bring valuable and broad private-sector expertise to the board. from 1997-2005 was a partner at the carlyle group. he founded and led the industrial group within the u.s. buyout fund so he has broad experience in the private sector and with manufacturing companies and other industries that are the heart of our economy. he served on boards of several charitable and educational institutions. currently a member of the board of directors of d.c. prep, a charter school in washington. the ben times center for finance at princeton, and the nature conservancy. so there is no requirement that the president nominate governors from the other party but we have in keeping with the work of senator alexander and senator johanns and others, this is a bipartisan nomination. mr. powell is a republican, and he served as under secretary for the treasury for finance under president george h.w. bush with responsibility for policy on financial institutions, the

treasury, and debt. so we have one member who served in the moings the obama administration, one nominee who served in the bush administration. it's very good we have come to an agreement here and we hope it can set the tone for agreements well into the future. this year and in 2013 as well. with that, mr. president, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: all time has expired. under the previous order, the question is now on the stein nomination. is there a sufficient second? is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

the presiding officer: are there any senators in the chamber

wishing to vote or to change your vote? on this vote, the yeas are 70 and the nays are 24. the 60-vote threshold has been achieved and the nomination is confirmed. under the previous question, the question is on the powell amendment -- the powell nomination. [inaudible] the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: are there any senators in the chamber wishing to vote or change their vote? seeing none, on this vote, the yeas are 4, the nays are -- the yeas why 74, the nays are 21. the nomination is confirmed. mr. reid: madam president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. reid: i now move to the proceed to executive session to consider calendar number 552, the nomination of paul woffartf. the presiding officer: the clerk will report.

the clerk: pule j.watford of california to be united states judge for the ninth circuit. mr. reid: madam president, i ask -- let's see. i have a cloture motion. i want that reported, please. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the motion. clerithe clerk: cloture motion: we, the undersigned senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate, do hereby move to bring to a close debate on nomination of paul j. wattford of california to be the united states circuit judge for the ninth circuit signed by 17 senators as follows -- mr. reid: madam president, i would ask that the reading of the names be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum under rule 22 be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i now ask, madam president, the senate resume legislative session. the presiding officer: without objection. the senate resumes legislative session. mr. reid: and what is the pending business?

the presiding officer: the motion to proceed to s. 3187. mr. reid: thank you. i have a cloture motion ojt desk. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the motion. the clerk: cloture motion: we, the undersigned senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate, do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the motion to proceed to calendar number 400, s. 3187, the food and drug administration safety and innovation act, signed by 17 senators as follows -- reid of nevada, bingaman, lieberman, klobuchar, murray, begich, blumenthal, nelson of nebraska, leahy, conrad, johnson of south dakota, brown of ohio, cardin, whitehouse, kerry, akaka, and harkin. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum under rule 22 be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: madam president, this is the -- i have spoken before, madam president, abouts

the importance of the f.d.a. bill, something we have to get done. literally, people's lives dpep depend on it. it addresses so many things with the f.d.a. to make it a better position. we have to get this done. as i've said before, if my republican colleagues don't like the bill, offer an amendment, offer an amendment to take that out, put something in, if you don't like it. but i would hope that we don't have to go through voting on cloture on monday night. we should be legislating this coming monday. so i am stunged that once again our motion to proceed when there's been an agreement that we would proceed to this with relevant amendments, which everybody says that that's what they want to do -- it's not germane amendments, which is very narrow;s it relevant amendments. it gives people the opportunity to change this legislation in

many ways. so i hope that we don't have to have that cloture vote monday. i now ask unanimous consent the foreign relations committee be discharged from further consideration of h.r. 1905, iran threat reduction act, the senate proceed to its consideration, that the pried-johnson-shelby substitute amendment which is at the desk, the text of calendar number 320, the iran sanctions bill, as recorded by the banking committee, be considered; that a reid-johnson-shelby amendment which is at the desk be agreed to, the substitute amendment be agreed to, the bill as amend be read a third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid on the table, there be no intervening action or debate, any statements relating to this matter be placed in the record at the appropriate place as if read. the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. kyl: madam president, reserving the right to object, i would just note that this is a matter -- i appreciate the majority leader's desire to bring this to conclusion.

unfortunately, the language that has just been presented to our side has not been widely shared. i haven't actually read it yet. it was brat over at 10:38 this morning. it was described to me. it would be weaker than president obama's policy. given fact that this is a matter on which democrats and republicans and the administration and the senate have been in pretty close accord in dealing with the country of iran and its nuclear ambitions, hoild that we could ensure that -- i would hope that we could enshould you are that the language is agreed to by all. there seems tobacco an important piece missing and we certainly need the time to talk to folks to see why that's so, whether it could be put back in or if it can't, then to be able to discuss it. because we certainly don't want something that's weaker than the current -- than the administration's current policy. so i would hope that we could just have some time over the weekend and perhaps on monday when enough of the members can be apprised what has actually been proposed here and see if

our colleagues on the other side would be willing to make the accommodation that we may need to have made here. mr. blunt: mr. president? the presiding officer: the sphror missouri. mr. blunt: reserving the right to object, i appreciate the leader's desire to get this done. i'd like to get it done, too. in fact the original iran sanctions language was drafted in my office when i was in the other body. it is an issue i've been involved in a long time. this morning i've had a chance to look at it only within the last half-hour. i suppose i could have been here at 10:38 but even 10:38 for an issue like this -- and my view also is that it doesn't -- its not as strong as the president's policy. it's not as sthong as any other resolution on this topic we've ever passed and the question that would be asked +s, why not? i'd like to think that's an oversight in drafting, that we can draft this out over the

weekend and make this reflective of our -- of our national policy and the president's policy, but i'd be very concerned about moving to this language today and would hope that we could work with the leader to have language that we could bring up as early as monday to pass and send the message to the world that the united states senate supports the stated policy of our government in this critical issue. nobody wants iran to be able to move forward and attain nuclear capacity, and i am -- i'd be very concerned about moving forward on this language as it currently appears to me to be stated. mr. reid: is there an objection by either senator kyl or senator -- mr. kyl: yes, mr. president, for the reasons noted, i would hope that we could work our colleagues to fix the problem here. until we do i would have to object. the presiding officer: objection is heard. mr. reid: mr. president, this is sump a such an interesting conversation on the floor. i didn't have the papers.

i don't blame nigh friend infrastructure arizona for not having the dowvment i don't blame nigh friend from missouri for only having a half-hour to look at this. this thing was given to the republican leader yesterday in midday. all right? now, mr. president, the language they're objecting to was in the base bill. so unless they didn't read the base bill, we have a problem here. now, they said they want to get it done. a strange way of showing they want to get it done. mr. president, this has been a classic example of rope-a-dope. i try to be a patient man, and i have been very patient with my staff working with senator kirk's staff, the minority leader's staff. i try to be as patient as i can here. a senator: would the senator yield? mr. reid: no. not right now. mr. president, this is absolutely untoward what is happening here. we have tried to get this done.

every day, oh, its just -- oh, we need a little bit more. we have this agreement that was agreed to by all the parties. but of course now there's no agreement. i'm deeply disappointed my republican colleagues are preventing the senate from passing additional critical sanctions gunshot iran. with if -- against iran. if they want to embarrass the president, this is a strange way to do it. two months ago i came to the senate floor and said we needed to pass these sanctions immediatsanctionsimmediately. the fastest way was to pass a bill sponsored by senator johnson and shelby which passed out of the committee unanimously. republicans then said no, as they're saying today. republicans said they wanted ideas from senator kirk and senator paul and wished to move forward with a resolution on containment. we heard their objections and we have tried mightily to address them. with the goal of getting this bill passed and protectin protel national security and that have

our ally israel, this deal includes a bipartisan managers' package sponsored by senators shelby and johnson along with senators menendez, kirk, paul, and johnson. the american-israeli public affairs committee has expressed strong snort this package. senator mcconnell and to me. earlier today aipac urged us to move forward as quickly as possible. i ask unanimous consent that letter be made part of the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: mr. president? mr. reid: mr. president, democrats are ready to move forward and vote on an amended s. res. 380, the bipartisan graham-casey-lieberman legislation. this amendment would put the senate on record along with president obama rule iewght policy of containment on iran. yet republicans have objected, again. we can't aford to delay these sanctions any longer.

on may 23 there is a round of international negotiations taking place with the iranians on subjects relating to this resolution we have. democrats are ready to move forward. we're ready to pass both a sanctions bill and the containment resolution now, not later -- now. we can't afford any more delays. sanctions are a key tool in our work to stop iran from attaining a nuclear weapon, threatening ig israel and jeopardizing the united states' national sciewmplet i am to the end of my patience, mr. president. i usually never raise my voice with a senator. i apologize to my friend from arizona. did a few minutes ago. the conversation was between him and me. but i'm rulely upset about this. i feel that i have been jerked around. that's a pretty good

understanding of the language that people have, because we can never quite get there. the republicans have kept us from moving forward with this for two months. we should have just done what shelby and johnson told us to do. so i hope that something will happen in the near future, but i have to be honest with you, mr. president, i don't have much faith that it will. mr. mcconnell: mr. president? mr. president? the presiding officer: the republican leader. mr. reid: i want the republican leader to be heard. the presiding officer: the republican leader. mr. mcconnell: do i have the floor now? the presiding officer: you do. mr. mcconnell: i would say to my good friend, the majority leader, this is an outrage i don't understand. my staff tells me we didn't receive the draft amendment until late last night, and this morning we were told it was final. got the draft late last night. this morning we were told it was final. we have debates around here about a lot of things, but one of the things that we have typically not been unable to reach an agreement on is the

iran issue. i don't know what the problem is here. a little communication ought to be able to bring us together behind something we can speak to unanimously with the goal that we all have, i think in, this body, which is virtually everyone, which is to do everything we can to prevent iran from becoming a nuclear-armed country. there is no reason in the world why we can't resolve whatever differences we have and move forward. we certainly don't want to take a step backward, and there are members on my side of the aisle who are concerned that the way the measure is currently crafted could actually be a step in the wrong direction. it could have been a drafting error. but what is wrong with sitting down on a bipartisan basis, looking at the language, making sure we get it right and akhaoeft goal thaepbg -- achieve

the goal that i think virtually everyone in the room would like to achieve. not think i think to get angry about. a proper response would be to work out our differences and to go forward. timeliness is an issue. we need to do this quickly. i think we all agree to that on both sides of the aisle. so i would just say to my friend, i don't think there is anything to be outraged about. why don't we get to work, work out the differences and pass the resolution. mr. reid: mr. president, i'm all -- my mind indicates that why is there any problem? we agree. just like student loans we agree, except they won't let us get on the bill to legislate that bill. they think this iran thing is a great bill to do but we can't do it. they say they need more communication. how about two months? how much more do you need? i'm not going to get into getting tom hawkins in trouble

who works for senator mcconnell. but he was given it in the afternoon. maybe he was busy. that doesn't matter. the point is we have tried to get something done and we can't get it done. mr. president, i think it is too bad. i'm not outraged. i'm upset because i feel i've been used as a tool to try to adversely affect the president in some way. so i'm going to continue to keep an open mind on this, but i have to say that i'm terribly disappointed that it looks like we're going to arrive at may 23, and the iranians -- they have people around watching this, they're in town, they're laughing at us. laughing atd us. we can't even come up with a simple resolution. there's no force of law that really -- maybe i shouldn't say that. it does have some. they're laughing at us. here's the united states senate quibbling over a sentence, a sentence that's been in this

resolution since it was drafted. i just have to yield to my friend. the presiding officer: the minority leader. mr. mcconnell: most people in america work five days a week. this is 1:00 on a thursday. 1:00 on a thursday. what is the problem here? we have a broad bipartisan agreement, i think, about the approach we ought to take with regard to the iran sanctions issue. the leaders on my side of the aisle are all standing here on the floor anxious to be involved in working out the language, and i would say to my friend, he said there's a sentence. well a sentence can sometimes change the entire meaning of something. how this is crafted is not irrelevant. rather than us standing out here on the floor pointing fingers at each oh it's only 1:00 on thursday afternoon, why don't we seutd down and -- sit down and work out the differences, pass something we can mutually agree to and try to make a difference for our country.

mr. reid: no matter how many times you say it the language we're told they're complaining about was in the initial bill. mr. president, i appreciate my friend saying what is it? most people work five days a week. i work more than five days a week. and i have been working the last two months trying to get this done, and every time we try to do it, the first few weeks it was -- the last few weeks it's senator kirk. senator kirk is ill, i know that, and so i gave him every benefit of the doubt. if his staff is working with him, let's try to do with k senator kirk. thinks it's a good idea. if we can bring it, we'll do t. mr. president, we have been trying to get this done for a long time. it's not today at 1:00. i've wanted to move forward on this for a long time. but let's give it another day. another day or so will take care of this. that isn't how it's worked. i will be happy to yield to my

friend from new jersey. the presiding officer: the senator from new jersey. mr. menendez: i thank the majority leader for yielding. i want to applaud you for asking to bring the legislation that passed unanimously out of the banking committee to the floor, because there's no one in this chamber who has been stronger on pursuing sanctions on iran and trying to deter iran from achieving nuclear weapons. and i support -- i'm on senator lieberman's resolution. but time is of the essence. we must send to the iranians a clear message that you cannot just forestall negotiations and have negotiations thinking that you are buying time. we must show them that not withstanding their intentions to buy time, there are consequences. the consequences of those sanctions on the central bank of iran that are already moving

forward and that the administration is fully seeking to enforce and the continued perfecting sanctions that the banking committee sent out unanimously that is incredibly important to send the iranians a message. i look at what the legislation will do in part, it in essence closes loopholes that the iranians have figured out. so it creates sanctions on the national iranian oil company, on the national iranian tanker company, making them agents of the iranian revolutionary guard, and then imposes sanctions on financial institutions that would facilitate transactions with the entity. this is incredibly important. the iranians are using this as a way to get around. it has sanctions on satellite companies that impose human rights sanctions on those companies that provide satellite services to the iranian regime

but fail to prevent jamming by iran of transmissions by others of the same satellite service company. it has sanctions on financial messaging services. and even though swift, the largest of them, already pulled the plug on the iranians, we don't want any other messaging service to fill in the void of what swift created. we want to make sure that noose is as tight as possible. mr. reid: mr. president, could i interrupt. i want to make sure the record is clear when i talk about having no forced law. we're talking about the contained resolution. i also want to ask this question directly to my friend from new jersey: what do you think the iranians are doing watching this performance here today? how do you think they're feeling about what we're doing here today? can't pass this. mr. menendez: they originally felt that when we sent a 1 hundred-0 vote out of here, they said we're in trouble.

now they're saying to themselves buying time seems to succeed. we cannot -- we cannot allow the iranians to believe as they head into these negotiations next week that there's anything but having our foot on the head of the snake and that we're going to continue to do that and drive every possible sanction and close every possible loophole, which is largely what the legislation that you are seeking to pass on the floor accomplishes. that's why it passed unanimously out of the banking committee. even as we talk about the resolution, there's no reason to stop the very essence of what would send a message to the iranians that are going to hurt them in the economy, that are going to undermine their ability to continue in iran as a government, that is going to be the very strongest set of sanctions we can levy from one government to another, for which we are leading and increasingly

have the ability to have a multilateral effect which is when sanctions take place the best. i am beside myself. are there amendments i want to offer? of course. but i find it far more important to move now and to send this incredibly strong set of sanctions so that we can get passage and the iranians get the message then to linger and ultimately have those negotiations take place and not send the message. i appreciate the majority leader's efforts. i applaud it. i certainly am for senator lieberman's resolution. i don't believe containment as a policy. but moving the set of sanctions to ensure -- to ensure -- that the iranians don't do anything but come to the table and say we're ready to follow a course of disarmament here in terms of their nuclear production is incredibly important. you know, sometimes things can wait. this is not one of those times in which waiting proseduces the

desired -- produces the desired result. on the contrary, it produces a negative result because they believe that we will not continue to pursue tightening the noose, closing every loophole and being of purpose of one mind. and i hope we can achieve that before we leave here. the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. reid: before my friend leaves, i'd like to direct a question to him: is it true, i say to my friend from new jersey, that you're a member of the banking committee? mr. menendez: yes. mr. reid: it's true this resolution came from the banking committee? the resolution -- mr. menendez: the legislation. mr. reid: this matter came from the budget committee. the matter about which we talk, iranian sanctions legislation, came from the banking committee. it was reported unanimously from that committee, isn't that right? mr. menendez: that is correct. mr. reid: during the last two months, i direct this question to my friend, you and your staff have been heavily involved in what's been going on during the negotiations that have been

taking place, is that fair? mr. menendez: that is correct. mr. reid: also i ask my friend, jessica lewis, seated by me, my foreign policy advisor, it's true she worked for the senator from new jersey? is that true, also worked in that same area? mr. menendez: she did until the majority leader took her from me. mr. reid: and it's true that we have worked over this period of time, our staffs working with republicans have worked so hard to try to get something done. and i would say to my friend is it true each time we were there, were not there the next few minutes, next day, it's taken forever, taken two months? is that right? mr. menendez: we have thought various times it would be already on the floor and passed, and then there has always been an additional desire or objection. i just think that what we have before us, especially in timing, doesn't mean that we can't continue to perfect as we move to the future, as we are doing in this legislation. but this legislation now passed

unanimously out of the committee, supported by the major advocates of those who share our vision that weannot have a nuclear-powered iran and an iran with nuclear weapons, believe that this is important to move now so that we can achieve that goal and send a message to the iranians. i think that time in this case is of the essence, and that's why i came to the floor to support your effort. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut. mr. lieberman: i thank the chair. mr. president, this is a classic moment, unfortunately, too typical where we all agree on the goal here. we want to pass another tier of sanctions against the iranians to deter them from developing nuclear weapons. our goal has been to get this done before the p-5 plus one,

five permanent members of the security council, united nations, plus germany meets again with iran in baghdad this time, which is next tuesday. i understand the frustration of the majority leader. first, no one has been more consistent and steadfast and, i think, sincere in their effort than the majority leader to have this body make very clear to everyone in the world, particularly the iranians, that we're not going to accept them becoming a nuclear power. and we're prepared to use economic sanctions and if necessary, certainly now the incredible threat of force. i also know the majority leader has been -- has been pushed and pulled back and forth over the last several weeks to get to a point where we can get this done before may 23. so i understand his frustration at this moment. and i hear my republican

colleagues. i look at the language that they're concerned about. they're concerned that in listing the economic sanctions as one way that can be used to stop iran from delivering -- from developing nuclear weapons and not listening to the credible threat -- the option of military force, as president obama and others have said that somehow we're sending a message of weakness. frankly, my original hope was that -- the most important thing is to get this passed before next tuesday when all the parties come to baghdad. difference here is not small. it is nonexist even. we all agree we ought to try the captions, we ought to make them sufficient. they ought not to be watered down and we all agree that we have to have the credible threat

of force being used against the iranian nuclear program if there's any real hope of the sanctions working. so i hope -- i know the majority leader has to leave the floor -- but ideally, i wish we could agree on that sentence and get it done today and get it passed by consent. if we carnghts can't, i hope wt by monday so we do send a message of unity, but the words, the procedures, the mood is standing in the waif us sending a unified message from the united states senate to the rest of the world, and particularly to the islamic republic of iran in tehran, that we mean business. right now we're not speaking with one voice. so i appeal to my colleagues, let's step back, take a breath. can we do it this afternoon? i hope so. if we can't, let's get it done over the weekend and adopt it by monday. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the snoer from south carolina. greenhouse gagraham grappled i e

tocque cowhat my friend from -- mr. graham: i would like to echo what my friend senator lieberman said. i would like to send the appropriate signal. it is not so much that we act before tuesday, even though that's important. that is we let the iranians and the worltd knothe world know whn we speefnlg i hope they're watching in tehran. they'll probably find it odd that as thatthat lidcy graham id with being -- we cangtsz agree that you should take sunday off 100-0. what they achieved was remarkable. to senator reid, you have been pulled and torn. i appreciate it. i enjoy working with you. you think maybe somebody else is doing you wrong. we're novment you got to ask the question, why would senator graham be on the floor concerned about what we say, if i

genuinely did not believe we're making a mistake? i don't want to embarrass the president. mr. president, keep it up with in. i hope sanctions work. if you need to use military force to protect this nation, if sanctions faicialtion i will be your strongest advocate. but a couple of things have been said that need to be corrected cht managers' amendment is not what woos in the base bill or we wouldn't need a managers' amendment. section 102 in the base bill is like three paragraphs. section 102 here is like 10 pages. the bottom line for me is that this section was added in the managers' amendment that didn't exist in the base bill. nothing in this act or this amendment -- or the amendments made by this act shall be construed as a declaration of war or an authorization of the use of force against iran or syria. that wasn't in the base bill.

where the hell did that come from? this is not a declaration of war. but when you put this sentence in there and the new amendment doesn't say one thing about the use of force to control the iranian behavior, the president's own words are all options on the table, the reason i'm exercised is that we're now producing a product that backs away from where the president has been regarding all options on the table and we end the new managers' package with a statement nothing here authorizes the use of force against iran and syria. it's all about sanctions in the bill and the only time we mention force is to say we won't do it or we won't authorize it. all i'm asking is what senator lieberman said. these sanctions are great. i hope they will change iranian behavior. think haven't yet, and i don't think they ever l but i'm willing to go down this road. all i'm asking is that when you include in the legislation ideas

or concepts that will change iranian behavior, that we put on the table all options are on the table in the bill because this will be the first piece of legislation where that is ominously omitted and to end the whole concept of what we're trying to do with a declarative statement, "this is not a declaration of war or the use of force against iran or syria" would make th the iranians belie that we're all about sanctions and that is it. i'm all for sanctions, but if you're listenin listening in tei want more on the table to make you change your behavior. this summer is going to be tough for the world. the iranians talk and enrich. there's nothing i've seen credible to make me believe they're not pursuing a nuclear weapons capability. i hope the talks next tuesday will change their behavior.

i appreciate what senator menendez has done to give this president more tools to make them even tougher than they are today. but the worst thing we could do before next tuesday is leave any doubt to anybody who's watching this debate that there's more on the table than just sanctions. that on the table -- and we thoap god whopeto god we never o stop the iranian nuclear program by the use of force, if that is required. that's all i want us to saivment and i hope we never get there. and this last statement i agree with, that i'm not asking for a declaration of war against irng or syria, but i will not ask for -- who has killed over 2 that americans in iraq who has been a

proxy for evil throughout the planet, whose own president doesn't believe the holocaust doesn't existed. to my friends at aparks i agree with you most of the time. but if you think this is the right earnings i couldn't agree with you more. add one simple line that in addition to all the fine work of the banking committee and my dear friend senator menendez, we in the senate recognize what the president has been saying for months; that military force is also an option. the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mr. corker: first of all, we have two things on the floor that are being discussed right now. and i know this is confusing to probably people in tehran. but the fact is that i agree that senator menendez and kirk have done a great job. i am on the banking committee. we voted this out unanimously. do hope with this managers' package being added that we will work out the details here. my sense is, by the way, we'll do that. my sense is we'll do at that by the end of the day. so on these sanctions bill, i hope it goes forward and i'd

like to move now to something called a resolution, and if you saw a minute ago, senator reid talked about something not having the force of law. we're not talking about the sanctions bill. it has the force of law. hopefully it will become law soon. what doesn't have the force of law is senate res3806789 i'd like to have a colloquy, mr. president, if i could, with the senator from connecticut, the senator from south carolina, because sometimes -- the presiding officer: without objection. mr. corker: sometimes what happened what happens around here -- it happened in libya -- beesed a resolution at 9:00 one night by unanimous consent, and somebody over the state department decided that that was an authorization for force. and that was not the intent of that resolution. what i'd like to clear up -- pedwe're talking now about the resolution, not about the sanctions bill. but i would like to have a colloquy since these are the cosponsors of senate resolution

3806789 and there is clause six in here that says "strongly supports united states policy to prevent the government of the islamic republic of iran from acquiring nuclear weapons capable." there are some wise people over at the state department that could use that statement as a declaration of war. and i think they acknowledge that. i don't think the you are a authorize of this resolution -- i don't think the authors of this resolution want that to be the caissments so i would like to clarify that in the resolution -- not in the sanctions bill -- none of the language included in senate resolution 308 may be interpreted as congress article support for military operations in in. hope that should the administration decide-to-kinetic activities are the only avenue available -- we all hope that doesn't happen but believe it can -- that connetic activities are the only avenue available to achieve our policy abives, they will come to congress for authorization. this is not intended as an

authorization of war. i think these two cosponsors of the resolution agree and if the president doe want to go to warh iran, it is his responsibility to come to congress. is that the agreement, gentlemen? mr. lieberman: i am pleased to respond to my colleague from tenton. i am glad that he raised the question because i know there is at least one other member of the senate had a has similar concerns. the interpretation of my friend from tennessee of our intention in this resolution is exactly right, which is that there is nothing in this resolution that is intended to bening authorization of the use of military force in iran by the president or government military of the united states of america. this resolution's main focus is to essentially back up with a congressional statement the position that president obama has articulated that no matter

what happens containment of a nuclear iran is not an acceptable policy from the point of view of the security of the united states. that our policy is to prevent the government of the islamic republic of iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability. and that's exactly why clause six was put in there to say that we do not accept containment, that our policy is prevention of islamic republic of iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability. but i want to be really clear that there's nothing in that language that senator graham or i and senator casey see as the authorization of the use of military force. if at any point circumstances in iran require the judgment of the commander of the military action, i suspect particularly p

it lasts a period of time, that it would bring it within the purview of the war powers understanding, that the president would come to congress seeking authorization for the use of military force. this resolution supports the negotiations going on now between the p-5-plus one iran. it expresses our hope that succeed. it is very significant in that it essentially says that we ought not to dial down the economic sanctions against iran just because they have quom to the terrible -- they have come to the tabled and make accepted one part of what we want them to do. they have got to show that they made a commitment for a verifiable end of their nuclear weapons program before we lift the economic sanctions. that's the real goal.

if they don't, they are going to face our policy of prevention, not containment. but this is not the authorization of the use of military force. i thank my friend from tennessee for raising the question, giving us the opportunity to respond. and i hope it reassures anyone else in the senate who may have had that same concern. mr. graham: mr. president, to senator corker, very good question. i will answer you directly, just like senator lieberman. the resolution is not designed to authorize the use of force where anybody in the state department or administration could say, we've got the green light to go into iran from congress. that's not what we're intending to dovment we're intending to echo a policy statement made by president obama that the policy of the united states will be, if you're listening in tehran, not to contain you, if you obtain nuclear capability. and i want to lodge an objection to my own resolution by my

colleague, rand paul, who could not be here, so i'm going to object on his behalf. he wants to strike two provisions of the resolution. i don't think we can get there from here. but to senator corker, if you wanted to add a line into this resolution, this is not authorization to use force, i would gladly do that so that nobody could mistake it. but here's what senator paul suggested to me. what if they get -- you know, we don't want to contain them. but what if we wake up one day and they explode a bomb out in the desert and they've already got it, what would we do then? does that mean we have to go after their nuclear program or would we try to contain them? it means from my point of view, we should try to go after them. if the iranians think they can get a nuclear weapon, then we're going to contain them, it doesn't work that way. they need to know that their regime's survival is at stake if they go down this road. if by some accident of our

intelligence being wrong, if that could be even conceivable, we're not going to allow nuclear-capable iran, period. bu but to this resolution, it's an authorization of force. senator menendez, this last statement which wasn't in the base bill, i don't object to that. this is not a declaration of war, i don't know why somebody added syria. we're not talking about syria. people want to limit the united states' ability to defend itself sometimes. i want to put a sentence in your bill that all options are on the table for months if not years. mr. corker: to end this colloquy, i know senator mccain and senator menendez would like to speak. i fully support all the comments made by the senator from connecticut and the senator from south carolina. i'm not associating myself by the senator from kentucky that

you just alluded to, and if would you, i'd love for to you insert that language into it regarding the fact that this is not authorization for the use of force. but i want to say that's not because i don't support exactly the sentiments that are being laid out here, i do. i just want us to continue, i want the senate to be a part of any action that might take place, hopefully it won't, but if we went up with kinetic activity there, i want us to be involved in that. so as a nation we go forward if that occurs in a unified way and we don't end up with the same kind of thing we've had in the past where we end up having partisan disputes. i thank you very much and with that, i yield the floor. mr. graham: senator mccain. the presiding officer: the senator from arizona. mr. mccain: isn't it true the president of the united states said it was -- quote -- "unacceptable for the iranians to have a nuclear weapon"? i have a series of questions. mr. graham: yes. mr. mccain: doesn't that mean

the united states of america would reserve all options in case of an unacceptable situation where the iranians continue and we have seen no deviation from that path towards the acquisition of a nuclear weapon? mr. graham: the senator is correct. here's what president obama said: all options are on the table when it comes to the iranian nuclear program. israel, i have your back, containment is not an option. i agree with the president. i think he's made the right statements and i'm just trying to reinforce them. mr. mccain: so isn't it true that we're having this debate about whether this amendment or this legislation could be construed as an authorization or opening the door for military action, that the administration's policy is already very clear that it's unacceptable for iran to have a

nuclear weapon and i'm sure that over time the three of us could talk for a long time about the implications for the entire region of iran, not just the threat to israel, but the entire region of an iranian government which is -- quote -- "going to wipe israel off the map" which then of course would force other nations in the region to develop nuclear weapons. isn't it true that it has been a matter of national policy, both republican and democrat, that it is unacceptable, and that does not mean that we automatically would use military force, but it does mean that we would have to react to the development of -- on the part of the iranians of a nuclear weapon. so doesn't this resolution that we are considering, it's no different in any way, in fact, it's less specific than what the president of the united states has said and what i believe most

every member of the united states senate is on record one way or the other saying that the development of a nuclear weapon by iran would be an unacceptable situation. mr. graham: let me try to answer that. senator menendez and a group of us, senator lieberman and casey and hoeven and myself, did the resolution in question today to echo the president's statement that we're not going to have containment as a policy. there are some people, even republicans, i might add, some very prominent republicans, believe that you could contain a nuclear armed iran if you told them if you ever used a weapon we would wipe you off the face of the earth. president clinton gave a very good answer to that situation. he said the biggest fear he has is not the iranians would put a nuclear missile -- weapon on top of a missile and hit jerusalem or tel aviv. that's his concern. his biggest is that they would share the technology with a terrorist organization. that's why you can't let them

get the capability. the resolution is echoing the statement of the president that containment is not an option. 78 cosponsors. senator paul has the right to op object, did he, i don't think we can get there from here, he has a different view of what we're trying to company do, honestly held, just difference of opinion. back to the sanctions bill. senator menendez you did a great job as you always do on things like this. the reason that i found about this and got so concerned is section 603 is something that wasn't in the base bill, and, again, it says nothing in this act or the amendments made by this act shall be construed as a declaration of war or authorization of use of force against iran or syria. one, nothing in here has anything to do with syria and i'm okay to say that. i swoant dweent this to be a declaration of war. i want it to be a good sanctions will. bill. -- bill. but if you don't have the other means available to stop the

iranian program as the president has indicated all options on the table, that has to be said because we would be leaving a gap in our policy. so just as senator menendez and senator reid, all i'm asking is that we insert a provision that basically echoes what the policy of this country is, all opgdz on the table, not just sanctions. and we will get a lot of votes for this. mr. mccain: finally, i know our friend senator menendez is going to speak, but this is not any change in american policy towards iran, both republican and democrat. and that is that there is an existential threat to the state of israel and other countries in the region, other arab countries in the region that would be posed if the iranians

continued on their development of nuclear weapons. so this resolution is important statement on the part of the united states senate and congress, but to somehow say that this is a major change in policy of any kind, obviously, flies in the face of a record of this president and previous presidents as regards to this issue. i also would like to thank the senator from new jersey for his continued contributions to these national security issues. mr. graham: by close out and yield to the floor to senator menendez. you're right about the resolution. we're not coming up with a new idea. we're just reinforcing an idea put on the table by our own president. we're not going to contain a nuclear capable iran as a policy. it's not a declaration of war, an authorization of force. it's restating a policy at a time when it may matter. back to stantions bill. mr. mccain: and if there was a need for military action, it is the view of all of us we would

come back to the congress of the united states before any such action were contemplated. mr. graham: i think the president would be wise to include the congress. i'm a conservative, if he thinks -- who thinks the war powers act is unconstitutional. i find it outside awed our party has railed against the war powers act until president obama's in office. all of a sudden we're great champions. war powers act. but what i would say is it would be wise for the president to consult with the congress and for us to be united, and if you do believe in the war powers act, he has to come back in a period of time to get approval to continue, whatever the president needs to defend us against a nuclear-capable iran, i think is best made by the commander in chief consulting with the congress but you can't have 535 commander in chiefs. and just back to the -- to the sanctions bill. the problem i have is that it's

silent on a concept that we all agree on, and i don't want to create a document tuesday before the negotiations tuesday that doesn't include something beyond sanctions to change the iranian behavior that we all want to avoid. and this says -- it is the sense of the congress that the goal of compelling iran to abandon the efforts to gain nuclear weapons capability, it goes through ten pages talking about sanctions and not once does it mention the possibility of military force, and that's what i want to add, that concept. with that i yield the floor and i hope we can work this out and senator menendez, you're a great guy, i'm sorry we're having this problem, but it's very important to me we get this part of it right. the presiding officer: the senator from new jersey.

mr. menendez: mr. president, i appreciate the comments of my colleague from south carolina and my colleague from arizona, they're leaders in this regard in terms of the national defense. and if i ever had a case i would want senator graham to argue it for me, because he is a fine, fine lawyer and i've seen that on the floor and i've seen it in his role when he -- as a reservist goes and part of it, i understand part of the judge advocate general program, he does a fantastic job. but let me paying some observations that i think are critically important. number one is i share senator graham and senator lieberman's concern and the desire to have the senate on record as saying that we do not and cannot accept an iran that has nuclear power and nuclear weapons. that's why i signed onto their resolution. and i think their resolution moving exactly in tandem,

parallel with the sanctions legislation that i played a significant role with the chairman of the banking committee, chairman johnson, and others to bring to the floor, is incredibly important. but let me make some observations. first of all, in the committee itself when it passed unanimously, all of our colleagues on both sides of the aisle had the opportunity to offer an amendment and/or language that would have done exactly what the senator wants and no one sought to do it because the focus was on the jurisdiction of the committee, which is economic sanctions. economic sanctions that have proven in their first iteration to begin to have real consequences to the iranians, devalued the rial by over 50%, creating challenges in their economy, closing the financial institutions they can deal with in the world, looking at their oil, having major discounts on

their oil, finding it increasingly difficult to sell, and we have the opportunity to perfect that, to make it even more stronger, even more viable before they head into negotiations and think they can buy time. now, it was silent when it came out of the banking committee, and yes, in the manager's amendment there is that provision because, in fact, in order to deal with one of the objections of our colleague on the other side of the aisle, senator paul, provisions saying that this was not a direct military authorization was included so that we could ultimately find the opportunity to pass it on the floor with unanimous consent, the same union imty the banking committee -- unanimousity we had, the same as on the bank of iran. that unanimity sends a powerful message to the iranians. so it was in the process of

accommodating that senator reed reid talked about over the last two months to try to get us to pint that we could pass legislation that in the process of accommodating that that that language comes forward. the concern is ultimately taken care of by senator lieberman and senator graham's resolution. that in fact the president has said as the commander in chief of the country that a nuclear-armed iran is not an option, that containment of a nuclear powered iran is not an option. this president has put all of the military assets that are necessary, that did not exist before in the persian gulf to both respond to any incident or to initiate any action that he thinks may be necessary, and so therefore those actions more than any words have made it very clear to the iranians that that is a real possibility if the

national interests and security of the united states is ultimately challenged. so i really think that insisting in the sanctions part of the legislation that this has the full force and effect of law and real consequences to the iranians in their economy, which is the most significant way that we undermine their march towards nuclear weapons, is important to move. while you move independently the legislation that senator lieberman and senator graham have talked about, which is making the intentions or amplifying the intentions of the president crystal clear. but you should not should hostage the sanctions legislation in order to accomplish a goal that should be taken care of by the lieberman-graham resolution. and you shouldn't hold it

hostage when in fact you have a powerful tool to exercise before the next round of negotiations. the iranians must know that we are one of purpose and that oneness comes by passing the sanctions unanimously through this chamber, and achieving ultimately their effects. so that's the only point of disagreement with us. don't hold the sanctions legislation hostage. none of our colleagues sought to include that language, and the language that is included is in response to a colleague from the other side of the aisle in order to be able to move the legislation. so you can't have your cake and eat it too, but we do need to have our ability to move this sanction before the senate adjourns this week. and that, i think, will meet our collective interest as a nation. there's only one piece of turf we should be fighting for, and that's the collective turf that

is our country. and that is what we can do by passing the sanctions legislation. i hope senator reid will have the opportunity to clear the way and to move it by unanimous consent. and in doing so, send a real powerful message on behalf of the senate. with that, i yield the floor, mr. president. mr. alexander: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mr. alexander: mr. president, i want to ask consent that the senator from delaware, senator coons, and i could have a colloquy for up to 15 minutes. the senator from delaware is not yet on the floor, but i know that he's coming because i know other senators would like to speak at 2:00, i'm going to go ahead with my remarks. and then when he comes, let him go ahead with his. mr. president, each year

approximately 50,000 foreign students received -- receive advanced degrees from universities in this country in the areas of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. we call that in shorthand, stem degrees -- science, technology, skwraoerbgs and math -- science, technology, engineering and mathematics. of those 50,000 students, at least 17,000 of them go home to other parts of the world. mr. president, these are some of the brightest men and women in the world. they're attracted to the best universities in the world. i always say that our universities, our great research universities especially are our secret weapons for job growth. since world war ii many estimates by the national academy of sciences suggest that more than half of our new jobs

have come from increases in technology. it is hard to think of any important new innovation in biology or in the sciences that's not had some sort of government-sponsored research over that time. so our research universities are job factories. and our advanced degree holders are the ones who come up with the great ideas. and as a former president of the university of tennessee, which is a fine research university, i know that increasingly in the science, technology, engineering, and math programs in those universities, most of the students are from other countries. these students line up in india and compete hoping to get a chance to come to the united states. they have done the same in china. they do this everywhere in the world. about 17,000 of those 50,000 who come from the advanced degrees

go home each year. senator coons and i yesterday introduced a piece of legislation that would help those 17,000 students -- and we hope more who may come -- to come to the united states, get their advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering and math, and then stay here and create jobs in our country instead of going home and creating them in other countries. i'll have to admit there's a value to students who go home. it's probably our best foreign diplomacy to have someone come from another country, live here, learn our values, go home and then explain those at home. but we want the next google to be created here, not in china. and we want the bright, brightest people in the world. we're going to attract them here, provide education for them; we want to give them every opportunity for them to come here. and today we make them go home. we make them go home because of our immigration policy. the legislation that senator coons and i introduced yesterday

and which now has the support already of at least two other senators -- senator lugar and senator isakson, who have asked to cosponsor. it would, number one, create a new student visa for citizens of other nations who need, who want to come here to pursue a masters or a doctor's degree in science, technology, engineering, mathematics. number two, once they get that degree, the new visa would allow them to remain here for 12 months looking for a job. and, three, once they're employed, the bill establishes a procedure to allow the students to change their immigration status and to receive a green card. and finally, these new green cards would not count toward any existing green card limit. this idea is not new. it has as much support outside of the senate chamber as any idea i know about, from

companies, from -- like microsoft who tell us that they have 2,600 jobs available that require computer science degree, that start at $104,000 a year. they'd like to have these students work here and create jobs for us. we know from our own experience the importance of these green cardholders. the oak ridge national laboratory in tennessee is one of our great, probably the greatest engineering laboratory in the world. who runs it? dr. jeffrey watts worth ran it -- wadsworth. he had a green card from the united kingdom. dr. thomas zakaria, he has a green card from india. we want them here, not in india, not in the united kingdom, not in canada. i greatly appreciate the leadership of senator coons of delaware on this issue. he's worked hard on it. he's been a leader on it.

and i only have one more thing to say about it before i step aside and let him talk about his ideas. in 2005 we began to work on something called the america competes act in this body. in 2007, we passed it. it was sponsored by the democratic leader and the republican leader. it had 35 republican sponsors and 35 democratic sponsors. it passed the house. it was reauthorized last year. we asked the best minds in our nation to tell us what would be the 20 things that we could do as a congress to make sure that we are competitive in the future, that we can keep this high standard of living we've come to enjoy. and it's a very high standard of living. we have about 5% of all the people in the world. we have about 25% of all the wealth in the world that we produce each year. how can we keep doing that? they gave us these 20 ideas, and we passed many of them. it's one of the great successes of our congress over the last

several years, working together. one piece of unfinished business from the america competes act of 2005 and 2007 was pin a green card on the foreign student who gets a graduate degree in science, math, technology, engineering. the legislation that senator coons and i offered yesterday would do that. i greatly value his leadership and the way he's approached this. and i hope that we can work with our colleagues on both sides of the aisle to take this idea, turn it into a law, and give our country more of an opportunity to create new jobs as we move forward. mr. president, i've already asked permission for the next 15 minutes so that senator coons and i would be in a colloquy. i'd like to defer to him for his comments at this time. mr. coons: thank you so much, senator alexander. i can't think, mr. president, of a better person to partner with,

to seek advice and leadership from on the issue of stem immigration and education reform than senator alexander, a national leader on education policy. like me, senator alexander is the son of a former classroom teacher, but he also served as the u.s. secretary of education and president of a prominent university, university of tennessee. so he knows firsthand the challenges of the opportunity lost when tens of thousands of foreign nationals who come here and seek the opportunity to get stem masters and doctoral degrees in some of our strongest and best universities, are then forced to return home to their nations of origin rather than being able to stay here if they choose, to create jobs, to grow businesses and to contribute to our country and our economy. and as someone who before running for public office worked with a highly innovative materials-based science company that employed over 1,000 researchers, i too have a sense of what a great contribution immigrants have always made to this country, but particularly in these areas of innovation and

how they can contribute to our competitiveness. senator alexander's closing comment about the america competes act is where we started this conversation. i came to this senate knowing that my predecessor from delaware, senator ka*uf man, had been a strong supporter of the america competes act, and i was happy to take up the cause and to press for its reauthorization in the waning days of the 111th congress. i met with senator alexander last year and we talked about this as one of the most promising unfinished pieces of business in that critical report rising above the gathering storm and in that vital piece of legislation, the america competes act. as senator alexander referenced, the america competes act was passed with strong bipartisan support. it was the sort of thing that was focused on moving america forward by identifying strong ideas that had support across the whole country and a lot of different sectors and from both parties. and it's my hope that this is the beginning of building a strong bipartisan coalition on moving forward on immigration

reform. let me talk for a minute, if i could, mr. president, about our history and tradition of immigrants contributing to our country being a strong part of job creation and growth here, and in particular immigrants who come to this country to be educated it stem disciplines, science, technology, engineering and math. if you think about it for most of the last century we had some of the strongest universities in the world. for much of the last 50 years anyone who came here from a foreign land to get a doctorate in a stem discipline, if they chose to go home, they were going home to a country that really wasn't a competitive environment. the united states, because of our advantages and workforce and infrastructure and our legal system, our entrepreneurial culture, our capital markets, we were the world leaders in all sorts of technology, innovation and competitiveness. that's no longer the case. we still have the strongest universities in the world -- 35 out of top 50 -- but today those 17,000 stem doctoral and masters graduates senator alexander

referred to, when we force them to go home to their country of origin rather than allowing them to compete for those jobs here and contribute to the american economy, they're finding open arms. so nations like india and china, who are vigorous competitors in workforce, the resources to take advantage of those opportunities. we need an immigration system that responds to the modern economy and the opportunities of a highly competitive modern world. rather than hemorrhaging these highly skilled folks and having them return home, we should give them the opportunity to participate in being job creators here. the numbers bear this out, mr. president. if you take a look at the fortune 500 companies today, more than 40% of them were founded by immigrants or their children. folks who have come to this country recently from other parts of the the world have established companies that employ more than 10 million people worldwide and have combined revenues of more than $4 trillion, a figure greater than the g.d.p. of every country in the world except for u.s.,

china and japan. let me give you one example that's meant a lot to me. i've become friends with the c.e.o. of bloom energy. his name is k.r. shrader. he is native india. he came to the united states to get his doctorate in mechanical engineer and went on to be a researcher at nasa's ames center. he runs a company, bloom energy, that created 1,000 jobs. just last week the governor of delaware and my senior senator, tom carper, and i joined others at the site of a former shuttered chrysler plant for the groundbreaking of a facility that bloom energy will make possible. why would we want a capable, bright contributor to our economy like k.r. to be forced to go home to his country of india rather than welcoming here and giving him the chance to participate, contribute and potentially become not just an

american business leader but american citizen? so we need to make it easier for the next generation of inventors and innovators to create jobs here. this bill, as senator alexander laid out, is relatively simple. it creates a new class of visas for foreign students to pursue stem masters and doctoral degree programs and allows us to continue a conversation about how do we recognize the long-standing central contribution to our which i, our culture and our country of immigrants. i believe there's other areas of immigration reform that have to be on the table that we have to move forward on. i am eager to move forward on family-focused reform and other areas as well where i'm a cosponsor of other immigration bills. but my hope is that this legislation will get the attention it deserves, will get the broad support from members of both sides of the aisle that it deserves and that it will form part of a compromise that will address the needs of all the stakeholders in immigration reform in a responsible and balanced manner. this legislation is not the end

of the road but it is a critical step forward in making sure that we continue a bipartisan, thoughtful and constructive dialogue on how do we deal with an immigration system that's broken and that doesn't make america as competitive as it could be? i want to close by thanking senator alexander for his leadership on this, allowing me to work with him and produce a bill that is streamlined, that is simple, is accessible and can contribute to make america a land that continues to welcome and celebrates celebrate the real job creators, inventors and innovators from all part of the world. senator alexander. mr. alexander: senator coons is one of the most eloquent speakers in the house. he did a good job explaining the bill. he mentioned the fact there are other immigration issues, and there are. there are a number of ones that i would like to work on. and get something done on. i was here when we tried a comprehensive immigration plan a few years ago.

it had strong bipartisan support, but one of the lessons we learned i think in that effort was that we don't do comprehensive well here in the senate. sometimes it's better to go step by step. that's been true for a long time. we remember henry clay as the great compromiser but henry clay's greatest compromise wasn't passed by henry clay. he failed. and it nearly ruined his health and went to massachusetts to recover from it. and a senator named stephen a. douglas from illinois, the home of our instant democratic leader, came to the floor and introduced the clay compromise section by section, and each section passed with a different coalition with senator sam houston being the only senator who voted for each one of them. so my hope is that with the broad support that we have for this very simple idea, pin a green card on the lapel of a

gifted graduate of an advanced program in science, technology, engineering, and math, allow them to stay here and create jobs here instead of forcing them to go home, i hope that we have such strong support for this idea we can go ahead and pass it and then we can follow that up with the other necessary steps that we need to do on immigration and hopefully we can do that with a coalition that represents democrats and republicans as well. so this is a great idea, and somebody might say why don't they just do it the way we're doing it now? right now it it's h-1-b visas. they're complicated, not enough of them. this is simple. a vees, you get to stay 12 months while you look for a job, you get a job, you get a green card and no cap on the number. that's the idea and i thank senator coons for his leadership. i look forward to turning this good idea, this piece of

unfinished business in the bipartisan america competes act into law. mr. coons: thank you senator alexander. i might in closing say the economics of this legislation are simple but as senator alexander and i recognized, any step towards immigration reform is complicated. making it easier for foreign-born american-educated innovators to stay in the united states is just one of the many urgently needed steps to reform our immigration system. i see senator durbin has come to the floor. i'm proud to cosponsor the dream act, i also support the uniting american families act. there are other pieces of legislation essential to allow to us recognize and strengthen the role that immigrants play in the fabric of our country, but i think this opportunity today to move forward a bipartisan bill that focuses on this one area without caps, with a new class of immigration vees, is an important contribution to moving this discussion forward. i want to thank senator alexander for his leadership.

mr. durbin: mr. president? i ask consent to speak in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: today the postmaster general announced they would begin consolidating mail facilities around the wasn't curnt. despite this there are a few bright spots in illinois. the facilities in springfield and fox valley which the postmaster general originally slated for closure will remain open. additionally i'm glad the postmaster general has heeded our repeated calls to keep illinois jobs in illinois and other jobs in the states where the processing facilities currently exist. the postmaster general's original plan would have potentially sent over 500 illinois postal jobs to surrounding states, along with the mail they process so efficiently for so many years. beyond the postal employees,

the postal service supports tens of thousands of private sector jobs in illinois which is the center of the mailing praintding industry. -- printing industry. today's announcements are difficult for those of my colleagues -- my constituents who live in quincy and rockford, carbondale and bloomington. i have consistently insisted and the postmaster general has assured thee me that we are going to avoid layoffs and that all of the employees in these facilities will have the opportunity to pursue another role within the postal service or to accept at their -- if they wish, early retirement incentives. i'm told none of these facilities will close before the end of the year. as i said, today's news is disappointing and difficult for many in my state including postal customers, employees, and small businesses. still i think it's important to note how far we've come from the postmaster general's original plan to where we are today.

originally they sought closure of 250 processing facilities nationwide. today's aunemployment, 140 -- aunemployment, 140 and called for the closures of 340 rural postal service. the original plan targeted nine plants for closure. after countless hours of meetings and hard work and a great deal of floor debate, we've moved off that potentially destructive path. let me say this word, too, mr. president, and you know this subject better than any other member in the united states senate. we met in my office with the postmaster general, i believe it was in november or early december, and sat down with him and said that his proposal to reduce the number of post offices and processing facilities could be the death knell of postal service as we know it today. you remember, mr. president, we challenged him, we said mr. postmaster general, do not make any of these changes until

may 15. give congress an opportunity to come up with a way to save money for the postal service, to preserve the postal service, and to do it by way of legislation, which is why we were elected. he said reluctantly -- he didn't want to do it -- reluctantly he gave us a letter and said i won't do anything until may 15, i'll give the house and senate a chance to do their work. if you'll remember, mr. president, i called senator lieberman, chairman of the administration committee, and government operations committee, and said to him with this jurisdiction we've got to roll up our sleeves and get to work. he said we're ready. senator collins and carper and others will work together to pass a senate bill that achieves postal service reform in a fairer way. and he did. the same day i called chairman darrell issa, a california republican chairman of the house committee with the responsibility for the postal service. and i said to chairman issa, we

now have until may 15 to do our job, to pass a bill in the house and the senate and get it to the president. and now the clock is running. you'll remember, mr. president, we had a break over the holiday and we came back, and we were anxious. we didn't want to waste any time. and let the record show that at the end of the day the united states senate on a bipartisan basis passed the postal reform bill. 13 republicans joined 49 on the democratic side passing a bipartisan bill. well, what happened in the house? the answer is nothing happened in the house. the house of representatives failed to do their job, failed to pass postal service reform. to my knowledge they didn't bring a bill to the floor. and then may 15 came. the postmaster general kept his word and waited and then he made this aunemployment -- announcement.

if the senate bill that we passed had become the law of the land, today's announcement would never have taken place. we set up a process for post offices and processing facilities to be evaluated in terms of their efficiency and cost that i think was sensible, reasonable, and would have saved money. we didn't get to that point because the house failed to act. that is the harsh reality of why we face what we do today. only the speaker of the house and his majority can explain why they didn't accept the challenge to legislate. my question to them is if you're not here to legislate, why are you here? an issue of such national importance as the future of the postal service should have been done as it was in the senate on a bipartisan basis in the house of representatives. we did it here. we worked together. i cannot even remember how many amendments we considered, but we labor day through every single -- labored through every single one of them and got it done. now i look around my state and

see six or seven major processing facilities closed and it breaks my heart. because would what we did in the senate would have avoided some of those. would have at least put a process in place that was a lot fairer. well, my last word to the members of the house is it's not too late. it's not too late to accept a responsibility and 0 to pass -- and to pass the senate bill if you can't pass one of your own. call our bipartisan senate proposal reform bill to the floor. at least give it a vote in the house of representatives. if they can pass it, let's send it to the president and perhaps before the end of the year save some of these postal facilities. i don't want to create false hope because i couldn't believe that may 15 would come and go and the house wouldn't act but that's what happened. let's hope that changes for the better. i'm going to continue to work with the president, the presiding officer, as well as the president of the united states and all of the committee members. the postal service is something special. i'll close by saying this: when

they ask americans what they think of people who work in the federal government they don't always have the highest opinion, including members of congress. but when you ask them about what branch of the federal government they have particularly positive feelings about, it's the postal service. you know why and i do, too. it's that letter carrier who is looking in the window and waving at your mom to make sure she's okay each day as she looks expectantly for the delivery of the mail even if it's just some circular. that's that visit each day that keeps her in touch with the world and keeps our nation in touch with itself. that's the postal service. and the men and women, just went into the springfield post office, my local branch recently, they couldn't have been kinder or more courteous, helping all the people that are there. our postal employees are some of the best federal employees in america, and i'm proud of what they've done. i'm sorry they're going through this change, i want something we wanted to see happen but we're going to do this in a way that's good for the future of the post office. i hope the house will only join

us in this bipartisan effort. mr. president, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. reed: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i am joined by my colleague, senator brown of ohio, and we are concerned as to my -- is too mild a term. we are extraordinarily apprehensive that in 45 days the interest rate on student loans will double in the united states. that young people and middle aged people who are struggling to educate themselves and reeducate themselves will be faced with a tremendous increase in the cost of college and postsecondary education. they'll go from 3.4% to 6.8%. this is particularly ironic when the federal reserve routinely lends to large banking stiewtions institutions huge sums of money at less than 1%. so this is a huge, huge impact

on middle-income americans who are struggling with so many challenges, housing costs, employment problems, the whole plethora of issues that they face. it's estimated that seven million students including 43,000 in rhode island will suffer because of this doubling that will take place. now, a lot of our colleagues have said, of course, we don't want to see this happen. but i thought it was terribly ironic yesterday they with very few exceptions voted consistently for budgets that would in, in fact, double the student interest rate. one of the budgets they voted for previously, the ryan budget from the house would also eliminate the in-school interest subsidy for certain loans. so there's this incon griewty between we're all for keeping interest rates for low for students, of course in our budget we double them. there's another problem here.

it's been reported in so many different national and local newspapers, there's a huge problem with student debt. we've reached the $1 trillion mark in student debt. this could be the next big, huge bubble that we face financially. it certainly impairs the ability of young men and women when they graduate to take the job they want, buy the house they want because they're struggling with huge debt, and we're adding to that by doubling this interest rate. now, this is a policy issue, but it's an intensely personal issue. i've received letters from thousands -- well, many, many constituents. about the potential impact. i know senator brown from ohio has, too. i wonder, senator, if you have some comments at this point. mr. brown: thank you senator reed. i appreciate the work he has done and senator harkin and the work senator reed has been working on this issue for months and months and months, and i'm

just still amazed that the senate just refuses time and again and the house refuses to do the right thing on this. this -- this started back in 2007. it started with president bush, with a democratic house and democratic senate. the presiding officer was involved, senator reed, others. we passed it. we did a five-year freeze of interest ratesnow -- rates and now the bipartisanship seems to have gone and repeatedly this body has either failed to step up or actually voted "no" and voted wrong in some cases to move forward on this. and i -- as senator reed -- i have tens of thousands of people in my state, 380,000 ohioans are now in the stafford subsidized loan program. it will mean about a thousand dollars, as it will in rhode island, per student if we fail to act by july 1st, per year. and i've been to four campuses just in the last month or so, at a community college in

cleveland, at kayo county community college, university of cincinnati in the other enof the state, wright state university in dayton and ohio university in columbus. all -- students, one was head of the republican -- young republicans on one of the campuses. others are democrats. most are just students trying to find a way to pay their bills. they're working-class kids, they're middle-class kids, thee poor kids. they're kids that really want to find a way to get ahead. we hear the same stories over and over but let me just share one that -- on my web site, people have sign up and just come to my web site and told us their story. and i'll just share one of those, and i know senator reed has been hearing from people in -- you know, in providence and warwick and all over his -- his state also. this comes from dorothy in mount sterling, ohio. she's a special ed teacher. she said, "i never thought student loans would" -- she wants to be a special ed teacher. "i never thought student loans would have such a huge impact on my life. i'm studying to be a special ed teacher, i want to make a difference so our young estrogen

rations have an equal opportunity to succeed in life. i rely on student loans to pay for my education and to assist me in times of need in this harsh economic climate. higher interest rates mean i'll never be able to afford a home or reliable vehicle, i'll never be able to provide for my family. i'll always feel in debt to be trying to make myself a better person, trying to be a better citizen for our country and for the state of ohio. given the chance for better job opportunity outside of my area of expertise, i'd surely take it into great consideration. i know that in years to come i'll desperately be looking to relieve myself from the cost of my education. i feel like i've been punished for wanting an education, wanting to better myself so that i can better the lives of others. i want to make a difference. i'm fighting against those who don't even realize what it means to truly struggle. please, don't stop fighting for me. -- for me." you can hear the desperation here. you can hear the focus she has on community service and public service but you can also hear the -- the view that she's being undercut by decisions we're

making or not making here. she also -- dorothy also said something else that's pretty interesting. when we saddle these young people with loans, the average four-year graduate in ohio who's actually -- who's in a student -- who has debt, has about $27,000 in debt. and you know what that means? if we pile more on dorothy or -- or on somebody in rhode island or vermont, it means they're less likely to buy a house, less likely to start a business, less likely to start a family. that's just morally wrong that we are standing in their way or making that harder. but think what it does to the economy, too. i want people like her to get an education without huge debt, to buy a home, to begin to provide and prosper and lift up the -- the -- un, lift the whole community -- you know, lift the whole community. and her -- as a productive worker and somebody who cares about the community. we have no business taking this away from people like her and adding to her debt, and that's why we've got to do this by july 1st. if i would -- i could yield back to the senator from rhode island.

[inaudible] mr. reed: -- tremendous leader on this issue because he sort of leads from the front. he's in ohio. he's talking to students. he's talking to families. he's -- he understands the personal ramifications of this. and, you know, let there be no mistake, this is a program that benefits middle and lower middle-income americans. 60% of the dependent students who qualifies for subsidized loans come from families with incomes of less than $60,000. this is not a perk for the super wealthy. 70% of the independent students -- that's the term of art for those adults or older people who may have some previous training but they've got to go back to the community college to get a certificate, they're trying to transition from a job that was shipped overseas to one that they think they can get here -- 70% of independent students, their incomes are less than $30,000 a

year. so you're talking about people who cannot afford a doubling of interest rates. but there's another issue here, too. it's not just, as senator brown pointed out, to fulfill the legitimate, in fact, admirable personal ambitions of establishing yourself in the community, buying a home, raising a family. this is about our future, our productivity as a nation, our ability to compete in an incredibly difficult international global economy. we've looked at the -- the statistics and universities like georgetown, their center for education and work force had 60% of the jobs -- said 60% of the jobs by 2018, a few years from now, will require some post-secondary education. 60%. but in 2010, only 38% roughly of working adults had a two-year or four-year degree. so we've got this gap. a 20% gap between the skills we

need through post-secondary education and the skills we have. and we hear it, again, not just in analytical papers that are done by think tanks. we hear it every time we go back to either ohio or rhode island because employers come up to us and say, i've got jobs to fill. i can't find people with the skills, the training that i need to give them the job. i'd be happy to yield. mr. brown: you know, senator -- senator jack reed from rhode island is one of the few graduates of west point in this body and served his country in so many ways and still does. but i think about jack reed, when i think about what happened with the g.i. bill after world war ii. you know, we're -- we want to help individual people with keeping these interest rates from doubling. but we know when we help lots of individual people, we help society as a whole. after world war ii, millions -- literally millions of young men

and women returned from fighting for our country, came back to the united states. the government was -- was farsighted enough in 1944, with president roosevelt, to sign the g.i. bill, preparing for this huge wash of -- of young men and women coming back from the war, what they were going to do. and we as a nation were smart enough back 60, 70 years ago -- 65, 70 years ago to help millions of those young men and women one at a time, by helping them with their education. but you know what else it did? those millions of students that benefited from the g.i. bill gave so much to society, the prosperity, perhaps our best times economically as a nation, 1940's, 1950's, 1960's, 1970's came out of the g.i. bill because we gave -- when you give -- when government helps in partnership to give opportunity to thousands or hundreds of thousands or millions of people, it also helps the country as a whole. and that's really part of our

philosophy of public service in many ways. so what these stafford loans, these subsidized loans do, as do pell grants and, you know, we're seeing efforts to cut pell grants by the house of representatives, too, which is just the stupidest thing ever in my mine. i don't understand the way some of them think. but when we provide opportunities for pell grants or stafford loans, it's helping -- it's helping people like dorothy, it's helping people individual until rhode island and vermont, but it's also helping every community, it's helping mansfield and toledo and youngstown and cleveland and garfield heights. i just think it's one of those things, there's no real -- it's just hard to understand why we wouldn't do this quickly. and i wanted to ask senator reed, if i could, he explained on the senate floor bun day -- one day how -- you know, republicans have said they're for this now, they don't want to double the interest rate, although i'm not sure of that from some of their activities, but you have talked about the way we're going to pay for this versus the way they want to pay for this. and i know you talked about

closing some tax loopholes. they talked about sort of playing off a college student against a woman needing a mammogram, i mean, cutting health care. but talk -- if you would explain that to our colleagues, explain what that difference is. mr. reed: i would be happy to, reclaiming my time, senator brown. first, let me echo what you said about the -- you know, this is about being competitive. and when you talk about the pell grants, i have to reference my colleague and predecessor, claiborne pell, because he seized on that lesson in 1965 of the g.i. bill and said, well, let's extend it to -- broadly to college students. so pell grants, stafford loans, all of those vehicles were created. and, frankly, that i think is not only the reason we've led the world in innovation and creativity, but it's the reason why america as well as and probably better than any other society in the world was able to proliferate computers and technology, et cetera, because we had a literate, well-educated

citizenry who first could invent these devices and then could use them properly. and we're in danger if we don't continue to support education, to lose our innovative edge and lose our capacity as a people to adopt innovation and technology and continue to lead. so for all these reasons, our economic future is linked to assuming that -- to continuing to support higher education. there's another point before i talk about the way we propose to pay for this is that there has been some on the other side say well, you know, the problem is tuition's just going out of sight and we're contributing to those tuitions. well, in the cost of this program, the maximum borrowing is $23,000, so this is not the driving force. and colleges do have to recognize they have to rein in costs but this is not the driving cost. this is the way so many families are able to make it through college and make it into the

economy and move up the economic ladder. but what our colleagues have said, oh, we're all for preventing this doubling. of course, yesterday they voted consistently, with very few exceptions, to double the interest on stafford loans. so what you say and what you do sometimes are different. but then they said, well, the real -- the real dispute is how we pay for it. we want to pay for it by going after money in the prevention fund. this was part of health care reform. but this prevention fund is absolutely critical. one, as senator brown indicated, people need diagnostic tests, they need to be able to go to a medical facility and get advice, assistance, a test so that they can avoid problems. that's not only sensible for the individual, that's the only way we're going to get a handle on the proliferation of costs in the health care sector.

one of the ironies of our current health care system, pending the we hope implementation of the affordable care act, is that we have millions and millions of americans who have no real access to health care, no access to preventive care now, no access to simple things like cheap pharmaceuticals to control cholesterol until they get to be 65 years old and then they go into the doctor's office and they have medicare but their problems are so much more expensive. i was speaking to ophthalmologists in my office and they said, you're absolutely right. we see people who come in for the first time really with health care under medicare that have serious problems, adult onset diabetes, glaucoma problems. if we had seen these individuals ten years ago, or a physician had, through a prescription or through other very inexpensive therapies, we could have avoided all these tremendous costs. that's what they're going after. and, oh, by the way, that is --

to me, that's another middle-class program basically because, you know, frankly, you know, if you are well-off and well-situated financially, you will get all preventive care you need. it's those people who are struggling in the middle class and moving into the middle class that need this prevention fund. now, what we have proposed, not to attack another benefit we hope or smart, wise, cost-effective approach to health care that would benefit middle-income americans, we're going after a tax dodge, plain and simple. a tax dodge that has been called by the government accountability office something that has been used to avoid over $23 billion in wage and taxes on wages in 2003 and 2004. a huge gulf. in 2005, the treasury inspector general for tax administration called this loophole a

multibillion-dollar employment tax shelter. let me tell you how it works. it's that you're an individual, a professional, a lawyer, accountant, consultant, a lobbyist and you -- your skills are what you do as a lawyer, elt set -- et cetera, the personal skills, but instead of being paid by your employer directly, you substitute a subchapter-x corporation so you are now an -- a subchapter-s corporation so you are now an employee of the corporation. sow take as minimal sayry, if you -- salary, if you will, from the corporation. but then he -- then at the end of the year, the corporation gives you a surplus which is a dividends which is taxed much cheaper and so you avoid payroll taxes. it is legal but it's a tax dodge, it's a loophole. this is so egregious a loophole that conservative columnist bob novak called it out accident

shawn hahn at the on fox called it out, the "wall street journal" called it out saying this is -- that it's a simple way to avoid paying payroll taxes, medicare tax as well as other employment taxes. now, closing this loophole is sound policy. we should do this anyway. but when we do it in conjunction with this student lending, we actually are able to help struggling families and close an egregious loophole. now, what some of our opponents have suggested, no, this is just another tax increase. we've been very, very careful. we restrict these to professional endeavors. we also restrict the impact to those making over $200,000 a year. so this is not targeted at the mom and pop stores. this is not targeted at the local laundry or the local dry

goods store or the local hardware store who organizes subchapter "s." politifact rejected this as a tax increase on mom and pop stores as false. so we have not only a sensible but a compelling way to pay for this. so if everyone tkpwraez -- agrees we can't let this happen on july 1, we have an egregious loophole that should be closed anyway to pay for it. i suggest we move on. just procedurally, let's bring this to a vote. if they want to put up a prevention fund for a vote, any other means to pay for it, fine. let us have our vote, and let us avoid the doubling of student

interest rates by july 1. but i know the senator from ohio has some comments. mr. brown: thank you. i appreciate that explanation. this is a tax loophole that almost anybody that's fair-minded about this sees as a giveaway to some -- they've called it the newt gingrich, john edwards, to be bipartisan, tax loophole that each of them benefited tens of thousands of dollars. again, they didn't cheat. they didn't break the law. they just took advantage of a tax loophole that i would think everybody here would want to close. most people play it straight. they run -- their income is their income. they pay the medicare tax on it. this is the case where they don't. and we, i thought, believed in some fairness in taxation. but back to the individual people who will benefit from this, and that's why senator reid is involved. that's why the presiding officer, senator sanders, i know cares about this. let me just share in closing one last letter. this came from courtney in

gallon way, ohio. i always had a student savings account. i put money in it every year. i assumed it would pay my way through college. before i made it to high school my grandmother fell gravely ill. my family had no other choice but to use my college savings to pay for her hospital bills and eventually her funeral. since then paying for college has been my own responsibility. all the loans are in my name. it's a burden that is constantly hanging over my head. i'm less than a year from graduating, likely with honors, from ohio state with a degree in social work. but instead of being excited and looking toward my future, i'm constantly worried about my loan debt and the possibility of rising interest rates. think about that. she's about to graduate. she wants to serve the country. she wants to serve her community. she clearly grew up with the right values, putting money aside, not spending things she wanted to do, i'm sure, when she

was mowing lawns or baby sitting or whatever she did in her teens. putting it aside and then spending it on her grandmother's medical expenses. now she's worried, upon graduation -- a wonderful moment in her life -- she's anxious about what this all means. in the life of a social worker she isn't going to make a lot of money obviously. that's what she wants to do, yet she's going to be facing these bills for years to come. i know as a future social worker i won't be making as much money as people in other professions. i may even be unable to work within the populations i'm truly interested in helping: veterans, homeless, senior citizens. if the pay would religion tker me unable to pay off my student loans. i'm passionate about my education. i hold no grudges for what needed to be done. but the threat of rising student loan interest rates has affected me in a serious way. i feel as though it's something i have no control over, which is

a very heartbreaking feeling. she may not be able to pursue the public service she wants to do as a social worker because her debt load is so heavy. and how dare people in this body make a decision by inaction or make a decision by doing nothing to heave more burden, put more debt on courtney's shoulders. how dare they, and how shameful it is that we simply can't get bipartisan agreement we had five years ago with president bush to move forward on this, close the tax loophole to pay for it. don't put courtney up against somebody that needs an immunization or a breast cancer screening or pros state cancer screening. close the tax loopholes, move forward on this. put the anxiety off courtney as much as we can and do the right thing. i yield. mr. reed: again, let me thank the senator from ohio for his

leadership, for his passion, for his commitment. we are hearing from the other side that this is just about how you pay for this necessary legislation to prevent the doubling of interest rates. we have offered a compelling way to pay for it in terms of closing this egregious loophole. they have, as senator brown indicated, once again put on the chopping block, if you will, preventive services for families across this country and potentially the most central way to begin to reduce our health care costs over time. they have -- when they wanted to, completely ignored paying for things like tax cuts. we've seen that. just recently the house passed the so-called small business tax cut act with no offsets. so, to hold literally these

students hostages to their unwillingness to bring the bill to the floor, to debate it vigorously, to vote on their proposal to pay for it, to vote on our proposal to pay for it is, i think, unfortunate, if not unconscionable. we have 45 days left. with that, mr. president, i would yield the floor. ms. klobuchar: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from minnesota. ms. klobuchar: mr. president, i rise today to urge my colleagues to join me in passing a critical bill that keeps the faith with the men and women of our reserve forces. representative klein, a republican congressman from minnesota, led this effort in the house. i am leading it in the senate. and it really affects troops from all over the country, a promise that was made to them that must be kept. my home state of minnesota,

mr. president, has no large active duty bases, but we have a long and proud tradition of military service in our national guard and our reserves. throughout every military engagement since the civil war, including the two wars we have fought over the past decade, minnesota's national guard members and reservists have served with courage and honor to defend our nation overseas. in fact, it was a rag-tag group of workers and farmers who signed up for the precursor of the national guard during the civil war, went to the battle of gettysburg and had the highest percentage of casualities of any unit in the civil war. and there is a big monument for them honoring the fact that they had that high rate of casualties and in fact held the line for troops to come in in the civil war. the wars in iraq and afghanistan have highlighted the importance of our brave citizen soldiers across the country and the unprecedented sacrifice that they have been called upon to

make. the national guard and reserves were not built to serve as an active duty force for long periods but at times as many as 40% have been guard and reserves. you know from vermont, we have many national guard that served our country. last month about 3,000 members of minnesota's national guard first brigade combat team, our red bulls, returned home from a year of service in kuwait, assisting the drawdown in iraq. some of these men and women weren't serving for first, second, or third time. some were serving for their fourth, fifth and sixth time. the overseas deployments of guard and reserve units profoundly affected families and communities in minnesota and across the nation. that's part of the reason we pushed so hard to bring those troops home from iraq. and that's also why in 2007, in

recognition of the extraordinary sacrifices that our service members and their families have made, the department of defense created the post deployment mobilizeation respite absence or pdmra as it's called program. the pdmra program awards extra leave days to service members who deploy beyond the standard rotation cycle. the motivation is simple. troops who serve multiple deployments above and beyond the call of duty are basically being deployed as active duty, even though they're not, folks who have raised their hands and stepped forward time and time again to volunteer and support our country deserve leave time at home with their families as some compensation. when they signed up to serve, mr. president, there wasn't a waiting line. and when they come home to the united states of america and they need a job or they need health care or they need an education or they want some time with their families, they should

have that. you can imagine the concern the red bulls felt, and i felt too when we learned that all of a sudden the lead benefits our troops were promised under the program were being reduced as they were serving overseas. they were promised one thing when they left and the program changed when they were gone. here's what happened. until last fall members of the reserve component who served more than one year out of six could be awarded up to four extra pdmra leave days for each extra month of service. then on september 30, 2011, the defense department changed the policy, reducing the four days down to one or two, depending on the location of service. but here's the problem. instead of grandfathering in the troops who had been promised the four days of leave under the old policy, the defense department implemented the change immediately, applying it to all troops on the ground. i can understand having a new policy. i really can. but you don't do it to the troops who have already been promised one thing.

that meant that in the middle of their deployment, 49,000 reservists deployed around the world who had been promised up to 4 days of leave for their service each month and who had earned their leave were told with little warning that the days that they were promised under the pdmra program were going to be cut starting october 1, 2011. as you can imagine, this was a real setback for our troops and for many reasons. first of all, it means that they would get less time at home with their families, who they haven't seen, their kids, their spouses, their sparpbts. second, it means our troops and families are forced to cope with unexpected financial challenges as our leave benefits are cut without warning. finally the change is met that reservists who unlike the active component don't necessarily have a job to come back to when they separate with duty, are faced with an increased and unexpected urgency to find employment. mr. president, our economy is on the mend. it's stable. but we are still seeing record

numbers of unemployment among our veterans of the past two wars. now is not the time to cut the leave benefits on people who have been promised the leave and push them out to find their own way. when the men and women of the armed services signed up, they did it for the right way. they are patriotic, they put their lives on the line for our country. the least we can do is keep the promises that we made. that's why my colleague in the house of representatives, congressman john kline, himself, a decorated veteran, and i introduced legislation that makes a simple fix to this program. our bill does not reverse the new policy change with the department heads made after a careful review of the program. our bill simply grandfathers troops deployed under the old policy so they receive the leave benefits they were promised. mr. president, i want to take a few moments to share just a few key points about this bill. first, it has bipartisan support in both the senate and in the house of representatives. in fact, it passed in the house

on tuesday night with the support of all representatives. second, the cost of this bill is fully offset. no new spending is created in this bill. and finally, this bill is now supported by secretary panetta himself. it is supported by the department of defense after they realized what the effect of this policy would have if troops were not grandfathered in. mr. president, this is a country that believes in patriotism and patriotism means dropping our arms on those who have served and sacrificed for our country. i think all of my colleagues here today agree that nobody needs and deserves our support more than the men and women who have offered their lives in defense of our nation. for ten years the men and women of our national guard and reserves have done their duty. now i believe it's for us in congress to do our own duty to make sure that our troops receive the benefits that are their due. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor.

i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. harkin: i ask that further proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. harkin: i i have high hopes that the senate will proceed to the food and drug administration safety and innovation act of 2012. i'm pleased to report to my colleagues that the health, education and pensions committee has produced and excellent bill, the product of nearly a full year of bipartisan collaboration and good faith negotiation. the bill reauthorization critically important f.d.a. user fee agreements and modernizes f.d.a.'s medical product authority to boost american innovation and ensure that patients have access to the therapies they need. mr. president, in this era of often extreme partisanship and legislative gridlock, this bill is truly a refreshing exception and that's why i'm hopeful and and confident there will be no objection on the floor to moving to this bill next week. frankly all of us on the

health, education, and pensions committee are proud not only of the bill but the remarkable bipartisan process that produced it. i'm especially grateful to the committee's ranking member, senator enzi, for his own insistence on a bipartisan process and for his leadership in moving this very complex legislation forward. in my brief time this afternoon i'd like to review the bipartisan process at every step marked by openness and transparency that produced this legislation. more than one year ago beginning in early 2011, for some issues my office and the office of ranking member enzi convened six bipartisan help committee working groups. each working group was tasked with developing consensus policy proposals on key issues such as drug shortages and the integrity of the drug supply chain. these bipartisan working groups met weekly and in many cases biweekly over the whole course of 2011, discussing and

developing draft consensus proposals. while this consensus process was ongoing, my staff would often meet many times a week with staffers representing both democratic and republican members of the -- of the "help" committee. every single working group was bipartisan and staff from my office worked closely with ranking member enzi's office to solicit priorities from other members of the committee. in many cases, we invited all "help" offices to join the groups. we even invited staff of noncommittee members who have been leaders in a particular policy area to join the groups. for example, our bipartisan drug shortage working group had staff members from 18 senate offices, including the staffers for two senators who were not even members of the committee. while developing the consensus drafts, each of these bipartisan working groups met with key stakeholders throughout

the year to solicit input. for example the drug supply chain integrity working group met with more than 40 stakeholders over a period of nine months. in addition to the working group meetings beginning in late 2011, my staff met twice a week for almost 18 weeks with all democratic "help" officers to brief them on the reauthorization process and update them on the progress of all the policy proposals. to further engage committee members, the administration, stakeholders, and the public, we held a total of five full committee hearings on the user fee reauthorization held over the last year. after our first public hearing in july of 2011, we held three hearings on distinct policy issues surrounding the user fees as well as a hearing on the actual user fee agreements. as a result of the excellent work of these bipartisan working groups, in march of this year

my staff and ranking member enzi's staff released five bipartisan consensus drafts and solicited further stakeholder input. bipartisan staff conducted stakeholder briefings on the release of each draft, and the drafts were available on the help web site more than three weeks prior to markup. in response to the five discussion drafts released to the public, our staffs received more than 160 comments and held more than 30 shakeholder meetings on a bipartisan basis over three and a half weeks. bipartisan staff worked to incorporate stakeholder feedback into the drafts and then the committee publicly released a manager's package on wednesday, april 18, one week before markup. on april 25 of this year, the committee met to consider the bill. committee members voted nearly unanimously by voice vote to

send the bill to the full senate. madam president, as i said this entire process has been a model of bipartisanship, openness, and transparency. believe me, it was tough to achieve consensus on many of the complex and controversial provisions in the bill. at every step it required difficult and sometimes painful compromise. even as the committee chair, i did not get some of my highest priority proposals. since i could not get consensus among members and stakeholders. compromise and sometimes sacrifice were essential. i was acutely aware as were other members of the committee that it is imperative that we pass the user fee agreements in this bill. we were determined not to allow partisanship to slow this package down or to jeopardize our goal of consensus. madam president, as i said, the end result is an excellent

bill. in addition to authorizing the critically important f.d.a. user fee agreements, this legislation makes it possible for the f.d.a. to keep pace with ever-changing biomedical landscape. so here is some of the major provisions of the f.d.a. safety and innovation act which will be on the floor next week. it authorizes key user fee agreements to ensure timely approval of medical products. we streamline the device approval process while enhancing patient protections. we modernize f.d.a.'s global drug supply chain authority. we spur innovation and incentives for drug development for life-threatening conditions. the bill reauthorizes and improves incentives for pediatric trials. it helps prevent and mitigate drug shortages, drug shortages. and it increases f.d.a.'s

accountable and very importantly, it's transparency. so, madam president, with this bipartisan bill i think that we have a bill, i hope, that we can all support and that we can move it forward expeditiously. neither democrats nor republicans got everything they wanted. on every issue we sought consensus. and where we could not achieve consensus we did not allow our differences to deflect us from the critically important goal of producing a bill that everyone could support. as a result, this is a truly bipartisan bill and it's broadly supported by the patient groups and industry. this is a chart just showing, we have over 100 -- 100 different associations and groups, patient groups, consumer groups, pharmaceutical groups, research organizations all over america that have come

out in support of this legislation. so everyone from the pharmaceutical industry, your drugstores, research institutions, consumer organizations all now have supported this bill to reauthorize our user fee agreements. and i'm very pleased that today the obama administration issued an official statement of financial policy assert -- administration policy asserting that -- quote -- "the administration strongly supports passage of s. 3187. lastly, let me mention that the congressional budget office scored the bill as fully paid for, estimates that the legislation would reduce the deficit by $363 million over the next ten years. so, again, not only are we enhancing patients' rights and

protections, we're ensuring a better integrity for the drug supply chain. as we know, more than 80% of the products that go into our drugs manufactured in this country come from abroad. there have been many stories written, many television investigative stories included, on problems in that drug supply chain. well, this bill enhances our ability to ensure the integrity of that drug supply chain from where they get the raw materials to where they put it together in this country. and so this bill, as i said, is -- not only does it do good for our patients, we enhance f.d.a.'s authority to streamline and make sure that we bring drugs to market in more rapid

order. and we save $363 million over ten years doing it. so i look forward to bringing the f.d.a. safety and innovation act to the floor in a few days. the house has had a similar bipartisan process, they're scheduled to take up their version of the bill also next week. if the senate acts quickly i'm confident we can go to conference, get a final bill on the president's desk this summer. to that end, i'm hopeful and confident we can move without objection to consideration of the bill. it's important that we do so. this is absolutely must-pass legislation. it's critically important to the f.d.a., to the industry, and to our patients to get this done. so i urge all of my colleagues to join in the bipartisan spirit of cooperation that we have engineered and witnessed in the "help" committee over the last year. let us come together, democrats and republicans alike, let's get this legislation on the floor, pass it, which is of

such critical importance to the american people. madam president, with that i yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: quorum call: quorum call: quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. inhofe: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. inhofe: i ask unanimous consent the quorum call in progress be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. inhofe: madam president, it's my understanding that there could some coming down from the other side who want to speak, so i just ask that i be recognized for up to 15 minutes as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. inhofe: all right. madam president, today i want to expose a far-left environmental agenda that's being imposed upon the department of defense by president obama and a lot of his allies. it comes at the same time that the obama administration is focusing on dramatically reduced cuts in the military. as ranking member of the senate committee on environment and

public works and senior member of the armed services committee, stopping the radical global warming agenda as well as president obama's devastating cuts to our military have been the top priorities. that's all i've been talking about for the last couple of months. i've had a growing concern about how president obama's global warming agenda is harming our military, but the remarks recently made by secretary panetta have led me to come here and kind of make a few statements. first of all, let me say this about secretary panetta. i served with him for five years over in the house. a number of years ago he and i became very close friends. tph-fbg, i rejoiced when he was nominated and we confirmed him as secretary of defense. so i was extremely disappointed to see that he was wasting his valuable time perpetrating the president's global warming fantasies and his war on affordable energy which occurred no less at a gathering of radical environmentalists. that's where the statement was made.

secretary panetta said -- and i quote -- "in the 21st century, reality is that there are environmental threats that constitute threats to our national security and vowed that the pentagon would take a leading role in shifting the way that the -- the way that the u.s. uses its energy." every talking point that secretary panetta used in his speech, from rising sea levels to severe droughts, to the so-called plight of the polar bear, all of these -- i won't go into them one at a time -- these came out of al gore's science fiction movie and have been totally rebuked. in reality, it is president obama's war on affordable energy that's having a dramatic impact on our national security, a war that is further depleting and already stretched military budget and putting our troops at risk. secretary panetta made another revealing statement in justifying the president's green agenda as "the hill" reported -- and i'm going to quote this now,

madam president. this was just in about two editions ago in "the hill" magazine. "as oil prices continue to skyrocket, the department now faces a shortfall succeeding $3 billion of higher than expected fuel costs this year. according to pan net taxer in order to dig its -- panetta, in order to dig its way out of that financial hole, d.o.d. has no choice but to look to alternative fuel technologies. the pentagon officials plan to invest more than $1 billion into developing those technologies in fiscal year 2013." i might add that's $1 billion that might otherwise be spent on defending america. energy prices have skyrocketed because of the politics of this administration. they have openly admitted, the secretary of -- energy secretary steven chu said that -- quote -- "somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in

europe." we all know why he made that statement. that was way back in 2008. and it was obama's statement that said -- quote -- "under his cap and trade, which is what they have been talking about, electricity prices would necessarily skyrocket." because domestic energy prices have skyrocketed under his administration, just as they wanted them to do, secretary panetta wants the military to go green instead of spending scarce resources greening the military, the commonsense solution is simple, to begin developing our own vast supply of energy resources. secretary panetta's comments came just two weeks before the senate armed services committee is to begin the markup of the beginning of the, this coming year's defense authorization bill. i'll be taking this opportunity to work with my colleagues on the committee to put the spotlight on president obama's forcing his costly green agenda on the department of defense

while he's taking down the budget for the defense. i look forward to introducing a number of amendments that will put a stop to this nonsense and help ensure that secretary panetta has the tools that he needs. i could assure you that, because i know him well, that this was a script this came off of. as part of effort, i'm release ago document put together by the congressional research service that puts a price tag on how much the federal government provides global warming policies. i'll be discussing this. with president obama, running for reelection and pretending to be for all of the above energy approach, secretary panetta's comments are surprising but they are still also illuminating. secretary panetta in his commitment for $1 billion of alternative fuels makes that clear, despite the president's recent change in rhetoric for

his reelection campaign he remains determined to implement his all-out attack on traditional energy development and the military is one place where he can force that experiment. we're talking about a green experiment using our military. to show just how egregious this whole thing is, let me spend just a second here documenting how badly president obama wants to take down the military for the benefit of his green agenda. over the past four years, d.o.d. has been forced to drastically cut its personnel, the number of brigade combat teams, tactical fighters, aircraft, airlift capabilities, it's eliminating or postponing programs such as the c-17, the c-22, the global hawk, the c-131 avionics package which we desperately need, and the modernization and the advancement of the f-35. these are programs that we have had on the drawing board, and

it's very important that we carry these through to fruition. even more concerning, these cuts could go even deeper because the subcommittee failed to report legislation last fall -- and we all remember this -- it would have reduced the deficit by at least $1.2 trillion over the next ten years. the pentagon's budget could be cut by an additional $495 billion between 2013 and 2021. that is very interesting because during that period of time, we're talking about two things, not just degrading the military but over the next ten years taking a half trillion dollars out, and if sequestration should come in that would be another half trillion and that would be devastating to the military. secretary panetta rightly warned us such cuts are going to be a threat to the national security. i'll quote him now. he said unfortunately while large cuts are being imposed, threats to national security would not be reduced.

as a result we would have to formulate a new security strategy that accepted substantial risk of not meeting our defense needs. sequestration budget is not one i could recommend. that's a quote by secretary panetta. the general democrat circumstance chairman of the joint chiefs -- general dempsey weighed in and said the impact of sequestration is not only in its magnitude, it's in what it does. we lose control. as we lose control, we become out of balance. we won't have the military this nation needs. when we're talking about accepting risks, we're talking about lives. risks equals lives. what are you willing to do for this green agenda? the remarks by the top d.o.d. officials make panetta's recent global warming speech at odds with solving our military's budget problems, even as secretary panetta expresses concern about the impact of these cuts on national security, he is openly supporting president obama's forcing d.o.d.

to expend large amounts of scarce resources on expensive alternative fuels. this doesn't make any sense, and that's why i believe secretary panetta's global warming remarks were written by someone in the white house to appease the radical left and not secretary panetta. i'm absolutely convinced of that. that after seeing how severe these cuts at d.o.d. will be, how could anyone justify this so-called greening of the military? consider, for example, the navy's plan to sail its green fleet strike group powered by alternative fuels by 2016, the success of this green fleet is predicated upon biofuel. much of it is algae-based, becoming practical and affordable. they're assuming that is going to happen, which i don't believe it will happen. in 2009 the department of navy paid $424 a gallon for 20,000 gallons of biodiesel made from algae, which would set a record for all-time cost of fuel.

we're talking about that's per gallon. that was on the market for $4 a gallon. and it's $424 a gallon. in december 2011, the navy purchased 45,000 gallons of biofuel at $12 a gallon -- $12 million. that works out about $26 a gallon. this purchase is part of a larger deal in which the navy has pledged taxpayer funds of $170 million as their share of a $510 million effort to construct or retrofit biofuel refineries in order to create a viable market. this biofuel will be mixed with conventional fuels by a 50-50 ratio to yield a blend that will cost roughly $15 a gallon. roughly four times what we should have to be spending. keep in mind this is the same time we're rejecting systems that were on the, in our plans and have been for a long period of time. as if the services are not already stressed by a serious

budget cuts, the secretary of navy also directed the navy and marine corps to produce or consume one gigawatt of new renewable energy to power naval installations across the country. not everyone agrees that energy efficiency in the military is a worthy goal. in fact, i have been a strong supporter of the d.o.d.'s alternative energy solutions that are affordable and that make sense, including the initiatives of nonalgae biofuels and natural gas. in fact, in my state of oklahoma, we are working through the major universities and others to take that leadership role. forcing our military to take money away from core programs in order to invest in unproven technologies as part of a failed cap-and-trade agenda is not really wrong. it's reckless. i'm not alone in saying this.

my good friend senator mccain agrees with me on this point. last month senator mccain criticized earmarks for alternative-energy research in the defense appropriations bill which cost the taxpayers $120 million. senator mccain said -- i'm quoting him now -- "we're talking about cutting the army by 100,000 people, the marines by 80,000 people. and yet, we now have our armed services in the business of advanced alternative energy research. the role of the armed forces in the united states is not to engage in energy research. the job of energy research should be that of the department of energy." that's where it belongs and i agree with senator mccain's statement. the c.r.s. report is significant largely due to my concern about green spending in the military. i asked the c.r.s. to figure out how much money, how much taxpayer dollars are actually going to, are being used to advance the green agenda.

the amount came out in 2008, $68.4 billion has been used to advance a green agenda. to name a few options, we could add, if we didn't do that, we could add $12.1 billion to maintain d.o.d. procurement at fiscal levels of 2012 and allow our military to continue to modernize its fleet of ships, its aircraft, ground vehicles. we can avoid a delay in the ohio class ballistic missile submarine replacement program, and it goes on and on which i'll have as part of the record. instead of funding these priorities, the department of defense has been forced to spend valuable resources on research related to climate change and renewable energy. in the stimulus package, each branch of the armed services and the pentagon itself was given $75 million total of $300 million to research, development tests and evaluate projects that

advance energy-efficient programs. in total, since 2008, d.o.d. has spent at least $4 billion on climate change and energy-efficient activities. the same $4 billion could have been used to purchase 30 brand-new f-35 joint strike fighter, 28 new f-22 raptors or completely pay for the c-130 aviation program, avionics program we have been working on for a long period of time. for a minute i'll turn to the argument that president obama and the far left have been using to justify in mission to go green. they always say that we need to transition away from fossil fuels. one thing that we do know and it is a fact, we have -- and i don't think there's anyone out there who's disagreeing or arguing with this. we have more reserves in oil, gas, and coal -- these are

recoverable reserves i'm talking about -- any other country in the world. and i -- when you stop and you think about what we've been talking about on this war that this administration has had on fossil fuels, it's been that on domestic energy. one thing people understand, there's not a person in this body or anyone else that i've found in america that doesn't -- didn't learn back in the elementary days about supply and demand. so we have all of this vast supply. the government won't let us develop our own supply. it's something that is just -- it's ludicrous. we're the only country in the world where that's a problem. now, in addition to the fact that we cannot use our resources -- develop our own resources, we keep hearing over and over again what people are saying. they're saying, well, if we were to even open up our public lands to development, to drilling and to producing, it would take ten years before that would reach the economy.

i know my time is short here, so i'm having to shortcut this. i've talked to harold hamm from oklahoma. he actually was up in north dakota right now and he's doing incredible things in developing shale and developing gas and oil to run this country. and so we have now shall, when i asked him the question, i said, yes, thank you very much. i said, i'm going to use your name in quoting. how long would it take if you were set up in new mexico and all of a sudden they would lift the ban, in order for that to reach the porn? -- in order for me to reach the pump? he said it would be 70 days. it onliation 10 days to go through the refining process and reach the pump. so it is supply and demand. we have that and weerkd not be using our military. i am going to give my whole statement as part of the record that shows how much money we're

spending in the military to advance a green agenda of this president. with that, i yield the floor. mr. franken: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from minnesota. mr. franken: thank you, madam president. a senator: may i interrupt for one moment? mr. franken: yeah. the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: i just wanted to confirm that the offered proceeding is going to be senator franken is going to speak and then i will speak for a few moments after senator franken, and i know that the presiding officer is to be excused very shortly. mr. franken: you could speak now -- mr. whitehouse: i would ask consent that i follow senator franken and we will see to it that the presiding officer is excused fippl timely at 4:00. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. franken: i thank the senator from rhode island.

last week my colleagues on the other side of the aisle blocked a vote that would have eased the burden of debt for millions of college students in minnesota and across the country. my republican friends disagreed with us about the best way to pay for this legislation, so a minority of senators kept us from helping millions of families and taking a step toward keeping our nation's workforce dploabllworkforce glo. but, madam president, this debate is not just about helping studentstudents pay for college. i want to talk a little bit about the two competing proposals to pay for this critical legislation. i'd like to talk about our national priorities and our national values. now, on one side, the democratic proposal would close a loophole

that allows some of the wealthiest americans to avoid paying taxes that they should owe to the federal government. this fix would only apply -- our fix would only apply to americans making over $200,00 $a year and would not create any new taxes on individuals or businesses. it would just close a loophole that allows high-income people to get out of paying taxes that everyone else in america is already expected to pay. this is what it is. you see, some people making a lot of money talk to their accountants and tax lawyers who have figured out that the law was written in such a way that you could use an "s" corporation to get around paying some of your payroll taxes. payroll taxes are your social security taxes and your medicare

taxes. now, "s" corporations are basically a pass-thru. whatever profits your company makes, you just at the end of the year pass it to you and claim it as income, and you pay regular income taxes on it. it's income. but although the law was never intended to allow this, this is the loophole: you can pay yourself an artificially low amount of money sometime earlier in the year andy acall that a salary -- say, $40,000 -- and thus you'll pay enough to qualify for social security later when you retire. and you'll only pay fica on this amount. but then you take -- at the end of the year you take the rest of the business's profits as income.

remember, this is considered income. okay? but you don't pay fica taxes on the amount. this is -- that's the loophole. you still pay income tax on it because it's income. but because of an accident in the way the law is written -- this was not intended -- you avoid paying fica taxes on the part you didn't initially call salary. all of the money pocketed, both the so-called salary and the profit at the end of the year, again, is income -- it's income. it's not capital gains. so you should be paying, like everybody else, medicare taxes on all of it and social security taxes on income up to $110,000.

like everyone else. there's simply no excuse -- no reason -- for not paying taxes, paying your fica taxes on the $110 for social security and the rest and all your income for medicare, except for an anomaly that was consentl accidentally n into the code. this is exactly the type of loophole we should be closing. i.tclosing it's not something that congress created intentionally for a reason, to help people buy homes or to encourage investment in research and development. there is no reason that this loophole exists. there is no purpose to it. there is no reasoning to keep it there.

so the democratic legislation would close that loophole for those individuals making more than $250,000 in a year. and we would use that savings to prevent the doubling of interest that students pay on stafford-subsidized loans. by contrast, the republican proposal which passed the house a few weeks ago would eliminate the prevention in public health fund, which is our national investment in preventive health care. this proposal would undermine the health of our nation by cutting funding for cancer screenings, child i a -- child

immunizations and diabetes prevention, among other things. and it would be fiscally irresponsible to boot, since according to a study for the trust for america's health, every dollar invested in proven community-based disease prevention programs yields a return of $5.60. my home state of minnesota leads the country when it comes to providing high-quality, low-cost health care. so when i was elected to represent the people of minnesota, i put together a series of round tables with experts around minnesota to learn more about our health care system. i heard the same thing from leading national experts at the mayo clinic, the university of minnesota, from providers, from doctors, from people in public

health and rural health and insurance -- everyone said the same thing: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. there is no question that if we catch cancer early, a patient will be much more likely to make a full recovery. if every child has access to immunization, we'll prevent outbreaks of infectious diseases and our kids will grow up stronger and healthier. and if we can prevent intun froe from getting diabetes, they'll be healthier than if we pay the until they have it and then treat them for the rest of their lives. not only will people be healthier if we prevent disease, but we will save a lot of money, too. that's why the health care law included the prevention in

public health fund. the fund is already investing in community-based programs like the diabetes prevention program, a program that dick lugar and i fought to include in the health care law. this program was pilot-tested by the centers for disease control and prevention in st. paul, minnesota, and in indianapolis. it involves structured nutrition classes for 16 weeks, and 16 weeks of exercise at community-based organizations like the ymca, with people who have prediabetes. and, guess what? the program -- the diabetes prevention program -- has been shown to reduce the likelihood that someone with prediabetes will be diagnosed with

full-blown type-2 diabetes by nearly 60% -- by nearly 60%. those are pretty good odds. and the program doesn't just make people healthier. it also savin saves fen saves m. the diabetes prevention program, the program i just described, costs about $300 per participant as compared to treating type-2 diabetes, which costs more than $6,500 every single year. that's why united health, the largest private insurer in the country that also happens to be headquartered in minnesota, is already providing the program to its beneficiaries. in fact, the c.e.o. of united health told me that for every dollar they invest in the diabetes prevention program, they save $4 in health care

later on. the money in the prevention in public health program and the affordable care act is there to scale yo up in program around te country so everybody in the country, every pre-- person that has prediabetes can have availability to make -- it can be available to them. this homegrown program is exactly what the prevention in public health fund was designed to support. and it's not the only one like it. in minnesota the fund has gone on -- has gone to support tobacco cessation programs. it's help prevent infectious diseases. and it has expanded our desperately needed primary care workforce. i think that we can all agree these are worthwhile

investments. unfortunately, many of my friends on the other side of the aisle are trying to end this important work, calling the prevention and public health fund a waste of money, or worse. and just last week one of my colleagues on the floor inaccurately claimed that -- quote -- "a health clinic was using the fund to spay and neuter pets." let me take this opportunity to set the record straight. that's not true. the department of health that my friend accused of using prevention funds to pay to spay pets has not and will not spend prevention fund money for this purpose. i just ask that in these debates we really confine ourselves to

facts. you know, this all comes down to priorities. my friends on the other side of the aisle would rather cut the prevention and public health fund than close a tax loophole for wealthy americans, which serves absolutely no purpose. in fact, they'd rather keep us from voting on a bill to ease the burden of debt for students across the country than close this loophole. i hear sometimes talk about closing loopholes so we can bring the marginal rate down. if you can't close this loophole which has no purpose, i don't see any loophole that we can possibly agree to close. so i ask my friends on both sides of the aisle just one favor. talk to your constituents.

talk to people who have been saved from the affliction of diabetes or who have quit smoking or who have immunized their children because of the prevention and public health fund. talk -- talk to your state and local department of health, who are working to prevent outbreaks of the next dangerous strain of flu, thanks to the infectious disease prevention funding. and stand with me in support of the prevention and public health fund. thank you, madam president. i yield the floor and will yield to my friend from rhode island and i know that the presiding officer may have to go, so i will just jump in the chair for you. how's that? the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: thank you, madam president.

let me thank my colleague from minnesota for his courtesy in allowing this time for me when i would otherwise be presiding. i wanted to respond to the remarks that proceeded senator franken's remarks, remarks by senator inhofe of oklahoma suggesting that the military's investment in green technologies was an unwelcome imposition on them against their wishes by outside political forces and on the basis of outside political considerations. i actually just held a hearing in the environment and public works committee on the subject of our defense department's investment and interest in

alternative technologies. we had witnesses from all of the services, and the testimony was pretty clear and diametrically opposed to the point of view just expressed by the senator from oklahoma. i can certainly appreciate the enthusiasm of my friend from oklahoma for fossil fuels, since fossil fuels are a big home state industry in oklahoma. but the testimony at the hearing was that the military was pursuing alternate fuels for reasons of its own. for reasons that related to protecting the troops, to being more efficient, and to protecting the strategic posture of the united states around the world. perhaps the most striking testimony that they gave was that over 3,000 american

soldiers gave their lives between 2003 and 2007 protecting our fuel convoys in iraq. when you get in theater and you have a heavily fossil fuel base military presence, the price you pay for that is paid in the blood of soldiers who die protecting the fuel convoys. 3,000 young men and women between 2003 and 2007. so to the extent that you can do things like a company in rhode island, the cooley company, does, and invest in tents that have their own solar capture built right into the fabric so that the cooling within the tent in the blazing heat of the middle east can be done without

having to truck that fuel in, without having to cost those soldiers their lives. that's not something that's being imposed on the military. that's something they very much want to accomplish as part of their core mission. in newport, rhode island, the naval war college has a facility. they are building wind turbines there. they are building wind turbines there because they have calculated over time they will save money by putting up those wind turbines compared to buying electricity. it's not an imposition from outside, it's not some green agenda coming from washington or anyplace else. it's the newport naval station saying, oh, we save money for our budget by doing this, and when we save that money, we can put it into these other uses like fighter aircraft and tanks and bullets and bandages and boots. the third piece of testimony had to do with the strategic posture of the country, intaltly,

which is something that the -- internationally, which is something that the military is concerned with in a very deep and profound way. and they made a couple of points. the first was that the less dependent that the united states is on the international oil market, the fewer vital interests we have to risk shedding our blood and spending our treasure to protect. so it's in our national strategic interest to get off our fossil fuel dependency and get into a broader portfolio. the dangers of climate change which we are immersed in if we look at the obvious evidence in front of our faces create profound risks for social and civil unrest and violence in other parts of the world as things change, as astares --

estuaries flood, as relatively dry areas turn to desert and can no longer sustain life. as the great glaciers in the high mountains dissipate and change the flow patterns of rivers on which economic life for individuals depends. all of those things create conflict and strife, and the american military is aware that where there is conflict and strife abroad, very often they are called in. and they feel a responsibility to try to avoid that. i take time every week to speak a little bit about climate change for a number of reasons. as i said, there are a lot of folks in washington who would like to ignore this issue and it is presently being ignored which

is unfortunate and, in fact, shameful. the messages about climate change that we are getting are coming through loud and clear, and we really ignore them at our peril. every week for the past 15 months i've as the presiding officer knows, i've distributed in our caucus, our weekly caucus, an update on some of the latest climate science bulletins, the news that is fresh that week. this week the stories are that the the national oceanic and atmospheric administration in the weather statistics for the month of april, 2012, reported warmer than average temperatures engulfing much of the contiguous united states during april with the nationally averaged temperature at 55.7 degrees fahrenheit, 3.6 degrees fahrenheit above average and the third warmest on record. warmer than average temperatures were present for a large portion of the nation during april, six

states in the central u.s. and three states in the northeast had april temperatures ranking among their ten warmest in history. above-average temperatures were also present for the southeast, upper midwest, and much of the west. no state in the contiguous united states had april temperatures that were below average. none. april, 2012 came on the heels of the warmest march on record for the lower 48. january to april, 2012 was the warmest such period on record for the contiguous united states with an average temperature of 45.4 degrees fahrenheit, 5.4 degrees above the long-term average. 26 states, all east of the rockies, were record warm for the four-month period. and in an additional 17 states had temperatures for the period among their ten warmest. these rising temperatures can lead to a number of concerns. snow pack and thus drinking

water could be drastically reduced in california and surrounding western states. the scripps institute of ocean owe graph -- ocean og greaf explained that the warming of 1.5 to three degrees fahrenheit between now and mid century will reduce today's snow pack by one-third. by 2100 at those temperatures snow pack would be reduced by two-thirds. that makes a big difference to the agricultural communities that depend on that water downstream of those snow packs. meanwhile, science daily reported that ozone and greenhouse gas pollution such as black carbon are expanding the tropics at a rate of .7 degrees per decade. said the lead scientist, climatologist robert j. allen the assistant professor at university of california riverside, if the tropics are moving poleward, the subtropics

will become even drier, impacting agricultural and society. people are noticing the changes around them. outside of the halls of congress where we have blinders on to this obvious issue, regular people see the changes. and they are concerned about them. the united states geological survey recently polled more than 10,000 visitors to the nation's wildlife refugees, hunters, fishersmen and families alike. 71% of those polled said they were -- quote -- "personally concerned about climate effects on fish and wildlife habitats." 74% said working to change the effects on fish and habitats would benefit future jengdz. but the special interests who deny that carbon pollution causes temperatures to increase and have such a pro profound and

malign effect in this chamber, deny raising ice caps will raise the seas to dangerous levels and deny all of these changes are taking place. the myth that these special interest propagate in the face of so much evidence is that the jury is still out on climate changes caused by carbon pollution. so we don't have to worry about it or even take precautions. this is false. it's just plain wrong. virtually all of our most prestigious academic institutions have stated that climate change is happening and that human activities are the driving cause of this change. they say it in powerful language, particularly for scientists, who are specific about what they say and guarded in the way they say it. the letter said -- quote -- "observations throughout the world make it clear that climate

change is occurring, and rigorous scientific research demonstrates that the greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are the primary driver. these conclusions are based on multiple independent lines of evidence, and here's the -- here's the final crescendo here. contrary assertions are inconsistent with an objective assessment of the vast body of peer reviewed science." that's an awful nice way to say it but in a nutshell they're saying anybody who disagrees is making it up. and these are serious organizations. the american association for the advancement of science, the chemical society, geophysical union, institute of biological sciences, society of agron onliy and on and on and on. and it's not just them. it's also the military services, as i mentioned at the beginning of my remarks, also

the intelligence organizations of the country. it's also many, indeed most of our electric utilities. it's many of our biggest capitalists and investors and, of course, it's our insurance industry who has to pay for the damage that ensues. a recent article, i'll quote from, said the worldwide insurance industry is huge, three times bigger than the oil industry and right now these companies are running scared. some are threatening to cancel coverage for homeowners within 200 miles of the coast where hurricanes are on the increase and in drying areas of the west where wildfires have wreaked havoc. marsh and mcclellan, one of the largest insurance brokeers, called climate change -- quote -- "one uft -- one of the most significant emerging risks in the world today." while a.i.g. has established an office of environment and climate change to assess the risks to insurers in the years ahead. the industry's own scientists

are predicting that things could get a lot worse in the years ahead. i'm indebted to the presiding officer, the junior senator from minnesota, for the following observation which is that 97% of the climate scientists who are most actively publishing accept that the verdict is in on carbon pollution causing climate and oceanic changes. and the example that he and i have discussed -- and i can't help but, since he's presiding right now, to refer to it again again -- we are being asked in this body to ignore facts that 97% of scientists tell us are real. now, translate that into our personal lives. what if a child of ours was sick and we went to a doctor and said, "is there something i need to do about it, is there treatment that is necessary? what's the deal here?" and you got an opinion and then

you said, you know, i'm going to be a cautious, prudent parent because the treatment might be expensive, i want to make sure i'm going down the right path so i'm going to get a second opinion. and you get your second pfnlt and then you got a third opinion. you are a really prudent parent and you got a third opinion. let's say you kept going, you got a fourth opinion, a fifth, a 15th, i 25th, a 45th, a 5th, a 9 -- a 75th, a 95th, you got a hundred opinions. people would think that was a little odd but, never mind. and then let's say that 97% of those professional opinions came back saying, yes, your child is ill and needs this treatment. would you then responsibly say, you know what? the jury is still out on the question of why my child is sick. let's not take any action now. these 97% of the doctors might be alarmists, we don't really want to go there and, after all,

it will cost money to buy the medicine. would any responsible parent do that? no, it's a ludicrous proposition. and that's just how ludicrous the proposition is that climate change is not real. and the underlying facts are ancient ones. i mean, the guy who discovered that climate change is caused by the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, john tyndall discovered this in 1863 at the time of the civil war. 150 years ago. this is not a novelty. this is old, established science. and it has become clear since that there is a change that is happening. we pump out 7 to 8 gigatons a year. a gigaton is a billion -- not a million, a billion -- metric tons. we put out 7 billion to 8 billion metric tons a year of

carbon dioxide, and guess what? that adds to the carbon load in the atmosphere. and this is something that isn't a theory, this is something that is a measurement now. for 8,000 centuries, mankind has existed in a atmospheric bandwidth of 170 to 300 parts per million of carbon dioxide. 170 to 300, 8,000 centuries, 800,000 years. we've been an agricultural species for about 10,000 years, to give you an idea. 800,000 years, we're picking things off of bushes. our entire history as a species falls essentially in that 800,000 years, all of our development as a species has happened in the last probably 20,000 years. so it's been a long run in that same bandwidth of 170 -- safe bandwidth of 170 to 300 parts

per million. we've shot out of it. we're at 390 parts per million and climbing. and the record in history as to what happens on this planet when we spike out of that range is an ominous one, it is a bad trajectory. it takes you back to massive ocean dieoffs that are in the geologic record. so this is something that we need to be very careful about and we need to take action. and the suggestion that it's not happening is false. the suggestion that we can wait it out is both imprudent, reckless and ill-advised. and the notion that our professional career military, who've lost 3,000 men and women defending fuel convoys in iraq, are engaged in trying to get off fossil fuels because of some

outside political agenda that they don't share is a preposterous allegation to make about the men and women who run our military, who make these decisions for our military, and who are seeking to defend the soldiers out in the field against these consequences. with that, i will yield the floor once again thanking the distinguished senator from minnesota for allowing me this time when i would have otherwise been sitting there and presiding. so with appreciation to senator franken, i yield the floor and i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

the presiding officer: the distinguished senator from georgia. a senator: i'd like to ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. isakson: and apologize for keeping the president and the rest of the staff here a little later than they wanted to but i have an important message. it will be pwraoefplt i introduced legislation not too long ago called the restoration in tpaeurpb act, senate resolution number 1843. it was a reaction to the nlrb's decision in the specialty health care care where a group of nurses asked for permission to unionize and organize within that unit. nlrb granted that and that became the first microunion that existed in the united states of america. today it's my understanding that

nlrb approved the following: the second-floor shoe department at berdorf goodman in new york and the fifth floor, they granted them the right to organize. mr. president, this is a gigantic leap in 57 -- that differs from 75 years of settled labor law. microunions with any retail establishment, medical establishment or any other type of business prevents cross training, causes discord and is a way to upset an organization that otherwise is not upset. labor law in this country has been settled for a long time. last year 70% of all the union calls in the united states of america passed on their vote. there is not a problem with unions being able to organize but there is a huge problem if we continue to tear down the fire walls that had the playing field level.

recently the court twice has thrown out rulings on the national labor relation board, one on ambush elections and on the posting rule where employers were asked to post proorganization posters within their break room and their companies. both time the courts said nlrb reached too far. it is my hope the same thing would happen here again, but in the meantime i want to encourage the senate to allow us to bring senate 1843 to the floor and make this debate. in the free enterprise system, in the tedious economy we have today in this country, the last thing we need is to begin changing labor law and pitting organized labor against management in an adversarial type of way. this example at bergdorf goodman is an example of the national labor relations board doing in regulation what we ought to be doing in legislation on the floor of the senate.

my biggest concern is it seems like the administration's leadership in every department determined if we can circumvent and through regulation do what we can't do on the floor, we'll forget about the house, forget about the senate. it will be the executive and judicial branch that run the united states of america. that's not good for our country and that's wrong. i'm going to call on the senate and ask our leadership to let us bring this resolution to the floor, to let us debate it and see if we really want to change 75 settled years of labor law and unbalance the playing field between management and labor. i don't think that we do. i'm sorry to rush to the floor when i just heard this information, but i think it's so important that we nip it in the bud that, we let the playing field remain balanced and we not turn over the operation of settled labor law to an nlrb that quite frankly seems to have run amok as far as i'm concerned. mr. president, i appreciate the opportunity, and i yield back the balance of my time and would note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.

quorum call:

mr. reid: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. reid: i ask consent the call of the quorum be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i ask permission, unanimous consent the senate proceed to a period of morning business with senators allowed to speak for up to ten minutes. the presiding officer: also without objection. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to the following postal naming bills. calendar number 401, 402, 403. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: calendar number 401, h.r. 2415, an act to designate the facility of the united states postal service located at 11 dock street in

pitston, pennsylvania as the josher d. miller post office building. calendar number 402, h.r. 3220, an act to designate the facility of the united states postal service located at ever green square southwest. california 403, h.r. 3413, an act to designate the facility of the united states postal service located at 1449 west avenue in bronx, new york, as a private isaac t.cortiz post office. the presiding officer: without objection the senate proceeds to the measures en bloc. mr. reid: i ask consent we now proceed to h.r. 4045. make sure those namings are passed.

mr. president, i ask unanimous consent the bills be read a third time passed en bloc, the motions to reconsider be laid on the table en bloc, no intervening action or debate, any related statements be printed in the record as if read. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i ask we proceed to h.r. 4045. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: h.r. 4045, an act to modify the department of defense program guidance and so forth. the presiding officer: without objection the senate proceeds to the measure. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent the bill be read a third time, passed, the motion to reconsider be laid on the table, there be no intervening action or debate, any statements related to this matter be placed in the record as if read. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i now ask we proceed to h.r. 4119. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: h.r. 4119, an act to reduce the trafficking of drugs and to prevent human smuggling across the southwest border by deterring the construction and use of border tunnels. the presiding officer: without objection the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. reid: i now ask unanimous

consent the bill be read a third time and be passed and the motion to reconsider be laid on the table, there be no intervening action or debate, any statements related to this matter be placed in the record as if given. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i now ask consent that we go to calendar number 3 the 4. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: h.r. 4849, an act to direct the secretary of the interior to issue commercial-use authorizations to commercial stock operators and so forth and for other purposes. the presiding officer: without objection, the senate proceeds to the measure. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent that a boxer-feinstein substitute amendment which is at the desk be agreed to, the bill as amend be read a third time, passed, the motion to reconsider be laid on the table, with no intervening action or debate, any statements related to the bill be placed in the record at the appropriate place as if read. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i now ask unanimous consent, as if in executive session, that the injunction of secrecy be removed from the following previous transpiring

by the president of the united states: protocol amending the -- treaty number 112-5, convention on law applicable to certain rights with respect to securities held with an intermediary, treaty document 112-6, convention on rights of persons with disabilities, treaty number 112-7, convention with chile, treaty document number 112-8-8. i further ask that the treaties be considered as having been read the first time, they be conferred with papers to the committee on foreign otherwise relations in order to printed and that the president's messages be printed in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i now ask unanimous consent that when the senate committees its business today, it adjourn until 2:00 p.m. on monday, may 21, following the prayer and pledge, the journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and at

that time the majority leader be recognized. further, that at 4:30 p.m., the senate proceed to executive session to consider calendar number 52, paul watt ford of california to be united states circuit judge of the ninth circuit with one hour of debate equally divided in the usual form. if cloture is not invoked, the senate resume legislative session to proceed to vote. the motion to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed on the f.d.a. user fee legislation. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: it is my intention to resume the motion to proceed to calendar number 400, the f.d.a. user fee legislation when we convene on monday. at 5:30 on monday, there will be at least one roll call vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the watford nomination. mr. president, if ness no further business to come before the senate, i ask that we adjourn under the previous order. the presiding officer: the senate stands adjourned until 2:00 p.m. monday, may 21.

sir >> that and dishes of work today in the senate lawmakers began debating reauthorize in the food and an integration user fees and confirm a pair of nominees to the federal reserve. later in the day senate majority leader harry reid came to the floor. -- supreme court justices and the nation's governors. you can get one for $12.95 at

c-span.org/shop. >> even though job opportunities are scarce in this economy is not for nothing that you spend this time preparing. jerry falwell observed you don't determine a man's greatness by his talent or wealth as the world does but rather what it takes to discourage him. america needs your talent and skill. >> the index of someone else's construction of the way things ought to be. it is of duke right wrongs. it is up to you to point out injustice. it is up to you to hold the system accountable. sometimes up and it entirely. it is up to you to stand up and be heard. to lobby and march and organized. don't be content just to sit back and watch. >> president obama and mitt romney delivered commencement addresses and you can watch them on line at the c-span video

library and over the next few weeks look for other commencement addresses on the c-span network that c-span.org/videolibrary. >> you are watching c-span2 with politics and public affairs weekdays featuring live coverage of the u.s. senate. on weeknights watched the public policy events and every weekend the latest nonfiction authors and books on booktv. you can see programs on our web site and cooling in the conversation on social media sites. >> social security commissioner michael asdrew said cutbacks will continue. disability claims with the recession and higher number of people claiming mental wholeness. this senate finance committee hearing runs 1 hour and 20 minutes.

>> come to quarter. president kennedy once said the nation's strain wise in the well-being of its people. no program touches more american lives and benefits more families than social security. next year the social security administration will pay benefits to almost sixty million americans. today we examine the agency's performance delivering benefits to workers and their families and its role saving taxpayer dollars. this is not about social security solvency. we hear the social security administration, commissioner t astrew you committed to reduce disability backlog. today we will evaluate the results. at the beginning of last year, more than 771,000 people were

waiting for a hearing. this is higher than when you started your term. i expect to hear why the backlog grew and what the agency is doing to address it. michael klaus who lives in my home town in montana says this backlog needs to be fixed. he has spent years trying to work through the red tape. mike is a 55-year-old army veteran and his service didn't end when he retired from the military. lot -- volunteers with the american legion and disabled american veterans, helping other veterans find transportation to hospitals across montana. his health problems make it tough to volunteer to do other work. during military training exercise years ago a tank next to him accidentally fired. mike's back broke in the accident. jefferson's he suffers chronic back pain. mike worked in heating and

plumbing before joining the military. he was working as an employment specialist with the department of labor job service in 2004 when his disabilities became too much to bear. he had to leave his job and apply for benefits shortly thereafter. since 2005, his benefits, seven years he has been shuttled between various offices and his paper work is on the line. mike and his wife had to sell their home to be closer to his hospital. they couldn't take the physical demands and constant traveling. a care giver went back to work to make ends meet. things have been a struggle. national hardship, unable to visit children or grandchildren and many americans planning their retirement and financial futures they are stock. mike volunteered to serve his

country but now the shoe is on the other foot. he is waiting for his country to serve him. fortunately we are seeing one sign of progress. doesn't take long for people to make a decision. at the end of 2008 it took 514 days, almost a year-and-a-half, in 200011, 360 days. this is substantial progress but still too long. mr. astrew, you set a goal of 278 days by the end fiscal year 2013. we need to make this call. our agency has seen 50% more retirement applications since 2001, those applications, there are fewer workers who deal with this. these challenges have been compounded because the budget remained flat in the last two

years. social security administration needs an adequate budget to fix the disability backlog and root out improper payments. for fiscal year 2013 the president has asked for $11 billion. this is $307 million more than last year most of which is dedicated to reducing improper payments and improving long-term outlook of social security. every dollar spent through improper payments saves $10 in the long run. those dollars help the trust fund. unfortunately congress didn't provide full funding for these efforts in fiscal 2012. doing so would have saved taxpayers $800 million. if the congress -- the president's recommendation would have saved the trust fund $800 million. social security retirees would have had more questions in their

trust fund. you want to talk about social security here is a great return. one in six or one in ten. doesn't get much better but congress is very shortsighted in not recognizing the payout for some reason. we can't afford to repeat this mistake. failure to fully fund program integrity, penny wise and pound foolish. let's invest those social security dollars wisely and reduce the backlog. we can do both and ensure americans like michael clouds are not stuck waiting for benefits and be sure the social security program making the program stronger by proving americans will. >> thank you. i want to thank you for scheduling this hearing and join you in welcoming commissioner nicholas one. the social security administration is responsible

for the stewardship of taxpayer resources. we are all interested in this hearing. the hearing from the commissioner about his stewardship of those resources and plans for the future and strategies for existing and ongoing challenges facing social security programs. a few weeks ago we received a reminder of the challenges facing social security finances in the annual report of the trustees. the combined old age survivors insurance disability insurance trust funds within social security are projected to be exhausted in 2,033, three years sooner than the previous year. the trustees identified that has the system is currently structured social security beneficiaries face benefit cuts of as much as 25% in 2033 with further cuts thereafter. the state thinks current promises in social security

cannot be sustained given the system's existing structure. the disability insurance trust fund is projected to be exhausted in 2016. less than four years from now in two years earlier than estimated a year ago. absent changes disabled workers will face the real threat of a 21% benefit cuts in 2016 and with the recent explosive growth in the ranks of disability insurance benefit recipients far outpacing the growth in the general working club population, 2016 might be a rosy outlook in terms of when the disability trust fund actually becomes exhausted. benefit programs have increased by a remarkable 134% since 2000. following what we face at the end of this year we have a solvency clipped in 2016 for the disability insurance program and

another in solvency clip for the social security retirement program. we continue to kick the can down the road instead of addressing the known problems. we should not act like film and movies when it comes to social security and our economy by dropping into an abyss of insolvency and economic decline. inaction is irresponsible. the president remarked in advocating more tax-and-spend policies the fact that this is an election year is not an excuse for inaction. i am not aware of any plans by the administration to tackle the exhaustion of the disability insurance trust fund or the general and sustainability of social security. as far as social security is concerned it appears that this being an election year is the administration's reason for inaction. just another excuse to kick the can down