and ideally, we'd like to start with the military community, but i can tell you this template will work for all social services in all commitments around america -- communities around america. and americans are ready to hear this message. if i can have the slide up, please. thank you. this is what we call the community guide-on model. based on the aspen point and peer navigator model in colorado springs. and they have kindly worked with us to expand it out and make it a bit more generic. mha's goal as of just a few weeks ago is to create a national network of 500 trained and certified peer navigators within three years using this model. the model's comprised of six rings of service, and you can generally consider the inner ring the most important and the outer ring the least important, but all six are very important. all six rings, each of these rings -- now, if you say have you implemented the model and do you have results yet?

no, we haven't. but i can tell you that a number of organizations there's at least one organization that has implemented each of these six rings and successfully. the aspen point model is probably the best, but umdmj has a terrific one, university of michigan has a terrific one. they need to be backed up by trained clinicians. i don't know how many of you heard of the citizen-soldier support plan in north carolina. if you ever want to know what that population is in your county, they can tell you. they also have mapped military accultureated clinicians, and they can tell you which clinicians can back up that peer structure in your community in a substantive way. they need to be managed by a database that allows effective, continuous follow-up by the peers. the dark red ring is now the community collaboration piece, the best model we've found is probably community blue print, but the community blue print

folks have told us it is very difficult to get community resources to collaborate and get measurable outcomes. they need to be divided into sectors of service. reintegration which is short-term needs and then work force development. and then i had over on the left wellness, behavioral health and physical health. and we actually had to combine that because i realized i was dividing out types of health which is kind of silly. i'm being shortened here, and i understand why. the peer program's hallmark is they have very precise outcomes. the aspen point model has in three years served 2921 military families in colorado springs, 500 military families have been actively navigated, 65 incarcerated veterans have been placed in jobs. they came for career and reintegration needs. 73% had more than one sector of care that they needed help with. only 16% initially touched the system for a mental health need.

this is a real interesting one. annual community costs without peer navigator to colorado springs, $6.9 million. annual community costs with peer navigator, $220,000, an 85% reduction in community costs. we can solve this problem, but we need to do it at the community level, and i can tell you we need your help. we certainly need your money. it is a very, very compelling need, but it's going to be solved at the local community level, not from the top down. thank you all for everything you've done. appreciate it. [applause] >> the president of the export-import bank said the u.s. should take more of a lead in writing global rules for export financing. we'll hear from fred hochberg next on c-span2. the senate will vote on a measure which combines the transportation program's package with a measure to prevent an increase in student loan interest rates. that conference report is

expected to also include federal flood insurance. live senate coverage at the top of the hour at 10 ian. 10 eastern. >> the supreme court in a 5-4 decision upheld the individual mandate in the affordable care act health care law. today the heritage foundation hosts a discussion on the decision, and here's reaction from will plaintiffs in the cas. we'll hear from texas attorney general greg abbott and representatives of the national federation of independent businesses. live coverage at 10 a.m. eastern on c-span3. >> the purchasing power of gold specified as a weight, for example, of any national centuries. >> it seems to me that the record of the gold standard in sum is a record by and large of growth and in a macroceps and of

personal -- sense and of personal accountability in the micro sense. >> this weekend louis lehrman and james grant look at the origins, departures and arguments for returning to the gold standard. that's saturday evening just past 7 eastern. also this weekend more from the contenders, our series on key political forgets who ran for president -- figures who ran for president and lost but changed political history. sunday, charles evans hughes ran against woodrow wilson and was the last supreme court justice to be nominated by a major party. that's at 7:30 p.m. american history tv this weekend on c-span3. >> this week the head of the export-import bank said u.s. export opportunities are being challenged by countries that finance trade deals outside of established rules. fred hochberg spoke at the center for american progress for about 50 minutes.

>> he, everybody. i'm -- hi, everybody. we are really excited for today's remarks from fred hochberg, chairman and president of the export-import bank. as you all know, the bank supports u.s. exports to the world. through his leadership the chairman of the bank plays a key role in competitiveness policies which have long been a focus of our economic policy work here at c.a.p., so we're excited to have fred here, and he will be discussing a new and annual competitiveness report that the bank puts out. here at the center we believe the best way to revitalize the u.s. economy is through policies and investments that create jobs, spur growth and insure everyone can participate. and as we have looked at changes

in the u.s. economy over the last several years, exports have been a key driver of growth and so fred's work to boost exports has been central to the bright spots that we are seeing in the u.s. economy. today the u.s. economic position is, however, being challenged like never before. the driving force for our economy, a strong and stable middle class, is being squeezed. u.s. companies and workers are finding it harder and harder to maintain and exceed levels of prosperity that americans have traditionally enjoyed. one of the key manners we boost our competitiveness is by making sure businesses get large access to foreign markets and they can compete on an even playing field. we are seeing challenges in the world. china with the rise of state capitalism and its investments that it's making are insuring that we may not see a level playing field. and so that's why, again, the work of the xm -- ex-im bank is

providing that to companies that are trying to compete on the a global scale. we are lucky to have the chairman, we are lucky to have chairman hochberg here because he's also a vigorous champion of key investments in the united states, insuring that we are competitive over a long term, but insuring that we have investments in education, higher education, health care. he's been focused overall on making sure american companies and our economy can compete. so we're exciting to have fred hochberg here. he's a, has a long expertise in economic matters. he was, he ran the new school, and he also was, ran the small business administration in the clinton administration. he's been a fierce advocate for insuring that american companies

and the american economy can compete in the global, in the global economy, and we're lucky to have him. [applause] >> [inaudible] [laughter] >> thank you. neera, i want to thank you and the entire team for hosting me again, and i want today take a minute to reflect on what c.a.p. actually stands for; the center for american progress. so it really talks about our progress as a people, our competitiveness as a country and our ability to really create a middle class jobs for the next decade and beyond. our ability to sell more of what we make around the world. 95% of the world's consumers

live beyond our borders and vibrant middle classes are emerging in country after country. take china, for example. there are 250 million middle class people right now, and by 2020 they're projected to have over 600 million with a purchasing power rivaling the american middle class. so it should be clear to all of us that exports must be a prime driver of american growth for years to come. of course, other countries have reached a similar conclusion. foreign competition in america's desired export markets is tough and getting tougher every day which is why president obama has relentlessly focused on strengthening american exports and manufacturing. and fundamental to that effort is the export-import bank.

at ex-im, we have a pretty simple goal; to help grow american experts and jobs and the jobs they create. we do it by providing export finance for american companies selling into foreign markets where financing isn't readily available or available at competitive terms. as we did last year, ex-im is releasing its annual competitiveness report, and it has findings that are a wake-up call for everyone in this room, this city and, indeed, america. this is the report. there are copies outside. and let me actually take a moment to thank in particular i see in the audience alice albright, jim cruise and the entire team for putting this remarkable report together. it's a report that's mandated by congress to assess our competitiveness against err export credit -- other export credit agencies around the

world. specifically, the 34 advanced economies in the organization for economic cooperation and development or the oecd. and on this report card we made the honor roll. last year was ex-im's third consecutive year of record-breaking activity. we provided just under $33 billion of export support to over 3600 american companies. we financed airplanes to ethiopia, power plants in turkey, locomotives to kazahkstan. all of those exports created good-paying jobs for american workers. and for the first time in five years we did a higher volume of lopes than any other -- of loans than any other eca in the g7. now, i'd like to think this was all because we're so brilliant at the work we do at the bank, but we had a little bit of help. the european debt crisis and basel iii's higher capital

requirements made lenders skittish about providing loans. the result? ex-im often stepped into the breach and financed more u.s. exports and jobs. by year end we supported 290,000 jobs at zero cost to the u.s. taxpayer. that's the good news. ex-im got a good report card, school's out. it is june, after all. time to wrap it up for the summer. not so fast. because the most striking finding of the report is not what ex-im did, it's what the rest of the world is doing. the international export finance landscape is changing dramatically and not in ways that necessarily benefit the united states. and today i want to discuss those changes and suggest two prescriptions how america can respond. number one, we need to build a broader framework for export finance that includes more countries and more transparency.

secondly, we need to reorganize the trade functions within the u.s. government which president obama called for last year. in developing this report we look beyond oecd regulated export finance which is the world that ex-im and most of our competitors have inhabited since 1978. the oecd countries established a framework to keep export finance in the background but also out of the shadows. the oecd wanted to make export finance transparent and to insure that companies won business because they made great products, not because they were supported by cut-rate or one-off financing. this framework was effective for decades, but our report clearly notes that it's showing its age. for the first time this year, ex-im sent a team of analysts

around the world, to mumbai, mexico city, rio, beijing and many other stops in between. we interviewed buyers, clients, banks, lenders and other ecas about the challenging and changing nature of international export finance. what did we find? we found a stunning increase in the amount of eca financing that's happening both underground and in the dark. we found an increased use of unregulated oecd programs like direct investment and on-time financing as well as the growing presence of ecas from brazil, india and china which are not part of the current export credit guidelines. what do i mean by unregulated export finance? i mean official forms of finance that advance medium to longer-term national interests. when ex-im provides financing, we consider whether it's

necessary to close the sale of the u.s. product. but countries operating outside the oecd framework can offer financing to promote any number of long-term national interests such as increasing access to natural resources, future investments or creating a better overall environment for certain national champions. for example, canada's export credit agency delivered $100 million loan to colombia's echo patrol with the understanding that canadian companies would get a first look at future investment and procurement decisions. or when japan delivered $200 million to india to advance clean energy projects with the expectation more japanese technologies would be used in india. it's a wink and a nod. finance now for future benefits. this is happening more and more.

our report found that unregulated government export finance exceeds all export finance activity in the g7 combined. let me just repeat that. our report found unregulated financing exceeded all the support of the g7 combined. our study estimated that roughly $100 billion in unregulated oecd export financing and an additional 60 billion from the big countries. and my guess is that our estimate is still too low. because this activity is so pick, i know we've only scratched the service. export finance is a little bit like the wild west; rules are loosely followed, if at all. our research showed that oecd regulated financing has dropped from two-thirds to one-third of export finance in the last decade, and it's continuing to fall. that's why the united states is working to build a new international architecture to

bring more of this activity into the light. to reduce trade-distorting export finance that creates a less efficient and less stable international trading system. when president obama and vice president chi met in february 2012, they directed the u.s. and china we've expanded our working group to include other countries, and meetings have been, quote, honest, unscripted and productive. that's diplomatic speak for we're making progress. towards leveling the playing field for companies. the plan is for an agreement to be reached by the end of 2014, and it's critically important to american workers and businesses that we create this framework. because the conditions that allowed ex-im to have such a powerful impact last year are transient. the rapid rise of state-backed finance for exports is not. for the foreseeable future, our

economic competitors will strongly support their companies and industries that serve the national strategic interest. they will continue to try and create their own national champions. this is the new order of things. how america responds to this new order will determine if we create the millions of middle class jobs our nation will need in the years ahead. why? because growing exports is essential to future u.s. economic growth and job creation. that's a fact. president obama knows that and so does every ceo of every major company you could name and virtually every small business owner that i meet. but kinsey reports america needs to create 21 million new jobs by 2020 to once again achieve full employment. that will require robust economic growth, and you only can get growth from four places;

consumer, business and government spending and exports. the first three without question are facing big headwinds. exports are where the growth is and increasingly where the jobs are too. exports already support some ten million american jobs, the type of skilled, good-paying jobs we need more of. and america needs, and america needs to once again become the top exporter in the world. we need to reclaim the position we gave up a decade ago first to germany and then to china. and i don't say this out of some feel good nostalgia. with the size of our economy and the challenges we face, it's unacceptable to be in third place. america is the top producer of goods and services in the world. we simply must sell more of them overseas. and we can. if we keep building on the success of the recent trade agreements with colombia, south

korea and panama, if we stick to the vision of president obama's national export initiative which gives our companies more of the financing and ore tools -- other tools they need to compete abroad, then we can lead again. doing more exporting is a no-brainer. in fact, america doubled our exports in the last decade. and president obama wants to double them again in half the time. but our economic competitors have brains too. and they've been focusing them on growing their exports. they're not standing still. in the last decade china's export of goods have grown sixfold. brazilian exports have tripled. that didn't happen on its own. our competitors were strategic. china and other countries were single-mindedly focused on outcomes. they identified businesses and industries with growth potential and put significant resources behind them.

america, on the other hand, took a largely reactive, transactional, hands-off approach to the maintenance of our long run trade prospects. we had such a huge domestic market for so long that exports, frankly, were an after thought. we didn't need or have a real plan to grow exports. we made great products and had little competition. we were come play sent, and our complacency went beyond exports. for years the u.s. underinvested in education, in infrastructure, research and development and the other foundations of economic competitiveness. fortunately, president obama has been working to rebuild that, this foundation since the first day he entered office. and it's just in time. look around the world right now at europe, struggling through a historic debt crisis and mostly in recession. at brazil, india and china

starting to slow down after years of breakneck growth. me merging countries have to -- many emerging countries have to grow at 7-8% a year just to tread water. china alone is working to create 45 million jobs over the next four years. russia needs to create 25 million jobs in the next decade, more than doubling their current work force. believe me, china and other countries will not be shy about using any tool as much as they can for as long as they can to put their people to work. state-owned enterprises, sovereign wealth fund, state-directed capital, they will leverage every single one in an attempt to outcompete us. and it won't be long before they have an opportunity to do so. our report found that many international buyers think countries like china are but three to five years away from reaching parity with the u.s. on some high-value goods and services.

they're already getting close to an advanced industrialized equipment. airplanes and avionics, the number one export and a huge source of american jobs could well be next. brazil already has a first rate regional aircraft business. china will still be coming to market with a 919 that will try to compete directly with boeing and airbus. so what do we do? a few weeks ago in cuyahoga, you heard the president's agenda for more competitive and prosperous america, one that continually innovates and develops cutting-edge products and services from aircraft to i.t. to farm equipment. so i'd like to close today with a few prescriptions for the export and, by extense, export finance elements of that agenda. first, america needs to lead the world in developing a new framework for international export finance. in developing that framework,

ex-im must be firm, retain a muscular presence around the world. we need to keep supporting small, our small businesses and fast-growing american industries like renewable energy, medical devices and construction equipment. and that's exactly what we're doing. i just returned yesterday from russia where ex-im signed a $1 billion financing agreement with the largest bank to boost exports of aircraft, farm equipment, energy equipment and other goods and services. and, in fact, ex-im bank is once again on track to have a fourth consecutive record-breaking year of financings. if america demonstrates that we will do whatever it takes to insure that our companies compete on a level playing field, others will have a lot more incentive to join a rules-based framework. that's what we're working to achieve by 2014, the date is the

by president obama and vice president chi. if we fail, international export finance will start to resemble the cluster of car dealerships out by tyson's corner where each american flag is larger than the next, where air dancers entice buyers in with signs that say no money down, cash back. as every car dealer knows, and car buyer, you can only give away so much before you undercut yourself. that's what we need to avoid with export finance. we can't have a race to the bottom to see who can offer or the most cut rate financing, and we can't have export finance being used to secretly curry competitive advantage. because in the end we all lose, and it's not sustainable. but if we get everyone playing by the same rules, adhering to the same standards, we'll get more efficiency, stability and innovation. we just want everything above

board. with more transparency, you know what everyone is actually doing, and you stand a better chance of eliminating trade-distorting export finance altogether. that's a goal virtually everyone in congress can agree upon. here's the second thing we can do to get our own house in order. congress can make it easier to reorganize america's trade-related agencies. they can give president obama the fast tracked authority to submit a reorganization plan for up or down vote by congress. the president made this request last year, and it would basically reip state the authority -- reinstate the authority that presidents have enjoyed for the better part of 50 years from franklin d. roosevelt to ronald reagan. america's trade stance has often been reactive instead of proactive because responsibility is diffused across too many different agencies. other countries are more strategic.

for example, many foreign export credit agencies effectively have their own domestic versions of ex-im, ustr, ustda, ita, and is they're all under one roof. they take that alphabet soup, pour it into one big pot and offer their, a customer-oriented entry point for their country's business interests. there really needs to be a healthy debate about what configuration will ultimately work in the united states. but congress needs to act and give president obama the authority to make our government more streamlined, more effective and more responsive to the needs of its citizens. these two prescriptions -- building a better export finance framework worldwide and a more streamlined trade apparatus at home -- are achievable, and they're urgent. but the specific changes require a more deep-seated change in the way washington thinked about

international trade. as you all know, ex-im came through a bruising reauthorization fight with congress. in the end, we rallied bipartisan support to provide american companies and their workers with the export finance support they need. the debate in congress wasn't just about ex-im. we were a proxy for a bigger fight about how rigorously our government should promote u.s. business interests around the world. and i have to say i don't get it. almost no one in congress questions where the united states should aggressively push a strategic and defense interest abroad. but when it comes to fighting our economic interests, that bipartisan consensus falls away. we have too many who think america should unilaterally disarm just as foreign competition is heating up. that makes no sense. there are over 60 export credit agencies around the world, and

each and every one of them is working to expand their foot print and increase their activity. this is the world we live in, and we've got to compete in the world as it is, not as we'd like it to be. american companies have what it takes to win in the global economy. they can go head to head with any company in the world. ..

[applause] >> i will moderate. >> i think this is on. excellent. again, we will have questions and i will ask you questions in the beginning and then we would love to have people identify themselves and get to the questions in just a minute. you raised the whole sector of the xm bank reauthorization. you know, in the questions it raised a government role in export, and you also talked a little bit about the role of state directed capital. so, -- and the conflict between the two visions -- i guess the question i have is i can understand the argument against state directed capital if the

world have no other state directed capital. if we were facing europe. instead, we are now facing countries like china and which they are seeing the way they do capital as you referenced. so do you think we will have this fight annually or continually have a fight are around these sets of issues, or do you think because of the arguments that really brought bipartisan support that this broader concern among them members of the tea party around having any effort at the federal level to support capital those change fundamentally? >> the good news is we have a three year reauthorization. it's not and you will, that's the good news. the bad news is it is still a debate in this country we see it played out in the next five, six

months living on two november. is there a role for government and what is the role for government to help build the economy, create jobs and how american companies can compete overseas. the model has changed. as you mentioned is not the european model we dealt with and even our european trading partners are operating in ways that are legal but outside of the oecd. whether it provides a certain kind of wink and nod loans. as we have to face up to that reality, and it's not a part of the romantic view we have of how business operates in this country but that's the reality of the world out there. >> given that reality, should we change? should we act more? i mean, i know you discuss the framework, but if companies -- if countries aren't following the rules of transparency already, should we become more nationalistic and our policy?

should we talk a our national interest to these decisions more like other countries are? >> i feel we should. let me say this. we have under president obama a very muscular bank. it's a 100 billion-dollar range. the president asked for 140 billion. the work best way we can bring the world sort of to a better framework is to come with full force and indicate we are not going to back off and we are going to keep meeting our competition and keep supporting american companies and we have a lot of money to do so. by doing so we are likely the end to get a better framework because we are going to stand firm and we aren't going to back off. as we have to be more rigorous and robust. if we do that right, we can probably get to the point everybody backs off. >> you said in the past when you see countries acting unfairly

you will go the extra mile. can you give an example of that what you mean by that? >> one example i talked about last year where pakistan were to buy locomotives. they made this purchase and tried to offer financing those outside of the realm of the oecd. so we returned covered financing. we made a decision. the administration that we would match financing. so we gave them and i said if you buy locomotives the expensive but that's up to the g the quality and the service but we make sure we did the same financing offered so we are making sure they are doing that proposal. that is the kind of thing we can step forward and say we don't want anybody to lose a celtic

and because somebody else gave cut racing. >> to give one more round i have one more question which is there has been a lot of press recently and you referenced this about slowing down in countries like china, india, perhaps brazil. we've had rapid growth in our exports and it's been one of the areas. d.c. that slowing down or do you think our companies will be able to continue to do well even as the market's decline a bit? >> because of the emerging economies they are still growing. they aren't growing as rapidly. it is just going to be much more competitive. as i said it just returned from russia. russia wants to create 20 million jobs. they only have 17 million today

and china wants to have 45 million, so there is an intense competitive pressure from the u.s. companies in st. petersburg, u.s. companies such as ge, siemens in america, alcoa, fighting for orders against whether it is a bus or in the city to -- mitsubitchi petraeus we've terkel infrastructure. and we have a lot of frankly unethical business practices and a lot of corruption and microtransparency and yet the world economy is still going. so if we can just pick some of this infrastructure we can. so i think there's a lot of opportunity out there. it's just going to be an intensely competitive situation to get those. >> are you looking at emerging markets like africa that may not have had as much focus as they

have? >> one of our vice chairs who had the sub-saharan africa portfolio last year we financed of seven to 8% of all about four to five the intensity of what we do globally. last year we did one planned for billion dollars worth of financing to central for cut. and already this year we've exceeded that numbers we've actually done more in africa than the prior year in the prior year was an all-time high. so i think that central africa is frankly growing in the fastest region of the world. the other has been latin america. colombia has been growing very rapidly. even brazil, we've had our portfolio in mexico, several largest portfolios globally. this, i see a lot of bright spots there. turkey, one of our directors was in turkey this week. turkey has been strong. last year we had about 27 and

turkey. so in some of those key markets, xm is very vital towards making and closing those sales. >> but in places like africa there has been a discussion about china using its economic policies and economic power to also meet its long-term foreign policy goals. do you see that as an avenue for us to discover the long term -- >> china very much negotiates the natural resources and africa. in some ways it may be controversial. i think if china is focused on sub-saharan africa has been a wake-up call for american companies because it did shine a light and there was great business to be done and these economists one, the governments have more and more stability. technology is changing. in terms of the agricultural -- >> i think that it's a strong market for power.

it's a strong market for farming equipment. and frankly air transportation. that is too big a continent. so air transportation is increasing a very strong market for the economy. >> let's turn to the audience. if you could identify yourself we are going to try to give reporters and other people. >> [inaudible] [laughter] >> he said it, not me. >> - maxwell from inside trade. thanks for the opportunity,. i want to go back to your comments on the international framework for the new international framework the u.s. is working on with china. you sit in a diplomatic speech you are making progress, but i wondered if you could give a little more sense of what you are working on with china. and by understand that initially you are working on a work plan

and were supposed to be dicey next month perhaps to work on that. i was wondering if you could give a little more sense of what the discussion is right now and how far are you away from getting to the point where you can actually launched these negotiations? and also you mentioned that other countries are involved in the talks. are those members of members that are currently in the oecd agreement or to you have other countries in the speech in india brazil if there's any indication that they're interested in participating in this initiative >> the so-called practices that even oecd partners are engaging in and go above and beyond the current agreement is that something that you plan to address in this new international framework?

do you what sort of new disciplines or agreements? >> let me see if i can get all those questions. president obama met in february and said we are directing our respective governments could create a framework. we've been working at that and so for the conversations were open, transparent which is it takes that forward. they are genuine and real. what we do now is nothing. what do we mean by long-term financing and short term, what do we mean by infrastructure and how do we define some of those things so it is a definition we can define. where are we close together and far apart? said it is included with other members of the oecd we are going to be part of this conversation. what is a framework we can all agree upon? the oecd worked for many years in the late 1978.

let's showing its age is because not everybody is in it and there's a lot of financing that's going around at so the question as we would like someone to be as broad and encompassing as we can and we would like as many people. china is the second-largest economy in the world, the largest exporter of goods it's not attainable for them not to be part of this so that is what we are doing. brazil is a part of the oecd when it comes to aircraft so we have made progress there and i think we have to see what the next steps are. >> nothing as specific as china. >> nelson cunningham but i am asking my question and my capacity as the chair of the xm

advisory board. >> is that fair, really? [laughter] >> as the chair of the board with the advisor recommitting i should have thanked them personally and brought the tuthill recommendation into a cohesive letter. so thank you. now i will take your question. >> my question has at the front of the report you talked about other countries manage to package their services to their own businesses in a way that is easy to use. you have identified, we have identified outreach to small businesses in areas where the bank needs to continue. given the importance of small business in the economy, looking forward, how do you see the bank reaching out to that important constituency and helping them create the jobs that boeing and ge and others have heretofore

been the head of? >> small businesses have been one of the center of president obama's strategies for both exports and the economy. and i worked at the sba under president clinton. you never know what i assume that is part of the reason president obama wanted me to come to bring that perspective to it. we did $6 billion worth of loan guarantees and financing to small business last year. that's up 90% over the last few years. it's still not enough. it's probably the hardest part of the area to go forward. when i was in russia, we talked about small, medium enterprises will meet with other members. we have something called the ge11 which is the g-7 plus the four. there's great interest in small business but candidly i haven't seen other countries doing much more than lip service to be honest with you.

so, on think one of the great hidden the vintages we have in the country is our diaspora community. one of our directors ten days from now is going to be meeting in indonesia in los angeles to find ways we can have people from other countries, businesses to start a was this year understand and frequently have friends in indonesia or other parts of the country is one way that we can grow small businesses and it's actually a good international diplomacy aspect to that. in our case we are trying to get more small was this is, find more small banks to lend to them. we announced a product called cool l'express which is a global loan them from the xm bank for small businesses of to have a million dollars. the president announced that in february. it's because it's very hard to find any bank in the country who wants to make a loan for half a million dollars. the transaction costs are too high sweet taken it upon

ourselves to do the pilot. we will make the loan and we are working with banks on that because once the company has the loan to grow than the bank will want to do business with them. >> over here. >> mr. chairman, i am brian with bloomberg news. >> [inaudible] [laughter] >> koln the lines of one of the previous questions. you mentioned the unregulated activities happening within the oecd country in the entel there is a framework in place, does the u.s. engage in any regulated finance to compete with international competitors? and secondly, you said that china and the u.s. are working on this remark. you also mentioned china is one of the biggest beneficiaries of unregulated finance. so what incentive do they have to get a right if they are benefiting from this? >> i am unaware of any loan programs we do of an unregulated nature by the u.s. government.

that's just not how we operate. in the united states government, when a ied those work it's to help build education, health care and so forth. it's not to throw the u.s. commercial sales efforts. that's different than the way much of the rest of the world operates. it's much more about really helping that particular country. so we just don't operate in that way. that's not how we operate. the incentive for china is there is just more and more pressure from the g20. president obama made that clear. and second, it ultimately becomes an competitive. it becomes too costly to try to run those kind of sort of low market financing schemes and one of deals. so there is a -- it may not be a media but my example of a car dealership at some point there's no way to do business we can't

really afford. it's not sustainable. i think china is coming to an understanding looking at growth rates moderating in china lookit being oriented so they are looking to also become as a part of the wto it's like the u.n. for commercial business interests and they are looking to find a way forward and it's something that president obama has been a strong advocate in and somewhat relentless and focused on that. >> we will take questions in the back. just got back from los angeles with the federal reserve bank on how to better leverage federal credit enhancement programs. it was $1.4 billion of stimulus credits, 169 million went to having a hard time getting it

out. so we came up with a way of leveraging special platforms of support, credit enhancements in the los angeles reason to the region. the affairs of sovereign credit programs that could be enhanced with other industries like that so there could be a kind of a broadening of these kind of credits internationally and we might be able to show them how those could be enhanced with special credit programs? clearly it is in the united states interest and i think that has been central to all efficacy to try to get more muscular stimulating stimulus to create growth around the world. we are in a deficit, not an inflation deficit. we need to get it growing again. i was in business for 20 years and we said grove covers a lot of things. a lot of things can go wrong.

once we get faster growth, that's going to turn the economy around. you're not been to save your way to a better economy. they just can't work that way. >> in the back. >> my name is nicole with the sierra club. germaine hochberg, you talk a lot about transparency internationally and i wanted to ask about transparency within the u.s.. the bank does not disclose the companies involved in projects that you are looking at financing the the amount of money and exactly what is being financed for the project until after the deal has been approved. through the process we have seen the bank financing for $800 million for the coal-fired power plants in india despite it turns out the company's reliance industries haven't finished the land acquisition.

there are lawsuits over the allotment. there's an ongoing crisis that's causing the plans to go bankrupt. the of the project in south africa, the part that meant that low rates are guaranteed to the industry and the price to build the plant was actually being paid for by people that could already barely afford electricity and the rates are going up. even here in the u.s. exports from pennsylvania and west virginia -- my question for you is when will we see this type of transparency in the process domestically so that we can have input on the projects and make sure that renewable projects that are helping to actually build our industries and help people to be financed other than the coal projects that are damaging both communities abroad but also communities here in the u.s.. >> let me try to answer that

question. we need a large environmentally sensitive project. the first is based on its environmental soundness and then the subsequent after that is made on the project finance of inflation. so the two that you happened to mention go through a two-step process and that is mandated by our transparent environmental policy which is the only one in the entire world that is really transparent. not one of our partners has a transparent and fair rental policy likely to. so we candidly are out in some ways i would argue it is an advantage because we focus all of this interesting in a project where that is not the case. whether it is china, japan, germany, people and outside and inside the oecd. in the case of those projects,

we went forward with them because both of them also had a portfolio approach towards renewable energy in both places. we are not supporting coal plants that would be environmentally above the target level of 850 units of carbon in countries such as south africa cited as having the best long-term portfolio and environmentally sensitive program that involves coal. we are only looking at where we are going to support a country that is making a genuine effort and a plan to have a balanced energy program coming and we want to be a part of that. in many of these cases, the to the you happen to site, they are being built anyway. we have a choice we can build them with american equipment and

services and american engineering or let them be killed by someone else but they are going to be built one way or another and our choice, i believe our choice is i would rather have them built with our technology and engineering and be more environmentally sound and keep the jobs here in america. >> i think we had time for one more question over here. the microphone is coming to you. >> i am management consultant. what do you see is the enduring the principal american values as you leverage to build a constituency for your programs here, bipartisan or otherwise, and how do those play into our international competitiveness and you are trying to foster? >> we are guided and it was started by fdr in 1934 about creating jobs. we are not a national interest

agency carried others in the example canada are too great examples. they take an approach if it is built by canadians or by italians that's good enough. we require them to be built in america in the u.s. because we are looking to create jobs here at home. so the value system and what guides us in making decisions in the bank gives the financing necessary to close the deal and is creating jobs at home? i will tell you to give you an example we finance the solar power plant to india, created good jobs here in the united states, created 600 jobs to build a solar power plant, and ongoing 200 full-time permanent jobs to maintain and operate the power plant. to be that is a very strong statement because we are not only creating jobs at home we are creating jobs in india and

that makes us a welcome country to export products because we are not sending workers over there they are not only due to exports in one country and then take away the jobs in the country where the exports, we are creating a really good jobs in the formal economy that's helping to build those as well. >> thank you so much for coming again for the competitiveness report and for your work on manufacturing. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

what role should the government played in housing finance? >> if you want to subsidize housing in this country, and we want to talk about it and the

populace agrees that it's something we should subsidize, then put it on the balance sheet and make it clear and evident and make everybody aware of how much it is costing. but when you deliver it through these third party enterprises, fannie mae and freddie mac when you deliver the subsidy through a public company with private shareholders and executives who can extract a lot of that subsidy for themselves, that is not a very good way of subsidizing homeownership. i think we have seen that at the end of the movie in 2008. the senate today is waiting for the house to vote on the house-senate compromise combining three bills all covered programs about to expire. the compromise continues highway transit programs for the next two years. student loan rates of 3.4% for another year and the national flood control program for five

more years. the house is just beginning work on the measure now. you can see live coverage on c-span. live coverage here on c-span2 of the u.s. senate. the presiding officer: the senate will come to order. the chaplain dr. barry black will lead the senate in prayer. the chaplain: let us pray. eternal god, the light of our lives, we lift our hearts to you in praise. may your presence be felt today on capitol hill. there is no one like you, for you protect the weak from the strong and the poor from the oppressor.

give our senators strength for today's journey. deepen their trust in you as you guide them by your wisdom. as we anticipate. the fourth of july. reminded us. that true freedom comes from you. and lord, we ask your special blessings upon our outgoing senate page class. we pray in your liberating name. amen. the presiding officer: please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance to the flag. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

the presiding officer: the clerk will read a communication to the senate. the clerk: washington, d.c., june 29, 2012. to the senate: under the provisions of rule 1, paragraph 3, of the standing rules of the senate, i hereby appoint the honorable christopher coons a senator from the state of delaware, to perform the duties of the chair. signed: daniel k. inouye, president pro tempore. mr. reid: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. reid: i move to proceed to calendar number 341, s. 3327. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: motion to proceed to calendar number 341, s. 2237, a bill to provide a temporary income tax credit for increased payroll and extend bonus depreciation for an additional year and for other purposes. mr. reid: i snow -- know the senators are anxious as to what is going to happen today. the republican leader and i have been in close contact the last several days. we're fortunate that we're now in a position to complete work

today. we should be able to do it quickly. it all depends on the cooperation of senators. we actually know that the house is planning to vote around 12:30 today. they could do it more quickly. they could do it as late as 1:00. we have the ability now that the papers have been filed over in the house, we could act before they do, as we've done before. we'll have to see how the morning moves on, but we are working on a consent to have votes in relation to the transportation conference report this morning. senators have called me. i'm sure and the republican leader on a number of occasions. as soon as we have something firmed up, we'll let everyone know. mr. president, yesterday the united states supreme court reaffirmed that no family should live one illness or one accident away from bankruptcy. the court's decision is a victory for -- isn't a victory for democrats or president obama. it's a true victory for the american people. let me give you a few reasons

why that, in fact, is the case and just a few. since the act was signed by president obama, more than six million young people have signed up for their parents' health plan. mr. president, why is that important? mr. president, as most people know in the senate at least -- i'm from searchlight, nevada. it's a very small community. somebody i care a great deal about, she was assistant postmistress there. her husband has been around town, they have been together for many years. they have a boy named jeff. i can remember when we first had our home in searchlight, he would help us as a young boy, climbing up into a tree, putting putting -- into a yucca tree -- joshua tree, i'm sorry, christmas tree lights. well, he has grown past that.

he was in college, doing quite well, and he started getting sick. he had just turned 23, and he was -- as embarrassed as he was, he had to go to a doctor and find out what was wrong. he had testicular cancer. that happened in a matter of weeks after he was no longer on the insurance plan of his parents. they had no money. they were desperate to help their boy. they did everything they could to help him. he had two or three surgeries. his life was saved, but yet really it put a dent in what limited savings they had. she worked part time at the post office. he had -- he had worked down at the mojave generating facility, which closed. so they had limited means, and it was really difficult on what

savings they had been able to accumulate. that won't happen anymore. he would have been able to complete college because you know the magic age isn't 22 anymore, it's 27. so, mr. president, that's one thing. six million young americans are taking advantage of that. they won't have to have the problem that jeff hill had. he is doing okay now. he recently married, but it was a struggle for a long time, physically and emotionally. because children can now stay on their parents' insurance until they're 26, no young person will have to defer his or her dreams to take a job that offers insurance. since health reform took effect, five million seniors have already saved about $600 each on prescription drugs, the doughnut hole is being filled now. maybe people watching this presentation here today don't

know what the doughnut hole is, but every senior citizen knows what it is because it costs them lots and lots of money. and because of this law now no longer being debatable as far as whether or not it's going to stand, it's the law of the country, millions have gotten free wellness checks and cancer screens, that they could never have done that before. millions, mr. president, free wellness checks and cancer screens. that means millions of seniors have more money in their pockets for food, gas and electric bill. and, mr. president, frankly, a lot of them wouldn't spend that money anyway. they would just worry about whether they had cancer or whether they should wait a while to go see that doctor for their annual physical which was way overdue. and it means millions of seniors if, in fact, they are spending for this wellness check won't have to anymore and they could have this money for food, gas

and electric bills. hundreds of thousands of businesses already offer their employees health insurance or are getting tax credits for doing the right thing. since congress passed this law, insurance companies have no longer put profits ahead of people. mr. president, it's no secret. the insurance companies have been lobbying for a long, long time. 17, 18 years ago, they lobbied against the clinton health care plan, and they -- they were very effective. harry and louise ads defeated that legislation. they spent millions and millions of dollars, and they tried to defeat this legislation, and they have been lobbying hard. i don't know how they expected to affect the supreme court, but maybe they had ways that none of us understand, and i think they wasted their money. but in the future, insurance companies will no longer be able to put profits ahead of people. they can no longer discriminate against children with preexisting conditions. mr. president, i serve in

congress. we have been friends since i was going to law school back here. his name was james bilray, jimmy bilray. he has had a wonderful career in politics in nevada, but he and i as young men back here were raising our little kids together. we were going to law school. we both worked here on capitol hill. his little boy, kevin, got so sick, he was just a baby, he was just a baby. they didn't know what was wrong. he had a diabetic coma. this little baby had diabetes. kevin lived to be about 20 years old. he had a diabetic reaction and was taking a shower, fell over the stop on the bathtub where the shower was, and he drowned, it killed him, he died, kevin bi lbray. he had diabetes. of course, getting insurance was

always a problem for that family. no longer, mr. president. no longer if a child like the bilbrays', like little kevin who has diabetes, they won't have to worry about it, can i get insurance, and not only will it apply in the future -- it applies right now to people under age 18, but in the future, everybody who has a preexisting disability will be entitled to insurance. they cannot be denied because of preexisting disability. now, it's not only diabetes. heart defects. i know he -- he never talks about this, but i know senator durbin had a child from the time she was a baby had a heart defect. she was sick her whole life. dick lost his girl -- dick and loretta lost her a couple of years ago. she was 40 years old, thereabouts. her whole life, she had a heart defect. in the future, mr. president, people like that will be able to

get insurance. they cannot be denied. i met over here in the l.b.j. room yesterday morning, i had my welcome to washington, and there were a number of people there. the granddaughter of someone's brother went to school with, teddy, grandchild was there. why? because she was there representing her brother who had cystic fibrosis. i don't know, mr. president, if you have ever been around anyone with cystic fibrosis, but as i explained to them over there yesterday morning, one of my son's coaches had a son who had cystic fibrosis, and they would have to beat on his chest. they had this process to try to loosen the stuff that accumulates in your lungs because of this disease. kids used to live not very long with this. we're doing a lot better now, we have some medicines. but, mr. president, in the future, anyone with cystic

fibrosis will not be able to be denied insurance because of this dread disease. now if you're under age 18, you cannot be denied insurance because you have this dread disease. insurance companies can no longer raise your rates for no reason. how many times have we heard stories about insurance companies raising rates for no reason? other than they wanted to, and there was no way to stop it. they can no longer drop your coverage if you get sick, and they did that. they can no longer do that. that is now against the law of this country. millions of americans, mr. president, are already seeing the benefit of this law. and soon 35 million more who can't afford health insurance will have access to reasonably priced insurance and quality care. here he's how it works. each state will set up its own health insurance marketplace called an exchange which will offer a menu of private

insurance plans from which people can choose. now, the presiding officer's a relatively new senator here. i have been in congress now for a long time. every year, we get a menu of options, like all federal employees -- senators don't get treated any differently than other federal employees. we get a number of options as to what we want to buy. the price of one up here, one down here. that's what we want for everybody in america, something just like the millions of federal employees have, and that's -- that's what we will have. we're offered a menu of private insurance plans, private insurance plans from which people can choose what they want. once these changes are in place, insurance companies will no longer be able to discriminate against any american with a preexisting health condition, just like i've talked about. they won't be able to deny you insurance because you're sick. they won't be able to charge you more just because you're a woman. that is fact.

and we won't do it anymore. and if you can't afford the premiums, you will get a tax credit to help pay for them. but what if you're one of the 250 million americans who already has insurance? nothing will change, nothing. nothing will change except you will no longer have to worry that if you lose your job, you'll lose your insurance. nothing will change except that if you get cancer, have a stroke, your insurance company won't be able to deny you life-saving care because you reached some arbitrary lifetime cap. these are not theoretical, mr. president. a man in las vegas was a racer in a car, he wasn't racing cars, but someone hurt him. he became a paraplegic. he got along pretty well. he needed a lot of care. he arrived at some lifetime cap

on his insurance policy. he has no insurance. they can't do that anymore. you will be able to -- that provision, mr. president, this lifetime cap will help, i'm told, hundreds of thousands of people. nothing will change also except when you get a checkup and preventative care, it won't be free. a provision that has already helped 54 million americans with private insurance. you'll be able to keep your plan and keep your doctor, but now you, not the insurance company, will be in control. and by august, almost 13 million people will get a rebate check from their insurance company because it spent too much on administrative costs and not enough on health care. you can't any longer put all the profits into these multimillion-dollar bonuses and salaries that people had. can't do that. 80% of what you get, you have to

put into helping people get well. mr. president, this is so very, very important, this -- to explain to people what's in this bill. these are things that people want to take away? i don't think so. you can yell and scream about obama-care, but explain these individual provisions. and this money will come back in august. i was listening to public radio this morning, mr. president, and they interviewed someone who ran a insurance exchange, i think they called it, and he was waiting by the phone -- this was all on the radio -- for the decision to come out yesterday. he was so happy because cnn and fox announced it had been over -- the case had been overruled. no longer. oh, he was so happy.

but when he learned it was still in effect, he was very sad, because, why? he said, we're not going to be able to pay our -- our salaries as much as we had. well, you know, we looked at that, he was paying a lot for salaries for the bosses and not enough to put money into taking care of people. the affordable care act is already helping millions of americans, seniors on medicare, children with heart conditions, students with their dreams. and in coming months, many millions more will benefit from this law. that doesn't mean the law is perfect, mr. president. we all know that. and we're willing to work next year and if there are any problems that we need to try to work out, we'll be happy to work with our colleagues to do that. but now that the supreme court has spoken, it's time to renew our focus on the most pressing challenge facing america toda today -- the high unemployment rate that we have. too many americans are still struggling and congress can't afford to waste time refighting old battles. now we need to work together to

put americans back to work. and, mr. president, just a little side note, these people that talk about repealing this, it would cause the loss of 400,000 jobs. if you look at all the job statistics the past year, where's some of the most significant growth taking place? health care. so i don't think repealing this and losing right off the bat 400,000 jobs is a good idea. mr. president, thanks to cooperation on both sides, the senate's going to vote sometime today on a transportation bill conference report, and it's a wonderful piece of legislation. it includes student loans, a -- problems we had with flood insurance. these are all three very important things that will be completed hopefully fairly early today. the flood insurance program being extended will allow millions of home closings to go forward at a time when our real estate market is just beginning to rebound. preventing interest rates from

doubling on 7 million students was a major priority for all of us and i'm glad we're able to get it done. and passing the two-year -- two years, three months transportation bill will creator save 2.8 million -- create or save 2.8 million jobs, many of them in the hard-hit construction industry, are store millions of miles of crumbling roadways, railways and bridges. and it's very important, mr. president. it streamlines the process, getting rid of a lot of the possibilities for entities to stall the construction of these much-needed roads. i had an experience like this in nevada and that's why i so supported senator boxer and inhofe in streamlining the process to get these projects over with. because of an experience i had in las vegas. so it's been a very productive week. we're going to restore millions of miles of crumbling roadways, railways and bridges. so it's been a very fruitful session that we've had. we've passed a bipartisan farm bill. we've taken a real hard look at how we're going to make the postal service better.

and the farm bill was very difficult, took a long time to get it done but we got it done. so i'm optimistic the senate will maintain the spirit of cooperation during the next work period when we consider a number of job-creation measures and a number of important other things that we need to do. so i hope my colleagues have a constructive week and -- at home, we've got a lot of work to do, and i understand that. i hope everyone's safe and happy and certainly extend my recognition to the states of colorado, who've had such these devastating fires, and the west is having real problems. we have more than 200 fires that are burning as we speak. 11 of them are major fires. and we have to make sure that we give the fire fighting people the resources to do this. and i was happy within the past month to be part of a program to advance the purchase of these tankers to fight these fires.

we were able to do that. so when we come back to work in ten days or so, everyone has to understand we have a lot to do to ensure this country's economic future and i look forward to taking on that challenge together. mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the committee on commerce be discharged from further consideration of s. 1335 and we now proceed to that matter. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. the committee is discharged and the senate will proceed. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent that the hutchison-inhofe amendment at the desk be agreed to, the bill as amended be read a third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and any statements relating to the measure appear at the appropriate place in the record as if given. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. mcconnell: mr. president? the presiding officer: the republican leaderment. mr. mcconnell: i'm going to address two issues in morning. first the highway bill. i want to commend particularly the senior senator from oklahoma

for the extraordinary work he's done to produce a transportation bill that has significant reforms in it. he's been tenacious and effective. he's tugged on our sleeves and pointed out to us repeatedly the importance of getting this job done and i want to congratulate him for an extraordinary accomplishment. with regard to that bill, the highway conference report contains significant reforms to the surface transportation program. projects now will be completed in a more timely manner because for the first time, there are hard deadlines on agencies to complete environmental reviews. also, states are given maximum flexibility to use their transportation dollars the way they chose rather than how washington dictates. this bill is fully paid for with a package of offsets mostly included in the senate-passed highway bill. the conference report also contains important legislation to reform the national flood insurance program and to prevent college student loans from

doubling. the flood insurance bill is a model of reform. it moves this long-failing program closer to where it should be: the private sector. these reforms actually cut subsidies, save the taxpayer money and greatly improve the program's financial position. and it was negotiated and reported out of committee on a bipartisan basis. on the student loan issue, republicans and democrats worked hard to find common ground. the agreement we've reached will ensure that college students who are already facing enormous challenges in the obama economy won't be paying higher interest rates next month. students can't wait for the president to get off the campaign trail and actually work with congress to prevent student loan interest rates from rising this year. so while the president continues to ignore the bipartisan proposal sent more than three weeks ago, senate democrats dropped their demand for job-killing tax hikes and worked

with republicans to find solutions. it's nice to finally see the senate start to actually work like the senate used to. it proves if this body ignores the campaign attacks from the president and if our democratic friends stop pushing job-killing tax hikes, we can actually get a lot done around here. and i once again want to thank my colleagues for their hard work on this important measure. now, mr. president, on a most important issue brought to the front page the last two days and that is the state of the new obama-care law. two and a half years ago, president obama teamed up with democrats right here in congress to pass a health care bill they knew most americans didn't really want. americans had been very clear about what they thought of this bill. so democrats settled on a deeply

dishonest sales pitch aimed at convincing them otherwise. and nearly every day since then, the promises that formed the heart, the very heart of that sales pitch have been exposed for the false promises they we were. americans were promised lower health care costs, but, of course, they're going up. americans were promised lower premiums and they're going up. seniors were promised medicare would be protected. it was raided to pay for a new entitlement instead. we were promised it would create jobs. c.b.o. predicts it will lead to 800,000 fewer jobs. 800,000 fewer jobs because of obama-care people were promise promised -- open obama-care. people were promised they could keep the plans they liked. millions have now learned they can't. for two years, the list of

broken promises has grown longer and longer and longer. but yesterday morning, we got powerful confirmation of what may have been the biggest deception of all. for years, the president and his democrat allies in congress have sworn up and down -- sworn up and down -- that failing to comply with the individual mandate did not result in a tax on individuals or families. it's not a tax, they said. and the reason was obvious. if americans knew that failure to comply resulted in a tax, of course the bill would -- in a tax hike, of course the bill would never have passed. if our friends on the other side had conceded the obvious -- that it was, in fact, a tax hike -- we all know it never would have passed.

and the president wouldn't be ainl able to claim his health care bill -- able to claim his health care bill didn't claim taxes on the middle class, as he did again and again and again. well, yesterday the court blew the president's cover. in a narrowly upheld case, on one basis only, that the penalty associated with the individual mandate is a tax, the court spoke. congress doesn't have the constitutional authority to mandate insurance coverage under the commerce clause, it said. congress doesn't have the authority to mandate individual insurance coverage under the commerce clause. but it obviously does have the power to tax. so they upheld the central provision of this bill on the

fact that the penalty for failing to comply with it was a tax. in the eyes of the court, that's all the penalty tied to the individual mandate ever was, a tax imposed by a democratic congress without a single republican vote, primarily, interestingly enough, mr. president, primarily on the middle class. a tax on the middle class. so let's be very clear about that. the tax connected to the individual mandate is not primarily a tax on the rich. but on the middle-class americans who will bear the brunt of it. listen to this, colleagues. according to the c.b.o., at least 77% of the people paying this tax will meet the

president's own definition of the middle class. 77% of the people paying this tax will meet the president's own definition of the middle class. those who have to pay the tax will pay an average tax of $1,200. and even if they pay it every year, they still won't have insurance. so yesterday's decision turned the president's campaign rhetoric on its head. those who will end up paying the heaviest burden for not buying government-mandated insurance are not going to be the wealthiest americans. oh, no. but the very middle-class families the president claims to defend. that's the truth the court unmasked yesterday. now, most americans thought the process democrats used to pass

their health care bill was unseemly, secretive, partisan, even antidemocratic. they also thought it was unconstitutional for the government to create commerce in order to regulate it, for the government to create commerce in order to regulate it. now, all of that is still true. but what many americans may not have appreciated when this bill was passed was how empty all the promises were, how completely empty all the promises were, and at the center of them all was the claim that failing to buy health insurance did not result in a tax. that was the central claim. failing to buy health insurance did not result in a tax.

but the court has now spoken. it is a tax. largely on the middle class. and this is just one more reason why this law needs to be repealed in its entirety. with every passing day, we learn something new about this terrible law. not only does it make the problems in our health care system worse, it leads to a tax on middle-class families who are either unable or unwilling to purchase health insurance. what a terrible idea. so it's time for democrats to stop trying to defend the indefensible and join republicans in wiping this colossal legislative mistake clear off the books.

yesterday's decision gives us the clearest proof yet that this bill has to go. it needs to be repealed to clear the way for commonsense step-by-step reforms that protect americans' access to the care they need from the doctor they choose at a lower cost, and that's precisely what republicans intend to do. mr. president, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the leadership time is reserved. under the previous order, senators are permitted to speak for ten minutes. the senator from iowa. mr. grassley: the supreme court yesterday overturned the mandatory medicaid expansion in the affordable care act. as of yesterday, the state now will have a choice to expand or not to expand coverage to the

poorest people in society without being subjected to harsh federal penalties. i'd like to draw attention to a speech that i gave on the senate floor on this subject, december, 2011. the subject was the constitutionality of the medicaid expansion in the health care reform bill. i expressed my concerns then about the potential impact of the supreme court decision on medicaid expansion. i said on the floor that day -- quote -- "a supreme court ruling in favor of the states in this case could not only jeopardize a mandated medicaid expansion in the affordable care act but could challenge the fundamental structure of medicaid and have broader implications outside of health care, end of my quote back in december of last year.

the concerns i expressed then have to a degree come true as a result of the court's decision yesterday. reading from the post editorial this morning about the court ruling on medicaid -- quote -- "this restriction of federal authority may have greater ramifications than the court's limiting of the commerce clause. one can imagine challenges to federal conditions across a wide spectrum of programs, including but not limited to the environment, education and transportation, end of quote from the "washington post" today. this decision overturns the mandatory expansion of the medicaid program, and while i realize most of the focuses on the decision related to the tax mandate, we should spend a moment talking about the consequences of the medicaid

decision. one of the goals of the health care reform was to provide coverage for people in need. i would argue that the people most in need of coverage are people without a job, people without income and the poorest of the poor. the affordable care act requires states to cover people below poverty through medicaid. states were mandated to expand to cover people below poverty. now, yesterday, the supreme court ruled that mandatory expansion is unconstitutional. writing for the majority, chief justice roberts said -- quote - "nothing in our opinion precludes congress from offering funds under the affordable care act to expand the availability of health care and requiring states accepting such funds to comply with the conditions of

their use, but congress is not free to do, justice roberts says, is to penalize states that choose not to participate in that new program by taking away their existing medicaid funding, end of chief justice's quote. with this decision, states now have the option to expand medicaid to cover people below poverty. the states had that option even before the affordable care act was passed. so what does this decision mean in real terms? it will be up to the states, of course, to determine if they will cover the poorest of the poor. the federal government cannot guarantee that coverage. so now, people will -- with jobs will have to purchase insurance under the tax mandate, but

people without income, people who are below poverty are dependent upon the state in which they reside. now, i know some people will believe that the choice is perfunctory, that medicaid expansion will move forward because the federal government has offered to pay for more than 90% of the expansion. but if you were a state, would you really trust a promise from this federal government that is $15 trillion in debt? if you were a state, would you really trust an obama administration that proposed eliminating the special federal payment rate through a proposal known as the blended rate? states will very reasonably be risk adverse. states can now expand if they choose to or not at all.

no one should assume for a second all states will expand to cover as much as was mandated under the affordable care act. of course, you might think people below poverty could still get health care through tax credits, but the people who wrote this bill made people flow poverty ineligible for tax credits. so that help is not available. those people are ineligible. it's all or nothing for the poor with medicaid. with today's ruling, the answer is nothing. on december 15, 2011, he said on the senate floor that the expansion of medicaid and the coverage of poor people was in jeopardy because quote -- and

this is my quote -- the white house and the democratic majority put their goals ahead of collaboration with the republican states to build legitimate public policy." end of quote. today, that is the outcome. people with income, people with jobs are mandated to purchase health insurance and face a tax penalty if they don't, while the poorest people in society, those without jobs or without income have a guarantee of nothing. i think a victory lap about the decision yesterday is premature, particularly for the 17 million to 20 million people that this affordable care act promised coverage to. after this decision, a person in a family with an income of more

than $80,000 a year would be guaranteed access to a subsidy to buy private insurance while a person in a family with no income would be guaranteed nothing. when people below poverty, the people who least can afford coverage or the consequences of not having coverage are left with nothing, it sounds like failure to this senator. i yield the floor. mr. kyl: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from arizona. mr. kyl: mr. president, regarding yesterday's supreme court decision, there have been a variety of very interesting editorials, op-ed pieces, blogs. many of them erudite and very

useful for the analysis of the court's opinion. of course, it will take a long time for us to know precisely how all of this will work out over time. i thought i might refer to a couple of these opinions and op-eds, put them in the "congressional record" for people to see what a sampling might look like so they can more thoroughly analyze the opinion and then pose a question at the end. i start with one of my friends and i think one of the best columnists even nationally that i know. he writes for my local paper, "the arizona republic." close quote his name is bob robb. he writes in his column on june 29, and i quote -- "roberts' decision controlled the outcome even though it was fully joined by no other justice. here's what he concluded. the federal government has no power under the constitution's commerce clause to require individuals to purchase health insurance, as obamacare does.

however, the federal government does have the power to impose a financial penalty on people for not complying with the mandate the federal government has no authority to impose. that's because the penalty is actually a tax under congress' constitutional taxing authority. however, the penalty is not a tax for purposes of the antiinjunction act which would preclude the court from considering the legality until someone actually pays it. obviously, mr. president, these dilemmas require some explanation, and it may be -- and this is my phrasing, not bob robb's, that this is a good example of where the phrase legal ledger germane comes into play. robb continues -- "if congress has no authority to require people to do something such as purchase health insurance, how can it penalize them for not doing it? and how can money owed exclusively because of failing to comply with an unconstitutional mandate be regarded as a tax and not a

penalty?" he goes on to say -- "the purpose of the constitutional taxing power is to raise the money to operate the government. the clause reads the congress shall have the power to collect taxes and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the united states." end of quote. the purpose of the penalty, robb continues, for not buying health insurance isn't to raise revenue. the government would prefer not to get any money from it at all. the purpose is to compel compliance with the mandate that chief justice roberts says the government has no power to impose. there's nothing in the constitution that can remotely be construed as giving congress the power to tax people, not to raise revenue but to punish them for failing to do what congress would like them to do. robb concludes if congress cannot do something directly, it shouldn't be able to do it indirectly through taxation. mr. president, this raises a very important question, i think. if the taxing power can be used

to institute mandates such as obamacare, the real question is what limits there are on such taxing power, and i believe this may be one of the most important unanswered questions in justice roberts' opinion. one attempt to square the circle, in effect, was by the writer joshua hawley in "the daily caller" in his column, what's behind roberts' surprising decision? and i note that hawley comes to this with some credentials, being described as a former law clerk to chief justice roberts as well as an associate law professor at the university of missouri. in effect, as i read hawley's piece, he says that justice roberts actually constrained congress' power dramatically by, first of all, drawing a clear line on the reasonable and proper extension of the commerce clause power, but also he said that the taxing authority

roberts uses to justify congress' action in obamacare is actually very, very limited. in fact, he says that roberts attempted to make this case one of a kind, and that only in this particular case would the taxing authority be permissably used to require a -- for congress to require the people to do something. i hope that hawley's analysis is correct. i'm not so sure that it is. roberts' opinion certainly will make it more politically difficult for congress to pass things that extend its authority because it will have to be clothed in the cloak of a tax, and congress doesn't generally like to pass new taxes on people. but congress and the lawyers that advise us are pretty clever about freezing legislation in such a way that it would meet constitutional challenges, and now that we have a new example

of a power that we might exercise -- namely, this expanded taxing power -- i expect we will see efforts in the future to clothe our legislation in that under the guise of that taxing power. and if so, the constraints in chief justice roberts' opinion would be no constraints at all. there is an old saying that hard cases make bad law. i don't know that this was all that hard of a case, but it clearly resulted in a lot of different points of view from the justices from which one could conclude at least they saw it as a hard case. i just hope that the end result is not bad law, as i have suggested it could be here today. mr. president, i would ask unanimous consent at the conclusion of my remarks here to insert into the "congressional record" the following pieces. first, the robert robb column dated june 29 from the "arizona republic." second, a couple of pieces that

i think are somewhat representative. the "wall street journal" editorial of june 28, "obama-care and the power to tax." a rich lowery piece on "national review on-line" dated june 29, "the umpire blinks." a "national review" on-line piece by the editors, june 28, "chief justice roberts folly." and i think since i referred to it, i should probably also insert the joshua holly piece dated june 28 from "the daily caller." and would all just -- and that's the end of my unanimous consent request, mr. president. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. kyl: thank you. and i would also refer people to two very, very fine lawyers who write on these matters on a weekly and monthly basis and have an excellent piece in the "wall street journal," "a triumph and tragedy for the law," is what they call it. david rifken jr. and lee casey, both fine lawyers that frequently opine on matters of this sort. mr. president, i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.

quorum call:

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from west virginia. mr. manchin: to lighten the mood a little bit today, i rise to recognize -- the presiding officer: we are in a quorum call. mr. manchin: i ask the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. manchin: again, to lighten the mood a little bit today, mr. president, i rise to recognize west virginia's united way as a special organization as it celebrates its 125th anniversary. the united way was founded in 1887 by community leaders in denver, colorado. the renown organization originated through a group of individuals who came together with the drive to improve community conditions. since then, the organization has grown to 1,800 community-based uniteunitedunited ways and remae largest privately supported nonprofit raising nearly $5 billion annually. in our little state of west virginia, united way has touched

the lives of so many, so many people. united way volunteers have clocked thousands of hours of community service through health services, senior assistance programs, student tutoring, nutrition sites, job kills training and financial literacy services. united way has enthusiast i objectly embraced local institutions throughout our state. this wonderful organization has provided for at-risk teens at residential treatment centers like the daymark around canola valley. it has supported comprehensive medical and health services at establishments such as the west virginia chapter of the alzheimer's association. west virginia health right, cobble huntington children's hospital, thomas memorial hospital and the putnam dental health council. united way has supported family counseling at the canal valley fellowship home and at family counseling connection. it has also benefited emergency assistance facilities, such as the boone county community

organization and madison baptist church, mountain mission and nitro-st. albana care in cheryl. in 2011 alone, 68,337 individuals were served by united way supported programs in west virginia alone. more than 13,162 children and youth benefited from the services of united way partner agencies, and more than 26,997 people received financial assistance from a united way partner agency. in addition, nearly 28,000 people received health-related assistance from united way partner agency also. i have also been an avid supporter of united way and their community service efforts. and my wife gayle also served as the chairwoman of marion county's united way. i applaud the organization's ability to inspire members and their communities to work together and improve all aspects of their neighborhoods.

united way has so many laudable goals. the organization is working to promote a healthier society by working with families to develop healthy lifestyles. while americans continue to struggle in tough economic tim times, united way has worked with families to help them achieve financial stability. for example, united way launched the financial stability partnership which aims to hav have -- to halve the approximately 40 million americans who are work not guilty low-paying jobs without basic health benefits. united way has also targeted key areas of education, addressing problems such as the student dropout rate and preparing children for success at an early age. united way also has identified community health care needs and focuses efforts on changing health policies and practices for americans of all ages. about 47 million americans don't have health care coverage and more than 80% are working families. the organization tackles tough

health problems like insurance coverage, along with the obesity epidemic and prescription drug abuse. these are tough issues that oftentimes have no easy solutions. i applaud united way and all of its staff members, its volunteers and community leaders for their efforts to improve the quality of life in all of our communities. mr. president, today the united way has every reason to celebrate its success as they face this impressive milestone. i once again congratulate their achievements and i look forward to seeing what this great organization will accomplish in the next 125 years and beyond. thank you, mr. president. and i yield the floor. mr. inhofe: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. inhofe: mr. president, before the senator from west virginia leaves, i just want to publicly thank him for all of his support in something that just happened just a few minutes ago and that is our passage of the pilots' bill of rights. and there have been several on

both sides. certainly senator begich has been working hard, senator pryor and senator manchin, as well as many on the republican side. but it is a reality now and it's something -- i look at this as kind of a strange day for me anyway because i've been working on two bills for a year and a half. both will become a reality on the same day. one, of course, the highway bill. the other, everyone knows about, the pilots' bill of rights that only the pilots know about. you know, when you stop and think that we've been -- and i've been a pilot for 55 years and i get all the calls and the complaints that come in. but when you stop and think that the pilots are really the only ones in our society that are denied access to justice like every other citizen is, and this corrects that. and so i would say -- i just want to say to my friend that i appreciate very much his support in -- in making this a reality. mr. manchin: mr. president, if i may say, the leadership of my

good friend from oklahoma and his unwavering support and in basically bringing this to all of our attentions -- i've been a pilot for not quite 55 years but 45 years. and with that being said, i understand completely. but senator inhofe brought it to -- i think to attention to all of us, and even the nonpilots in our groups and ranks here. his steadfast leadership and support of this and also his ability to work across the aisle with those on our side of the aisle, the democrats, i appreciate so much that. and his leadership, i know senator boxer feels very, very compelled about this and your leadership in working with her on the transportation bill, both of you bringing that to the forefront for all of us. and we're all going to benefit by that. i thank you, sir, and continue to look forward to working with you. mr. inhofe: i appreciate my friend very much. let me, mr. president, just make a couple of comments. i'll be more detailed later. but i know a lot of people are

going to want to be getting on the floor, talking about the bill that will be most likely passed today in both the house and the senate. and that is the -- the problem that is -- that was there. a lot of people are not awafer the fact that -- aware of the fact that a general aviation pilot doesn't have the same access to remedies as others, as everybody else does. and -- and what makes this a little bit more compelling to do something about is that if you're not a pilot, you don't appreciate the fact that these are, a lot of them are single-issue people. and i had an experience where i actually -- my life was -- my license was in jeopardy for something that we find out that i didn't do, and then i happened to think, you know, all these complaints that i've had over the years about abusive treatment by some of the enforcement people were a -- i

never appreciated it until it happened to me. so -- and i will say this. i know more people in the f.a.a. that do a great job. they're very conscientious. these are career people. the -- the problem is every once in awhile you'll have someone in the field with enforcement powers that just can't handle that kind of a power. i was mayor of tulsa for a number of years several years back. we had a great police force. but now and then, you had people on that force who couldn't handle the power and so they would abuse that power. and you have to seek them out and you have to -- and that's -- that's what this is all about, when you have elected people and you -- you hear from these people when abuses take place. so what we've done is correct that. we actually have a system set up in this that if someone is -- is accused of -- of -- or cited for doing something that was wrong or might be a violation of one of the f.a.r.'s, that person

will now have access to the evidence that would be used against that person. and people say, wasn't that happening anyway? no, it wasn't. when this happened to me, i wa was -- i can remember very well, and i say to the chair, because we're very close and he knows i've been active in aviation for a long time, a year ago in october i went to land at an airport, one of the most southernmost airports in america, it was in south texas, one i've landed on more than 200 times. i know every square foot of that. it's a noncontrolled field. and when i came in, there's a thing called nodmen. notice to airmen. and you are supposed to and you should find out what the nodems are on the land that you'll be -- on the runway you'll be landing on so if there's work on the runway, if there's any towers going up, there's construction going on, you'll know that in advance. that's your obligation. the problem is, there's never been a central location where that can be found. and so in this case, there was no -- no notem that had been

published. so there i go in with a controller in the valley down there that is a -- that has actually cleared me to land. and here i am a yairts senator t. took me -- a united states senator. it took me four months to get the voice recorder. and i never did find out early on what the evidence was against me. as it turned out, it turned out fine. nonetheless, four months to find out -- to get a voice recorder that you were cleared to land. that's unreasonable. the other things -- i see my friend from indiana is on the floor, and i don't want to take any more time on this, but on the notem situation, we will have a central location for that. the other problem we're having right now is medical certification. i have case after case -- in fact, the aopa, airline -- aopa. let's see, airmen pilots association. anyway, talk about 400,000 pilots that are out there. they have as their number-one concern the lack of consistency

and uniformity in the medical certification. a person can be a pilot and can have a condition, it could be a light heart attack or something, temporarily lose his license and then go back and are it reinstated. however, if he lives in another town, has a different doctor, that may not happen. so we have people out there who have lost their licenses when they should have been -- well, we're going to have a panel set up that's going to include general aviation, include the medical community to try to get uniformity. this is just three of the major reforms that we have in this legislation. so with that, i will yield the floor and be talking about that later, and also talking about the upcoming highway bill. i only want to remind people, my good conservative friends that people who are trying to say this is not a conservative bill, it is. the worst thing we can do is continue to operate our road building and our construction in this country on extensions. when you get an extension, you lose about 30% of the money.

obviously, the conservative position is to do this. we have reforms, incredible reforms, enhancement reforms. we'll be talking about that during the course of the day. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from indiana. mr. coats: mr. president, can i ask what the procedure is regarding time here? the presiding officer: senators are permitted to speak for ten minutes each. mr. coats: mr. president, i would ask unanimous consent that i be -- that i speak for up to 20 minutes. i don't intend to take that much time, i don't think i will take that much time, but i think i will probably go over the ten-minute limit. mrs. boxer: reserving the right to object, mr. president, and i will not object. i just ask unanimous consent that i be allowed to have 20 minutes following my friend from indiana. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection, so ordered. mr. coats: mr. president, i rise here today to express my deep concern with this transportation

conference report, and more particular about a provision that was slipped into the transportation conference report literally in the dark of the night earlier this week. this provision that was -- and which i will describe, was -- could have a devastating effect on my state as well as the state of illinois, the greater chicago metropolitan region. whether it's northwest illinois -- northwest indiana or northeast illinois, is a region that works together. it's part of the metropolitan -- expanded metropolitan area and a critical part of this is a waterway which allows goods to be transferred up and down all the way to the delta and the mississippi and all the way out to the st. lawrence seaway. it is the middle west access to commerce that centers around the chicago and northwest indiana area. this provision that was slipped

in without debate, without consideration that didn't appear in the senate bill, transportation bill and didn't appear in the house transportation bill, and therefore is a blatant violation of rule 28, which simply states you can't do this kind of thing, but it was done anyway, and i will be at the proper point here raising an objection to that in a procedural way. let me first talk, if i could, about the way in which we do business around here. throughout my campaign in 2010 to turn to the senate, i continually heard from the people as to how frustrating they were with the process with the laws as now passed. people say why did you vote against that? they say well, i voted against that because it included this over here which was not relevant to it, and even though i like the rest of the bill, i didn't like this part or vice versa.

i voted for this even though i didn't like what it included because you know what? they packaged it all together, and therefore there is nothing on record as to where i stand. they say to us where you stand. we don't know whether your yes is a yes or your no is a no because it's so confusing the way you mix the whole thing together. now, that's exactly what is happening here today. we have taken a transportation bill which was adeptly led by the senator from california and the senator from oklahoma. they did a marvelous job at putting a transportation package together. now it's merged with two other major provisions, and so we again get one vote on this. people come down and say i have a real problem on this sploan bill where i have a real problem with the flood insurance bill, but i wanted to vote for the transportation bill. now i'm stuck in the position of

having to say yes on the whole thing, excepting what i have a problem with, another bill over here, or no, even though i want parts of this, the other bills to pass. then we go home and we explain this to the people they represent and say why can't you guys and ladies just take up one thing, vote yes or vote no, come home, defend your vote, but we at least know how you stand. instead of this gobbledygook, throw everything in one big pot and vote your yes or vote your noes. first of all, the way we package bills here i think is diagnose -- it's no wonder that people are skeptical, it's no wonder our approval rating is where it is. this gobbledygook so-called magic dust that we use around here to obscure what we really stand for and what we really stand against is very frustrating to the american people. i can't tell you how much that

has been expressed to me when we go back home and talk to them and try to explain certain votes and procedures, and they say just be straight up. be transparent. pick out something. you're either for it or against it. we'll evaluate whether we want to support you or not support you at the next election, the basis of how we think you're voting. when you cloud over the whole thing, we don't know what's going on. that's one concern, packaging bills. secondly, we have got a problem here, a major problem with our debt. we have known that. we spent the first six months of 2011 trying to come up with long-term solutions which would restructure some of our spending and put a lid on some of our spending, and finally by august of 2011, congress reached an agreement called the budget control act which basically put caps on how much we would spend,

trying to hold down this plunge into debt. by the way, mr. president, just before i came over here, i checked the debt clock which i have on my web site. the numbers, of course, turn faster than you can write them down because that's how fast we're plunging into more debt, but as of just probably, oh, 15 minutes or so ago, our national debt stood at $15 trillion, nearing $16 trillion. now, none of us can comprehend what a trillion dollars is. it's impossible. i mean, you -- there have been all kinds of things. if you stack dollars on top of each other, you go to the moon and back and so forth and so on, but i think it's important that we understand the gravity of our situation here in terms of our plunge into debt and what impact it's going to have on the future for this country. and what debt burden it's going to have on future generations now getting ever closer to our

own. $15,935,590,000,000 -- oh, wow. $15,935,594,616,879. that was what our debt was. that's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, 11, 12, 13, 14 digits. so we took a mini step. just a little bit of a step in august basically saying we're going to cap this spending so that we don't spend more than that going forward, and that will at least slow down the rate of plunging into debt. it won't -- it doesn't begin to do what we need to do to address

this, but it will slow down. and so what have we done since? what we have done is bring a number of bills to this floor, all of which have violated the agreement that we made. we were on this floor -- and i didn't vote for this because i had a lot of skepticism about it. first of all, i felt it was woefully short of what we needed to do. secondly, i believe that having served here before and seeing how this process works, i thought we're going to waive this time after time after time. we're going to violate the agreement that we agreed to. so the majority voted for this, and we were congratulating each other. this is an important step to dealing with our budget crisis, and we have committed now not to spend more than what this budget agreement -- the cap that this budget agreement has put on us. so postal reform bill violated

the cap. spending more than the cap allowed. the student loan interest rate extension looks like we got the score now and we're going to violate the cap. the senate version that went over on the transportation bill violated the cap. the payroll tax extension and the violence against women act all violated what we had promised we would do, and we wonder why the american people are skeptical. we wonder why our approval rating is in the low double digits. i mean, really low, almost into single digits. why people are just frustrated and upset with this. because we tell them we've made this promise to be fiscally responsible, and every bill -- virtually every bill we bring up here is irresponsible and we have a -- we waive what we had agreed to do. and so we can hardly blame them for our skepticism here. now, let me talk about this middle of the night stuff. another problem that you have,

you can't go home and you just simply can't explain is the fact that no, this was not talked about in the senate. no, this was not talked about in the house. there was no process, and yet somebody, as we have tried to merge the two bills in the dark of the night, unnamed, no process, slipped in a provision, and there it is. usually, we find out about this later. well, in this case, we had a process. senator coats from indiana worked with senator durbin, a democrat from illinois, and worked with another democrat, senior senator from ohio, to come to an agreement on a provision that impacted our areas, the great lakes area in a significant way, and that was part of the senate bill. the house didn't take this up at all. in the dark of the night during

the conference deliberations, our provision was removed, a bipartisan provision by senators looking out for the economic interests of their state, and by the way, economic interests of this country because what was dropped in in the middle of the night is something that could potentially cost our government and therefore cost our taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars. and we were fortunate enough to have discovered that because bringing those bills to the floor was delayed and we had time to dig into it and all of a sudden find out that this was done. what's really egregious here is that this is not a partisan issue. we all know that the house is controlled by my party. i don't know who put this in. i don't know exactly the motives as to why they put this in, but here it is a dark of the night, slip it into the bill, overturn something that was processed

through the appropriations committee, deliberated, discussed, voted on, brought to the senate, voted on again, sent over there and eliminated. and so what are the consequences? what are the consequences of all that, and what does this have to do with what i'm talking about here? well, it sounds minuscule. we're talking about asian carp. now, why is the senator from indiana sitting here talking about asian carp and hundreds of billions of dollars of cost? well, let me just tell you why. asian carp is a generic term for four species of nonnative fish. grass, bighead, black and silver head carp. these fish were introduced to the united states in the 1970's to assist agricultural interests in the southern states. at some point, probably through flooding, the carp escaped into the mississippi river system and they since have spread throughout that whole watershed. they're voracious eaters which make them beneficial, and you

can see why they were imported. they're beneficial for agricultural settings, controlled agricultural settings -- fish farms and so forth -- but they create serious ecological challenges when competing for food with native species. now, i agree wholeheartedly that the spread of asian carp throughout the mississippi river and potentially into the great lakes is a serious and pressing problem and i'm committing to addressing it, as is senator durbin and senator brown from ohio. and we worked out a compromise agreement in terms of how we should go forward with this. i -- i need to say that a number of steps have already been taken by the corps of engineers. in 2002, the army corps of engineers installed the first of a series of electric barriers along the lower reach of the chicago area waterway system. and in doing so, they believe they have successfully to date prevented the migration of carp into the great lakes.

in 2009, the corps began d.n.a. testing to detect asian carp in locations upstream of the barrier system, and the testing showed that these barriers have been very effective, to use the corps words, in preventing asian carp from entering the waterway. in fact, when the illinois department of resources -- natural resources wanted to check this out, they purposely dumped a bunch of toxins into the chicago waterway to discover the extent of the asian carp infestation. those toxins killed tens of thousands of fish but only one asian carp was found among them. and since that time, the army corps has firmly held that the electric barriers are working as designated. furthermore, in 2010, indiana department of natural resources constructed barriers in the watershed and no state has gone further and taken greater lengths to address this question than my state of indiana, as

well as the state of illinois, in terms of preventing the introduction of carp -- asian carp into the great lakes system. it's economically devastating for us if this happens and yet its economically devastating for us and for illinois if what was proposed in the dark of the night by the house of representatives into this bill goes forward. currently the army corps of engineers is undergoing an extensive study, and despite all the attempts to take these -- these steps, which so far have proven to be successful, this provision that was incorporated in there could result in the closing of the locks of the -- of this waterway system and it would endanger -- economically endangerment of about $14 billion per year in economic activity and over 100,000 jobs in this metropolitan area that i

describe that rely on the chicago area waterway system. closing the locks also may cost up to an additional $10000. bill: yon because it would require completely overhauling chicago's underwater and sewage system. closing the locks would also render worthless the billions of dollars that have already been invested to complete corps of engineers' flood-control projects along the entire mississippi watershed. and they may not even solve the problem. while the chicago waterway system is the only direct continuous connection between the great lakes system, other potential pathways could allow carp migration in times of flooding. so while it's clear that closing the chicago locks is not an economically viable solution for stopping asian carp -- and i do understand the concerns the great lakes states have on this

issue and i share those concerns -- as a result of all that, we worked out a bipartisan compromise solution to addressing this area which would allow a study to go forward, allow an economic assessment of the various options that have been presented and then give congress the information so that it can make a decision as to which solution was best needed to go forward. what this provision does in this bill is simply give the agency responsible here the authority to go ahead with the project, even though with what they think the solution is, without congress having anything to say about it whatsoever. it's a preauthorization on a new project which could include closing of the locks.

and if it does, it would have hundreds of billions of dollars of financial implications for the taxpayers and for this congress but also have enormous negative economic impact on northwest indiana and northeast illinois and the entire chicago region and the commerce, all that commerce that flows up and down the mississippi and up and down the saint lawrence seaway. the other problem with this is the new language also expedites the study, even though the corps says they need more time to do so. so i guess in conclusion, mr. president, there are two things here. one is the egregious procedures that continue, that continue to give the public such a negative slant on how we do business here, this bundling of bills

where we are forced to vote "yes" or "no" on the whole bundling up and down and can't separate them out and let our "yes" stand for one purposeful interest or another or our "no" stand for that. that bundling. and, second, these midnight procedures, these slip it in there without going through the regular process. this body of congress, both the house and the senate, need to return to regular process, where we bring an idea forward, where it is worked through the committee, where it is transparent to all who -- who are looking at it, where we ar are -- where we give our "yea" or give our "nay" and where we move it through the system. rather than simply changing things in the dark of the night at the last minute, where we have no opportunity to amend it, no opportunity to address it. so as we go forward with this, i am going to object on the basis of rule 28 on this. i don't know how it will all turn out but i hope my colleagues will understand that

this is more than just something that affects indiana and illinois and the great lakes. this is something that affects the way we do business here. and if we can't enforce these rules, we're going to continue to follow these practices that the american people have just come to absolutely hate and -- and think that they have a dysfunctional congress. we deserve better than this and i hope my colleagues will agree. and with that, i yield the floor. mrs. boxer: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from california. mrs. boxer: mr. president, before the senator from indiana leaves the floor, i just want him to know that -- the senator from indiana, i would just like him to know, if i could get his attention for a moment, that i listened very carefully and i know his concern. i've spoken with senator durbin about it and i hope we can work together. i do want to say, the frustration that he has on the way the process works, where sometimes bills are put togeth together, is frustrating to everybody here. and we really do need to take a look at the way we do things. i do, however, have some measure

of sympathy for the leadership around here because it takes so long to get any one piece done. so i do agree. i don't like the fact that you cast one vote and there's three subjects. it's very difficult for the people at home to understand it. i -- i do want to say before i yield three minutes to my friend, if there's no objection, of my time to senator sanders, one more thing to my friend. i do want him to feel proud of the way we put together the transportation bill, because i do think in that case, which is a huge, huge policy bill, that it was transparent and that what my friend complained about was something that was put in by the other body, they said it was a must have. the truth of the matter is, up to that point, everything we had done was very much in the open. and i am very sorry that my friend feels so negatively

toward what we're about to do, because in his state, it's tens of thousands of jobs. in my state, it's hundreds of thousands of jobs. it's thousands of businesses. it's going to mean a boost to this economy through the private sector. but i wanted to say to my friend, i understand his frustration and i will do everything i can to help him on his issue. a senator: if the senator would yield, i appreciate very much your saying that. i did commend and i will do again the work that you and senator inhofe have done in bringing this bill forward. mrs. boxer: thank you. mr. coats: in the right way. mrs. boxer: thank you. mr. coats: and i know you're as sorry as i am that someone in the other body decided to violate the rule, injecting into all the hard work that you've done. and i regret that. i just hope that in the future, we can avoid these kind of things. mrs. boxer: yes. mr. coats: and i thank the senator for her good words. mrs. boxer: well, i definitely share the frustration. and at this time, i would like to yield the remainder of my --

three minutes of the remainders of my time to senator sanders. the presiding officer: without objection. the senator from vermontmen ver. mr. sanders: i thank the chair for yielding. let me begin, as a member of the transportation committee, congratulating senator boxer for her extraordinary efforts in pushing this bill forward. this is an enormously important bill that took a whole lot of work and i commend her very much for the work that she and her staff have done. and i also, senator inhofe and i, have very little in common politically but i also wanted to applaud him and his staff for coming together on this issue and doing something that is extremely important and doing it in a bipartisan way. mr. president, anyone who drives around the state of vermont or, for that matter, drives around america understands that to a significant degree, our infrastructure is collapsing. in vermont, we have dozens and dozens and dozens of bridges that are in need of repair.

we have many, many hundreds of miles of road that need repair. our public transit system needs help. and what this bill is about is a start toward rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, our roads, our bridges, our public transit, and in the process putting a significant number of people back to work. it is estimated that this bill will save more than 1.8 million jobs nationwide in each of the next three years and it will create a million new jobs through an expanded infrastructure financing program. and what that means in the state of vermont are thousands and thousands of decent paying construction and other types of jobs, something that we sorely need. so this bill is enormously important. it is an excellent start. does it go as far as it should? no, it does not.

compared to china, compared to europe, our investments in infrastructure are minimal. and when you invest in infrastructure you make your country more productive, you put people back to work, we make ourselves more internationally competitive. so i just want to say that this is an important step forward. we've got more to do. today we focus on roads, bridges, public transit -- very important. but that's not the entire i infrastructure. we have got to pick up the issue on rail. we are falling further and further behind china, japan, europe in terms of high-speed rail. we've got to invest in rail, create jobs doing that. we have to invest in our water systems, in our wastewater plants. we have to make sure that every community in america has high-quality broadband as well as cell phone service. that's what infrastructure is about.

we have not invested anywhere near the degree that we should and now is the time to get started. so this bill which focuses on roads, on bridges and public transit is an important step forward and i want to congratulate senator boxer and her staff, senator inhofe and his staff for their important work. and with that, mr. president, i would yield the floor. mrs. boxer: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from california. mrs. boxer: how much time do i have remaining? the presiding officer: 14 minutes. mrs. boxer: thank you so much. i want to thank my friend, senator sanders. he is a very active member of our environment and public works committee and he's focused on jobs, jobs, jobs. he's looked at the green jobs sector. he's looked at the effect of -- of what we do on the construction industry. and i am just ever so grateful to him. he also has been a very clear voice for the way to move this

country forward by having a clean energy policy, which we are going to definitely be looking at in the days and weeks ahead. mr. president, we -- we are at the moment now where we're waiting to see whether our friends on the other side of the aisle will allow us to proceed to finish our work on three issues of the one is flood control, one is helping make sure that student loan interest rates do not double, and the third -- and the biggest one here -- involves the ÷ransportation sector. we all know whether we're republicans or democrats that our focus is on boosting this economy, and this bill will do that like no other. we are talking about in this transportation bill protecting two million jobs that are currently in place in this country in the construction sector and the transit sector. so these are the jobs that

construction workers do on the highways, the freeways, the bridges, making sure that our roads are in good shape, our bridges are not going to collapse because we have 70,000 bridges that are deficient and we know what happens when there's a horrible failure of a bridge. and believe me --, and i know that my ranking member, senator inhofe, feels very strongly about this, because he had an incident in his state where one of his constituents was actually killed by a bridge failing. we cannot sit by and allow the highway program and the transit program in this country to disappear. and we have taken it up to the line. i am very grateful to ranking member inhofe. i am very grateful to chairman mica, to ranking member nick rahall, for the work we have done on this conference. this is a bill that everyone can

be proud of, whether they are republican or a democrat. c.b.o. has scored this, and it actually returns money to the treasury. we have support from people who don't agree on most things, and i'm not only talking about senator inhofe and myself, who do not see eye to eye on many issues, but -- we have come together on this but besides that, we see the afl-cio and the chamber of commerce walking hand in hand asking us please pass this bill. so we have a few little holdups over here now, but i am very, very hopeful we can get through this. the highlights of this bill, overall, jobs, jobs, jobs. jobs in the private sector, businesses in the private sector, and we are talking about leveraging a federal program called tifia which is

going to mean frankly hundreds of millions of dollars that will go out the door to leverage funds at the local level. and also the private sector. as we look at our bill, we see a reform bill. we see project delivery speeded up from 15 years to eight years without giving up the health and safety laws that the people deserve. we have not done away with any environmental law, we've just put deadlines in the law, we've put milestones in the law and we have stated, if you have a problem, let us know your problem and get on with it. if there is anything new, a new factor, we will look at that but we cannot sit around and wait an average 13, 12, 14, 15 years to get a project done. i want to say there are no riders in this bill. no environmental riders in this

bill. and i think that does send a good message to the public that we are focused on transportation, and these other issues are going to be addressed, but they don't have to be addressed on this bill and become a target of a veto or -- or a stand-off between the parties. what did we do on bike paths? we've had a lot of controversy. people are saying we did away with the money for alternative transportation routes called bike paths, called safe routes to school, called a pedestrian -- called pedestrian walkways. no, we saved the same level of funding, the same percentage of funding, but we did give more flexibility for the states with their 50% share, if they have another pressing need, they can use it for something else and, frankly, the grassroots people at home, if they're not happy with the state, can let the

state know that. for the first time the other 50% goes to the local people. this is very important. so we also have the restore act here, and this means that those gulf states that got hit so hard from the b.p. spill will be able to restore their areas. if they had economic damage, environmental damage, this will be help, but the money will come from the court settlement and b.p. will then make those funds available. so that does not add a dime to the deficit. so we have a bill that doesn't add to the deficit, we have a bill that will boost this economy, we have a bill that is supported by conservatives and liberals, progressives, moderates. i think it's a great day. i'm sorry that there are a few issues that got added on here that are disappointing to

certain colleagues. believe me, i want work with them to help resolve those problems. but i have to tell you, when you write a bill of this scope, of this nature, you're going to have some of these issues. we will work on them. and for my remaining time, and how much time do i have remaining? the presiding officer: seven minutes. mrs. boxer: i want to discuss the supreme court ruling. and what i want to say is in a very fascinating ruling, the chief justice decided that this bill was constitutional. and i'm not going a to spend a lot of time discussing why he said it and why they decided it. what i'm going to talk about is what happens if the republicans have their way and this law is repealed. i want the american people to know, because we -- and i say this with no animosity at all. i just say i'm going to do everything i can to stop them

from repealing it for a reason. and the reason are the families in my state and all over the country that are bet getting the benefits of this law. governor romney says it's going to be the thing he's going to do the first ig day -- first day he's going to repeal the health care law, if he gets elected, day one. let me tell you what will happen very, very clearly. there are 54 million americans who are now getting access to free preventive services such as mammograms and immunizations. if they have private insurance. that's most of our people. they would no longer get free mammograms, free checkups. over and out. 54 million americans lose if governor romney and the republicans repeal this bill. six million of my people in california. my seniors, over 300,000, would no longer get help with their prescription drug benefit. now they are getting help.

they will they go back to choosing between taking their prescription drugs or eating dinner. i'm sorry, i'm going to stand in the way if i can. in medicare, millions of seniors would lose access to free preventive services. 32 million medicare patients get these services for free, including cancer screenings and flu shots. why on earth would somebody or some party want to get up and say i'm repealing that? 105 million americans will once again face lifetime limits on their health insurance plan. now, if you're diagnosed with cancer, you look at your plan, it says you're covered up to $250,000. that sounds like a lot of money. i could tell you now if you're battling cancer, that's not a lot of money, and now suddenly at your worst moments, the worst moments you're facing, your radiation, your chemo,

you've hit up against your lifetime limit, that will be gone. more than six million young adults including 300,000 in my state would lose their health insurance because now they have a guarantee because of the health care bill they can stay on their parents' coverage till they're 26. why would anyone want to repeal that? ask them. they do. insurance companies would no longer owe rebates to customers if those insurance companies spent too much on premiums and paid the c.e.o.'s exorbitant bonuses and -- and paid hardly anything to help you with your health care. we're going to see 12 million americans get back a billion dollars in rebate checks. in august. they'll stop that. they want to stop that. how about millions of children hosh now -- who are now getting coverage because they have a preexisting condition, before

this law, they couldn't. so if a child was boanch with a heart defect, even if it was something that couldn't be controlled, they couldn't get insurance and pity those families. you know, i've had, mr. president, reports of people in my state crying tears of joy when the supreme court acted because they could not get insurance because this particular one had a preexisting condition and now she could get insurance. because of the work of senator sanders, and i helped him with it, we have community health care centers across the country getting funding so if you have no insurance or even if you have insurance, you can go in there with your ability to pay, you get health care. that would be repealed. school-based health centers, repealed. training of our health care workers, repealed. i will tell you, that's just what the benefits are today.

in 2014 there will be a slew of new benefits. this bill, while not perfect, and we can fix the problems, is a good bill. just remember, mr. president, everyone in our country does get health care, but the difference is some of them walk into an emergency room having paid nothing for a premium even if they're wealthy, even if they're wealthy, and they expect us to pay the bill in the emergency room. with the approach that massachusetts governor romney took, he said if you're a responsible person and you can afford it, you have to buy a minimal health insurance plan. president obama got the idea from governor romney. and i call it a personal responsibility premium. some people call it a tax, some people call it a fee. i call it a personal responsibility premium because

most of the people i represent buy health care coverage, and a few just say you know what? i feel terrific. i'll wait until something bad happens to me. then i'll go to the emergency room and they can all pay. and that's what we've got. that's what we've got. we have people who are responsible paying for the free riders, and the idea that president obama got was from then-governor romney. so i am just saying, mr. president, this is going to be a long election season, and there's going to be a lot of battles over health care. i hope today we will pass the bill that's in front of us and take care of the construction sector and transportation, and i hope we'll take care of flood insurance and student loan interest rates. we can do that with one vote on a bill shortly, if we get permission to move forward. we if we don't we'll be here all weekend or whatever it takes to

get it done. i'm not going to go home until this is done. but i can also tell you as we look at this health care battle, the lines are pretty clear. there are millions and millions of americans who are getting benefits today. why would anyone want to take away those benefits? and yet that is where we are in the debate. so i hope cooler heads will prevail. let's get on with bringing this economy back. let's allow this bill, with a few corrections because we can always fix things that don't work, go forward. let's stop the heated name calling. let's make sure that we work together. just as we did in the transportation bill. this is a good moment, i believe, for this senate today. i hope we can get our work done and then we can actually celebrate something before we start battling over health care. let's celebrate that we said to the construction sector, we need you to rebuild those broken

roads, those broken bridges. we need you to make sure that we ged those transit systems up and running, and then i honestly believe the rest of these problems will take up -- we'll take up one at a time. thank you very much, mr. president. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from south carolina. mr. graham: i ask unanimous consent to speak as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. graham: thank you, mr. president. i'd just like to rise and pay a tribute to three fallen national guard members from south carolina who were killed in afghanistan june 20, 2012, in the coast province, members of the 133rd m.p. prigd who were serving on -- brigade, who were serving on active duty, this will be 16 members of the south carolina national guard have died in gatt combath in iraq and afghanistan since 2003. and if i may, this is the fourth of july weekend coming up, preceding one of our biggest holidays in america,

and people rightfully will take some time off, i hope, to enjoy their family and friends and get away from work and have some family time. and it's -- it marks a special event in our nation's history, the founding of our nation through a declaration of independence that was not just words but resulted in men and women fighting to achieve our independence. and here we are a couple of hundred years later and we're still fighting, and my belief is that the radical islamist who would kill us all if they could, it's better to fight them there than over here. aftion was the place the taliban took over after the russians left and invited bin laden as their honored guest and he was able to plan the attacks of 9/11 from sanctuary in afghanistan. our goal is to never let

afghanistan become a sanctuary for al qaeda and other terrorist groups. thus we're in a long struggle. it has been ten years. the afghanistan army is getting better and stronger. their police are getting more proficient. we're going to be winding the war down in 2014, but i think we can do it in a fashion to make sure that afghanistan remains stable and our national security interests are protected. but to make all those things possible, the weekend we're going to enjoy and the holiday season and denying terrorists safe havens, some of us have to leave our families and go off and fight this war. sergeant first class brad thomas of easily, south carolina, was killed in this attack on june 20. he was a graduate and attended a technical college. he is survived by his wife jana

and a son kaden, brothers, sisters, and i know the family is devastated. you are in our prayers, and god bless you and give you the healing and understanding during this tough time. and to sergeant first class brad tom marks you died in the service of your country, and you will be missed. lieutenant ryan davis raoul was killed in the same attack. he was a first lieutenant in the 133rd m.p. company, graduated from lexington high school, a graduate of the citadel. and he is survived by his wife katherine and their daughters -- excuse me, son caleb. and i just want to acknowledge to katherine, who interned in

our office, that you're certain any our prayers. did you a great job for us. anything that we can do for any of these families in south carolina, we will. and we very much pray for you and your family. sergeant john j.d. david medor -- i hope that's right the way i pronounced it. graduated lexington high school, a member of the wrestl wrestlinm and a wrestling coach. he was a member of the same m.p. company, survived by his wife christie and three daughters olivia, rianna and elena. two christie and her family, you will be in our prayers. this will be a tough weekend in south carolina. we're going to have three funerals. to general livingston and the national guard family, you are

certainly in our prayers. that is tough blow for an m.p. company to have three people killed in one attack. to all the members of that company, we will do the best to take care of your families while you're doing gone. we've had a great discussion about transportation and that's great. democracy in action was the right decision for the do to have made in the health care case. is this a good transportation bill or not? and i really appreciate in a bipartisan fashion trying to find a solution. but i just with want to take aw moments before going to the holiday weekend and remind us of one we do have in common: our freedom depends on people willing to fight for it. and the one thing about this war, whether you agree with the war in afghanistan or not, virtually every american has shown an appreciation for the troops and their family, and i cannot thank members of congress enough for never losing sight,

no matter how you feel about this war, we all appreciate those who fight it. and we all suffer and mourn for those who lose their lives in this cause. i believe this is a just cause. i believe these men, who joined the military voluntarily and left their families to go to afghanistan, were doing so in the most noble tradition of the country, that you were trying to make your families safer, my family safer, and that you died in the service of your country, and that is a life well-lived. you died far too soon, you left behind young children, but you will never be forgotten. may god grant you eternal resting peace. may god provide healing to the families left behind and may, as americans, we never forget that

our freedom is dependent upon a few of us being willing to go to faraway places with strange-sounding names and risk never coming back. i yield the floor -- mr. mccain: mr. president, will the senator yield? first of all, thank you for your eloquent statement on behalf of those who served and sacrificed, and since we will all be spread around in different places over the 4th of july, as we celebrate our independence, i think those are very appropriate and moving words. i'm reminded of the saying at the battlefield written, an age shall not mar them as those of us who are left behind at the going down of the sun and in the morning we shall remember them." but i also would like to discuss -- mr. chairman -- mr. president, i ask unanimous consent for a brief colloquy with the senator from south carolina. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mccain: we're also facing

another crisis as far as the military is concerned, and that is the looming process expect of sequestration -- prospect of sequestration. the secretary of defense has stated that sequestration would have a -- quote -- "devastating impact on our national security." we're talking about layoffs and some estimates are of as many as a million workers in the defense industry. we're looking at unknown effects of the strategic thinking that goes on as we plan to defend our nation's security. for example, our shift in emphasis from europe to asia-pacific, which requires significant air and naval assets, amongst other things. and i'd ask my colleague, i'm not sure that the american people are fully aware of the effects of something that is supposed to take, as i

understand it, beginning of the next fiscal year, which would be the beginning of october of 2012. is that a correct statement, i'd ask my colleague? mr. graham: yes, it is. mr. mccain: so we're asking the defense department to plan on what our force structure will be, what our mission will be, what our capabilities will be beginning the 1st of october, and all i can see so far is a total gridlock on this issue. now, if somebody wants to say that it's our fault because we refused to -- quote -- "raise revenues" -- or the other sides insistence on that and a resistance to spending cuts ... but i'd ask my colleague, i don't think that people understand that we still live in a very dangerous world. you just talked about those who have already sacrificed. don't we owe it to them and their families to stop something

that all of us agree would have catastrophic impact on our ability to defend this nation? and isn't it true, would you agree that it's time we sat down and started having serious negotiations, because there's no greater responsibility that the congress and the people's representatives have than to defend the security of this nation? so, i know that the senator from south carolina, before i ask him to answer, traveled around his state, which i intend to do, to the various military installations and talked about what would happen with this sequestration, and we are not talking about -- we're talking about a very limited period of time. we're about to go out of session. we'll be in doing the month of july -- we'll be in during the month -- most of the month of july, and probably most of the month of september. end of story. a senator: mr. president, may i just ask my colleague to yield. mr. kyl: if i could ask one

other question to his very important question to my colleague from south carolina. i have a recollection that during one of the hearings you specifically asked the secretary of defense what the consequences would be, and i recall he had a very dramatic response, and i wonder if he might share had a with us as well. mr. mccain: mr. president you i ask unanimous consent that the senator from -- senator kyl be included in the colloquy. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. graham: well, one, i would hope that my colleagues would stay around for a minute, too, because this is an important topic to be talking about. let me put this in perspective of what we're trying to do and what we're trying to avoid. we're about $16 trillion in debt. there's probably no stronger defense supporters in the congress than jon kyl and john mccain. and he just spoke of war. john mccain has seen his fair share of war. i think he understands as well as anybody in this body -- probably better than most -- what happens in war. people get hurt and people get

killed, and anybody -- he's been in the military, no fan of war. but the goal is sometimes to make sure that those who are asked to fight a particular war can fight it quickly, overwhelmingly win, and come home. and what we're doing here is trying to get out of debt. so the three of us are pretty big defense hawks, but we've all agreed that the pentagon has to reduce their spending, too. i think all of us, particularly senator mccain, believes there are a lot of ways at the pentagon the. and you could chief $450 billion of savings over the next decade by reforming the way the pentagon does business and, quite frankly, doing more with less. so count us all in, on the three of us, for reducing defense spending to help get us out of debt. but here's what's got us all upset. the supercommittee that was formed by the budget control act had a mission of cutting $1.2

trillion over a decade to help get us out of debt. that's a pretty small number, given what we're going to to spend over the next ten years. but the committee, republicans and democrats, could not find common ground as to how to cut $1.2 trillion over the next decade, and there was a penalty provision in the law. and it said that in any event the supercommittee failed, we would cut $1.2 trillion over the next decade as follows: $600 billion out of the defense department, $600 billion out of the rest of the government. if that penalty kicks in, then we will have cut $1 trillion out of the defense department over the next decade, blindly, across the board. every account gets affected. what did secretary panetta say in he said, sign me up for $450 billion. i think we can get there. we will lose some capability, but we'll be okay as a nation.

we could fight iran and win if we had to. then i asked him, what if we did $1 trillion over the next decade, if we overdoubled what you are trying to cut? he said, we would be shooting ourselves in the head as a nation. we would not have the ability to go in and take out the nuclear program in iran because the weapons that we need we could not maintain and afford. and when it comes to personnel costs, we're reducing the army by 80,000 people. under the $450 billion plan. if you do sequestration senator mccain, on top of that you're take another 100,000 people out of the army. under sequestration, the navy would be down to 250 ships. we'd have the smallest navy, the smallest air force in the history of the country and the army would go back to 1940 he feels will. do you believe the world has

gotten that much safer are that we don't need a navy bigger than 1950, given the threats we're facing from iran, china, north korea? do you think now it's good time for the country to basically disarm, given the threats we face from radical terrorism throughout the whole globe? so here's what we're going to do. and our congressional leaders need to be on notice. about a million people would lose their jobs if we put these cuts in place and we would destroy the defense industrial base that provides good jobs to the economy and keeps us free and safe by giving our people technology better than the enemy has. three national guardsmen were killed in june in afghanistan. we've improved the national guard, but when we first started this war, national guard units