, i would ask unanimous consent that if a voice vote is requested and acceptable for any of the amendments relative to the postal reform bill, including it one that the 60-vote affirmative vote requirement be waived for that amendment. the presiding officer: is

there objection? without objection. mr. lieberman: while i am a on it, i want to note for the benefit of our colleagues that on the list of 39 amendments, the first amendment was senator mccain's amendment number 2001. he did not call it up and therefore -- which is an expression of his intention not to go forward with it, and i thank him for that, and i hope it sets a precedent that other of the sponsors of amendments will feel moved to follow. thank you senator mccain. the presiding officer: all time has expired. ms. collins: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from maine. ms. collins: mr. president i too, support the amendment offered by senator tester and senator levin. it simply makes clear that the postal regulatory commission may

review an appeal of a post office closure if it violates either the overnight delivery service standard or the retail service standard that are created by our bill. so i urge support for the amendment. the presiding officer: question is on amendment 2056, as modified. the senator from connecticut. mr. lieberman: mr. president i ask -- i move the raiment and ask for a voice vote. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. all those in favor say aye. all those opposed? the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the amendment as modified, is agreed to. mr. lieberman: mr. president

move for reconsideration and lay that motion on the table. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. coburn: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. coburn: i call up amendment 2060. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the senate will be in order. the clerk: mr. coburn proposes amendment numbered 2060. mr. coburn: i ask unanimous consent it be considered as read. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. coburn: this is a straightforward amendment on conferences. we've all seen what has occurred with the g.s.a. conference. this is all about transparency and creating a system where we're actually getting to see what is spent on conferences. there's not one branch of the federal government that does not have teleconferencing available video conferencing available. what we do know from 2000-2006 that the federal government -- that's the last time we have

records -- spent over $2.2 billion on conferences. we know the travel budget is $15 billion a year at a minimum $500 million a year spent on conferences. at a time when we need to have less -- and they've grown remarkably during the bush administration as well as this administration -- this is just a simple good-government transparency where we have them put it on a -- on a web site what they're doing why they're doing it. we limit foreign conference travel to 50. we limit the maximum amount to $500,000 unless they can make an exception for that based on cause and -- and reason. so it's -- it's simply a good-government program to get some visibility on what we're spending on conferences. and i'd ask for a voice vote on this. ms. collins: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from maine. ms. collins: mr. president i strongly support this amendment. i want to commend the senator

from oklahoma for offering an amendment that would prohibit the kind of lavish spending on federal conferences that we've seen recently at g.s.a. so this is an excellent amendment. it will save money provide more transparency and put a cap on how much can be spent. i urge adoption of the amendment. mr. lieberman: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut. mr. lieberman: i thank the chair. i also support the amendment and i thank senator coburn for introducing it. this is disclosure and limitation of spending on conferences. unfortunately, the excessive really outrageous spending by g.s.a. on the conference in las vegas has brought the whole area of spending -- federal spending on conferences into the public kliegelites and i've reached the conclusion that we're spending too much. this amendment would require the posting of all agency conference spending on-line.

it limits the amount that can be spent on conferences and limits the number of conferences agency employees can attend, and it imposes a 20% across-the-board cut on agency budgets for this purpose. i hope the amendment passes. i hope the bill passes, as amended. there are a couple of parts of this that we've begun to work with senator coburn and his staff on which i think can make this a better amendment. but bottom line, this responds to a need and i support it. a senator: mr. president? mr. carper: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from delaware. mr. carper: i'll just briefly add my support to this amendment. i'm happy that senator coburn has offered it, we've had a chance to debate it and vote on it. it's accepted on a voice vote. we've seen, we've brought to the bill -- rather, we've brought to the floor a bill that's been brought together by two republicans and two democrats. we just have a vote on whether or not to waive a budget point of order to give us a chance to air the bill, offer amendments and look what we can agree on in the en. bipartisan vote. and we have the opportunity here

early in the back and forth on amendments to vote not just democrat amendments but republican amendments as well. my hope at the end of the day we'll adopt some of both. and at the enof the day hopefully -- end of the day hopefully when we get to the end of tomorrow, we'll be able to say we passed a bill with bipartisan support and this could be a good step in that direction. i urge -- the presiding officer: all time has expired. the question is on coburn, amendment number 2060. all those in favor say aye. all those opposed? the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the amendment is agreed to. the senator from michigan. mr. levin: i ask unanimous consent that a statement of mine supporting the tester amendment be inserted in the record immediately prior to the vote -- the voice vote on the tester amendment 2056. the presiding officer: without objection.

mr. mccain: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from arizona. mr. mccain: i call up amendment 2033 and ask for -- the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from arizona, mr. mccain, proposes amendment numbered 2033. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mccain: mr. president this amendment would establish a commission on postal reorganization basically a brac. it's the same thing that we have done in the case of military bases for -- bases. for many years we were unable to close a single one. this would have one on postal reorganization. they would come up with their findings and the congress would vote up or down. recently government accountability office released a report just this month entitled "challenges related to restructuring the postal service 's retail network," which supports this brac-like policy -- process.

and it goes on to say that this commission could broaden the current focus on individual facility closures, which are often contentious sometime consuming and inefficient -- time-consuming and inefficient so a broader network-wide restructuring similar to the brac approach. this obviously is an admission that we are unable to take these tough decisions ourselves but it has proven successful in the brac process and i think it will in this case. i ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the yeas and nays are ordered. the senator from connecticut. mr. lieberman: mr. president i rise to oppose the amendment. this amendment would create a commission similar to the --

similar to the base closure commission to oversee postal service decisions regarding which post offices processing plants and district offices to close or consolidate. in this bill we have constructed what i think is a clear and fair system for making exactly those decisions. the -- the language in the bill is not status quo language. if this bill is enacted, there are post offices that will be closed or consolidated. there are mail processing facilities that will be closed. that simply has to happen. but it will happen according to a system of due process that gives most heed to the fiscal crisis of the postal service. in other words, i think we've got a congressional answer to this problem. we don't have to yield it to another brac commission. i urge opposition to the amendment. the presiding officer: all time

has expired. the question is on mccain amendment number 2033. the yeas and nays have been ordered. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

vote: vote:

the presiding officer: are there any senators wishing to vote or to change their vote? seeing none, on this vote, the yeas are 30 and the nays 69. under the previous order requiring 60 votes for the adoption of this amendment the amendment is not agreed to. the senator from oregon. mr. merkley: -- mr. wyden: on behalf of senator feinstein senator cantwell, other colleagues and myself, i call up amendment number 020 and ask that it be modified with the changes that are at the desk. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. the clerk will report the amendment as modified. the clerk: the senator from

oregon mr. wyden for himself and others proposes amendment number 2020. the presiding officer: under the previous order, there will now be two minutes of debate equally divided prior to a vote on the wyden-feinstein amendment number 2020 as amended. mr. wyden: mr. president and colleagues, this amendment is for the more than 25 million americans, more than 800,000 of them serving in the military -- the presiding officer: the senate will be in order. mr. wyden: thank you mr. president. this amendment is for the millions of americans more than 800,000 of them, who served in the military and vote by mail in our system of government, the most open and free system of government in the world. mr. president, those millions of americans may vote absentee. they may vote in what's called no excuse absentee, or they may

vote in an all-male election, but they deserve this fall to have the assurance from the united states senate that as we reform the postal service the election will not be disrupted. i hope my colleagues will support this. i think it's been discussed at length with both sides of the aisle. it's always been bipartisan to try to expand the franchise and with that, mr. president i would yield the floor and i would hope that we could pass this on a voice vote, and i want to thank both chairman lieberman and senator collins who have had a real challenge handling all these amendments, and they have been very gracious, both of them as always. mr. lieberman: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut. mr. lieberman: mr. president i rise to support the amendment. i thank senator wyden and those who worked with him on this amendment, frankly for calling our attention to this important

matter and working to ensure that our efforts to salvage the united states postal service to change it, to keep it alive do not come at the expense of our critical efforts to ensure access to the voting booth by mail and also no excuse absentee voting programs that rely heavily on dependable mail service. so that i -- i support the amendment. if there is no further debate, i would move that we adopt the amendment by voice vote. the presiding officer: all those in favor signify by saying aye. all those opposed. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. amendment numbered 2020 as modified is agreed to. mr. lieberman: mr. president i move for reconsideration and ask that we lay the motion on the table. the presiding officer: without objection.

a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. coburn: i ask unanimous consent to modify amendment number 2058 with amendments at the desk, call it up. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection the clerk will report the amendment as modified. the clerk: the senator from oklahoma mr. coburn, proposes amendment numbered 2058 as modified. the presiding officer: the senate will be in order. under the previous order, there will be two minutes of debate equally divided prior to a vote on amendment 2058 offered by the senator from oklahoma, mr. coburn, as modified. mr. coburn: this is a straightforward amendment. it encourages colocation in other businesses. one of the things that's going to happy hap to the postal service, 85% of them are losing money, our post offices. what we can do is keep service but have it at a location for lower costs. this encourages the postmaster

general to consider that as part of the service standard in meeting that requirement. the presiding officer: the senator from maine. ms. collins: mr. president this amendment by the senator from oklahoma is right in line with the bill. we do encourage the postal service to look at colocation. for example, in a local pharmacy or a grocery store. in many small communities that may well be a viable option and it may well improve customer access. so i think this is a very good amendment that is in line with other language already in the bill. i would urge its adoption by a voice vote. the presiding officer: the senator from delaware. mr. carper: this amendment offered by the senator from oklahoma. the postmaster general has in mind for our communities across america whether -- where there are 33,000 post offices and to

give a number of them an option, a menu, if you will, whether or not it makes sense to shorten somewhat the length of time that the post office is open in a day make to six or four hours a day whether to use, colocate into a supermarket or convenience store, or in some cases to say state and local government operations in those communities, why don't we put them under the same roof. why doesn't make that sense? and frankly all of them may make sense. the idea is not to tell a community which option to choose but to say this is a menu and this is one of the options that should be on the menu. i commend the gentleman and urge a yes vote. the presiding officer: if there is no further debate on the amendment, all in favor signify by saying aye. all those opposed. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it.

the amendment number 2058 as modified is agreed to. the senator from connecticut. mr. lieberman: i move for reconsideration and ask that the motion be laid on the table. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. lieberman: i thank the chair. mr. president, i want to ask consent the next amendment on the list, so-called mccaskill-merkley amendment be dropped a few places down. because we're working on some compromise legislation that we hope will lead to a voice vote of accept tansz. -- acceptance. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. lieberman: and that would mean that senator coburn's next amendment which is number 2061 is -- is now the pending business.

mr. coburn: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. coburn: i ask unanimous consent to modify amendment number 2061 with the changes at the desk and ask that it be brought up. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection, so ordered. the clerk will report. the modification is at the desk. the clerk will report amendment as modified. the clerk: the senator from oklahoma proposes amendment

numbered 2061 as modified. mr. coburn: i ask unanimous consent the amendment be considered as read. the presiding officer: without objection. there will be two minutes of debate equally divided prior to a pretty-vote on amendment numbered 2061 offered by the senator from oklahoma as modified. mr. coburn: madam president this is an amendment we've changed somewhat from the original versions to address some of the concerns. what this amendment does is two years from now will give the authority to the postmaster to create a retirement requirement with postal employees. there's 175,000 postal employees eligible for retirement right now. nothing happens for the next two years, gives plenty of time for planning gives him the authority to create that principle which says that when you become retired age because they're going to have a continuing need to have fewer and fewer employees the ability to make retirement

mandatory. that's all it does. those that are best capable of retiring with full pengdz, they have to be a complete and have full-pension capability and will allow them to do that two years from now not now but about two years and only gives him the authority should he want to. it doesn't mandate it, doesn't require it and it actually doesn't take effect for two years. the presiding officer: the senator from maine. ms. collins: madam president could we have order please. i'm finding it difficult to hear the sponsors. the presiding officer: the senate will be in order. ms. collins: thank you madam president. while i think that the changes the senator has made in his amendment do improve it considerably i'm still very concerned about the idea of imposing a mandatory retirement system. and let me tell you why. one, to me, it smacks of age

discrimination in some cases. second we could be losing some of our most experienced best personnel that we need to implement the major changes that are authorized by this bill. and third and finally i find it a little odd that we would want to tell people who are still in their working years and have had a good career and are contributing and are good employees that we don't want them to work anymore. i think that the approach in our bill of offering incentives is a better way to go. mr. coburn: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. coburn: the difference is you're going to pay $25,000 to people to retire. the postmaster -- the postmaster has already said that he needs to have 120,000 fewer employees.

that will grow over a period of time. we're setting a precedent with the buyout, one. we are setting a precedent it's never been done in the federal government. and number two and probably more important is the fact that -- the presiding officer: the senator's time has expired. mr. coburn: thank you. the presiding officer: the question is on the amendment. a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: on this vote -- are there any senators in the chamber wishing to vote or wishing to change their votes? hearing none, on this vote the yeas are 33. the nays are 65. under the previous order requiring 60 votes for the adoption of this amendment the amendment is not agreed to. a senator: madam president? mr. lieberman: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut. mr. lieberman: awhile back we skipped over the mccaskill-merkley amendment because we were working on a modification. a modification is ready now and i ask unanimous consent that we

proceed to the mccaskill-merkley amendment number 2031. the presiding officer: is there objection? mrs. boxer: madam president? the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from missouri. mrs. mccaskill: i call up 2031 and ask consent that it be modified with changes at the desk. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection, so ordered. the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from missouri mrs. mccaskill, proposes an amendment numbered 2031 as modified. mrs. mccaskill: i ask consent that further reading be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. mccaskill: madam president this amendment reflects the efforts of a lot of people to deal with rural post office closings in a way that will be straightforward and fair to rural communities across this country. it is going to prevent any closings for one year while the reforms that are embedded in

this bill have a chance to begin to work. it then sets some clear standards for potential closures. i want to thank senator moran whorbgs did some great -- moran who did some great work on this subject in committee. he deserves credit for taking a hard look at rural post offices and how we were dealing with them. i also want to thank senator merkley who has worked on this, senator tester who's worked on it as senator sanders. but i want to thank senator collins and senator lieberman for continuing to model to this body what true bipartisanship looks like and continue to strive for that valuable commodity in a democracy that thing known as compromise. this amendment now represents one of those compromises. i'm proud to be a part of it. i think it strikes the right note of protecting rural post offices but also with a realistic eye towards the future and how we are fair to rural communities in a way that is

predictable and one that, frankly, shows accountability for the postal service. and i ask that this be taken up by voice vote, madam president. mr. lieberman: madam president? madam president, i appreciate the work that's been done on this. i know there's a lot of interest really on both sides of the aisle because of the concern about rural post offices. this establishes again some standards. it effectively asks the postal service before it considers closing a rural post office, for one year after enactment of this legislation that it explore every other opportunity to continue to provide service other than closing the postal service. the one clear authority given in the modified amendment is to close a rural post office when there is no significant community opposition, which is to say when the postal service

has convinced the people of a community that they have a good alternative to the current post office. so i think we've reasoned together. i hope that this enables our colleagues who may have been thinking of more absolute prohibitions to closing post offices to step back from that. this is a rational, fair approach. i support the modification and the amendment and would move that the amendment be adopted by voice vote. the presiding officer: is there further debate? if not the question is on the amendment. all those in favor say aye. opposed? the ayes appear to have it. the ayes have it. the amendment is agreed to. mr. lieberman: madam president, i move for reconsideration and ask that the motion be laid on the table. the presiding officer: without objection.

ms. snowe: madam president i call up snowe amendment 20 0e with a modification at the desk. the presiding officer: is there objection to the modification? without objection. the clerk will report rmt. the clerk: ms. snowe proposes amendment numbered 2080 as modified. know snow i ask unanimous consent at that dispense with the reading. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. snowe: thank you, madam president. the presiding officer: if the senator will hold. under the previous order, there will be two minutes of debate equally divided prior to a vote on amendment number 2080 offered by the senator from maine. ms. snowe: thank you, madam president. very briefly first, i want to thank the chair of the committee and my colleague from maine senator collins for working and assisting me in modifying this amendment. but, madam president i thought this amendment was important from this standpoint based on our experience in maine with the recent proposal by the postal service to close a distributional and processing facility. as my colleague senator

collins, will attest as well, we discovered that much of their methodology was indeed faulty in the savings that they had suggested would be achieved by closing this facility. the methodology and the savings that they had proposed for saving this facility had been a achieved. there were many questions raised with those numbers and reports. as we know, before the u.s. postal service can make any determination for closing a facility, they have to prepare and publish an area processing study and so based on that study, i have recommended that we now have an independent verification of the numbers and the proposals by the u.s. postal service so that we can make sure that those numbers are accurate, that we verify the methodology in addition to the savings.

one of the examples i can give from you this proposal that they had made for our facility in the state of maine was, for example closing -- eliminating two management positions for the savings of $120,000. for $799,000. when we questioned that -- the veracity of that number, they becometracked and -- they backtracked and aproposed that it only achieved $20 you $120,000. they have now submitted a processing study this year and they returned to the higher figure of $800,000 for two management positions. we know that that cannot be accurate. so therefore given the enormous significance of these proposals, we need to have independent verification by the postal regulatory commission before any closure can go forward. ms. collins: madam president? the presiding officer: the

other senator from maine. ms. collins: thank you, madam president. first, i want to congratulate my colleague from maine for an excellent amendment. as she indicated the postal service made a major miscalculation -- a mathematical error in the study that it did on the hamden processing center in our state. society senator snowe's amendment would say that if a proposed consolidation of a mail-processing center is appealed to the postal regulatory commission, the commission can be asked to review the underlying study's methodology and the estimated savings to make sure that it's correct because right now there's really no way to challenge a mistake that is made by the postal service in

conducting these very important studies that are going to decide whether or not processing centers stay open. so i commend my colleague from maine for a very well-thought-out amendment a understand i urge its adoption by voice vote. the presiding officer: is there further debate? if not the question is on the amendment as modified. all those in favor say aye. opposed? the ayes appear to have it. the ayes have it and the amendment is agreed to. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from new mexico. mr. udall: madam president i call up my amendment number 2043 and ask consent that it be modified with the changes at the desk. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection, so ordered. the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from new mexico, mr. udall proposes amendment numbered 2043, as modified.

the presiding officer: under the previous order, there will be two minutes of debate equally divided prior to a vote on amendment number 2043, offered by the senator from new mexico. mr. udall: madam president this amendment strikes the provisions allowing u.p.s. notify to five-day service in two years. two years is simply not enough time to see the changes we're making in this bill take effect before we cut this essential service. my amendment does not say we never move to five-day service but what it does say is that two years is not enough time for the postal service to implement the many cost-saving measures in the bill. why eliminate one of the key competitive advantages and hurt rural america before we know what the effects of these reforms are? it makes no sense. why would we make a change that

would reduce mail volume by almost 7%? isn't that why we got in this crisis in the first place? i hope i would colleagues will join me in protecting rural jobs and go on record to say clearly that moving to five-day service should be a last resort. i reserve my time. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut. mr. lieberman: madam president, i rise to oppose the amendment by my friend from new mexico. i know there are a lot of people who don't want to lose six-day delivery but the greater imperative is not to lose the postal service as we know it. the postmaster asked for the immediate authority to go from six days of delivery to five. in this bill, we've given the postmaster authority in many different areas to save money. we said as a result that we will not give him the authority to go from six days of delivery to

five for two years hoping that within the two years he can save enough money not to have to make this chaifnlgt frankly i'm concept cam that he can but we wanted to give him the six-day delivery at least that last opportunity. to pull this out of the procedure, this procedure with a lot of due process in it before the move can be made from six to five days really removes the credibility from the bill, and i think will jeopardize its ultimate adoption. so with a lot of respect and affection to for my friend from new mexico, i urge my friends to vote against this amendment. ms. collins: madam president this amendment would also take $8.9 billion that is supposed to go to pay for retiree health benefits of postal workers and instead redirects those funds to maintain six-day-a-week delivery of the plail. now, i hope that we always have

six-day-a-week delivery. i think that that is an asset. i think we should strive to pry serve it. and that's why our bill prohibits going to five-day delivery for two years. the presiding officer: the opposition's time has expired. ms. collins: -- to wring all of the waste out of the system. mr. udall: madam president saturday service is absolutely essential in these rural areas. i ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears tofnlt the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

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

votes? on this vote, the yeas are 43, the nays are 56. under the previous order requiring 60 votes for the adoption of this amendment the amendment is not agreed to. s mr. lieberman: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut. mr. lieberman: i move to -- a senator: will the senate be in orderment. the presiding officer: the senate will be in order. mr. lieberman: madam president i move to reconsider and lay the motion on the table. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from illinois. mr. durbin: i call up my amendment number 2082 and ask consent it be modified with the changes that are at the desk. the presiding officer: is there objection? if there are no objections, so ordered. the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from illinois mr. durbin, proposes an amendment numbered 2082, as moderate filed.

mr. durbin: madam president i ask consent -- the presiding officer: under the previous order there will be two minutes of debate equally divided prior to a vote on amendment number 2082 offered by the senator from illinois. mr. durbin: madam president? this was an amendment that i originally offered relative to processing facilities that had been subject to efficiency reviews. at the suggestion of the chairman of the committee senator lieberman, as well as rank being members, we have modified the amendment. the summits total of its change would be for those limited facilities which have been found since the year 2006 to be efficient before they could be closed the mostal service would have to call on the u.s. postal service inspector general to conduct an aidity to find at previous findings had been terminated, were no no longer valid. that was the only change. it was recommended by the committee and the staff and i've

added that modification to the amendment. mr. lieberman: snad. the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut. mr. lieberman: madam president i thank my friend from he illinois. he's explained the amendment totally. it's a good amendment i support its passage and move that we adoment it by voice. -- adopt it by voice. the presiding officer: is there further debate? if not the question is on the amendment, as modified. all in favor say aye. opposed no. the ayes should have it. the ayes do have it. the amendment is agreed to. mr. lieberman: madam president i move for reconsideration and ask that the motion be laid on the table. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. lieberman: i thank the chair. mr. akaka: snad. the presiding officer: -- madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from hawaii. the senate will be in order. mr. akaka: madam president i call up my amendment 2034.

the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from hawaii mr. akaka proposes an amendment numbered 2034. mr. akaka: madam president, i ask unanimous consent that further reading be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. there will be, under the previous order there will be two minutes of debate equally divided prior to a vote on amendment 2034 offered by the senator from hawaii. mr. akaka: madam president, i have serious concerns with the feca provisions in this bill, especially since they would reduce benefits for many employees who are already injured while working in service to this contract, such as federal fire workers fib agents prison guards and civilians serving in iraq and afghanistan. in addition unlike most state workers comp programs, this bill