before, i feel free and liberated. you know, abraham lincoln 150 years ago freed the slaves. but it took the modern-day civil rights movement to free e and the rate the nation. defense secretary chuck hagel and other military officials laid a wreath for those killed at the navy yard. the memorial along pennsylvania avenue about 24 ebbers after a gunman went on a shooting rampage at the navy yard killing

12 people. the chairman of the joint chiefs, general martin dempsey joined secretary hagel along with the washington mayor. it was placed next to the lone sailor statute that represents people that have ever served, are now serving four have yet to serve in the united states navy. >> [background sounds]

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the navy memorial along pennsylvania avenue here in washington and not far from the capitol building. as we look now at a life picture of the flag over the capitol at half staff in honor of the victims of the need york shooting. 12 workers were killed, eight wounded. the members of the senate spoke on the floor this morning about the shooting. they are gone now for their weekly -- who promised to never forsake us, be a shield for this land that we loved. as flags fly at half staff in remembrance of the victims of yesterday's washington navy yard

shooting. teach us to use wisely all the time you give us. show your mighty power during seasons of distress, transforming negatives into positives and dark yesterday into bright tomorrow. today guide our lawmakers inspiring them and they're going out and coming in as you give them the wisdom to lieber not simply for time but for eternity. lord, bless us all with strength, will, steadiness of purpose and powell were to

persevere. we pray in your holy name, amen. >> mr. president, there are no words that can ease the pain of the rampage and certainly the deaths involving a dozen human beings who were killed yesterday at the naval yard. i hope it's some small comfort that this city, this institution in the united states senate and a whole nation mourn alongside them. to my knowledge there's no explanation for the violence that occurred yesterday. my thoughts are with those who are suffering as a result of the loss of their loved ones.

and also those people who were recovering from their wounds, and some of them are very serious and we wish them a speedy recovery. mr. president, we have about 16,000 military and civilian employees that work in the naval yard complex as well as their friends, family members who were affected by the tragedy. the officer providing less on that occasion also when we as members of congress mark the anniversary of september 11th, 2001 during a ceremony on the steps of the capitol. it's the worst loss of life in the capitol region since the september 11th the tax. the senate and the pentagon as far as this area. last week is a significant anniversary in the yesterday's

terrible violence is a reminder that life is fragile and precious. a reminder of the debt that we go to those that protect our freedom and safety whether the serve in the military or first responders. the arms responsible for our safety was certainly on the job yesterday as a dedicated police officer. that's his goal. i still refer to him as the chief. he's been on the capitol police force before he took responsibility as the surgeon arms of the senate he has been a street officer a long time and he could have done other things he takes care of the senate and he does that very well. i appreciate it very much and i speak for the entire senate of those dedicated police, fire,

rescue and put their lives on the line on monday. i owe a debt of gratitude to an officer, 24 year veteran of the metropolitan police force by the name of scott williams who is hurt very badly in the shootings. i wish him a full recovery and thank him for his selflessness. >> all of us are thinking about yesterday's tragic events of the need -- naval yard and of the brave men and women of the military and the sacrifices they make day in and day out on our behalf. once again i would like to extend condolences to the family and friends to those that lost their lives or were injured in this terrible shooting.

know that your country is with you in this most difficult moment. and also again i would like to express gratitude to the first responders and medical personnel and though law enforcement officers from different agencies that work together to keep us informed and most of all safe from of the day. >> flags across america are being flown at half staff because the terrible tragedy that occurred one and a half miles away yesterday. the men and women at work for the department of defense to keep america safe as usual on a monday morning. and then tragedy struck. the government appeared with an assault rifle, several weapons at the end of it, 12 innocent people died, another dozen or so

seriously injured. this capital was in shock. it was locked down at some point to ward off the possibility there were other shooters and more danger outside. and we've watched as the people that worked at the navy yard and those that work at the adjoining buildings wait patiently for the police to do their important and courageous work work. they showed television footage of the employees being bused away from the yard to a safe metro location to return home but the 12 of them that sadly lost their lives to a senseless begun tragedy -- gun tragedy. we ask what can motivate a person to do this and as we read the background of the shooter, it is clear that there were moments in his life when he used a firearm to shoot the tires of

the car that he thought shouldn't be in his driveway and at an apartment that went to a ceiling to an adjoining apartment. those sort of things might have been warning signals. questions were raised how can a man with that kind of a background in that getting the national security clearance for a contractor to go into this navy yard to be permitted to going to disney dr how did he get the weapons in any tiahrt and an assault rifle and other firearms questions that still remain to be answered. god forbid we go on with business as usual today and not understand what happened yesterday. what happened yesterday brings into question some important values in america. if we value the right for ourselves and our families and children to be safe, if we value this constitution and the right of every american to enjoy their

liberties with reasonable limitations, then we need to return to issues that are of importance. there was an issue before the senate several months ago, a bipartisan amendment offered by senators manchin and toomey and that would have taken an extra step to keep guns out of the hands of those with a history of felonies or those that are mentally unstable. the vast majority of americans think this is just common sense. we can protect the rights of law-abiding citizens to use guns in a responsible and a legal way for sporting and hunting, self-defense, but we have to keep the hands to do everything we can to keep guns out of the hands of the laws that would misuse them. those that have a history of misusing firearms, the mentally unstable that can't be trusted have a firearm. but today we pause and reflect on the lives lost. i hope the lessons learned. i had a hearing scheduled this

morning before the senate judiciary committee on a controversial issue involving firearms in light of what happened yesterday and in light of the uncertainty of the schedule today i am rescheduling that hearing. it is an important one and i want to say to those the following it that it will be rescheduled. but at this point in time, we have decided to postpone for today until another day in the near future. >> those remarks from earlier today. the senate has gaveled back in for the debate on an energy efficiency bill. live now to the senate floor

mr. udall: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from colorado. mr. udall: madam president, are we in a quorum call? the es offer: no, we are not. mr. udall: madam president, thank you for the recognition. i rise today to talk about the unimaginable that all of us in colorado experienced over this last week. while much of the nation's attention was focused on syria or here on the activities in washington, those of us in colorado watched a rainfall for one, two, three, four days straight with no end in sight. creeks like the one that runs behind my home in eldorado springs swelled. coverts like those near commerce city quickly filled with rushing water. and rivers like the big thompson near the beautiful town of estes park turned into walls of water that threatened entire communities. from the foothills of the rocky

mountains to the eastern plains rivers overtopped their banks crumbling highways, drowning family homes and transforming entire farms into lakes. madam president, many americans have seen photos like this one that show the widespread and indiscriminate path of the flood waters. in some places even today entire communities are still under water. families and homes uprooted by the ferocious strength of nature. madam president, it is said water makes the west possible, but this past week mother nature gave us rain for five straight days. and now at least eight people are dead and hundreds are still missing or in need of rescue. we pray that we find every single one of those missing persons alive and in good health. as of today, the president has issued major disaster

declarations for four counties and 15 counties are in a state of emergency, where lifesaving rescue efforts are still underway. and these areas active search and rescue operations are conducted 24 hours a day by the colorado national guard, local police and fire departments and rescue teams flown in from across the state and around our country. at least 19,000 homes have been damaged or destroyed. several towns such as jamestown and lyons have been washed out and lack even the most basic public service. the town of estes park, which is the gateway community to rocky mountain national park, has literally, madam president, cut off from the rest of the state because the two major highways have literally been destroyed and the only access road will soon be closed for the winter.

now, there are some wonderful, inspiring stories out of these events that we couldn't comprehend and we couldn't predict. i want to start with the national guard. the national guard has done amazing, outstanding work rescuing thousands of coloradoans affected by this disaster. they tell me that more people have been rescued by air during the past few days than at any time since the devastation we saw with hurricane katrina. we've seen -- we, senator bennet, who is here with me, the governor, many members of our congressional delegation, the devastation of these floods with our own eyes. just a few days ago -- saturday to be exact -- senator bennet and i joined others to fly over flooded areas in boulder and laramer counties with the colorado national guard unit. at one point, madam president, as we circled over an area, we spotted a couple of families

waiting for help, and we were able to land and be a part of the effort that brought them out of these isolated situations. that experience impressed upon me the very human side of this disaster. we all know that behind these graphic images that are being shown on tv are the lives of thousands of colorado families, some forever changed. while much this disaster has taken on the grand proportions of an historic disaster, those whose lives have been affected by this flood have been girded on a very personal scale. i think this photograph says it all. it's been the family that has to dig through mud and debris just to get into their kitchen, or the older couple who returns from an evacuation to see their life long home completely destroyed. or even, as i mentioned earlier, the extended family members who

sit by the phone waiting for a call from a missing aunt or a niece or a child or a friend. these are the very human faces of this tragedy, and it's a tragedy from which we can't recover alone. the outpouring of support from our friends and neighbors has been so crucial to early response efforts, and this generosity will only strengthen us as we begin to recover. after all, there's no "i" in colorado and it is the strong sense of community that will allow us to recover from this disaster and to rebuild stronger and more resolute than before. and we're also going to rely on the full support of our federal partners. i've long supported disaster aid during hurricane sandy and katrina as well as when he we've experienced other countless acts of god, and it's time for us to

come together as one nation and rebuild. this will not be fast. it will not be easy. many of our narrow mountain highways that have been carefully built through steep canyons have been destroyed, washed downstream. and these highways like those in the presiding officer's state or the economic basis for our mountainous state for without them trade or movement of any kind comes to a complete standstill. i took this photo as we flew over what appears to be a river but it actually used to be a stretch of u.s. highway 34 outside of estes park. that major east-west highway is gone. i'm astonished again looking at the photograph and the feelings that i know senator bennet and i and others had on saturday. these were "oh my god" moments over and over and over again. mother nature has literally

rewritten the map. this isn't an isolated incident. there are dozens of these washouts, like you see here. and that's why i'm going to fight in this congress for full federal support of the recovery and rebuilding effort. i'm confident that support will be there. just as it was for so many others in their time of need. in the meantime, individuals and businesses that are still dislocated are figuring out the extent of the damage, must take action. so i want to share some advice that i received from fema and the other agencies involved. if your home was damaged because of the storms of the past week, please go to disaster disasterassistance.gov in order to view federal assistance that may be available to you and to submit your claim. so that's right here. disasterassistance.gov. i urge everybody to go there to enroll, if you will, on that web

site. if you operate a small business, that's been affected by the flooding, you should register your claim with the small business administration by going to disasterloan.sba.gov. again, if you have a small business, you've been affected by the flooding, go to this web site, disasterloan.sba.gov. and if you're just looking, as so many people are, for a way to help those suffering from this tragedy, please go to helpcoloradonow.org where the state of colorado has pooled resources to assist those in need. madam president, as i conclude, again, i want to reference that in so many ways the history of our part of the nation, the west, has been a story of lark. but now that very resource that's the lifeblood is writing a new chapter in our history as it runs uncontrolled over every

road, field and structure in its path. but we're colorado tough. we're rugged cooperators and our spirit of independence that has seen us through the most trying times, it will see us through these days of loss and hardship. madam president, thank you for your attention. i thank you for your support. i yield the floor to my colleague and friend. mr. bennet: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from colorado. mr. bennet: thank you. i'd like to thank my colleague mark udall for summarizing so well what we're facing out in colorado. i thought i'd share a few of my thoughts too. as senator udall said, our state is in the midst of unprecedented flooding that has wiped out entire communities in over a dozen counties across colorado. last week rain began to fall across our state, across the colorado -- our front range, and

it didn't let up. a lot of reports have called this historic. but to get your head around the scale and scope of the damage, it's important to express what that means in hard numbers. in the course of one week, madam president, 21 inches of rain fell in parts of boulder, including over 9 inches on september 12 alone. the previous all-time high for a single day in boulder was 4.8 inches in 1919, and they kept records since 1893. the average annual precip ation in denver is 14.9 inches, for an entire year. on september 12, 11.5 inches poured down on aurora, to give you a sense of the order of magnitude here. almost as much rain as it typically gets in a year, on one day. and it was the same story all

across the colorado front range. the result was flooding, destruction and tragedy on an unprecedented and unmanageable scale. based on the latest estimates, over 17,000 homes have been seriously damaged, over 1,500 homes were completely destroyed, over 2,300 agricultural properties were flooded. in larimer they he estimate 200 businesses were destroyed and 500 more damaged. at least 30 highway bridges destroyed, at least 20 more seriously damaged. hundreds of miles -- hundreds of miles -- of major roads have been washed away, as senator udall said. the flood waters consumed more than 2,000 square miles across 15 counties along the front range, an area about twice the size of rhode island. because the rain is just finally letting up and emergency officials are only beginning to measure the magnitude of this,

these numbers could easily go up, and they could go up a lot. as recently as yesterday morning, four days after the flooding reached a crisis, over 1,000 coloradoans are still stranded waiting for evacuation. hundreds are still not accounted for. tens of thousands were forced to evacuate. many have had to have been in their home within minutes grabbing whatever they could carry and wading through the rising waters to seek shelter and safety. and most tragic of all, madam president, eight coloradoans are either confirmed or presumed dead as a result of the storm. those are just some of the numbers and a taste of the pain that this disaster has brought to cities and counties across our state. as senator udall said, over the weekend i joined him and governor hickenlooper and others on a helicopter tour of the damage, and from the air the scope and scale of the destruction boggles the mind.

and here is some of what we saw. these photos are taken from the denver post and other media. here is an image showing dozens of vehicles flooded in greeley, colorado. here is a home and a car stranded after a flash flood destroyed a bridge near golden. dozens of other bridges collapsed. this is a picture of the big thompson river washing out the loveland water storage reservoir. in this picture young casey roy, nine years old, is looking through a window into her family's basement under three feet of water. there are thousands of families in colorado just like casey's. finally, this image shows the

big thompson river overflowing and tearing apart colorado u.s. 34 in the big thompson canyon, another example of the damage to infrastructure across our state. madam president, how much time is remaining? the presiding officer: no time is remaining. mr. bennet: i would ask for an additional five minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. bennet: thank you, madam president. i don't want to go on too much longer, but in addition to showing these images, i do want to pass along a few of the stories we're hearing from colorado families from the past week. in jamestown, a small mountain community of just a few hundred people in the mountains northwest of boulder, a mudslide destroyed the home of 72 joey haller, a pillar of the community, and killed him. in the hours that followed, jamestown residents pooled their resources so that no one was without food or shelter. the town isolated from outside

assistance was split in two, literally split in two by the flood, so they rigged a pulley system to carry food, medicine and supplies across the rising waters to fellow townspeople. just outside of leones, colorado, four adults, three children and two dogs had to scramble up hills and across ledges with no trails to escape the floodwaters. at one point, they literally had to make a human chain across waist-deep water so that nobody would be carried away. those are just a couple of the stories from colorado. there are thousands of stories like these across our state. we know these floods are devastating. we know the loss that some colorado families feel today is beyond words. we know that some have lost loved ones and many others have lost homes and businesses that took them decades to build, but stories like this remind me that coloradans are resilient, that the worst disasters often bring out the best in our neighbors, and all across the state, we have seen coloradans of

different ages, different backgrounds and different beliefs pull together to help each other get through this massive storm. we saw real heroism a thousand times a day as the old and vulnerable and young were carried to safety. i want to say thank you to the fema descrair for his prompt response to our request to declare a disaster, and he would not let me leave the floor without letting me saying if you are in these counties and you are affected, can you go to disaster assistance.gov or call fema to register for disaster assistance. as we move from rescue to recovery, frustration and enormous challenges lie ahead. we know that in the coming weeks, months and even years, colorado is going to face a lot of rebuilding, and we will rise to this occasion, we will build it back better than it was before it was destroyed, and

we're going to fight every day for colorado families, many of whom have lost everything to make sure they are getting the support they need. and with that, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the senate will resume consideration of s. 1392, which the clerk will report. the clerk: calendar number 154, s. 1392, a bill to promote energy savings in residential buildings and industry, and for other purposes. mr. durbin: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from illinois. mr. durbin: unless the senator from oregon has something to say at the moment, i was going to ask for a few minutes of morning business. i ask unanimous consent to speak in morning business for three to five minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: madam president, it is one thing for a politician to say he misspoke and another for most ordinary people to say they

just got it wrong. i made a statement on the floor of the senate earlier this morning which it turns out was not entirely accurate and i would like to clarify it and correct it for the record. i was recounting the history of the social security program created by franklin roosevelt in 1935 and recounted that he it faced a filibuster in the united states senate. i mistakenly believed it was a republican filibuster when in fact it was a filibuster by senator huey long, a nominal democrat, who was filibustering because of his support of certain agriculture subsidies. so i want the record to be clear that the filibuster to delay or in any way impact the implementation of social security was in fact by senator long, not a republican filibuster. i also want to note that the information i used on the floor was derived from a book which i am reading entitled "citizens of london" by len olson, and it is no reflex on her that i --

reflection on her that i got that fact wrong. i just remembered it wrong when i spoke to it on the floor. "the washington post" is going to go to great length tomorrow to explain my other errors in my statement. i acknowledged that i could have done more research before coming to the floor but stand by the premise that the notion that we are somehow going to filibuster the affordable care act to delay its implementation is not in the best interests of the united states. if this bill or law needs amendment or repair, let's do it on a bipartisan basis rather than just voting 41 times as they have in the house to abolish it. i also believe that it is valuable for this country to face the cost of health care. if we are going to deal with america's debt and deficit, we have to acknowledge that 60% of it relates to health care costs. the other side, the republican side, has not come up with any alternative to deal with this health care crisis. we believe that the president's legislation, which i proudly supported, is a step in the

right direction. it can be improved. i will work to improve it, but simply saying we are not going to allow it to be implemented is not a positive effort to improve the situation in america, and i yield the floor. mr. wyden: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. wyden: madam president, as bipartisan discussions go on over the next hour or two on the important shaheen-portman energy efficiency legislation, i wanted to take just a few minutes to outline where we are, why this bill is so important and how it's going to affect energy policy deliberations generally, and i appreciate colleagues on both sides. i see senators from both sides

who i think would very much like to see democrats and republicans work out an agreement to move forward on the shaheen-portman legislation. when you look at this bill, it is almost the paula tonic -- platonic ideal of how the consensus legislation ought to work in the united states senate. you have in effect a bipartisan energy and natural resources committee, and we are very pleased that the president of the united the president of the senate has joined the committee very recently. this bipartisan committee, taking a piece of bipartisan legislation, authored by senator shaheen and senator portman, two of our most thoughtful senators. we took their bill to the floor of the senate, and, madam president, hour after hour after hour, the bill got more

bipartisan. you had starting with the distinguished senator from oklahoma, senator inhofe and senator carper, come with a thoughtful amendment with respect to thermal energy, and the list just went on and on. you know, senatorial pair after senatorial pair came to the floor and said that they wanted to show that law-making 101 is democrats and republicans working together in a bipartisan way, and they wanted to respond to what we heard americans say all during the summer break. and no matter what part of the country you're from, the message was the same. go back there, deal with the important issues for our -- the economy, let us expand the winner's circle in a middle-class-driven economy, and that's why this legislation does. it's going to help create jobs. it's going to allow consumers to save money, which they save

through practical energy savings, and it's going to increase american productivity. that's why it is an extraordinary coalition that's asemibled for senator shaheen and senator portman's legislation. business roundtable, national association of manufacturers, environmental groups, public interest organizations, incredible breadth of support for this bill. and what i have been struck by in discussions over particularly the last 24 hours is this question of okay, the senate is now finally on energy legislation. we actually did a major bill, as the president of the senate knows, right before the august recess, the hydropower bill. hydropower is the biggest source of clean power in the country right now. 60,000 megawatts. essentially the potential

production delivery on that legislation, but this is the first bill to actually be on the floor of the senate since 2007. so a number of senators have said we have got this huge pentup demand to work on energy, and now we have scores and scores of amendments coming in on this bill, perhaps as many as 60 amendments that senators want to offer. now, obviously, we could probably be here until new year's eve working on this legislation if you have scores and scores of amendments coming in, and what i have tried to tell senators is we can't do everything under the sun literally and figuratively with respect to this bill and still

be able to move on to other subjects. we would not be able to deal with the continuing resolution and a whole host of other issues that the senate has to tackle, so there has to be some limits. so my hope, madam president, is agreement can be reached out or be worked out on several of the issues that senators have felt most strongly about, and then senators reid and mcconnell can work out be a -- work out an agreement to have a finite number of amendments that will address energy issues, hopefully bipartisan, and we can then move to a vote on energy efficiency. and it seems to me there is no reason why theoretically that could not be done this week. if you had votes on a couple of

these issues through a procedural agreement that would address what senators have been debating over the last few days and then the leaders come up with a finite list of amendments on the other issues, we could finish this bill this week. i think it's important for the institution to do this. i would say to senators who want to debate a whole variety of energy issues that deal with, for example, the e.p.a., we can't do all of those issues on this bill. the energy committee doesn't really have jurisdiction over those issues. those are going to come up. and some of what senators are most concerned about, the government hasn't even acted yet. in other words, it's one thing to have a response from the senate after an agency has acted on some of these matters the agency hasn't even acted yet. so it ought to be possible,

madam president, to find a path forward that would allow for votes on the several issues that have been debated since the middle of last week. i think there is a way to do that if we can get an agreement on a finite list of additional amendments so that both sides could have some other questions aired, and we could vote on energy efficiency. the reality is that, madam president, that on this question of energy efficiency, those who are most knowledgeable on the subject say that our country has plenty of room for improvement. as of 2011, our country ranked ninth out of the top 12 global economies in the amount of energy it uses to generate every

dollar of goods and services it produces. this is what is commonly known and we've looked at it in the committee as energy productivity. now, this is not a hype threat cal exercise. as of 2008, industries consumed about one-third of the total u.s. energy use. the biggest users were chemicals and petroleum refining pulp and paper, iron and steel, and obviously other important industries or energy-intensive as well. now, a lot of those employers know that using less energy means lower costs and higher margins, especially larger companies are in a position to take the steps that will allow them to tap those financial gains. but the small and medium sized companies often don't have the technical expertise to know about which upgrades are going to make the biggest difference.

so here we have this bipartisan bill that comes along, and without, madam president, putting any mandates on the private sector, not a single mandate, not one on the private sector, this bill takes three steps that can help our small companies -- and this is the kind of company that dominates the oregon economy, and i know the wisconsin economy and many small businesses as well, and with these three steps, these companies, these small companies are going to be able with this legislation to be more competitive. first, the bill tells the energy department to reach out to the small businesses, the small and medium-size businesses and make their experts available so that the small businesses can learn directly what the commercially available energy-efficient technology is in their area that will allow them to become more

competitive. second, it creates r-bt programs to -- rebate programs to encourage manufacturers to replace some of their inefficient equipment, particularly motors and transformers. these are two pieces of equipment in particular that have long service lives and often get rebuilt instead of replaced because of the high cost of replacement. finally the legislation establishes a program called supply start, to recognize companies that have successfully made their supply chains more efficient. once again, voluntary, modeled after the energy star program. and i would just offer up that in this debate about what the government's role is in all-of-the-above energy policy, these kinds of approaches that have a market-driven orientation, that are voluntary

in nature, these are ones that i think are going to allow our country in the days ahead to keep ahead of the competition. now, in wrapping up, madam presid do have apparently over 60 amendments filed, and a significant chunk of them aren't on the topic of energy efficiency. so i hope that as we try now -- and i see the distinguished senator from ohio on the floor and senator shaheen on the floor, others who have strong concerns and are going to look to see if we can put together a bipartisan approach here over the next few hours, i ask senators to focus on what is doable, which is to have a vote, to have votes on the several issues that have been debated over the last few days and then

come to a finite agreement on the rest of the issues that would be offered, hopefully by colleagues on both sides of the aisle, and then we can vote. then we can vote that the idea might be on an energy efficiency bill, which is the topic that has been before the senate since the middle of last week. so, madam president, i note the senator from ohio is on the floor. he brought a good bill with senator shaheen to the floor in the middle of last week. it got better with the inhofe-carper amendment on thermal energy, the landrieu-wicker amendment which helps us make better use of the green building certification system, hoeven-pryor amendment that allows the continued use of

grid-enabled water heaters to make utility management programs more efficient, the sessions-pryor and the landrieu-wicker amendments that reduce regulatory, you know, burdens on testing consumer products, the bennet-ayotte amendment on commercial buildings, the pryor-alexander amendment to look at how the review process works in terms of planning our energy future, the isakson bennet amendment to look at home efficiency during mortgage underwriting. madam president, when you think about this, the reality is people seem to know more about the energy efficiency of the products you have around your house like a toaster than you do about a major, really an extraordinary purchase like a home and so you have a bipartisan due row in the -- duo

in the senate who want to address it. it is a terrific amendment, in my view. then there is the bennet-coburn amendment, the udall risch amendment saving taxpayers money by saving energy in federal computer data centers. senator klobuchar and senator hoeven trying to make our nonprofits make better use of their energy, because with their tax status, it's hard to qualify for some of the opportunities to save energy. so i could go on with this, but it just highlights how a bipartisan committee took a bipartisan bill from senator shaheen and senator portman, and then a big group, big group of bipartisan senators made it better. and that's what we could pass, madam president, and we could do it this week. and for all the senators who have said there is this pent-up demand since the senate hasn't been dealing with energy since

2007, i'd say the only way we can really get to all those topics is to pass a bill like this that does have a finite list of amendments and then let's just vote on shaheen-portman. several of my colleagues are on their feet. with that, madam president, i would yield the floor, and i also just make a unanimous consent request that larkest picket, a fellow in our office be given floor privileges during the duration of the consideration of s. 1392. the presiding officer:. mr. wyden: i yield the floor. mr. portman: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from ohio. mr. portman: i appreciate the senator's suggestion rargdz this energy bill -- regarding this energy bill. we did have a good debate last week not just on the underlying legislation, but also as he indicated, on seven different bipartisan amendments. i know we have a couple of colleagues who wish to come to the floor today to talk about additional amendments. i think we have an opportunity

here to actually come together as republicans and democrats with a good bill but improve it through some of these amendments that have been discussed on the floor. we do need a way forward here. we need to know that we're going to have the opportunity to have a good debate on these issues and have votes on these issues, specifically i know senator vitter is going to speak in a minute about his amendment. i hope he will be given a vote on his amendment. my understanding is there is an interest in doing that, and perhaps allowing the other side to have their point of view expressed as well, along with his vote. and if we can have that move forward, my understanding is then we would be able to agree to a series of amendments, perhaps an equal number on each side. i'm looking at a list here of about a dozen amendments that are truly bipartisan. i'm looking at another list of maybe 20 amendments that are,

people on our side of the aisle are interested in offering, some of which are directly related to energy, some of which are not. i'm hopeful we can come up with some time agreements that are reasonable and come up with a list that makes sense. the alternative is for us to turn our back on an opportunity here to be able to help he grow our economy, to help -- to be able to reduce our imports of foreign energy, specifically oil. we'll miss an opportunity to be able to save taxpayers a bunch of money from forcing the federal government to be more energy efficient, to practice what they preach. and finally, an opportunity, i think before us to have a cleaner environment, to have one of the important legs of a all-the-above energy strategy not just debated on this floor but passed by the senate and would then go to the hourbgs with a lot of tr-t tr* on both -- with a lot of interest

on both sides of the aisle and go to the president's desk for signature and go forward with a national energy plan which takes into account producing more energy. i'm interested in ensuring we use the resources we have here in the ground, in america, but also using that energy more efficiently. it just makes too much sense for us to allow this opportunity to go by. and so i'm hopeful that in the next few hours here we can come together with a list of amendments that makes sense. we can move forward by allowing the senate to express its view on the vitter amendment and other amendments on both sides of the aisle that come forward. but also move this underlying legislation forward at a time when, frankly, we need a little bipartisanship around here. i mean, at a time when we seem to be gridlocked on so many big issues, maybe by finding a way forward on a relatively narrow issue of energy efficiency, one where there is a lot of

consensus, a lot of common ground, frankly, we can provide a model for dealing with some of the bigger issues. we do have some time this week to do this. however, the continuing resolution is likely to come over from the house soon. i hope it will because we've got to be sure that we deal with that issue before the end of this month. so my urging of my colleagues is if you haven't already come over to talk about your amendment, please do so today understanding you may not be able to offer it in an official manner. you'll be able to talk about it which will help expedite the process later as we begin moving on these amendments which i hope we'll do again even after coming off this agreement today. and then if you have an amendment that you don't think is on this list, be sure and tell us right away. i do think getting this across the finish line should be something that republicans and democrats alike can agree to. i'm not suggesting everybody's going to vote for it, but i think everybody should be willing to let us have a chance to move this legislation. by the way, it's endorsed now by over 260 groups, including the

u.s. chamber of commerce which decided to key vote the legislation late last week as they looked at some of these amendments and looked at the underlying bill, they think it's important enough to key vote it. it's not just the u.s. chamber of commerce. it's the alliance to save energy, a group that worked on this legislation with us for almost three years. it's the national association of manufacturers. it's the environmental groups, including inner d.c., which is an unusual combination when you have business groups and environmental groups saying this makes sense. it helps make our economy more competitive. it helps create jobs. it gets us away from our dependency on foreign oil. it actually makes the environment cleaner. and that's a combination that you don't see often. so my hope is that we will move forward and, again, urge my colleagues to come forward to help us move forward by talking about your amendments today so that when we have a chance to move forward officially on these amendments, we can do so expeditiously. i see that my colleague from new

hampshire is on the floor here, senator shaheen. i know that she is speaking with her side of the aisle. i'm talking with my side of the aisle to try to come up with a list of amendments that are agreed to and within a reasonable time frame. i'm hopeful we'll be able to move forward on that here in the next few hours. with that, i will yield back my time and look forward to talking about some of these amendments as people bring them to the floor. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from new mexico. mr. heinrich: i want to commend my colleagues for their work to bring this legislation to the floor. i want to commend chairman wyden and ranking member murkowski for their leadership in the energy committee. fully half of the energy that we use in this great country is wasted, and that is a fact that we can no longer afford to ignore. each one of us is able to make

changes in our daily lives to increase our energy efficiency. there is no kilowatt hour, no b.t.u. more valuable than the ones we don't actually use in the first place. but it's clear that we're going to have to do a lot more than turn the lights out when we leave home to be a leader in the world in this field. as the largest energy consumer in the united states, i think that the federal government has not only an obligation but also an opportunity to lead by example when it comes to energy performance. we know that buildings are the largest energy consumers in the united states today. accounting for over 40% of our use, they offer the greatest opportunities for energy savings. over the summer, i had an opportunity and the privilege of joining the department of energy in presenting the brackish

groundwater natural desalinization research facility. that's a mouth full tphoeu. but it is an -- i know. it is an important research facility in new mexico, my home state. and we presented them with the better buildings award on behalf of the d.o.e.. the federal energy management program designed those awards, the better buildings awards, to encourage significant reductions in energy usage and in federal buildings all across the country. reductions that go above and beyond the current codes and mandates that exist. now, with the team at the desalinization research facility accomplished, in my view, was nothing short of truly impressive. and an example of just what is possible with legislation like this and in the field of energy efficiency. they were able to save approximately 300,000 kilowatt hours per year, an annual

savings of $42,000. that's a remarkable 53.6% of their former energy footprint at a time when that research facility was actually increasing the amount of research going on. they did this through thoughtful analysis, by implementing both active and passive energy conservation techniques and with a capital investment of literally less than $800. so for $800 and some engineering expertise, this research facility was able to save the taxpayers over $40,000 last year. $40,000 next year. $40,000 the year after that. and into the future. that is a window into why this kind of legislation is so important. and why we ought to be able to find common ground when it comes to energy efficiency.

madam president, i'd also like to touch on another area of rapid energy innovation that's relevant to the legislation. -- this legislation. the lighting sector. lighting consumes 22% of the energy of the -- of the electricity that's generated in this country. that's $50 billion per year for consumers across the united states. in albuquerque, sandia national laboratories is action sell wraiting advances in what's called solid date state lighting or s.s.l. a rapidly evolving technology with potential to reduce energy consumption in lighting by a factor of three to six times. you might have seen some of the new solid state lights if you've been to home depot or lowe's or your locally owned hardware store. these light bulbs are so efficient that when i was installing a couple in my son's

bedroom a few weeks ago, you could literally put your hand on the light bulb because they make such good use of the energy that they use. now, sandia's worked in solid state lighting for along time and their s.s.l. lighting science center is exploring new energy conversion techniques tailored structures, and drawing on their long history of research and development in this area, and, frankly, working closely with both university and private-sector partners. they're working to understand the mechanisms and the defects in s.s.l. semiconductor materials so they can make these already incredibly efficient light bulbs even more efficient. sandia's investigating the basic conversion of electricity to light using radically new designs that can take these things even further, things like luminescent nano wires and

even hibd architectures that may be the bright light bulb of the future. this progress driven by basic research, by science, the kind of -- frankly, it's the kind of investments that historically have made our country great, and made our economy so strong, and the shaheen-portman bill will spur the use of -- energy-efficient technologies like this and in turn will lower utility bills for consumers and save money for taxpayers. furthermore, this bipartisan bill will strengthen u.s. competitiveness by stimulating significant private-sector research and development, investments in manufacturing innovation and productivity. investing in energy efficiency is one of the fastest and also the most cost-effective ways that we can grow our economy. it's estimated that this measure alone, just this piece of

legislation, would help create 136,000 new jobs by 2025. and by 2030, the bill would net net an annual savings of over $13 billion, with a b, for consumers, lowering co2 emissions and other pollutants by the equivalent of taking over 20 million cars off the road. now, my home state of new mexico has is already capitalizing on a diversified buy but rapidly transforming energy sector and stands to benefit from leveraging investments in initial fi si projects. through american ingenuity we can slow the effects of climate change and unleash the potential of cleaner homegrown energy creating a stable and healthier nation for future generations of americans. so i would urge my colleagues

instead of transforming this debate into a debate about what is fundamentally supposed to be a debate about energy efficiency into another tired battle over obamacare, i would urge my colleagues to embrace the fact that this bill truly represents the culmination of years of bipartisan work. to craft a smart, effective energy bill with a good chance of actually becoming law. now, i know when i go home and i've talked to many of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, one of the things that we hear the most right now is why can't you guys just get something done? why can't you work on something together? this is an opportunity to show that we can still legislate, that we can come together on the things that we agree on, even while agreeing to disagree on many other issues. again, i want to thank senator

shaheen and senator portman for working so tirelessly on this bill. i want to thank the chair and ranking member of the energy committee for making it a priority and for all the senators in that committee who worked together on both sides of the aisle to see this move forward. i hope that as a senate we will seize this the country and i would yield back my time, madam president. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the republican whip. mr. cornyn: madam president, i wanted to come to the floor a day after a terrible tragedy befell washington, d.c. and particularly those who live and work around the washington navy yard. hardly a mile from this building in the shadow of its dome there occurred an act of senseless violence that took the lives of 12 men and women and injured several more as well as the life of the shooter himself. these men and women worked by

and large in the service to our country, whether as union formed -- uniformed military or civilian contractors and, of course, they are more than the numbers ascribed, they are mothers and fathers, brothers, sisters, husbands and wives. when i heard about this shooting yesterday as i was traveling from texas back to washington, d.c., i couldn't help but think about a not too dissimilar tragedy that occurred four years ago at fort hood, texas, when major nadal hasan killed 13 people there as well as shot more than 30 others who were injured. at this difficult time, we of course pray for these souls that were unexpectedly taken from us. we pray for comfort for their grieving families and friends, and we pray that healing may

come quickly for those who were wounded. we witnessed evil yesterday, but as so omnibus is the case when the unthinkable occurs, accounts of tremendous bravery and self-sacrifice emerged. i found some small measure of solace in one such story that i read. it described how one gentleman at the scene, a man by the name of omar grant, guided his partially blind colleague to safety. as shots rang out and people ran for the exits, mr. grant took his colleague by the arm and risking his own safety, made his mission to guide him out of the building. and this, of course, says nothing about the remarkable feats of bravery that the first responders who rushed to the scenes and who placed their lives at risk in order to preserve the safety of others

ahead of their own. yesterday's events remind us that life is fragile and that it is a precious gift. so let us express our deep gratitude for those who work around the clock, both in places like the navy yard and here at the capitol, to those who help keep us safe. i want to thank the d.c. metropolitan police for their important role, the united states capitol police, and all the first responders for their extraordinary response. their courage, their vigilance, and their sacrifices are what helps keep all of us safe, all of us who work here and visit our nation's capitol. we thank them and we promise on behalf of a grateful nation, we will never forget. mr. president, i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana.

mr. vitter: mr. president, i was very happy to hear the description of a possible path forward from the majority handler of -- floor manager for this bill a few minutes ago and i welcome that path forward. it's completely consistent with the u.c. i offered many, many times last week that was unfortunately then rejected but hopefully it will be accepted so we can have a productive path forward and have votes on these amendments on so many amendments that were brought to this bill, about energy, on my amendment, on other significant topics. certainly sounds like the discussion at the majority lunch today was let's just say more appropriate and more productive than the discussion last thursday. so i look forward to that path forward. as we hopefully build on that path forward, let me again

explain why i think a clear up-or-down vote before october 1 on my amendment is really important and why i'm demanding it. it's not of my choosing that this be happening in terms of this illegal o.p.m. rule. it's not of my choosing that that create this october 1 deadline, but that's exactly what's happened, which demand he that i -- demanded that i act with my amendment language and i'm joined by several colleagues, and i appreciate their partnership and their help. mr. president, this all began in the obamacare debate. in our debate and in our legislating on the obamacare bill. in that process, an amendment was accepted, a grassley amendment was accepted that said in clear and no uncertain terms that every member of congress

and that all congressional staff would go to the so-called exchanges. no if's, and's, or but's and the purpose of that language was crystal clear. the message was whatever the fallback plan for all americans is -- first it was the public option, then it became the exchange -- whatever that fallback plan for all americans is, that's what every member of congress, that's what congressional staff should go to. no special deal, no special exemption, no special subsidy, that's what we should live by. and i certainly supported that language. it goes to what really is a fundamental rule of democracy. the governors should live by the same rules as the governed across the board. our founders actually talked about that specifically. james madison, so author of

"the federalist papers" wrote federalist number 57 specifically about this point. and a central theme in that federalist number 57 was exactly this, what is good for america is good for washington. the rule for america should certainly be the rule for those who have the particular honor and responsibility to help govern. and that should be the case across the board, certainly including in obamacare. so that's why that provision got in the law, was passed into law, was signed into law by president obama. now, after that i guess we sort of experienced what nancy pelosi described about obamacare, we had to pass the law to find out what's in it. because after the law was passed, several folks around here on capitol hill in washington read the law, read

that particular provision, and they said, oh, you know what. they said wait a minute, look at this. and they correctly noted that that clear language demands that all members of congress, all congressional staff, go to the exchange, and clearly our current subsidy for health care does not follow us there. in fact, there's a specific other section of obamacare that says quite clearly that when an employee of a business goes to the exchange, that employee's employer contribution for an employer-based health care plan does not follow him or her to the exchange. so, again, when a lot of folks around here, after the fact read what was then the obamacare law on that point, they really said, oh, you know what. that's when a lot of scurrying

started, a lot of gnashing of teeth, a lot of scheming, a lot of discussion and ultimately a lot of lobbying of the president and the obama administration. sadly, it was bipartisan, i believe. a lot of folks pushing to have the obama administration simply issue a rule, a regulation, that fixed all of this. the problem is pretty simple and pretty straightforward and pretty important. you can't -- you you're not suo be able to issue a rule or regulation. that's contrary to the statute. that's what these folks were lobbying for, and sadly, that's what they got. right as congress was going into the august recess, safely leaving town, the obama administration issued this o.p.m. rule that my language is all about. and that rule is flat-out clearly illegal on two grounds: first of all, under this

proposed o.p.m. rule, every member of congress gets to decide for himself or herself what staff members are even covered by the mandate to go to the exchange at all. now, that is just ridiculous and is directly contrary to the clear, unmistakable language in obamacare. that long says, all official staff go to the exchange. and now this illegal o.p.m. rule is going to say, well, it didn't really mean all official staff. it just meant whatever any individual member of congress decides. that's ridiculous, and that's illegal. the second part of the o.p.m. rule is just as illegal, just as ridiculous, just as objectionable. and it says, whoever does go to the exchange -- members of congress and whatever staff do go to the exchange -- they get to bring along with them their

big taxpayer-funded subsidy from their previous federal employee health benefits planning. well, wait a minute. obamacare doesn't say that. in fact, there is a separate provision of obamacare that says the opposite, that says when an employee goes to the exchange from a business, that employee loses his or her employer contribution. specific part of obamacare directly contrary to what this illegal o.p.m. rule is trying to do. and so, again, the attempt is simply to real estate write the law by -- rewrite the law by administrative fiat yet again, to create another exemption from obamacare, if you will, that is nowhere in the statute. that's wrong. that's illegal, and that demands ac that's why i, with several other

members, house and senate, came up with this language, this language that i am proposing on the floor now as an amendment il o.p.m. rule. it would say exactly what obamacare says now: every member of congress, all of our staff, must go to the exchange and operate under the same rules as all other americans. no special deal. no special exemption. no special subsidy. no other american gets this fat employer subsidy in going to the exchange, nor should we. and that's not in obamacare, and there is a specific section of obamacare that in fact says the opposite. and so my language on the floor now would say that and would broaden the rule, appropriatel, to the president, the vice

president, and awful their political appointees -- and all of their political appointees. the clear intent of this provision in obamacare from the beginning is what's good for america has to be good for washington. whatever america is dealt, the cards they are dealt, including that fallback plan -- originally it was proposed as the public option; now the exchanges -- that should be what is involved on washington. no special plan, no special deal or exemption or subsidy. what is imposed on america needs to be imposed on washington. that's true under obamacare. that should be true across the board. today, just as it was true in the eyes and minds and hearts of the founders. against, james madison, federalist number 57 wrote specifically on this point, this basic first rule of democracy

goes back that far. and so that is why i come to the floor and demand a vote. it's an explicit reaction to an illegal rule, a rule issued by the administration beyond the president's authority, with no basis in the obamacare care, in fact, with provisions of the obamacare law that are directly contrary to it, and a rule that is set to take effect october 1, so we must vote now. and that's why, again, to come back full circle to the comments of the distinguished majority floor leader on this bill, i welcome the path forward he was describing. that's exactly the path forward i set out last week in my u.c. request. so let's vote. let's do what this institution is supposed to be set up to do.

let's vote on this very important, very timely issue. let's vote on other amendments on the bill. let's vote on the bill. let's move forward in that appropriate and productive way. thank you, mr. president. with that, i yield back the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from new hampshire. mrs. shaheen: thank you, mr. president. i'm really here to speak to the shaheen-portman legislation that's on the floor, the energy savings and industrial competitiveness act. but i have to start by responding to my colleague from louisiana, because, first of all, i appreciate that he wants a vote on this issue of the o.p.m. ruling. you know, there are a lot of things that i would like to see a vote on, but -- and i understand that he's saying he's not opposed to the bill, which i very much appreciate. but the fact is, he chooses to

be here to hold up this bipartisan piece of legislation at a time when we could get some real agreement on energy legislation coming out of the senate, the first time since 2007 that we've had an energy bill on the floor. this is a bipartisan energy bill. it's a bill that has over 16 bipartisan amendments that have been vetted by the energy committee that have support, not just from the chairman of the energy committee and the ranking member but from the committee staff, from senator portman and myself. we think we have a real opportunity to pass this bill and to make it even better because of all of these bipartisan amendments. but my colleague from louisiana, senator vitter, is refusing to allow us to get these votes because he wants a vote on his

amendment. you know, i'm happy to take a vote on his amendment. i would like to be able to clarify for the record the o o.p.m. ruling. i think there's a lot of misin n misinformation. people who are calling that members of copping are not -- are not going to be in the exchange. members of congress who continue to have their health care through the federal program are in the exchange, as are our staffs. but we're not asking other large employers like the federal government to eliminate the share of the -- the employer share of health care, as senator vitter would ask that the federal government eliminate their employer share of health care for all of our staff who are working for the federal government. you know, i don't think the american people believe that the employer's share of health care should be eliminated.

i think we have a system of health care that is employer-based, and the system that we have in the federal government is going to continue to be employer-based as well. and that means that the federal government will pay a share of health care. i think this is a debate we ought to have because, mr. president, i think there are a lot of people who are on the extreme right who want to be disingenuous about p what's going on here. they're interested in spreading misinformation about what's happening with the health care law, because they can't believe that congress passed the affordable care act, that the supreme court upheld the affordable care act, and that, in fact, we are already seeing the benefits of people across this country from the affordable care act. we're seeing people who have had previous illnesses, so preexisting conditions, who are no longer going to be denied health insurance because of the

affordable care act. we're seeing people who can stay on their health care -- young people -- until they're age 26 because of the affordable care act. we're seeing people who no longer have lifetime limits on what their share is for health insurance when they become ill. we're seeing people who are in the doughnut hole with their prescription drugs who are getting help for that's prescription drugs. so i'm happy to have that debate on the affordable care act. but now is not the time to do it. this is a time when we can get some real agreement on energy efficiency, o on an energy bill that will, as the american council for an energy-efficient america has said, will create 26,000 jobs by 2025, that would save consumers billions of dollars by 2030, that would be the equivalent of taking

millions of cars off the road. it's a win-win-win. and it's a bill that has not just considerable bipartisan support in this chamber, but it's a bill that has support from groups that are as far apart as the american chemistry council and the sierra club, groups that don't normally come together on a bill. over 260 groups. and that list is growing every day. private businesses who say the way we need to begin to address our energy challenges is by saving energy. the cheapest, fastest way to address our energy needs is through energy efficiency. you know, this is a bill that doesn't depend on whether you support fossil fuels or whether you support new alternatives. the presiding officer knows that

we can support coal, investments in coal, and still support energy efficiency. we can support wind and still support energy efficiency. we can support solar and still support energy efficiency. we can support more drilling and still support energy efficiency. this bill is a win-win-win. and we need to get on the bill. we need to get those people who would rather debate issues that are extraneous to this legislation to hold those debates for later time. as i said, i'm happy to continue to debate health care, even though we've been debating it now for the four years since the bill has been passed. i'm happy to do that. but mao is no now is not the tio that. so, mr. president, i will yield the floor and hope that we can

reach some agreement that will address senator vitter's concerns, that will address some of the other concerns that have been waiting -- that will allow us to move forward on an energy bill that's in the best interest of the country. thanthank you. mr. hatch: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from utah. mr. hatch: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that my remarks be placed in an appropriate place in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. hatch: mr. president, i begin -- to begin, i just want to say that my thoughts and prayers certainly go out to everyone who was impacted by the whhorrific events of yesterday t the navy yard, particularly those whose loved ones lost their lives or were injured in what really is a sensible tragedy. having said that, i also want to express my gratitude to the brave men and women who serve in our nation's military, for the sacrifices they make, for each

and every one of us, and to the first responders and law enforcement personnel who worked tirelessly to keep us safe throughout the day. it was just a dreadful day, mr. president, and there is little i can say or do to bring comfort to those who are suffering today, but i hope and pray that they will find some measure of peace in the coming days. now, i want to take just a few minutes to speak about some of the problems we face as the administration continues to struggle with the implementation of the so-called affordable care act. it seems as though nearly every week we learn about another problem facing the obama administration as they seek to implement this misguided law. more often than not, those problems are revealed through statements announcing delays in certain elements of the law. the small business health insurance market -- delayed. employee automatic enrollment in the exchanges -- delayed. this shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. this is, after all, the largest

expansion of government in a generation, and it's not like t was carefully crafted. no the president's health care law was rushed through congress in a partisan farks virtually ensuring -- fashion virtually ensuring that it would face problems when the rubber meets the proverbial road. for months now experts have been warning us about obamacare's failings and challenges those failings pose as the administration tries desperately to have something ready to implement by october 1. one of the major parts of senator obama is the health care -- parts of obamacare is the health care changes, where those without health insurance will be required by law to shop for coverage. millions of people are expected to sign up to purchase insurance through the exchanges. as a result, the exchanges are expected to have a massive impact on the overall insurance market even affecting those who

get their insurance elsewhere. make no mistake, mr. president, obamacare's health insurance exchanges will have an impact on every american regardless of where they get their health insurance. that being the case, one would reasonably assume that the administration would not move forward on the exchanges until they were ready. unfortunately, when it comes to implementing the president's health care law, reason does not appear to enter into the equation. despite countless red flags, the administration is charging ahead. they are, to say the least, desperate to avoid another delay when it comes to obamacare. so come hell or high water, the exchanges will go live on october 1 of this year. now this is problematic for numerous reasons, not the least of which are the privacy and security considerations that are up to now -- or that up to now

appear to have been ignored by administration officials. when people sign up for insurance through an exchange, they will be required to submit their social security numbers, tax returns, household income information, and the like. this is to say the least, highly sensitive information. in recent months we've seen the government certified security systems have been shown to be less than reliable when it comes to protecting personal information. just this past july, for example, the i.r.s. accidentally posted thousands of social security numbers on its web site. that was just a small mistake but potentially devastating consequences for those who had their information exposed. the information collected when people sign up for the exchanges will be entered into a federal services data hub. a new information-sharing network that will allow state

and federal agencies, including the i.r.s., the department of health and human services, the department of labor and the department of homeland security to verify a person's information. it is at this point unclear whether the data hub has adequate security in place to prevent enrollees' information from falling in the hands of data thieves. and there are plenty of them out there. last month the h.h.s. office of inspector general issued a report indicating that the government had failed to meet several deadlines for testing operations and reporting data security vulnerabilities involved with the data hub. this, as you might expect, led to an outcry from members of congress from both sides of the aisle. as a result, on september 10, the white house conveniently announced that all testing had been completed and that the data

hub was ready to launch. this announcement came a mere three weeks before the exchanges were set to go live. of course no independent entity will get a chance to verify the testing and to certify there are, as the administration claims, no security problems. no third party will be able to make recommendations to improve safeguards in order to better protect the privacy of consumers. instead, we're supposed to simply rely on the administration's internal testing of the data hub security and stop asking questions. this, sadly, is par for the course with the obama administration. so here we are, mere days away from the launch of the exchanges and yet to definitively prove whether the massive i.t. or information technology system that will be k compounding

enrollees' information is secure. what a state of events. to the millions of consumers about to enroll in the exchanges, this could end up being their worst nightmare. and as if the potential disaster surrounding the data hub weren't enough, we also have lax regulations regarding the hiring of the so-called navigators who are to help people get through these problems. as you recall, mr. president, obamacare, organizations will receive grants to assist the uninsured in determining what type of coverage they qualify for in states where the federal government will be running the exchange. the individuals working with those organizations are called -- quote -- "navigators" and under the law they will often have access to enrollees' personal information. in april, h.h.s. published its proposed rule regarding the certification of navigators, and

almost immediately members of congress recognized that the regulations were far too lenient. cutting corners on things like training and background checks and threatening to leave patients and consumers with inadequate protection. a group of my colleagues and i sent a letter to secretary sebelius outlining our concerns regarding this rule. our hole was did -- our hope was the requirement for navigators would be enhanced to ensure consumers were not harmed by unqualified navigators or impostors serving as government counselors. our request fell on deaf ears. we never received a response. in late july h.h.s. issued its final navigator rule, keeping in place the very weak privacy protections, opening the door for private information to fall into the wrong hands. consumer watchdog groups are

already warning of scams leading to fraud and identity theft with regard to the exchanges. indeed, it seems that criminals and fraud steres are already lining up to game the system and prey on the innocent. now over the last few years, i've come to the floor several times to talk about the shortcomings of obamacare. i continue to believe that the law is beyond saving and that it should be repealed in its entirety. that remains my number-one goal when it comes to obamacare. however, i also believe that those of us who oppose this law, which, according to recent polls is a growing percentage of the population, cannot stand on the sidelines and let this law inflict harm on the american people. while we continue to push for a full repeal of the law, we need to do all we can to mitigate the damage that could come from this law. with regard to privacy and data

security, we need to ensure that the administration does not expose the personal data of millions of americans to more fraud. that is why today i'm introducing the trust but verify act. if enacted, this important legislation would delay the implementation of the federal and state health insurance exchanges until the government accountability office, in consultation with the h.h.s. inspector general, can attest that the necessary privacy and data security parameters are in place. it would simply be irresponsible to open the exchanges without adequate safeguards to protect and secure consumers' personal information. and while the administration claims that these safeguards exist, there is simply no way to verify these claims absent an

independent review, which they're not taking. until we can demonstrate to the public that their personal information is secure, we should not move forward with enrollment in the exchanges. it's just that simple. my legislation would ensure that the exchanges remain on ice until this threshold issue is addressed. these are not trifling concerns, mr. president. these are real problems. i hope all of my colleagues, even those who continue to support the president's health law, will work with me to help address these issues. mr. president, i'm happy to yield the floor.

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut. mr. blumenthal: thank you, mr. president. i ask to speak as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. blumenthal: thank you, mr. president. first, let me commend the chief cosponsors of this bill, senators shaheen and portman, for their perseverance and their great leadership on this i shall yew. i am a whole -- on this issue.

i am a whole parted and passionate supporter of this cause and urge my colleagues to address what is truly a triple play. it is a way to win for employment and economic growth. it's a way to win for energy savings and financial savings for our manufacturing companies to make america more competitive. it's a way to win for our planet. indeed, to help save our planet along with saving money and saving energy. and i will not only support the bill and the amendments, but i have asked for support for an amendment of my own that would help to measure the nonmonetary benefits of some of the changes that would be brought about by this legislation. and i ask senators portman and shaheen to accept this amendment and for my colleagues to support it as well. i'm here to help commemorate the

nine-month anniversary of the tragedy in newtown that took the lives of 26 wonderful people, 20 beautiful children and six courageous, skilled educators. it was a commemoration that i was going to observe yesterday on the floor of the senate, but of course there was no senate session yesterday because of yet another unspeakable horrific tragedy, this one close, literally within blocks of this great building. it was physically close, but every one of these incidents should be close to us emotionally as newtown has been for me and others of my colleagues, most especially my friend and colleague, senator murphy. and it brought back a rush of

memories for me because newtown is still close to us in emotional proximity, just as the navy shooting was close in physical proximity. the navy lost 12 of its members, and my heart and prayers go out to those brave sailors, civilians and contractors and their loved ones. today we have an inspector general report that is profoundly and deeply troubling. if reports of this audit are true, the navy put the safety of personnel at risk to save dollars and cents. and this apparent security lapse, permitting people with criminal records to freely access military bases and facilities, is deeply

concerning; indeed shocking. and i call on the inspector general to release the full report. i have the report. i've reviewed it briefly. i can't talk about its contents because it hasn't been released. make this report public so we know what the inspector general of the navy has said about lapses of security and about the failures of the rapid gate technology that was supposed to protect people at the navy yard here in washington, d.c.. lax safety and security measures at our military facilities are inexcusable. and i want to commend the secretary of the navy and the leadership of the navy for raising this issue and hope that they will decide to make public the full report to the extent it can be done so consistent with our nation's security. but one of the lessons here is

that the navy, with rapid gate technology, and all of its facilities with armed guards and the complex technology that it uses, could not protect members of its own ranks at the navy yard. and we should know why. and if it could not do so there, can our schools be safe? can our workplaces be safe? can america be safe? with the present plethora of firearms in our nation today? this day was horrific and tragic for america, and yet in many ways it was another day. the thread is that these incidents will become the new normal. we need to ask will these

incidents, these horrific, unspeakable tragedies make a difference? will they change the political mindset and culture in this body and in the house of representatives? in the days to come, we will learn more, and there is much more to learn before we draw conclusions. i emphasize that the facts are disclosed one by one, even as we watch the news. and we will try to wrap our minds around whatever evil notify caused this senseless crime, but we know the meanings all too well. the moments shots rang out and the blushes came over the news wires, we knew with an instinctive understanding that this unfolding incident was another act of gun violence in america, another act of gun violence in an america plagued

by a plethora of guns. and the answer to the question will it be become the new normal should find the articulate, in fact deeply powerful, words of janice orlowski, the chief medical officer of the medstar hospital center, the hospital that received some of yesterday's victims, the hospital that deals routinely with gunshot wounds and sometimes deaths, and i hope the nation will hear her plea when she said, in effect, these senseless killings have to stop. quote -- "there is something evil in our society that we as americans have to work to try to eradicate. i would like you to put my trauma center out of business. i would not like to be an expert

on gunshots. this is not america." when i went to sandy hook nine months ago on december 14, i felt an obligation to go as a public official, but what i saw was through the eyes of a parent, the cries of grief and pain that i will never forget. they will live with me always, of loved ones and parents emerging from that firehouse, having learned moments before that their beautiful children and loved ones would not be coming home that evening. like the loved ones who said goodbye to the 12 victims at the washington navy yard, it was another day, a day like every other day when they expected them to come he to the routine, mundane joys of life.

20 innocent, beautiful children and six great educators did n come home that day, and in the days that followed, we all hoped that the senate of the united states would keep with those families, and in the nine months since, we have hope that the -- hoped that the nation would keep faith with the 8,158 americans around the country. 8,158 victims of gun violence. but last april, the senate turned its back on the newtown families, and one of the most difficult days of my career in this job or any other job was to tray to explain to those families how more than 90% of the american people, the majority of gun owners, in fact, many members of the n.r.a.,

could back commonsense measures like background checks. the bill that the presiding officer and senator toomey sponsored so courageously and ably, could have that kind of support and yet fail to pass this body. now, it had 55 senators supporting it on that day, 54 voting for it, but 60 votes were needed, and one of the answers, of course, is to change the senate rules which i have long supported doing to eliminate the filibuster. but the families of newtown and those 8,158 americans and their loved ones and all americans deserve a better answer, and it is not to accept these mass killings as the new normal, as

the common place of america. we are better than that normal as a nation. we cannot accept it. and so i hope and i ask and i pray that the unspeakable, unimaginable tragedy of newtown and now the washington navy yard will renew and reinvigorate this movement and give us impetus -- emotional, intellectual, political -- which we need and deserve. the shooting at the washington navy yard makes clear that as we said in the wake of newtown, these kinds of mass killings can happen anywhere, any school, any community. in newtown, the quintessential

new england town or at the washington navy yard, a supposedly secure military facility. and we need to make sure that it happens nowhere. let us make a mental health initiative, a centerpiece of this renewal and reinvigoration of our effort to stop gun violence. let us combine it with background checks and other commonsense measures. bring back this issue and these measures. we are not going away. we are not giving up. the newtown families, many of them will be here again this week. the newtown action alliance has been joined by other groups like sandy hook promise and the mayor's committee against gun violence. they have formed a powerful coalition, and i promise that i

will never give up, and i know together we can prevail. not long ago -- in fact, just this past weekend -- i attended a playground dedication on the beach in fairfield, overlooking the sound, a beautiful, cloudless day lit by an early morning sun, to dedicate a playground in honor of one of the children, jessica ricos, whose family was there as well. that playground will be a living reminder of our obligation to do better. there are regulations right now that have not been approved in final form for mental health parity, to enable more people to have private insurance coverage. there are commonsense mental

health funding initial tiffs. as we speak -- funding initiatives. as we speak on this very day, groups are going around to our offices from the national council for behavioral health, asking support for the exlendings in mental health care act, senate 264, ably cosponsored by senators stabenow and blunt. focusing on mental health and combining those measures with other commonsense, sensible gun violence prevention measures is the way to forge a consensus we need and move from those 55 votes to the 61 that we need for passage of a gun violence prevention measure that can make us proud, that can make america better and safer, that can make

us as americans a better nation to leave for generations to come. as we celebrate -- or commemorate, i should say, celebrate the lives lost but commemorate the horrific, unspeakable tragedy of newtown, we should take heart from the courage and resilience of those families and their loved ones, and from the newtown community that will be visiting the capitol again, their resoluteness and steadfastness should inspire us to do better and ask more of ourselves and make america a better nation. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor.

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from wyoming. mr. enzi: mr. president, i want to extend my sympathy to all those who suffered a loss yesterday, both here in d.c. and any other place in the country. a loss, a quick loss and an unexpected loss, is always difficult. i also want to take just a second today to recognize that this is constitution day, and it's 226 years of our country having this constitution, which is a world record for a constitution, and hopefully we'll continue to live under that constitution and work and make progress. but my main purpose today is to take a few minutes to talk about something that occurred during the recess that's another sad example of business as usual in washington. the health care law that we're

all under requires members of congress and their congressional staff to obtain health insurance through the new exchanges required by obamacare next year. now, i voted to include congress under the health law in 2009 because i believe very strongly that congress should have to live under the laws it passes. i want to say that again. i think that congress ought to have to have to live under the laws it passes. we passed a law that's going to affect most people in the united states. i can tell you that the administration doesn't appear to share this belief. on august 2, immediately after congress adjourned, the office of personnel management under heavy pressure from congressional leaders, announced it would issue regulations saying that the government can continue to make the employer contribution to the health plans of congressional members and staff. no one else in america who will get their health insurance through an exchange may receive

a contribution from their employer, but the administration decided that it would be okay for congress. i'm not sure where the authority came from to be able to do that or say that. it was difficult at the beginning of the process for us to get that amendment in in the health committee, health, education, labor and pensions committee, when the bill was coming through there. it was repeated again in the finance committee, and it wound up in the final bill. that's a law that we passed. that's a law that we passed that said we're going to be subject to the same thing that the american people are going to be subject to. well, now, the administration has said no, it really doesn't apply to congress. where does it say it doesn't apply to congress? i was in wyoming for the last month or so and holding listening sessions and meeting with the people as i drove 6,000 miles across the state, and i can tell you that people are angry that congress gets some exemptions from obamacare that they don't. they're tired of the deal making

that happens here instead of legislating that could be occurring. they see these kinds of exemptions, and they don't think it's fair. i agree. i don't think it's fair either. that's why senator vitter and i have introduced a bill that would prohibit members of congress from receiving the contribution from the federal government towards their health insurance. of course, it's not only in our -- in our amendment, it's not only congress but the president and the vice president and the people responsible for implementing the health care law that will not be allowed to receive any governmental subsidy. the president talks about how great the health care bill will be for everyone, but the administration doesn't think it's so great that they should have to live under it. that should change. in addition, the legislation ensures that congress and the administration will have to live under the laws it passes and enforces by clarifying that all of us can only obtain our health

insurance next year through an exchange. that's what it says. the bill also states that members do not have the authority to define official staff. that would be a sneaky way of making an exclusion for some of the people that we considered to be critical. and can thereby not exempt any of their staff from going into the exchange. yes, that's difficult. yes, that's the same thing that's going to happen with the rest of america. the rest of america is going to have these same pangs of wishing that their contribution could go with them to the exchange but they're going to have to go to the exchange and it's not going to follow them and there's no reason that we should get an exception and the reason that we have this amendment is to show that congress shouldn't be special, that the american people are going to have this great pain and we ought to suffer from it, too, or change it for everybody. that would be unique. i want to clarify that our bill

does not end the government contribution for all congressional staff. those who make the lest amount of money here will still receive a contribution but many staff who would not qualify for any assistance otherwise will not. there's a provision in the law that anybody that goes on the exchange and they make less than $43,000 a year as an individual or $92,000 as a family can get a subsidy under the exchange. it would work the same way for congress. legislation is needed to prevent lawmakers and their staff from getting special treatment under the law. absent these legislative changes, congress and the administration are shielded from the higher costs, limited access and more confusion that everybody else is going to feel. i continue to oppose the health care law as i've done so since it was passed. when you pass something from just one side of the aisle without taking into consideration amendments from

the other side of the aisle and make special deals in order to keep the one side you're going to wind up with a law that you own and it will have flaws in it. it's time that we quit dealmaking and starting legislating on all of the issues. considering all of the amendments and this is one example of an amendment that's up, it's the next amendment up, and it should get a vote and it could have had a vote last week and it can have a vote this week. but we need to just vote on these things and see how they wind up. so i do continue to oppose the health care law, as -- and i support full repeal of the law. there are replacements out there. i've worked with replacements, in fact, i had my own ten-step plan before the president even became a member of the senate. and that ten-step plan would have done more than this bill does and it would have been paid for. i automatics worked with senators burr and coburn on a substitute when it was going through the process, and that one would have done many of the

things that the president in his joint -- joint speech to congress where he promised there would be certain things in the bill and i took very careful notes at that meeting and found out that there were 14 things that didn't appear to be in the bill. and i asked that those things be in the bill and that's when it became just a partisan issue. the president said that the bill would have tort reform. there's no tort reform in that bill. the president said there would be a doc fix. there is no doc fix in that bill. what aamazed me is people from the american medical association stood behind the president when he signed the bill realizing they didn't get the things they insisted on and said they would continue to push for and oppose the bill until they were in there. that was tort reform and the doc fix. you know, doctors under the law

for medicare aren't going to be paid adequately and if they're not paid adequately they have a tendency not to see medicare are patients and i'm pretty sure all of us know somebody who tried to get an poiment with a doctor and they said do have you medicare? i'm sorry, i'm not taking medicare patients. if you can't see a doctor, do you have insurance at all? i don't think so. and been the lifesaver for seniors in our country for some time, and we haven't begun to see the tip of the iceberg yet on what's going our seniors. so this amendment which we should get to vote on is just one piece of an overall effort to make sure that the bill work will work for everybody in america, that would adopt hopefully there will be some other -- 17 other amendments that would close loopholes and dismantle pieces that we know won't work and make changes.

so there are ideas out there that could make this bill work. but this one bill is just part of an overall effort and it will close a loophole for congress and it will ensure everyone is treated equally under the health care law, for better or worse we should all be in this together. and, again, this isn't just to to subject tower colleagues to pain, it's to get them to recognize the pain that america is about to feel. it's not fair for us to make ourselves pain-free. we can't inoculate ourselves or give ourselves some special medication. that's what we doing in the bill. and so this bill just clarifies that members don't have the authority to define official staff and therefore they can't exempt any of their staff from going into the exchange, and clarifies that members of their congress, all of their staff, the president, the vice president, all political appointees are no longer eligible for federal employees

health benefit plans and have to go into the exchange. seems fair to he 3450. i mean the bill is named after the president. why wouldn't the president want to be under the bill? how could he possibly avoid being under the bill and doing what the rest of americans will have to do? if it's such a great deal, you'd think that since the bill is named for him, we want to do that. i voted to include members and staff on obamacare before the bill passed. in the help committee, the finance committee, and on this floor. it got tweaked a little bit after it passed on the floor and i'm a little disturbed about that, but that doesn't -- even that doesn't warrant the clarification of this magnitude. so people deserve and expect that those responsible for passing and implementing laws to live under the same laws that they do, and i've cosponsored the legislation with senator vitter, i appreciate all of the

initiative that he has taken, the -- the difficult task of specific drafting and all of the work that's gone into this. so this will make a difference. congress will realize the difference, the american people will blame us if they see the difference and we haven't. so i would ask that we get to vote on this amendment, i hope we get to vote on it soon, can move on to other amendments on an important bill, and get things done. that's what the american people really expect us to do. they expect us to get some things done. and if somebody thinks that this is something that would be wrong for us, they should consider it to be wrong for america as well and join us in fixing it one way or the other. so, again, i thank senator vitter for all of his efforts on it and i do expect we should get a vote on this. i yield the floor. mr. vitter: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana. mr. vitter: thank you,

mr. president. i just want to thank and recognize the distinguished senator from wyoming for his long-standing work on this. he has fought for this position long and hard from the very beginning of the obamacare debate, not in a very focused and determined and consistent way. and i appreciate his doing that all through the obamacare debate and bringing it to the floor, fighting for what i consider the first principle of democracy, that all rules that are passed on for america should be visited on washington, and we should be treated exactly the same as the rest of america is treated. that should be true across the board. it certainly should be true under obamacare. that was the very intent of this provision which is law now. it is the law now under

obamacare. thank you, mr. president. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from new hampshire. mrs. shaheen: i see my colleague from north dakota, senator hoeven here. i will only be brief. i just wanted to pick up senator enzi talked about the american people expecting us to get something done and i couldn't agree more with him. that's why i've been here not to the floor the last three days with my colleague from ohio, senator portman, who has worked so hard with me to try and put together an energy efficiency bill to address the very real challenges facing this country around energy security, and energy efficiency is the cheapest, fastest way to deal with our energy needs. we have multiple bipartisan amendments to the legislation, -- this legislation, we have bipartisan support, 260 groups as varied

as the chamber of commerce and the national resources defense council supporting this legislation and i would hope those people who would like to have a different conversation around health care or whatever else would be willing to postpone that conversation so we can deal with the bill before us on the floor, which is the energy savings and industrial competitiveness act. i appreciate my colleague from north dakota, senator hoeven for all of the work he's been willing to engage with us on on this legislation and urge all of us to get to the bill at hand and deal with energy issues and let's have those other debates at the appropriate time. now is not the appropriate time. a senator: would the senator from new hampshire yield for a question? mrs. shaheen: i would. mr. wyden: how many years have you been involved in this legislation? i can recall the iterations you

and senator portman offered, you worked with organizations and public interest groups and i think it would be helpful to hear how long you have been working on the legislation and how long you've been waiting to get the bill in front of the senate. mrs. shaheen: senator portman can correct me on this but i think we introduced this legislation early in 2011, not too long after he came to the senate and we've been working for three years. we reintroduced it in this congress and have made a number of changes over the years in response to what we heard from stakeholders in response to some of the concerns that our colleagues on the other side of the aisle had to try and make the bill better, to try and put together legislation that could actually pass the congress, and we have -- we have another bill in the house that's very similar that's also a bipartisan piece of energy efficiency legislation. it is there there's been a lot of interest expressed in the house in trying to act on this issue. and so we have a real the

country to get a bill through congress, to get it to the president's desk, to get it signed to begin making progress on those 136,000 jobs that we've heard from the aceee, the american council for an energy efficient economy that could be created as a result of passing this bill. mr. wyden: is it the senator's view, from new hampshire, that the amendments that have been offered, the bipartisan amendments take your bill, the product of all those negotiations, more than three years' worth of work, and actually make the bill even better? i mean, i look at some of the amendments, particularly the one offered by the senator from georgia and the senator from colorado, the isakson-bennet amendment. we know more in america in in,,about the energy efficiency of some common products you might use, whether it's a toaster or something else

around the house, than we do interest about the actual house itself. so here you have two thoughtful senators coming and they worked with a whole host of commercial building interests and they're going to make it possible in my view to save a lot of energy, it's going to result in savings for, you know, homeowners and other americans. i'd be interested in your take on the very amendments that have been filed. because i think those amendments take the very fine bill that you and senator portman have and make it even better. mrs. shaheen: there's no doubt about that and i've really been impressed with the amount of thought that's gong g.o.p. into these bipartisan amendments, with the -- thought gone into these bipartisan amendments and ways they improve on energy efficiency. you talked about the isakson-bennet amendment. senator bennet has an amendment with senator ayotte from new hampshire, talking about tenants that are renting and the

incentives to provide to tenants for energy use. senator gillibrand who talked about how we could look at emergency disaster relief and try and make sure that when we rebuild from disasters that we rebuild in a way that's much more energy-efficient. we have a whole range of things. senator hoeven who is on the floor is talking about addressing water heaters and the need to make sure water heaters are more efficient. he's working with senator pryor on that. we have a whole list of amendments that have really been thoughtful, that have been the result of a lot of work on the part of a lot of senators in this chamber, and it's really unfortunate that we can't get to those amendments and get them passed. i think most of them would pass on a voice vote. mr. wyden: my hope -- and i just will wrap up with one last question to get a sense of your intent.

you're very open, you and senator portman, that there would be votes, and i see, you know, our colleagues on the floor who have also been here since wednesday. you're open to giving them votes on the several issues that have come up in connection with this debate, that have been debated over the last few days, and then you would be open to the leadership on both sides agreeing to a finite list of amendments and then we could actually swroat on your energy efficiency -- vote on your energy efficiency bill this week. my hope is that's what you'd like to do because i've tried to tell colleagues as chairman of the energy and natural resources committee, and i just came back from a really excellent visit to north dakota with senator hoeven, i ÷ -- i think there are a lot of other issues that the senate wants to tackle in the energy area. we'd like to make sure we fully tap the potential of natural gas, and i think there's some

wind-wind kind of -- win-win kind of opportunities there. we'd like to resolve the nuclear waste question. we have a bipartisan bill here in the senate. is that the intent of the democratic sponsor of this legislation that in the next couple of hours we get a finite list of the additional amendments -- in other words, we've got your bill, we have the -- several amendments that have been debated at length already. those would be part of the vote and then in the next couple hours we'd have a finite list. is that your desire? mrs. shaheen: absolutely. i think that's senator portman's interest. we would like to get some agreement on how to move forward. as i said last week, i don't have any objection to voting on senator vitter's legislation, if we can get some agreement on limiting those extraneous

amendments that really don't have anything to do with energy efficiency, so we can get ton this bill, get it done, and make progress because, as the chairman knows, it's going to be really challenging to tackle some of those other energy issues that are much more controversial than this energy efficiency bill. and so it would be nice to be able to have agreement on this so that we can move on to some of those other issues. and i especially appreciate your leadership, senator wyden, senator murkowski's leadership in reaching some agreement and trying to move an energy agenda on the floor. mr. wyden: mr. president, i yield the floor. mr. vitter: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senatosenator from louisiana. mr. vitter: thank you. i would like to briefly respond to the senator from new hampshire's comments. first of all, i welcome her statement that she supports getting a vote on the vitter amendment. i'm not sure i had heard that

before, but i heard it just then, and i welcome that and i appreciate that, and i want to echo that. second-degreely, i want to briefly -- secondly, i want to briefly respond to the notion that now is not the appropriate time for that vote. my colleagues and highway support this language are reacting to an illegal rule that goes into effect october 1. so i'm demanding the vote before october 1, when this goes into effect. i'm not sure what more appropriate time there can be than before october 1, if you're trying to block this illegal rule that happens october 1. so this is "the" appropriate time, not according to a timetable i made but according to a timetable that the obama administration made and supported by the opponents of our language. and if o.p.m. wants to announce that they wil they're delaying s

illegal rule indefinitely for a year, then we'll delay this vote, because that would be appropriate. but the appropriate time to stop this illegal rule that tabs into effect october 1 is, by definition, before october 1, which is all that i've demanded. thank you, mr. chairman -- mr. president. mr. hoeven: mr. president? the presiding officer: the sno senator from north dakota. mr. hoeven: thank you. i'd like to introduce two amendments, both of them energy efficiency amendments that i'm offering for attachment to the shaheen-portman energy efficiency bill. and i want to thank both of the bill's sponsors, both the senator from new hampshire and the senator from ohio, for their willingness to work with me and with our cosponsors on this bipartisan legislation. i also want to thank both the chairman, the good senator from

oregon, of the -- the chairman of the energy committee as well as the ranking member, the senator from arks for workin --r from alaska, for working with us as well. again, we have broad, bipartisan support on both of these measures, so i want to take a few minutes here to introduce them and to briefly describe them. the first one is a -- an amendment regarding water heretos. it is actually the water heater efficiency amendment. and what it does is it currently -- a 2010 department of energy rule on water heaters bans the manufacture of large electric water heaters in 2015, which will greatly affect consumers in our rural areas and hurt the

effectiveness of some of the demand-respofns rural electric programs. so these demand-response rural electric programs are designed to use offpeak load that's both energy efficient. it also generates big-time savings for consumers. so it is one of those win-win deals. but many of our rural areas are not serviced by natural gas and, as a result, they would be forced to buy multiple water heaters in order to meet their need because the load doesn't enable them to store enough heat. that doesn't make any sense. so what i'm offering is a practical amendment that improves the efficiency of electric water heaters but lets our law have access to renewable water heaters. so there's another benefit as well. this is one of those that savings money, that's energy-efficient, also provides

good environmental stewardship. many of our electric cooperatives and other utilities have voluntary demand response programs that use electric water heaters to more effectively manage power supply and demand. in those areas where renewables are part of the electrical generation system, these water heaters facilitate the integration of renewable energy that can be stored -- like at nighttime obviously -- that can be stored for use during peak hours, so that includes things like wind energy and solar energy. this amendment will allow the continued manufacture of large grid-enabled electric-resistance water heaters only for their use in electric thermal storage or demand response programs, meaning that they use offpeak load or lower-cost energy that would otherwise be lost or not used. the amendment would require that

the grid-enabled water heaters have a volume of more than 75 gallons, be energy-efficient and work on grids that have a demand response system. so again you're using offpeak load, you're using renewable energy, it casks the consumer a lot -- it saves the consumer a lot of money, makes sure they have the hot water they need for their use but big-time cost saver and good environmental stewardship measure. the amendment would require -- excuse me, we have broad support from the energy efficiency groups, from the environmental groups, from manufacturers, and from the rural electric cooperative. i'm going to name some of them. these include the air conditioning, heating, and refrigeration institute; the american council for an energy-efficient economy; the

american public power association; edison electric institute, general electric company; the natural rural electric association; the natural resource council; the northwest energy efficiency alliance, and there's many more. ace sayas i say, this has broad support. i'm not aware at this point if there are opponents. there makers but if there are, i'm not -- there may be, but if there are, i'm not away of it. and the shaheen-portman bill is an energy-efficient bill much it is about using energy more wisely, benefitin benefiting boh producers and consumers alike. it saves money, it saves energy, it benefits the vierntle and it benefitbenefits consumers. and i would certainly yield to the good senator from ohio, mr. president. mr. portman: i know my colleague is going to talk about another one of his amendments in a moavment moments.

i think this amendment makes a lot of sense. in ohio as well as other states during these off-peak periods -- and often it is renewable energy -- think about a time when you can generate power during the day from solar or wind or other sources and yet you can store that during the peak times and with these water heaters they're well-enough insulated, they can store that heat. it is otherwise wasted or not used. it seems to me that this makes a the although of sense to ensure that that 2010 d.o.e. rule you talked about doesn't preclude the fact that you manufacture these large water heaters to for these demand response programs. one is the buckeye power ticialghtutility.i just want tot your amendment of i think it is an example of an amendment

that's been broad t been broughr that's going to make the bill better. it is consistent with the energy efficiency goals of the legislation. so i thank the gentleman for his work on this. mr. hoeven: i would like to thank the good senator from ohio and it really does comport with the spirit and intent of the legislation that he has coauthored with the distinguished senator from new hampshire, but really it actually accomplishes what the department of energy set out to do. you know, in rural areas across this country, whether this north dakota, ohio, the state of west virginia, new hampshire, anywhere else, we've got these rural consumers who are looking at having to buy multiple water heaters just to have enough hot water because they're on these offpeak load programs. we want them on these off-peak programs, both i because it is

more efficient and savings mon money. this accomplishes what d.o.e. set out to do. i would like to thank the distinguished senator from ohio and if i may, i'd like to offer another amendment to the underlying legislation. this is the all-of-the-above federal building energy conservation act. we talk about doing all-of-the above energy development in this country, we've got get from talking about it to doing it. this is great example of what i'm talking about. it actually goes back and addresses a problem that was created in the energy independence and security act of 2007 where in that act it set efficiency standards for federal buildings that have to be achieved by 2030, and then they limited it as to which types of energy can be used, creating real problems for the department

of energy, which is actually having to implement that legislation. so again this is a piece of legislation that actually will enable some of these energy efficiency goals to be achieved with better environmental stewardship but with a commonsense all-of-the-above approach in terms of energy sources and frankly the goals of the act cannot be a chieved without it -- cannot be achieved without it. so the shaheen-portman legislation is very on-subject piece of legislation that really allows us to correct the problems in the energy independence and security act of 2007 and really accomplish what that act set out to do. and so if i could just take a couple minutes to describe it. this all-of-the-above federal energy conservation act, amendment 1917, gene again, a commonsense piece of legislation

that saves taxpayer money by enhangs the energy efficiency of federal building by allowing all sources of energy to power our buildings while still meeting the objectives of the underlying legislation. section 433 of the energy independence and security act of 2007 mandates the elimination of all fossil fuel-generated energy use in any new federal building by the year 2030. as i said just a minute ago. but the mandate also covers any major renovation of $2.5 million or more to any federal building. unfortunately, the department of energy has been unable to finalize the rule because the law itself is unworkable. think about it. any federal building where do you a renovation of more than $2.5 million, you can no longer use fossil fuels -- think natural gas, all right? -- in

that building. so what are going to power the building -- what are going to heat and cool the building with? are you sure you're going to have enough intermittent power, wind or solar, that for any building where you make a change of more than $2.5 million, you're going to be able to meet the energy needs of that building? the department of energy can't do t the it. they can't write a thriewl meets that. so we fix it in this amendment. my amendment would have a practical time-proven source with all of the uses that achieves energy efficiency. this will enable us to achieve the energy-efficiency goals of the underlying legislation which is the energy independence and security act of 2007. instead of prohibiting the use of fossil fuels, including

next-generation technologies as section 433 would currently provide as written, this amendment creates sensible energy-efficiency guidelines to make federal buildings both more energy efficiency and help to lower emissions. the measure also makes sure that when we do major renovations, we use the most up-to-date building codes. we do all of this in a transparent manner by have the secretary of energy make information available as to how the federal government is improving its efficiency in federal buildings. current law is unable to do any of this. the reality is section 433 doesn't work, as i said, and cannot be implemented without a fix. we're providing that fix. according to the american council for an energy-efficient economy -- quote -- "the current

section 433 is not very workable because in its present form it discourages investments and long-term energy savings contracts and in combined heat and power systems." end quote. so if you care about efficiency, that's what this underlying bill is all about -- energy efficiency. if you care about efficiency, we need to change section 433. if you care about making sure our taxpayer dollars are well spent, we need to pass the amendment that i'm offering. it is better to have an aggressive -- it is better to have aggressive yet achievable goals with a intervenes attain them through -- with a intervenes attain them through private sector member -- mechanisms than not produce the intended result and stakeholders agree. this amendment is supported by a remarkably broad coalition. that coalition includes the alliance to save energy, the

combined heat and power association, the american gas association, the national rural electric cooperative association, the edison electric institute, the federal performance contractors coalition, seaman's, the national association of energy service companies, the american public power association, lockheed martin, the fuel cell and hydrogen energy association, honey well. the list goes on, and there are many more because, again, it is about common sense. it is about energy efficiency. and it is about doing it in a way that actually accomplishes those goals. mr. president, energy conservation is an objective where we should be able to find consensus. everyone agrees that it makes good sense to save energy. this amendment makes the current law both practical and achievable. and the c.b.o., congressional

budget office, says it saves money. i urge my colleagues to support this commonsense amendment. finally, mr. president, if i may, before i close, i'd just like to make some brief comments in regard to the farm bill. we have been working on a farm bill for over two years. last year -- i'm a member of the senate ag committee. last year we passed a solid farm bill in the senate ag committee that strengthens and enhances crop insurance and saves money. at a time we're running federal deficit and debt, we're saving money. we passed the bill out of the ag committee last year. the house passed a bill different than the bill we passed out of the senate ag committee, but the house ag committee passed a farm bill as well, and a good farm bill on the senate floor last year, we passed the farm bill.

passed it with a large bipartisan vote. on the house side, they weren't able to pass it. they weren't able to pass their bill, so at the end of the year when the current farm bill expired, we were forced to do an extension. we come back this year, the senate ag committee again passes a good, solid farm bill. it strengthens crop insurance, good for our farmers and ranchers, saves the country money. we pass it on the senate floor as well. on the house side, they pass a bill through the house ag committee, and they pass a bill on the floor. it didn't include the nutrition piece, but they did pass a bill on the floor. so now this week they're set to vote on a nutrition bill. that's good. they need to do that and they need to make their decision on how they want to handle the food stamp reform or supplemental nutrition assistance program reforms. but the key is this, they need to name their conferees.

they need to take action this week and name their conferees. we've named our conferees. i'm pleased to be a member of the conference committee. but we need to go to work. we need to get this finished up. the reality is for our farmers and ranchers, we should not be providing another one-year extension. these are business people. they need to plan. they need to know what the five-year farm program is going to be so that they can plan and operate their business accordingly. there are on the order of 60 million jobs in this country that are dependent directly or indirectly on agriculture. we want to get this economy going. we want to get it growing. those are tremendous jobs. 16 million jobs directly or indirectly that rely on agriculture. agriculture creates a positive balance of trade. we're talking about an energy efficiency bill right now, and our farmers are out there not only producing food, but fuel as well.

food, fuel and fiber. and they create not only jobs in this country, but they have a positive trade balance, which is tremendous for our country. and the bill, as i mentioned earlier, saves money. at a minimum, we're going to save $24 billion. and it will likely be more than that. so it helps with the deficit and the debt. and so, i want to close today by again calling on my colleagues on the house side to deal with the nutrition issue, name their conferees. let's get into conference and let's get a farm bill done. thanks to our farmers and rafrpblers, we have the -- and ranchers we have the highest quality, lowest-cost d into supply in the world, in the history of the world that benefits every single american, whether you live in rural america or in the biggest city. let's get it done. with that, mr. president, i would again like to thank the sponsors of this bill. they are really working hard.

and you know what? they're setting an example for this body on the kind of bipartisanship and working together that we need to have to get things done for the american people. so i want to commend them both and thank them for this opportunity to present these amendments to their bill. thank you, mr. president. mr. portman: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from ohio. mr. portman: the second amendment that my colleague spoke about is another example of bipartisan legislation. i think the president said it this afternoon, is a cosponsor of it, which i think makes sense because i think the current program which would by 2030 lead to no fossil fuel-generated energy for use in new or renovated buildings is not practical. i think the impracticality of it is shown by the inability to move forward with regulations. while this amendment repeals the fossil fuel ban, it also strengthens other existing provisions for federal energy

management, including extending the energy efficiency targets for federal buildings to 2017, so i think it's a responsible approach and a practical approach. it will give the federal government added flexibility to achieve these reductions in energy consumption without adding burdensome new requirements to the federal building energy managers. it's also in combination with many aspects of the underlying bill which deal with energy efficiency on federal government buildings and practices, basically encouraging the federal government to practice what it preaches and be more energy efficient as the largest energy user in the country and probably the world. so i think it is consistent with the legislation. there may be some alternatives that people want to talk about. but i do think that this is an amendment which actually makes sense because it's practical. and i think it also is consistent, again, with our underlying purpose, which is to in a way that provides flexibility achieve efficiency

standards at the federal government level. it encourages more efficiency. on the farm bill comments, i agree with my -- the comments from the senator from north dakota. he talked about one year not being enough. i agree with that. i hope we'll be able to get the conferees' names, get it in conference and come out with a bill at that actually -- come out with a bill that actually helps farmers to know what the rules of the game are. they want to know their products are going to be there and be strong, the safety net will be there, which this bill will provide, regardless of the house version and senate version and they need to know what the rules of game are for other commodities and other programs. i hope that can move forward. it will be great for our country, great for ohio. the number one industry in ohio is agriculture and we're proud of that. with that, mr. president, i'm going to yield back my time and again thank the members who have come to the floor to talk about amendments. i hope other members who might be listening would do that.

this is an opportunity, even before we can officially file or introduce amendments and debate them and vote on them, at least we can have the discussion so that we're ready to go when i suspect we will have an agreement between leadership of both of our parties, even later today. we are working on that. we think that we have limited the number of amendments to a reasonable level, and we're trying to encourage members to work with us to ensure that we can get to this underlying legislation and move forward with a bipartisan energy efficiency bill that's going to help on our trade deficits, going to help on our economy grow jobs, make our environment cleaner. and it's going to be one that actually shows this body that we can in a bipartisan way do stuff that's good for our constituents. with that, i yield back. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from nevada. mr. hoeven: thank you, mr. president, i rise today to speak -- mr. heller: i rise today to speak in favor of the vitter amendment to the energy

efficiency bill but before i begin my remarks i want to first recognize the horrific events that occurred yesterday just a little over a mile from here. yesterday's tragic and senseless shooting devastated families and changed lives forever. we continue to hold the victims and their loved ones in our thoughts, and we're deeply appreciative of law enforcement and first responders who helped save lives and to prevent further violence. mr. president, senator vitter's amendment to the energy efficient bill addresses a serious concern that i along with many of my constituents have expressed about obamacare. specifically, this amendment seeks to eliminate special washington, d.c. exemptions in the current law. it requires congressional staff, including the committee and leadership staff, as well as the president and the vice president and all political appointees in the administration to participate in the same

exchanges that obamacare forces on everyday americans. i've cosponsored this amendment with some of my colleagues, including senators vitter and enzi because i think it's clear that the american people are fed up with the beltway mentality that the rules apply to everyone else but not washington, d.c.. if you ask me, a law that applies to all americans except those who wrote it simply does not pass the smell test. by the way, i want to note that this elitist attitude isn't anything new. in fact, america's second president, john adams, warned against a legislative assembly that would -- quote -- "in time not hesitate to exempt itself from the burdens which it will lay without shame on its constituents." unquote. it turns out this was a tragically accurate prediction.

before obamacare was even passed into law, i've argued that those who wrote the law should be beholden to it. as a member of the house ways and means committee, i introduced an amendment that would require all members of congress and their dependents to obtain their health insurance through the affordable act's health care insurance exchanges. but last month immediately after congress left for august recess, the office of personnel management announced in its proposed rules on obamacare that the government can continue to make employer contributions to the health plans if congressional -- of congressional members and staff. this basically means that members of congress and congressional staff will receive a taxpayer-funded subsidy for their health care insurance. ultimately these tax dollars will be used to protect washington insiders from the negative consequences of obamacare's health exchanges. following o.p.m.'s announcement,

i immediately wrote to them asking that they clarify in their final rule exactly who is subject to the exchanges. specifically, i asked them to ensure that in addition to members of congress, all congressional staff, including committee and leadership staff, as well as political employees, go to the exchanges. i've written a follow-up letter to o.p.m., and as yet, i have not received a single response for this concern. mr. president, if obamacare is such a good idea, why wouldn't those who helped write the law stand proudly by it? the fact that obamacare protects a select few from participating in its exchanges is further evidence that the law never should have been passed to begin with. but now that it has been passed, upheld by the courts as a massive tax increase, those who put it in place should be subject to the same burdensome regulations, taxes and mandates

that everyday americans are stuck with. if the president and congress says it's good enough for the american people, then it should be good enough for the president, vice president, political appointees and all congressional staff, too. so this amendment that i have cosponsored ensures that there is no special fix or exemptions for members of congress and their staffs. it assures that they participate in the exchanges just like every other american, starting january 1 of next year. it also ensures that any type of taxpayers funded subsidies that is offered to them is also available to the american taxpayers through tax credits. just like many of my colleagues, i spent the august recess meeting with my constituents, listening to their concerns. probably won't surprise anyone that the general public doesn't think they highly of congress, and with this exemption, it is a perfect example why that's the

case. unfortunately, in recent days, the conversation about this particular amendment has taken an ugly turn towards personal attacks. regardless of whether my colleagues support this amendment or not, we should be talking about this measure in the context of what's fair and what's best for the american public. i urge my colleagues to abandon threats and personal attacks and examine this legislation based on its merit. since the supreme court upheld obamacare, its provisions have been repeatedly delayed by the administration. demonstrating that the federal government understands how bad the law will be for businesses and middle-class families. in fact, "the washington times" just reported that the obama administration has outlaid major aspects of the health care law no less than five times to date, and this latest move to insulate d.c. insiders from this unpopular law is more than enough evidence that obamacare is the wrong answer to the

health care challenges in this country. so i urge my colleagues to support this amendment. it's a reflection of a basic principle of our democracy, that equality under the law means the law applies to everyone. serving the people of the united states is a privilege. it's about service. it's not about status. and if congress is going to pass laws that are unpopular, we had better be ready to live by those same rules as everyone else. this is what this amendment is about, and i hope my colleagues will join me in supporting it. mr. president, thank you. a senator: mr. president, i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. vitter: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana. mr. vitter: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i ask unanimous consent to vitiate the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. vitter: mr. president, i just want to personally thank our distinguished colleague from nevada for all of his work and partnership on this important measure. he has been an outspoken leader on this from the very beginning of this debate and has stood hard and fast for the fundamental principle, truly a fundamental principle, that any rule we pass here for america should first and foremost and equally be applied to washington, so i really appreciate his leadership, his work on this, which continues, and we look forward to the vote that we absolutely demand and deserve before october 1.

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

quorum call:

a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from kansas. mr. moran: madam president, i ask the quorum call be lifted. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. moran: madam president, i ask unanimous consent to address the senate as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. moran: thank you very much.

every 68 seconds -- just a little more than one minute -- someone in america develops alzheimer's. it's a devastating and irreverse ible brain disease that slowly destroys cognitive functioning including memory and thought. back home in kansas a kansas city physician, dr. richard padullah and his wife have been married for 51 years when he was diagnosed with alzheimer's disease in 2006. it's difficult to imagine the anguish that dick and marta and their families and friends experienced as he deteriorated from a leading heart surgeon into someone unable to comprehend a newspaper article. unfortunately, these stories have become very common. alzheimer's currently affects more than 5.2 million people in the united states and more than

35z 6 -- 35.6 million worldwide. as our population ages, the number of people diagnosed with alzheimer's after the age of 65 will double every five years while the number of individuals 85 years and old were this disee disease will triple by 2050. already alzheimer's is the sixth leading cause of death in the united states and there is currently no cure, no diagnosic test, no treatment for this terrible, terrible disease. as a nation, we should, we must, we ought to commit to defeating one of the greatest threats to the health of americans and to the financial well-being of our nation. in 1962, president kennedy called on our nation to action to reach the moon by the end of the decade. and americans rallied around that cry. similarly, we need to commit ourselves to a goal of just as ambitious, but perhaps even more imperative, we must strive

to achieve not only an effective treatment but a cure for alzheimer's over the next decade. president kennedy's words, he said because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win. i'd like those words to be spoken about the fight against alzheimer's. as the baby boomer generation ages and alzheimer's disease becomes more prevalent, the need to confront the pending health care crisis has become even more urgent. the financial costs alone cannot be ignored. just what it costs americans' health care system, what it costs americans, what it costs the taxpayers, we need to address this issue. caring for those with alzheimer's and other dementias is expected to reach an expense of $203 billion this year.

$203 billion this year with $142 billion covered by the federal government through medicare and medicaid. a recent study by the and corporation stated the cost of dementia care is expected to surpass pekses for -- expenses for heart disease and cancer. without a weigh to cure alzheimer's it will be impossible to rein in our nation's health care costs. alzheimer's has become a disease to define a generation, but if we focus and prioritize our research capacity, it does not need to continue to be an inevitable part of aging. it is time to truly commit to defeating this disease in the next decade. a goal no more ambitious than the president set forth for the apollo space program. for every $27 medicare and medicaid spends caring for an individual with alzheimer's, the federal government only

spends $1 on alzheimer's research. 27 to care for the disease, one dollar to cure or prevent the disease. and yet we know that research suggests that more progress could be made if given more support. one study found a breakthrough that delays the onset of the disease by just five years would mean an annual savings of $362 billion by 2050. a sustained federal commitment to research for alzheimer's will lower the cost and improve the health outcomes for people living with the disease today and into their futures. i'm the ranking republican on the senate appropriations subcommittee for the national institute of health. it's the focal point of our nation's medical research infrastructure, and i'm committed to working with my colleagues to prioritize funding for alzheimer's research. this year, our subcommittee increased funding for the national institute on aging,

the lead institute for alzheimer's research at n.i.h., by $84 million and supported the initial year of funding for the new presidential initiative to map the human brain. both projects will increase our understanding of the underlying causes of alzheimer's, unlock the mysteries of the brain and bring us closer, closer to an effective treatment and one day closer to a cure. alzheimer's is a defining challenge of my generation. and we should commit to a national goal to defeat this devastating disease. we can do that by supporting critical research carried out by scientists and researchers across our nation and supported by the national institute for health. in my view, this is an area in which we all can come together. you can be the most compassionate, caring person and we ought to spend money to care for people. you can be the most cautious about spending dollars and the investment and what the return is for every dollar we spend,

and because we can save on health care costs, you ought to be supportive of this funding. the health and financial future of our nation in my view are at stake and the united states cannot, should not, must not ignore this threat. together, we can make a sustained commitment to alzheimer's research that will benefit our nation and bring hope to families like the padullas as well as to every american. it's a challenge, it's a challenge that we ought to accept, the moment for us to act is now and the end result is hope for the future. madam president, i yield the floor. madam president, i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from delaware. mr. carper: i ask that the quorum call be vitiated. officer without objection. mr. carper: madam president, i rise in support of the legislation coauthored by senator shaheen and senator portman, the energy savings and industrial competitiveness act. i want to take a minute to thank them for their leadership and for their tenacity in et going this bill to the floor, struggling all the amendments that are being offered, try make sure we can figure out how to save some energy, save some money, do some good things for our environment. thank you very, very much. it is always a pleasure to work with a recovering governor. we'll see where this ends up, but i hope in a good place. as our economy picks up and our nation's energy needs grow,

investing in energy efficiency i think is a no-brainer. energy efficiency investments save money in energy costs, save money in resources, protect our environment and helps create jobs. homeowners and businesses are already investing energy-efficiency technologies. as an extra bonus, many of these technologies are developed right here. not here in washington but right here in america. earlier this month i visitorred a company in delaware -- visited a company called whiteoptics. they are producing light bulb technology. when it is used it can deliver more light than traditional flourescent bulbs for half the energy. the pay back is not a decade, not five years. it is less than one year. since the cost of lighting can comprise up to 50% of a manufacturer's energy bill, it is a relatively easy and inexpensive way to save a lot of energy and as it turns out, a

lot of money. through investments in advanced light bulbs and light technology and other energy efficiency measures our country has the potential to save as much as 40 gigawatts of power by 2018. how much is 40 gigawatts? well, think of 80 coal power plants and all of them going full blast. that is about 40 gigawatts. unfortunately, barriers such as upfront costs and inadequate efficiency standards are preventing our country from realizing our energy-efficiency potential. the shaheen-portman bill breaks down many of these barriers. again, i think voting for it is a no-brainer. as an added bonus to the legislation before us today, it will help us rein in federal spending, it includes provisions that will help us prevent uncle sam's consumption around the world. to illustrate that point let me use an example from the world of

sports. like a lot of americans i spent the past two weekends watching some terrific football games. terrific football games. but on labor day i took a 12-year-old boy i mentor and his twin sister to see the final game of the season of the wilmington blue rocks playing the carolina leagues. it turned out to be a really good game. one of the highlights -- the presiding officer is from massachusetts. the prime sponsor of the bill is from new hampshire. my guess is they are red sox fans. we used to be at a farm club with the red sox. we're now a farm club of the royals. but the game we went to, the minor league game we went to was terrific. one of the highlights occurred when the blue rocks came close to pulling a triple play. you don't see that very much. while the blue rocks came close to pulling off the triple play that day, we can actually pull

one off, or at least figuratively speaking by reducing the amount of energy we consume every year in the federal government. first we cut down the air pollution going into the air. second, we cut down on federal spending. the deficit is down, it is down by what did we hear at lunch today? at 1.4 trillion about four years ago. we're down to something like $700 billion now. still too much but we've seen the deficit come down by over half. this can help bring it down a bit further. the third point is we can cut down on unemployment by creating good american jobs to produce, to install and to maintain the energy that's needed for energy-efficiency technology, a lot of which is made right here in the u.s. of a.. we're not talking about minor leagues either, at least in terms of of savings. the annual energy bill for the federal government is around $25 billion. i think the federal government is the largest consumer of

electricity in the country. of that, some $7 billion alone is spent on energy to operate federal buildings. $7 billion just for the buildings alone. the last congress my colleague senator chris coons and our colleague sheldon whitehouse, from another small state, and i tried to pull off a triple play of our own. we introduced a bill called the reducing federal energy dollars act, and it focused like a laser on bringing down federal energy costs. today i'm happy to see that many of its provisions have been incorporated in the shaheen-portman bill. and if we pass it, we can pull off that triple play after all. one of the provisions that takes what works and seeks to ensure that we do more of it. here's one example. not too long ago the veterans affairs department mandated that employees turn off their computers at the end of each work day. this is not the whole federal government. this is one department of the

federal government, the v.a.. the agency also began acquiring more energy efficient computers and software. combined the department plans to save about $32 million over the next five years. $32 million, not too shabby. the bill before us today calls on all agencies to adopt these kinds of energy and cost-saving techniques. another provision included in the shaheen-portman legislation adopted from our earlier legislation ensures that we build federal buildings with some of the most energy-efficient technology that's available. these are buildings that will be with us for not just a couple of years, maybe not just for a couple of decades. they could be here for a whole lot longer. they can be around when these pages are dead and gone and we still have these federal buildings and they can still be energy efficient. if we build them wrong they will never be energy efficient maybe. this is a chance to get it right from the start. but overall, the shaheen-portman

bill makes major strides in promoting federal energy efficiency, and i really want to awe phraud its authors both -- awe phraud its authors, both of whom i have a lot of respect for. there is, however, a small provision, i think, in the bill that was overlooked and one that if added could make possible, even greater gains. let me just talk about that for a minute. under the energy policy act of 2005, congress overlooked geothermal as a renewable for the purposes of federal energy requirements. renewable thermal energy is clean. it's efficient. and it's often more cost-effective than electric energy. and that's why i joined my colleague, senator inhofe from oklahoma, in offering an amendment that's amendment number 1851 if you're keeping score which allows geothermal to be considered a renewable energy for federal requirements. our amendment gives federal agencies another valuable option

as they consider the most cost-effective way to meet their energy needs and obligations. another option. i again want to thank our chair and the ranking members of the energy committee as well as the sponsors this have bill, the authors of this bill, in support of our amendment. and before i close, there is something i have to get off my chest. you know, this is a bipartisan bill. this is a bill that seeks to do a number of things, i said earlier. this is a bill that tries to reduce our energy consumption in this country, especially the energy consumption, the energy we consume in the federal government. this is legislation that tries to do some good things for the environment. and this is legislation that helps to really further reduce our budget deficits. it helps keep them coming down. for the life of me, for the life of me, a bill that has bipartisan support, does so much

good, we should -- when people offer amendments to this bill, hopefully germane amendments that are relevant to this bill and let's debate them, have a chance to vote on them up or down, but let's do it and let's move on. let's not be dilatory. let's not just offer amendments that have nothing to do with this legislation. let's address some real problems here and not just address it, but let's solve them. let's just solve them. and we can do that. we've got plenty of work to do. and on this front. and i want us to see us do it. we'll be a lot more successful in this regard if we work together to foster what i call a culture of thrift. we need to look at everything we do in this government, everything we do and ask this question, how do we get a better result for less money. one of the ways is how do we provide energy for federal buildings and federal employees to use in the work we do for our taxpayers? how do we get a better result for less money or the same amount of money? almost everything must be on the

table to whittle down the size of our federal government for my children, our grandchildren. i think if we accomplish this, we'll come close to pulling off that triple play that the wilmington blue rocks came close to pulling off a couple of weeks ago. in doing so, we'll do something for our fans -- not a lot of them these days -- for our fans to talk about for seasons to come. all right? the last thing i want to say is this, one of the amendments i think that, maybe a couple of the amendments offered to this bill have to do with health care. i serve on the finance committee, worked a fair amount on the affordable care act also known as obamacare. the heart and soul of the affordable care act as far as i'm concerned is the creation of the health exchanges, federal exchanges, or we call them marketplaces. the idea is to let everybody in this country -- not everybody, but a lot of people in this country who don't have health

care coverage, or who pay an arm and a leg for it, give them the opportunity to participate in a large purchasing pool in their own state. we have something called the federal health employee benefit plan. all federal employees, federal retirees including legislators, members of the legislative branch, judges, federal retirees, their dependents, postal employees, their dependents, everybody who wants to purchase their health insurance through the federal employee purchase plan can do that. we don't have that many federal employees, but there's a lot of people who use that plan to buy their health insurance. and it's not free. it's not cheap. but one of the things that helps drive down the cost is every health insurance company worth their salt in this country wants to sell through this large purchasing pool, the federal employee plan purchasing pool, because of the large scale, the administrative costs for those

who get their health insurance through the plan, the administrative costs is not 30% of premiums, not 20% of premiums, not 10% of premiums. it is 3% of premiums. what we do with the affordable care act is we allow every state to set up a health exchanges, large purchasing pool. we also call it a health insurance marketplace. and if you're an individual, if you have a family, if you have a small or medium-size business, up to 50 employees, you can buy your health insurance through your exchange or the marketplace health insurance marketplace in your state. and one of the stipulations -- i'm not sure who authored it but i'm pretty sure it is a republican member of the senate finance committee, somebody authored an amendment that required if these exchanges are such a great idea, why don't we require us, members of congress, our staff, to buy our health insurance through the exchanges. if that is such a great idea, why don't we set an skpapl pell. that is -- example. that is what the legislation says. we don't get our health

insurance free, members, staff, we don't get it free. we have to pay a percentage, premiums. the average is about 70%. the federal government pays about 70% of our health insurance premiums. we have to pay the rest. and for, i think for us to set an example, i think the kind of example we should set would be we set up these health exchanges, why don't we participate in them? we're going to be. some people think we get free health care. some people think we get a pension after two years, four years, six years. people see this stuff on the internet, they believe it. it's not true. in the navy, we taoufd say in the navy -- we used to say in the navy, if you want to find out the truth, ask for the straight skinny. in the navy, the straight skinny. tell me the straight skinny. that's the idea. give it to me straight. the and every state will have an opportunity to set them up, individuals, families, small

and middle sized businesses, they'll get better options to choose from and in the end better prices and better off and small businesses that participate, will be better off as well. last word speaking of the truth, the words -- the words of thomas jefferson come to mind. he said a lot of great things. one of my favorite things he said, if the people know the truth, they won't make a mistake. the if the american people know the truth, they won't make a mistake. our job is to make sure they know the truth about the affordable care act, the opportunity through for these exchanges across the country and let's take statistic to the truth. the truth is this bill that's before us today shouldn't be a vehicle for health care reform. or getting rid of it or expanding health care reform. this should be really a road map to help us save money, clean our environment and -- and preserve energy -- reduce energy and foster american technology. that's not a trouble. if we had four outs in the inning there will be four of

them. governor shaheen, senator shaheen -- senator portman is not with us, but my hat is off to both of you. thanks for leading the way on this. we're happy, as we say in nascar, happy to be drafting on you. and hopefully draft across that finish line with you. thank you so much. mrs. shaheen: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from new hampshire. mrs. shaheen: before my colleague from delaware leaves the floor i want to thank him for coming down and speaking to the bill and for his kind words. as you point out we were governors together, we have another former governor on the floor, senator king from maine who appreciates the challenges of dealing with the high energy costs and you pointed out and something that i know as governors, energy was a big issue for us. and in new hampshire, we have the sixth highest energy costs in the country so it's still still a big issue for us in new hampshire. as you point out, energy efficiency is the cheapest, fastest way to deal with our energy needs because the energy that we don't use doesn't cost

us any money. and i would argue that this as you closed with, not just an opportunity for a triple play, but an opportunity for us to win on four fronts. on job creation, on reducing pollution, on savings for businesses and for consumers who use -- have towz to use energy but also on national security. because to the extent that we can reduce our dependence on foreign oil, it helps improve our national security. so this bill is a win-win-win-win, and the amendments like the one you're talking about today with senator inhofe improve the bill significantly. and i think if we could call up that amendment, your amendment on thermal energy today, we could probably get a voice vote on it because it's got that kind of support, bipartisan support in this body, something the committee has looked at, both

the majority and the minority on the energy committee, and said this is an amendment that we think can be supported that has great bipartisan support and as you say, we need to have those vetoes on energy, we need to get a comprehensive energy efficiency strategy in this country, that's what shaheen-portman does and i appreciate your good work on this legislation. mr. carper: i don't know who said this, maybe it was angus king who is waiting to speak next, but the cleanest, most affordable form of energy is the energy we never use. the cleanest, most affordable form of energy is the energy we never use. whoever said that, a wise man or woman, and that's really the case here. thank you for leading us toward that goal. thank you. the presiding officer: the clerk

will call the roll. quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. without objection. mr. whitehouse: thank you very much. i'm here as the presiding officer knows, for the 43rd time now to say that it is time to wake up to the threat of climate change. today i'm joined by my colleague from maine, senator angus king, a fellow new englander whose state, like rhode island, has rich cultural and economic ties to the sea. as carbon pollution changes our oceans, the consequences for our states, for our fishermen, for our economies, for our way

of life, are very, very real. far more real than the lies of the deniers. here's what we know: the oceans are warming. that's a measurement. it's not a theory. sea level is rising. that's another measurement, not a theory. and oceans are becoming more acidic. again, a measurement. in fact, according to research published in the journal ocean oceanography, the acidity of the oceans is increasing faster than it has in the last 50 million years. and we know what's causing it. carbon pollution. my colleagues can deny and delay and dance all day to the polluters' tune, but these are

facts. the changes are already reaching our marine life. a research paper published in august looked at the changes over time of where species have lived, when they laid their eggs, and how they have grown their shells. the authors concluded that more than 80% of the changes documented in the study were consistent with what you would expect as consequences of a warming and acidifying ocean. some species are moving toward the colder water of the north and south poles, moving at about 10 to 45 miles per decade, extending their range. and events that are timed for spring and summer like egg laying or migration are happening on average about four days earlier per decade. this means if a parent teaches

their child how to fish, where the best spots are, how to dig for quahogs or what time to get the traps out, all of that changes by the time that child becomes a parent. here's how these changes are affecting rhode island, according to christopher dequtias, the chief scientist of the narragansett bay astare program. i'll read what he said. although factors such as the north atlantic oscillation can influence tementd trends there appears to be overall increase in annual narragansett bay temperature of three degrees fahrenheit since 1960. fish species in narragansett bay are shifting seemingly in step with increased temperatures. jeremy collie, who is a u.r.i.

proffer, and others have shown that species such as the winter flounder which used to be the dominant fish species in the bay, are radically decreasing in numbers. meanwhile, warmer water species sump as summer flounder and scup and butter fish seem to be increasing. more southern warm-water species that weren't seen in the past are likely to extend their range north as narragansett bay continues to warm. in addition there seems to be an overall shift from large bottom-dwelling species such as ?rownder to small water column frankton species such as anchovies. that's the end of his quote. noaa researchers studied 36 fish in the northwest atlantic ocean, fish like atlantic cod and haddock, yellowtail and

winter flounder, atlantic herring and found that about half are shifting northward. janet nye, the lead noaa researcher, said during the last 40 years, many familiar species have been shifting to the north where ocean waters are cooler, or staying in the same general area but moving into deeper waters than where they transitionally have been found. they all seem to be adapting to changing temperatures and finding places where their chances are survival as a population are greater. those are long descriptions of the situation. here's some briefer descriptions. one rhode island fisherman told me it's getting weird out there. another said he's seeing and i'll quote, "real anomalies, things just aren't making

sense." now, some would say who cares about the winter flounder or these other fish, for that matter? some people just don't care about god's world or god's species unless they can mon ties them -- monetize them. well, let's answer them in the terms they care about. the winter flounder has been a lucrative catch for rhode island fishermen and according to a variety of estimates, commercial fishing generates about $150 million to $200 million of spending per year in rhode island and directly supports about 5,000 workers. recreational fishermen spend over $100 million annually and directly support about 2,000 workers. last year, the commerce declared the northeast ground fishery a disaster.

to quote acting commerce secretary blank, "the diminished fish stocks resulted despite fishermen's adherence to catch limits intended to rebuild the stocks." the commerce department says it's not overfishing that is preventing our stocks from rebounding. scientists think warmer waters could be the culprit. the effects of climate change on marine life don't stop with warmer waters. carbon dioxide emissions are causing our oceans to become more acidic. last week, two rhode islanders came down and visited us here in the senate. bob roe, the executive director of the east coach shellfish growers association and dave spencer president of the lobstermen's associations. dr. roe told my colleagues about shellfish larva devolving because of more acidic waters.

more acidic waters caused a 70% to 80% loss of oyster larva at a hatchery in oregon and crashed wild oyster stocks in washington state. this is an industry worth minneapolis to those local -- millions to those local economies. the problem as dr. roe pointed out while she wee snow it's causing ocean acidification, we don't know enough yet how to protect the shellfish industry. we could help by continuing support for the ocean acidification research and monitoring act and supporting funding for the integrated ocean observing system. we could support funding for the national national endowment for the oceans. we need the to better understand the changes around us to protect the economic, ecological, cultural and recreational value that our oceans and coasts provide. rhode islanders are already

working hard to rebuild our fishing industry. we're managing overfishing and limiting water pollution. we've planned for the future by developing a special area management plan for our coasts and waters. we're working on a shellfish management plan to better support an industry that's growing at 20% a year. and we've supported world-class oceanographic research with scientists at u.r.i.'s graduate school of oceanography conducting long-term research on marina coming. my wife sandra was part of that tradition at u.r.i. and i remember as a young husband helping her in her lab and out on the bay. there's a story rol in the providence jiewrnlt about a lobsterman, al eagles, recording on a tablet computer, the size, gender and location of lobsters are catches. mr. eagles is working with the commercial fisheries research

foundation trying to improve the southern new england lobster stock assessment. american lobsters have been in the past rhode island's most valuable commercial catch. mr. eagles said, and i'll quote, last the last two words has been very slow. it's been the worst two years we've ever had. in rhode island lobster catches and stocks rose rapidly in the 1990's and then plummeted around 2000. again, it's a similar story. scientists think the lobsters are moving offshore and northward to shelter in cooler waters. as the lobster move offshore and change their traditional behavior, we need to know more about what is going on, but it gets more difficult. we're doing our level best, from our scientists to our fishermen to our labs to our lobster boats to understand, there is now so much more that we need to

understand. fisheries and fisheries management, like so many other industries, they're going to have to operate in a new reality, a reality of warmer and more acidic seas. in the colder waters of maine, as senator king will explain, a lobster boom continues, but it's not all good news and maine lobstermen are already sounding the alarm bells at what climate change will mean for them in the future. the fates of our two coastal economies, maine's and rhode island's, are connected, and i would note that the presiding officer represents the great state of massachusetts, which is right in the middle of this problem as well. none of our three states can solve what carbon pollution is doing to our oceans alone. even with our three states working together, we can't solve what carbon pollution is doing to our oceans.

federal action is necessary to reduce the carbon emissions that are warming and acid phiing our sea -- acidifying our seas, and to help us adapt to the changes that we can no longer avoid. fishermen and scientists know that these challenges are real, as does my friend from maine, senator angus king, but we can't act alone. it is time for all of congress to wake up. i yield the floor to my colleague from maine. mr. king: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from maine. mr. king: madam president, i rise to join my colleague from rhode island and talk about climate change, but i want to start with history that has nothing to do with climate change. the history i want to talk about is europe and england, particularly, in the 1930's.

in the 1930's, there was a looming threat from germany to the peace of europe and to the existence of england. that threat was real and there were multiple signs there was data, but there were very few people who wanted to do anything about it because it would have caused disruption, economic disruption and personal disruption. there was one politician in england who understood this threat, understood its dangers, understood that if gone unmet would engulf his country in a destructive and potentially catastrophic war. of course, that politician was winston churchill. he saw the danger based upon data, the size of the german air force, the building of munitions, the invasion of other smaller countries, the expansion of germany and their armed forces. he was ignored and ridiculed by his own party, by the leadership

of his own party, but he kept talking, he kept raising this issue, he kept trying to raise and awaken the people of england. it was a very difficult task. in fact, our own great president john f. kennedy wrote his thesis as a student about this period in accomplish history, and the title was very provocative and i think forward thinking -- while england slept, and churchill tried to wake them up. had he been heeded, madam president, world war ii could have been avoided. there were multiple times when hitler could have been stopped by the slightest bit of resist tense on the part of the european powers. instead, the war came and five years later 55 million people died. not heeding warnings has

consequences, and we can always find reasons for nonaction. churchill acknowledged this. the british had been through the trauma of world war i less than 20 years before. they couldn't face the possibility of another devastating war. that's totally understandable and that's human nature. to capture the flavor of churchill's warning, which i think is very relevant to us here today, here's what he said in a speech to the parliament on november 12, 1936 -- "the era of procrastination of half measures of soothing and baffling expedience of delays is coming to its close. in its place, we are entering a period of consequences we -- consequences. we cannot avoid this period. we are in it now." he understood the resistance to people in england.

he said we recognize that no emergency which should induce us to impinge on the normal course of trade. we all want to keep doing what we have been doing, and he says if we go on like this, i do not see what power can prevent us from going on like this. someday there may be a terrible reckoning. that reckoning, madam president, was world war ii. those who take the responsibilities toe entirely upon themselves to ignore the warnings -- so entirely upon themselves to ignore the warnings are either of a hearty disposition or they are incapable of foreseeing the possibilities which may arise. he then went on to talk about the responsibility of a parliamentary body, and i'll conclude my comments on churchill with this quote. two things he said, i confess, have staggered me. after long parliament experience in these debates, and this was the debate about whether or not

to rearm to face the german threat. the first has been the dangers that have so swiftly come upon us in a few years, and the data i am going to be presenting in a few minutes indeed is staggering to us today. secondly, i have been staggered by the failure of the house of commons to react effectively against these dangers. that, he said, i never expected. i would never have believed that we should have been allowed to go on getting into this plight month by month, year by year, and that even the government's own confessions of error would have produced no concentration of parliamentary opinion. i say that unless the house resolves to find out the truth for itself, it will have committed an act of abdication of duty without parallel in its long history. i rise today, madam president, because we are entering a period of consequences. it's 1936. it's august of 2001 when we had

warnings al qaeda determined to strike in the united states. here's the data. this is a chart. i actually carry this chart around in my iphone but i blew it up forted's purposes. it's a chart of the last million years of co2 in the atmosphere, and this chart, i believe, answers two of the three basic questions about global climate change. the first is is something happening? and occasionally, you hear people say well, climate change happens in cycles and co2 goes up and down, we're just in a cycle and it's no big deal. this is a million years, madam president. and for the past 999,000-plus, you had -- you did have cycles. the cycles were between about 180 parts per million in the atmosphere up to about 250. 280 i think was the highest back 400,000 years ago.

but this has been the cycle since before human beings started to actively impinge upon the environment. and then comes the year 1,000. we go along here at the fairly high level. and then around 1860, it starts to go up. what happened in 1860? that's the beginning of the industrial revolution. that's when we started to burn fossil fuels in large quantities, whether it was coal, later oil, gas. but this is -- this is when it happens. so this answers the second question. do people have anything to do with it? of course they do. it would be the greatest coincidence in the history of the world if this change just happened to begin at the same time as the industrial revolution. and then, you see where it's gone since 1960. this chart actually is a couple of years out of date. at this point, it's just below 400 parts per million. we passed 400 parts per million

this summer. we're now here. i don't see how anyone can look at this chart and conclude anything else. a, something's happening to co2 in the atmosphere. b, people are involved in causing it. i just don't see how you can -- you can escape that. now, the last time -- this is a -- i think the other piece about this 400. the last time we had 400 parts per million of co2 in the atmosphere, we know from ice cores, was three million years ago. three million years ago during the plyocene. i knew someday my sixth grade geography from come to the floor. the plyocene period. and, madam president, when we had 400 parts per million of co2 in the atmosphere three million years ago, sea levels were 60-80 feet higher than they

are today. 60-80 feet higher. this is data. as the distinguished senator from rhode island said, this isn't argument, this isn't theory. this is data. this is facts. now, question three, remember, i said there are three questions about global climate change. one is co2 really going up? the answer is yes. two, do people have anything to do with it? the answer is yes. the third question is so what? so what if co2 is going up? well, here's an interesting chart of the past -- what is it? 400,000, 500,000 years. you have a red line and a black line. the black line is temperature. the red line is co2. as you can see, it's an almost exact correlation. so i don't think anybody could argue looking at this that the amount of co2 in the atmosphere has nothing to do with the temperature on the earth.

now, is it causal, is it a correlation? there are lots of things going on here about feedback lapse and very complicated climate. science is one of the most complicated sciences there is, but i don't think you can look at this chart and say that there isn't some relationship between carbon dioxide and the atmosphere and temperature. this is what has been happening, as co2 and temperature move essentially in lockstep. okay. well, by the way, i should mention that often when we're talking about these things -- and the senator from rhode island knows what i'm saying here -- people tend to think that we're talking in long periods of time. we're talking about geologic time thousands of years. no. climate change often happens abruptly. that's a word that ought to strike fear into our hearts, abruptly. almost overnight. and, in fact, here is the

temperature -- this is temperature and size of the ice field in greenland, and you can see it going along -- this is going back 5,000, 6,000, 10,000 years. here the temperature goes along, goes along, starts to drop, and then it drops in a decade. it's as if someone throws a switch. so this isn't something where we can just say oh, well, we'll do a few little things now and maybe it will be okay, and 100 years from now or 500 years from now somebody else will worry about it. there could be a catastrophic event within years, certainly within decades, because this -- this is something that i learned recently. the university of maine has a center that talks about climate change, and when i went up to see them last spring, they said senator, you have got to understand this -- we're talking about the possibility of abrupt climate change, not just climate change. so i think that's a very important point to realize.

okay. so what difference does temperature make? okay. it gets a little warmer. maine will have a longer tourist season. it will be -- that will be okay. if it's warmer, i don't think anybody will complain if it's warmer in maine in february, maybe the ski industry. what difference does it make? well, it makes a lot of difference. it makes a lot of difference to species but it also makes a lot of difference to people. here is a chart that shows what would happen to our -- many of our coastal communities with a sea self-rise that's reasonably modest. the dark red out here is a one-meter rise. it goes up to six meters. that's 18, 20 feet, but remember the last time we were at 400 parts per million, it was at 60- 80 feet, so this is conservative. this is a smaller example of what can happen if we let this

happen to us. just going down, boston essentially is gone. a good deal of downtown boston. virginia beach, norfolk, the outer banks, gone. southern in a, miami, the eastern coast of florida, all the way up to this area up into tampa, gone. and by the way, there is no more freshwater in florida during this period either because of the intrusion of seawater into the water table. new orleans, all gone. this is at a -- at a 20-meter -- in fact, it's not even that. i think this is about a three-meter rise. going up to savannah and charleston, new york city, long island, the new jersey shore, all gone. these are impacts. this isn't academic. these are impacts of billions of

dollars of expenditures to try to fight this off and to hold it at bay. now what about species? well, in maine, we talk about lobster. the lobster is an iconic product of maine. it's a huge part of our society. it's part of our culture. it's also a big part of our economy. well over $1 billion a year in maine is attributable in one way or another to the lobster. and the lobster population in maine was pretty steady for an awfully long time. when i was governor -- and that was 10 or 12 years ago -- we harvested roughly 50 million pounds of lobster a year. that was the way it had been, between 40 and 50 million. in 2008 it went to 69 million. in 2009 it went to 81 million. in -- 96 million. last year 123 million pounds. more than twice as much harvested a number of years ago.

i'm sure you say what's the problem, senator? the lobsters are doing great. they were doing great in rhode island and connecticut until the temperature started to kill them off. it makes a boom, and then there's a danger. we certainly hope it won't happen, but there's a danger of a collapse and that's what happened. the lobster fishery in southern new england has essentially collapsed. the lobster makes up about 70% to 80% of our fisheries' value. and what's happening in maine is that assed water -- is that as the water gets warmer, the lobsters go north. is the water getting wonderful? here's boothbay harbor, maine, a wonderful place to visit. here's the water temperature of boothbay harbor over the last number of years. it's going up, getting warmer. there is no indication, in fact,

if you follow the curve here, it appears it's headed into an accelerating mode, the famous hockey stick. anything above 68 degrees of water temperature is very stressful to lobsters. the university of maine says while warmer waters off the cost in recent years probably aided the boom in lobsters pugts us in the temperature -- putting us in the temperature sweet spot, we're getting closer to the point where the temperature is too stressful, their immune system is compromised and it's all over. and it's all over, that is a frightening phrase. it's all over. in the 1980's the lobster fishing was concentrated in southern maine along our coast in what's called casskill bay down around portland. and then it moved up into what's called the midcoast, lincoln county near where i live. then it moved -- the bulk of the

lobster fishing moved into pen pen -- obscott bay. -- penobscott bay. in other words, lobsters are moving north because temperatures are getting warmer. i have a young man on my staff whose father is a lobster buyer in the midcoast of maine, and his father has been buying lobster since 1975. this past summer he bought 200 crates of lobsters. ten years ago he was buying 100. so it's doubled. but what we're worried about is that when the lobster line passes, this industry is gone. we saw it collapse in southern new england, rhode island, in 1999 lobstering in the long island sound collapsed totally without warning in part because

of an infection that was brought about by the warmer water temperatures. now, i use lobster as just an indication. you can substitute your own issue, local issue whether it's lobsters in maine or flooding in colorado. the impacts are real. so who do we do? i hate raising problems and not talking about what to do. by the way, i have to say i'm really puzzled why this has become a partisan issue. i don't understand it. maybe it's because al gore invented it. i don't know. but i don't understand why this became a partisan issue because it's a scientific issue. it's a data issue, and the data is overwhelming. okay, so what do we do? by the way, i should mention when i was a young man working in and around the legislature in maine, the leaders of the environmental movement in maine who passed the major legislation to protect our environment were

all republicans. not all, but most of them were republicans and they were great names in maine history. okay, what do we do? the first thing we have to do is admit there's a problem. if you don't admit there's a problem you by definition can't address it. that's number one. i think the data is becoming overwhelming. the second thing you have to do is gather all the facts and information that you can. gather all the information. it's been my experience in working on public policy most of my adult life that if most -- if you have shared information, if the people working on the problem have the same facts, generally the conclusion, the policy is fairly clear. it may be controversial. it may be difficult. but usually it becomes pretty self-evident if everybody shares the same sense of the information. once we can agree on the facts, the solutions become clear. so, what are some things we can

do in the near term? we have to talk about mitigating the impacts. we have to talk about the fact that fisheries are made up of both fishermen and fish. and as climate change alters these coastal economies, we've got to work to preserve both. we've got to work with groups like a nonprofit in maine called the island institute working to preserve maine's working water fronts. we have to make sure our federal fisheries law takes cognizance of what's going on here and manage ecosystem, not just single species. we've got to take cognizance of the fact that the fish are in fact moving. in the long term, it seems to me it's pretty simple. the big picture answer is we've got to stop burning so much stuff. and that's what's putting carbon in the atmosphere whether it's in our automobiles, our homes, our factories, our power plants. it's burning fossil fuel that's putting co-2 into the

atmosphere. that's why the efficiency bill that we're on this week is an important bill, because it cuts back on the use of -- cuts back on the use of energy altogether and saves us in terms of putting co-2 into the atmosphere. the president has proposed a carbon agenda that i think is an important first step. but this is really hard. dealing with this is a hard issue, just as dealing with the prospect of world war ii was a hard issue in england in 1936. it's hard because it's going to require changes that are going to be perhaps expensive and significant modifications because our whole society is based on burning stuff. that's what makes our cars and trucks go. that's what makes our transportation system work. that's what keeps us warm in the winter, cool in the summer and creates the electricity for all the products that we use. it's hard because of the internal impacts t-fpl's also --

it's also hard because it's an international problem. the senator from rhode island talked about this being, you know, that maine and rhode island can't fix it. and he said the federal government has to step in. i would take him one step further. this has to be an international solution. we cannot take steps which would compromise our economy at the same time that china and india are becoming major polluters, and air doesn't respect international boundaries. co-2 is the same whether it's coming up from china, india, europe or the united states. so i believe this is a case where we absolutely have to have international cooperation. we have to do something. we have to do something. the generation that finally woke up to world war ii and fought it and preserved this country and the western civilization for us has often been referred to as the greatest generation. the reason they were the greatest generation is that they

were willing to face a problem and make enormous sacrifices in order to deal with it to protect us and our children and grandchildren and our ability to function in this new world. they were the greatest generation. i have to say, madam president, if somebody was going to characterize us, we'd be characterized as the oblivious generation, the generation that saw the data, saw the facts, saw the freight train headed for us and said that's okay, it's business as usual. don't bother me, i don't want to be inconvenienced. to go back to churchill. the era of procrastination, of half measures of soothing and baffling expedience of delays is coming to its close. in its place we're entering a period of consequences. we cannot avoid this period. we are in it now.

thank you, madam president. i suggest -- yes. the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: madam president, may i take this opportunity to thank my friend, senator king, for his remarkable comments here on the senate floor. i think it truly is our choice in this time and in this generation to be nevilles or to be winstons. which way will we go? and on that choice will hinge history's judgment of us. there was another good winston churchillism that talked about the sharp aggate points upon which the ponderance -- ponderous balance of destiny turns. for better or for worse, we live at a time that is a sharp aggate

upon upon which the ponderous balance of destiny will turn. and senator king has done a wonderful job of calling us to that duty and to that responsibility. i fear that in this particular body the facts are less relevant than the interests that are involved. and there are special interests. there are polluters who are calling a tune that too many of our members are happy to dance to. and i worry that many of them will be willing to go down with the ship. that as the waters gurgle down their throats that last time, the last words up out of their mouths will be the flagrant falsehood, but the science still isn't real. so, as much as i would like to see us solve this problem in

this chamber, and as committed as i am to making that happen, i think that we really do have to call on the american people to stand up and be counted and to make sure that their voices are heard, because the choice that is before us is one where the american people have a view. they understand this problem, and they know it's real. they're not fooled. they're not part of the polluter's dance. but they've got to be heard on this. and whatever we can do to make sure that their voices are reflected here, i think we need to do. there are some very, very important voices that recognize that climate change is real. the united states conference of catholic bishops, the joint

chiefs of staff, the entire property casualty insurance industry, the name plate corporate leaders of america, whether it's ford and g.m. or nike and apple or coke-cola and pepsi, our national security establishment and our intelligence establishment and our foreign policy establishment. wherever you look, people get it. except right here where the polluters call the tune and too many of us dance to it. but with more people standing up the way senator king did, the more -- the sooner we'll be able to bring that day. and i am confident that the american people will get this done and get it right. last churchillism -- i'm kind of a fan of winston churchill -- the american people will always do the right thing after they've

tried everything else. well, we will work together to bring that day forward. let me change the subject briefly to a remark on a different occasion, also oceans related. we've just been through the 200th anniversary of one of the pivotal naval victories in our nation's history which was led by a great rhode island hero, commodore oliver hazard perry. commodore perry was born just after the dawn of our republic in 1785 in south kings town, rhode island. his father, christopher perry, had fought in the american revolution, and after the war he became a captain in the u.s. navy. by the time young oliver reached his teenage years, he was already serving as a midshipman on his father's vessel. interestingly enough, his father's vessel was

called "the general green" named after rhode island's revolution gnash war mere row nathaniel green, whose statute stands over in this building in the center of the capitol and who is renowned. general cornwallace is reputed to have said "that green is more dangerous than washington. "well, young oliver perry was also destined for great things. the late-17 hundred's and early 1800's were a very precarious time for this fledgling american democracy and it was still an open question whether our experiment in self-government would endure. so in 1812 when america once again declared war on britain, following a series of disputes over trade and territory, the future of this young democracy hung in the balance.

oliver perry went to war. he began his war service in newport, rhode island, but in february of 1813, as the war of 1812 wrangled on, mehry was given command of the american forces on lake erie. when perry arrived in the region, the british had taken detroit and were looking to expand their control of the american northwest. at richard snowe wrote in his chronicle of the battle of lake erie for american heritage magazine, "perry took command vigorously and at once." he oversaw an aggressive shipbuilding operation on the lakeshore and worked diligently to raise enough men and guns to carry out his mission. general william henry harrison, later to be president, had positioned his fleet into a stalemate with british general henry procter on lake erie, leaving perry and his fleet with the responsibility of retaking

the lake for the united states. perry sailed west and holed up in putin bay. there he waited until on september 10, 1813, robert hair yet barkley sailed his british command within sight of come ambassador perry's lookout. as snowe wrote about that, "the american ships cleared for action, stands of cutlasses were set up on deck, shot was placed near the guns and the hatches were closed. sand was sprinkled on the detection s -- on the decks so that the sailors could keep their footing when the blood began to flow. sometime during the morning he hoisted his battle flag, a blue banner bearing the words attributed to captain lawrence, don't give up the ship."

the british were better armed and gained an early advantage. soon enough, perry's flagship, the lawrence, was crippled. but he refused to give up. he took down his flag, he climbed aboard a small rowboat and he made his way toward the niagara, the lawrence's sistership which had yet to engage in the battle. perry's crossing between the ships is the inspiration for william henry powell's painting which hangs in the staircase directly outside of this room right now. it is the biggest painting in the senate, and it features a hero of the littleest state in the country. from the nigh a agree, perry reengaged the battle with the british and ultimately gained the day. he forced their surrender and sent the now-famous message to general harrison, "we have met the enemy and they are ours."

lake ear schee had been secured for america. the war of 1812 continued on through 1814, but perry's victory on lake erie was pivotal. had the british taken lake erie, it would have provided a base for attacks down into new york or to the new state of ohio and for control of the american northwest. instead, the treaty of gendt ended the conflict with no loss of territory or trade to the united states. perry continued his naval service after the war, but he contracted yellow fever during a vision to venezuela in 1819 and he died at the age of 34. today his name and his actions are remembered in ways large and small throughout our country. in ohio, on lake erie, a bicentennial celebration was held this year commemorating the

great battle and putin bay boasts a memorial in perry's victory and international peace memorial. and i'm told that up there you can toast to perry's victory with a commodore perry i.p.a., courtesy of cleveland's great lakes brewing company. in rhode island you can travel along come ambassador perry highway in his native south kingstown or visit the newly commissioned rhode island tallship s.s.v. oliver hazard perry, which will provide education-at-sea programs to rhode island kids. it is fitting that we continue to honor this great rhode islander. his victory on lake erie, was to bore row to churchill, one of those sharp agate points on which history turned. and so today i hope we will all

take just a moment and remember oliver hazard perry and to reflect on how differently our world would have turned out were it not for his actions. i thank the chair, i yield the floor, and i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from maine. a senator: i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to a period of morning business -- the presiding officer: the matter is in a quorum call. a senator: i ask that the quorum call be rescinded. the presiding officer: without objection. king country i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. martin luther king i ask unanimous consent that the senate. mr. king: i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to calendar number 335, that the nomination be confirmed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate, no further motions be in order on the nomination, that any related statements be printed in the record, that the president be

immediately notified of the senate's action and the senate then resume legislative session. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. king: madam president, i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to executive session to consider the following nominations: calendar number 336 and 337, that the nominations be confirmed en bloc, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid on the table with no intervening action or debate, no further motions be in order to any "no" of the nominations, any related statement be printed in the record, the president be immediately notified's senate's action and the senate then resume legistive session. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. king: madam president, i understand that there are four bills at the desk and i ask toker their first reading en bloc. the presiding officer: the clerk will read the bill for the first time. the clerk: s. 1513 a bill to amend the helium act and so

forth and for other purposes. s. 1514, a bill to save coal jobs and for other purposes. h.r. 2009, an act to prohibit the secretary of the treasury from enforcing the patient protection and affordable care arctic. h.r. 2775, an act to condition the provision of premium and cost-sharing subsidies under the patient protection and affordable care act and so forth and for other purposes. mr. king: i now ask for for a second reading en bloc and object to my own request en bloc. the presiding officer: objection having been heard, the bill will be read for the second time on the next legislative day. mr. king: madam president, i ask unanimous consent that the appointment at the desk appear separately in the record as if made by the chair. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. king: i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today, it

adjourn until 9:30 a.m. on wednesday, september 18, 2013, and that 2308ing the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed spierksd the journal of proceedings be deemed approved to date and the time for the two leaders be he is ared for their use later in the day. following any leader remarks the senate be in a period of morning business for one hour with senators brmented to speak therein for up to ten minutes each, with the time equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, with the republicans controlling the first half and the majority controlling the final half. and that follow morning business, the senate resume consideration of s. 1392, the energy savings and industrial competitiveness afnlgt. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. king: if there is no further business to come before the senate, i ask that it adjourn under the previous order. the presiding officer: the senate stands adjourned until senate stands adjourned until

>> flag flying at if it had set to being victims of the washington d.c. navy yard shooting. 12 killed and eight wounded. several speakers today about what senator reid called the worst loss of life in the capital region since 9/11. we will show you a number of those comments. we begin with the senate chaplain who dedicated today's prayer to today's victims. >> let us pray. eternal savior, who promised to never for speakers, be healed for this land with a pass flags fly at half past henry members at the vic does that yesterday's washington navy yard shooting,

teach us to use wisely all the time you give us. kill your mighty power during seasons of distress. transforming negatives into positives, and dark yesterdays into great tomorrows. today, that our lawmakers, inspiring them and they're going out and coming in, as you can't than the width to two labor not simply for time, but for eternity. lord, plus a solo with strength of will, steadiness of purpose and power to persevere.

we pray in your holy name, amen. >> mr. president, there are no words that can possibly ease the pain of the rampage and certainly the death involving a dozen human beings who were killed yesterday at the naval yard. i hope it is some small comfort at the city, this institution and the home nation mourn alongside them. to my knowledge, there's no explanation for the violent that occurred yesterday. my thoughts are with those who are suffering as a loss of their loved ones and also post the old

who are recovering from their wounds and some of them are very serious. wish them a speedy recovery. it's about 16,000 military employees who work the naval yard of blacks as well as their friends, family members affected by this tragedy. only a few hours ago and on that occasion also when we as members of congress marked the anniversary of september 11th, 2001 during a ceremony on the steps to the capital. the loss of life in the capital region since september 11th attacks centered on the pentagon aspires in this area. last week significant

anniversary and the terrible violence as a reminder that life is fragile and precious. a remainder of the debt we owe and those who protect our freedom and safety, whether they serve in the military or as first responders. surgeon and scissors onto both were safe he was certainly on the job yesterday. he is a dedicated police officer. that's his goal. i still refer to him as chief gainer. he spent capitol police force before he took responsibility assertion arms of the senate. he could have done other things. he has a lot agreed. he is a well-educated man, but his responsibilities to take care of the senate and he does that very well. i appreciate very, very much. i speak with our entire senate

of those dedicated police, fire, rescue who put their lives on the line to prevent a lot more loss of life on it. in particular, this idea is a tentative gratitude to a k-9 officer, 24 year veteran of the metropolitan police force, a man scott williamson was hurt very, very badly in the shootings. i wish him a full recovery and thank him for his selfless miss. >> this morning, all of us are thinking about yesterday's tragic events at the navy yard. we are also thinking in particular of the brave men and women of our military and the sacrifices they make a day in and day out on our behalf. once again, i would like to extend condolences to the families and friends to those who lost their lives or were

injured in this terrible, terrible shooting. know that your country is with you in these most difficult moment. i'd also like you can to sincere gratitude to all first responders and medical personnel and law enforcement officers from so many different agencies who are together to keep all of us informed and most of all safe throughout the day. >> flags across america are being flown at half mast this morning because of the terrible tragedy which occurred out that your one and a half miles away yesterday. men and women who work for department of defense to keep america safe reported to work as usual on an a morning. and then, tragedy struck. a gunman occurred with an assault rifle, several weapons. at the end, 12 innocent people died and another dozen or so serious injured.

this capital was in shock. he was locked down at some point to what up the possibility and we watched as the people who worked at the navy yard and those who work to in adjoining buildings waited patiently for the police to do their important and courageous work. at the end of the day, they showed television footage being busted away from the navy yard to a safe location to return home. all chocolate then who sadly lost their lives to senseless gun tragedy. we read papers this morning trying to understand what could possibly motivate a person to do this. as he read the background of the shooter, it was clear there were moments in his life when he used a firearm to shoot tires of a

car he thought should be part mistranslated in shooting a gun in his own apartment that went through the ceiling to an adjoining apartment. the source of things might have been warning signals. questions are raised, how could a man with that kind of background and it getting the necessary security clearance for a military contractor to go into this navy yard. how did he get weapons into the navy yard in an assault rifle and other firearms? the questions still remain to be answered. god forbid we go on with business as usual today and not understand what happened yesterday. what happened yesterday brings into question an important values in america. if we value our right for ourselves and families and children to be safe, if we value this kind keeshan, if we value the right of every american to

enjoy their liberties with reasonable limitations, then we need to return to issues of importance. there is an issue before the senate several months ago, a bipartisan amendment offered by senator's senator's mansion in to meet that would've taken an extra step to keep guns out of the hands of those who have a history of felonies or people who are mentally unstable. the vast majority of americans think this is common sense. we can use in a responsible, legal way in self defense, but we've got to keep hands and do everything we can to keep guns out of the hands of those who would misuse them. felons who have a history of misusing firearms. the mentally unstable who can't be trusted to have a firearm. but today we pause and reflect on the lives lost. i hope the lessons are learned.

i had a hearing scheduled this morning before the senate judiciary committee on a controversial issue involving firearms in light of what happened yesterday, and might of the uncertainty averse visual today, i am rescheduling that hearing. it's an important one. they will be rescheduled, but at this point in time, we've decided to postpone for today until another day in the near future. >> mr. president, i want to talk about the economy and the need to create an economic claim it encourages job growth and strengthen the middle class. i want to acknowledge the tragedy that occurred here at the washington navy yard today. a lot of issues, the business to the country goes on, but for the families of the deck and said that tragedy yesterday, sitting

standstill. it is important for all of us take him to take a moment and to mourn with them the loss they've experienced in to extend our thoughts and prayers to their families and loved ones. it's a horrible, horrible tragedy. as we continue to back and forth we the issues that the day here, i hope, mr. president, we will all keep in our thoughts and prayers those families. >> mr. president, i would like to join senator and others on the floor who express their compassion and sympathy to the survivors and victims of yesterday's terrible tragedy in the washington navy yard. yesterday was another grim reminder of the dangers society we live in and the dangers that confront all of us and then he is to be aware to do everything we can to nick schreier ironman insecure and safe. to those who were injured, those who sacrificed their lives by those whose loved ones are hit,

may god bless their souls and may god bless them and their recovery to do. they deal with the terrible tragedy. >> young people, young children, but that how can you be in the congress that he got arrested? you violated the laws. i set, they were bad laws. they were customs. they were traditions and we wanted america to be better. we wanted america to live up to the declaration of independence, without two or create. make real our democracy. take people and make it real. so when i got arrested the first time, i felt free. i felt liberated and today more

than ever before, i feel free and liberated. and now, abraham lincoln 150 years ago freed the slaves. but it took the modern-day civil rights movement to free and liberated a nation. >> news at the news conference today, congressional budget officer discuss the budget as part of the cbo said the fed is 25 year budget outlook. this is an hour.

[inaudible conversations] >> good morning. can you not coming. i am jack elmendorf, director of the congressional budget office. this morning, cbo released its latest long-term budget outlook, showing what would happen to the budget over the next 25 years under a number of fiscal policies. today's report differs from what we published last year by incorporating the effects of the tax legislation that congress enacted in january by including a wide range of recent data and by having some significant methodological improvements. but the bottom line remains the same as it was last year. the federal budget is on a course that cannot be sustained indefinitely. in our extended baseline, which

largely follows current law, we project the federal debt held by the public would rise from 73% of gdp today, already high bystanders, to 100% of gdp 25 years from now. even before incorporating the harmful economic effects of the rising debt. to be sure, the deficit has shrunk to back later in the past few years are nearly 10% of gdp in 2000 night to about 4% this year. and we expect that under current law the deficit would decline to about 2% of gdp. after that respite, however, devastates with start growing again. federal spending would be pushed out by rising interest and some federal debt and the growing costs for social security and the major health care programs, medicare, medicaid and subsidies provided through insurance

exchanges. interest payments on the debt would rise as first rates rebounded from their current unusually low levels. in particular, with debt so large, the interest rates we and others expect would have a very large effect on interest payments. projected spending for social security increases relative to gdp in our extended baseline because of the retirement of the baby boom generation, which would increase the number of people eligible for the program by more than one third in just 10 years. spending for the major health care programs would increase for three reasons.

department of social security, the major health care programs, and interest on the debt would be a smaller percentage of gdp and at any time since the 1930s. thus the upward pressure on federal spending relative to the size of the economy comes not from a general growth and the size of the government but growth in a handful of largest programs. social security, medicare, and medicaid. along with a rising costs of servicing the government's debt. federal revenues would also increase over time under current law but more gradually. federal revenue averaged 17.5% of gdp. they're now a little lower and rise to 18.5% by 2023 and near

-- the gap between federal spending and revenues would widen steadily after 2015. by 2038, under our extended baseline, the deficit would be 6.5% of gdp. and federal debt held by the public would be 100% of gdp. even before we account for the economic effect of increase debt. that would be more than any year except 1945 and 1946. with large deficits, federal debt would be growing relative to gdp. the path that could not be followed inly in our a report we project -- underlie the extended baseline would effect the long-term budget outlook. it race interest rates real toif what would happen if the debt were more stable. that in turn would lead to wider

budget deficits. for those affects included debt under the extended baseline would rise to 1089% gdp in 2038. debt so large real toif our annual output would in the long-term reduce output and income compared to what they would be if debt were closer to the historical average percentage of gdp. debt so large also require hire interest payments, reduce lawmakers' ability to use fiscal respond. and increase the risk of fiscal crisis. in our report this morning, we also show the effect of some alternative set of fiscal policy. some producing a larger deficit under current law and some producing smaller deficits. for example, if certain tax and spending policies might be difficult to maintain for a long time were modified what we call the alternative fiscal scenario, federal debt would be greater than 108% of gtd p by 2038.

in addition, we devoted chapter of the report to the uncertainty of long-term budget projections. we discuss a number of uncertainty and present budget projections based on different outcome for productivity, interest rates, and federal spending for health care. of course, any projection this far in the future are uncertain. nevertheless, our analysis shows around wide range of possible assumption about key factor. the budget is on an unsustainable path. awe lawmakers consider changes in policies, that would put the budget on a more sustainable path, they will face choices about the magnitude of deficit reduction, the policy reduced to deficit, and timing of deficit reduction. democratic theory does not say what the federal debt is. nor what the right amount of federal spending and revenues are. a significant reduction in debt from the current percentage of gdp would require substantial

changes in tax policy spending policy or both. as an illustration, if lawmakers want to bring debt down to 31% of gdp in 2038 using policies phased in over the next decade they need to enact a combination of increase in cut and revenue that would total $4 billion over the decade. in deciding how quickly to reduce deficit they face difficult trade-off. waiting to cut federal spending or taxes would thread a greater accumulate of debt and increase the size of the policy adjustment needed to achieve any debt target. however, implementing spending cuts or tax increases quickly would weaken the economic expansion and give people little time to plan for and adjust to the policy changes. the negative short term effect of deficit reduction on output and employment would be especially large now because

output is so far below the potential or maximum sustainable level but the federal reserve is keeping short term interest rates near zero. thank you. my colleagues and i would be happy to try to an your questions. yes, sir? [inaudible] the economic feedback and push the debt of -- [inaudible] to 38 -- [inaudible] [inaudible] maybe i'm wrong. what is the key factors that go in to that very different projection? >> so the extended alternative fiscal snare differs from the extended baseline on spending and revenue side. on the spending side, that scenario takes away from the sequestration and reduction in

discretionary spend cap. going back to the original spending cap established under the budget control act. it also takes this broad other category of federal spending, that i noted would be so low under current law, relative with historical relationship in gdp and pushes it back up toward a more standard relationship of gdp. on the spending side. on the revenue side, the alternative scenario keeps federal revenues around 18% of gdp. and closer to the historical average rather than allow them to rise toward nearly 20% of gdp as we think that would do under current law. the scenario could be viewed as taking set of policy that might be difficult to sustain. the policies that are in current law might turn out to be difficult to sustain and seeing what would happen if one in fact turn offed the policies. and reverted to more standard historical experience. but i wouldn't say it's a more

plausible scenario in a debt of 190% of gdp would be extraordinary by the standard of this country or almost any other country. i don't think you should view that is at realistic projection. it's meant to show that would happen under a different set and a set of changes matters a tremendous amount if one compounds over 25 years. >> i think i should be asking people to say who they are and where they're from as we go along. [inaudible] >> thank you. >> if you look at the other business scenario over the next ten years, to arrive at 31% of gdp in 2038, do you factor in what increases and reduce spending would mean for economic growth? >> let me explain, we look at three alternative sets of fiscal policies in the report. one is a particular alternative fiscal scenario, which outlines a specific difference in the tax and spending policies.

the other two we look at are just a reduction in deficit. ones we looked at earlier in the year in term of the ten-year budget window. what the particular policy choices might be. for the extended baseline when we look at the long-term effect on the economy we take account in particular of the amount of federal debt, and marginal tax rates. the tax rate on additional dollars earned. which effecting incentive to work and save. for those particular policies where we have actual tax policies written down we follow the tax rate changes as well as the changes in the effect of debt. the two debt reduction scenario. we don't specify the particular changes we don't try to lead the

congress in a particular direction. we don't have tax rates to use in the analysis. the economic effect of those scenarios are based just on the different amount of federal debt held by the public. >> not really accounted for the -- you don't know how the fiscal drive will be made ?up. >> we account in the short term the fact deficit would be smaller under the policies would produce some drag on the economy. in contrast with the analysis in the past several years we different sort of responses to different specific policies. here we picked the a response it from a set of policy. the usual modeling to look how rising debt crowds out investment and reduces output to income. [inaudible]

>> and what -- [inaudible] >> a lot of question on that. we show in the back of the report that federal health care spending in 25 years from now would be a little more than half a percent of gdp lower. in our current projections than it was a year ago. and that downward revision comes largely from the downward revision we made to the reduction for spending for medicare and medicaid within the first ten years of a projection. in the ten-year outlook we released in the spring. we talk about having marked down the projection of medicare and medicaid spending a bit from a year ago. and in fact over the past three years, we have a reduced federal spending for medicare and medicaid in 2020 by about 15%.

that's a response to the incoming data we have seen and the analysis of it. for the longer term report matters a lot in term of the cost of the program projected even out 25 years. but additional to the down revision in the first ten years we have taken on more data in term of the slow down in cost. the underlying rate of growth of health spending which comes from a historical average is now lower than it was. we have a level of health care spending and slightly lower rate below that. the combination ask to reduce the spending by six tenth of a percent in 2038 which is a significant difference. the affordable care act did a number of things, we think in general three large pockets. partly expanded insurance

coverage, partly reduced spending for medicare, and partly raised revenues. taking all of those pieces together, and the affordable care act would reduce budget deficit by a small amount and repealing the fact now would increase deficit by a small amount. we don't try to separate out the effect affordable care act. the effect on revenue and medicare in particular are provisions of law we have a thabl shows a decomposition of the growth in federal spending for the madam -- major health care programs for over the next 25 years. in a box of page 25 of the report, and i say we decomp pose

the in growth in federal spending for the major health care over the next 25 years. the total growth in health care spending, the share of gdp the aging of the population that account for 35%. the excess cost growth. per person in the programs ape count for 40%. and remaining 26% is accounted by the expansion of medicaid and the creation of subsidizes to be provided through insurance exchanges. so the insurance coverage provisions of the affordable care act explain about one quarter of the increase in federal health spending real toif gdp over the next 25 years. i should mention we also note in the report if it looks federal health spending is going say at the end of the decade in 2023, about three fifty of of it will going to age 65 or over.

about fifth blind or disabled under 58. and another foist able-bodied people. even with the significant expansion federal support for lower income people through expansion of medicaid and the subsidizes through insurance exchanges, nonetheless, the great majority of federal health care spending and great majority of growth in the spending is not related to the affordable care act. [inaudible] >> and you are? >> kathy. "the new york times." the numbers account for the significant number of states some with significant populations that rejected the expansion of medicaid? >> in our projections from last winter, wasn'ts that went to the ten-year forecast. the ten-year projebs we released in the spring, we estimated that about 5% of people who would have been eligible the total

number of people gone to medicaid through the expansion if they occurred in every state at 45% live in states they could go ahead and expansion would occur. so far now 20 to 25 states and the district of columbia are expanding their medicaid programs remaining states are still thinking about it or have decided against expanding. those 20 to 25 states in d.c. account for 42% of the people made eligible for medicaid if all state expanded coverage. the year that look to be running a little below what we anticipated. amp projection, as you may recall, had a gradual expansion of medicaid --

we expected from the beginning that it would take some time for all the systems to be put in play and people to understand the system. with the new projections, again, the -- they underlie the long-term projections here. there's no change in that will do new projections, of course, early next year and take on board any information that we can get our hand on at that point. >> [inaudible]

not paying for sgr and -- [inaudible] >> yes, on your first question we projected in the may that the bucket deficit this year would be $24eu6 billion. our latest sense is the tax revenues will be a little less than we expected. probably still under $700 billion still about 4% of gdp. we're not sure yet. there are tax reaccepts coming in. other things will happen between now and the end of the month. the the extended alternative fiscal scenario. i mentioned earlier some of the key provisions that matter the most for the numbers. the scenario also includes

replacement of the sustainable growth mechanism is how medicaid pace doctors bay freeze on doctors. and corporates the extension of provisions scheduled to expire such as the higher depreciation allowances for businesses scheduled to expire at the end of the year. the biggest difference in the overall magnitude comes from the turning off the enforcement mechanism from the budget control act. and pushing back up the federal spending to closer to a historical norm, and from holding tax revenue around 18% of gdp. indefinitely rather than tax revenue rise through primarily under current law -- for tax bracket or index for inflation but not for real income growth. we think will be income growth.

to work and on average tax rates which show the burden of taxes on people. taxes pay they as a share of their income. we note by the tax system by 2038 would be quite different in the impact on people and the tax system we have today. under current law, because of the way the law will interact with the changes in the economy over time. in the alternative fiscal scenario. the extended baseline follow the concept of our ten-year baseline. and the baseline basically follows -- under current law medicare payment to doctors will be cut by about 25%. beginning of next year. as incorporated in the ten-year baseline for may and incorporated in the extended baseline projection.

the alternative scenario is designed to capture what would happen to some policies might be hard to sustain or in fact turn -- [inaudible] and showing the con qens of that for budget outcome and economic outcomes. >> npr. probably asking you to do apples and oranges math. there was a production in the growth of health care cost that retacted from the -- [inaudible] how do they compare? >> the change in the tax law has a larger effect down the road than the vision to health care spending. relative to last year's extended baseline. the debt we project this year is

a great deal larger. last year we thought under the current through a would actually come down from the current roughly 70% of gdp over 25 years. you think it go from the current 70% gdp up to 100% in twenty five years. most the increase comes from the in the tax receipt base the change in law. that's a big deal. but it's not a big deal as the change in tax law. and remember, the change in tax law extended lower tax rates for everyone except the highest income people. and index the raise the threshold to the alternative minimum tax and index them for

inflation. previously under current law i think the congress not let happen many more americans would have been pay alternative tax right away and indefinitely in the future. the congress basically fixed the problem in the a sense of raising threshold for index for inflation. as we show in the report, the number of people affected by alternative tax rises but not much over the twenty five years. the changes were really very large in the ten-year budget window but has larger effects. i think you should emphasize you see in the climb of debt when there is a gap between intending revenue. we have a deficit. it add to the debt. next year interest payments on the debt higher. so these things can snow bam. you see it in the interest payment which is are a little

over 1% of gdp today. we think 5% of gdp. a big part of the increase come over the next half doesn't years as interest rates return to the normal level. beyond that debt rises the interest serviceing cost rises as well. [inaudible] whatever we have done we still have $2 trillion -- so there is certainly more work to do to stabilize the debt. and the projection made early this year. they were ten-year proex-jexes. in 2007, the coming downturn we

have seen since the great depression. and those and top of that pots makers took the action to try to help household to sport the local government, stabilize the financial system, and economy. and the policy had costs. by early 2011, our projection was not -- 35% of gdp. it was debted 60 or 70% of gdp heading up. relative to 2011 projection, our 2013 projection is a little lower. in the talk last week i break down the pieces of that. part of that is health costs changes in our projections. part that have is policy changes. but still we're at the high level of debt relative to gdp. give our historical experience

and the experience of most countries. so urnt current law the extended baseline shows today that will rise. one of the scenarios was $2 trillion of deficit reduction stay in over the coming decade. under that policy, debt in 2038, well, for ten years of the $2 trillion in deficit reduction. then we set the amount of deficit reduction outside the window at the same percentage of gdp it reaches no 2023. that's an arbitrary decision. there are numbers we picked back in the spring. we're not trying to suggest there's a particular target congress thought have. it's a matter of judgment. but it turns out that $4 trillion policy in the first

decade. $2 trillion of deficit reduction over the decade sustained after that would keep debt close to the current high share of gdp. $4 trillion of deficit reduction over the coming decade continued after that. would for back down so it would be by 25 years from now a little below historical relationship to gdp. those are still very large numbers. and you need to remember here that what congress and the president have done in the last few years is to raise taxes real toif an alternative scenario.

we have a set of praments given the surge of people who are eligible for them over the next decade and the rising cost of health care per person. that's set of programs will be much more expensive in the future than has been in the past. [inaudible conversations] what does look like under the scenario that we're talking about? and also, quite a bit higher.

has that changed your view? and, you know, -- >> last i checked. interest rates in the treasury note was about 90 basis point above what we projected would be during the third quarter. that's a substantial difference. but we have been projecting the ten year treasury note rates would rise quite a bit over the next several years. we view this as an accelerate to the present as something we thought was going to happen within a few years anyway. it we were do new baseline budget projections today. we would project higher interest costs in the next few years. in our ten-year projections from the spring and underlying the projections here, we had rates coming up lot anyway. i don't they it would happen the last few months would change our projection of interest rates five years from now, ten years from now, twenty five years from

now. and in fact the market read on interest rates five, ten, years from now is not much different than it was. i think what we have seen again is an increase of rates sooner than expected. but it certainly true as rates rise from their level very close to zero to -- gdp has a huge effect on the interest payments. wing interest payments reach about 3% of the gdp by the end of the decade. i think if you picture projection of interest rates that had a pretty steep upward

slope and leveling off, we started up sooner than we thought. that would raise projected interest costs in the next few years. doesn't change the past for further down the road. [inaudible] get a situation where the deficits are bigger. [inaudible] >> yeah. in our -- in top 6% of the report where we look at the economic effect of different path for fiscal policy, we look at the economic effect of the alternative fiscal scenario real toif extended baseline. and we show we think interest rate would be noticeably higher. we also note that we don't have a great confidence in

calibrating that increase. because when we -- as in this report and other places project the effect of debt on interest rates we're drawing from historical experience in which u.s. treasury debt rose -- has risen and fallen relative to gdp. but not headed off indefinitely in some direction. we say in here if debt looks like we're on a permanently upward trajectory. that might well do some reaction by financial market participates that would be out of line with what we have seen given historical. we don't think we have a great an lettic basis for quantifying that effect. the quantify indication that we have relies on our standard model and the traditional set of relationship between interest rates and debt and gdp. i want to caution we think we have and greater uncertainty projecting the effect ofic on

that case we're on the high side. >> your study -- [inaudible] [inaudible] extra data went up on the website. hopefully it will help you. >> my question. how did you deal with the whole revolution of -- [inaudible] [inaudible] could you give -- [inaudible] and also address a concern by

which maybe justify -- appears that -- [inaudible] we still have an -- [inaudible] so in revising our health spending projections the past few years, we have drawn on our own analysis of the data behave seen and the outside experts. a number of outside pension -- experts who look at the cause of the slow down in national health care spending have attributed part of the slow down to the financial crisis and recession and the ways in which the loss

of -- command for health care. and attributed part of the slow down to nonfactor. the structure factors. two of my colleagues did incredibly thorough examination of the slow down in medicare spending, we published the working paper in august. in that paper, they tried very hard but were unable to wink the slow down in medicare spending growth to and economic conditions. i think more persuasively. they look at microeconomic data, household that suffer larger wealth losses experienced other bad effect of the economic conditions and the household didn't steam have any different reaction in their medicare spending.

that leaves open the very important question if it's not the financial crisis recession what is? of course it's uncertain business. my colleagues went through and try quantify a number of effect changes in the age and health status of medicare beneficiary. and the change in the payment rate medicare makes and changes in the medicare prescription drugs. when people are enrolled in part a or d or just a. a set of factors they were to be quantify. it didn't explain much the slow down. a number of factors difficult to quantify and they try to pull together the scrap of evidence and see what stories might have been more or less important. now we know how persistent will be. when we do our projections, try to make projection in the middle

of the disruption. and slower growth in premium in the private insurance market we had. we try to construct projections for the future that balance risks. so i think there are a set of reasons why we might take the recent experience very seriously. give a lot of weight in our projections. one is just the breadth of the slow down. so as i said, medicare and medicaid and the private health market and health insurance market within medicare in part a and part d. and -- my colleagues show it applies across region and beneficiaries with high and low health costs. it's a very wide spread phenomena. that suggests it's not a just a few id owe sin --

idiosyncratic. and the second reason it's going on for some time. it's not a matter of two or three years. it's half dozen years or longer. it's another reason to give weight. the third reason to give substantial rate for medicare, at least. we have not been to be link the medicare slow down to the economic marc economic conditions. i think there are three reasons as start out as an objective. we didn't have a list of three. have been follow thed bay pickup in growth. and in some of the previous periods some of the stories one heard some of the ante-dote that were told sound like some of the stories they hear today. i think we can't rule out the possibility.

i think a second reason to put only weight on the past several years is that there continues to be technological development in the health care business. actually discussing a paper on thursday that look at the health care cost slow down. they talk abouted a a number of areas. where practice of health care is continuing to push in new and companyive directions. we may have seen a lull in some of the that. it doesn't mean it won't recur. i think a third reason to put less weight on the last several years for medicare, again, only is medicare remains primarily a fee-for-service system. in which the incentives for providing more care are still there. thing are some good reasons to put substantial weight on what we have teen.

reasons to be cautious in how much weight to put on it. what we have done in the response to that is to have projections that maintain slow growth of medicare and medicaid spending for several years. but the number of years from now growth rates come back up. the level of spending in medicare and medicaid remains in the projection permanently below what we said a few years ago. we don't have a widening wedge very rapidly widening edge in the long-term. [inaudible]

it's complicated to do these historical comparisons. but we have said a number of places that for 2020 our projections of medicare spending growth is now about 15% below where it was in the spring of 2010. in projection in medicaid spending is about 15% below where it was. that's a bigger difference than we have seen so far. in 2012 it reached about 5% below what we expected in 2010. we have seen some of the slow down and projecting more to continue. as said, the gap between the earlier projections and the current don't get that much wider. a little bit wider because we have taken some of this recent news in to our projection which matters for the long-term projection. and there's a chart in the back

of today's report that look at beyond the point the current line is little lower than the line from a few years ago. [inaudible] [inaudible] >> the first question, we plan

to produce valuable budget options this fall. i'm not going to be more specific of that. the last time we did a set of options for reducing deficit we about 100 different options essentially -- what congress will need from us between now and when we finish the report. as far as roll over risk, what we mean by a fiscal crisis is a point at which investors lose confidence in the government's ability to manage the finances. and there by won't lend the government money at affordable interest rates. we have been very clear that surpasses our ability and anyone's ability to predict -- when a point might be reached. the language from the report

today is how long the nation could sustain such growth in the federal debt -- it was impossible to predict any confidence. every every country that had that sort of problem has differed in some way and the united states is different from other countries in ways that can matter. we don't have enough experience in the country or even experience in other countries and untangible the different factors to produce the estimate of how much debt the country could have before it encountered that sort of problem. presumably, it depend the answer -- it's not a matter of today's burrowing but --

i don't think there's a number out that there that is a number. and i don't think anybody knows how to find. -- [inaudible] $4 trillion alternative. pick the ten year window and the 2011 or the 2013 or 2023, can you quantify how much congress and the white house eventually achieved in the window and deficit reduction -- [inaudible] >> we have not done that. different category for the budget. and they can see the category where they have or have not been substantial -- [inaudible]

we have just not tried to do that kind of percent calculation. >> is it in the ballpark? i don't know you don't want to refute -- [inaudible] >> well, i don't speak about other people's comments. i don't know that the estimate we have done of that sort. yes, it's a general matter. ..

think it's difficult to do. as i said our projections get revised for a lot of different reasons and trying to go back over some years and disentangle all the pieces of the little challengichallengi ng and not possible i think but again our focus is not so much on things we have done as where we think the budget will go under the laws currently in place. whatever the goal was three years ago however much has been accomplished what matters i think is the situation as it stands now. the outlook as it stands now and what sort of deficit and debt objectives the congress has. >> is the economic feedback

analysis, is this the first? >> we have done this before. it's complicated to do. in our 10 year projections for budget projections and economic ejections are completely consistent with each other. the economic projections are what we think would happen given the economic outlook. that's not quite true in most of this document because it's a more challenging task over this longer horizons of the basic budget projections in the first five chapters hold the economy fixed. income grows over time but it grows as it has tended to in the past and does it incorporate the effects of the budget policy. that's the first several chat -- chapters here than we do want and incorporate leaders the effects of these economic feedbacks and under those

projections projections are 108% of gdp so that's the reason for that difference but we have done that extra analysis in the past. >> june of 2012? >> there is a version of that in the 2012 report as well. the basic budget project is because of their complexity of doing this and also the complexity of doing it when the fiscal policy is on an unsustainable course which can create special challenges. >> outside the confines of this report probably but can you shed any light and ask congress to shed any light on the treasury. [inaudible] >> the there is still a good deal of uncertainty about when the treasury might run out of cash including for example how large the tax receipts will be this week. as you know the treasury said

that it's expected to reach its borrowing limit in mid-october and they have about $50 billion in cash on hand at the time. that projection seems plausible to us. given the likely cash flows after that date, we think that the treasury will probably run out of cash. sometime between the end of october in mid-november. without some changes in the borrowing limit. we will be releasing a short report next week that will provide our latest view of that time and the information i hope you can glean this week but the date the treasury will run out as money is likely to be uncertain even at the very end because federal cash flows bounce around from day-to-day. >> what happens end of october or mid-november when we run out of cash?

>> we think without some increase in the debt limit the treasury will be unable to meet its obligations sometime between the end of october and mid-november. [inaudible] >> well, i should emphasize that we don't -- we aren't engaged in the day-to-day task management of the government. we watch what's happening with federal spending but the precise mechanics of the tools they would have under those circumstances we just don't know. so the projection i offer was based on a set of extraordinary quote extraordinary measures that have now become fairly common.

what else treasury might do i don't know so for example the ability of the treasury to delay certain payments but not others is just not something i can speak to. >> also staff noted some problems. >> well if they have rollover -- let me think about that more carefully. the projection -- if they can't -- if they end up not selling as much debt and they can sell more and some other day i don't think i can answer your question. we are trying to get a sense of the regular workings of the cash management at the point we think they would not have as much cash as they would need to make the payments they would normally make on that date. and what else might happen or what else they might do i think

is other peoples jobs in this town. okay? why don't we stop there. thank you all very much for coming. if you have further questions we are happy to try to answer them. thank you very much. [inaudible conversations] >> when helen taft became first lady one of the first thing she did was to address having cherry trees planted around the tidal basin. the title basin was -- the japanese heard about her interest and they decided to give 2000 trees to the united states in her honor.

everyone was shocked because the trees that were sent were older and very tall and bug invested cell was decided decided they would have to be burned. president taft himself made the decision that they would have to be burned. the japanese were very accommodating and understanding and decided to send 3000 trees which arrived in three to -- and we still have a few of them around the tidal basin. 15 years ago booktv made its debut on c-span2. >> love death and money. these are three main human concerns. we are all keen students of love. we are fascinated by every aspect of the matter in theory and in practice. maybe not quite as much as ken starr is.

>> since then we have brought you the top nonfiction books and authors every weekend more than 9000 others have appeared on booktv including presidents. >> i wanted to give the reader a chance to understand the process by which i make decisions. the environment, the people i listen to as i made decisions and this is not an attempt to rewrite history. it's not an attempt to fashion a legacy. it's an attempt to be a part of the historical narrative. >> also supreme court justices. >> every single justice on the court has a passion and a love for the constitution and our country that is equal to mine. then you know that if you accept that as an operating truth,

which it is, you understand that you can disagree. >> and nobel prize winners. >> for me what's interesting is the negotiation on the moral position do no harm, love somebody and respect yourself. all of that is reduced, simplified notions. the philosophers have spent their lifetimes trying to imagine what it is like to live a moral life and what morality is, what existence is, what responsibility is. >> we visited book fairs and festivals around the country. >> booktv is live at the annual l.a. times festival of books on the campus of ucla in west los angeles. >> there is her signature programming "in depth" each month. >> if you say to a child almost anywhere in this country in the schools all over the country more than 600 once upon a time the child will stop and pause and listen.

now you better have more to say after that but that phrase is still magical. >> every week afterwards matt. >> my father in the diplomatic service his job had been to be press attaché in belgrade. my mother wanted me to be born in prague where her mother was and so i was born in prague and then we went back to belgrade. then my father was recalled in 1938. he was then czechoslovakia when the nazis marched in on march 15 , 1939. >> since 1998 otb has shown over 40,000 hours of programming and is the only national television network at voted exclusively to nonfiction books every weekend. out throughout the fall we are marking 15 years of booktv booktv on c-span2. >> tonight on c-span2 defense secretary chuck hagel lead -- lays a wreath in honor of the

navy yard fake dems. >> defense secretary chu and joint chief secretary martin dempsey laid a wreath to honor yesterday shooting victims at the washington navy yard. the wreath was laid at the u.s. navy memorial. [background sounds]

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